Chapter Thirty: For Helga
Rúna had no concept of how long she sat beneath the tree beside Helga's grave. Night fell, bringing with it a chill that settled into her bones. Floki had wrapped her cut hand for her in a makeshift bandage; eventually, the cold made the injury ache and feel stiff. Still, it was not until her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably that she pushed herself up and made herself walk woodenly back to the sacked castle of King Ecbert.
Tanaruz was where Rúna had left her hours ago. She sat huddled under her veil, but when Rúna approached, the girl's eyes went wide and her face pale. Pushing herself up, Tanaruz turned and ran, clearly thinking Rúna meant her harm.
"Wait!" She yelled, spurring herself into a run after the other girl. "Tanaruz!"
Chasing Tanaruz through the twisting hallways was no small task. There were bodies to leap over, burnt—and still smoldering—furniture to navigate around. No candles burned in many of the hallways, leaving Rúna nearly fully blind as she tried to keep up. Tanaruz was light on her feet, leaving Rúna farther and farther behind.
Björn had neglected to lock the door, though Ivar could clearly see the door had one in the split second before it slammed against the stone wall to reveal Tanaruz. Rúna's little sister. Her face was stark white with fear, eyes swallowing up her face; she calmed for a moment when those dark eyes landed on him, but it was fleeting. Björn stormed forward, grabbing the girl roughly by the arms and dragging her into the room.
"Hey!" Ivar protested, but Björn paid him no mind. Instead, he lifted Tanaruz off her feet to bring her eye to eye with him.
"Why are you still alive?!"
It was common knowledge that she didn't know much Norse as yet, and furthermore that she had a habit of only speaking to Rúna. Annoyance spiked within him when Björn shook the girl. Glancing at his other brothers, Ivar found Ubbe moving forward while Hvitserk and Sigurd watched with confusion clear on their faces. Whatever Ubbe meant to do to intervene was stopped by a hard shove from Björn after her dropped the girl to withdraw a dagger from his belt.
"You'll drop that knife if you mean to keep that hand, Björn Ironside." Rúna's voice gave them all pause. Ivar pushed himself up, sitting straighter so he might see her behind Björn's hulking frame. She spoke in a tone he had never heard from her: low, hard, deadly. If he thought Tanaruz was pale in her fear, Rúna was ghostly. Smudged face paint, a smear of dark, dried blood, freckles, and her wild red hair all stood out in bold contrast to her wan skin. Her gray eyes were nearly colorless as they fixed a Björn with a murderous glare.
Her sword was drawn, though she kept it inoffensively by her leg as she came forward.
"You would protect her?" Björn asked, incredulous. "She killed Helga!"
"Yes, I know. I was there. You were not." The fact that Rúna dare oppose him seemed to have all but frozen Björn in shock. Ivar couldn't help smirking at the display, canting his head to the side to get a better view as Rúna blocked Tanaruz and tipped her head back to meet his brother's eye. He pulled a throwing knife from his belt; Ivar would intervene if need be, though it appeared to him that Rúna was more than handling her moment here. "I promised Helga I would not forsake Tanaruz, and I'll not deny my mother her dying wish. If you mean to harm her, you'll first have to cut me down."
Movement to his left drew his attention. Sigurd had pulled his axe, holding it loose but ready in his hand. First he agrees with me, now he means to protect Rúna. Perhaps his brothers were right and Ivar was losing his mind.
Rúna stared up at Björn for several beats, her face oddly serene as she waited for the man before her to make his decision. Eventually, Björn turned from her, sheathing his blade and waving her away. "It is your choice."
"Yes." It wasn't lost on Ivar that Rúna didn't put her sword away. "It is." Reaching behind her, Rúna took Tanaruz by the hand. She paused at the door, turning back to look over them all. First, Björn's back, then Ubbe and Hvitserk, Ecbert in his cage—the man had been surprisingly silent about this interruption—Sigurd, and finally Ivar. Her eyes came back to life as they met his, filling with a small sparkle of mischief. Rúna's lips quirked and parted as if she meant to say more, but apparently decided against it. She gave a small shake of her head and gave him a wan smile.
Whatever quip she had decided not to share, Ivar knew he would be hearing it later.
"I won't hurt you," Rúna whispered, taking Tanaruz by the chin so she could wash the soot, dirt, and tear tracks from the younger girl's face. "But I am still angry at you."
She knew herself for the liar she was. 'Anger' was too weak a word for the roiling waves of white-hot fury crashing over her. Yet, still, she was not sure if this fury was directed more at Tanaruz or the gods and she refused to act on it until she knew for certain, lest she make a mistake.
Tanaruz kept her eyes downcast, which suited Rúna fine. She didn't want to see the fear she knew she would find there. The girl had every right to be terrified after what she had done, and it was only Helga's voice that kept Rúna's hand from striking out to slap the girl. Or worse.
Promise me you will not forsake her.
When, Rúna wondered, would she be free of molding her life after the words of dead women. First Queen Aslaug and now Helga. Though, the difference here was that she would gladly replay her mother's words to keep hold of that small fragment of her for all her life.
The two of them had clearly interrupted a meeting among Ragnar's sons and the captured King Ecbert, held aloft in a metal cage, but the other forces of the army were settling down for the night. Rúna had seen many in the courtyard where she had found Tanaruz and still more had forgone their tents at the chance to sleep indoors, in a massive room that had been cleared of furniture. Here, she had found Bodil and Gisli, having begged some of their supplies to care for Tanaruz.
Rúna knew not where any of her own things were. Had they ever made it off the boats? Helga was in the ground beneath that tree and Floki was missing; there was no one for her to ask. Instead, she laid out a borrowed cloak for Tanaruz to sleep on.
Promise me you will not forsake her.
Since coming to Kattegat, Tanaruz was not able to go to sleep unless Rúna laid down with her. The same had been true on the boats and in the camps. So, though she had no desire to, Rúna laid beside Tanaruz and let the girl curl herself up beside her, laying her head on Rúna's outstretched arm.
Promise me you will not forsake her.
Gods, but honoring Helga had never been more difficult.
Ivar found her by her singing.
"Ask veit ek standa, heitir Yggdrasill…" a song of fate. Völuspá. "hár baðmr, ausinn hvíta auri; þaðan koma döggvar þærs í dala falla; stendr æ yfir grœnn Urðar brunni."
He recognized the song; it was one his own mother had favored when singing her young sons to sleep. I know an ash tree standing… it forever stands green over the well of Urðar. A song of the tree of life and Urðar, one of the norns who weave the destinies of humans. As a child, Ivar had always thought it a little humorous that Mother sand it to them, considering she herself was a volva.
Unbeknownst to Ivar, it was the same song Helga had sung just before her death.
Hearing Rúna sing it, though, gave him chilled pause. He stopped his crawling, watching the spill of moonlight across her hair. Rúna's back was facing him, her body curled around Tanaruz, no doubt. Only when she finished her soft singing did Ivar draw forward again, close enough to lay his hand on her shoulder.
She gave no start of surprise; she had been expecting him. Carefully, Rúna untangled herself from the other girl and nodded to the wall. They sat together there, close enough that Rúna could keep an eye on the sleeping Tanaruz. Swallowing hard beside him, Rúna tugged at her leather armor as if it were confining her.
"I understand now, Ivar." She didn't look at him, gray eyes bleached silver in the moonlight streaming from the windows fixed straight ahead. "I am so furious I can hardly stand it. Inside, I feel broken, like everything is shattered and sharp and may never fit all together again, and I can't do anything about it."
It was the same voice she had spoken in earlier, the one she had used with Björn: low, calculated, yet unable to mask the very hurt and anger she was speaking of.
"You could," Ivar countered, keeping his own voice low as he nodded in the direction of Tanaruz's sleeping form. "I could."
Rúna's head whipped to the side, fixing him with a glare so venomous he was actually stilled by it. "You won't," she told him firmly before sighing, her features softening as she took his hand. "And neither will I, Ivar. You know that."
Duly put in his place, he could do nothing else but concede, "I do."
Taking his hand from her, Ivar scooted himself to the little bowl of water and cloth Rúna had left nearby. She had used it earlier to clean Tanaruz's face; now Ivar used it to do the same. He waved her closer, and Rúna obligingly kneeled before him so that Ivar could gently swipe at her face with the cool, wet cloth.
She sighed again under his touch, letting him wash away the grime of her day: tears, the designs Helga had carefully painted, her mother's blood. Once her face was cleaned, he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her damp forehead. They laid down together, not far from where Tanaruz herself rested, Rúna pillowing her head on his chest.
"I am not certain Floki will return," she confessed to him. "If I am shattered, he was decimated." Her fingers idly traced the woven pattern of his armor. Ivar shook his head, the cold tile rough on the back of his skull.
"Floki would not leave you," he argued.
"He would not leave me alone," Rúna amended. "But he would leave me with you."
Splaying a hand flat on Ivar's chest, she pushed herself up so that she was backlit by the moonlight. This threw her features largely into shadow, her hair swinging forward over her shoulder to tickle at his cheek and neck. Still, he could just make out her hesitation, evident in the white flash of her teeth worrying over her bottom lip. She gave a shake of her head, the ends of her hair flicking across his face.
"Ivar." It didn't escape his notice that she had called him by his name, not once referring to him as Budlungr, this entire night. Her hand gripped at his armor, as if drawing strength from him. "I cannot say why the gods have taken my right to avenge Helga from me." An errant tear hit his chin; Rúna closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. She bit at her lip and swallowed again before continuing.
Her hand gripped at him again, a wet warmth seeping beneath the stiff leather into his tunic beneath. She had opened the wound on her hand again; it was now bleeding through her bandage. "I can do nothing with this anger, Ivar, except give it to you and to our fate. I can't avenge Helga in the way I desperately want to… but I can bring the fury of our gods on these Christians for Ragnar. And I can help topple Lagertha for Aslaug. So, I will give it all to you, though gods know you have enough anger of your own. Please, Ivar, just tell me what to do with it before it burns me up and I can't keep my promise to Helga."
She was crying in earnest now. Ivar pushed himself up, catching her mouth with his in time to stifle her sob. He kissed her, hard, and Rúna responded in kind until she calmed enough to pull away from him. When she did, he tipped his head forward, meeting her forehead with his.
"It will still be for Helga," he told her. "All these events brought her to her fate, no? From Lagertha's usurping to Father's death. We will bring our revenge down with the same heaviness of Thor wielding Mjölnir, and it will still be for Helga." He caressed her cheek, framing her face as she nodded. "Before I left here and returned home to Kattegat to bring news of Father's death, he told me to use my anger wisely. To become ruthless."
Rúna's face was hot and slick with her tears, but her voice was steady when she told him, "Then we will the both of us become ruthless."
Ivar smiled before kissing her again. He had loved her all his life, and yet he was certain he had never loved her more than he did this night.
A/N: Thank you, Kate, for the review last chapter!
This one is quite a bit shorter than I usually aim for with this story, but I wanted the focus to be on Rúna, her emotions about Helga's death, and the beginning of her processing it... with some help from Ivar, of course. We'll move things along next time!