Chapter Text
"Ymir's blood," Eivor swears between another bout of retching.
"You curse like an old woman clutching her shawl by the fire," Ivarr cackles even as he mercifully holds his braids back from his face. "I've heard better from you, Wolf-Kissed."
Eivor twists to scowl up at him. "One more word and—" He stops to vomit into the pot again. Little as there is in his stomach, it's mostly water and acidic bile.
"I told you to help him, Ivarr," Ceolbert scolds from somewhere behind Eivor, his presence a blessed balm compared to Ivarr's antagonism.
"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" He may be fond of the man as one might be fond of a sharp, expensive dagger, but he isn't Eivor's first choice for bedside support. He's comfortingly deadly in battle but hardly soothing in times of sickness or emotional distress.
"I'm sorry, Eivor, if I'd known you were ill I would never have asked for your presence here." Ceolbert's voice is undeniably earnest, and if Eivor concentrates over the awful pungence of his stomach's contents, he smells just as assiduous. "I can send for a healer to—"
"Aetheling," Ivarr interrupts brusquely as Eivor squeezes his eyes tightly shut against another bout of nausea. "Eivor just fell into his cups, is all. He'll vomit and piss it out soon enough without dragging one of your simpering little bald men over. If you want to be helpful, fetch him some water."
Ceolbert sighs, and then Eivor listens to his footsteps retreating from the room, the door closing behind him. Ivarr's hands are tight in his hair, and if Eivor were tender-headed, he might have complained about the strength of his grip. As it is, he's much too weak and ill to give a damn. It will pass, of course, just as it has every day for the last twelve during the course of his journey to Essexe and back.
He hadn't thought there would be any harm answering Ceolbert's summons that found him midway home. In fact, he'd leaped at the chance to avoid Ravensthorpe a little longer, if only to steal more time before an inevitable conversation with Randvi. There are two harsh truths she should hear from his lips alone. It would be best to do so before he's unable to hide his pregnancy.
"Eivor," Ivarr says, and his shoulders tense at the lowered intonation. The man only ever sounds so serious when issuing a threat or defending his pride. "Someone's been a busy drengr. What dumb bastard ploughed a pup into you?"
Shit. Eivor stills, his stomach curdling for another reason entirely. Of all the people who might have correctly surmised the truth, Ivarr was not particularly high on the list, ranked higher only than the likes of Holger. That man notices nothing that doesn't serve his muse. He had expected Ivarr to be similarly disinterested in him. "No one," his nausea-addled tongue says, made foolish by apprehension.
Ivarr snorts. "Don't let the Christians hear their Mary the Cross-Gazer has a heathen rival for miraculous conception." Eivor's mouth twists unhappily where Ivarr can't see it, and he pushes the pot away to escape the wafting bile. It does little to calm the churning waters of his belly.
"It's as you told Ceolbert," he insists, but Ivarr releases his hair to nudge the pot even farther away, crouching in its place. His eyes are too keen for Eivor's comfort, much like Basim and Hytham's, though he knows most wouldn't expect such incisive scrutiny from such a flame-blooded man. His trickery is expected in the thick of battle, a cunning opponent who simultaneously expects and evades expectation. He realizes Ivarr has outmaneuvered him in this.
The man tsks, shaking his head. "No. Even the whelp lordling wouldn't believe that steaming shit-pile of a lie." Ivarr moves too quickly for him to counter, swiping his fingers across Eivor's scent glands and dancing away from his attempted strike. He sniffs them and nods sagely, eyes closed. "The work of your Seeress. You're not drinking that moon-blood concotion."
Eivor scowls, folding his arms over his chest and sitting back on his heels. The pose of a petulant child, not a warrior. "Neither are you." He knows it's a terrible attempt at misdirection the moment he says it; he doesn't need the pointedly raised eyebrow to recognize that. Ivarr had thoroughly explained to him his reasoning for baring his hugr, namely that he enjoys the way Saxon alphas falter when they realize they fight an omega. Ivarr is, if nothing else, a wily and slippery opponent not above using anything to his advantage. The Christians have made it far too easy for him.
"Ceolbert will be back soon," he says, "so before he gets an earful, take my advice: if you don't want the pup, your Seeress will know how to—"
"No," Eivor snaps, frigid and unyielding as an ice giant's axe. "You will not speak of it." He stares up at him from the floor, stiff-backed and narrow-eyed. He does not begrudge other people their choices, but this is Sigurd's child, their daughter. And if Valka's interpretation of his dream is accurate, this is not how Eivor will take her from him. It grieves him how all his recent portents point only to betrayal, and it sits so heavily in his belly that his glare falters into a pained grimace.
Ivarr stares back. After a moment, he raises his hands placatingly. "Must be an important dumb bastard." Their gazes hold and Ivarr strokes his grizzled chin thoughtfully. "It's not Ubba, is it?"
"What? No!"
"Good, good. I like you, Wolf-Kissed, but not that much."
With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Eivor scrubs at his mouth with the back of his hand. The aftertaste of his sickness still lingers, bitter in the back of his mouth. When he came into his omegahood, Svala told him of the many faces a pregnancy would wear. In the beginning, she'd said, it was often swelling and bloating and nausea at differing rates for different people. He's noticed, too, that he is prone to aches and soreness. Eivor is hardly sedentary and muscle strain is expected after clambering up sheer cliffs or church towers, or after long periods perched atop vantage points— but it was never his nipples that ached.
"You will not tell a soul," Eivor commands lowly. "Swear it, Ivarr."
It is the other warrior's turn to roll his eyes. "I will not so much as fart a syllable." It is, perhaps, the best promise he will get from him.
Not for the first time, he wishes he stood at Sigurd's side again. And, also not for the first time, he wonders what the man would think if he knew Eivor carries a child of his making. Would he regret that evening? Demand Eivor ask Valka for a potion to cast her from Eivor's womb? Or perhaps, as foretold by his dream, Sigurd would love her enough to beat at the doors of Hel's hall for her return.
"Ah, Ceolbert. What the fuck took you so long?" Eivor stands, perhaps a bit too hastily. "I'm not holding your hair again," Ivarr warns, no doubt catching his sickly pallor.
Ceolbert appears beside him, offering the cup of water Ivarr sent him to fetch. Lately, most Christian alphas have done little for Eivor's sensitive senses and stomach. In Essexe, the table of posturing men hurtling their dissatisfaction at Ealdorman Birstan had Eivor moments from fleeing for the nearest door. Their combined scents cast a miasma across the room, and he can scarcely recall what pitiful advice he'd given Birstan. Ceolbert, however, is...heartening. Soothing. He smells like sunny warmth and clean fields.
"Thank you," Eivor murmurs, sipping cool water slowly and closing his eyes.
"I do have a responsibility to the people here, Ivarr," he says, almost scolding. "If they come to me, wherever that may be, I have to listen."
"Even while taking a piss?"
Ceolbert sighs again, like a disappointed mother, and Eivor hides the quirk of his lips in the rim of his cup. The worst of his stomach-tumults have left him, and he can admit that as dubious a man Ivarr is, his and Ceolbert's company is a welcome reprieve.
He dreams of the redhaired Sigurdsdottir often. They are not, he knows, visions from the gods of a future fated for him. They are doubtlessly flights of fancy, winged things of little substance, but he treasures them all the same— even as they bury an ache in his chest. In some of them, he is with Sigurd and the man is whole and hale, standing in the sun with a swaddled babe in his arms. In others, she is older and perched on one of his knees as he teaches her to whittle. But his favorite among them is when they are tucked into bed, her little body between them, tiny hands groping for Eivor's hair. Sigurd watches them both with equal parts devotion and adoration, a toothy grin hidden in that beard of his.
After each of these dreams, he will wake with a longing so formidable it could carry a shield into battle.
Gods, he's sick with Sigurd's absence, full to bursting with memories new and old. When they were young and Eivor freshly Wolf-Kissed, Sigurd had kept him close at his side, even while his dearest friend Dag protested. Five years is not so great a separation between men, but for boys, it is a difference between first learning of your second hugr and using it to notch a bedpost. The only time they were separate was the season Eivor spent muddying his trousers with Vili. That was Eivor's choice, not Sigurd's, who only ever waved off the crowing protests of his friends with that good-natured smile no one could deny.
And now Dag is dead. He clashes horns in Valhalla with other einherjar, feasting nightly and no doubt laughing over bawdy tales. His accusations, however, live on; they echo from Odin's hall, and Eivor wonders how he could ever have given the impression that he coveted Sigurd's title. He could no more steal from Sigurd than he could himself.
Eivor regrets Dag's death, but he cannot regret that he survived the holmgang. No, not with a daughter in his belly. He may not have known of her when Raven Clan formed the square for he and Dag, but if he had, he would have sent the man to Valhalla far more quickly.
When he dismounts from Hrimfaxi in Ravensthorpe, the sun is at its highest. The children chase each other through the buildings with sticks, their squealing laughter coaxing a fond smile from Eivor's mouth. Above that is the ringing of the forge, metal on metal. He smells Tarben's next batch of bread and watches traders bustle down the street, doubtlessly leaving Yanli's store.
He pauses at the open door of the small bureau, where Hytham sifts through scrolls. His back is to Eivor, and he considers leaving before the man can turn to greet him, but the decision is too quickly taken out of his hands.
"Eivor, you've returned!"
"I have, and with a gift." Hoping that the young Hidden One's interest will be snared by his work, Eivor tugs free a set of medallions. They dangle from his fingers, held aloft by the cords that once rested around treasonous throats. "I found several of their warriors on the path to Essexe. I'm sure they wished I hadn't." He smiles darkly and Hytham dips his head, reaching for the necklaces.
"And you will be rewarded for your help." He pauses and Eivor braces himself, meeting his warm eyes squarely. "May I ask...How are you? Dag was one of your people, and I know it wasn't your will to fight him."
"He forced my hand," he answers gruffly, swallowing. "It is over. He is at peace in Valhalla. Let us move on from that night as he has." He knows he is brusque and his tone harsh, more so than the gentle Hytham deserves, but the wound is still healing. His work reuniting lovers in Essexe may have distracted him from his burdens for a time, but they hang as heavily around his shoulders as a rain-soaked cloak.
Hytham is frowning slightly. "I know that you would do nothing to put Jarl Sigurd in jeopardy," he murmurs, bowing his head again. "If anyone doubts that, it is because they are afraid."
As am I, he wants to say, but he does not. From the flicker of Hytham's stare, Eivor believes he's heard it nonetheless. "Thank you, Hytham, but I must leave you now. Randvi waits for news of Essexe."
He nods, once again understanding what Eivor does not say. He is eager to free Sigurd— impatient, even, and he will not rest until it is done. That Dag could have doubted his resolve stings smartly even now. "Of course. It was good to see you, and thank you again for your help." Eivor turns, meaning to head down the steps for the longhouse, but Hytham's voice gives him pause. "You should eat and rest more, my friend. It would do you good."
His fingers flex at his sides and his mind is host to the writhing Jörmungandr. Does he know of the pregnancy? Or does Eivor simply appear far more exhausted than he thought? He hopes it is the latter, even though he knows Hytham would not endanger Sigurdsdottir. He is not yet ready for his clan to know, for the inevitable line of questioning and the further deception Eivor would undertake to spare Sigurd's reputation.
"I will," he says eventually, and with that, takes the path leading to the longhouse. He passes through the hall, tracing steps he's taken a dozen times already to the alliance map. To the surprise of no one, Randvi is there, pacing between tables.
It is a strange battleground he finds himself occupying. The opposing forces are relief and dread, straining against each other for the upper hand. He is glad to see she is well and dutiful as ever, but the confessions that lie in wait within his throat are far more likely to choke him than find her ears. Eivor refuses to be a coward; if he must cut each syllable from his tongue, then he will. Nonetheless, it does not mean he is unafraid of Randvi's reaction or the consequences that will strain their relationship.
It is worse knowing that she cares for him beyond the bonds of friendship. Eivor had rebuffed her and now– now he is to tell her that he fucked her husband. Is it any wonder his heart could rival the hoofbeats of Sleipnir?
Odin, All-Father, favor me with your strength of spirit and speech.
"Randvi," he greets, smiling as she twists immediately in his direction. "I am the bearer of good tidings from Essexe. Consider Birstan a friend of the Raven Clan."
"That is good to hear," she says, returning his smile with a small and weary one of her own. "And I'm glad that you're home."
He inclines his head and avoids her gaze under the guise of inspecting the alliance map. His fingers find the carved statuette resting atop Suthsexe, idly rubbing the divots. "We have many allies now," Eivor murmurs. "Sigurd may be running out of time. Is there word from Basim?"
"He waits for you with Jarl Guthrum. Are you sure—"
"There is something I must tell you." He lifts his stare from the map to her face, finding her eyes and forehead creased with concern. She no doubt wonders what could be so important to postpone a hasty journey to Suthsexe. "Walk with me?" To speak of his night with Sigurd here, in this room attached to the one he shares with his wife— Eivor cannot do it. He would also prefer to lessen the chances of an eavesdropper stealing away to gossip.
"Of course. Lead the way."
Neither of them speak within the sprawl of Ravensthorpe. He crosses the bridge spanning the width of the stream behind the longhouse and into the nearby flowered hills, fields of purple and white made brighter by curtains of sunlight. It is a beautiful place to have made their home, and for a moment, he imagines a small girl with red hair running with a fistful of wildflowers.
At first, Eivor leans against a nearby tree, but it feels far too casual so he pushes off of it. Randvi watches him, frowning all the while, and he's almost convinced she can hear the heavy thud of his heart, like the boots of vikingar landing in the longboat.
"Do you remember a feast three months ago? It was shortly after we built the stables."
"Vaguely." Her lips quirk, though her eyes are wary. "Drinking muddles my memory."
Eivor recalls that night with far too much clarity. Even now, standing before a friend and a wife he's betrayed, he cannot bring himself to fully regret it. He's wanted Sigurd before Randvi was even a thought in Styrbjorn's plans, and if there comes a day when he does not want him— Eivor will not recognize himself.
"If only I could forget when Octavian removed his toga to demonstrate how to wear it," he says dryly, and Randvi chuckles even as she grimaces. Ah, but he's stalling, isn't he? Licking his lips, Eivor squares his shoulders as though preparing for battle and says, "I laid with Sigurd."
He expects anger and accusation, or hurt and demands, but she only blinks slowly and sighs. "I know, Eivor." What? Seeing the shocked parting of his lips and widening of his eyes, she laughs again, though bitterly. "Sigurd told me the next night. He's never liked secrets between us, but..." And he knows her thoughts drift to her feelings for Eivor, their time together on the ruined tower. "I haven't been as honest with him as I could be. I'm not angry with you, so disabuse yourself of that."
A swallow and a shallow nod. "All right." But Eivor is still confused. Even knowing Randvi does not love Sigurd as a husband, he doesn't understand how she can't resent him for it, just a little.
"You know I care for you," she adds. "Please believe me when I say this doesn't change that. Have I treated you any differently these past months?"
"No."
"Then I hope your shoulders are a little lighter now." They are, slightly. He hadn't realized quite how much he feared losing her steady friendship until the relief bowled him over, though it is fleeting in the face of his second truth.
She makes to walk back, but he grasps her forearm with a desperate agility. "There's more," he murmurs, looking down at his hand between them. "And I don't blame you if it does affect our friendship. I will understand."
"Tell me."
"I'm with child." It's the first time he's said it aloud. It spills out of his mouth as messily as a dying man's final breath. "She is Sigurd's." The muscles beneath his fingers tense just before Randvi tugs her arm from him. Eivor glances up at her face and finds her lips pressed together into a thin, bloodless line. The valleys around her eyes from sleeplessness are deeper with distress, and his stomach falls to his feet. Her scent, typically warm like the mist of a hot spring in their homeland, runs sour. "Randvi—"
"Does Sigurd know?"
He shakes his head. "No. I learned of it myself only a few weeks ago. He was taken before I noticed the signs."
"And you've confirmed them?"
"With Valka, yes."
For a time, there are only the sounds of birds calling to each other from tree limbs and the murmuring of the nearby stream. Eivor doesn't dare to open his mouth, watching in silence as Randvi turns from him. Her hair is lighter than Sigurd's, just barely. If —or perhaps when— they have children, Eivor can easily picture a brood of autumn-headed pups. He is fond of the color, more than he should be. He has come to closely associate it with comfort and a dependable shoulder.
"It did not take," she says suddenly, startling Eivor out of his mind's rambling. Her face tilts toward him, and seeing the wordless question in the set of his mouth and brow, she clarifies, "The hugr-bond."
He swallows hard, mouth dry as the bark of a dead tree. "I did not know."
"We were supposed to keep trying." Randvi folds her arms over her chest protectively. "He left to travel not long after our third attempt failed." She looks down at her hands, which clench slowly. Randvi does not speak again.
"Why tell me this?" Eivor asks quietly, when he is certain that her pause is not simply time taken to think for her response.
Her gaze lifts to find his and his chest tightens at the exhaustion there. He startles to see defeat. It is so unlike the woman who has determinedly pressed on through her fatigue time and time again for the betterment of Ravensthorpe. It is difficult to imagine her as the self-proclaimed wildling she was before marrying Sigurd. "I had suggested to Sigurd that we divorce," she says, barely louder than a murmur. "I told him that you were better suited for each other and that I did not want to be an obstacle to your happiness."
Eivor reaches for her instinctively, grasping her shoulder. "Randvi," he rebukes gently. "That isn't—"
"Please, Eivor. You remember what he was like before Fulke's betrayal— what he was becoming." He still struggles to understand why her eyes are grooved with such dread. There is more she has yet to say.
Eivor's free hand curls and uncurls at his side, remembering the jolt of impact against Sigurd's jaw. The curdle of his stomach, meanwhile, recalls jealousy, watching Basim fill the place that was once his own and how smoothly Sigurd accepted it. "Yes," he says, his voice slipping into a rasp. "Why remind me?"
"Because...because he told me there could be no happiness between you."
And so the ground shifts beneath him once again.
The path to Croindene is lonely. Though urgency hounds him at every turn, spurred by the memory of Sigurd's hand presented like a gift, his pace suffers. He is a man riding horseback with a spear through his chest, the haft jostled by every step, slamming against his heart. He keeps an arm slung across his belly, palm pressed to the daughter growing there, whose hair will be red like fire, like blood. His, and Sigurd's.
Randvi had promised she would not speak a word of what passed between them, once she realized she could not comfort Eivor. He does not doubt her silence; instead, his mind wanders to the vision fed by Valka's potion, to her prediction of yet another betrayal.
The betrayal is Sigurd's, a spiteful thought snarls, but it is without heat. Perhaps Eivor has given too much weight to the night they shared. It is not the first time he has considered such an imbalance between them. In the weeks following their encounter, Sigurd's behavior had blindsided Eivor at every turn: he withheld information and spoke in hushed tones with Basim, their heads bowed low together, the intimacy branding Eivor an intruder. It had culminated in the blow Eivor dealt his face, and the sharp grief he had nursed resurfaces with the force of a hammer.
He had hoped, dimly yet firmly, that the vision of Sigurdsdottir implied Sigurd cared for him as a lover. A foolish notion, he sees now, and yet again he wonders how this rift came to split them so suddenly Eivor still struggles to find his footing. It is a cruel thread the Nornir's long fingers pluck. How far can it stretch from Sigurd's before it breaks?
The vision's implications had seemed so outlandish before he spoke with Randvi. Whatever would happen, he was certain that once Sigurd learned of the pup, he would lessen his time spent with Basim and bridge the distance between he and Eivor. He wanted Sigurd's love; Sigurd has always had his.
He must seem so foolish to the Nornir.
Grief has a stench unlike any other. It is not a miasma of death or decay scented easily on the breeze after a battle. Eivor can liken it only to the fresh blood of birth, which he knows by the arrival of a new foal or litter of piglets. It is fitting; grief is a beginning more than it is an end, and as Broder kneels beside Brothir's body, his mind falls back to the vision.
It must have simply invoked Brothir's name for Eivor's understanding. Sigurdsdottir will never meet him in this world.
He drops a hand to Broder's shoulder and squeezes it tightly through his armor. Below battle-sweat and gore, the alpha's scent is that life-fresh grief, but so too is there...sufferance. It is true that no man reaches for his axe without facing the possibility of his own death, or the death of his fellows, but Eivor had expected fury. From a man as hot-tempered as Broder, this acceptance is unsettling.
"He waits for you now in Valhalla, but I admit that I hope your reunion is a long-time coming," Eivor says before he leaves him there, Guthrum stalking forward with the force of a storm at his back. This is what he had anticipated from Broder: the metallic stink of a sword in the forge, glowing under the striking of a hammer.
Guthrum lays the blame at Eivor's feet and he snarls, Basim's restraining hand little more than a poker stirring a fire. "Leave, then. Show me your back, so that I might recognize you more easily when I see you again." Guthrum's gait pauses, and Eivor clenches his fists, the thunderbolt beat of his heart daring him to look back, to seek recompense for an insult of cowardice. His knuckles are bloodied by Fulke's champion, his forehead bruised with the meeting of their skulls, but his blood is not satisfied.
Guthrum keeps walking.
"That was not wise," Basim says. Eivor ignores him, turning to face Ubba and Soma.
"We have work to do," he says briskly, folding his arms over his chest to avoid reaching for his belly. "We must weaken Fulke's position here."
Between them, they iron out a plan: Soma will go to Crawleah, and Eivor will join her there to aid in torching the supply carts; Ubba will head southeast of Guildeford, and upon Eivor's arrival, destroy the silos there. Basim speaks of a commander to eliminate, and Eivor swallows his contempt and ugly envy to agree. He must also find Stowe, not far from where Ubba will wait, and it is only when the group departs that he allows the fatigue to overtake him.
He had never expected freeing Sigurd would be easy. That troll-woman is well-entrenched wherever she goes, and slippery as a river-drenched stoat. Her end is in sight, but there are days of riding ahead of Eivor— and skirmishes that are increasingly dangerous for the growing Sigurdsdottir. Fighting defensively has never been Eivor's strongest skill; he may need to put his bow to greater use, though he refuses to lead from behind his warriors as some of the Saxon lords do.
Eivor strokes a hand down his beard, fingers catching on matted blood and gore. A dip in the river would do him good, though this is not territory friendly to heathens, and he would prefer not to fight for his life while stark naked. He settles for walking with Hrimfaxi to a stream and dunking his head within it, washing his face of the grime as best he can.
It will not be long before he is bloodied again, but he would wade in the entrails of a thousand champions if it meant reaching Sigurd. Perhaps then Sigurd would not doubt his devotion.
Perhaps then the pup in his belly would have a father.