Valkyries Calling-Chapter 74: The Forsaken and the Faithless

The docks of Ullrsfjörðr bustled with noise and color, the salt wind thick with gull cries.

Vetrúlfr’s fleet crept into the narrow harbor like returning wolves, hulls heavy with grain, iron, bright cups of stolen gold, and darker prizes besides.

Men leaped ashore, calling for kin to help offload thralls and cattle. Fáfnirsfangr lay deepest at the quay, its dragon prow shining where it had been newly polished by the spray.

Róisín stood among the gathered families on the pier. Her red braid wound close to keep the wind from worrying it loose.

Their son, an infant with ice-blue eyes, sat silently in her arms. His silent gaze was curious to see the ships that seemed to his young mind the stuff of legend.

When Vetrúlfr stepped down from the gangplank, helm under one arm, sweat and old blood still crusting his mail, the boy gazed upon him, a small smile forming upon his lips.

The first he had made since his birth.

Vetrúlfr patted the boy’s head, and held his wife tight, as he mentioned his relief in seeing them both fine.

He had left not long after his child was born and had spent his nights away thinking of him and his mother.

Róisín let out a breath that might have been a prayer or a curse. Her free hand moved over her husband’s shoulders, feeling for hurts, eyes narrowing when she found the old slice of a seax beneath his collar.

But she only asked, voice low, a wry note slipping through her worry: "Did Rán give you any trouble this time?"

Vetrúlfr’s grin sharpened, though it was fond. "Rán is a jealous bitch, but she knows better than to claim me yet. Her nets tangled two of our ships off the Faroese. The sea drank thirty men. But not me. Not your wolf."

She touched his cheek. "I never feared Connacht’s blades would take you. But the deep... that I have always mistrusted especially after the things your mother told me of your time in Grænland...."

He leaned close, voice dropping to a hush meant only for them. "Then be easy, my heart. The deep is behind me. I have brought it no tribute."

Nearby, crews were offloading bound thralls, some sullen, some weeping as they were herded inland to waiting steads.

Gunnarr barked orders, already seeing to the division of new lands and holdings among the húskarlar who had earned them in Ériu’s fields.

The Kingdom Vetrúlfr had built was vast. And yet remained mostly unsettled. New holds would be built, and the farms around them. Thegns would be named for glory won in battle. And in doing so, the Far North would grow.

Further down the docks, a line of carts stood ready for the precious goods: sacks of barley and oats, bolts of dyed linen, a chest of chalices that once adorned some Gaelic altar.

It was conquest plain for all to see. But for Vetrúlfr, it was more. He looked beyond the ships to the slate peaks of his home, rising stern and dark under racing clouds.

"I have brought back enough to feed this island thrice over," he murmured to Róisín, voice touched with something fierce and proud. "Enough to keep our sons and theirs fat through three winters. Enough to keep the old gods fed on tales of wolf-prowed ships and rivers that ran red."

She searched his face, then kissed him lightly. "We have so much already... The black soil you have conjured has filled our granaries enough to last three years yet. How can we possibly store so much grain?"

His smile was thin and tired. "We will find a way... If we must build more granaries to hold our stores, then so be it. Besides, I have bought more than grain and furs back from the lands of your ancestors..."

Róisín gazed at the thralls being unloaded from the ships. Women, children, and even a few men capable enough to perform labor. Though her fingers tightened on his, they eventually softened as the infant child in her arm cooed softly at his mother and father.

Whatever ties Róisín had to Connacht and Ériu were long sense forsaken the moment she chose to become Vetrúlfr. She was his queen, and these thralls meant nothing to her now.

Behind them, sails were being furled, horns sounded to mark the first shares of gold, and thralls moved like shadows under the shouted commands of their new masters.

Vetrúlfr drew in a lungful of briny air, savoring the smell of peat fires rising from distant halls.

It was good to be home. Even if, in the deepest marrow of him, he knew he would sail again.

But not tonight. Tonight, the sea was quiet. And the wolf was content.

---

Sister Eithne stumbled as rough hands shoved her forward, the salt-crusted planks of the gangway slippery beneath her bare feet.

Her wrists were bound cruelly tight, the coarse hemp biting deeper each time she flinched.

Above her, the gulls wheeled and screamed, mocking her misery with their savage cries. The docks of Ullrsfjörðr stretched wide, bustling with men shouting in a tongue that still sounded like knives to her ears.

The scent of smoke and fish oil turned her stomach.

Her habit was little more than rags now, torn by thorns and clutching hands since first she’d been dragged from her convent.

When the Norse raided, she’d believed it a test of faith, that God would deliver her through her suffering.

When she was spared slaughter and taken to serve as spiritual advisor to King Conchobar, she even dared think it a divine mercy.

But now, with Conchobar’s headless body weeks behind her and his host a feast for the crows, Eithne felt only the yawning emptiness of a heaven that seemed deaf.

Her lips moved constantly, forming prayers, scraps of psalms half-choked by sobs. Yet nothing eased the gnawing certainty that her God had abandoned her to heathens; or perhaps, worse, had never truly listened at all.

A guard barked at her, jerking her arm so she nearly fell face-first onto the dock. She caught herself on trembling knees, breath ragged, before being hauled upright once more.

And then she saw him. The monster from every whispered prayer these last haunted nights.

Vetrúlfr, the White Wolf, still slick with old gore beneath his fine mail, stood embracing a woman of striking fairness whose hair caught red fire in the low sun.

An infant cradled against her breast gurgled and reached small hands toward his father’s blood-stained face.

Eithne froze, eyes wide, her cracked lips shaping silent horror. frёewebnoѵēl.com

This was the brute who had shattered Mael’s armies, cast down kings, torched holy altars; who had laughed as her countrymen bled and screamed.

Now he kissed his wife gently, one large hand cupping her cheek, whispering words too soft for Eithne to hear but which drew a smile from the woman.

Their child let out a coo that seemed to wrap them all in golden light for a breathless instant. And then she got a good look at the mother’s face. A single name trailed the wisp that was her breath.

"Róisín..."

Eithne’s knees weakened beneath her. She nearly crumpled then and there, her wrists twisting painfully in the ropes that held her upright.

Róisín. The tortured sister, innocent and kind. Fair and regal. The one who had sacrificed herself to save Eithne when the Norsemen lit their priory ablaze.

She was the only true kin Eithne had ever known since taking up the cross and submitting herself to the Holy Father.

Now here she stood, no longer draped in the humility of a nun but clad in the thick-woven garb of the north, hair plaited in the old style of Norse matrons.

And her eyes... Eithne had once seen them soft and humble. Now they watched her conqueror with a quiet, terrible loyalty.

The nun swayed, her lips cracking open for a cry that would not come. How far God’s favor must have fled, for even the daughters of Christ to bend the knee to wolves.

A rough hand shoved her again, forcing her down the pier. The city beyond the harbor The village loomed sharp and unfamiliar.

The stonework was clearly roman in origin, but the buildings themselves were of thatched timber.

Children ran barefoot over roman roads, laughing at stray dogs. Smoke curled lazily from longhouse vents, carrying the scents of salt fish and roasting lamb.

It looked peaceful, almost homely. A place where a woman like Róisín might smile, where her fair son might toddle in sunlit meadows chasing sheep.

For all the years she had known Róisín, the girl had known only how to endure torment. Now... Now she was happy. And that cut Eithne deeper than any blade.

The guard hauling her paused near a gathering where fresh thralls were being divided; old men with hollow eyes, wide-hipped women pressed into lines to be judged.

Young boys stood trembling, some clutching rosary beads as though they might yet summon a miracle.

She was pushed among them. A Norse steward stalked past, tapping chests and lifting skirts, barking prices to a scribe who wrote runes into a leather bound tome of vellum.

Eithne flinched when he reached her. The steward grunted, prodded her shoulder, then grabbed her jaw, forcing her head side to side as though inspecting a horse.

He laughed, a coarse sound, before moving on. She sagged, nausea roiling in her gut.

Beyond the market throng, she could just make out Vetrúlfr again; his arm still wrapped around Róisín, their son settled on his hip now, tiny fingers curled in the wolf’s tangled beard.

The three of them were haloed by the western light as though some blasphemous icon, a new pagan holy family forged from conquest and ruin.

Eithne squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking down her dirt-smeared cheeks.

"Lord in Heaven," she whispered hoarsely. "If you yet love even the least of your children... do not let me see what comes next."

But no answer stirred the salt wind. Only gulls circled overhead, crying out their harsh litany, while below them men divided the spoils of kingdoms like cheap cloth.

When her eyes fluttered open again, she caught one last glimpse of Róisín meeting her stare across the tumult with a look that was filled with astonishment.

She leaned in and whispered towards Vetrúlfr who himself turned around and gazed upon the forsaken nun who now stood bound in rope and chains.

Then the crowd shifted, and Vetrúlfr appeared before her. Stopping Eithne from being dragged off and taken with the others. A single phrase filled her heart not with relief but dread.

"This one is mine...."

Far above, clouds parted just enough to reveal the thin crescent of the moon, pale and uncaring. And Sister Eithne’s silent prayers rose no higher than the crows waiting patiently on the rooftops.

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