I am so sorry for the long wait! This semester is killing me. But I'm getting pumped for the new season of Vikings. Hope you are all doing well! Thank you so much for your kind words and follows/favorites. I hope you enjoy the chapter. It's a bit of a wild one.
Dagny thought it was a dream, a distant swish she had heard many times from days spent deep in the forest when the princes were training. It was arrows, many being loosed all at once. It was such a calming sound that Dagny rarely associated it with war.
Then there were screams, yells seemingly wrenched from deep within a person. Dagny was still groggy with sleep when she realized this wasn't some figment of a half-remembered dream. This was an attack.
An arrowhead punctured the door to the cabin.
"Asdis," Dagny hissed lowly, pulling a dress on over her shift quickly. It caught about her throat and Dagny pulled it down, hearing the fabric want to give. "Asdis!" She flipped back the covers of her bed to see Asdis was already gone. She'd probably left early to avoid any and all conversation with Dagny. "Damn your pride, Asdis!"
Another arrow wedged into the wall and Dagny flinched.
She scrambled back across the room to pull the ax from beneath her bed. It was a pretty thing, with a well-oiled handle and perilously sharp blade. Dagny had seen Ivar's work for the blacksmith before so she knew he'd made this, knew it was perfectly balanced and would strike true if Dagny could get up the nerve to use it.
There were so many conflicting noises that she couldn't concentrate on figuring out what was happening. Yells, crashes, clangs, thumps.
Raids on Kattegat had happened before, largely earlier than her time under the queen, and there was no plan that Dagny knew to follow. Protection of Aslaug would have to come first and with Sigurd and Ubbe gone, it would be far too simple to gain access to her. While the queen had some men around her, they were not the best warriors. Those had gone Viking.
Dagny's heart was pounding as she realized that she would have to try to make it to the great hall. As the queen's handmaiden, as someone not on raid who was loyal to her, Dagny would be expected to protect Aslaug. She could not do that cowering in her tattered cottage. She feared that she could not do it at all.
She made herself take several deep breaths, made her hands tighten on the ax so that they would stop shaking. She needed a way to the great hall without being seen. That was unlikely, given that she was fairly sure the raiders were outside her door. They could push in at any moment and she'd be dead, Ivar's ax or not.
Once more, she took a shaky breath and then she opened the door of the cottage. Sweat began to bead on the back of her neck. For a moment, she couldn't see anything. There was just a barrage of smoke and dirt and moving bodies, none of which seemed to take notice of her.
But across the way, the air was clear and Dagny locked eyes on her. Asdis. She was on her back in the street, a silver-haired shieldmaiden standing over her with a short sword. There was blood on the blade, sliding down the metal to stain the girl's hand. Dagny cocked her head to the side, oddly entranced by that detail when nothing else around her seemed to be in focus, and finally, something snapped.
Dagny's shoulders tightened, her knuckles whitened on the handle of the ax, and her vision went red. Asdis. She had to get to Asdis, who shouldn't even be out yet, who would never have considered leaving early if it wasn't for Dagny.
She ran across the street and somehow, she made it through the crowd and the weapons and the smoke to be in front of the shieldmaiden. She was snarling and Dagny wanted to yell, to scream at her. But she raised the ax instead.
She swung it down, despite the shieldmaiden's sword coming up to cut through the fabric of her gown and into her side. The girl was shorter than Dagny and so it was unbelievably simple. The blade sunk into her throat. There had been no real effort in the swing, or so Dagny had thought. But the ax was sharp. When Ivar had cut her the other day, part of her assumed he'd done so on purpose. That blood was attractive to him. She had been remarkably all right with it.
The girl's body hit the ground before Dagny's feet, Ivar's ax stuck precariously in her neck. Blood stained her white hair red. It was the only color Dagny could see, the only thing she could hear. All around her was the clang of metal against shield, metal against flesh. Death. She ran back to Asdis, dropping to her knees beside her.
Asdis was staring blankly upward, her blue eyes taken on a cloudy sheen. The gash across her midsection had stopped bleeding, red a halo around her body. Dagny put her head to Asdis's chest anyway, the other girl's blood warm against her cheek. Dagny heard no heartbeat. "Asdis," she whispered, over and over again like she might respond. "Asdis, Asdis, Asdis, please."
Asdis only looked upward, blonde hair matted against her throat, flowers and fabric around her as if she was laid upon some grand funeral pyre. By rights, the wound shouldn't have been fatal. How many hundreds of times had raiders survived this sort of injury? But Asdis was so thin, so small. A blow meant to just hinder her had taken her life.
Dagny turned, wanting to discern anything about the unknown raiders. Often, invaders carried banners that showed their loyalty to one leader or another. But there were no banners. There was just chaos, unrest that didn't truly seem to be the point of the fighting at all. Everyone else on the road appeared injured but not in a truly life threatening manner. These people wanted to incapacitate.
Her eyes finally locked on a tall dark-haired shieldmaiden. Dagny had seen her before. She was Astrid, the lover of Earl Ingstadd. And she was standing above Dotta's body. It was not easy to determine whether Dotta's death was the accident that Asdis's was. But suddenly, it did not matter.
Astrid bent to pull a short sword from Dotta's chest. Dagny's vision blurred, red seeming to cover everything in sight. She stood, walked to the body of the white-haired shieldmaiden, put her foot against the girl's shoulder, gripped the handle of her ax, and pulled it loose. Blood fell from its blade. Lagertha's lover only smiled, the smooth smarmy grin of some monster that lurked beneath the waves of the sea. She had a shield and a short sword. Dagny had no idea how to disarm her. She didn't care.
"I saw you at the feast," Astrid called as Dagny approached. "Favored by the princes you may be but you are no shieldmaiden. You are a slave. Put down the ax and surrender and I will not hurt you." It was sensible but for some reason, Dagny did not hear her.
Dagny raised the ax anyway, not caring that blood was running down the handle onto her hand, down the sleeve of her gown. "Did you kill the princes?" she demanded through her teeth.
Astrid seemed to ponder how to answer, wondering whether knocking Dagny flat on her back would be as satisfying as she thought it would be. "We will kill them once we kill their witch mother." She grinned, more a baring of her teeth than a true smile. Dagny knew that it was said to deliberately rile her. If Lagertha was going to kill Ubbe or Sigurd, they would already be dead.
Dagny ran. Astrid dropped her shield, laughing, but readied her sword. A clang reverberated through the air when Dagny let the curved edge of the ax catch the side of the sword. She felt her arm shaking beneath the force of it all, gritting her teeth. She tasted blood in her mouth and didn't know whether to hope it was Asdis's or her own.
Astrid met her eyes. They could be the same height, Dagny realized, and so her advantage with the other shieldmaiden was useless here. She was also dressed in battle gear, a leather breastplate over chainmail and tight pants. Dagny was wearing a dress. Astrid pushed, hard, and Dagny fell onto her back. She gasped, the air knocked out of her, and Astrid only laughed more.
She turned her back, started to walk away, and the sounds of the fighting invaded Dagny's ears again. People screaming, cargo being destroyed, fires. Blood pumping rapidly in her veins. Dagny got up, her grip still tight on that ax, and she ran for Astrid. Suddenly, they were both on the ground, Astrid's sword flying out of her hand. Dagny dropped the ax and went for her throat.
They scrambled, Astrid deftly avoiding the brunt of Dagny's hit and Dagny avoiding none of it. Astrid was long-limbed and proceeded to kick and hit anywhere she could land a blow. A punch knocked Dagny's head to the side and split her lip. Astrid's fingers found the wound the other shieldmaiden had dealt her and dug in until Dagny screamed.
Astrid looked down at Dagny, who she'd managed to get onto her back. "I see why Margrethe is jealous of you." Dagny felt around on the ground beside her for the ax, trying to ignore the rage that Margrethe's name stirred in her, and found the handle. Astrid had her sword back and was angling to use it.
Dagny swung the ax up and struck the side of her head, cutting the other woman's cheek. She quickly straddled Astrid, pinned her arms, like she'd seen Hvitserk do to Sigurd so many times. Her chest was heaving but she brought the ax up one more time. She saw the line on Astrid's throat that Ivar had said to always aim for.
The ax was shot from her hand. Dagny turned around, outraged, and Astrid squirmed. It was Lagertha, so beautiful that Dagny honestly thought herself dead and that a Valkyrie had come for her. She was dropping a bow and pulling a sword from the belt at her waist. It happened so quickly that Dagny was not prepared for the blow when it came, when the earl's sword split open her leg from knee to ankle. When the back of the sword came down upon her head.
Dagny wasn't sure how she got there. She did not know how she had managed the walk when now she was sitting between two shieldmaidens atop a seat normally reserved for Ivar. It made her back hurt. No wonder that he was always in such pain.
She made her hand relax from clutching the cut on her side. Looking down, she saw that her palm was stained red. It was a slight wound that would heal quickly. She could tell that from the way the blood was clotting and the pain. The pain was nothing compared to her leg.
Dagny gasped when Aslaug finally broke through the procession of Lagertha's army, overwhelmingly made up of women. She was more beautiful than Dagny had ever seen her and cradled in her arms was a sword. The queen cast her eyes around for the briefest moment. They landed on Dagny, bruised and bloodied, with a cut on her cheek that was throbbing almost as badly as her leg. Aslaug's mouth quivered for the slightest second and then she smiled, like Dagny had done her proud.
She turned away and walked forward. Dagny could just barely see the outline of Lagertha a ways distant. A shieldmaiden took her by the shoulder and forced her back so that she was in line with them, so that the two queens were obscured, for surely that was what this was; a handing over of power. Aslaug was no fighter. But then, Dagny was still in shock at what she had done that day, at the reason a shieldmaiden would have for forcing her into line. She wasn't a violent person. She wasn't mean. Why had she done this?
An easy answer to that. Asdis, who had always deserved more than she had. Margrethe, who Dagny finally felt vindicated in not trusting. And Aslaug, who Dagny could overhear even from that distance, saying that she was no witch. That Ragnar was dead, his name the most magical word Aslaug had ever spoken. All of this was about Ragnar. Everything leading to this and from this moment forward was about Ragnar.
Dagny looked upward at the sky. This wasn't right. This was no simple takeover.
She dropped her gaze, tried to look around the girl beside her to watch Aslaug. Dagny couldn't hear them, not clearly, but Lagertha was smiling so she was getting what she wanted. Aslaug walked past her and Lagertha made her way in the direction of Dagny. At a nod from her, a girl to her right took Dagny by the shoulder again, as if she could run in this state. As if there was anywhere to go.
Dagny knew before a woman handed Lagertha the bow and quiver that this was Aslaug's end. It had been present in their conversation just a day or two ago. Aslaug knew her death was coming as Dagny knew Ragnar's was.
She tried to move but the girl held her back and Aslaug's name just wouldn't pass her lips. Lagertha drew the bow and loosed the arrow. Dagny choked, sputtered, as the queen fell to the ground. Years seemed to flash before her, of Aslaug always being kind, always being understanding. But mostly she saw herself as a child, running beneath Aslaug's well-made cloak that day at the slave market all those years ago. She could have chosen anyone on the dock, an able-bodied man who could train her sons, an older woman with a useful skillset, but she'd bought Dagny, a foreign girl who was too sick and cold to understand anything. She'd given her clothes and warmth and a name that Dagny later learned meant "new day." It had been a new day then and it was a new day now.
Again she was unsure of how long she'd been sitting there. People had gone. Aslaug's body had moved, to be prepared for the funeral, she assumed. Dagny shifted and saw blood in the sand beneath her right leg. It was still bleeding. But she thought she was numb to the pain.
Dagny had seen reactions like what she was experiencing before, where people froze and could not focus, sometimes could not speak. Numbness set in so that the horrors just witnessed seemed far away and often, not at all real. She did not expect to feel the pain of Aslaug's death for days at least. That in her leg would return much sooner.
"You're the one they call Dagny." At that she turned and faced Lagertha, Earl Ingstadd, now made queen of Kattegat. Dagny remembered that she stepped in for her at that feast when a man drunkenly put his hands on her. How could a woman who did that condemn another woman for a man's feelings for her? How she could call her a witch?
"I am Dagny," she replied, finally having the clarity of mind to wonder why Lagertha even wanted to speak with a slave. Perhaps, to discuss ownership.
"Would you mind talking with me?"
"Not at all," Dagny said, even though the thought made her sick. She wiped her face with the back of her dirty sleeve. Apparently, she had been crying.
"Can you walk?" Lagertha extended a hand to her, an offering of peace from the new regime to the old. Dagny narrowed her dark eyes. "I am sorry for it. We needed people incapacitated. I trust you will heal well." Dagny would not know anything for sure until she looked at it closely but she feared a limp. Maybe worse. "Bjorn says that you are a good healer, that once you treated him for a similar wound, and it was better than before."
"He is strong and a warrior." The thought that Bjorn had ever even noticed Dagny's meager existence was shocking. But she kept her mouth in a firm line, her expression neutral.
"So, I think, are you." Lagertha smiled and gave Dagny her hand once more. This time she took it, though everything in her screamed that it was the wrong thing to do. Her leg wanted to give out the moment she stood and she had to grasp Lagertha's arm to steady herself.
Lagertha led her the short distance to the great hall, though to Dagny, it was an ordeal of the highest order. The earl gestured at some unseen warrior and the stump Dagny had been sitting on was moved to a place in the great hall. Once inside, Lagertha let her sit. Dagny focused on the earl, on the way the fire reflected off her blonde hair, to ignore Aslaug's banners coming down and the bustle of new people carrying away the old.
"They do not treat you like a slave so I won't speak to you as one," Lagertha said and knelt before her. "You are to be honest with me, as you would have been with Aslaug."
Dagny nodded.
"Bjorn tells me his brothers are fond of you." Again, part of her was shocked that Bjorn had known enough about her to be aware of her name, let alone enough to tell his mother. She had treated his household only a few times, most for various ailments of his children. For many of those, he was not even present.
"Hvitserk is the only one who cares for me." Which, perhaps, explained Bjorn knowing anything about her because Hvitserk was especially close with him.
Lagertha tilted her head to the side. Dagny returned her stare. Neither of them appeared ready to back off.
"What of Ivar?" the earl asked. "The slave girl, Margrethe, says he watches you. She says you disappear into the woods with him sometimes for hours." Dagny swallowed. The pain in her side started again. "She says you were with Ubbe just a night ago."
Dagny exhaled through her nose. "Margrethe speaks of things she doesn't understand." Lagertha smiled.
"I think she understands them perfectly." The earl paused. "The other slaves are not your friends, Dagny. Though I doubt you need me to tell you that." Any slave who might have been her friend was now dead. Suddenly she saw Dotta on the ground, Asdis's dead eyes, the white-haired shieldmaiden she'd cut down. Ice crept down her spine.
"Will you kill them?" Dagny asked, her voice catching. "The princes."
Lagertha shook her head, a swathe of blonde hair falling over her shoulder. "They are Ragnar's sons. Their mother was a witch. That was not their doing." Dagny's skin prickled at the word. She could be called a witch just as simply as Aslaug.
"And you believe they will forgive you? For enticing them with Margrethe, for usurping the throne, for killing their mother?" Part of Dagny screamed at the thought of speaking this way with any authority but Lagertha had requested honesty and honesty she would get.
"I believe that you will help them adjust to the new way of things." She was smiling once more, as if Dagny's blatant disregard for social status was akin to the throne across the room that she so coveted.
"Aslaug is dead."
"And you loved her." It was not a question. "She bewitched you, for what slave loves their master?" Many others had forgotten but Porunn had loved Bjorn. Athelstan had loved Ragnar.
Dagny did not respond.
"I watched you fight today. You were sloppy, full of rage, but it was your first battle and all warriors should bear some fury." Dagny met the earl's eyes. "You should train. I kept your ax. I'll return it to you."
"Why?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I could free you, let you join me as Margrethe has." Dagny's pulse rose, the numbness in her leg began to wear off.
"And have you freed her?"
"She's no warrior. Nor is she loyal." Dagny took short, quick breaths, prayed to the gods that she would have the strength to deny her. "I know you loved Aslaug but her sons will not be so kind. They will share you as they have shared Margrethe and that is no fitting fate for a girl like you."
"I would never turn on the princes. Ivar would kill me."
"I can protect you from him." Lagertha's eyes were bright, her spirits still high after a battle won and a throne gained. She was fierce and out of legend but she still thought Ivar was no more than a crippled boy. And when he returned –and he would return, Dagny would accept no alternative—he would prove her wrong. Sigurd would not care, Ubbe would be diplomatic, and Hvitserk would follow whatever course was the least likely to upset anyone. But Ivar… Ivar would never forgive Aslaug's death.
Dagny scoffed. "No, Earl Ingstadd, you cannot. No one can protect me from Ivar." She paused, analyzed Lagertha's expression, which revealed nothing. "And I do not belong to you or your son. Ubbe owns me now."
"Is he a reasonable man? A kind one?" Dagny gave a curt nod, feeling like she was telling someone's greatest secret. "Are you as loyal to him as you were his mother?"
"Yes," Dagny replied. Lagertha nodded, making her continue. "He is a better man than anyone else I know. He has treated me more kindly than others who said they were my friends."
"Would you follow him into battle?" Perhaps the most important question that Lagertha had asked, judging by how intense her gaze suddenly became. The concept of an uprising was already been haunting her.
"I would follow him anywhere," Dagny said brusquely, her lips a straight line.
"Then tell him to train you. You are a waste of talent otherwise." She rose and looked down at Dagny. "I do not want war with Aslaug's children. I loved Ragnar and they are his sons as well. I want this transition to be smooth. Convince them to see the right way of things."
Lagertha left and the pain immediately returned. Dagny bent over, pulled up her skirt just a smidge, and winced when air hit the wound. She still felt unable to focus or to grasp the gravity of her conversation with the new queen. Had she been offered freedom, even as a trap? Had she been foolish to refuse it? Would she ever walk correctly again?
Lagertha's people gave her nothing. They did not tell her to go change, as Lagertha was clearly doing. They did not offer to dress her wounds. They did not allow her to leave. Perhaps, that would not have been an issue had she been able to stand. But the pain was only getting worse, drowning out the cut on her cheek, the slice along her side. Finally, she tore the bottom off of her dress and tied it tightly above her knee. It would hopefully stop some of the aching and keep it from bleeding once more.
Dagny knew it hadn't been that long but it felt like hours before Lagertha returned. She sat atop Aslaug's throne, flanked by Margrethe and Astrid, who had a long cut along her cheekbone that Dagny had given her. Margrethe met her eyes for the briefest moment and looked away. She didn't appear triumphant. Nor did Astrid. This was a mummer's farce if Dagny had ever seen one.
The doors to the great hall came open to Dagny's side and for the first time that day, she did not feel off-kilter. She let out a breath in relief. Ubbe and Sigurd strode in and neither appeared hurt. Ubbe's gaze landed first on Lagertha atop the throne and then upon Dagny, who must have looked as badly as she felt, because the rage drained from his face. He came toward her, all concern, and she wanted to shake her head so that they did not appear too close. But Dagny also wanted so badly to be told that it would be all right, that someone would take care of this, and someone would take care of her.
So damn whatever Lagetha thought and whatever Margrethe had told her.
"Are you all right?" Ubbe asked, putting his hand to her face. She winced when he touched the cut there and turned out of his grasp. Sigurd also came closer.
"I am fine," Dagny lied. In truth, this was about to be all she could take. No one ever worried for her and there was such warmth in Ubbe's gaze that she forgot the difference in their social stature.
"Why are you sitting?" Sigurd said, strangely gentle in tone. It was just kind enough that Dagny's throat wanted to close up.
"My leg," she whispered. Both brothers looked down but could only see dried blood on her ankle, on the floor beneath her foot. The gods had been merciful to let her be numb this long.
Something crossed Ubbe's expression and his fingers left her skin. "Ubbe, don't," she said, as sternly as she could muster. Sigurd exchanged a look with her and then went back to Ubbe's side, the two of them now in the middle of the hall. Dagny closed her eyes, felt her hands begin shaking. If they were killed, it would be over. There would be no resistance or revenge for Aslaug until Ivar came home—and he's coming home, Dagny reminded herself. She would belong to Lagertha and then potentially to Bjorn, who many of the other slaves had always somewhat feared. Dagny had lived well for a slave, she knew that, and she had no desire to see life made worse for any of them. If Ubbe could control his anger, it would be fine. And frankly, she couldn't recall ever having seen him mad.
"Where is our mother?" Ubbe asked.
"She's dead, Ubbe," Lagertha said. Ubbe narrowed his eyes but it seemed more in confusion than in fury. "I killed her."
"Why?"
"She took Kattegat away from me. I wanted it back." Dagny rolled her eyes. None of this had been Aslaug's fault and Kattegat had been doing well for years, despite neither Lagertha nor Ragnar being in charge.
Ubbe drew an ax from his belt, even with Sigurd trying to push his arm down. "Ubbe," Dagny murmured under her breath. "Do not do this."
"Why didn't you also have us killed?" Sigurd asked. He was still grasping Ubbe's sleeve. For once, Dagny thought, they were in agreement.
"This was nothing to do with you," Lagertha remarked, hands braced on each arm of the throne. "You are Ragnar's sons. It was not your fault that your father was bewitched."
Ubbe managed to break free of Sigurd's grip. He lifted his ax, pointed its end at Lagertha. Dagny suddenly forgot how to breathe. "It was a mistake not to kill us," he said.
Lagertha nodded, slightly disappointed. "That was a chance I was prepared to take."
Ubbe nodded back and started to shed his cloak, catching it on his braid. He tossed it to Dagny, who fumbled with it, suddenly distracted by how warm it was. Had she been this cold all day?
She shook her head when he gave her a nod. He was grinning. She wasn't going to put it on but she buried her hands in the cloak's warmth anyway. "Ubbe, don't do this," she pleaded.
Sigurd put his hand on Ubbe's arm again and said his name too. But Ubbe pushed him. Sigurd staggered to Dagny's side and Lagertha's men nearest to them leveled swords at their throats. Sigurd grabbed her shoulder to keep her steady or to keep himself steady, Dagny didn't know.
She turned to see Ubbe cut down two warriors, one after another. A line of shieldmaidens formed between him and the throne. Somehow, he managed to get through many of them too. Dagny leaned forward, didn't care about Sigurd squeezing her shoulder or the sword drawing blood at her neck.
In the haze of it all, Ubbe was finally knocked back, a shield slamming him in the face. He conceded, let his head fall back against the floor as if it were time to go to sleep. Lagertha looked strangely conflicted, Ubbe's respect a loss she grieved.
The new queen gestured and Sigurd and Dagny were let go. If Dagny could have walked to him, she would have. Instead, Ubbe somehow managed the walk to them, even as Dagny could see that he was already stiff and starting to swell. Remarkably, he looked even more handsome.
He knelt before her and Dagny thought it was so she could see his wounds better but then he placed his arm around her back and she knew he was going to pick her up.
"Ubbe, I'll do it," Sigurd said, mildly disinterested as Ubbe's fight had apparently angered him. People around began moving about, leaving the great hall. Dagny wondered if they had been waiting this entire time just for Sigurd and Ubbe to show up, if that was why she had been denied cleaning up so that there might have been some encouragement for them to behave nicely.
Ubbe cut his eyes.
"No one is doing it," Dagny said. "I need to walk."
His hands came to rest on her thighs and Dagny felt like a queen with a warrior on his knees before her, asking for some extravagant favor. "You cannot walk, Dagny," he murmured. "I can see that by the pain you are in."
"I'm not in pain," she lied, because it was expected of her. Because he was a prince and she a slave. She would have to see to his injuries before her own.
"She has courage, your slave," Lagertha said from the dais. All three of them turned, Ubbe's hands suddenly away from her and reaching for a weapon. "She fought bravely today, almost killed Astrid." Astrid, to the earl's left, sneered at that. "And she is loyal to you. I offered her freedom and she said that she belongs to you."
Ubbe looked back to Dagny in disbelief. "What?"
"It was a trick," Dagny said. Lagertha smiled.
"Her ax was well-made," the new queen declared, waving with her hand. Margrethe descended the dais with Ivar's ax barely in her grasp, touching it seeming to disgust her. That it was Margrethe seemed of the highest irony. "You should arm her with more."
Dagny and the brothers each tensed as Margrethe made her way toward them. Sigurd's hand was still on Dagny's shoulder and she felt his fingers tighten. Ubbe's eyes were dark but other than that, he gave no reaction. She thought that, for a prince, Ubbe was remarkably able to understand the decisions a slave was forced to make.
Margrethe lifted her chin when she was close enough and the mark Ivar had given her was still barely visible. Dagny thought she intended for her to see it and feel guilty again. Or to show that Margrethe believed she was no better than Ivar. She dropped the ax onto the floor, blood crusted on its blade, grimacing and Dagny felt sorry for her. Lagertha had offered Dagny a chance at freedom for miraculously holding her own in a fight with her second-in-command, her lover. There were other things Dagny could offer her as well, information on the princes, her talent at healing, but Lagertha would not be sitting atop the throne at all if not for Margrethe. She was innately the reason for the earl's victory and yet, switching to her side had done Margrethe no favors.
But Dagny also knew, deep in her bones, that if Margrethe hadn't seen her enter Ubbe's room, this might never have come to pass.
Sigurd picked up the ax when Margrethe returned to the dais and turned it over in his hand. Finally his blue eyes met hers and he demanded, "Where did you get this?"
Dagny actually rolled her eyes, too exhausted to care about what he might do. "Where do you think?"
Sigurd made to say something else but Ubbe held up his hand. Sigurd tucked the ax into his belt and Dagny could say nothing. She could not say it was hers and demand its return. By default, wasn't anything that belonged to her actually a possession of Aslaug's family?
Ubbe tucked an arm beneath her legs and around her back. He shouldn't be carrying her. But he shook his head at Dagny's protests. She was grateful for how warm he was anyway, how this didn't seem to faze him in the way it had her.
When they were outside, she told them to head to her cottage. At least the medicine was there and it was a house that Lagertha wasn't likely to seize.
Sigurd had to help Dagny onto Ubbe's horse. She'd never ridden before and nor had she ever been in such overwhelmingly agony. Her head simply spun and spun. She leaned back against Ubbe's chest while they rode, partly out of fatigue, partly to see if he'd been dealt any large injury.
At the cottage, Sigurd helped her down. His fingers managed to hit the cut along her side and though her vision slightly blurred at the pain, she said nothing. Ubbe stumbled off the horse and Dagny actually wondered how he'd managed the ride with the skin around his eye swelling so badly.
The cabin was remarkably unscathed, many of Dagny's tinctures and balms completely untouched on the shelf. She sighed with relief once inside. That would make this much easier.
Sigurd had them both sit down, backs against Dagny's meager bed and legs stretched in front of them. He stood.
"Sigurd, get anything she asks you for," Ubbe said, tilting his head back against the mattress. Dagny locked eyes on the ax in Sigurd's belt and beyond it, Asdis's empty bed.
Sigurd nodded.
"We need clean water and white willow bark. I should have some in a vial," she said. Sigurd nodded again.
"Will that numb your leg?" Ubbe asked as Sigurd began browsing a shelf. Dagny's mouth opened in confusion.
"No," she said. "It's for your swelling."
He scoffed. "That's ridiculous. You are in terrible shape."
"Still, you should be tended to first."
"She's right, Ubbe," Sigurd agreed, picking up a jar and putting it back down again.
"No!" Ubbe said, so firmly that Dagny flinched and Sigurd looked over his shoulder, vaguely confused. "No." His hand came up to her face for just a moment and she was unfailingly proud that she managed not to lean into it. "You're a strong girl, Dagny, but no one is this strong."
"You're a prince," she murmured. "I need to help you."
"No," he replied.
"Let her do it, Ubbe," Sigurd said.
"I said, no."
"Ubbe, it is the way of things," Dagny said. "I have to see to your wounds first."
"You will see to my injuries after I have helped yours." He was stern, which usually implied an order so Dagny said nothing. "You should be concerned about yourself and not me."
"She's a slave, Ubbe!" Sigurd exclaimed. "She is here to care for you." Ubbe closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and turned to his brother.
"No," Ubbe said softly. Dagny felt her stomach drop. "Not anymore. Not after this day."
"You cannot be serious." Disbelief was clear in his voice.
"Oh, I am. I am very serious." He turned to Dagny, bloody, battered, and bruised. She still found him lovely. "Dagny, you no longer answer to me or any man. You are free now."
She took a ragged breath. "Why?" she somehow succeeded in asking.
"Because it should have been done a long time ago." He leaned back against the bedframe, closed his eyes. "Now help her, Sigurd."
Sigurd and Dagny only looked at each other, both in some odd form of skepticism. But when Sigurd crouched in front of her and asked permission to look at her leg, she knew it was real. She was free now. And she did not know what that meant.