Frida's eyes were stuck on the vivid flames of the fire as she sat on the bench that surrounded the fireplace of the long-hall. She was absentmindedly feeding Ragnhildir some porridge, while the small cutting sounds of the boys carving themselves new wooden daggers resonated through the long-hall, creating a small beat that Frida's thoughts seemed to dance around, while she stared into the orange flames in front of her.
She did not hear Helga's voice calling for her the first couple of times, but when a hand was put on her arm, Frida made a little jump in her seat, startled.
"Are you okay, Frida? You seem distant," Helga chirped in her small voice, eyes wide in concern.
Frida shook her head lightly before she turned her face to send a reassuring smile to her.
"Yeah yeah, I'm fine, I'm just… worried. About Bjørn and Freke," she answered in a small smile, her eyes quickly falling to Ragnhildir and Angrboða that were sitting on the floor in front of her, playing together.
She could feel her friend's eyes clinging to her.
Helga could probably sense that this was not the only reason for her thoughtful presence, but Frida prayed that she would not ask her more questions.
For she did not wish to admit that her thoughts were actually not centered that much on Bjørn as it were, they repeatedly shot back to the face of the newly arrived Götaland princess and how Ragnar had acted when welcoming her. And how he was currently giving her a personal tour around the village.
Frida bit her lip when she saw Helga smiling at her, and she quickly sent a smile back, a look of understanding being shared between the two women over the fire.
Helga suddenly rose to her feet, and she looked around to wave at all of the children that were scattered around in the long-hall, calling for them to gather around the fire. "I feel like singing. Won't you sing with me, Ubbe, Hvitserk… And bring Sigurd with you, please boys," she chirped lovingly, earning for Angrboða to clap her hands excitedly when hearing the happy cling in her mother's voice.
Frida let out a little sigh of relief as the air around the fire changed with all the innocent faces quickly gathering around it. Frida pulled up Ragnhildir to sit in her lap, and she felt Ivar taking her hand from his little wagon next to her.
"Which one should we sing today?" Helga asked, looking around at all the children around the fire. "Should we sing the one with the three trolls in the Norwegian kingdom? Or the one with the crow and the hunter?"
Frida felt Ivar pressing her hand, and she turned her face to see him looking at her intently behind his shaggy blonde hair.
"What do you say, Ivar?" Frida asked, nudging his hand back.
"The one with the witch and the toad!"
Helga bowed her head dramatically, her voice like small beautiful bells, smiling: "You better sing along, then Ivar, that's a tricky one."
And she blinked her eye at him, causing him to smile widely.
Helga was always so sweet, Frida swore she had not met another being as sweet and caring as her. You always felt welcome around her. Her entire person beamed with a light that was both inviting and soft at the same time.
Helga bent her head down as to make better eye contact with the children before her light voice filled the long-hall, most of the children singing along to one of the strangest children's song Frida had ever heard in her life:
"The mother witch let a toad
like a crucian carp roast
Rimme-rum, rimme-rum,
Smoke in circles, um um um!"
"Ture-lure laughed from luck,
He got the loaf of the butt.
Rimme-rum, rimme-rum,
Smoke in circles, um um um!"
"Trolle-rolle cried a lot,
he only got the rotten guts.
Rimme-rum, rimme-rum,
Smoke in circles, um um um!"
"Tokke-nokke came in tardy,
he got lamp's smoke at the party*
Rimme-rum, rimme-rum,
Smoke in circles, um um um!"
Helga's calming voice had Frida relaxing as she listened to the weird song, and how the throaty and so very Norse sounds at the end of every verse echoed beautifully around the room. She had never truly understood this little tale because most of it sounded as mere gibberish to her, but she liked the edginess of it.
It reminded her of the forests of these lands. The mystique of the Danish moors, and all the creatures that live in it.
And she could not help but to grin as she watched how the children smiled and sang along, dramatically overdoing the goofy words in it, Ragnhildir twisting her body as she sat in Frida's lap as if to dance along to the rhythm of the many happy voices. Frida actually forgot for a quick moment everything that had happened the last two days.
But it did not last for long.
When Helga had started singing another song with the children, Frida had felt a little gush of air waving through her hair, and she had turned her eyes to have them immediately lock with Lagertha's, who was standing by the long-hall's entrance.
Frida inhaled a quick breath when she saw the redness under her eyes, the motherly concern so obvious in her facial features, and she immediately came to think about Bjørn once more. She felt something heavy sink inside her chest, and while quickly putting Ragnhildir down into Ivar's lap she excused herself from the singing circle quietly.
Frida felt her mouth drying as she slowly started walking towards Lagertha over by the door, and she forced out a smile that faded quickly when she finally reached her.
"Um…" Frida tried in a small voice, but when she did not find any other words, she gulped down loudly. She did not know how to proceed.
"Bedroom?" Lagertha croaked shyly, her usual strong and confident air thin all of a sudden, as if she had been broken somehow, or as if all of the air she had breathed had been pushed out of her body.
Frida nodded eagerly, and she quickly turned around to stalk past the thrones of the long-hall, blood rushing for her ears as her thoughts were ever changing in her mind, whirling around behind her skull like leaves during a stormy evening of the fall.
She wondered why Lagertha had come, and yet, she would have found it strange if she had not. Frida had not talked to her, let alone even seen her since Bjørn left early this morning.
When Frida finally closed the door to her and Ragnar's bedroom, she turned around to look at the Norse woman that had placed herself awkwardly in the middle of the room. Even with all of her beauty, Lagertha looked very misplaced as she stood there, her stance crooked and weird, her eyes wandering aimlessly around.
Frida opened her mouth as to say something, but she could not find any words. Lagertha sent her a look that lasted for mere seconds but told her enough to make her close her lips back together.
She shook her head lightly, earning the blonde braids hanging from her hair to sway, as she said: "You don't have to say anything. I'm fine."
Lagertha's words hung thick in the air, and Frida could do nothing more but to stare at her. Her hair was beautifully braided like always, and her clothes were of some of the finest wool that was made in the village.
"Where's Ragnar?" Lagertha's thin voice sounded, earning Frida's eyes to fall to the floor in front of her, feeling another stone sink in her chest.
The silence in the room was louder than ever.
She sucked in a calming breath, before she sighed out: "He's currently escorting princess Ingeborg around the village."
Frida closed her eyes for a couple of seconds as the same feeling she had had yesterday when they had welcomed Ingeborg spread out over her heart.
"Oh, good," Lagertha voiced in relief.
Frida shot her eyes back to the woman in front of her, surprised by her answer. But Lagertha's eyes now seemed to shine brightly at her, and Frida sensed something changing in her air, something wild growing around her. She just could not place what it was.
"You should know," Lagertha began before she turned around to take a couple of steps closer to the fireplace, "I was aware of Bjørn… leaving the village this morning."
Frida felt her body stiffen as she took the words in, and she furrowed her brows heavily when Lagertha sighed out before her.
"I'm sorry, what?" Frida stuttered in confusion, and she took a couple of steps forward as to gaze deeper into the grayish irises of the beautiful Norse woman in front of her, trying to make sense of whether she was telling the whole truth.
This just seemed so… off, in some way.
Lagertha walked over to sit down at the table close to them, and Frida followed her closely, curious for whatever she had to tell.
Lagertha looked uncomfortable as Frida poured both of them a cup of ale. Lagertha downed a healthy sip of the liquid before she sighed out, her eyes turning sharply to shine into Frida's.
"I understand that Ragnar has not told you much about… our past," she said, her eyes falling to the contents of her cup before returning to Frida. "When Ragnar and I divorced, Bjørn and I went to the Southern part of Denmark. Shortly after our arrival in Hedeby, we were greeted by the earl of this town. The Jute, earl Sigvard."
Something dark traveled over Lagertha's face as she pronounced his name, but Frida disregarded it for the time being, too consumed with the story that followed.
"I do not wish to speak much about this… man, but I want you to know that he was a very controlling earl, and he had many difficulties accepting Bjørn into his longhouse, being another man's son. But Bjørn didn't exactly make it easy for him. As you might have learned by now, Bjørn is very conscious in his actions, and he takes great pride in being Ragnar's son. He would not let Sigvard have any fatherly restraints over him, and so he pronounced during a feast that he wished to leave the town for a while and go to the forest, to see how he would do on his own."
Lagertha bit her lip and swallowed hard, and Frida furrowed her brows as pity traveled forth over her skin, covering her slowly like the rosin of a fir, sticky and uncomfortable.
Lagertha exhaled something between a sigh and a chuckle, her lips curling slightly as she continued: "But of course Sigvard would hear nothing of it. As if the son of an earl is to rot in a pigsty in the mountains, he had said, ridiculing Bjørn in front of every villager present in the long-hall. A long story short, Bjørn never did get to live on his own like he wanted to. Even though his dream was always to return to his father, I always knew that he had not let this idea slip. I always felt it aerating inside of him. It was only a matter of time, I think."
The two women sat for a long moment in silence, both of them seeming to stare at the same darkened knot of the wooden table.
A question soon formed in Frida's mind, and she could not help but to let it slide from her lips. "Did he tell you why he chose to go now?"
Lagertha smiled sweetly before taking a small sip from her drinking horn.
"I married earl Sigvard because I thought it best for my son. For his future. But I have never been so wrong in my entire life. And I think Bjørn saw that. Honestly, even as his mother, I cannot say whether Bjørn will consider marrying Ingeborg, even if it will make him king of Götaland one day. He has always been… very preoccupied with finding the things in life that make him happy. And I wanted you to know that."
They held each other's gazes for what felt like an eternity, the air surrounding them thick with strange emotions.
Frida felt both excited that Lagertha shared these things with her, as they made her see the situation from an entirely different perspective, yet, the new information that she had gathered from it was not exactly exhilarating.
It made her feel like she had never truly understood Bjørn, or Lagertha for that matter.
"I'm very happy that you told me these things, Lagertha, I really am," she finally voiced while her mind tried to process all of the new insights this conversation had brought her.
She found herself imagining what might have happened if Bjørn had not chosen to leave this morning, if he had met Ingeborg before departing.
"You think Ingeborg is a good woman?" she heard herself ask, immediately regretting having said it as she saw Lagertha's lips parting into a wide smile.
Lagertha took a small sip of her drinking horn, her eyes not leaving Frida's face. "Hm," she breathed as she put her horn down on the table, cocking her eyebrow slightly, "I surely hope so. But princesses can be, after my experience, rather shallow beings. But I don't know her enough to make any judgments. What do you think?"
Frida felt her cheeks burning from her questioning stare, and she quickly reached her drinking horn up to her lips as if to cover her face a little. She did not know how to answer.
She felt a wicked desire of shouting that Bjørn was not to tie himself to this woman, that she was in fact a shallow being, and that they should simply end every notion of wedding her and Bjørn.
But she had no reason for saying these things.
She had no reason for not liking this woman. She did not know her at all. All she knew was that she and Ragnar had shared strange gazes, gazes that were only shared between a man and a woman who had some sort of deeper emotional connection… And now they were together somewhere in the village, only the gods knew where.
Frida shrugged her shoulders. "She is very beautiful, I guess," was the only thing she could come up with.
She heard Lagertha chuckling, and Frida could not help but to giggle a little herself when she saw Lagertha rolling her eyes.
"All the Götaland women are unearthly beautiful! As a matter of fact, all the women from Sweden, be it the kingdoms of Götaland, Svealand or Norrland, are enviously beautiful in their appearance."
"Oh," Frida breathed with still pinkish cheeks, and she bit her lower lip thoughtlessly.
She found herself picturing a hilly land where only tall, blonde, and amazingly stunning women lived, and she felt a small sting of envy pricking in her stomach, despite it being filled with the calming bubbles of the ale they were drinking.
A small knock on the door had both of the women yanking their heads in its direction, equally jumping in their seats from the sudden noise.
"Yes?" Frida called, and the door was shortly opened, one of the servants peeping in her head with an apologizing look in her eyes.
"Freke has returned, my lady."
*To get lamp's smoke: A Danish proverb that means you receive nothing. It is kinda like the English "it was a mare's nest," I think.
