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Chapter 11

I was sitting near the fire accompanying the music with clapping when I saw back the fire color ribbons breaking the air and a tiny and unruly body preceding them: Audr was out of bed and went dancing with her toy back and forth, ribbons waving to the beat of the music. Erik was also camouflaged there. I got up, chased for a while and finally I got Audr home. She kept complaining and stirring in her little childish mind, I realized it was best to keep her warm very well and leave her go out and enjoy her birthday, because anyway, she was planning how to escape again into the party after I left her lying. I put her some old Erik breeches, a pair of woolen clothing, a hat of the same material and a layer of fur. She looked like a ball, but she didn't complain. I got a good coat for Erik, who smiled at me with that smile of triumph that looked so like the one of his father. I ruffled his hair and ate him with kisses. I watched the main group of men. Halvar sat in a large chair and around his two henchmen and Ulf were located. They talked about more serious issues mentioned during the evening party and Leif, next to his father, seemed distracted and distressed. He was overwhelmed by his defeat. I approached him and grabbed his hands.

"Helga told me it's not right that a slave dance in public without permission" I said. Leif said nothing "But we can do it if a man invites us. Aren't you going to ask me to dance?" Not that I'm glad to be consider a slave and of course don't consider myself servant of anyone, much less Eric, but it was the best way to get into Leif.

"I do not like dancing."

"We have to please women, Leif" Halvar said, and Eric pushed him towards me. We danced alone while giving spins holding hands and imitating other women. Soon his mood brightened and Erik joined us too. Audr began to spin with ribbons around us. I noticed the intense gaze of someone in my neck, I turned looking Eric's eyes, but I met with Ivar. I saw him approaching and stay a few meters from us. He waited for the song to end and when it happened, came and invited me to dance with him. I did it gladly.

I lift up my skirts and dance. We described semicircles to one side and the other, twice in a row and then we spin in our places and we changed places. The songs consisted of three parts and each part had its own steps, and how will combine them, was a thing of the dancer. But I'm good at dancing, and soon had learned the steps, and added them my grace and my touch (I don't have to be modest in something that I am clearly very well as dancing).

The second part was danced taking a couple of steps forward, almost colliding with your partner, then the same to the back, two to the left and forward and two back, and two to the right and forward and back and again when you gave a couple of slaps that coincided with the end of verse from the skald.

The last part of the song was danced taking two steps forward, then your partner grabbed your hands in his and turned quickly on his feet, changing places, two steps back, two forward and a spin then repeated it, but with two spins. Then we separated the hands and joined palms and hanging in your partner's arm turned your around, and you let it go spinning around once, clapping twice and spin again. The song ended with joined hands and too close bodies. Ivar was a great dancer. We smile while we recovered our breath and waited to the next song to continue. He took a jug of mead and handed it to me. I was going to give my first sip when a hand on my wrist stopped me. Eric took my mug and looked at Ivar with the social superiority he enjoyed and with the degree of marine and war experience he had.

"If tomorrow Sookie is hangover she won't be able to take care of my children" he said "And I guess you won't come to milk my goats or serve me and my family."

"It's just a jug of mead."

"A jug that I don't not allow her to drink. I am her master. And I don't want you to dance with her."

"Sookie has organized all this for your daughter, deserve to enjoy it too"

"I didn't say she cannot dance, what she cannot do is to dance with you again."

"But I want to dance with Ivar" I said and I was dying to see Eric getting some punishment for not having heeded since he came from his journey. What he said about his children was a pathetic excuse, I could read in his mind, he was jealous and didn't like the way Ivar looked at me or the way I looked him, the way he made me laugh and he laughed with me, the way he approached me and I approached him and the way he touched me and I let him touch me. "I..." Eric covered my mouth and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me all the way home "You're hurting me, Eric. You're hateful" I pushed, I pulled his hair and he was gone, leaving me standing there. Ivar didn't approach me, nor any of the other men, out of respect for Eric. But I saw him flirting with the daughter of Helgi of seventeen and a twenty-two a girl whose name I cannot remember. Then he went to the barn with an arm around each one of them.

I wiped my tears and I was there alone and apart whining. Halvar was the only one who approached me.

"Have some mead, dear" he offered. I grabbed it and gave it a sip, the heat got to me to the tip of the toes "Lately, not today, but these weeks, you've been sad, Sookie" I shrugged "Did Eric touch you?" I lowered my head and shook it "Are you sure? To me you can tell" I looked at him and shook my tearful "So if you are like this, it is because he hasn't touched you" I said nothing for a while, and neither did he.

"I met Helga one autumn, when she wasn't twelve springs yet. I was going to reach my fifteenth autumn. As I saw her, I knew she was going to be my wife" I smiled without really knowing what was coming the story of how he met his wife, and he continued with his story "But her father married her very soon to a noble of the continent, one franc."

"So Young?"

"So young" Halvar said "I wasn't considered adult until sixteen. After that, I sailed, I fought, I killed and learned. And two years later I could gather Helgi and other warlike Vikings who accompanied me. We raid her husband's castle on the coast of France and rescued Helga. Then she became my wife, as I had promised."

"I'm glad it end well."

"Understand that Helga doesn't like men who abuse women. When I picked you up, she decided you'd be a gift for Eric and the children. A slave to ease concerns involving children. Then Leif told us... that he saw Eric and he had seen you" I was beginning to understand nothing "You've seen how Eric with women" I snort, a bastard, that was that he was "Leif is afraid that if you fall for him and he leaves you all like leaves everyone, you will stop loving them, as everyone of the others do."

"I wouldn't stop loving the children."

"I realize that. Helga, meanwhile, also feared that if Eric forced you to something you didn't want, you will pay your hatred towards him with my grandchildren."

"I would never do that!"

"I realize that too... and that my son likes you as much as you like him" I felt a little embarrassed and ashamed, and out of place and uncomfortable, and lots more things I never expected Halvar, of all the Vikings, came to talk to me about what Eric did feel or didn't feel.

"Halvar, I..."

"Work it out. I don't care how, but do it. I don't want it to affect the children. Helga will be worried and I won't live in peace because of you" he took his mug of mead and left "damn kids" he muttered when Eric returned after a while, I don't think he would have had time to zilch with these two young women. Halvar left us there alone.

"You can dance with Ivar if you want to" Eric said suddenly, shook my head and I noticed that he said it with a gnashing of teeth "Would you dance with me?" I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. Eric pushed me from behind, with soft hand and took me to the side of the fire where the last couples danced. There wasn't a lot of people still outside.

We danced a while and then everyone went home. Eric didn't say much, neither I do. I knew from his thoughts that he didn't want me to be angry, but the circumstances were very difficult and to be o.k. with me wasn't easy.

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