Chapter Forty-Seven: Drottna

Becoming Queen Rúna was a massive adjustment. Thinking about the culmination of her fate for the better part of a year was one thing. Actually living said culmination?

Rúna thought she might never move past the embarrassment she felt when people dipped their head in deference to her. She envied Ivar and Hvitserk, princes born, and their familiarity with being royalty. For the time being, she could blame her flushed cheeks on her condition, but that would only last her four more months.

Pregnancy was likewise a perfect excuse for escaping the social obligations her newfound royalty brought with it. When she tired of company-for which she was never wanting for-all she need do was beg sleepiness and the women gathered around her would nod in sympathy. There were always women in the great hall, now, wives young and old alike, and the like-aged daughters of Kattegat's families beside. All were hoping to gain favor with the new queen.

Truly, Rúna did not mind the company so much, but she was often truly tired as the child continued to grow. By the time she was five months gone, Rúna was certain the child rarely slept. Kicking, twirling, turning, stretching... sometimes Rúna took walks through the market just to lull the babe to sleep and give her ribs a rest from the near-constant assault. She couldn't be too annoyed with the activity; it was ever reassuring that her decision to fight in the Battle of Kattegat hadn't harmed the child.

Besides that, Ivar loved it. Each night, he curled himself into the shrinking availability of her lap and, with one hand sitting over their baby, spoke to the child in her belly. Sometimes it was a recounting of the day's events: "Your Uncle Hvitserk spent the entire morning tracking a stag only to spook it when his bow string snapped, and he cursed at the top of his lungs."

Other times it was stories of the gods: "Loki, ever the trickster, transformed into a falcon to steal Idun back from Thiazi the giant, gaining the gods' favor once again when he returned her safely to Asgard."

Still other times he talked of Ragnar and Floki, of Aslaug and Helga. Those were the nights Rúna bit the inside of her cheek lest she dissolve into the tears she had become annoyingly prone to.

But Rúna would be lying if she said that time of day wasn't her favorite, to have Ivar's head heavy on her thighs and idly running her nails along the back of his neck while he talked. "Rúna?"

"Hmm?" An added bonus of Ivar's nightly routine was that his talking calmed the baby, and the kicks and stretching slowly petered out. Rúna had nearly fallen asleep herself in the absence of all that movement. It didn't help that she insisted on helping with the harvest that day, gently reminding Ivar that she was pregnant but not an invalid because of it.

His hand was warm where it rested on her belly, over top of where he had guessed the baby's head was. "You realize we have to name him."

After his dream, Ivar was staunch in his opinion the child was a boy. Rúna was more focused on the healthy child part of his dream herself but she also didn't correct Ivar for already referring to the child as such.

"You have to name him," she corrected, settling more comfortably into her pillows. Blessedly, her back wound had healed a month or so ago, leaving behind a ropy, red scar in its place. Just as she had told Tanaruz, Rúna didn't mind the scar; she was just pleased to be able to sleep on her back again, especially as her belly swelled and turning over in bed became more difficult. "It's traditional that the father names the child."

"My mother named me," Ivar said softly, running the pad of his thumb over her belly. She opened her eyes to find him gazing wistfully ahead and wondered if he was envisioning stroking their child so gently as he did her.

He was partly right. Aslaug did name him Ivar, but, as Floki had told her, it was King Ragnar who gave him the epithet 'the Boneless'.

"Already have a name in mind, Budlungr?" Rúna asked, hoping to get his mind away from the circumstances of his own birth.

"A few."

"Care to share?" He blew his breath in an approximation of a laugh. It seeped through her shift, tickling over her skin.

"No... I would like to see his face, first, to see which names best fits." Ivar placed a tender kiss to the spot his thumb had been stroking. Then he pushed himself up to cup her cheek with the same hand and brand her mouth with a kiss that was as searing as the first had been tender.

Since Rúna had revealed her pregnancy, they had only made love once, the night Ubbe sacrificed Lagertha to the gods. That night had been heady in more ways than one and neither had been able to resist the temptation despite her pregnancy, not to mention her back injury. They already wore little from the ceremony and when Ivar drew Rúna into his lap, she hadn't given it a second thought.

She had set the pace, straddling him as she had been, and had slowly brought Ivar to the breaking point of pleasure. Only a month had passed since then, and while her belly was bigger, it was hardly cumbersome, as proven by her day in the fields.

So, Rúna did not object when Ivar took her carefully by the hips to hold her steady before rolling onto his back. She was straddling him once more, greedy hands trailing up her thighs to ruck up the hem of her shift. Pale moonlight streamed through the partially opened window; the moon was already waning, leaving her exposed thighs milky in the weak light. Rúna rocked back on her heels so that Ivar's hands could continue their journey spanning over hips and waist and breasts before he slipped the fabric over her head.

She wondered idly what the rude Saxon women who, upon seeing the silhouette of her legs thanks to the shieldmaiden clothing she had often worn in England, had said her thighs were 'wide as a broodmare' would think now. For her belly was not the only part of her that had grown to accommodate the child. Her breasts sat heavier, to be certain, and she knew that would only be truer once the milk came in. The thighs that now bracketed Ivar's trim waist were a bit less muscular than they had been before, softer and pliant in his hands when Ivar gripped them to give himself the leverage to raise himself onto his elbows beneath her.

Rúna bent to kiss him, thoroughly enjoying the passion and hunger she tasted on his lips. "Better enjoy it while you can, Budlungr, before I'm fat as one of King Harald's whales."

"Stop that," he told her, catching her by the back of the neck and pressing another hot kiss to her mouth. "Gods, you have no idea how beautiful you are."

His hand knotted in her hair, keeping her still while he kissed her until she lost all coherent thought. There was only the feel of him, his solid warmth, the lingering taste of mead on his mouth from dinner. Rúna hooked her fingers in the waistband of his pants and tugged downward, hardly easing enough fabric away to leave him exposed when Ivar took her by the hips once more and slowly lowered her over him.

Her body had gone soft, it was true, but it was also so sensitive that she gasped his name before he was even fully inside her. Rúna took a moment to remember what it was she was meant to be doing. With one hand, she reached for the headboard, giving herself some much needed balance as Ivar smugly laid back into the pillows while Rúna began rocking her hips in the same slow, sensual way she had the night of Lagertha's sacrifice. "Is calling me beautiful supposed to balance the scales?" Rúna teased. "Didn't your wife help with the harvest, and isn't she carrying your child as we speak?"

"My wife is the very image of Freya herself," Ivar countered, raising his hips into her and earning himself a moan that Rúna had no hopes of stifling. "Long hair flowing, bathed in moonlight, belly swollen with my child, as you just said."

"You..." Rúna began, but couldn't decide how to end that sentence after the ran her thumb over Ivar's mouth only for his lips to part beneath her touch and catch her thumb between his teeth.

She closed her eyes, giving herself Ivar and their lovemaking. Beneath her, Ivar enjoyed watching Rúna's mouth fall open in a little pleasured gasp when he ran his hands up her thighs and over her belly.

Her only thought after, when they were both spent and she was curled against his side and Ivar was gently tracing the ridge of the scar between her shoulders, was that she was grateful their child would be born into love. "Don't expect me to be out of this bed before midday tomorrow," Rúna said, her words sleepily slurring together.

"And how will it look when I'm hearing Kattegat's grievances alone?" Ivar had reinstated the weekly time when the great hall was open for the people to speak, just as Aslaug used to do.

"Like you have a tired queen, and that you are a most benevolent king for letting her sleep." He chuckled at that, pressing a kiss to her hairline before she fell into dreams.

Though many fathers sent their daughters to sew and weave with the young queen, always hoping for a friendship that may lead to the rulers' favor, Rúna still preferred the company of Revna and Tanaruz.

And that remained true until she was nearing her sixth month and the first heavy snow of the season had fallen. Rúna's feet had begun an annoying habit of swelling, so that she developed her own habit of moving around the great hall in stocking feet and wearing Ivar's spare boots when she went out. This was much to the amusement of her gaggle of girls who, on that fateful day, were gathered around the hearth in the great hall, using drop spindles to make wool yarn for the coming winter.

Rúna herself was sitting with Hvitserk, playing a game of cards at a nearby table. The tittering girls weren't there only on the instruction of their fathers; Rúna, Ivar, and Hvitserk were all well-aware that the maidens of Kattegat also sought the eye of the unmarried prince. "You might do them right in if you ever paid one of them a bit of attention," Rúna murmured, placing two of her cards on the table.

She and Hvitserk had been frustratingly tied the entire game and that continued when Hvitserk's own hand was matched with hers. They both laughed, ignoring the looks thrown their way by the girls. "They're good playmates for Tanaruz," Hvitserk countered, "not for me."

Sixteen was the age of a woman grown, though many married as young as twelve, which was the age of many of the girls spinning yarn in the great hall that day. More of an age with Tanaruz, as Hvitserk said; her sister had just turned thirteen. Young men of Kattegat also vied for Tanaruz's attention, and Rúna could hardly blame them. She was a pretty little thing and growing tall, with a lithe figure and gracefulness to her movements.

Hvitserk was nineteen, nearing his twentieth spring. Though hardly uncommon, and nothing she hadn't seen before, Rúna still wrinkled her nose at the fact that he was at least seven years the senior of the girls ogling him. "That is disgusting," she chided, though she couldn't keep the bemused smirk off her face. "Do not call them 'playmates' in reference to yourself."

"Says Ivar's very faithful plaything herself." Hvitserk waved a hand at her rounded midsection. "He's quite a bit better at playing with others these days than he was as a child, no?"

Though the comment left her cheeks flaming, Rúna and Hvitserk dissolved into boisterous laughter. Rúna placed a hand on her belly, trying to soothe the baby back into sleep. Her mirth had seemingly roused the child, an errant limb stretching painfully into her ribcage.

Their laughter and the girls' chatter were interrupted by the slamming of the front doors and a frantic voice shouting, help! Rúna pushed herself from her seat immediately, moving past the wide-eyed, frightened gazes of the others with more speed than she had a right to. With the ever-present threat of Björn's revenge hanging over them, Ivar was working with the towns' carpenters and crafters to create new defenses on the walls encasing Kattegat, leaving Rúna and her giggling court in the care of Hvitserk and Vigrid. White Hair, of course, followed Ivar like a shadow.

Vigrid had been at his post at the door, coming into contact with the interruption before Hvitserk or Rúna made it across the room. The húskarl was attempting to contain a frenzied young woman, surely not much older than Rúna. Her brown eyes were huge in her face, her braid—a few shades darker than her eyes—swinging wildly down her back. When she raised her hands, perhaps in defense or attack, Rúna couldn't say, Vigrid firmly took hold of her wrists. All the while, Lagertha's owl flapped and hooted overhead in the rafters. "What is this?"

As Rúna looked on, one hand settling protectively on the swell of her belly, she noticed the girl's dress was torn, the pale, yellow wool stained red on one of the sleeves. "Nothing, my queen. Go back to your ladies."

"I will not!" She told Vigrid with a glare. Someone sidled up beside her and Rúna knew it must be Tanaruz. "And this is not nothing; she's clearly bleeding. Let her be, Vigrid, let her speak." To Tanaruz, she murmured, "Fetch her some wine and one of my shawls to cover herself with."

Vigrid released the girl, closing the doors of the great hall against an angry, distant shout of, "BRENNA!"

Hvitserk was quicker than Tanaruz, snatching his cloak from the chair he had thrown it over, now settling it over the girl's shoulders to cover the large rent down the back of her dress.

"That is you?" Rúna asked the frightened girl before her. "You are Brenna?"

The brunette—Brenna—nodded. When the door were flung open once more, banging against the walls, Rúna glared at the man in the doorway and wondered how much theatrics the hinges could take before they snapped. This man was tall and very obviously Brenna's father; they shared the same thick, warm brown hair. His eyes were green, however, and blazing. Without a second thought, Rúna stepped between the man and his daughter. "What is going on?"

At sight of Rúna, the father stopped short, his face flushed a violent red. Behind her, Hvitserk took Brenna by the arm and led her to one of the long feasting tables and gently pushed her to sit.

"That," the man spat, gesturing to Brenna, "is my daughter, and she has brought disgrace on her family."

"And how did she do that?" Rúna asked, sparing her own glance in the shaken girl's direction. Aside from her torn, bloodied dress, Brenna was also sporting a braid that seemed to have had someone tugging at it, for wayward strands straggled from the plait, and she wore no shoes despite the deep snow outside. "She looks to have been attacked."

"She is a wicked temptress," the man continued to fume. The girls who had earlier sat spinning and giggling now looked to be horrified statues. A few of them clung to one another, eyes wide in their ashen faces. Tanaruz returned with both wine and Revna. The older woman shooed the girls away from the hearth to sit at a different table under the guard of Vigrid.

"Is she?" Rúna asked, tipping her head to the side as if she didn't understand. "Brenna, I already said you may speak. So, tell us. Are you a wicked temptress?"

"N-no," her scared gaze lighted on her father, all color draining from her face. "Queen Rúna," she tacked on the honorific, pleading eyes settling on Rúna's face, "I-I tempted no one. Nor was I taken advantage of, much to my father's disgust. He would rather his daughter be raped than to have been in love."

Despite the wobbling of her chin and the shake in her voice, Brenna squared her shoulders in defiance. Rúna studied her, the straight line of her back, the petulant set of her wide, full lips. That she was a beauty was undeniable, and considering her gold earrings and the many strands of beads at her neck, it was obvious her family was well-off.

"But not in love with who your father wishes no?"

"A slave," the father spat, saliva plopping near Rúna's stockinged feet. She grimaced and took a step back. "The boy is no longer a concern, is he, Brenna? A feast for the fishes, once the river takes him out to sea."

The way Hvitserk winced was not lost on her. Rúna was certain he was remembering the body of another slave in that same river. Brenna, though, raised her eyes to her father's to glare openly into his face. Brown flames burned in their depths, easily matching her father's fury.

"Forgive me," Rúna turned back to the man, "I did not catch your name. You are…?"

"Toke, my queen. I sell baked goods made by my wife, Kara." That explained the family's evident wealth. While those native to Kattegat had no need to buy their bread, the town's trade industry was still thriving, and travelers were sure to buy before leaving Kattegat to journey home.

Rúna smiled at him, thinking of how Aslaug always did so when interacting with the commonfolk. "And I am sure you set aside quite a dowry for you daughter's marriage?"

"Indeed." It was customary to send a daughter with means for her new husband. Rúna had none set, herself, with Floki gone away and Helga dead. Marriage had never been something that she had considered before her relationship with Ivar turned romantic. Beside that, Floki and Helga had always reiterated to her that she was free to marry as she pleased when she came of age, bucking the more common practice of arranged marriages that benefited the joining families. "Kara made an excellent match for our daughter—our only daughter—besides. Not good enough for our Brenna, though, was it?"

Brenna glared anew at her father. "The oldest, drunken son of a brew master, Queen Rúna, and twice my age."

Mead and ale was another lucrative trade for the residents of Kattegat. Rúna could easily see the advantage of a baker's daughter marrying the son of a brew master. The combined families would have control over a solid portion of the coin moving into Kattegat via traders and travelers.

"A little too invested in his father's business, is he?" Rúna asked Brenna, watching the other young woman nod. "Not to your liking, it seems. But this other young man was?"

Rúna knew she was walking a tight line. Obviously, Toke was furious with his daughter for breaking her arranged engagement to another man. Brenna's bleeding arm was testament that his anger had become physical and Rúna was loath to send the girl back into the maelstrom of her father's fury.

"And I am sure you are most displeased with the fact that your daughter may bare a child that would not be her husband's?" Her question calmed Toke some, relief flooding his face and eyes softening as he looked at Rúna's own form. Those same eyes narrowed again when settling back on his daughter.

"The queen understands," he snapped at Brenna, "so how is it that you cannot?"

"I also understand," Rúna interjected before more fighting between father and daughter could form, "that this predicament would likely cause some bitter feelings between yours and the brew master's, yes? Let me propose a solution: pay the brew master's son the promised dowry and I will take Brenna into my household."

Rúna smiled again, hoping it was placating since her words caused Toke's mouth to fall open in surprise. "You would take a… a…"

"Were you going to call your daughter a whore, Toke?" Rúna asked, noting his hesitation to speak the word clearly on his lips. "You can say the word. I take no offense." The circumstances that brought Rúna to Kattegat were no secret to the people who lived there. "However, my husband? King Ivar the Boneless? He would be furious were he here to witness all this rather than seeing to the protection of Kattegat. And yes, I will take Brenna into my household."

"What if she is carrying the bastard child of that slave boy?" Toke blustered.

"Then my child will always have a friend close at hand. Vigrid, see that Toke makes it home safely. He has a debt to pay, and my new handmaiden needs seeing to. I am sure you wouldn't be opposed to bringing Brenna's things back with you, Vigrid?"

"Of course, my queen." Vigrid dipped his head deferentially before taking Toke firmly by the arm. Only when the door shut behind the men did Rúna turn away from them to find the girls watching her with wide eyes, their expressions ranging from shock to vague humor.

"I suggest you all learn a lesson from that," Rúna told the girls. "I'll leave it up to each of you what that lesson is. Hurry home; it is frigid out and only growing colder." They were quick to stand, clutching their yarn bundles while scrambling for their cloaks. Turning from the girls to hide her own smirk, Rúna found Hvitserk's shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Gods, Rúna, imagine the fit Ivar will have when we tell him!" He barely held the laughter in until the girls were gone. To Brenna he said, "I'd like my cloak back when you're finished with it, if you do not mind. I am going to find my little brother." Still laughing, Hvitserk patted Tanaruz's veil and kissed Rúna's cheek on the way out.

Alone in the great hall, Rúna led Brenna into her bedchamber with Revna and Tanaruz close behind them. Revna peeled Hvitserk's cloak from the girl's shoulders, sighing in relief when she saw that the fabric wasn't stained with blood and wouldn't need washing. Rúna and Tanaruz carefully worked the ruined dress off Brenna's arm to reveal a long, deep cut that curved around much of her forearm.

"I am not with child," Brenna told them softly. "Perhaps I should have tossed my bloody rag in my father's face so he might believe me."

"Even if you were," Rúna matched her hushed tone, "I meant what I said to him. He did this?"

"Yes," Brenna confirmed sadly. "After finding me with Ar—with the slave. In our barn. I do not think he meant me true harm," Brenna carefully inspected the wound, frowning as she did so, "or at least I hope he didn't."

"That will want washing," Revna said, indicating the curving slash. "Shall I heat some wine, Rúna?"

Per her request, Revna didn't call her 'queen'. Rúna hardly saw the need for it. "Yes, please, thank you. Tanaruz, bring in some clean snow, would you? I think a warm bath would do you good, Brenna."

"A-as you say, Queen Rúna." The reality of the situation seemed to be settling on the girl. Rúna gave her a kind smile and fetched a blanket to keep Brenna warm in the meantime.

"Just Rúna," she corrected. "I don't much like being called queen."

The three of them worked over Brenna, cleaning the cut and settling her into the bath. Revna retreated to the kitchens to see to dinner while Rúna and Tanaruz saw to Brenna. When Vigrid returned with a heavy trunk full of Brenna's clothing, the girls helped her dress so as not to agitate her newly wrapped wound. She was settled and seated beside Tanaruz at the dinner table by the time Hvitserk and Ivar returned.

A bemused smirk was playing at Ivar's lips as he made his way across the floor. The thump-scrape-thump-scrape of his crutch filled the quiet that had settled over Brenna when the brothers arrived. Ivar stopped behind Rúna's chair, leaning over it to greet her with a kiss to the cheek. "I hear you've had an exciting day, min dróttning."

He grunted despite himself as he took his own chair. The cold was always hard on Ivar, but he had stubbornly spent the entire day out in the snow as he oversaw the fortifications. A deep pull of his ale brough some color back to Ivar's cheeks and he winked one bright blue eye at Rúna. If woke to them too blue in the morning, he would be getting an earful from Rúna.

"My Rúna is rather lenient," he said to Brenna, addressing her from down the table. "I can and will have your father killed, if you wish."

"No! I mean, no thank you, King Ivar. I am happy to be done with it." Ivar gave a shrug, accepting a bowl filled to the brim with stew from Revna.

"Just as well." Ivar said. "Perhaps my wife will have a proper household after all, if she continues to take in wayward spirits."

When Tanaruz was tucked into her loft, and Brenna was settled in the servants' quarters with Revna, Rúna kicked her feet up into Ivar's lap. He was warming himself beside the hearth fire and she figured he had ample time to rub her swollen appendages. "What happened to not wanting slaves in service to you?"

"Brenna is hardly a slave," Rúna smiled in satisfaction when he pulled a stocking from her leg and pressed his thumbs into the arch of her left foot. "I didn't buy the girl."

Ivar chuckled, not bothering to remind Rúna she was once bought herself. "Didn't you? Perhaps bought her life, from the sounds of it. She's indebted to you, my love."

"Perhaps that is better," Rúna admitted, tugging on the leather cords holding her hair up. She shook her head as the threading loosened, her hair falling in random strands as it came free. "She needed help. That man was furious, Ivar."

"And she found it. Perhaps now you might give up the unneeded housework, hmm?" Rúna threw him a look even as his hands worked the ache out of her tired feet.

"I am going to scrub the floors tomorrow, if you don't watch it."