of the drinking men said belligerently, “I do not see what one man can do. There are at least two hundred of them in the castle.”
Björn ignored him. “Do they have leaders?”
“There are a few among them, perhaps ten or twelve, whom they call priests. These are the ones who give orders and are the most cruel of all.”
“Tell me where they are.”
“The castle is in the mountains at the edge of a valley shaped like a bowl. Let me show you.” Thane began to draw with his finger in the dust on the table. “Here is our village and here is the castle. You can reach it in half a day. Would you like to rest and eat before you go?”
“No.” Without another word, the Northlander slipped sideways through the doorway and backed into the road to the horse. Without looking back, man and beast walked down the road, out of the village in the direction of the castle.
The seven men emerged from the tavern and watched them walk away. The villager who had spoken first repeated, “I still do not think he looks like much. We have wasted our money.”
Thane looked at him and sardonically asked, “You can go after him and tell him that again. He will surely still be patient with you. Of course, those long swords and the knife are just for show.”
The first man blushed and slunk back into the tavern.
Another man spoke slowly. “You know we have no more to pay him. You have heard the stories about him. When he returns he will kill us all.”
Thane responded, almost as though he was talking to himself. “It is unlikely that he will return, but if he does, at least the rest of our people will be free. Do not worry about yourselves; I will tell the Northlander this plan was all my doing.”
The other men drifted away—some into the tavern, others to their homes. Thane, left alone with his thoughts, watched the man and horse until they disappeared in the distance.
Thane could still visualize Netta as well as when she were alive. She was not a pretty woman, tall and angular, with a strong face with prominent features, but when combined with her lively personality, Thane found her beautiful. He had always been amazed that she had picked him out to love, and he was always proud that everyone knew she was his woman. He loved to just watch her; no matter what she was doing, it always gave him a thrill.
He had loved her since they were children. They had often played together with the other children and then later with the youth their age. He had always been bashful around her.
When other young men began to court her, he was jealous, but he could not bring himself to tell her how he felt. He watched her covertly, fantasizing often about them being together. When she rejected all of the suitors, what little resolve he had disappeared. If she will not pick one of them, she surely will not pick me, he thought. He knew he was big, clumsy, and not at all good-looking, and his older brother had inherited the family land so Thane had limited prospects.
He still remembered the day as clearly as though it were yesterday, even though it was many years ago. Working in the tavern and general store, he was loading bags of seed grain for a customer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her walking down the road toward him. Placing a bag in the wagon, he turned to find her standing in front of him, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. Thane feared no man, but he was terrified of this woman, and his huge body trembled.
Netta looked at him for several minutes, then said, “Everyone says you are the bravest man in the village. Are you?”
All he could do was look at the ground because he didn’t know what to say.
She continued, “If you are so brave, why are you so afraid to court me?”
“Are you making fun of me?” he blurted because he could think of nothing else to say.
He vividly remembered what she said next. “I have grown tired of waiting for you, Thane. I will expect you this evening after dinner. We will walk by the river, and we will be married next month.”
He stared dumbly at her. He tried to answer, but could only stutter. She smiled, and he felt that his heart would leap from his body, and when she said, “I have always loved you, you know,” he thought his whole body would melt into the ground.
But he managed to present himself for dinner, and they strolled by the river that evening and the evenings that followed. True to her word, they were married the following month, and they had a great life together. It took awhile, but at last he was able to talk to her. The only disappointment in their lives was that they could not have children.
Then came the awful day when the warrior intruders kidnapped her as they did other females from the village. They took her when Thane was away helping a farmer rebuild a barn that was destroyed by a storm. Two young boys came running from the village, gasping that men from the castle had taken Netta and three other women. By the time Thane returned, two of the women had already stumbled back to the village, but not Netta.
Thane used his great strength to break a massive limb from a tree before he made the trek to the castle, where he was met by armed members of the cult. While they had swords and knew how to use them, and even though he had only the club and had never fought in his life, he killed several and injured a number of others. But they were too many and too skillful, even for his great courage and even greater rage. Cruelly, they did not kill him, but left him crippled, lying in the dirt in front of the castle. He managed to crawl to a small stream where he drank, then immersed himself in the water to clean the blood from his body. He told himself that his strength would return and he would be able to attack the castle and rescue Netta, he forced himself not to think of what they must be doing to her.
The next day he was able to stand with the aid of his club they had arrogantly let him keep. As he hobbled toward the castle, he saw Netta emerge. She was completely bare, her body bloody and bruised. Stumbling to her, he took her arm. She didn’t look at him; she only stared straight ahead with glassy eyes that saw nothing.
Reaching into himself, he drew strength he didn’t know he had and held her cold body, but she did not respond. Leading her back to their home, he washed her, dressed her, then sat her in a chair at the table. He tried to give her food and water, but she simply sat at the table with a vacant look in her eyes.
All that day, that night, and the next day, she sat like that, neither moving nor speaking. She didn’t seem to hear him when he spoke to her. The following day, when he returned with water from the community well, he found her on the floor in blood that had spewed from the gash in her throat. She had killed herself with a kitchen knife.
He had never before cried, but he dropped to the floor, held her body tenderly, and sobbed. A woman from the village found them later that day. She called others, and they took Thane and Netta to the well to wash them clean of blood. Two of the women went to their cabin and brought clothes for them. All Thane could do was stand numbly as they dressed him. Then they took Netta’s body, the women supporting him as the men placed her in a coffin and carried her to the cemetery. They placed a small wooden marker on the grave and cut her name in it.
For days he sat lifelessly in the tavern, eating and drinking little, because he couldn’t bring himself to return to their home. The day he did return, he torched their cabin and watched it burn to the ground. Then he returned to his duties at the tavern, going through the motions of running the tavern and general store, but his thoughts were almost constantly on Netta.
Now
