Holy cow- Sorry this chapter took a while to finish, September was a busy month. Thanks for being patient everyone.
Chapter XI- The Answerer
Every nerve under Frigga's skin was electrified; she was uncertain whether it was the drums or her heart that was causing the slamming sensation within her chest. She pushed herself from Rollo's strong hold and met his cheek forcibly with her open right hand. As was intended, her aggressive smack only further roused Rollo who grabbed her body more powerfully. She let the wet skin of her arms slide over his taut shoulders as she hooked them around his neck, his hands playfully pulling at her hair. Rollo's thick beard brushed heavily over her cheeks with each fervent kiss sending waves of excitement through her body. Frigga could feel every angle and pitch of Rollo's torso as their gasping frames melded together, unsure if her feet were still even touching the ground. The festivities around them showed no signs of slowing as the moment between them drifted deeper into a title wave of passion.
"Go to the cavern, now," Frigga ordered with a grin. Rollo speedily made his way past his fellow men, grabbing a torch along the way before entering the abyss of the mountain. Frigga remained by the fire for a moment attempting to catch her breath and to stop her legs from trembling. She knew what kind of man Rollo Lothbrok was and who he would become, what she did not foresee was his capacity for tenderness until now. Unknowingly Frigga's eyes fell to the bundled sword that lay beside the rest of her belongings, her mind began to race as she placed one foot in front of the other. Entering into the darkness Frigga let the sword's wrappings fall to the floor like a distant memory and for the first time felt the slender hilt of Fragarach.
Frigga traced the cold stone wall with her hand as she slowly plunged deeper into the tunnel. She could see the glow of flickering light in the cavern ahead and her heart wrenched with excitement at the thought of Rollo's lips on hers, but there was something she had to do. The cavern was just as it had been before though now it was empty and Rollo was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly a force from behind thrust her into the light and pinned her to the wall; Rollo's warm body pressed against hers almost robbing her of the breath in her lungs. His kisses were unexpectedly sugary and sweet from the plums, a nectar Frigga never wanted to stop tasting. Rollo suddenly paused at the touch of cold steel against his throat.
"Frigga?" He whispered over his lips without opening his eyes. He had never said her name before and now she wished he hadn't.
"I want to know," she began, "if the legend is true." Rollo slowly opened his eyes absorbing Frigga's every detail.
"No, you want to know if I love you," he corrected sternly. "Frigga you are the most aggravating, the most infuriating know-it-all I have ever met. You are too beautiful for your own good and everything within me tells me to be rid of you," he snarled pushing the blade away from his neck and started to pace, "but you do not need to place Fragarach to my throat to know how I feel." His voice was on the brink of rage. "My true feelings are shown to no one, not even to my own brother! Why do you think I only show them to you?" Frigga's eyes were red and welling by the time Rollo returned to stand before her, both of his hands pressed to either side of the wall beside her head. "Because apart from being completely maddening I find you to be the most stunning, thrilling, bewitching woman I have ever met." Rollo's face was so close to Frigga's she could feel the humming vibrations within his softened voice. "So no, I am not in love because I do not know what that is like, but whatever I am feeling… I can guarantee it is countless times greater than love." Frigga could feel her chest heaving for the breath Rollo stole from her when he ripped the sword from her fingers. "Now, you did not need Fragarach to tell you that, did you?" Rollo let the sword fall to the ground beside them and once again took Frigga into his arms. The flickering orange glow within the cavern was the only cover that cloaked the unfolding love affair between the Chieftess and Rollo Lothbrok that night.
Frigga laid atop the pile of clothes that were strewn over the rock floor as they each regained their breath and listened to the revelries outside dissolve into silence. Rollo traced the black tattoos along Frigga's side with his finger, up her thigh, to her ribs and chest then to her neck. He looked up to meet her eyes, a quiet query behind his gaze.
"Some gifts are bestowed upon us without our permission." Was all she said before they both drifted into the soundest sleep they could remember.
"Are you delighted to be returning to your homeland," Frigga asked Rollo the following morning as they dressed.
"Indeed, but it will not be long before we set sail once more." He smiled excited at the thought of conquering new lands. "Oslo will be pleased to have its Chieftess returned." Rollo finished fastening his trousers and picked Fragarach up from where he dropped it the night before. The steel was light and airy in his hand, he had never before held such a magnificent work of art and immediately felt something shift within him.
"What are you doing?" Frigga asked. "Give that to me," she smiled advancing for the sword.
"Na, uh, uh." Rollo grinned raising it to chest height. "Lets see if the stories are true." He walked closer to her, a funny smile shown from under his beard. Frigga anxiously stood where she stopped hoping whatever followed would be quick and painless. "If they are you will not be able to lie to me." Rollo gently let the blade lie upon Frigga's bare shoulder and tenderly touch the side of her neck. "Did I satisfy you?"
"You did."
"Do you find me barbaric?"
"I did," her own answer surprised her.
"Did I satisfy you?"
"You did."
"Are you a sorceress, Frigga?"
"No, sorceresses make magic I just… have it within me."
"Why did you banish your own brother?" Frigga was alarmed by the dark turn of question.
"Freydis wanted the crown for herself, she blames Floki for our parents death." Astonishingly Frigga felt Fragarach growing heavier on her shoulder. "I truly believe now that she was the cause of their death." Rollo was unsure why his blood began to grow warm; possibly it was the thought of his own brother abandoning him or that this unearthly creature had that cruelty inside her. He stepped closer to the Chieftess with the sword still at her neck
"Why did you come?" He growled. Rollo felt as if he had asked this question a dozen times since they left Oslo and now he would finally have his answer. Frigga's eyelids began to flutter trying to hold back the mounding emotion.
"Rollo, please do not make me answer that." She whimpered. Rollo's eyebrows stitched together in further confusion, his face again turning to the hardened warrior she first met.
"Why- did- you- come?" he repeated.
"I…" before Frigga's mind could catch up with her mouth her lips had already begun to move, her voice trembling and the weight of the sword growing heavier. "For the sword." Rollo placed his free hand to the other side of Frigga's neck.
"But not for your sister?"
"No."
"For whom?"
"The Farmansgården, the merchant." Frigga could feel the air catching in her throat as Rollo's grip tightened over her neck.
"Why!"
"To be rid of Freydis." Frigga whimpered. Rollo's patience was at its end and before he knew it his arm had forced Frigga to the ground with the sword still at her neck.
"Frigga!" he shouted with burning eyes. This was her dream the first night on Irlandia! "Stop giving me shards and fragments, if you care for me at all you will tell me the whole truth!"
"The home you saw me exiting at the edge of the wood while you were in Oslo, that is the house of the Farmansgården." Frigga attempted to steady her voice to no avail. "I would get Fragarach and he would get all the treasures you and your men attained on our quest. I would leave Oslo, command my own vessel and be free of my sister's rule forever." Rollo burst with a sudden shout pacing to the other end of the cavern as Frigga got to her feet. "But now everything has changed, Rollo," she tried to explain, "You and your men keep everything and we can destroy Fragarach! Leaving Freydis with nothing!" Rollo fumed near the entrance tunnel with his back to Frigga afraid that if he faced her she'd see the true extent of his pain. "Rollo, you were right, you do not need Fragarach to know my feelings for you." Frigga stepped closer to him though her every fiber was on high alert.
"No." he grumbled to the wall. "We made a deal and you betrayed… all of us." If Frigga didn't know any better she would have thought she heard his voice waver. Rollo turned to face the Chieftess. "I genuinely thought you would be the first person… the first person to care, to be truthful with me without their own scheme."
"Rollo I do-"
"Stop." He brought his hand to his face not knowing what else to do. "You fooled… everyone." His rage had turned into blinding grief as he tried to speak between each stolen breath. "Does your heart not break to know you have failed your brother a second time? I do not how to keep you from… from." He was sucking on the inside of his cheek. "The punishment of treason… is death." Rollo's eyes flickered back and forth between Frigga's which were now spilling over with tears.
Rollo knew he had not always made the best decisions in the past; he neither acknowledged his conscience nor always adhered to his moral compass though the stabbing pain of deceit was something he could not ignore. His feet drove him from the cave with a sailing swiftness though his legs and body felt heavier than the earth itself. With Fragarach still clutched in his hand Rollo flew to his brother's side leaving Frigga to stand alone within the mouth of the cave.
"I must speak with you," Rollo grimaced.
"We are readying to leave."
"Now!" Rollo urged. Frigga watched through red eyes as Rollo grabbed his younger brother by the wrist and dragged him away from the rest of the company. Stifling back the tears Frigga was met by Ragnar's glare after moments of Rollo's briefing, even from a distance she could see the vein under his eye pulsing with rage making his eyes turn an even more glorious shade blue. The brothers were unaware Floki was within earshot and had already risen to his feet and advanced towards his sister. Frigga retreated back into the darkness but it was too late, Floki was upon her in an instant before she was more than five feet into the cave.
"Floki, I…"
"Don't you dare! You do not even deserve to justify yourself to me." Frigga had never seen her brother like this, the jovial imp had vanished and what remained was the raw, unadulterated man that merely shared her life's blood. "I blame myself, your treachery and conceit and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize you could never be my sister." Frigga's lips were sewn shut as Floki pressed his face close to hers. "You are just like her and I hope she casts you aside just as she did to me, so then…then you will know the pain, the loneliness and the madness that follows." Floki then vanished back into the light leaving his hot breath upon her skin.
"You know what must be done." Ragnar said through his teeth. Rollo sighed and looked to the pebbles on the ground, pushing them this way and that with his foot. "What would you suggest? Leave her here?"
"Throw her back to Freydis," Floki interjected, his pace was quick and hard as he charged passed the brothers. "That will be punishment enough."
Not a moment was spared when the Vikings returned to the northern shore; the ships' hulls were filled swiftly and silently before the sun sank below the horizon. The bow crashed and jutted angrily against the water as the keel cut its way from the cove to the open North Sea. Its belly was full of Irlandian treasure and its sails bulged with a violent wind that pushed them eastward.
Even trough the dark Frigga's face could be seen streaked with salt and tears that smeared dark lines down her cheeks. Seated at the bow of the ship where she once perched imperially she now withdrew as a captive. Her chest heaved and trembled as the ship rose and fell, the memories of that last several days journey back to the coast from the Sleeping Woman turned her stomach. Though Frigga was insistent she would not try and escape, the Scandinavian men in misery bound her wrists with a cord and attached it to one of the packhorses. Frigga's feet were bruised and swollen by the third day of constant travel with only two or three hours of intermittent sleep each night.
Frigga no longer waited for Rollo's eyes to meet hers, her head hung to the side of her raised arms that were attached to the bow by the chord. Frigga braved the endured the harsh weather for days with little food and sporadic privileges to relieve her bowels. From within the shelter of the ship's cloth cover the men examined the treasures that lined the hull but did not dare speak. On this third night the salty black waves crashed and sprayed over the bow furiously baptizing Frigga in a flood of sea. Her hair stuck to her sunken cheeks but she neither stirred nor spoke as the ship bucked and rolled. Rollo had refused to meet Frigga's gaze the entire journey from the Sleeping Woman to the ship though now his dark green eyes blazed upon her under cover of the darkness. The purple wind whipped and bit at Frigga's broken frame twisting her long hair into wet knots and nipping small holes into her tunic. From his seat Rollo turned to the stern where Floki too braved the elements as he steered his creation threw the squall, his face was a luminescent grey like a shallow river rock through the darkness.
Frigga would not have known someone was standing before her if her bloodshot eyes had not been focused on the wooden plank at her knees. The soundless approach of two boots before her came as a start for no one spoke or looked at her in four days. Her red eyes swollen with salt spray traveled up the figure to find Rollo's face dripping with seawater before he crouched down in front of her.
"For your brother's sake, I hope you consider yourself lucky. For all you will have to endure is the sorrow and anguish of knowing your deceit and the pain you have caused every one of these men including myself," he said with an unsteady harshness. "Like the unearthly creature you are I hope that you feel every stab of grief a hundred times greater than they and know what I still feel." Rollo's laced fingers gripped tightly whitening his knuckles as he spoke. From behind him Ragnar was seated close and could faintly over hear the conversation.
"Please know," Frigga began. Rollo pulled his eyes from her face and bit the inside of his cheek. The sweet sound of her voice that he had grown so fond of now ripped through him like a blade. "I am not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at Odin's feet equal. As we are! I think you to be a great man as do your friends and you have no idea the legend you shall become."
"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."
"If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would still not be without the knowledge that you are loved." Rollo took a moment to watch the trickles of water stream down Frigga's face, she was right- she had been the first person besides the Lothbroks to show him true kindness, true unconditional love. This woman still held him in her heart though he had her bound and shamed, prostrated at the bow of their mighty ship like a savage. Rollo said nothing in reply but the sound of his stone heart breaking was so deafening even Ragnar could hear.
At the stern of the ship Floki refused to sleep or rest running his vessel at full sail back to the Scandinavian coast. The morning dawn brought with it the gray hills of their homeland though this majestic sight did nothing to ease Floki's heartache. The hillsides climbed higher and higher beside the Vikings as they entered Oslo's inlet, the morning haze still trapped between the peeks. When the town's dock was in sight Floki hopped down from his perch at the steer board and walked unforgivingly up the hull. Frigga's head still hung in exhaustion and humiliation as he approached her removing his dagger from its sheath. Frigga's muscles and joints screamed as her brother yanked her to her feet. Some of the men, including Rollo, had involuntarily risen to their feet on guard. Floki's long fingers gripped her aching arms before slicing the rope into tatters with his knife freeing her raw wrists.
"May Freydis and Odin have mercy on you," Floki said before leading her to the edge of the boat. Frigga was able to turn to her brother one last time.
"You are mine and I am truly sorry." She was able to say before Floki cast her over board into the gentle waves leaving her to swim to shore.