I didn't go into detail, but also didn't pull punches, on the description of the Vikings sacking towns, or their attitudes about it. Might not be for the easily offended.
The furs still smell like him. The first morning without him, I refused to get up. If I willed it hard enough, I would wake, surely I would. But I didn't. What I did was scare Vallandra senseless. She didn't know if I'd lost my mind. I wouldn't be honoring him if I was embarrassingly self indulgent and left his mother to fend for herself. These women were tough. Far tougher than I'd ever be. But I had to keep my promise to Eric, and do my best.
I did it with empty eyes though, and a frozen heart.
I salted venison for hours. While I didn't know their techniques, I did have modern know how and knew just salting meat was not enough to make it keep. We built little igloos outside, packing them with snow to keep the meat fresh. And the snow began to melt as summer came. I spent most of my time trying to think up ways to keep meat under 40 degrees. The women thought I was crazy at first, until fewer and fewer children got sick. Then I was flooded with volunteers.
I had never wanted to be here, but it wasn't long until I realized I had a good reason to hang on.
Eric POV
On the Norman shore, there's nothing but sand and blood. We come without warning, and the sight of us strikes terror in the hearts of the townspeople. We are the bringers of death.
Longships carry us to the shores of the enemy, and surely he is my enemy because he will not give me what I want. We make the offer though – send out your gold, by the wheelbarrow full. Every house, every church is be stripped. Cede the shore to us.
They never do, just as we wouldn't. Karves are small ships. They're our secret. Inlanders believe we're only a threat to the coast, but these smaller ships allow us to sail down rivers, sometimes deep into the heart of the country.
I growl as I hurl myself over the side of the ship, splashing down onto the beach. Father is next to me. These people have an army. I take a deep breath and sigh.
"Son…"
"I know!" I yell. Every man in the sand will leave a wife, a mother, a sister, a child behind tonight. I'm not eager to do it.
"Behind me!" I yell, and my men fall in, ready to cut them down.
We shatter stained glass windows. Their religion is bizarre. They consider cups "holy" and speak of drinking their God's blood and eating his flesh. And they call us barbarians.
But there is plenty of gold in monasteries, more than anywhere else. They anoint this God with gold, as well. Completely impractical when there are things that need to be bought. If they refuse to spend it, we'll do it for them.
Men scream and run through the streets, their heads removed with one swift stroke. But they are lucky compared to the women, who are raped, then killed. I try hard to force my Sookie out of my mind, to not see her face when I look at them. Look away, Eric.
It's pure carnage. Blood everywhere, children smashed into the road. But this will prevent more deaths. By killing everyone here, we send a message and the next town opens their gates to us. There need be no more deaths.
We pillage the entire town, and set it on fire on the way out. The men are happy – they have plenty of gold, jewels, some take women as pleasure slaves. Personally I don't like my women quite so subservient. Nor did I ever care for rape. I try not to think of my girl, but I can't. Now my Sookie is a spitfire.
"Eric, concentrate!" my father yells.
"My Prince….what is our next move?" Asgar is beside me, just like always, my friend, and my captain.
We'll hit several countries along the shore before the season is over.
Sookie POV
It's my own needs that help me come to a better solution. I'm not keeping down this questionable venison, and it's time for fresh food.
I assemble confused women into groups, and teach them to fish. The younger women come with me, laughing and smiling all the way to the Baltic Sea to catch fresh black cod that can be served that day or the next. No longer. After that, we go again.
The older women tie lures for hours. The servants and I plant our own crops. The blacksmiths have little to do with most of the horses gone, but they still do not help, and hint they'll tattle to the men that we're not eating what they provided. Good luck with that, buddy.
I sit on the ground, scraping out a new potato patch.
"Sookie." Vallandra puts her hand on my shoulder. "Eric would never forgive me if he saw this. His wife digging in the dirt, exhausting herself, especially considering…"
"That's why I have to. I have to distract myself."
"You've done wonders here. I don't know how you know so much."
"I grew up on a farm", I tell her. And I'm happy to feed pigs and ducks, but not slaughter them. I couldn't do a thing like that, so I leave it to the servants.
"No one is ill from the deer meat anymore, the fresh fish is good, no matter how exhausting is it to be constantly fetching so much of it, and these vegetables are great. Though green is a strange color for food, and I doubt the men will eat them when they return."
When they return. "Eric will eat what I tell him to eat", I say.
"Now, there's a smile! Your first in months", she says happily. "And I'd say you're right. My boy would do anything you said."
"Thank you", I say, looking up at her, "Thank you for welcoming me here, even if Eric's father doesn't want me around."
"Sookie! The man talks too loud. He wants you around, he's never seen his son happier and he knows it. Ulfrick is incredibly stubborn. He has it in his head how things should be, and you certainly shook things up when my son found you in the woods, half frozen to death. Ulfrick loves you already. He does. But you weren't his idea, so…."
"He's prejudiced."
"Yes", she admits. "You're my dottir, my dottir", she says, "As much as Agna."
I jump up, as much as I can jump, and hug her. She's not Gran. But she's all I've got right now.
I dig my sundress back out, no matter what anyone says, when July hits and it manages to get to 65. I'll start a new trend. Ha ha.
On July 4th, I make one of those bread treats for everyone in the village. They don't need to know why. And I get stung twice getting more honey.
"Sookie", Vallandra fusses, putting a poultice on the stings. "You have to be more careful! My God if anything happened to you!"
"You sound as bad as Eric", I say, giving her a hug. "You're overprotective too."
"I worry about you. But you seem better", she says with a tighter hug.
"Yes, I feel a lot better." For the first three months, nothing stayed down, it was sheer torture, matching my mood. But now there isn't enough food in the world. But I always eat fresh fish, potatoes, and vegetables. My diet was forcibly healthier than 95% of women on earth. No southern fried for me.
And it showed among the villagers too. The very old and very young are always the first to go. But we lose only one older lady this summer.
I want to supplement our diet with a little red meat, but none of that rotten stuff. Damn. Granddaddy Earl taught me to shoot a rifle, and if I tracked one for days, I might be able to shoot one. With the problem that there aren't any guns.
A spear? What am I Sheeba the Barbarian? Maybe we can think of something. Or maybe we wait for my hubby to take care of that one.
All kinds of things happen when men aren't around to fix them. When a roof tears, or a food trough breaks, we can't wait. I can't take the risk anymore, so I direct young women how to climb up and cover a roof with a thick deer hide. And there's clapping afterward for a blushing Frieda.
The summer makes everything a billion times easier here. There's spring grass and dandelions where solid snow and ice used to be.
We have a party, yes a party, outside with sweet treats, and sweetened goat's milk.
I hope I'm helping the women pass the time without their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers easier.
"Now this is it", I say happily SUNBATHING outside when we have a great heat wave, and it reaches 70 degrees.
These people need some real Louisiana weather, and some real Louisiana food too. At least Vallandra is happy. I'm resting.
Eric POV
I wipe blood off my face. I hate it when they spurt like that. The man's head falls at my feet.
Normandy has been sacked. Most of the British coast is terrified. We have ships filled with gold which will buy everything we can't make ourselves. We can pay doctors, buy livestock, buy wool. We can't raise the sheep the English do so well. It's too cold.
Expansion season is only half over. While we've happily achieved our treasure goal already, we have not taken a single inch of land. Our people cannot stay out there, surrounded by water forever. Taking new land, and then settling it is a very long process. No one just hands it over. And when you have it, few want to experiment to be the first people to live there.
A couple hundred years before, a huge island was discovered west of here and it's been heavily populated since. But taking land from the mainland is getting more and more difficult. But an island nation cannot survive. We must be allowed the same rights as any other people. We have our own heroes and explorers going west through the open ocean, and if they survive, who knows what they may discover. Their names may go down in history.
Maybe I'm a tad jealous, but the life of that kind of hero is not for me. I'm to be King someday. And I want no greater adventure than returning to my wife. My Sookie. Is she even still there? Did she leave months ago? Did being a Viking prove too difficult for her?
My father is already angry with me for pushing the men on, for cutting corners, for avoiding the northernmost part of Scotland all together. We won't gain an inch of those cliffs. Ireland still waits for us.
As far as I'm concerned, we have our treasure, gaining land is not possible this season, it's time to go home. But Father would never agree, with plenty of small towns, just ripe for the picking.
Sookie POV
The fruit trees are just ripe for the picking. Winter apples are starting to grow. They won't be ready for months. Raspberry and blueberry bushes provide a bounty for those brave enough to risk fingers on brambles. According to Vallandra, I'm not one of those people. It's like having a stern mother around. But I'm grateful.
It's odd for a southern girl, but when August starts to leave, so does any trace of warmth. I don't know the temperature, only that it's damn cold. Vallandra promises snowfall in September. Ugh. Not more cold, more snow, when we had made so much headway.
But the cold returning meant Eric returning. Was he still alive? Did I have reason to hope? And if the man I love were in shreds on some distant shore, and I never saw him again, could I go on? Would I wake up then? Ever?! For now, I had to keep going.
There were women who left. Fewer than ever before, and I patted myself on the back for that. I didn't attempt to stop them. Vallandra insisted on having a word first, and making it clear what they were doing. They were letting down their village, letting down the men who fought and died to keep them safe, and took numbers from our already dwindling village. And because she insisted on this, most snuck off in the night.
I didn't say a word. As an outsider, I understand their position better than she does. So a few women left the village, sometimes with children. They had a happy home here, or so I thought, but some didn't trust that I could provide, or found the changes in the village frightening, and simply wanted a man to take care of them who was around all the time. I couldn't really blame them.
And then there was Ingrid. Most the women who left, mostly left the village entirely, but there were always women who simply left their men for others and stayed. What husband wouldn't grant a divorce when he found his wife had been living and sleeping with another man for six months? This year, there were none. Ingrid didn't do this per say. Asgar is my husband's dear friend and captain, and they would both be unhappy. But Ingrid, his wife, was often sick in the morning. I knew the haggard look cause I'd worn it myself for months.
She kept her doors closed and kept herself shut away. Asgar was going to be crushed.
But Vallandra assures me that's one thing that isn't my problem. She now laughs almost every time she sees me. "We need to make you some new dresses, Sookie."
Ha ha, it's not funny. As graceful as Eric, she's very tall and very thin. She's 5'9 and probably didn't gain an ounce when she was expecting Eric. I'm 5'4, and have gained…well, more than one. She smiled and put her arm around me. She had taken to calling me "my little chipmunk." Small and chubby. Fantastic.
But dresses are the least of my problems. As the October snows add up, I'm panicking. All my summer bravado is lost in the blowing winds. Trips to the coast are becoming more and more impossible. Who knows when the men would return to hunt. Where are they? Are they coming? Are we alone? Vallandra and I can find and chop enough wood to keep the large house and the servant's quarters warm, but not everyone's house. What we do takes most of the day. I don't see how I can keep all these people alive the entire winter by myself. And my body is failing me when it comes to hard labor.
I can't do anything but pray. Please, please, come home Eric. Hot tears wash down my cheeks, please, Eric, I need you.
I go to bed that night sobbing, and cuddling our miracle. Please don't abandon us, min kärlek.
I waken that night to noise like banging. Are we being invaded? The Danes? Is this how my dream is to end? Because I couldn't defend a fucking daisy from the Danes. Hopefully I'm dreaming. Inside my dream, it's getting too complicated.
I have the shivers, I'm tired, and my back hurts. I see a couple of small pieces of wood still left by the fire, sit up, and reach, to add them to the fire. The door creaks open behind me.