Chapter 4
A Stranger in a Strange Land
She hated the ship and did not think she had ever been more cold in her entire life. Cold from fear, cold from wind, cold from waves. She wanted nothing more than to be home in her own bed, and wake to her maidservants comforting her from a terrible nightmare. No one was here to comfort her now. No one, but the hulking Northman who called himself Rollo.
He harassed her constantly and was always nearby. He talked to her in words she did not understand, offered her food she did not want to eat, and touched her with hands she wanted far away from her. His behavior was odd even to his companions, and she had not missed the judgmental glances they cast on him for his antics.
She was tired of him saying her name. Starting all his strings of words with Gisla then he would point and show her something. Gisla, a strange word, and then he would point to the boat, Gisla, another strange word, and he would point to the sky, Gisla, one more foreign phrase and he would point to the water.
His attentions frightened her, but not as much as the actions of the others did. She knew that they hated her. They made that very clear. A tall man with heavily painted eyes went so far as to spit at her feet. Rollo pushed the man away and began to scream. Gisla wondered if he was mad. Crazed like beggars who were bitten by wild dogs.
Gisla also considered the terrifying possibility that he was as sane as anyone and simply chose to act in this strange manner. That thought alone sent a shiver down her spine and in some ways she wished it was caused by dogs and he would foam at the mouth soon.
Nights were the worst part of the voyage. It became frigid out on the water when the sun set. Her once beautiful dress was stained from water and did little to help her stay warm. She was certain she would die the first night from the cold. Every inch of her body shook in an effort to stay warm. She didn't even try to fight when Rollo shared his coat with her. For better or for worse he was another warm body and it felt better to have the water's frost on his fur than on her skin.
He drew her back to lie next to him and wrapped both of his arms around her. The fur was thick enough for her not to feel the ship's deck and she stopped shivering for the first time in hours. Despite the good things tears still sprang to her eyes. It was so shameful to be like this with a strange man at night. She thought of the shame it would bring to so many in Paris if they ever found out. She then thought about how that may not matter because she would never see her Paris again.
Her eyes watered and her nose began to run. She wanted to go home. The Northman must have detected she was crying and drew her closer and rubbed his hand over the top of her arm in rapid motions as if trying to warm her. Gisla wished she was strong enough to brutalize him, to kill him for what he had done to her. She wanted justice for this transgression. She wished she had been trained in combat like the North women. She wanted to be able to stand and fight instead of cower.
Her crying increased while she thought of all the injustices in life. The man must have sensed that she was upset and began to whisper soft words to her in his language. He accented every few words with her name and she wished she had never told him what to call her. She didn't want him to know. His hand stopped rubbing her arm and became predatorily slow. Every inch of her clenched with this new unknown fear. The hand slipped over her waist and up. She shook with fear. There was a time she had been willing to kill herself before she let a heathen touch her, but everything seemed so simple then. She couldn't stop him. He was so much bigger than she was. His hand grazed underneath her breast and she threw her elbow into his gut before he could go further.
It had been several days since that night, but Gisla had lost count of exactly how many. Each day was just like the other to her. The water stretched out in every direction and she wondered how these people knew where they were rowing to. How did they distinguish one wave from another when they all looked the same? Her stomach turned at the thought that if she ever wished to go back she would need to cross these waters again.
She found it odd that the young man who had spoken to Rollo on the first day seemed to be the accepted leader of the group. It took her a day to realize that Ragnar was at the back of the boat covered almost completely by thick furs. It was shameful that someone as anemic as he was able to subdue her. His face was as white as the crest of a wave and he seemed to cough more than speak.
Her jealousy shifted from being about his defeat of her city to how he was given so many blankets. Each day the sun seemed to burn less brightly and she forgot what it was like to not shake from the cold. She was secretly grateful when Rollo sought her out that night. His eyes grew wide as he watched her hands tremble from the cold. He reached out and clasped one of her hands and her fingers stung from the warmth of his hand as he held it.
"Gisla,…" his other words held no meaning to her, but she thought he might have mentioned something about being cold. He opened his coat and swept her up inside. She instinctively moved closer and pressed her half-frozen face against him. Her throat burned and she felt feverish. She wanted to cry but did not have any tears left to shed.
Rollo held her close and berated himself for forgetting she was not dressed warmly enough for the journey. Her hands had felt like ice when he took them and he hoped her face was burned from the wind and not a fever.
He pushed the thought of her perishing because of his carelessness out of his mind and instead tried to think of where he could find her warmer clothes in Kattegat. They would be there soon. A day or two depending on if the wind blew in their favor.
He winced as he remembered that he did not have a place to take her to when they arrived. He wondered if what remained of his house was even left standing. He had torn it to pieces and smashed every piece of furniture inside when he was consumed with his grief for Siggy. It had been years since then. The house would be gone by now. He would have to build another home to live in.
He tried to imagine having Gisla sleep in the open and then in a half-finished house. She would hate it and him. She was a princess after all. Her father could have married her to a king. He kissed the top of her head and tried to ignore the way she winced at the contact. He was no king, but he was determined to treat her as well as he could.
The ship docked the next day. The excitement and frenzied movements of others. Women and children rushed to meet their loved ones. Calling their names like the sea birds that shrieked around the ship, and throwing themselves over their recovered loved one, or withdrawing quietly to the shadows when no one was there to answer their call.
Gisla's vision was hazy from a heat no one else seemed to feel, and she was shaking from cold and misery when a heavy hand fell on her shoulder. It was Rollo again. Her stomach fell as he pushed her towards the edge of the ship. For the first time in her voyage, she felt as if the ship was some sort of sanctuary for her. She didn't want to be shoved into the masses of people and animals around her. Crowds had never frightened her before, but in Paris, she was a princess. However, in this strange and frozen land, she was something less than that.
She was a slave here. A slave in ruined silk. A slave who mere weeks ago had hundreds of her own slaves.
Rollo leaped effortlessly to the dock above them and offered Gisla his hand. She let her hand fall like a stone into his, but she looked up at his eager face and froze. Whatever could he have in mind for her in this strange land?
The sharp cry of a woman tore through her thoughts. She froze and turned to see the other ship had docked and her country's women were being roughly dragged away by the men. Something stirred up inside of her. How dare they treat those women so!
She understood they were all slaves now, herself included, but it would be nobler to die trying to defend them than to peaceable submit to these heathen's wishes. She began to stride towards them when a large hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"No, Gisla." Rollo's voice was gentle and there was a softness to his gaze she could not place. This was no time for gentleness or foreign tricks of friendliness. Her people were in trouble.
"Unhand me, you beast!" She tore away from his clutches. "I am their princess and they are my people! I wish to share their fate in all ways!"
Rollo's breath hitched in his throat. The docks were busy with the excitement of the raiders returning. Families were reuniting, treasures were being divided, and everyone was listening to the stories brought back from Frankia.
The princess had probably never seen anything like this, but this was not the place to make a scene. Especially not about slaves when the men were bartering over which ones they would leave the docks with. The way treasures were divided after raids could have deadly consequences in the best of times.
Bringing Gisla to Kattegat with him was precarious. He didn't even know if something like this had ever been done before. If he took her as a bed-slave no one would have thought much of it. If he made her his concubine there would have been some confusion, but they would assume he favored her. To make a foreign woman taken as a war prize his wife would be unthinkable to them.
He grabbed her hand more firmly and repeated a phrase he was sure she understood. "Gisla! No!"
He watched as her eyes grew distant and then snapped back into place with the intensity of an inferno. With twice the volume as before she spoke again. He had not heard her speak this loudly since she stood on the wall urging the Frankish men to victory.
Rollo felt like every set of eyes in Kattegat had settled on them. He tried one last time in a whisper, hoping she would understand now was not the time to draw attention to herself. "Gisla no."
He watched her inhale sharply and clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her from speaking again. Rollo yanked his hand away from her in mouth in surprise. As soon as he placed it over her mouth. She had bitten him.
He had always loved her fire. That she had the spirit of a Valkyrie. But now was not the time. He knew she was going towards the women slaves. She was no longer their princess. They belonged to whoever claimed them and their fate would be a miserable one.
Without a shared tongue he could not explain these things to her. He did know that all the attention had grown dangerous. And coaxing her into following his lead was no longer an option. In a swift motion, he tucked her under his arm and grasped her upper arm and shoulder with enough force that she had no choice but to follow when he started to move.
He tried to move steadily and swiftly away from the curious and searching eyes around them. Unfortunately, the heads of his countrymen seemed to swivel and track their path and he began to walk with a greater intensity.
He felt Gisla suddenly lurch forward and he caught her just before she fell. Perhaps he was moving too quickly. He glanced around furiously trying to see if anyone was still in their home and had not seen what had happened. Then it dawned on him who was missing. Aslaug.
Of course, she would be at home with her little children, unable to race away at a moment's notice. He moved his hand from around her shoulder and latched onto her hand firmly to dissuade her from protesting he stepped off of the path into the woods. He needed to go quickly in hopes that he could speak to Aslaug before any news reached her.
Already the words he needed to speak to Aslaug were swirling in his mind. He was not sure yet what to say that would persuade her to let him leave Gisla at her home and dispel any rumors that might surface as the crowd left the docks.
His relationship with Aslaug was an interesting one. In many ways, they were united by being bound to the whims of his brother. Both had moments of intense loyalty to him, that he failed to pay in kind.
The last time he spoke to Aslaug was after the death of Siggy. She had done her best to comfort him with her gratitude for Siggy's sacrifice. Her son's were alive because she pushed them above the surface and onto the ice that cold winter's day. He could ask her to do this favor for the sake of Siggy, but that didn't feel convincing to him. Rollo knew it was an open secret that he had not always been good to her.
He shook his head to clear that thought and decided he would remind Aslaug of the time he saved her from Jarl Borg's attack and kept her safe in Ragnar's absence. Now all he had to do was pray to Odin for wisdom in the words he used to sway her.
The walk was not a great distance and soon the longhouse was in sight. Rollo glanced down at Gisla who was still scowling as she marched along.
In the fresh light of day, and away from the ship he became aware of how bedraggled she had become. He clothes were torn, stained, and dirty. Her hair was matted from the salt and wind. And her eyes were red from crying.
Rollo could not present her to Aslaug like this. He stopped walking and paused to start trying to brush the dirt from her skirt.
She jumped at the contact and gazed at him with frantic and searching eyes. He returned a sheepish smile trying to reassure her and continued trying to remove the worst of the dirt. Gisla didn't fight. She grabbed the sides of her skirt where her hands naturally fell and held her skirt down. Rollo couldn't understand her curious behavior and carried on cleaning the dress.
Once finished he turned his attention to her hair. Rollo raked his fingers through Gisla's hair trying to make it look like she hadn't gone days without combing it. He wanted Aslaug to see and understand that she was a princess too.
Rollo looked her over one last time, she looked better than before she started, but nothing like the princess he first saw that stood on the wall and stirred men to action. She would need to visit the bathhouses and have a new dress to appear like that again.
While looking her over he noticed something glint in the sun and he took a closer look. Before her dress was worn and stained it shone in the sun like butterfly wings, but now it was dull. The shine was the unmistakable glow of gold. She was wearing a golden cross on a beaded chain.
Rollo thought back to the disdain Aslaug held for Athelstan, the Christian priest his brother befriended above all others. In truth, Rollo did not know if her dislike stemmed from the fact that he was a Christian like she said, or if it was because Ragnar loved Athelstan more than anyone.
Rollo could not send her to stay in Aslaug's home wearing a symbol of the Christian god.
He took hold of the beads and began to lift the necklace off. Gisla's hand flew up to stop him and she hissed what he assumed was a curse in her language. He didn't intend to break the necklace or keep it from her forever, but right now he could not let her wear it.
"Gisla." He said in a warning tone. Her grip only tightened at his warning. With the skills honed on many battlefield he outwitted her physically. In one fluid motion he broke free of her grasp and removed the necklace from her neck.
She sprang into action to try and grab it back from him, but he already had it out of her reach by then. Before she could react he made her start walking again.
It was time for his princess to meet her equal.
Author's Note:I was going through some files and found this story again. I was shocked by how many chapters I had already completed. I don't know if anyone will read them, but maybe someone will stumble on this story one day.
A special thanks Miss_Bubles on AO3 who left such an amazing review about a year ago.
Please remember to review if you enjoyed this.