She assessed the situation. It wasn’t Johan. It wasn’t any of . . . them. The stranger was—or appeared to be—alone. He did not have a horse, so he’d have walked far to get to Ovregard; it was miles inland, which all but ruled out raiders. Nobody from her past knew she was here, and Forkbeard’s recruiters had done a good job of rounding up the strays last year—so who was he?
Half-annoyed and half-curious, she set off for home.
Streak thundered down the stretch, enthusiastic to get inside. Helga tugged at the reins, cursing her own reluctance, but eventually the mare slowed down to a canter and finally a walk.
The man had turned when he heard her approach, and now he stood in front of her, rocking gently from one foot to the other, keeping more than a polite distance. He was younger than she’d thought he’d be. Or maybe she was just older than she used to be.
“Well met, stranger!” she said as she pulled on Streak’s reins and the horse stopped. She cringed inside at her own voice. How did it get so shrill and loud all of a sudden?
The man looked up at her as if he was trying to remember the words. Was he a bit slow? “Well met,” he finally said in a quiet voice. “I am Audun. I am handy with tools and a good worker. They said at Skaer that you might need a farmhand.”
Oh, did they, now?
“Was it Skakki?” The man stared at her. “The blacksmith? Ugly bastard, skin like a cow’s ass, always something in his teeth?”
A flicker of a smile was there and then gone. “Might be, yes.”
“Well, he’s about as good with his advice as his smithing.”
The smile turned into a grin, but it was swiftly overtaken by a frown. “So that means . . . you won’t need any help? With anything?”
Helga smirked. There was something about this one that felt right, and she made a decision. “Not necessarily. How are you with horses?”
Audun shrugged. “I don’t know. Decent? Only recently learned about them . . .” The last sentence faded into nothing.
“Well, let’s set you a test, then,” Helga said. She dismounted and did not admit to herself that she was pleased by how gracefully she could still do it. “This is Streak.” The horse whinnied in response. “She’s a cranky old nag, like myself. Put her away.”
Audun nodded, and she watched as his attention switched from her to the horse. Suddenly he looked a lot more sure of himself. He started mumbling and took one step toward Streak. Helga felt herself drawn in—she could hear the odd word here and there, but it was more like a stream of sounds.
Then she looked at Streak, who never let anyone near her and would snap at the Skaer kids if they got too close.
The horse tossed her head and sidestepped. Her ears were pinned back and her head tilted as if she was trying to figure out where she’d heard a tune before.
Audun stepped closer to Streak, and closer still.
He was a lot more substantial seen from the ground. They were of a similar height, and Helga couldn’t help but notice the way the material of his tunic strained against his shoulders and chest but not his stomach.
And then Streak stepped toward him, reached her head forward—and nuzzled him.
“Good girl,” Audun muttered. “Good girl.” Big, rough hands stroked the horse’s neck; hypnotic, firm, warm strokes . . .
“Do you have any brushes?”
He was looking at her. The color in Helga’s cheeks rose a lot more than the cold morning required. “Yes. Stable.” She pointed.
“Thank you,” Audun said. She looked hard at his face for some kind of smirk, a sparkle in the eye, but he was already away with Streak, who was following him like a dog.
Helga remembered to breathe. “Well . . . maybe I could use a bit of help, just to get ready for the winter,” she mumbled. “Just for the winter, mind. Nothing permanent.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head hard, blinked, and looked in the direction of the stables.
“Yes. Maybe. Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Food, board as far as it goes. But just for the winter. And he can sleep in the stables,” she added with unnecessary determination, then spun in a half circle before she remembered what she was going to do and headed into the main house.
Audun rubbed down Streak, who stood calmly by with her head hung low. He’d struggled to find things to say to Helga for the first couple of days, but it was getting better now. That first time in the yard he’d remembered uncomfortably well how bad he was at talking to women. “It was lucky you were there,” he said to Streak, who nudged him. “Saved me from crapping my pants, you did.” The horse snorted in agreement.
It had become easier once they had work to do. She was a competent taskmaster and knew what needed doing. She could tackle most of it herself, too, although her eyes had near popped out of her head when he’d shifted the cracked millstone for her. That had been a heavy bastard and no lies, but he’d found the extra strength somewhere. And that shed had needed to be cleared.
“Audun!”
“Barn!” he shouted back.
A little later, the door creaked. He felt like he could smell her behind him, but that was probably just his imagination. Streak protested at the interruption, and he had to drag his mind back to the task at hand.
“So, I thought . . . I—” she stammered from the doorway. The years of living alone had probably made her just as bad at communicating as he was, he thought. “What do you think we should do when you’re finished with Streak?”
“The roof needs fixing,” he said.
“Yes . . . On the shed—”
“Yes. That one.”
“It does. I’ll get the ladder and the nails.” With that, she turned and was gone. Audun just caught a glimpse of her raven-black hair swishing around the corner.
Streak reminded him that there was still brushing to be done, and Audun resumed, not entirely sure about what had just happened.
“So is tonight going to be the night?” Helga asked, reclining on her furs. The embers glowed in the fire-bowl, and the room smelled pleasantly of wood smoke.
Audun blinked. He’d been half-asleep in his corner of the main house after his stew. “For what?” Audun asked. When they settled on the terms of his stay, she’d told him that he’d be cooking for her half the time and sharing a meal in the main house. They got on fine now, and he found he really enjoyed listening to her tales. Sometimes it was more difficult than he wanted it to be to go back out to sleep in the stables.
She leaned forward. The soft glow from the fire caught her cheeks and caressed her face; her hair flowed into the shadows. “For you to yield the mystery of where you came from, Audun Horse-charmer.” Her eyes sparkled.
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Come on! Didn’t you ever play ‘you show me yours’ when you were a kid?” She smirked altogether too much when he blushed.
“I . . . no.”
“Well—it goes like this. You tell me your mysterious and horrible past—and I’ll tell you mine.”
“What do you mean?” No answer. “What’s in . . . how . . . what do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I say—if you tell me about yourself, I’ll tell you about that time when I . . .” Helga’s eyebrows arched in recollection. A faraway smile softened her face. Then her eyes trained on him, polished amber across the fire. “Unless you’re scared?”
“No,” Audun said. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just that in my past there are . . .” He looked away and wanted to mumble into his chest, but forced himself to say it out loud. “There are some bad things in my past.”
Her laughter exploded out of her, short and sweet. “Oh, boy. You lovely, lovely boy.” He shot her a glance, but she stared straight back
at him. “I am nearly old enough to be your mother.” The way she looked at him suggested otherwise. “And I am willing to give you one thing for free—unless I’ve really not been keeping up with the news, you’ve got nothing on my past when it comes to bad things. So you tell me yours tonight . . . and then I’ll tell you mine.”
The swirling chaos within Audun was too much to bear—so he decided to trust his instincts.
He started talking.
They’d rekindled the fire twice. He’d been warm, his stomach full, and, fueled by her rapt attention, he had given her his life’s story. Well, almost. His father, life on the road, things he thought he’d forgotten about. Some things had been on the tip of his tongue when he realized that they would just sound like the lies of a madman. And he’d not shared what happened on the wall at Stenvik. But apart from that, he’d spoken more this night than he could ever remember doing.
Helga leaned forward and rested her head on her folded hands. “Let me see if I got this right. This man, this—”
“Fjölnir.”
“—he knew your name and what had happened where you came from?”
“Yes.”
“And then he took a beating from several men, after which he couldn’t see out of one eye? After he’d said wise things to you?”
“Yes.” Audun frowned.
Yawning, she smiled at him. “Let me guess. Did he give you a gift?” Audun hesitated, and she nodded. “What was it? No, wait.” She reached down and picked up a slate of wood. Then she drew a knife from under her pillow and started scratching on the slate.
Audun watched her, brow furrowed in concentration. When she finished, she put the slate face down on her lap and slid the knife back under her pillow.
“Tell me what he gave you.” The look in her eyes was even more intense.
“It was . . . a belt. Broad, with a big buckle.”
The house was so silent that all he could hear was his heart beating. Helga was no longer smiling. She sat across from him and would not look him in the eye. Instead she handed over the slate. On it were three hastily carved pictures. One looked like a flask. Another was passably close to a hammer.
The third was, unmistakably, a belt with a buckle of hands.
Audun looked at her, dumbstruck. He knew exactly where the belt was: hidden in his pack under his straw pallet. He felt for it every morning and every night. It had not been moved. His stomach turned at the thought of wearing it.
“How—?”
“The belt. Wearing it makes you sick, doesn’t it?”
Audun nodded dumbly.
She looked at him with something approaching sadness. “You still don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“The man you spoke to. His name is not Fjölnir.”
Audun looked at her. “Oh? What is it, then?”
“His name . . .” She took a deep breath. “His name . . . Well, he has no name. Who he is, is Odin. The all-father. Wotan, Wodin, Valtam, Gestumblindi. A hundred others. He has come to us, and for some reason he has given you Megingjardir, the belt that holds the strength of Thor. But you are not a god, so it will tear your insides apart. You know it will, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. You’ve felt it. You must choose wisely when you want to use it.”
Audun stood up. His head was spinning. “I . . . have to go. I’m sorry. I . . . I have to go.” He could feel her eyes on him as he stumbled out into the dark, starry night.
She did not sleep much. When she walked out into the milky-gray morning, there was no sign of Audun.
He might be out
, she thought,
possibly started early, gone to chop some wood.
She thought back on the previous evening. “Are you ever going to learn to keep your
mouth shut, woman?” she snapped and glanced over at Audun’s corner in the stables.
He had not slept there last night.
Streak snorted, swished her tail, and moved to nuzzle her. She had been groomed and seen to. Helga relaxed into the familiar movements, saddling and leading the horse into the pale light.
When she returned from her morning rounds, he was waiting in the yard. She noticed that he was wearing a fine suit of clothes, cut from very good material, but the wrong fit for a working man.
“Hello, Johan,” she said, biting off every syllable.
“Helga,” the big farmer said. “I have come to see you.”
“I can tell, because you are in my yard.”
If he understood that she was mocking him, Johan gave no sign. “I will court you. I have talked about this with the chieftain, and he agrees that we would make a fine pair.”
She wanted to be angry. She thought idly that once upon a time he’d have got a lot more than he bargained for, but now she just wanted him to go. She dismounted and led Streak toward her tethering post. “Look, Johan,” she said, “no. I’ve already said so. No, I do not want to marry you, and I am not going to marry you, and there is nothing in the law or otherwise that says I have to, regardless of what that pumped-up windbag chieftain says.”
“But you can’t live
alone
,” Johan said.
He almost looked hurt, but she was beyond caring. “I have, I can, and I will,” Helga said and continued brushing down Streak. “If there is nothing else—”
“Don’t turn your back on me, woman,” Johan said. An edge had crept into his voice.
Helga spun around. “Do not presume to tell me what to do or say when you are on my land, Johan Aagard! I would like you to leave!”
She took two steps toward him and wished she hadn’t. Johan was a farmer and had been working the land for the best part of forty years. He was a good head and a half taller than her, barrel-chested and solid.
He did not move but looked down at her. “I have told you: I will court you, and you will be my wife.”
“Loki’s balls I will,” she snapped. “Now leave.”
“No.”
“
Go away!
” she screamed in his face and crumpled as he struck her in the chest. Blinking and gasping for breath, she thought she saw something—
“She told you to leave.”
Audun. Standing by the fence, completely still.
“Oh? So
that’s
it, then?” Johan stood over her, impossibly big. “Someone got there before me?” He chewed this over for a couple of moments. “It’s all right. You’re a woman. It was to be expected.” He turned toward Audun. “Now you, on the other hand, can fuck right off.”
Audun said nothing, but there was a faint . . . change in him. Helga felt her insides go cold.
“I said, you can fuck right off.” Johan took a step toward the blond man by the fence, and Helga felt a sharp stab of fear. “You deaf? Fucking traveler scum. Norse? Probably.”
Two more steps.