A/N: This is a rewrite of a story I wrote about 7 years ago. I felt myself get drawn back to this story and I wanted to see how it's changed over the last 7 years and also how I've changed as a writer. So thank you for choosing to read. :)
The room was filled with the sound of quills scribbling and the scent of old parchment. I unfurled another scroll, carefully pulling the parchment to reveal the ink on its other side. Once it was open enough, I set a small weight at the top of the scroll and my eyes scanned down the length of parchment.
It was a phonics sheet, explaining how to sound out Northmen words phonetically. I whispered the words out loud as quietly as I could, being careful to listen to how the word sounded and how it felt on my tongue and teeth.
The dozen scrolls had been written years ago by a former monk named Athelstan. He had turned to the Vikings, and when he visited Wessex, he wrote down the details about their language. He had written their common words and phrases, their sentence structure, and the phonics needed to properly pronounce everything. There was still so much missing, and that had been the biggest challenge since choosing to study the language of Vikings.
Languages have been my favorite thing to study since I had first heard a diplomat speaking Frankish to his traveling companions. The idea of there being hundreds if not thousands of new languages across the world had been so much more interesting than my religious and womanly studies lessons. At first, my tutor had been eager for my interest in languages, seeing as I needed to learn Latin to continue our religious lessons. But I hadn't wanted to learn Latin to read the Bible over and over again. I wanted to speak it. But only priests and those involved in the church spoke Latin regularly. That fact hadn't stopped my request to learn to speak it, and that frustrated my tutor something awful.
"It's bad enough I have to teach the girl," I had once overheard my tutor venting to one of the castle stewards. "I honestly don't know what the king is thinking, teaching a bastard as much as I am."
This attitude was not unique. No one dared to question King Ecbert to his face, but I heard the whispers through the halls of the castle, servants and nobles alike speaking behind hands and around corners when they thought no one else was paying attention.
Why had the king insisted on educating and bringing up his bastard daughter when it would be so much easier to just ignore her?
My mother had been young, too young some would say, when the king had laid with her. Constance had been seventeen, a servant, and had fallen in love with King Ecbert and had gotten into bed with him. According to the rumor, it had only happened once, but once had been enough. Constance had given birth to me that same winter, days after Christmas.
Constance had been dismissed from her job at the castle, and King Ecbert had ignored us for seven years. My mother had struggled to survive and raise me, often bringing home piles of clothes for mending so she could earn some extra coin.
And then, during the harsh winter when I turned seven years old, a plague had swept through the castle and its surrounding city. Constance and I had both gotten sick, sweating through our clothes and vomiting up any contents of our stomachs. And then one morning, I had woken up shivering with cold and sick and turned to my mother, but she was already gone.
Maybe King Ecbert heard of the toll that the winter plague had taken on his people. Maybe someone who still had access to the castle went to tell him personally that Constance had died and her child was left alone. Whatever the reason, King Ecbert had sent for me, and I had been brought to the castle to live there, to be educated and raised as a recognized child of the king.
The scrolls underneath my fingertips were rough, and I felt my tongue twist uncomfortably on a word that supposedly meant the bow of a ship. I cleared my throat and tried again, the word sounding awkward to my own ears.
Footsteps sounded and interrupted my studying and I glanced up to see Averill, the castle's lead steward looking down at me. "Augusta," He said. "Your half brother is requesting your presence in the throne room." Averill looked down to the scrolls as I began to gently roll them up to return them to their shelves. "Funny you should be reading up on those ones."
I looked up from the scrolls and blinked at him. "What do you mean, Averill?"
"Ragnar Lothbrok has returned." Averill said dismissively, as if he was discussing the weather. "He arrived in the courtyard just this past hour. Hurry and put those scrolls back. Prince Aethelwulf is not a patient man."
I hurried to throw the scrolls back to their proper place before leaving the library. Averill didn't wait for me to leave before disappearing down the halls, leaving me to walk to the throne room alone. One could tell that something was happening with the way people were rushing around. There was a nervous air in the halls; Ragnar's sudden arrival had people shaken.
Had he come with other Vikings? The way Averill had told me of his arrival made it seem like he had just walked into the courtyard and waited for someone to notice him, but he wouldn't do that, would he? I had never met Ragnar, not officially anyway. I had been young when Ragnar Lothbrok had last come to Wessex. According to Father, the Viking warrior had scooped me up and placed me on his shoulders, just to hear my giggles.
There was a small crowd of people outside the closed doors of the throne room, muttering to themselves as they waited for word. I silently weaved through them before approaching the doors. The guards spotted me and opened the door wide enough for me to get through before closing them with a snap again.
"Thank you for joining us, Augusta." Judith's voice sounded from farther into the hall. I hurried over to stand at my sister-in-law's side and she gave me a polite nod as I approached. She reached out and grasped onto my hand the moment I was close enough.
Aethelwulf paced the throne room, watched closely by his two sons. Aethelred and Alfred looked worried, and Aethelwulf stopped pacing to notice that I had joined them.
"I heard that Ragnar Lothbrok was in the courtyard?" I offered. Judith squeezed my hand.
Aethelwulf snorted. "He's in the dungeons now, and that's where he'll remain until Father returns. The cripple with him is in confined compartments."
I blinked. "Cripple?"
"Ragnar wasn't alone." Aethelred explained. "He had a cripple with him. Boy couldn't walk, let alone stand. We watched him drag himself through the gates."
Aethelwulf let out a cruel laugh. "I cannot wait for Ragnar's explanation of why he was traveling with him. The rest of their raiding party has to be nearby. Until then, I'm putting the castle on lockdown; no one is to leave or enter without direct permission from myself."
Judith nodded in agreement with him. She let go of my hand and walked to where Alfred stood and put her hand on his shoulder. Alfred gently touched her hand without looking at her. Aethelwulf opened the doors and explained his new rules to the rest of the court, expressing that they were safer inside the walls of the castle than anywhere else. I stood at the edge of the crowd; no one was paying attention to me like normal.
Without attracting attention, I side stepped and crept along the edge of the crowd until I could leave the throne room. The guards didn't say anything as I left the hall and started heading back to the library. When I was certain that no one could see me, I ducked down a hall that would lead me towards the guests' quarters.
I had no idea where Ragnar's traveling companion would be held; Aethelwulf hadn't exactly been clear where he was. I figured that it would be easier to get access to his crippled friend than Ragnar himself.
I hadn't been looking for long before I rounded the corner and found a door with a single guard outside of it. I smirked as I approached; I knew this particular guard. He looked over at me as I approached. "Hello, Augusta." Eadric said with a smile.
"Eadric," I said. "Would you happen to be guarding the cripple Ragnar Lothbrok brought with him?"
"I am." Eadric said slowly. "I don't think it's wise to let you in to see him."
"If you stay outside, you can make sure nothing happens." I reasoned. "I just want to go in and speak with him."
"I don't know if you'll be able to." Eadric said with a shrug. "He spoke nothing but Viking when we brought him in here." Eadric clearly didn't know about my hours studying Athelstan's old scrolls. I shrugged and tilted my head slightly, smiling a small smile in a way that made Eadric swallow.
"I can try at least?" I asked.
The lump in Eadric's throat bobbed, but he eventually sighed and opened the door, holding it open for me as I stepped into the room. Eadric closed the door behind me as I looked around. The room was fairly bare, with no adornments on the wall. A table with four chairs stood next to the window, a plate of food sitting on it, untouched. A bed was in the corner.
The cripple sat in a chair that was stationed next to the bed. We stared at each other for a long moment, taking each other in. He was younger than I had imagined, maybe a year or two younger than myself. His eyes were icy blue, and they were narrowed and watching me like I was a dangerous thing. I glanced down to his legs, which were bound together with what looked like thick leather straps. I looked away from him and turned, sitting down at the table opposite the plate of food.
He stared hard at me, barely moving. I found my mouth going dry, and I hurried to swallow and clear my throat.
"Hello," I attempted, speaking the word in Viking.
The effect was immediate. He leaned forward, frowning hard at me. He said something, and I froze when I realized that I hadn't caught a word of it. I shifted in my seat, feeling my face burn as I tried to piece together what he had said. The Viking in front of me huffed slightly and was suddenly out of his seat. Before I could stand up or even move, he crawled towards the table with a speed I wouldn't have thought possible. He hauled himself into the seat opposite of me and leaned forward. This time when he spoke, he spoke slowly and deliberately.
"Who. Are. You."
The way he pronounced the simple words were slightly different from how I had been saying them, and the spoken version was pronounced much faster than I had originally thought. But I had understood him, and I counted that as a small victory.
"My name is Augusta," I said, trying to speed up my cadence. But when he frowned at me, I slowed the cadence down. Speed would come with time, I figured. For now, I wanted him to understand.
He frowned. "Og us tah?" He pronounced my name slowly, the Saxon name probably sounding as foreign to him as Northmen names sounded to me. When I nodded, he pointed at my face. "Augusta." He said with more confidence. He placed his hand on his chest. "My name is Ivar."
"Ivar," I echoed. I thought of my next sentence, mentally translating the words before I asked. But before I could ask my next question, Ivar beat me to it.
"Why are you here?" He was still speaking slowly so I could understand. I made a mental note of his pronunciation of the word "here."
"I've never spoken to a Viking before." I said. It was the longest sentence I had used in his language, and his smirk didn't make me feel very confident.
"I can tell." He said bluntly. "You keep messing up your words." I felt my face heat up as Ivar poked the bread that was on his plate. "Your accent makes it hard to understand at times."
I thought about that. "I have only used scrolls before. I haven't had any other practice besides that." I tried mimicking his own accent. Ivar caught on to what I was doing and covered his mouth, trying and failing to hide his smile. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Your language is harder than the others I've learned."
"What others?" Ivar asked. He seemed genuinely curious, even though I could tell he was enjoying my unease and was thoroughly entertained by my struggle.
"Latin," I said, sticking up a finger for each language. "Frankish, a little bit of Greek, and the bits and pieces I know of your language."
"Who made your scrolls?" He fired out the next question immediately. I had the feeling he had been waiting for me to finish speaking before asking.
"His name was Athelstan." I replied. Ivar blinked and tilted his head slightly. "He was a friend of Ragnar's, I-" I cut myself off, not knowing the word for "believe." I ignored it and continued on. "Did you know him?"
Ivar shook his head. "If I met him, I don't remember. Why do you want to learn my language?"
I thought about it for a long moment. "I want to learn more about people. Things here are," I struggled to think of a proper word that Athelstan had written down. "Stuck. Learning about other people and understanding them is…freeing? In a way."
Ivar watched me thoughtfully. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the door to the room opened. Aethelwulf stood in the doorway, looking confused and frustration growing in his face. I swallowed and saw Eadric over Aethelwulf's shoulder, looking apologetic.
"Augusta." Aethelwulf said and jerked his head over his shoulder. I hurried from my seat and left the room without looking back at Ivar, whose ice blue eyes I could feel watching me as I walked away.
Aethelwulf turned as I moved past him. Eadric stood aside as I joined him in the hall. "We'll discuss this later." Aethelwulf said in a low voice. I exchanged a glance with Eadric, who shrugged. I shifted uncomfortably and hurried from the hall, heading towards the library to write down everything I had learned from Ivar.