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The sea lapped at the shore, a comforting yet wistful sound. It was a bittersweet reminder of a childhood well spent on the beach, an invitation to mischief and adventure for the young at heart. Randvi breathed in deep, savouring this moment, wishing she could freeze it in time. There had been so much to do over those last few seasons; she had not realized just how much she had missed the sea, and all of its sights, sounds and smells.
What bliss it was, to sit on the sun-warmed sands of Seahenge, basking in the light of Sköll’s quarry; tomorrow, Randvi’s cheeks and shoulders would be kissed by freckles. Eivor would love it, she thought with a languid smile. Her wife so enjoyed brushing her mouth across those specks on her skin, proof of a day well spent in the sun. "You are beautiful every season," Eivor had once said, "but you reach the full bloom of your loveliness in the summer months, my darling," which had made Randvi laugh and laugh. Eivor could be such a sap sometimes.
"Randvi?" said a voice beside her, taking her out of that sweet reverie. Valdis, once queen of East Anglia, was smiling bemusedly at her. "Are you listening?"
"I…" Randvi hesitated, finding herself naturally looking toward the sea—toward Eivor. She was holding Valdis’s daughter—her dark-haired namesake—under the arms, teaching the girl how to swim. Across from her were Broder and young Eohric; uncle and nephew were laughing as they tussled in the water. A few paces away, toddling on the beach, was Valdis's youngest child, Eadith. A bright bit of sunshine in the shape of a child, Valdis had described her, before bashfully adding, very much like her father. Said father—Oswald, once king of East Anglia, now reduced to a simple ealdorman—dutifully followed his daughter’s tottering steps, smiling all the way.
And yet Randvi's eyes were once again drawn to her wife. Eivor's muscled shoulders were bared for all to see, and her hair shone all the more golden under the rays of the sun. A goddess, Randvi thought, heart twisting in a painful, but pleasant way. It sometimes seemed that Freyja herself had left the gilded confines of Folkvangr to woo and wed her, the daughter of a low-ranking Jarl. Randvi’s wife was ever so gentle with the pudgy-faced toddler in her care, guiding the girl forward with a careful hand. Eivor surely was—
"Randvi," Valdis said, with fond amusement. "You are not listening to a word I've been saying, are you?"
"What?" was all Randvi could say, earning herself a snort from her companion.
"I understand," said Valdis, "I understand fully. She is quite formidable, that wife of yours. You should hear how Oswald speaks of her. He has nothing but words of praise for his stalwart protector."
Randvi quirked a brow. "If I did not know any better, I would have been concerned."
Valdis laughed freely. "I think Eivor is one of that rare breed of people who are as radiant as the sun. We all wish to be close to her, hoping to have a little bit of that light for our own selfish ends. I would be concerned if Oswald wasn’t the least bit taken by her, to be honest."
Randvi sighed, once more letting her eyes wander. Eivor hid under the water, before surging to the surface with a great roar, to the delight of the children.
"I think you have the truth of the matter, yes," she muttered. Indeed, Eivor was not unlike Sol himself; she was radiant in her glory, and they were all like Sköll, mindlessly chasing the brightness of her being. And Randvi was simply the lucky mortal—the very common, ordinary woman, with all of her everyday aches and worries—who had convinced that godly being, that stray Valkyrie, to stay on solid ground rather than soar through the majesty of the skies above.
Randvi certainly had been unable to look away from Eivor during those long, lonely years she'd spent married to Sigurd. Never had she ever felt so strongly about someone. Her parents, brought together through an arranged marriage, had cared about each other, yes, but Randvi had never witnessed between them any hint of the ever-consuming passion that now burned within her. Even as an adolescent, aflame with awkward desires as she practised kissing with girls from neighbouring villages, Randvi had never loved so fiercely—have never thought it possible to love so fiercely. She did not want to admit it, but those feelings had been frightening at first. In truth, she was still a little daunted by the depth of her passion. If she didn’t know any better, Randvi would have thought herself the victim of twisted seiðr.
“I've been meaning to ask,” she said, feeling suddenly sheepish, “but what made you accept an arranged marriage?” Twice now Valdis had agreed to marry a stranger she did not love. Randvi suspected she knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from the other woman’s lips, if only to confirm her suspicions.
Valdis looked upon her in surprise, and Randvi immediately regretted her inane question. Her friend shared with her the indignity of a failed first marriage, yes, but from what she had heard from Eivor, the woman had suffered much at the hand of the lout who had dared call himself her husband. Sigurd had hurt Randvi—why, he had nearly dragged the whole clan to its doom with his delusions of grandeur, betraying her trust on too many occasions to count. Still, he had never treated her as his possession to do as he pleased. And he certainly had never shown the nerve to raise his hand at her, Randvi remembered, her heart clenching.
“For the same reason as you, I believe,” Valdis said, once she had regained her bearings. “It was an advantageous match. Oswald needed the swords, along with Halfdan’s favour. And I wanted our clan to have a legitimate claim over the lands we had won through war.”
“And your first marriage?”
This time, Valdis was silent for a moment before she answered. “You know exactly why. We brides are makers of bonds, as the skalds say. We bind divided clans through formal negotiations and sacred ceremonies. We weave families together to make a tapestry of illustrious dynasties. Without us—without the sacrifices we make—the fabric of society itself would be frayed to tatters.”
Randvi nodded, grimly. “My father feared a conflict with the Raven clan would leave weak in the wake of bigger, stronger clans.” Asgeir had wished for allies to stand against Kjotve the Cruel, for one; he’d deduced, correctly, that the loathsome leader of the Wolf clan would soon stir the fires of war to satisfy his lust for power. A conflict with the Ravens would have only made Randvi’s clan easy pickings for Kjotve and his rabid wolves.
“Quite understandable,” Valdis said. "I was wed to Rued to gain allies in trade and war, after my clan suffered from a series of tragedies in my childhood.” There was a sad story there, though Randvi sensed Valdis was not quite ready to share it yet. “My mother's husband negotiated the match."
“You don't seem to hold the man in great esteem.”
“He was a fool dealing with an impossible situation. Yet that still makes him a fool. If the gods are good, then surely he is freezing his balls off in Hel's domain right now.”
“If he lived a coward without honour, then he must have died a coward without honour,” Randvi agreed. “And neither Odin nor Freyja have use for men such as him.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Valdis. “What about you, Randvi? What led to your first marriage?”
“For a long time,” Randvi said, “my parents only had two daughters—my sister and I—to serve as successors, and we were raised as such.” All of Asgeir’s sons had died in the cradle, to the great sorrow of the clan. To assure his legacy, the Jarl had made shieldmaidens out of his daughters; they would be his heirs first, and potential brides second. “Still, when I had seen fourteen winters, my mother finally gave birth to a living son.”
She hadn’t meant for these words to come out so bitter. Oh, Randvi had loved Ari, she still did, of course. Her little brother, ever so earnest and eager in all the endeavours that he undertook, had been a source of light and warmth in an otherwise very dark and cold time in her life. Still, to have a mere child being offered the role for which she had been moulded since her early years—for which she had trained so hard, with every ounce of strength and determination in her body… Randvi sighed, unable to say more.
“A familiar tale,” Valdis said, nodding in sympathy.
“It was an honour to make a good marriage for the sake of my clan—and I was glad to bring pride to my mother and father, yes.” With a sigh, Randvi added, “Still…”
With the benefit of hindsight, she knew her parents had made a mistake the day they had offered their daughter's hand to Styrbjorn and his Raven clan. Asgeir and Freydis had been well-meaning, and never had Randvi doubted the strength of their love for her. After all, they had sought her happiness above all else by selecting a groom of good breeding and excellent reputation. Yet they had been misguided, short-sighted. Theirs had been a fortunate union, but that did not mean married life suited someone as wild and wilful as Randvi’s younger self had been.
(What a painful betrayal that had been; Randvi’s parents had loved her, but they had not known her. Thankfully, that hurt had faded over time, as all wounds did. Randvi was no longer that impetuous girl; not to mention, she had earned her happiness on her own terms, which made it all the more precious.)
“Watching my parents, and all of the other adults in the clan,” she continued, “I never even considered there could be another way to live. Perhaps I dreamed about it, as all children dream, but I never thought I could be more than—”
“—a bargaining piece?” Valdis completed in a murmur. “Someone else’s wife, as you once were someone else’s daughter?”
“I’m sorry,” Randvi said, ruefully, “you’ve lived through so much, and here I am, talking your ear off about my own troubles…”
“No, I am relieved—glad, even—that I am not alone in having these doubts. My mother raised me to be dutiful as well. It was how she was raised, and how her own grandmother was raised, and so on and so forth. My brothers…” At this, Valdis’s mouth twisted, and she shook her head. “Oh, they had their own burdens, of course they had, but they were always in control of their own lives. It was never expected of them to leave behind all they had ever known and loved for the sake of duty. Their glories would be their own, while I—while we—” (At this, she shot Randvi a significant glance) “—would have to settle for scraps while the skalds sang sagas of our fathers and brothers and husbands.”
Randvi felt a surge of familiar anger. “They expect us to make that sacrifice with a smile, don’t they? Or, at least, to keep our mouths shut while we rule over their settlements and raise their children.”
Oh, that last bit had been the source of so much friction in the early days of her marriage to Sigurd. From the beginning, their couplings had been awkward at best, unpleasant at worst. For reasons unfathomable to her, Sigurd had rarely shown any passion toward Randvi. He’d done his duty (when, that is, he had happened to be physically present at the village, she thought bitterly), as was expected of him, but he clearly found no joy in the act. Randvi had simply figured that duty—and the marriage bed, by association—was the death of passion. That had also handily explained why many men—and women, she conceded, with a touch of shame—tended to stray away from their spouses, some even begetting bastards on thralls and paramours.
(In contrast, Randvi awoke under Eivor’s touch like a flower seeking the heat of the sun. With one glance, one smile, Eivor could stir a burning passion within Randvi, a wildfire that threatened to consume the whole of her being. Gods, simply by thinking about it, Randvi could feel her cheeks growing warm…)
“Back then,” Valdis said, with much venom, “I prayed to Freyja every night that his… his seed… would not quicken in my womb. Whenever I could, I also took certain… precautions. They called me a barren bitch, a failed wife, but at least I had not brought into the world a child tainted by his poison. At least he would not visit his violence upon their flesh as he did upon mine.”
“I’m sorry,” Randvi said, reaching to gently squeeze her hand.
“What about you?” Valdis murmured, as if winded by her previous outburst. “Do you… do you have any regrets concerning…”
“No,” Randvi said, quite certain of her answer. As much as she had suffered humiliation upon humiliation every morning she had awoken to find her sheets stained with her monthly blood, Randvi was relieved that she had never become pregnant with Sigurd’s child. The very thought of carrying in her womb—well, not just Sigurd’s babe, but any babe—honestly made Randvi feel nauseous. Instead, she had found joy in raising the little ones Eivor had brought back to the village; they were a chaotic bunch, testing the deep well of her patience with their everyday shenanigans, but they were all she truly needed.
After a while, Randvi motioned at the beach, where little Eadith was tottering away without a care in the world. “As for you…” she said, awkwardly, “well, obviously you are not…”
The smile that graced Valdis’s face then was something to behold. “Ah, the gods answered my prayers at last.” With much pride and delight, she added, “Eohric and the girls are Freyja’s blessings upon me. Still, I won’t say it is easy, caring for young lives, raising them to become men and women of strength and honour.” Her face grew dark. “In fact…”
There was a cry of pain and indignation, and immediately Valdis whipped her head to look toward her daughter. The poor dear was wailing; she seemed to have stubbed her toe upon a bit of driftwood. Oswald comforted her, then wagged his finger at the scrap of wood, almost as if he was scolding it. Little Eadith giggled in response, tears forgotten for the moment.
Valdis's frown eased. The whole of her face transformed when she was smiling, the harsh lines at her brow softening, making her look much younger. To Randvi’s great shock, Valdis let out something like a sob. “In fact, some days I cannot bear the fact of their existence. Just look at them, Randvi! Look at their sweet faces, see how beautiful, but fragile they are! This very air is made better with every breath they take. And yet, this wretched realm of ours is filled with men such as Rued… by Loki’s cursed name, but Midgard’s soil is thick with their taint! How do I keep my little ones safe, when there is so much in this world that would do them harm?”
How do I keep them safe, while there is so much that would do them harm? Randvi had heard these words before, from her beloved’s lips; she’d thought them as well, after each world-shattering shock of every loss the clan had suffered. It was the cry of a soul that had lost much, the fervent plea of someone who sought to keep the source of their happiness close to their heart in fear of losing it forever.
The sight of the tears brimming in Valdis’s eyes was a sobering one. Randvi had no easy answer to give to her friend, though she wished she had. “We fight,” she said, quite grimly. “We fight with everything we have, and we share, oh, we savour every moment spent in their presence. We stick together—a flock—”
“A pack,” Valdis said, with a feeble, fleeting smile.
“—a pack,” Randvi amended, “that weathers dark days and cold nights… together.”
“A sweet, naïve thought,” said Valdis, wistfully. “But a comforting one nonetheless.”
A peal of laughter rang out in the air. Eadith was pointing at a crab scurrying away from her stomping feet, to the amusement of her father. Valdis watched the scene with a smile, coyishly biting down her lip. Something suddenly dawned on Randvi; for Valdis, seeing her husband so gently guiding their daughter by the hand had the same effect that Eivor’s well-muscled arms—wet and glistening in the sun—had on Randvi herself. It was strange to think that these two—brought together by the cold necessity of an arranged marriage—could have found happiness with one another despite their differences. The gods had decided to be kind to Valdis Eiriksdóttir after fostering on her the great cruelty of her first husband. Much as they had done with Randvi herself, it seemed.
There was an exclamation of surprise; Broder had just splashed Oswald with water, all the while laughing like one half his age. Eivor and young Eohric protested, the latter even saying, “Uncle, that’s not fair, Father wasn’t even looking!” Meanwhile, Valdis stood out, calling, “Brother, you utter, utter idiot!” as her youngest daughter ran to find refuge into her awaiting arms, wailing in dismay.
Broder only stopped laughing when Eivor grabbed him from behind, tossing him over her shoulder—and plunging him into the sea. He resurfaced a mere moment later, sputtering and shivering. Eohric and little Eivor cheered with much delight, prompting Randvi’s wife to grin wickedly.
“Children,” Valdis said with a scoff, patting little Eadith’s head. Much like their son and daughter, her husband was laughing as well. He made a reverence toward Eivor, who cheekily returned his bow.
Ever the protector, Randvi thought, watching the exchange. Now there was the whole of Eivor’s character in one single moment. So much of her life revolved around making sure no one would ever feel the fear that had so tightly gripped her when she had waited on that ice, hearing the wolves howling as they hunted. Perhaps that was why people—the weak and downtrodden, especially—tended to flock to her; they sought her protection as well as her warmth.
“Randvi, my friend,” Valdis said, finally, as Eadith stopped crying; the sweet little soul was now looking up at Randvi with curious eyes, bright and blue as the sky above their heads. “I am glad you and Eivor came to East Anglia. Truly, you did not have to answer my call. I know you both have great burdens to carry—”
“Eivor proudly wears the arm-ring you’ve given her,” Randvi cut her off, “and this means her oath is my oath. If she were here, I’m sure she would show her skaldic skills and say, ‘your pack is part of my flock.’” She frowned. “Or something of the sort. I am not as skilled a skald as she is, that much is evident.”
Valdis snorted, an inelegant, unladylike sound. “Oh, you should hear my husband’s compositions. I believe he is trying to follow in her footsteps. On this count and many others.” The former queen smiled, shaking her head. “The poor man…” She had said it in a way that truly meant, I would have him as he is and no other way.
Randvi glanced toward the man in question; Oswald was standing straighter, puffing out his (still rather frail, Randvi had to admit) chest, as Eivor strutted toward him, looking half a goddess as she came out of the water. She slapped him on the back, making him stumble. Then his two children launched themselves at him—and now Oswald was down for the count, yelping as his feet slipped from under him, yanking him backward.
“A friend of mine,” Randvi said, thinking of Hytham, “told me a story about a man who got burned when he tried to fly too close to the sun.” With a sly grin, she added, “Should we share this tale with your husband as well?”
“It’s fine,” Valdis said, kissing her daughter’s golden curls. “Oswald might not have the gift of Sol’s lustre, as Eivor does, but in my opinion he is his own star, all bright and twinkling among many others, and that makes his light and warmth all the more worth cherishing.”
“Would that make us flowers growing under the guidance of their light, then?”
Valdis grimaced, prompting a grin from Randvi. “It is as you said,” the once-queen grumbled. “We should be leaving the metaphor-making to the skalds at heart.”