his many failures. Or the screams of his father on those nights when he’d imbibe too much mead and seek Gunnar out to rail at his son for making Finna, his mother, leave them. He’d awoken many times with a blackened eye from those encounters. They’d begun to happen so often that he’d run to Kadlin’s home when he knew his father was in one of those moods. So, naturally, when his nightmares conjured up those memories, he would escape the nightmare and find himself in her arms. Only this time they weren’t children.
The dreams were so vivid that he was sure that he was finally with her. He twined his hand in her flaxen hair and felt the silk sliding through his fingers; he felt the softness of her mouth beneath his thumb as he rimmed her lips and pressed inside the moist heat just as he had claimed her body; he sang songs to her that he had never even heard before. It was what he had hoped would happen if he died. If not for his occasional awakenings and nightmares, he would have thought the battle had killed him. Though he couldn’t actually remember the battle, just riding towards it. He’d never admit it, though. What warrior would admit to forgetting an entire battle?
Finally, a new voice woke him enough to make him realise that he wasn’t floating any more. The world had stopped and a real beast bayed in the distance.
‘Freyja!’ a woman’s voice called out. The word crashed through his brain and he struggled to understand it. ‘Freyja!’
When he was finally able to make his eyes open, a mongrel’s giant snout appeared in his line of vision, just before a large, wet tongue stroked his face. He grimaced at the sensation, but then sobered when he saw that Kadlin loomed over him, her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders, the sky a fair blue behind her. She looked angry, vengeful. Not his sweet Kadlin. Then it dawned on him what he should have known all along. He had died in battle. Instead of spending eternity in Valhalla, Freyja had claimed him instead. Eirik had sent him off on his journey to Folkvangr. He laughed with bitterness. It seemed appropriate that the goddess would look just like Kadlin.
Death hadn’t provided a relief to his torment after all.
Gunnar looked as close to death as she’d ever seen anyone look with a beating heart.
‘Get him inside.’ Kadlin forced the words past a throat that threatened to close and stood back out of the way so that Vidar and the two men he’d brought with him could unload Gunnar from the wagon. If not for the distinctive red of his hair and the fact that Vidar accompanied him, she wasn’t entirely sure that she would have known who had been delivered to her door. Gunnar’s cheeks were hollowed and his frame shrunken from that of her memories. His skin had taken on a grey, unnatural pallor that twisted her heart. This was not the powerful warrior she had known.
The men hoisted him and walked past her to the sod house. His strange laugh lingered behind him, making her shiver from the unnaturalness of it. She was no stranger to the smells of men newly arrived from sea, but she covered her nose and mouth as she followed them inside and directed them to place their burden on a large bench in an alcove off of the main room. One of the men pressed a small barrel to Gunnar’s mouth so that he drank, spilling a good bit of it down his neck.
Kadlin stared down at the man she had loved, afraid to touch him, afraid that it would wake her from this bizarre dream where nothing seemed real. One minute she had been hanging the freshly washed linens and the next Vidar was calling to her. He’d ridden ahead of the cart and she’d heard Gunnar’s name, but had been so overwhelmed she hadn’t understood the rush of
Vidar’s words. Even now, with him lying before her, she could barely believe he was there.
His head fell back to the bench and lolled to the side. Whatever animation he’d had, the drink had taken it from him, leaving him unnaturally still. She might have thought he was dead if she hadn’t just met his eyes with her own. His flesh was so drawn and pale that she didn’t know how he had survived the journey across the sea. Perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps he’d only come here to die.
‘What’s happened to him, Vidar?’ As the boy spoke, she imagined what he described. Gunnar, fallen in battle, lying trapped beneath his dead horse while the fight raged around him. His crushed leg crudely bound at camp and his head wound cleaned, but it had taken days to get him back to Eirik’s hall. A fever had raged for even more days and he’d yet to regain consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time.
Yet, he had stirred when the men had lifted him from the wagon and she was sure that he had recognised her. It gave her hope, even though he had now settled into a laboured sleep. His breath came harsh and uneven.
‘What does Eirik think of his leg?’ The right leg of his trousers was intact, but the left had been cut away to allow for wood and bindings to keep his leg stabilised.
Vidar shook his head. ‘The leg is ruined.’
She had spent many late nights cursing Gunnar, but she had never wanted this to happen. Kadlin blinked past the sudden haze of tears in her eyes and focused on the dirty linen binding his leg. The bandage, along with his clothing, had likely not been changed since the men had set off on their journey. His tunic hung from him like rags and his hair was a tangled mess. She decided that the first thing to do would be to get him clean.
‘Go help yourself to broth and ale.’ She looked at the two men who had accompanied Vidar and waved them towards the front room and the pot bubbling on the fire. Turning her attention to Vidar, she said, ‘Help me undress him.’ But Vidar didn’t move when she reached for the hem of Gunnar’s tunic. ‘Lift him up a bit,’ she urged.
‘Kadlin...’ He glanced towards the men who had moved to do as she had bidden, then lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think you should be the one to undress him.’
‘Have I shocked your delicate sensibilities, Vidar?’ She gave him a wry smile and tugged on the tunic. ‘He’s filthy. Someone needs to bathe him.’
‘But—’
‘It’s not as if I’ve never seen a man before. Help me!’
He sighed and when Gunnar groaned at a particularly harsh tug, he relented and lifted his brother’s shoulders to help her divest him of the tunic and undershirt. Fabric was tied tight around his torso, making her suspect he had at least one broken rib.
‘I can do the rest. Fetch me a bucket of the water by the fire and then go and get Harald.’
Eirik owned the farm where she lived and his farmer-tenant Harald lived across the field. He had experienced a similar leg injury as a young man, so she hoped that he would be able to provide some guidance. When Vidar left, she was alone with Gunnar, except for the two men who had accompanied them. But they were famished and drank their broth by the fire, not paying her any attention.
This was not how she’d imagined meeting Gunnar again. Any number of scenarios had crossed her mind and they varied from angrily smashing a tankard over his head to holding him tight and vowing to never let him out of her sight again. Her emotions regarding him had been wild and unrestrained. Much like her love for him had been.
She brushed the grimy hair back from his face with her fingers, noting that it was tangled and would likely need cutting. His beard, too, was caked with grime and would need to be shaved. It was a task she looked forward to, because she’d always preferred him without one. It obscured the sculpted beauty of his high cheekbones, which was the very reason she suspected he liked it. Men weren’t supposed to be beautiful,
