Chapter 6

The next two weeks were like hell. Dalla gave one of the puppies to Audr and children fell at her feet. Each day she brought us apples or varied compotes and Eric spend a lot of time between her legs thanking her. The idiot couldn't notice that Dalla didn't care a crap about his children. She thought she had enough with hers.

Although we could barely leave the house because of the moist and rain, there was much work to do within the home and I almost was going on with the housework. I kept busy grinding flour, rationing food, preparing meals, cleaning, knitting, playing with the children blind man's buff or what's the time Mr. Wolf. I liked to sneak into their thoughts and discover that although they liked Dalla, they continued preferring me.

I finished scrubbing the floor (Eric had been impressed when he saw a mop that I devised and mounted myself, but I guess the cleaning seemed such a small task that he never even asked or said any kind of surprise or admiration about my expertise inventor) and went out to shoot the water. Eric and Dalla were on one side of the house, he stroked a curled lock of her red hair and she laughed like a fool and he gave her a playful slap on the arm. I threw the dirty water to their feet.

"Oh! Woe!" Eric jumped trying to avoid it.

"Hey, you watch out" cried Dalla.

"Oh sorry, I haven't seen you. I was engaged in a song and the work. Don't we have to prepare the grain for sowing, Eric?" I could "hear" the curses from Dalla about me, she thought I was insignificant because I was a slave, but pretty enough to pose a temptation. She had been a widow almost a year and Eric was a good bite. He owned good and abundant land, one of the best farms in the village, he was a skilled sailor, an extraordinary warrior, an exceptional lover, and was the future head of the village. It was a shame, according to her, he had burden of his children. I hated her with all my being.

Eric went to set the last points of its agreement with Red Olga about the oxen. The kids and I ate a broth made with hare bones that were lefts over from the morning, a parsnip and withered carrot that remained in home and some bread. It was not much, but they had a good evening snack and it was hot. I made sure that when Eric arrived, he ate everything cold. I don't think he deserves any better. He warmed his own bowl, knowing by now that I left him the cold meals and dinners on purpose, and he ended up eating for dinner a jumble of bread crumbs without any broth. Audr hummed as she put ribbons in her doll's hair, Leif and Erik were playing a board game that I think is similar to chess.

"Tomorrow we'll go to the field, we'll spend the day sowing. Set food for all of us for a couple of days. We'll need all hands available" Eric said.

"Will Dalla come with us? I asked sarcastically.

"Enough!" the kids all jumped and looked at him with fear "I realize you do not like her, but you're not who..." Audr rose from the ground and hugged my legs.

"I ask if I should set food for her too" Seeing his daughter calm him a little.

"Just will be the five of us" he continued swallowing his cold soups like I was eating toads. After dinner he went to prepare the seeds for the next day. We were going to plant barley and rye and some oats, then we would collect in the summer when it was ripe. I lay in bed that he had prepared for me two days after arriving, so I didn't have to sleep with the kids, if I didn't wanted, and I was glad to see that he didn't leave home.

We left the next day before dawn. I grabbed Audr and wrapped her in a lot of furs and I put her to sleep near her brothers, who were seated between the bags and farm implements in the car. Eric had tied the oxen to the cart even before I had woke up, he guided them to the edge of town by foot and there he went up by my side. He guided the oxen with a birch twig in his hand. I smiled at the thought that he should have done something not very different while leading a bull as an offering to the maenad.

"You seem happy" He told me. I smiled. Sure I was. I was next to him and Dalla was in her house.

"I am. I like to work" Eric giggled "By the way, about Dalla..."

"I told you yesterday that you have nothing to say on that."

"Yes I have" Eric looked surprised at my boldness and my tone.

"I think you don't know your place, woman."

"I think the one who doesn't know is you," I spat "Helga left me in the care of your children when you weren't here. And if you do something that can hurt them, is mine business also," And you are supposed to be drooling over me and not her, I thought.

"I'm not stupid. I know that Dalla doesn't care about my children, or even cares about hers."

"So ... I cannot understand it."

"They are not her children for real, they are her husband."

"No, I meant, if you know how she is, why you are still with her..." Eric laughed. I wish I had the courage to put my hand on his throat and get his uvula out of his mouth like in a cartoon.

"You haven't looked at her very well" Sure I had looked at her. If we were in Louisiana in the twenty-first century she would be only one more fat size 44 woman. But apparently, in this age and time she was very sexy. And her red, loose, bright and sharply defined, despite not using conditioner or a mask curls and her marble white skin, despite not using anti-wrinkle, and her plump heart shaped lips despite the absence of the lip gloss and her stupid blue eyes and her long eyelashes though not wearing mascara also seemed to be the hottest thing in the world. I was so pissed "you are jealous?" I snorted "you are not that bad" I wish you to be struck by lightning and be fried right now. I got out of the car and started walking beside the oxen "You'll get tire"

I pout "What are you thinking?"

"In put you one of this ox horns in the ass" Eric twisted laughing. He let go the bridle, went down the carriage laughing, took me like a sack of potatoes while I kick him in the back (he gave me a pat on the ass) and he put me on board again.

Eric lit a fire at the moment we arrived to the sowing field. I put the pots on the floor and helped the boys to tie the oxen. They were formidable animals. Eric was placed next to an animal to put the yoke and from the other side, I noticed that my chin barely reached the back of the animal. He fixed down the plow with a wooden hammer (I think I have already said how handsome he is hammer in hand) and then jumped on top of the wood. He put up to his three children, who were with laughter when they herded bulls, and he gave a few grains to put in my apron for sowing with him.

The animals began to walk and lift the earth, they had troubles starting, but once they didn't stopped again. I could hear them mooing for the effort, no one whipped them, the breed and commitment to move forward was pushing them. The children jumped up wood to get the metal delve into the earth and stir it better. I was spreading the seeds and Eric, with a hoe in wood and metal, hid the seeds.

We stopped for lunch a few minutes. We ate some smoked herring on oil bread.

"Leif" I called "Have you seen the pigeon's nest that was by the road?" The child nodded "Bring them to me and I will make a delicious soup to eat. Now go" Leif run with Erik behind him.

"I want to go too!" Audr protested as she began the race with her short steps.

"No, you stay here" I stopped her "See those twigs? Pick them up and throw them into the fire. But be careful not to touch it, huh?" I gave her a kiss and rub cleaned a little amount of mud from the cheek. Eric and I continued our job until the children returned.

"There were two eggs and I've gobbled them" Leif said.

"He didn't give me a taste" Erik complained.

"You must share, Leif. What you've done is very bad," I said.

"But I'm the one that has left the skin climbing up to the tree" And he showed me a scratch that he had get from bark of the trunk which went from the elbow to the wrist "Look, look, what pigeons I have brought you" he said and handed me the two poor pigeons with twisted neck.

"Come I'll clean you the blood" I dipped a cloth in warm water and cleaned his wound carefully. He tried to be the tough guy and don't protest because Erik was waiting to laugh at him and I blew his wound so that it doesn't hurt too much. We pluck and clean the pigeons and I started to make dinner while the children helped their father. I didn't want to think about how Eric kidneys would be and how tired he would be, so I poured a jug of mead and approached him.

"Here," I said. He gulped. I was engrossed in the rhythm of his nut up and down the throat, the beads of sweat that were lost in his tunic's neck, in the way that a few drops of liquor fell from his lips.

"Thank you."

"You need a shave."

"I like to wear my hair, beard and mustache long" I smiled: a Viking.

"I'd like you more" I take the jug from him and went back to make food. I opened pigeons and wiped inside, cast them into the boiling water and added salt. I put a frying pan, I poured oil Eric had looted in France and four cloves of garlic, I fried oat bread I had left made the night before and I got it out when it was browned, also removed the pan from the heat.

When the sun was high, top, took out the pigeons from the broth, cleaned the flesh and left the bones apart for another broth. I mixed the oil and garlic with the broth and meat without bones, and I started to warm up again, I broke two eggs when it began to boil and finally added the croutons.

The sun had already begun to go down when I called them to come and eat. Eric put a bucket of water and some hay to the steers while I was serving dishes, warning children to be careful not to burn. I served a giant plate to Eric who took it with both hands and sat down on a stone. He sniffed and looked at his children, usually talkative, quiet and eating with delight.

"As pigs that just got their food" He said to the kids and laughed.

"Don't tell them these things. Is it good?"

"A lot" Leif answered me with his mouth full. Erik chewed on both cheeks and Audr ate more slowly, but because I was giving her. I didn't want her to burn.

"Can I eat or I have to wait until its cold?" Eric asked me with a smirk he wasn't reproaching anything, he was just having fun.

"Eat it, eat now, it's hot." We ate between smiles and sounds of gastronomic pleasure. I did between spoonfuls to small Audr. The three men ate two dishes and there only was a little left over which Audr and I ate. We continue to work hard, but more animated. Audr we sang songs and I already got to know me, I accompanied her. They laughed at me because I didn't sing very well, and I swore to them that mine thing was to dance, and Eric told me, I had to prove it.

We stopped working when the sun began to set. Eric nailed a pair of thick branches on the ground few minutes before the darkness of the night was done. I helped him take over a few woolens and some furs and put a bed of dry straw inside. We were exhausted and ate just a few bites: grilled onions and a slide of bacon. The kids went to bed and I stayed up for a while admiring the stars. The moon would be full soon and I had good visibility. Eric approached the animals to the fire and tied them to the cart. My eyes began to get wet and I started to yawn.

"I'm going to sleep. Do not you come?" I asked. He must be exhausted, but still staring at the fire.

"It's a tempting invitation, but I stay here" He smiled and motioned me with his head for me to go to sleep. He leaned back against the rock on which he had sat for dinner, he covered his head with a woolen cloth and a fur above it. He closed his eyes and sighed when falling asleep. I approached him and kissed him on the forehead and on the tip of the nose. I noticed that underneath the layers of fur the handle of his sword glittered and by his side he had prepared his bow and arrows.

I woke up with a frost face. I heard wolves howling in the distance and I got chills. I Got out of bed and saw Eric, he was in the same position I had left him when I had gone into the tent.

I looked into the trees trying to guess whether something moving through the logs.

"Ah!" I turned suddenly and I bumped into Eric, who had caught my arm and scared me to death.

"What are you doing awaked?"

"I... I heard the howls and... and..." The ox snorted uneasily by the sounds of wolves, startled me and I grabbed his arm.

"Wolves do not approach men, they know they stand to lose."

"Not with me" I said thinking about Alcide. Eric laughed. He brushed a strand of hair from my face and I felt his warm breath on my face. His beard tickled my neck.

"Go back to bed" He was going to kiss me, or I was going to kiss him. It did not matter. The ox was removed and grabbed strong the fabric on his chest, taking another jump. He chuckled.

"Sookie?" Audr little voice brought us out of our moment.

"What's happening, sunshine?" she went out rubbing one of her little eyes and dragging her doll "Come here before you catch cold" I opened the robe I had on and I pulled her against my chest "Are you afraid the wolves?" She shook her head.

"Only the very large ones" She confessed "You are not going to kill little wolves, right?" she asked Eric.

"Of course not. Come, go back inside."

"What if they enter the tent and eat me" Audr asked.

"They will not. Because I sit at your feet and it may not happen."

"Okay, but do not kill puppies."

"Of course not", he pushed us inside with soft but authoritative hand. I stepped aside, leaving Audr and Erik between Leif and me. Eric stoked the fire and sat down at the opening that was the entrance of the tent, as he had promised. He stood there, wrapped in furs, sword in hand. Audr fell asleep in a second. A new howl startled me and I felt Eric's hand slid under the covers, he grabbed my foot and his hand reached for my ankle to my calf. He gave me a squeeze and I relaxed hopelessly. Hand back down to my foot and stayed there all night. I think I have not slept so calm since Grandma was alive.