It seems that the entire village has gathered to watch as Ubbe carries Rowan through the streets. From her position slung over his shoulder, she can still see her dignity as it is left far behind them on the floor of the Great Hall.
Sigurd – who himself had just had a weapon held to his neck to prevent him from interfering in Ubbe and Ivar's plan – says nothing. He only guides Margrethe with a light touch to her back as they follow behind.
When Ubbe finally kicks open the door to the brothers' cabin and sets Rowan down, she finds herself inexplicably calm considering the disrespect just shown to her person.
"Well, I think that went very well, whatever your plan was." She remarks sarcastically.
Ubbe doesn't look so much angry as he does determined. "Rowan." He says in a low tone. "No one cares."
She takes a step back from him. "What did you just say?"
"You have no right to speak on this matter to anyone. You are no part of it. A position, I might point out, which you chose for yourself."
"I owe Lagertha and Torvi a great deal!" She protests.
"And what of Ivar?" He asks. His tone hasn't changed. It remains even, and Rowan senses that he's trying to push her somehow. "You know what avenging our mother's death means to him. It is not a matter of if, but when. Will you still try to remain impartial when they're holding blades to each other's throats?"
Rowan huffs. Damn him. He's trying to force her hand, to commit herself to one side or the other. She doubts that it matters to him one way or the other, but to his beloved younger brother…?
"You want to know, if you were to put a knife to my throat and demand that I choose between the woman who has taken me in and treated me like a sister, and the little brat who demands my constant attention and for some reason thinks it's funny to call me 'his person'?"
The words flow out of her mouth like a burst dam. Ubbe crosses his arms over his chest, looking down at her from his high horse as if he knows exactly what she's going to say.
"Exactly."
"Well, in that case, of course I would choose Ivar!"
The room is silent. Ubbe appears to be both surprised and pleased by her impassioned statement. There is even a little smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth. Sigurd and Margrethe, on the other hand, look horrified.
"Why?" Asks Sigurd.
"I don't know!" Rowan flails her arms and throws herself down on a seat before the fireplace.
Sigurd sits down beside her, eyeing her nervously. Ubbe takes Margrethe by the hand and leads her to sit with him across from them. As the two brother's begin to discuss the recent events in a surprisingly civil manner, Rowan becomes lost in her own thoughts.
Why? Why did she feel so strongly about supporting Ivar? Was it because he needed her in a way that Torvi didn't? Or was it simply because they had been there for each other right after suffering similar losses?
Or maybe she's finally just lost her damned mind and needs to be locked up from the nice, healthy people.
"Hvitserk!"
Rowan breaks out of her train of thought at the sound of the door opening and Ubbe's happy greeting. Even Margrethe smiles as he and Sigurd go to welcome him.
"I heard you freed Margrethe? You want to marry her. I'm glad." Hvitserk grins at Ubbe and the girl, reaching forward to stroke her face. "Just don't keep her all to yourself."
Nausea churns in Rowan's stomach at the strange, proprietary way this man touches his brother's betrothed. She knows that her distaste must show on her face when he turns to look at her curiously. She'd stood up as soon as he entered out of a new habit she's developed in this short body, and stands with her arms wrapped around herself.
"And who is this?"
"This is Rowan." Sigurd comes to stand beside her. "She came from England with Ivar. Her mother was from the settlement."
"Is that so?" Hvitserk leers, actually leers at her. "Then she's already been travelling together with Ivar, has she?"
It seems like a perfectly innocuous statement, but it sets his brothers cringing. Rowan glances between them in confusion, then dawning realization as she sees the blush on Margrethe's cheeks.
"I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but I think I can guess."
Hvitserk laughs at her irritation, grabbing her by the elbow as she tries to brush past him on her way to the door. "Stay, I'd like to hear about how my little brother managed to find such a pretty travelling companion."
Rowan jerks away as his hand comes up to touch her face. He's even taller than Ubbe and Sigurd, towering over her with that infernal grin.
"Don't touch me." She says, sounding disbelieving at his sheer impudence.
"Don't be like that." He tries to sound sweet and cajoling. His hand reaches out again for her face as the other moves to her waist. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Sigurd stepping forward to intervene, but it's too late.
A muscle memory that Rowan didn't know she still had kicks in as she pulls out of his grasp. Before she can even think to stop herself she curls the fingers of her right hand in and strikes with her palm towards his throat.
Hvitserk doubles over, choking and clutching his neck. Rowan stares at him blankly, shaking with adrenaline and not quite believing that she just did that. Then she looks at Ubbe and Sigurd, suddenly afraid of their reaction to her hitting their brother in the throat.
Both of them stand, arms crossed and looking down at Hvitserk without a single trace of sympathy.
"I was going to tell you," Sigurd says. "She's a freewoman."
The man currently writhing on the floor looks up at them through his tears as if he's just experienced some great betrayal. Rowan, realizing that it's probably a good time to make herself scarce while he's still incapacitated, starts to shuffle for the door.
"I'm just going to go." She tries to excuse herself.
"And do what?" Ubbe asks. He at least hasn't forgotten what brought her here in the first place.
"I'm not sure." She shrugs. "Probably attack your other brother." With a final, quick glance around and a mumbled request to be excused, she bolts for the open door, feet flying as she sprints for safety.
~…~
"Woo!" Rowan breathes out in relief as she crouches down at the end of her mad dash.
It's not that she particularly regrets punching Hvitserk, it's just that her brother's self-defense instructions had been very clear. Step one, get out of their grasp. Step two, punch them in the throat. Step three, get the hell out of dodge. He'd drilled it into her so well that it apparently crossed over into her new body.
She stands up and stretches out, testing the pull of her muscles after that sudden burst of physical activity. Everything feels good, no strains. Looking around her, she's at least managed to aim herself in the general direction of where she'd wanted to be.
Over the weeks, Ivar had shown her all of his favorite sulking spots. Finding him is merely a matter of checking each of those places. Now that the weather has turned colder, he spends far these time on the open hills, preferring the forest for its shelter from the wind.
Rowan steps softly through fallen leaves and twigs that snap under her feet. It's very quiet, the animals all preparing to shelter for the long winter.
Maybe they sense something I didn't. Rowan thinks to herself as she looks up at the clouds that have started to form above. The temperature is just on the edge where, if a storm comes, it won't snow, but the rain will be miserably cold. With that in mind, she knows exactly where Ivar will have gone.
Sure enough, when she finds the place where she knows the rocky terrain falls away into an overhang, she can see smoke rising up from just beyond it. Lying on her front, she quietly crawls forward to the edge where she can look down on the makeshift shelter.
"Oi!" Rowan yells, and Ivar jumps gratifyingly in response.
He looks up at her with a glare. "Go away." He snarls, but Rowan ignores this. She climbs down the small slope to one side of the overhang to join him.
"We really need to have a conversation about my bodily autonomy and everyone's incessant need to put me where I don't want to be."
Ivar doesn't look at her as she comes to sit next to him. He just glares into his little fire as he snaps twigs and throws them in with a great deal more violence than strictly needed.
"I'm not in the mood–"
"Oh? You're not? What, did your ingenious idea to avenge your mother by killing Lagertha in a roomful of her own people not go quite according to plan?" Rowan doesn't even try to restrain the sarcasm.
Slowly Ivar turns to her, and slowly she starts to take in the tense set of his jaw and the cold fire that burns in his eyes.
"Ivar?" She says very quietly, as if she needs to remind him of who he is.
"Do not speak of my mother." Tension leeches from his very bones into his voice, and Rowan has the sudden urge to press herself against the far wall of the shelter.
"I… I didn't mean–"
"I do not care what you meant. My mother was murdered. Lagertha shot an arrow into her back when she had already won. I have every right to seek revenge for that."
His soft tone shakes Rowan far more than if he'd shouted. For a moment all she can do is sit and stare at the man before her, shocked by the barely controlled rage that simmers just below the surface. She's seen him weep; she's seen him laugh; she's even seen him angry or annoyed with Sigurd; but she's never seen this side of him, and she finds herself desperate to distract him from it.
"Why did you try to trick me?" She asks quietly.
Ivar's expression relaxes, no longer angry, but still unhappy. It seems that the question has reset something in him, reminded him of how he wished to appear to her.
"You hate this life." He replies softly.
"No I don't!" Rowan tries to protest, but he rolls his head to look at her and his expression silences her immediately.
"You hate it." Ivar repeats. "You hate the fighting. You hate seeing people hurt." His gaze shifts back to the fire as he continues. "You think I don't understand you, but I do. It is your nature to mend things. It is one of the qualities I… admire about you. I don't want that to change, but you need to understand that I'm not going to change either. One day, I will kill Lagertha."
Rowan bites her lips, frowning into the fire. He won't let her shut him out. He puts one hand on her shoulder, forcing her to listen.
"But that doesn't mean I want you to see it."
The sky opens up above them. Rain starts to fall. Rowan blows out a heavy breathe that draws an annoyed look from Ivar.
"What was that about?"
"Well, I've been manipulated, carted about, berated by two Ragnarssons, and I've hit a third."
"Sigurd?" Ivar asks hopefully.
"No, Hvitserk. He thought I was a thrall and was very rude."
Ivar's expression fades to disappointment, before rallying himself with the mental image of his brother being attacked by a tiny woman. "I wish I had seen it."
"I'm so glad you are amused."
He is, very much so. Rowan tries to look stern, but Ivar keeps breaking into sadistic snickers, and she can't stop herself from smiling. They sit there under the shelter of the stone, waiting the storm out together.
~…~
"Rowan!" Guthrum calls out to her as she approaches their home, little Erik beside him. "Where have you been? Grandmother says we are to stay with her tonight in the Great Hall."
"Oh?" Rowan follows him as he leads her away from the cabin. "Why?"
Guthrum casts an uncomfortable look over one shoulder. "Father just came back from the raid."
"Oh?" She says again, and then with more understanding. "Ooooh."
There had been more than a few times when she herself had been shuffled off to a babysitter when one or other of her parents had returned after a long absence.
"Guthrum, is there some sort of other meaning to 'travelling' that I don't know about?"
"What?" He is starting to get that look on his face that he did every time she made him tell her something he didn't want to. "Why would you ask that?"
"Your Uncle Hvitserk thought it was very funny to talk about me and Ivar 'travelling together." She prods.
That apparently explains everything, because he smirks and says, "That is what my parents are doing right now."
Suddenly, Rowan doesn't feel nearly so bad about punching him in the throat.
~…~
Over the weeks, the Ragnarssons have found Rowan engaged in all manner of strange activities with the children of Kattegat. There was the time she was helping them build a rudimentary trebuchet. Another time they came across her engaged in dissecting a sheep's eyeball for a fascinated group that may have included one or two adults as well.
So it is surprising to no one but Hvitserk the first time he walks into the village to find a large group of children playing some sort of a game that seems to involve a ball, a stick, running in apparently random directions, and Rowan yelling at the top of her lungs that they are "not allowed to attack the short stop."
She finally gives up on maintaining any kind of order, leaving the children with a final shout that they were all heathens who needed Jesus. Her glare only deepens when she catches sight of Hvitserk, and she stops dead in her tracks, prepared to flee again if necessary.
"I came to apologize for my behavior." He's quick to say. "It was terribly rude of me, and I hope that you will forgive me… and not tell Torvi."
Ah, the true reason for his regret makes itself known. Rowan has come to understand that there wasn't one of the younger Ragnarssons who wasn't secretly terrified of their sister-in-law. That, and apparently the punishment for even kissing a freewoman without her consent was an excellent way to get yourself killed. No wonder the princes seemed so reluctant to try and properly court one.
Rowan inclines her head in agreement, hoping that will be the end of it and he'll leave her alone. She really should get back and meet Bjorn, and she tries to walk away in a manner that shows that their interaction is over, but Hvitserk immediately falls into step beside her.
"My brothers told me of your tale. Is it true that you have been to many lands we have never seen?" There is something childishly eager in his tone.
"I was born in one of those lands."
"You must tell me of them. We just returned from a place called Hispania. No Viking has ever been there before."
"Hispania? I actually know where that is." Will wonders never cease?
Hvitserk grins as he bounces along beside her. "It was beautiful. I–"
"I know," Rowan interrupts, trying to put him off. "I lived there for a year."
He is undeterred, now walking backwards in front of her to try and meet her gaze. "Truly? Did you sail there?"
Rowan halts in her steps, saying sarcastically, "No, I flew through the sky in a giant, metal bird while people served me nuts in tiny bags."
Hvitserk seems to ponder this for a moment. "That doesn't sound very adventurous." He finally remarks.
Either the man is a complete idiot, or an absolute genius. Rowan really couldn't tell at this point.
"The adventure of a possible fiery death after a long plummet at any moment?" She suggests.
"I suppose if you put it that way..."
Did nothing faze this man? Of course, if Rowan were honest with herself, she could only imagine being a middle child between Ivar and Sigurd on one side, and Ubbe on the other. If she set a firecracker off directly under his ass he'd probably look mildly surprised and then ask to see it again.
They are standing a good ways away from Torvi's home, but Rowan can clearly make out the sound of a raised voice that causes both her and Hvitserk to turn in that direction. She can't make out what is being said.
"Torvi." Hvitserk says with a curious frown. There is a strange moment where their eyes meet and, in an instant of silent communication, come to an agreement. Simultaneously, they creep forward to hear better.
"... because she needs a family, with as nothing to do with you or with Siggy!"
Rowan can feel her muscles stiffen as she realizes that an argument is going on between the couple over her.
"Say something, Bjorn!" Torvi snaps. "Of course, you were willing enough to shout at me when our children were here to listen, but as soon as your daughter's name is mentioned you turn into stone!"
Taking a step back, Rowan almost collides with Hvitserk. He places a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"Hvitserk, how old would Bjorn's daughter be if she had lived?"
"I think maybe… fifteen?"
Fifteen. Rowan or, to be more specific, Bothild's body had just turned fifteen at some point. Was that what this was about? Was Torvi trying to replace Bjorn's dead child with another?
A quick glance at Hvitserk and she has to do a double-take because he's… smiling?
Before she can fully register her own confusion, he has reached a hand forward to push the front door open and, all while maintaining eye contact with her, shouted, "Brother! I have brought your new daughter for you to meet!"
Rowan stares at him in horror. As Torvi comes to usher her in, face creased with agitation, Hvitserk continues to smile at her with devious glee. She has no choice. She has to allow Torvi to draw her inside while Hvitserk greets his sister-in-law and cheerfully excuses himself from the complete shitshow that he's forced upon her.
As he leaves, he gently rubs his throat and winks at her.
~...~
This is the first time Rowan's had the chance to get a good look at Bjorn, and he her. She tries to keep her gaze down, to appear as small and unthreatening as possible for Torvi's sake if nothing else. As the older woman ushers her forward, the eldest Ragnarsson looks her up and down with blatant annoyance.
"You are the daughter of Hildigunn Olafsdóttir?" He asks tersely. Her answering nod does nothing to calm him. If anything, he becomes even more agitated. "Torvi and my mother have told me that a decision has been made to adopt you into our family. According to our laws, my opinion on the matter means nothing. As long as Guthrum agrees to share he and his brother's inheritance from their mother, I cannot object."
Obviously, he was barely containing his excitement over the prospect, Rowan thinks to herself. "I have no desire to cause trouble in your family." She says aloud.
"It is of no matter." He dismisses her concern coldly. "You need a family and, as my mother as pointed out to me, we do bear a certain… responsibility towards you."
"Why? You didn't kill my family."
Bjorn's lips disappear as he tenses up at her bluntness. "No, but my father lied to our people about the settlement. My mother feels a more personal responsibility because of her hand in your parents' marriage. Either way, the decision has been made. Torvi says that the plan is for you to live in the cottage next to us until I leave for England."
The change of subject is abrupt and definitive. He will say no more on the matter, and Rowan doesn't feel any great need to press him on it. She's just glad that, in a few short weeks, the Great Army will be gone, and Bjorn with it.
~...~
The feast to welcome back Bjorn and Hvitserk was going… interestingly. Torvi had cajoled and flattered Rowan into letting her put her hair up in a more complicated style, assuring her that the coronet braid hid her scar just as well as her normal bun.
Now she was sitting stretched out across a bench, trying to fade into the wall because people kept trying to introduce her to this and that old friend. It's incredibly late. She hasn't been handling staying up late very well recently. At this point she's past mere tiredness and has started to reach a strange state of giddiness, which isn't helped by the small amount of ale she's consumed.
Ivar and Sigurd are further down the table from her, and arguing as usual. Apparently it is of vital importance who was to be sailing on which ship on their voyage to England.
Hvitserk sits at the far end, trying his best to ignore his brothers. When he and Rowan's eyes meet unexpectedly, a moment of understanding seems to pass between them as he rolls his eyes subtly.
She holds up both her hands like two snake heads, and starts to mime them bickering while she smirks. As Hvitserk struggles not to react, one of the puppets suddenly stops and turns to look at Rowan. Her expression turns horrified as it suddenly leaps at her throat, biting down viciously! She tries to pull it off, but soon succumbs to the attack. Her tongue lolls out dramatically as she goes limp.
A burst of laughter draws Ivar and Sigurd's attention to Hvitserk. By the time they turn in the other direction to look at her, Rowan has become the picture of innocence.
"What?" She asks, sounding like she's just as confused as they. Ivar glares at her, obviously not convinced.
At least it's stopped the argument for the time being. Hvitserk takes the opportunity to launch into a description of Hispania and the journey there.
"Rowan." Ivar scoots across the bench, lifting her feet onto his lap so he can get close enough to speak without being overheard. "There are some friends who have returned with the raiding party that I want you to meet."
"Just tell me it is not them." She nods towards a pair of men who have been drinking and boasting loudly all evening. While their behavior isn't particularly unusual for Vikings, they still give her the creeps.
Ivar glances over his shoulder to get a surreptitious look at who she's indicated. He smiles wryly. "King Harald and his brother? No. My friends are not here. They have some… matters they are attending to. They live outside the village."
"I will try to find some time. Torvi has had me wearing my feet to the bone trying to look after all these guests."
He gives a squeeze to her ankle. "Tell her I have need of you."
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
His eyes narrow. "You're doing it again, aren't you?"
Rowan widens her eyes and pouts. "I don't know of what you speak."
"You know exactly what." Ivar leans even closer. His eyes are bright with amusement as he taps her nose teasingly. He'd quickly caught on to when she was making references he didn't know about. It seemed to entertain him just as often as it annoyed him.
They're so wrapped up in their conversation that it takes them awhile to notice that Hvitserk is sitting frozen, sucking his spoon and staring at them as if they were a two-headed goat on display at a sideshow. Rowan is immediately uncomfortable under the scrutiny, but Ivar refuses to release her when she tries to pull her feet out of his grasp.
"Is there something you want?" He snaps. Hvitserk only shrugs and smiles, returning to his food.
Just then, Bjorn comes up holding a cup of mead and glaring like the disapproving father he isn't.
"Torvi tells me you like to sing. Why don't you sing something for our guests?"
It sounds enough like a challenge that Rowan can't help but agree. After a brief discussion with Sigurd, they agree on a song they've been practicing for several days.
She stands straight and, in a clear voice, begins to sing of Heiemo. They had discovered that they both new the tale in some form, and had worked to combine the two. Like any time she sings a ballad, Rowan quickly loses herself in the story, letting her eyes fall shut.
Heiemo sang her song on the hillside
The nykkjen heard it, striding on the sea
The nykken, a water spirit, tells his helmsman to steer them to land so that he can take the maid for himself. He dances while she sings, and at the end of the day he kidnaps her to his ship.
Heiemo, Heiemo quiet your wrath
You will sleep on the nykkjen's arm
He tries to cajole, but the beautiful maid is not amused.
She stabbed the nykkjen in his chest
The nail ran into the root of his heart
Here you lie for the raven and the hound
While I still have my chanting skills
The crowd applauds as the last note fades, and Rowan tries her best not to preen too obviously. Even Bjorn raises his cup at her in acknowledgement. Ivar, meanwhile, seems to take the whole thing as a personal success.
"My person has a lovely voice, doesn't she?" He says loudly. Passing behind him back to her seat, Rowan 'accidentally' elbows him in the back of the head. As usual, it does nothing to stop him from telling Hvitserk all about how she left her home to follow him, and sang like a goddess the whole voyage.
"He's lying." She says to Sigurd. "He thinks I sounded like a wounded goose."
Ivar tries to protest, while a now very drunk Ubbe stumbles forward and hangs over his youngest brother's shoulders.
"I want to hear this." He slurs, and an almost equally intoxicated Hvitserk joins him.
"Sing something happy!"
Did Rowan know any happy opera? An idea comes to her and, buoyed by her own state of post-bedtime tipsiness, stands up on the bench.
"Very well. I shall sing to you a song from the story of a woman from Hispania, although it is in the Frankish language. Don't ask."
And with a deep breathe, she launches into a song from the opera Carmen commonly called Habanera. It's a song with a distinctively provocative tone. Rowan can't help from including a swaying, saucy little dance as she sings that love is a wild thing that knows no laws. If you love her, she won't love you. If you love her, you'd best beware!
When she finishes, out of breathe and giddy with the sheer fun of letting loose for once, half the room cheers, while the other half looks vaguely horrified. Sigurd applauds enthusiastically, Hvitserk looks confused, Ubbe and Bjorn appear to be reluctantly impressed and Ivar... well, frankly Ivar looks vaguely dazed and a little bit turned on.
Rowan slides back down the wall, giggling when her butt hits the bench again. The thump as she sits down is quickly followed by another, much louder sound as Hvitserk's body finally gives in to the large amount of mead he's consumed. His head hits the table in front of them, and he begins to snore loudly.
A grin begins to spread across her face as she sees him lying before her, completely helpless.
"Ivar, let me borrow your knife." She nudges him with her foot.
Ivar eyes her suspiciously and asks, "Why?"
"I'm going to shave off Hvitserk's eyebrows."
The four conscious brothers exchange wide-eyed looks for a moment, before Ubbe suddenly steps forward, pulling his own knife out of his belt.
"Use mine." He says. "I just sharpened it."
"Don't cut him!" Sigurd says, but he joins his brothers in crowding around Rowan as she lies across the table and gently tilts Hvitserk's face into the light.
"Don't worry." She assures him with a snigger. "There's a reason my brother made sure never to be unconscious in my presence."
Later on, while Ivar and Sigurd each paint on a new eyebrow for Hvitserk, Rowan thinks how nice it is for them all to be getting along for once. If only things could always be like this, she muses, completely unaware of how much her life is about to change.
*.*.*
Dear Edmund,
You were the one person whose approval mattered to me. With a single smile you could make me feel like I was an invincible giant because you were proud of me. And with a single world you could make me feel like a worthless little ant.
There are a lot of things that I miss about you. I miss playing video games with you. I miss eating strange foods with you.
You know what I don't miss? The feeling of having had the smackdown put on me and coming away feeling like a very small, very badly-behaved child.
Jesus, Ivar can be scary. Is that what Sigurd was talking about?
~…~
Every time I meet another Ragnarsson that's at least a foot taller than me, I'm reminded that this isn't really my body. It used to be someone else. Someone with a life and thoughts and feelings of her own that I'll never know. I don't know what I find sadder, that I'll never get the chance to understand her mind, or that there was no one she ever trusted to tell.
~…~
Really like my new place. Small, but cozy. A bed all to myself! Apparently it was built by a man who moved here and lived alone for awhile. He built a new home when he married, so this place has been out of use for a bit.
Ivar and Sigurd say that they are going crazy with Ubbe and Margrethe. It's pretty cramped with Hvitserk back.
In case it wasn't clear, "traveling together" was a euphemism for sex seen in the actual Viking sagas. Others include, "crowd together in bed", "resting with her", and, my personal favorite, "romp on her belly". Such romantics!
Questions, if it amuses you to ponder them. Chapter 12 is coming soon!
1. FORESHADOWING! What do you think is going to be the big change in Rowan's life?
2. What do you think Floki and Helga will think of Rowan?