The Lost Tales of Mercia (25 page)

She awoke to Thorkell’s arm, heavy around
her waist, and she thrashed from his grip. He stirred but did not
awake as she slipped from the bed, sweating and panting. She
dressed and grabbed her most important belongings. Then she left,
not sure when she would return—knowing only that it would not be
anytime soon.

At the break of dawn she visited Halla on
the edge of town. She paid the woman for a large supply of
pennyroyal. Halla knew well enough not to ask too many questions,
but she could not refrain from saying something before Runa hurried
off.

“Perhaps you should stay here, so I can care
for you through the sickness.”

The offer tempted Runa, but she fled from
it, before she could say yes.

Returning to her cave caused a strange
emotion to stir within her. She expected to feel cozy and
nostalgic. Instead she felt alienated, as if she was no longer the
same woman and this dank hole belonged to someone else. At the same
time this saddened her. She did not belong here anymore, but nor
did she belong in the city of Jom, pretending to lead a normal life
as the wife of a great Jomsviking. She belonged nowhere.

She stayed in the cave only long enough to
build a fire and brew her tea, infused with all the pennyroyal
Halla had given her. She drank until her stomach burned and sloshed
when she walked.

As the sickness seized her, she spread out
on the forest floor. She rested upon the incredible weight of the
earth beneath her, reveling in the little sensations of bugs and
worms scuttling beneath her and causing the surface to ripple with
life. She fed herself on the warm breeze and loosed her moans to
its sway; she cried openly and shamelessly, releasing her pain into
the soil and wind because she could not endure it all herself.

When it passed—perhaps over two nights or
several days, she wasn’t certain—she found a stream to wash away
the blood between her legs. She used the next few days to gather
berries and nuts, catch birds and rodents, and slowly nurse herself
back to health.

At last she returned to Jom.

Thorkell was not home at first. Anxiously,
she passed the time by throwing herself back into her daily chores.
He did not arrive until the sky outside glowed orange with the
sun’s descent.

At the sight of her, a strange look came
over his face. She tried to decipher the emotions beneath his pale
brows as well as she could. First, she hoped, there was joy. But
this was fleeting, and replaced quickly with anger. And once the
anger appeared, it would not go away. Such fury flared in his stony
irises that she felt the nausea of fear in her belly—an unusual
sensation, for not much frightened her more than all she had
already endured.

“Thorkell ...” She struggled to find her
breath. “I’m back.”

He slammed the door behind him so hard she
jolted. He did not speak for a long time, and the boom of the door
continued to resound in her ears like a thunderclap in the
distance, foretelling the oncoming storm.

Then a shudder went through him, and he
rushed forward, capturing her in his arms. “Runa ...” he gasped.
“Runa, I worried ...”

She closed her eyes as his fingers massaged
the tangles of her hair. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll always come
back. And if I don’t … consider me dead.”

He held her tighter to him, and did not
pester her with the questions she feared. He did not even try to
make love to her. He simply held her, as if he never wanted her to
escape again. And for a time, she did not mind.

After that her life felt normal again, for
the most part. She tried to pretend as if her disappearance into
the woods had not occurred, and it seemed as if Thorkell ignored
it, as well. When they met again, Halla gave her a disapproving
glance, but also one of relief; then she proceeded to provide Runa
with all sorts of elixirs—herbs that would cleanse her body of the
remaining toxins, she hoped.

But Runa could not cleanse herself of what
she had done, and it continued to plague her, more than any toxin
could have.

She told herself that her decision had been
for the best. A child would trap her. A child would pull out the
monsters within her and reveal her ugliness to all. A child would
be in danger of getting hurt by her in return. It had been for the
best.

And yet her nightmares worsened, and she
dreamt of the baby she might have had, warm in her lap as she
cradled it. When she awoke her empty stomach felt cold and
knotted.

Young Canute Sweynsson arrived at Jomsborg
the next year and fell under Thorkell’s tutelage, a responsibility
which greatly benefited the married couple. Runa rarely saw the
boy, for he remained mostly in Jomsburg, but Thorkell cared for him
as if he had acquired his own son. He picked out gifts for the
young prince and spent his short nights with Runa speaking of him.
She had never heard Thorkell speak so much about anything.

Runa only met the boy a few times, but he
made her uncomfortable. Most kids did, but he even more so. Though
well-behaved, his eyes glittered with a conceit that struck her
core with fury. It was a conceit that made everyone around him a
means to an end, a toy to play with, and nothing more. If such a
characteristic was so strong now, when he was but a boy, and if all
the people around him—even Thorkell—fed such unfounded pride, how
much worse would it become once he was grown? It made her want to
hurt the boy, to poke a hole in his bulging sack of confidence, to
watch him squirm when no one could raise a hand to help him. She
recognized such self-importance from the monsters of her
nightmares, but at least in her sleep, the monsters chased her and
no one else. The monsters within Canute chased after everyone.

She managed to keep her impulses at bay for
a long while, and Thorkell stayed away often, and Runa enjoyed her
freedom. But one night something changed. Thorkell had unusually
high spirits. He seemed full of hope and joy, so much so that he
brought Canute home and told Runa that he would be staying the
night.

“Why?” snapped Runa.

“Because,” said Thorkell. “He has been a
long time without a mother.”

Fear gripped Runa’s heart like ice. There
was no use in arguing, she knew. Thorkell’s love for the boy
blinded him.

So that evening she fiddled with her bow,
and in the morning she took Canute outside to use it. “Set the
string like so,” she told him. She even demonstrated, dropping a
bird as it flapped through the sky. She could see by his expression
that he was truly impressed. “Now you try. Put your face here, so
you can aim properly.” She handed it to him, struggling to suppress
her smirk.

“I don’t see any more birds,” the young boy
said grumpily.

“Shoot that tree, then.”

“Easy,” he snorted. He aimed and pulled the
switch, as she had demonstrated. But the string flew back and
snapped him in the face. He cried out as the arrow spiraled
uselessly across the grass.

“What was that?” said Runa. “You did it all
wrong!”

“I did what you told me!” He blinked back
tears as he touched the swelling welt on his nose. “It’s the stupid
bow’s fault!”

“No it’s not, and no, you didn’t do it
right.” She took it from him, set another arrow, and shot it
cleanly forward. He stared in awe as it sank into the trunk of a
distant tree.

“But—!” His shock became outrage. “Give
it!”

He grabbed the bow. He set another arrow.
When he released it, once again, the string smacked him in the
face, this time even harder. He dropped the bow and staggered
backwards.

A long silence hung in the air. Then proud
little Canute burst into tears.

Runa couldn’t help herself. She grinned.

“What happened?” Thorkell stormed from the
house. Runa had a sinking feeling that he had been watching for
some time.

Canute just sobbed and sniffled. Runa
attempted to meet Thorkell’s gaze with defiance, but found she
could not.

Thorkell clenched his fists, his knuckles
bulging like spikes from a mace. Canute just kept crying. The sound
had been entertaining at first, but now it grated on her. She
wished he would simply grow silent.

“Canute,” growled Thorkell at last. His
voice sent chills down Runa’s back. “You used the bow like she
showed you?”

“Yes, Thorkell, I did!” cried Canute.

“And yet it hurt you anyway?”

“Yes!”

“Then it is a danger to you,” said Thorkell.
“Or something here is.” His eyes remained on Runa. “And what do you
do to something that is a danger to you?”

Canute stopped crying. Joy flared suddenly
in his eyes, but Runa went cold with fear. Canute looked at her, a
sneer crawling up his puffy red face. Then he picked up the
bow.

“No!” shouted Runa.

But Canute scurried away, taking the bow
with him. He found the nearest rock and smashed the bow against it.
Nothing happened at first; Canute was too little to put much
strength in the swing. But he swung again, and again; and at last,
a
crack
split the air.

“You little bastard!” Runa moved towards
him, but Thorkell stepped into her path, and she dared not cross
him. She seethed at him with fury and even hatred, staring into the
black silhouette of his shape against the searing blue sky. Pain
sapped the strength from her voice. “It was my
wedding
gift
to you!”

“Much good that did us,” he said.

She was not exactly sure what he meant. She
was not sure she wanted to know. The bow
cracked
again,
finally splitting in half, and Canute laughed with triumph.

Runa turned away, hoping to hide the sorrow
consuming her, along with the unquenchable urge to enact some
manner of revenge.

*

The time she slept with another man was the
night Thorkell changed his attitude. She had been gone for several
days and nights again, as happened somewhat often. But this time
had been different. This time, not every night had been spent in
the woods.

Thorkell knew. In a sense she had planned on
it. She had slept with a man dumb enough to brag about bedding the
wife of Thorkell the Tall.

She strolled through the door feeling as
proud as a cat. Thorkell sat next to the hearth-fire, his large
shoulders slouched, his eyes staring deep into the blaze. The
flames illuminated his hair like threads of copper. She yearned for
him suddenly, but she stayed away, and her blood quickly grew cold
again.

“Runa ...” He took a deep breath, and she
was surprised to hear it shudder as he exhaled. “Did I do something
wrong?”

This reaction surprised her. She had
expected an argument. Her mouth flopped opened and closed a few
times before she could form her own words. “You broke my bow.”

“You hurt Canute. You leave my bed cold
whenever you feel like it. And now ...” She thought that he, too,
was trying to be angry. But his beard quivered. “Now you’ve
betrayed me.”

All of her defiance, anger, and rebellion
melted immediately away. She trembled from head to foot and
struggled not to fall and splash at his feet like a puddle. “Oh
Thorkell ...”

“I don’t understand, Runa. I tried to give
you anything you wanted. I tried to let you do what you want. But …
this ...”

She cocked her head as high as she could.
But he wasn’t even looking. “And what will you do about it?”

“I already killed him.”

She stiffened again.

“I had to. Everyone knew. Someone had to be
punished: either him or you. Now that he’s dead, all they’ll need
to do at the next
husting
is pardon me. And they will.”

She felt her anger strengthening her once
more. “You’re the one who wanted to marry. Did you think I would
change? Did you think I would become a different woman than the one
that tackled you in the woods? Well I won’t. No one can change me.
No one can restrain me!”

“Then perhaps we should divorce.”

His words shocked her. She had expected a
greater argument, she realized. She had expected him to explode, to
become violent, or perhaps to attempt to enact some sort of
restraint on her. She thought perhaps she would provoke him to some
sort of evil. Had she actually
hoped
for as much? The
revelation made her sick to her stomach. She had wanted to prove to
Thorkell that he was a bad person; that by making her his wife,
somehow, he had trapped her. She clutched her own arms, as if
suddenly cold. How often did she cause trouble simply to provoke
other people into believing the world was as dark as she
thought?

“I … I ...” She forced a swallow from her
dry mouth. “I don’t want a divorce.”

“Then what do you want?” For the first time
since her return, he looked at her. His gaze undulated with
emotion. The sight broke her heart. “I love you, Runa. I don’t want
to change you. But … I can’t let you keep doing this.”

Restrained tears burned in her nose. “You
won’t
let me.”

His gaze became simple, pure. “Divorce me,”
he said, “or stay. But if you stay, have a baby with me.” His voice
grated with bitterness. “A baby we’ll know is mine. And if you ever
think you’re pregnant by another man, you’ll kill it.”

She covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. So
this mattered to him most? Or was it simply a desperate request?
Somehow she suspected the former. Perhaps she had hurt him a great
deal more than he could ever hurt her. And if he had figured out
that she knew how to “kill” a pregnancy ...

Something within her gave way. She fell
against him, pressing her cheek to the sharp edges of his beard,
raking her fingers along his biceps. “I’ll try.” A sob wracked her
frame. “I’ll try. I’ll try ...”

At last he reached up and held her, and she
wondered whether she had lost the argument, or won something
greater.

*

When they had their first baby together, she
wept, and named him Harald. She brushed his perfect skin with her
fingers, holding his warmth to her breasts, and marveled at his
beauty while hot tears rolled down her cheeks. The baby’s life was
a miracle, she realized; a miracle she had denied herself, as well
as Thorkell. Here was a human being not yet tarnished by the world,
unmarked by the evils of other people, unscathed, even, by the evil
she knew to be within herself.