I would like to thank the moderator of the Vikings' tumblr page for giving me heart palpitations by reblogging my last chapter. I felt very privileged that you thought this little fic was worth sharing. I hope the remaining conversations live up to the expectation.
My apologies for all those who have been waiting for me to post this, and following Conversations – Floki's arc took a much more radical turn than I was expecting when I started this fic and that, as well as real life issues, took a lot of my momentum away. I do have the next Conversation – basically the end of the story – complete and am trying to finish the epilogue (because I like my endings tied up in neat knots).
So this Conversation is actually a collection of drabbles as we pass through the autumn and winter. Mostly just cute little novelties – however there are some important points in regards to the next Conversation.
Warning for those who have any sensitivity about the inability to have children – the second drabble may not be for you.
Conversation 6
"Potato," Helga's eyebrows raised and for a moment Marion panicked.
"Potet," the answer came to her and Helga smiled, placing the vegetable on the table. Marion picked it up and scrubbed off the dirt before slicing it into several large sections ready for the meal that they were preparing.
The language lessons had started the first day. Being in almost constant company with someone who couldn't understand a word was apparently not to her mistress' liking, or perhaps she was following instructions from Ragnar, and so had started the game of pointing and repeating the word. Nouns were easy enough, although Marion was finding some of the sounds difficult to wrap her tongue around much to Helga's amusement, however the verbs and adjectives were somewhat harder to interpret and the lessons were often interspersed with absurd actions involving exaggerated gestures and face contortions.
Floki had not so far joined in, maintaining a derisive silence only broken by the occasional snort when her pronunciation was wildly off. He was though paying attention thought Marion, she often caught his eyes looking keenly at her and she thought he was absorbing as many of the English words as he could.
"Marion," Helga's voice caught her attention and she looked up to see Helga pointing.
"Angrbođa," she said immediately and with some pride. Helga beamed as she finally got the pronunciation right and the baby gurgled.
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Blood. Lots of blood.
Marion stared for a moment as her brain made the connection and then a wave of relief coursed through her as she realised what it meant.
Praise to you Mother Mary she exulted but then the rest of the prayer stumbled to a halt as doubt hit her. Was it wrong to thank the Mother of Christ for this? The gift of life was a wondrous thing; she had been at the birth of many babies and the look of joy, of wonder that would transform the mother's face, regardless of how difficult the labour had been was one of the strongest signs of God's presence that she had seen. Should she rejoice that she was not pregnant? Was that not unnatural? Was there something wrong with her that she did not want to have a child?
Could she ever have welcomed a child that had arrived? That had been conceived from that horror. She knew women who had suffered her fate and who had welcomed the child as a reward for their suffering, who had been able to separate their child's face from the one who had planted the seed. Was she that strong? She shuddered. She had seen the children of those mothers who weren't able to isolate the result of the sin from the sin itself, some who had made the child suffer for the crimes of the father, some who had neglected the child as one would a disobedient dog, she had even treated some mothers who had tried to vanquish the seed before it took full root. Could she have done that? Would she have done that?
The relief was not so much that she was not pregnant as it was that she was not to be tested, that she did not have to look into her soul to see how much forgiveness she could muster for those men that had violated her. She would not be forced to view a child with perhaps the face of one of the men that haunted her nights and treat it as the innocent soul that it was, free of the taint on hers. She would not have to see herself for who she truly was under the pressure of a decision that would cut her deeply either way – one that would put her immortal soul or her sanity in peril.
She sniffed and wiped at the tears on her face, finishing her ablutions and walking back to the cottage. Helga looked up from where she was placing Angrbođa into her crib as Marion stepped in the door and she straightened with concern in her eyes.
"Marion – are you alright?"
Marion was not prepared for the worry in her voice and she bit her lip to catch the sob that threatened. She nodded, "thankyou mistress, I am fine."
"What did Floki say this time?" demanded Helga with exasperation.
"No no," Marion shook her head. She had already been the cause of a number of terse discussions between Helga and Floki, mostly over (she thought because her language skills were still developing) her trustworthiness around Angrbođa and her religion. "I'm not ….. with baby," she managed to find words that would convey her meaning in conjunction with a gesture about a rounded belly.
"And that makes you sad?" queried Helga carefully.
Marion's control slipped as she shook her head. Helga's face changed to one of sympathetic understanding and as Marion lost the battle with tears walked forward to envelop her in a hug.
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"Marion!"
The screech made Marion jump, the blade she was holding close to her head jerked and she felt a hot burn followed by a wash of blood.
"Damnation" she hissed, dropping the blade and grabbing at the cloth that she had been using to cover her head to staunch the flow.
"What are you doing?" demanded Helga, coming up behind her, Angrbođa strapped to her chest. "Why would you cut yourself?"
"I wasn't trying to cut myself," grimaced Marion. "My hair though – it is too long."
Helga gave her scalp a doubtful glance. Her hair had grown and now covered her scalp, however any length it had was disguised by the natural curls which Floki had observed with glee made her somewhat resemble a sheep.
"Your God requires that you cut your hair?" asked Helga curiously. She offered no other comment – Floki would have mocked her and her God, but Helga accepted her Christianity with equanimity.
Marion bit back a smile. "Not exactly. It is one of the requirements of our Order."
Helga considered for a moment. "You are no longer with your Order."
"As long as I live I will be with my Order," replied Marion simply.
Helga considered her for a moment longer and then nodded. "Well you cannot use that blade – it is far too blunt. I will get Floki's axe."
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"She's praying to her gods again," he snarled as he felt the brief bubble of cold air enter the cottage.
"What does it matter?" asked Helga, resisting his efforts to rise with her body weight and keeping her fingers in motion on his chest.
"It is an affront to the gods," he complained.
"Not yours," she refuted.
"As a true servant to the gods I must not allow her to insult them," he insisted.
"If she insults them it is by ignorance," murmured Helga. "Not by design. She has been told from birth about Jesus and His Father – how could she know about the true gods?"
"She knows about them now," he muttered darkly, not willing to openly concede the point.
"And what cause does she have to praise them?" challenged Helga. "After how she was treated?"
"We have treated her well," he protested.
Helga's fingers stopped and she propped herself on one elbow to look down at him. "Floki – you have not treated her well. You mock her – how she looks, how she talks even when she is trying so hard – everything she does you laugh at. Even when she does something right you mock her."
"Well why shouldn't I?" he demanded defensively. "She is only a slave."
"Yes," nodded Helga, pulling out of his arms and turning her shoulder to him. "She is my slave though husband. You would do well to remember that."
Floki stared at the ceiling until the breath of cold air and soft sounds told him the priestess was back in the room. At least she stoked the fire he thought before he nodded off to sleep.
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"Where have you been Priestess?"
Marion jumped, choking back a shriek as Floki stepped out from behind a tree directly into the track that she had been meandering down.
"I have taken the goats to pasture master," she answered after a moment, ducking down to pick up the berries that had fallen from her skirt before the billy goat could get at them. They were the last of them and even if they were a little bitter they couldn't be wasted; the days were starting to get shorter; autumn had not been mild and was already hinting at the winter to come, at least a month too early. There was little of the summer food left around the cottage and rather than deplete the stores that they had gathered for the livestock in anticipation of winter, Helga had told Marion to take the goats up the hill to graze.
Floki's eyes narrowed as she battled with the goat. "Where did you take them?" he demanded, looking suspiciously up the hill. "You have been gone for a long time."
"Just up to a clearing where there is food," she hedged her reply slightly. The clearing that she had found was at the head of a small spring, only accessible after much scrambling over rocks. It was secluded and sheltered – there was even a small outcrop under which one could sleep if one came to the worst. And Marion wanted to keep it secret. Just in case. "Does my mistress need me?"
"It is time to cook supper," he answered brusquely.
"Yes master," she nodded after only a tiny pause that in someone else may not have meant that she saw right through him and stepped around him, the goats trotting along behind her obediently.
Behind her, Floki looked back up the hill to where she had come from for several moments before muttering under his breath and turning to follow her back to the cabin.
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"Master?" called a voice behind him but he ignored it and the slight bump that preceded it, concentrating on the knot of the timber on his worktable.
"Master!" the voice repeated more sharply and he frowned in frustration, waving his hand dismissively without looking as the lines which he needed to follow became clear in this inner gaze.
"FLOKI!" almost screeched the voice and he spun, seeing his small boat starting to drift away under sail.
"What are you doing with my boat Priestess?" he demanded in annoyance, walking towards the shore. He had been meaning to go back up to the cottage after his fishing trip but the timber had called to him and Helga had sent her down to gather his catch.
"Nothing master," her voice returned to normal although with a touch of indignation as she looked back at him over the stretch of water. "It just started to move."
"You must have knocked something," he grumbled. "Pull that downhaul."
Marion yanked at something and there was a thump and the boat veered to the left, still moving but now towards his dock.
"Not that!" he exclaimed, striding along the water line to his dock and starting along it. "Pull the other line now!"
Seeing imminent disaster she quickly yanked at another rope and the second sail fully unfurled with a flutter, straightening and hastening the boat's movement at the same time.
"Pull the larboard downhaul," repeated Floki.
"Your larboard or mine," she hesitated.
"The boat's larboard," he all but hissed.
She pulled a rope and with another flutter the sails dropped and the boat's movement dropped to a slight drift – further away from the shore and the dock.
"Throw me the rope," he instructed, reaching the end of the dock.
Marion looked down and picked up the end of the tie rope, pulling the rest of it from the water and coiling it around her arm. She rocked back on one foot and sent it flying towards him – it caught up amongst itself and landed with a splash a distance from the dock. He thought her heard her curse under her breath, and she wound the rope back towards her, taking more care with her coiling. Once more she hurled it towards him, this time it unravelled smoothly and he reached out his hand – only for it to fall short and land with a splash.
"Christians," he hissed through his teeth. That was his only boat – his other was upside down on the shore undergoing maintenance and the one he was building was several planks off being sea worthy.
"Master?" she called, a note of despair in her voice.
"Let down the anchor," he instructed and with a clatter and a splash the boat's movement stopped. He turned away and started back down the dock.
"What has happened Floki?" asked Helga from the shore, Angrbođa held in one arm and his lunch in her other hand looking at the forlorn figure on the water.
"The Priestess lost my boat," he complained.
"Well you need to go and get her back," replied Helga with some spirit.
"The water is too deep," he shook his head.
Helga looked at him for a couple of moments and then shook her head, turning and placing the plate on his workbench and Angrbođa on the ground nearby. "Honestly Floki – you are a Viking, a fisherman – you build boats. You should know how to swim."
He shrugged, taking possession of her heavy fabric dress as she stripped. "That is why I build boats Helga."
She just glared at him before she walked naked out along the dock to fetch back his boat and her priestess.
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"What has happened?" demanded Floki, paused on the edge of his and Helga's sleeping berth, the sound of Helga's wracking cough almost echoing through the cottage.
"She is sick," responded Marion, her own voice slightly hoarse and strained. She didn't look up at him, busy with tucking the furs and coverings around her mistress, whose face was pale and contorted in discomfort. Her hair was plastered close to her skull as if she had been wet, and yet no trace of moisture could be seen on her skin. "She collapsed."
"How did she get sick?" asked Floki, placing his bundle down on the table behind him and thinking of what they had eaten the previous night.
"I think – from me Master," she replied in a lowered voice.
"From you?" he exclaimed, turning to find her looking at him with some trepidation and feeling a slight sense of guilt. She had been ill the last few days, but it had only been some coughing and sniffing and had hardly slowed her down. "But you did not collapse."
"Illnesses affect different people in different ways," she explained with some apparent relief and his sense of guilt intensified, turning back to the bed to finish her work. "I have seen some people work amongst the sick for months and not be affected and I have seen others who merely deliver a bottle to the sick room drop with the illness."
"Floki?" came a hoarse whisper from the bed.
"Helga," he advanced a step.
"No Master," Marion stepped into his way. "You cannot come in."
"She is my wife," he grated.
"Yes and you will be of no use to her sick," she answered in a most unlike slave voice. His eyes must have flashed because she swallowed and dipped her head. "I am sorry Master – but your daughter is the one who needs you now."
"Angrbođa?" he said and suddenly noticed that her crib was not in their room. He turned and found it, his daughter sleeping peacefully, over near where Marion's furs were. Except that they weren't – there were others there. He turned his head again and saw the furs that he had given her at the foot of his bed. "She is sick?"
"No, praise the Lord," answered Marion fervently. Floki gritted his teeth but said nothing as she continued, not even aware of what she had said. "But Mistress Helga is in no condition to care for her, and I should also keep away from her in case I pass on the illness to her. You need to take care of her."
"I do not know how to care for a baby," he protested, the same fear that had gripped him upon the first time that he had held her taking him. She had grown, but she was still so small and he was so clumsy – the only thing his hands had ever had skill with was timber.
"You are her father," replied Marion. "Of course you know – you just need some practice."
There was a slight sound and Floki turned to see his daughter's eyes open and her arms up in the air. He turned back to Marion. "You will teach me?"
She smiled. "Yes master."
"More ale Priestess!" exclaimed Rollo, holding his cup aloft.
Floki's eyes narrowed as he watched her respond. It had taken several days of intensive care and a number more after that however Helga had recovered from her illness; the roses were not yet back in her cheeks and she still seemed to tire quickly, however she was moving freely amongst their guests, bantering with Ragnar and Torstein and conversing on a pleasant level with the priest and Rollo. The priestess had worked tirelessly throughout her illness, bathing Helga when she sweated in fever, building the fire when she shivered, keeping the bedding fresh so it did not foster more illness, soothing her agitation with soft words or soft wordless song. She had kept her resolve about isolating herself and instructed rather than helped him with looking after his daughter, from changing her swaddling to heating the milk to the right temperature, from how to hold her to let her to pass air after feeding to how to settle her to sleep in her crib rather than in his arms – which Angrbođa had shown a great affinity for; Floki now had much more of an understanding why Aslaug had insisted his wife would need assistance with the arrival of Angrbođa. Between the crying baby and sickly Helga, he had gained an understanding of the priestess that he had not had previously.
The priestess was a settled being – she would say soul – normally. She considered her decisions, she looked at each and every option that presented itself and wasn't afraid of doing something the hard way if it was the best way. Her natural reaction was to argue if she didn't agree with something but she would defer almost immediately; he wasn't sure whether it was from her Christian training or from her experience since she had been taken from Wessex.
Today though – he had almost trod on her at the harbour, so close had she been standing behind him when Ragnar and the others had arrived. Given the task of arranging the sleeping furs for the visitors she had flittered around, an air of haste around her that he wasn't used to, jumped at shadows and generally acting like a cat on a hot roof. Some of her agitation had left her while she walked with Athelstan, and then with Ragnar after he intervened, but during dinner and since, with the volume of the voices increasing and the bursts of raucous laughter it had come back as if with the tide – she had spilt the wine twice when serving and except for Helga's intervention would have dropped the pot of stew.
It didn't take a genius to know what was wrong with her.
He felt barbs at his back and turned his head to where Erlendur was sitting in a corner, alternating his glare between the priestess and him. Hatred washed off him still, the sense of injury obvious in every movement or word. Ragnar treated him with contemptuous amusement, apparently considering him to be without claws anymore. Floki was however taking care that no weapons came within arm's reach and he noted that Marion appeared to be giving him a wide berth.
An exclamation caught his attention and he saw Ragnar stand up abruptly, cursing and wiping at the wine down his tunic, the priestess apologising in a flustered voice and Rollo grinning.
"Priestess," he snapped, cutting his voice across the room so that she looked up. "Go and make yourself useful – feed the goats."
For a moment he wondered whether his meaning would be clear to her; it was long past the time to feed the goats, the light was gone from the sky and had left only a slight glow from the horizon – even that would be gone shortly. He saw her hope in her slightly widening eyes and as he continued to hold her gaze and saw her understanding in the welling of tears. She placed the pitcher down and walked towards him, dropping a curtsey and murmuring "yes master" in a suitably chastised tone. She stepped to the side where the pails were kept, surreptitiously gathering a fur into her arms and then making her way to the door.
Helga picked up the pitcher and filled Rollo's cup, adding some more to Ragnar's before floating around to Floki.
"Will she be alright?" she asked in a worried tone. "There are predators out there."
Floki marked Rollo tip his cup up and drain it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and push back from the table. He laughed at something being said and clapped Ragnar on the shoulder before making his way to the door, blasting them with a burst of cold air as he exited.
"She is safer out there than in here," he remarked softly. Helga looked up him, her eyes worried but he gave her a reassuring smile.
He kept his eye on the door however, paying little heed to the conversation around him until the door opened again and Rollo stepped in with a distinctly disgruntled expression. He didn't feel inclined to try to understand the sense of relief that washed over him and took a drink before standing to go and talk with Torstein.
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The scent wafted to him and halted him in mid step. He turned his head, lifting his nose slightly to get a better taste of it. It was tantalising – a mix of herbs, spices, warmth, sweat and… smoke. That taste made his nostrils flare – only one creature wore that scent. Human.
It was measure of his desperation that he stopped to consider – normally he would shy away from any confrontation with them. While the normal inhabitants of the house on the side of the hill were of the relatively non aggressive type in that they didn't actively hunt his pack with any great regularity he had lost brothers and sisters for their coats or because they strayed too close to the goats in their impatience for an easy meal. And he wasn't with a pack anymore. His wounds had crusted over, but he was still slow with a slight limp after the younger male had attacked him a week ago, thrusting him out of the pack that he had led for several years.
The winter had been hard for the pack – he had worked hard in finding the prey and leading the attacks. Most of what they found was hardly sufficient to feed all of them and his ribs were closer to his hide than was comfortable. Since his outcast from the pack he had been limited to what he could nose out from amongst the detritus at the base of the trees – a stray field mouse, a hare that hadn't been paying attention to downwind noises, a pygmy owl too slow to lift off after catching its own dinner, a fish extracted from a shallow pool under thin ice. Now that the spring had arrived he might have expected to find some larger, juicer prey to rebuild his strength however his injury had prevented that.
He was hungry and the promise of an easy meal was enough to turn him upwind. He padded through the trees and through the slop that was melting snow, his large rangy body blending in amongst the trunks, fallen braches and dappled light and almost gliding along the surface so smooth was his movement.
The sound floated to him and he paused, twisting his head slightly to better capture the sound. It was voices, she-human by the tone, rising and falling in a rhythmic arrangement. There was another sound too, in the background – there was no pattern to that sound, it was at a higher pitch and came in bursts. The she-human song dulled as one spoke and there was a gurgle in response before the song came back in full strength with the second voice. He walked forward again, more confident of a meal now – young humans were helpless, incapable of more than basic movement for almost a full year.
The sun was filling the small clearing with warmth and the she-humans had divested their outer furs, leaving their arms and neck bare as they worked amongst the bushes, gathering buds and fresh leaves. One was off his shoulder, her long pale hair waving in the slight breeze as she worked above her head, the other was directly ahead of him, her dark ringletted head bent closer to the ground as she worked at the base of the bushes. Both had their backs both to his approach and the young human in the centre of the clearing. That was making largely ineffectual attempts to make forward movement, balanced on all fours on some cloth and rocking backwards and forwards with a large grin on its face as if it had achieved something.
He stepped to the edge of the clearing and bunched his muscles; ready to dart forward and the young turned its head to look at him, collapsing back to the ground with a slight thump as the movement unbalanced it. The thump upset it and its mouth opened in complaint.
"Wolf!" screamed the far she-human and he started. A knife came flying towards him and he dodged, snarling in response to the slight sting as it grazed him. She picked up a branch and hurled it at him, again he dodged and this time he rushed at her with teeth bared, making her take several quick steps backwards before she picked up another stick and held it low ready to fight. Another time he might have continued – she would provide a good meal for several days if he could hide her, but for today he just wanted the young. He turned his head and took a step towards where the babe had been.
The other she-human was moving towards it and just as he turned she reached it, enclosing it within her own four limbs and preventing him access. He bared his teeth and charged – she tensed but held still, lowering her head, her exposed neck open to his teeth, to close further in on the babe.
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Her voice was even, only a suggestion of a tiny tremor in it and it made him pause, his teeth within hairsbreadth of her life pulse. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me besides the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou…."
The branch hit him solidly in the ribs and he yelped, spinning into a second strike that caught him around the ears and made his vision dim. The pale haired she-human lifted the branch again but he darted underneath it, back to the safety of the forest where his prey didn't fight back.
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So not so sure about that last section, the pov was a little bit of an experiment. Thoughts?