Chapter Twenty: Childhood's End

Pride and ribs smarting, Ivar found Rúna some ways into the forest, her skirts tucked up to keep dry as she scrubbed furiously at some washing she was tending to in the stream. Her boots and leggings lay on the banks, bare legs plunged in what must have been near frigid water this early in the spring. As he approached, she paused to inspect her laundry only to give a groan of frustration and continue scoring. She had twisted her hair back and stabbed it through with a hair stick but the strands were escaping the hold of the stick to cling damply along the back of her neck.

"What, Ivar?" She asked, not turning to look at him.

He did not answer, crawling until he was as close to the bank as he dared to go before twisting his body to get himself into a sitting position. Ivar grit his teeth at the way his ribs objected to this motion, which in turn made his split lip bleed anew. Eventually, she looked over her shoulder at him, gasping when she did, laundry abandoned as she splashed her way out of the stream.

"What happened?!"

Rúna's hands, damp and freezing, fluttered around his face. His cheeks were smudged with dirt, aside from his swollen and bleeding lip. A cold finger traced the line of a bruise forming along his cheekbone. "Your hands are like ice, Rúna, you might as well put them to good use on my ribs."

He caught those icy fingers in his, lifting his tunic with his other hand to slip hers where his ribs protested his every breath. Not broken, he knew, but sorely bruised. Obliging him, Rúna splayed her hand flat where he had placed it and repeated, "What happened?"

Bitter anger rose up the back of his throat. He had to swallow against it to answer. "I fought with Sigurd again."

"What of now?" There was no surprise in her tone. She kept the one hand under his tunic, soothing in its chill, but licked the thumb of her other to swipe at the dirt smudging his face. He bore it with the petulance of a child but resigned himself to the fussing and scolding he knew he was like to get from her.

"He has been sour for days. Margrethe's bed has a new guest—Ubbe. Though how that is my fault, I doubt even Sigurd could say."

Taking his chin in her free hand, she turned his face up to scrutinize the split in his lip. Her thumb ran along the lower edge, just below the minor wound. "This will want washing."

Her tone was ever so slightly stiff, raising suspicion within him. He narrowed his eyes, catching her hand when she tried to turn away to the stream. "What do you know?"

Why she had tried to keep any kind of secret from him was beyond him. They read each other too well to hide anything from the other. Rúna knew this herself; it was plain in the way her face clouded with momentary annoyance.

"Did Ubbe seek this out, or did Margrethe invite him to her bed?" She ventured, raising her eyes to meet his, warm gray peering into cold blue.

"You have made the observation yourself, Rúna, that Margrethe is a slave and could not say no." Her hand prodded gently at the tender flesh over his ribs, making him wince.

"That's not what I asked," she said simply. "Did Ubbe initiate it, or did Margrethe invite him to… share her?"

"I don't know," Ivar conceded. "What difference does it make?"

Rúna shook her head. "Perhaps none to you, but all the difference to me." She revealed, then, the conversation that had passed between the girls some weeks before. The one where Margrethe had shown her hand and her true motivations for being a paramour to the younger sons of Ragnar. A malicious smirk tugged at his lips as she spoke, to which Rúna pressed her fingers into his ribs. That smirk was quickly replaced by a grimace at the flare of pain.

"And here I had considered Margrethe bland," Ivar mused.

"She is like to end up hurting Sigurd, if she is successful." To this, Ivar only shrugged, unconcerned.

"Mother would never allow it. For Sigurd, perhaps, being the third son. But Ubbe is heir. I cannot fathom a world where Mother, a princess born, would allow Margrethe to be freed to marry Ubbe."

"Even so." Rúna could be such a bleeding heart sometimes. What it mattered to her if Sigurd ended up with his feelings hurt, he couldn't imagine. "Perhaps Sigurd could tell the others he doesn't want to share Margrethe any longer."

"Ubbe and Hvitserk are older. They are under no obligation to listen, even if Sigurd did pluck up the courage."

"And tell me, Ivar, when you have ever listened to Björn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, or Sigurd when you're not of a mind to?"

There was no argument he could frame against that, so he merely smirked instead. He knew her next question before it left her lips, and he was certainly 'not of a mind' to answer it. Instead, he grasped at a distraction. "Why were you determinedly drowning a bed sheet when I approached?"

Her face paled and eyes widened. "Oh, I was, um…"

But he had seen the ruddy stain before she had turned her attention to him, surmising it to be the source of her frustration. Ivar laughed, though it was short-lived when his ribs protested. He placed a hand over hers, pressing her cold fingers into the ache to soothe it. "I may only have brothers, but I know what courses are, Rúna."

She sighed, some relief coming to her at avoiding having to explain. "Men are blessed to not have to deal with them. I should leave the thing drowned in the stream and just make a new one, for all the good scrubbing has done me."

"Take it to Margrethe."

"I could hardly! She's Queen Aslaug's slave, not my own."

"I suppose I may have spoke too soon. I haven't seen, yet, if she'll manage to get the blood out of Sigurd's light blue tunic." Shaking her head, Rúna withdrew her hand from his bruised side. She rocked back, folding her legs beneath her tucked skirts.

"Oh, yes, and why did Sigurd's light blue tunic become bloodstained?"

Sighing, he plucked a handful of dead grass and let the browned blades run through his fingers.

"He is displeased with the recent developments in Margrethe's bed, as I said."

"Ubbe is her latest bedmate, not you," Rúna pointed out. "Not much of a reason for Sigurd to pick a fight."

"I suppose not…" The grass was rough and dry between his fingers. Winter cold still clung to the days, but an early spring was upon them. Only the most stubborn patches of snow remained in the shadows of cabins, the rest having melted some days ago. "Though we both know, Rúna, that dear Sigurd is not one for fighting with either Ubbe or Hvitserk. He reserves that privilege for me. Kicking the cripple when he feels low is cathartic for him, is all."

She wasn't having his dancing around the subject. Rocking back to study him, she crossed her arms and regarded him down the length of her nose. One eyebrow quirked up in silent prompting as she waited. Sighing once more, he rolled his eyes skyward to avoid looking at her.

"Sigurd may have made a quip that it was fortunate I was not sailing with Björn, as my best use on such a journey would be as an anchor, and I may have taken such offense to that as to knock his head on the table, all of which may have ended with the two of us fighting in Hvitserk's cabin."

When finally he dragged his gaze away from the icy blue sky filled with scuttling gray clouds, it was to Rúna's blank, nonplussed face. "And all of this is because of Margrethe?"

"In a circular way, yes." Nodding, Rúna pushed herself up and away from him. He watched her in silence as she retrieved her bedsheet from the stream, twisting it tightly between her hands to wring the water from it. Once done with that, she laid the sheet out flat on the grass before pulling on her leggings and boots, finishing with untucking her skirts from her belt. Only then did she return to him.

"Have you got your feverfew with you?" His hand drifted to his pocket to retrieve the pouch immediately.

"My ribs don't hurt that bad, and Sigurd did not harm my legs."

"Not for you, Ivar. For myself." She rolled her eyes at his confusion. "Do men not hurt when they bleed?"

The pouch nearly fell from his hands. Flustered, he inquired, "Courses hurt?"

Judging from the annoyance painting her features, Rúna was running out of patience with him. "Yes," she said simply, holding her hand open for him to place the buds in her palm. He gave her two, watching as she quickly plopped them into her mouth. She chewed slowly, the annoyance draining from her face to be replaced with a look of thoughtfulness.

"You could kill a man with waiting, Rúna."

"I'm simply mulling over the fact that sex, of all things, will be the undoing of the fabled Ragnar's sons." Pushing up from the ground again, Rúna motioned for Ivar to follow her. "It's cold out, still, and Helga's been baking."

"And your bedsheet?" Ivar asked, trying to conceal his labored, shallow breathing thanks to his bruised ribs.

"I'll come back for it. Or lose it. I would not mind, either way."

Flippant. Despite asking for the feverfew and the frustration she showed over her stained bedsheet, Rúna seemed in a good mood. She walked lightly before him, picking a path of the driest earth for him to make his crawling easier. Sex, of all things, will be the undoing of the fabled Ragnar's sons. Flippant, indeed.

Watching the swish of Rúna's skirts as she led him through the forest, Ivar was doing some musing of his own. Particularly that one line of teasing, tossed out so easily though it held so much weight in its potential to be proven true.

"I think your little friend is not long for this world, daughter of mine."

Spring was meant to be a season of new life, of rebirth and growth. Yet the newly-hatched chick, so small it fit neatly in Rúna's palm, had the fluttering breaths of death wracking its body. She ran a finger over the chick's downy feathers, prompting the tiny thing to crack an eye open. The deep, endless black of that eye tugged at her heart.

"No," she agreed with Floki. "But it shouldn't have to die shunned from the others, alone and cold and stepped on." Rúna thought back to the Ivar and the fox a year before, on her last trip to visit Angrboda. She couldn't bring herself to snap the neck of the fragile chick, instead closing her hands loosely around it in an effort to warm, not harm. Ivar had eased the fox's suffering in his way; Rúna would do the same for the chick in hers.

In the small garden beside her, Floki was breaking and toiling the thawing ground in preparation for spring planting. Rúna would be tending the garden alone that year, she knew, but she disliked that thought so much that she pushed it from her mind in favor of lifting the chick to cuddle against her chest. From the garden, Floki watched her, pausing in his work to lean on his shovel. His gaze flicked from Rúna and the chick she was tending to Helga, spring sunshine alighting on her soft blonde hair where she sat sorting seeds on a clean sheet. The two most important women in his life—though he was loath to think of Rúna as a young woman grown, with her sixteenth summer quickly approaching—occupied with the opposite ends of the spectrum of life.

Sighing, Floki retuned to his work. "Rúna, give me the chick once it passes. I'll bury it in the garden."

The chick clung to life longer than he expected, likely only due to Rúna's ministrations. She kept the chick warm by tucking it into her apron, where it was swaddled between apron and dress against her chest. There the chick dozed while she finished her work of cleaning out the chicken coop, checking for eggs and tucking some into her pockets, spreading out feed for the hens and chicks to cluck and scrabble over. Still breathing those fluttering breaths, the chick accompanied Rúna to tend to the goats and the family's cows as well. Only a pair of heifers, currently, though the firm swell of the red one's belly foretold that would change in some weeks. Tucked up and comfortably warm, there the chick stayed until a shiver ran through it.

Feeling that tiny tremor prompted Rúna to withdraw the chick from its bundling in her clothes, settling the airy weight of it in her palm once more. "It's okay," she murmured. "You're okay."

Life slipped from the little chick with a shuddering sigh, the body stilling within the cup of her palm. Only once she was sure the chick had well and truly passed did Rúna take it to Floki to be buried in the rich, dark ground. It was her own hand that covered the chick while Floki bore witness. When she straightened, Floki caught her wrist and pulled her to his side.

"Sometimes, sweet Rúna, I think you too kind for this world we brought you to," he murmured into her hair. She shrugged beneath his arm, wrapping her own around his waist to return his hug.

"I think you can be kind and Viking at the same time. You are. Helga is. And so am I."

"And so you are," he repeated. "Now, help this old fool make a fence repair before the goats have a mind to help us fertilize this soil, huh?"

Giggling together, they did just that. While Floki replaced pegs and worn-out twine, Rúna held pieces of fencing steady and straight. The goats—as curious as Floki had warned—milled around her legs, nibbling at her skirts in futile effort of finding extra food. As they worked, the small sadness that had pitted itself in her chest over the poor chick evaporated under the clean, bright sunshine.

With the weather so mild already, and with Björn's journey quickly approaching, Helga decided it was best to do the planting that very day. Floki built a miniscule cairn atop the dead chick, to mark the corner of the garden to be avoided, before turning his attention to making long, even rows to drop seeds into.

"Pay close attention to what we plant in each section, Rúna. I do not know how long you will be tending the garden on your own. Here, in this corner, we'll split the space between kale and cabbage. Next to that, a patch of onions and turnips alike, I think…" Helga went on this way, describing where each plant would grow as Floki obediently dropped the seeds in. Despite this obedience, a teasing smile was playing at his lips, tugging the corners upward and setting his dark eyes to sparkling.

"Helga, love, you are setting our Rúna up with a veritable homestead. She will be entirely independent by the time we return."

To her credit, Helga did not bristle under this commentary. "You have been to this new land before, then, Floki? You can tell us how long Rúna will have need of such resources?"

Duly humbled by his wife, Floki shrugged, still good-natured. "You will have to pose those questions to the Seer, dear Helga. I've no answers to give."

"As I thought." The haughty tone Helga had tried to effect in her voice was contrasted with the playful spark in her eye and the grin she couldn't quite contain. "Now, let's have two rows of peas and two rows of beans, each, over on this side. Come, my boat builder turned farmer and daughter."

Nodding, Helga took further stock of their efforts. "She will want only for grain, should she run out of the stores we have, and she can easily get that from Aslaug."

Rúna had no intentions of burning through the family grain stores, packed so neatly and carefully by Helga each fall and lined up like a row of sentries in their clay jars. Though she was fated to stay behind in Kattegat, under Aslaug's ever-watching, scrutinizing eye, Rúna didn't mean to give the queen any reason to hold further sway over her than she currently held. A hand drifted to the pearl dotting her earlobe, tugging on the earring absentmindedly.

Pushing those thoughts from her head, Rúna got back to work alongside Floki and Helga. She had plans with Ivar later that day, for her yearly trip to visit Angrboda. She swapped one spring-soft terrain for another, boots sinking into the incline of the mountain just as they had in the garden. Beside her, Ivar gave an annoyed huff as he encountered the same problem with his hands.

"I told you to wear old clothes," Rúna threw over her shoulder.

"Forgive me, Rúna, for not having an old set of wrist braces."

"How blessed are you that I brought you water to rinse your hands with for this very reason."

"Blessed indeed." While it was true that the path was more difficult this year, with a mild winter followed by an early spring and near-nightly rains, Rúna disliked his grousing.

"You do not have to come up here with me each year, you know."

Ivar paused when she did. She bent to collect some yellow wildflowers, but he scraped the worst of the mud from his hands on the bark of a tree. Grimacing as he did so, he told her, "I like to come on these yearly homage voyages. We both owe the girl thanks, in our own morbid ways."

"And what could you possibly have to thank Angrboda for?" Still bent at the waist, Rúna didn't spare him a look. Her attention was focused on the flowers, trying to pluck blooms for her basket without interrupting a little flurry of bees buzzing all around.

"You, for one thing." Twisting, Ivar sat himself on a patch of grass and grabbed his bindings to swing his legs forward to face her. He watched her in profile, the curve of nose and cheek and lips. "Floki, for the other."

She bit her lip, teeth flashing white between pink. Since starting the game, Rúna refused to blush. But Ivar was being serious, not provoking in an attempt to elicit ruddy cheeks. Still, he had to admit watching her efforts entertained him.

"I'm sure Floki would be in your life whether Angrboda lived or not."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not." A bird swooped low over Rúna's flower patch, snagging a bug for itself. "Mother says Angrboda was always a fragile child, though. Small for her age and bird boned. Had she lived, who is to say that Floki would have had time for my own frailties?"

A derisive snort came from the flowers. "I would never venture to describe you, of all people, as frail."

With her basket overflowing with sunshiny blooms, Rúna picked her way through the swaying foliage and waved him forward to follow her. "I'll teach you how to weave the flowers together, then, if you want to give thanks. It is like hair braiding."

"And I have an abundance of hair for braiding, as we all know."

Giggling, Rúna trailed her hand through his dark, close-cropped hair. Despite the soft mud beneath feet and hands, they crested the small hill on which Angrboda had been buried before the sun had reached its high point in the sky. Grousing aside, Ivar helped weave flower stems together after washing his hands with the water Rúna had brought him.

Once fitted with the yellow flowers, Rúna stood before the grave, arms wrapped around her stomach. "I'm happy she is with Siggy. Sometimes I wonder if they would have been friends, if they both lived."

Aside from the summer afternoon where she had revealed her vision to Sigurd, she hadn't spoken of it with anyone but Ivar.

"And both with Hel to watch over them." They discussed Angrboda and Siggy from time to time, when the memory floated into Rúna's mind, but never Gyda. That didn't stop her from thinking of how different things might have been had Gyda lived. Would Ragnar have taken Aslaug as his wife or only a mistress? Would Lagertha had left Kattegat? How would the brothers be different, had they grown up with a sister in the mix?

Rúna nodded, dispelling the musings in her head. She came to sit close beside Ivar. He was warm from the hike and noonday sun. "Do you think," she began asking, drawing up her knees beneath her skirts and resting her head on Ivar's shoulder, "one day, Helga and Angrboda will be reunited?"

"Perhaps, if Hel is also Helga's fate for the afterlife."

"Do you think Helga would still care about me if she got Angrboda back?"

Ivar's shoulder stiffened beneath her cheek. She peeked up at him, not moving her head, watching from that sidelong angle as his brow drew together. "Are these the things you worry your head over, Rúna?"

"I know she loves me," Rúna backtracked a step. "But sometimes I wonder if that would matter, if she got Angrboda back. I do not have any family I haven't chosen. Do you think there's a difference? Between chosen and blood?"

That gave him pause, his silence leaving the sounds of the forest undisturbed. Birds chirped overhead and the wind whispered through the trees while he thought; faintly, the waterfall could be heard to the east. He shook his head, jaw grazing her braids. "I love Floki as much as I love Mother. More than one of my brothers, even."

"Be nice to Sigurd." The admonishment was more a reflex, but Ivar was shaking his head again. It made her scalp tickle.

"Björn. I can understand why Sigurd and I fight so often. We are as close in age as Ubbe and Hvitserk, but not like them at all. Sometimes I wonder if we might have been had it not been for my legs. Perhaps not; I find Ubbe and Sigurd most alike. But Björn…he loves Ubbe, Hvitserk, and Sigurd well. I cannot say I have ever felt the same from him."

"I do not understand, myself, how Sigurd was able to forgive Björn for Siggy. It was his fault as much as Aslaug and Harbard's. I know he was off raiding when Siggy died, but he could have had more care for her. Placed her in someone else's home. We were all older than her—you, Sigurd, and I—and Aslaug had enough to worry about between caring for you and Sigurd's acting out."

Not to mention she was drunk and paid no mind to Siggy, little more to Sigurd, and only addressed me in relation to you. There were some things Rúna would not say aloud even to Ivar, and most of them had to do with Aslaug.

"Almost everyone looks at me with pity. Even Ubbe and Mother, from time to time. I would rather Sigurd be angry with me than pity me. Poor Ivar, with his ruined legs. Poor crippled boy. Sometimes I cannot stand it, the look in Ubbe and Mother's eyes when I need their help. But, at least, I know their pity comes with love. When Björn gives me a pitying look, it's in the detached and horrified way that strangers pity me. I hate it."

Ivar tipped his head back against the rough bark of the tree he rested his back on. Blue eyes seared into a blue sky. "Explain it to me again. As long as I have known you, Rúna, I still do not understand why. Sigurd blames Mother and I for Siggy, even now, but I don't think you do."

"I don't," she admitted. "Fate is fate, and if Harbard was truly a god disguised as a wanderer, who were any of us to stop him? Siggy's life could have been mine, though. Easily. A parentless child in dirty rags, easily forgotten and not missed once they were gone. I had that thought when we buried her, and it hasn't left me since."

"And that is why you fear Helga forgetting you, if the gods were so kind as to give Angrboda back to her in the afterlife." He shifted beside her, wedging his arm between her back and the massive tree trunk behind them, so he could pull her closer to him. So easily, he had connected the warring emotions and fears that she only ever gave attention to in the dead of night when sleep eluded her.

Rúna let him draw her in, wrapping her own arm about his waist. "She's not only here on this mountain. I know exactly where she is. Helga is strong in her way, but she's no shieldmaiden. I doubt her life would end in combat, which means Hel is as likely her afterlife as any other except Valhalla."

"Anyone who could forget you is a fool." He said it so softly it nearly blended in with the soft spring breeze rustling through the treetops. Still, she managed to hear it and squeezed him—gently; his ribs were still healing—about the middle.

Midspring. The fated time of Björn Ironside's voyage to the Mediterranean. Even as she helped Helga pack a small chest of clothing with meadowsweet sprinkled between the layers, Rúna was in denial. Eight days, her mind told her when her hands were covered in coarse flour and hearth flame kissed her cheek. Atop the clothing, they would pack these loaves of bread she was baking along with hunks of cheese and bags of fruit—fresh and dried—to have for the voyage. Were they packing too much? No one could say. No one knew how far away the Mediterranean was.

Eight days. Seven days. The reminder was always there, floating through her mind. A mantra, but not one that soothed. Even at night. It beat like a drum through her mind, one that kept time with the rhythmic rapping on her shuttered bedroom window. Rúna had found herself unable to sleep, instead sitting up in bed and twirling her old cloth doll between her hands while her mind kept telling her: seven days, seven days, seven days. Helga and Floki and Hvitserk all leave in seven days.

By the tenth rap, Rúna was so annoyed with whatever creature was interrupting her worrying that she threw off her blankets and threw the shutter open. When she did, the thick wood very nearly caught Hvitserk in his smiling face. "Finally. I thought I was going to have to fully break in."

"What are you doing?" Rúna asked in an accusatory whisper, eyes narrowing. The night was dark with cloud cover, leaving Hvitserk in muddy gray shadows. Still, she caught the glint of his teeth at his smile. "You smell like sour ale."

"Good, then my coins were not wasted. Get dressed and come with me, Rúna. We're having a forest celebration."

Regarding Hvitserk's shadowy form for another moment, Rúna closed the shutter softly so as not to make a noise and risk waking Helga and Floki. In the dark, she groped around until she found her bed and the trunk of clothing at the end of it. She slipped out of her night gown and pulled a shift over her head. By the feel of the embroidery, she was certain she had found her green overdress in the trunk. But how would she find the brown underdress she typically wore with it?

"You're taking forever." Hvitserk's words hissed through the cracks between the boards of the shutter.

"I'm a girl!" Rúna whisper-shouted back. "It takes a while for us to get dressed." Giving up on finding the underdress she wanted, she pulled on the one she had worn earlier that day, a creamy wool. Feeling along the trinkets on her bedside table, she found two broaches she was fairly certain matched each other to fasten her overdress with.

Outside, Hvitserk was chuckling as she quickly tied up the leather straps of her sandals. They were quicker than her boots, if not quite warm enough for a spring night. "Trust me, Rúna, none of us ever forget you are a girl. Least of all Ivar."

Rolling her eyes at no one but the dark around her, Rúna unwound her sleep braids and ran her fingers through her hair. When again she opened the shutter, it was to Hvitserk waiting impatiently. In an effort to maintain quiet, he helped her through the window, catching her at the waist and lifting her up and out. "Let's go," he whispered, taking her by the hand to lead her through the dark, shadowy smudge of trees.

They tripped on underbrush and fallen tree limbs, giggling as they did so. Deeper and deeper into the forest Hvitserk led her. Faintly, she could hear the roar of the waterfall; they were nearly to the cliffs, then. Just before they ran out of forest, she saw the orange-red light of a fire, and Hvitserk pulled her right to it.

"Brothers, nephew, Margrethe, I present to you Rúna Flokisdottir. Sigurd, you owe me a debt. I told you she would come. She didn't even ask me that many questions, only insulted my breath."

Laughing on the other side of the flames, Sigurd threw his purse at Hvitserk with no complaint. The older brother caught it easily, tucking the purse into his belt. Beside him, Rúna glared and snatched the bounty before flitting away from Hvitserk's attempt to grab her am, plunking herself down beside Ivar.

"Rúna!"

"Hvitserk! You can bear to part with coin you won on a bet about me, considering you are a prince." She undid the string holding the purse closed, pouring the meager coins into her hand. "You were robbed, anyway."

Beside her, Ivar laughed. "One silver coin and three bronze. Really, Hvitserk, it seems Sigurd bet you dregs."

"Still would have been more than I started the night with," Hvitserk continued to pout, taking his seat across the fire between Ubbe and Guthrum.

"What are we out here celebrating, anyway?"

"Sending our beloved Hvitserk off into the world unknown." Ubbe caught his younger brother in a headlock, mussing his careful braids. "Think you can handle raiding without me?"

The two of them fell into a wrestling match, each hurling insults at the other. Their brawling unseated Guthrum, the younger boy falling off their shared log and laughing as he landed in the dirt. Margrethe watched this all with a smirk on her pretty face, only laughing once Sigurd began to pluck a jaunty, mocking tune to the beat of his brothers' squabble. Ivar offered her the jug of ale they had been passing. In all his planning, Hvitserk had neglected to bring cups.

Sour indeed, the ale left Rúna's face puckering at the taste as she forced herself to swallow. "That's nasty," she admitted to a laughing Ivar, pushing the jug back into his hands.

"Hvitserk didn't buy it for taste, he bought it for potency."

"He got his gold's worth." The acrid taste lined her tongue despite trying to swallow it back. No wonder she had so easily smelled it on him. "There's still some time before sailing, so why are we drinking sludge in the forest?"

"We are going to the cabin in the morning." 'The cabin' being the hunting lodge frequented by the sons of Ragnar in the good spring and summer weather. It laid some ways away, up the mountain and far from Kattegat, where wild game ran free. Rúna shook her head, watching Ivar take a hearty swig from the jug before rapping Sigurd on the shoulder to offer the ale to him.

"I have my reservations any of you will be able to mount a horse come the morning." Ubbe and Hvitserk had quieted across the flames, only so much so in the sense that they were no longer fighting. Instead, they sat with Guthrum trapped between them, each gesturing wildly as they regaled him with stories of Frankia and Wessex. They were the only two of the younger sons who had sailed with Ragnar, in their own boyhood.

"The horses know the way by now," Sigurd said, all ease. "We could be passed out drunk and they would get us to the cabin in good time all on their own."

"I should hope so." Beside the fire sat another jug, tipped over on its side. Empty. Another rested beside Hvitserk's feet, presumably full.

"But," Sigurd continued, passing the jug to Margrethe and then leaning over Ivar to 'whisper', "we may need you to carry Ivar. See, Mother would be upset if we let him slide off the mountain. Or drop him. Or fall with him. Or… well, you get the idea."

"I think I do." Through the lens of this knowledge, it was easy to see Hvitserk's clumsy leadership for what it was: not hampered by the dark but by drink. "And how do you know I won't get drunk myself?"

At this, both Ivar and Sigurd laughed. Comradery between the two youngest was rare and it gave both Rúna and Margrethe a start. "Rúna, please. Mother has set you on the taste for fine wine and we all know it. I am surprised you didn't spit this out when I gave it to you."

She glared at the both of them but soon dissolved into a smile of her own. This was a celebration, after all. Besides, it was useless trying to be cross when Sigurd was playing his oud. He had begun to strum a song she did not know, but Margrethe smiled at the notes and stood. The slave girl pulled Rúna to her feet and just to the left of the fire, where there was more space.

Dancing was not so common in Viking culture, Rúna knew. But Margrethe was not Viking. Giggling, she showed Rúna how to bow for the beginning of the dance before placing her hand on Rúna's waist. "I am taller and know the steps, so I will be the 'man'," she said, still giggling. "Follow me."

The steps Margrethe taught her were simple and followed Sigurd's melody. Before long, Rúna knew them by heart, dancing effortlessly with the older girl as they both laughed. Their skirts swished all around in a dance of their own when they turned and twirled. When they tired, they sat just where they were in the grass, accepting drinks of water Ubbe had been of a mind to bring with him. He was the only one with such forethought, the other brothers and Guthrum taking pulls only from the jugs of sour ale.

Beside the fire, the night passed in songs and dancing and stories. Sometimes the boys got rough with one another, but for once it was all in good fun all around, even in the case of Sigurd and Ivar. The revelers might have stayed in those woods until the dawn, had the youngest among them not turned green some time after the third jug and begun retching. Though Hvitserk and Ivar both cajoled Guthrum to 'man up', Ubbe laughed and shook his head before throwing the whole weight of his nephew over his shoulder.

"Hvitserk, help me with him. He's piss drunk and heavier than Ivar. Gods, are we sure he's not Björn's true son?" With a pout, Hvitserk took half Guthrum's weight so the boy was positioned between him and Ubbe. "Sigurd, help Margrethe sneak back into the great hall lest she wake Mother and we all get a tanning. Rúna, see Ivar back, would you?"

"Can you crawl, or must I carry you?" Rúna asked, taking in Ivar's flushed cheeks and the way he smiled sloppily at her.

"My brothers worry too much. If I fall, it truly is not such a long way to the ground, is it?" He asked, laughing at his own joke. Despite his bravado, he let Rúna lead the way down the hill and through the forest. To his credit, Ivar travelled fairly well. Only once did his hand shoot out, clutching at her ankle so unexpectedly she nearly tripped over his grasp. Turning back, she could just make out the sudden paleness of his face. He had his eyes closed and jaw tight. After a moment, though, his mouth relaxed into another smile and he shook his head.

"I thought I might vomit, but I am fine." Shaking her head, Rúna couldn't help laughing.

"Come along then, drunkard. Let's get you home."

They stole through the streets of Kattegat as quietly as could be managed. At his cabin door, Ivar fumbled over the hearth. Rúna stepped nimbly over him and deftly lit a candle for him to see by. He slurred his thanks and clumsily pulled himself up onto his dressing stool. Bemusedly, Rúna watched in the flickering candlelight as Ivar struggled first with his hand and then his teeth to unclasp his left wrist brace. After a concerted effort, he lifted his arm to her. "Rúna. My fingers work as well as my legs, presently."

Setting her teeth to contain her laugh, Rúna took his hand in hers and began to undo the brace for him. He sighed once free, flexing palm and fingers and rolling his wrist while she worked on the right one. As soon as his hands were free, Ivar shucked first his vest and then his tunic, leaving his chest bare and Rúna blushing before she could make any efforts to contain it. She fixed her gaze resolutely on his face.

"You've seen me without a shirt before, Rúna," he teased, lifting himself onto the bed. He left his legs stretched out, feet resting on his stool, so she could undo his bindings. Thankful for a distraction, she began working them loose.

He was right, unfortunately. Even with his tunic on, it was easy to see the broad shoulders and muscles that worked below the fabric. It was another thing entirely to see those muscles exposed, wrapping around arms and chest the way they did. "It's different," she was quick to defend herself, not realizing she was speaking her way into a hole, "when you're half undressed and in your bed, Budlungr."

It was not until she had worked his legs entirely free of his bindings did Ivar lean forward, pinning her under a blue gaze that burned as bright as the heart of a flame. With him sitting on the bed, they were the same height. Had she not seen the amount he had drank that night, she might have thought him sober by that unwavering gaze. Hand steady now, he picked a strand of her loose hair to begin twirling around his finger. "Explain this difference to me, Rúna."

She bit her lip. It was not only the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks that she felt. Her heart had begun to pound behind her ribs, the intensity of his gaze leaving her feel wound tight in anticipation. "I was under the assumption you felt it just as I did."

Ivar smirked at that, eyes flickering down to give her just a moment's reprieve. He was close enough she could feel the warmth of his body heat. "Yes, but I wanted you to say it."

"You're a needy drunk, Ivar," she deflected.

"And you're lovely when you're blushing, Rúna." Which, of course, made her blush anew. She felt she might burn to ashes beneath the heat of him. Flustered, she pushed him by the shoulders so that he fell laughing against his bed. "Or training. Or annoyed with me. And that day we went sailing. And in the summer, when your freckles com back and the sun streaks your hair…"

Shaking her head, Rúna worked his feet free of his boots. "I'm ignoring you."

He laughed again, scooting himself back until he had his legs on the bed and then wrapping himself in his furs, rolling himself so that only his head was still exposed. "Does this make it easier for you?"

"You know, sometimes I fantasize about killing you."

"Not how I would have chosen to end such a sentence, myself." Rúna blew the flame from the candle, submerging them in dark so she need not see his smugness any longer. Still, the dark did not stop him from catching her by the hand. He brought it to his lips pressing them to her fingers and holding them there. "Rúna, I know you think me a drunken fool, but I've meant every word."

Did he feel the shiver that ran through her? There was no way to be certain, when she could not see his face through the blackness. "I'll remember that."

"Please do. Perhaps I may even be so fortunate."

Rúna was thankful for the brothers' hunting trip. It gave her time to delay revisiting the night of the celebration. Or, at least, it delayed revisiting it with Ivar. Gods knew she had thought of it each night in her bed for the past three evenings.

She was trying not to think of it now as she stood on the beach. It was a balmy day, warm enough that she didn't bother to tuck up her skirts as she waded into the tide to check Floki's fishing traps. There were just four days, now, until the raiding party would sail. A feast was coming and smoked fish would be the easiest way to contribute without dipping into the stores Helga intended to leave for Rúna's use.

Down shore, Björn was speaking with her parents. She peeked at them again before settling a now-empty trap back beneath the gently lapping waves. He didn't look too happy, head dipped low as he listened to Floki. Helga seemed troubled as well. Rúna drew her work out, waiting until Björn disappeared into the trees to take her basket of fish back to shore. Her soaked skirts slowed her somewhat; Helga had already returned to the cabin by the time she reached Floki.

"What was that about?" She asked, ringing out her skirts now that she was beside him. Floki did not answer her immediately, instead looking out to the horizon for a troubled moment. Then he turned to her with a watery smile.

"Rúna, sometimes secrets are kept for the better of others. Do you understand that? A traveler came to Kattegat today with troubling news for Aslaug."

Gray eyes widened, but Floki waved away the question she was preparing to ask. "I knew your mind would go to Harbard, but no, it was not him. An ally from a nearby earldom. He brought with him a story of the Christian lands. When Ragnar was there, he made a deal with a Saxon king to allow Viking farmers to tend land in his kingdom. But it was all a lie on the part of the Saxon king and the settlement was destroyed. Ragnar knew of the deceit by way of a lone survivor, whom Ragnar killed as soon as his story was finished."

Here, Floki sighed, dark eyes returning to the horizon. "I've helped Ragnar keep this secret all these years, but now it is out. I do not know if Björn will tell that I had a hand, but I do know the people of Kattegat are going to be angry."

When he reached for her, Rúna fit easily under his arm. "I would be as mad as they say to try to forbid you from going into town, but it would make this old man feel better if you promised not to wander alone until this runs its course, Rúna. And no more sneaking out."

She could have collapsed with surprise. For three days she had thought herself safe from being found out. Floki giggled before squeezing her tight. "I have ears, you know, Rúna. But I did not tell Helga, so you need not worry too much. See? I am quite good at this secret keeping business."

A/N: I decided to call this chapter 'Childhood's End', though it was another fun one to write, because starting with Chapter 21, we will be incorporating more of the show into our tale.

I realized that I skipped my thank yous last chapter! Aaaah, I'm so sorry. From 18 and 19, thank you to: Megan VR, mickypants, Kate, and Nightwingstress!

This one was really such a joy to write! I hope it is as fun to read. And I hope everyone is excited for what's to come, because I know I am!