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Ragnar and Lagertha were surprisingly tender with their children. After seeing the man cut through half a dozen monks, one would not expect him to spend an hour play-wrestling with his daughter. Gyda giggled and shrieked at the attention while climbing over her father and nipping at his ears. She pretended to be the sea monster whose name Athelstan couldn’t pronounce. Her father’s ears were dinner.
Even Lagertha showed a softer side to her children. She would sit with Bjorn for hours, watching the water and talking about the pagan gods and stories of war. It was the only time the boy was ever quiet. If it were not for the stories of pagan deities, Athelstan would regard it as a miracle of God.
He was listening to them one day. Listening, washing clothes, and wishing his head would stop bleeding. He had shaved his pate before breakfast and Lagertha had raged when the blood had dripped onto the table. Gentle as she was with her children, she had little tenderness to spare for him. He was holding back a curse as a few drops stained her dress, when a hand on his shoulder startled him. He scrambled forward and would have fallen in the water had Ragnar not caught him at the last second.
“What kind of god,” the Viking said, once Athelstan was steady on his feet, “wants a jumpy rabbit for a priest?”
“A peaceful one. One who loves his followers,” Athelstan said.
“A loving god wants this?” Ragnar touched his head and drew back fingers that were red and wet.
“His Son died for our sins. I can suffer a little pain to show I am a Christian.”
“A loving god wants you to suffer?” Ragnar was confused.
“Yes!” So was Athelstan. He had experience explaining tonsures and vestments and the Holy Spirit, but not while he was a slave to people who asked him to join them in their bed. Not after seeing the bodies of his brethren hung up like the carcasses of pigs. Not after seeing his home burned to the ground. His brain refused to put all of that aside and let his mouth explain why the tonsure was so important. It was all he had left and he was desperate to keep it. Desperate, but not articulate. Desperate, but not able to organize his thoughts.
The Viking frowned, which was rare enough that it made Athelstan tense. The other man had never hit him, but that was no reason to think him kind. Kind men do not commit murder. No blows came and after a few moments Ragnar said, “Maybe your god wants this, but I do not. No more knives.” With one fluid motion he plucked the small blade from the priest’s belt and stuck it in his own. He tipped Athelstan’s chin up in an affectionate gesture, and then left to teach his son how to use a sword.
Athelstan stood there, clenching his hands into fists and willing the tears not to fall. Only when he noticed Lagertha’s dress floating out of reach did he move.
When night came and the children were in bed, man and wife did as they were wont to do every night. Ragnar tossed his happy wife over his shoulder, growling that he was Thor and she was a giant warrior-maid he had fallen in love with. He winked at Athelstan and gave him a look that meant, “you’re free to join us.”
Athelstan just shook his head. He waited until the grunts and moans were replaced by Lagertha’s snores (who knew women snored?), then quietly tip toed to Ragnar’s pile of discarded clothes. The blade was underneath the tunic. He stuffed it beneath his own blankets and went to sleep.
The next time Athelstan saw Ragnar he was reminded of a Mother Superior he had met on his travels to preach the Word. She had let it be known soon after introductions had been made that he was visiting HER convent and would abide by HER rules (which included no shoes and no talking after dark. He forgot which order she belonged to but afterward frequently thanked God he could not be a nun). She and Ragnar had the same scowl, the same pinched lips, the same flared nostrils. They even tapped their left foot in the same, unimpressed manner.
“That was not wise, Priest.” He was referring to the blood. It was much thicker and messier than yesterday because Athelstan might have pressed the knife a little harder against his scalp, just to irritate the Viking.
“It was the will of God.” That was a lie and they both knew it. But it was worth it to see the scowl deepen. Let him be annoyed. Let him feel anger and rage. Athelstan’s brothers were dead. Who cared if Ragnar was upset to learn he wasn’t the center of the universe?
“Come with me.” The Viking didn’t bother to make sure Athelstan followed. He led the other man behind the house to the shed. Anything that didn’t fit in the house went in the shed. It was a holding place for a variety of tools, animal feed, and firewood. On cold nights the animals moved in, so there was always the possibility of stepping in something foul. Athelstan tried to avoid the place and only entered it when ordered to.
Enough light peeked through the cracks of the wood to let them see each other when Ragnar shut the door behind them. “How old are you?” There was none of the usual teasing in his tone.
“Twenty-five.”
“I do not like being lied to.”
Athelstan decided he didn’t owe the Viking his honesty. “Twenty-two.”
Ragnar narrowed his eyes and when he spoke it was with the voice of a man who slaughtered when it benefited him. “Last. Chance.”
Athelstan’s survival instincts kicked in. “Nineteen. I’m nineteen.”
“Nineteen. Old enough to bed. Old enough to fight if you knew how. Young enough to beat. Have you ever been whipped?”
He never thought he would miss the older man calling him ‘Priest.’ Friendly teasing was far preferable to the stone glare he’s being fixed with now. It was made worse by the blunt question. He was no flagellant; the monastery had had no healer since Brother James had died and the older members of the order were unwilling to risk infection from bloody wounds.
“No,” he said finally, with a bad feeling of where the conversation was going.
“Ah. Let me tell you, it hurts. Like a hot iron held to your skin. You see this?” Ragnar was suddenly very, very close. He was a tall man. Not huge, but bigger than Athelstan, and the belt which usually looped around his waist was in his grip. It was old enough that any decorations had long since faded into the smooth, brown leather. It was still thick though. Thick enough for Athelstan to nod that yes, he could see it. “Disobey me again and you’ll feel it. Understand?”
Another nod.
Ragnar smiled; the normal fondness and mischief was back. He put the belt back on and tipped Athelstan’s chin up so their eyes met. “Good. No more of this.” He waved a hand around the dried blood. “I don’t want you hurting, Priest.” He tapped the tip of Athelstan’s nose and was gone.
Athelstan thought if Ragnar didn’t want him hurt he should have thought of that before leading his horde of barbarians to attack the monastery.
He did not shave his head for several days. There was nothing to shave anyway; the wounds needed time to heal before the hair would grow back. Ragnar took care not to leave knives around. When fuzzy stubble did reappear, he caught Athelstan staring at the blade on his belt. Scowling, he took it, stretched one arm as high as it would go, then stuck it in the wall of the house, out of the other man’s reach.
When her father was gone Athelstan put Gyda on his shoulders and told her to pluck the blade from its wooden sheath. It was pushed too deeply in and she couldn’t pull it out. Lagertha discovered them and yelled until her voice cracked and she couldn’t yell anymore. She told Gyda to go feed the chickens and told Athelstan he could work in the garden for an extra hour that day. If she caught him being idle then may Odin have mercy on his soul.
She told her husband about it later that night. Athelstan heard them talking while he was perched on an old bench and praying that it wouldn’t break under his weight.
“I will not having him bleeding on everything. What if he cuts himself too deeply and the children find his body? He’s not much good alive. Imagine how useless he will be dead.”
Ragnar chuckled, which made his wife smack him. The sound of skin on skin made Athelstan jump. “Ah, be calm. He is trying to please his god. When he learns the god has abandoned him, he will forget this madness. Who knows, he might decide Thor to be a better god. Or Odin. I think he might like Odin.”
“Don’t joke. He’s angry. I see him crying sometimes, while he works.”
Some days, when the clouds were grayer than usual and thoughts of Lindisfarne were too heavy, he cried. He hadn’t known she noticed that. The last thing he heared before yanking the small knife out of the wall and returning to his bed was, “I will talk to the priest tomorrow. Be gentle. The men of England are not as strong as what you are used to.”
When morning came, Athelstan made sure his head was as bloody as ever. Ragnar found him shivering by the shore, kneeling on the rocks and letting the blood stain his robe.
A hand grabbed his cowl and dragged him to his feet. “You should not have done this. Come.”
Athelstan pulled away. “No.”
Ragnar sighed. “If this is the moment you chose to rebel, you chose poorly. You should have waited until I was in a better mood.”
It was a shame that priests did not know many curse words because Athelstan would have liked to curse the Viking from that moment until the sun set. He settled for, “Damn your soul to hell!”
Those blue eyes let him know how unimpressed his master was. “Now you fight. Not when we stole your gold or burned your home, but when I made you stop shaving.” A strong, calloused hand wrapped around Athelstan’s wrist. “Come. Lagertha will clean that.” He waved his free hand towards the blood that was staining the dark curls. “And then you and I have business.”
Athelstan hit him. It wasn’t a very hard hit and he mostly missed. His fist only barely grazed the side of Ragnar’s face. He tried to hit him again, but Ragnar blocked his fist this time. “You keep making foolish decisions, Priest.”
“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!”
“Very foolish decisions.” It didn’t take much, just a few swift movements, for Ragnar to maneuver Athelstan over his shoulder like a sack of animal feed. Had the priest not already felt ready to curl into a ball and die, he would have been humiliated.
Ragnar carried him to the house. They past Bjorn and Gyda. He laughed. She looked terrified. Their father ordered them to stay outside and then nudged the door open with his hip.
Athelstan found himself not-too-gently plopped on the floor. Adding to his humiliation was the look Lagertha was giving him. Her eyes flicked from him to her husband before she turned around to fetch a bowl of water and some clean rags. “Next time you bring home a slave, bring one that doesn’t bleed all over everything.”
“Next time I’ll bring home a slave I’ll make sure he knows how to obey.”
“Damn you,” Athelstan whispered, because it wouldn’t do much good to scream it. Ragnar held him in a death grip, killing any hope for escape. To make it worse, neither husband nor wife gave any indication they were angry. They spoke as if all this was normal. As if he wasn’t screaming on the inside.
“Get one that’s not as mouthy.” Despite her words, Lagertha was as gentle as any nun when she cleaned the wound. She rubbed a stinging salve on his head and blew on it when he winced. When he tried to jerk away, Ragnar grabbed his chin and held him steady while she wrapped a bandage around his head. “We’ll need to change that tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow for tomorrow, today for today.” Ragnar spun Athelstan around and again he went over the Viking’s shoulder. “We have business.”
Not only was he going to put stripes on his back, but he was discussing it with his wife. This time Athelstan did scream. “Damn you!”
“You keep saying that,” Ragnar said mildly. “Disrespecting me does you no good.”
“Nothing about you does me any good!”
“Teach him to watch his mouth,” Lagertha said, before Ragnar shut the door.
The shed was as foul as ever. Athelstan tried to run the second he was deposited on the floor. Ragnar wasn’t having that and yanked him back by his cowl. The priest kept fighting until he was pushed against the wall and held there by hands stronger than his anger.
“What is this, Priest?” Ragnar asked. “Why do you fight me now? Why are you so angry?”
It was unbelievable that the pagan had to ask. “You burn my home. You murder my brothers and desecrated their mortal flesh. You make me a slave.” The tears were falling now, despite his best efforts to contain them. “You and your wife try to tempt me. You get me drunk and use what I tell you to plan more murder. And you won’t even let me shave my head. How can I be a priest without a tonsure?”
Ragnar was quiet for a moment. “Is the bald spot what makes you a priest?”
“No,” Athelstan admitted. “It’s the vows. I said the vows which…”
“So the tonsure,” the word was foreign coming from Ragnar’s mouth, “is not important.”
“It is, just…”
“And I did not nail your friends to the beams.”
“You did not murder them, but others died by your sword. And you burned Lindisfarne.”
Ragnar nodded. “I did. But I spared you.”
“Why?” Athelstan spat out. “Why didn’t you kill me too? Why did I have to see all that?”
“You know our language. I needed you.” Even if he already knew it, the truth still hurt to hear. He lived because he knew a language. That was all. Were it not for that he would be resting with his brothers in the arms of the Lord.
Ragnar continued, “There are some who, when they see their brothers and cousins and friends die, wonder why the Valkyries did not take them instead. Some of these men become death seekers, letting their sorrow and rage drive them to madness.” His hands fell from Athelstan’s shoulders and he cupped the priest’s chin. “That is no way to live. This,” he touched the bandage, “is no way to live. You can’t change what happened, Priest. But you can make your life easier.”
“It will never get any easier.”
“Yes, it will. It will get easier when you stop defying me. Start now.” Ragnar took off his belt. “Turn around and place your hands on the wall.”
Arguing was pointless and Athelstan didn’t have any strength left to fight anyway. He did as he was told. “Do you want to see my back?”
“I’m not aiming for your back.” Ragnar wrapped an arm around the priest’s waist. “I’m aiming a little lower. This is going to hurt.”
Realization struck. It was almost as shocking as Vikings at Lindisfarne, but a little more personal. Ragnar didn’t mean to whip him as a flagellant whips his back. He meant to whip him as a parent whips a misbehaving child. Athelstan felt his face burn. “Ragnar, wait. Just wait...”
The belt fell, leaving a streak of pain across his backside. Athelstan’s brain went in a million directions at once and what came out of his mouth was a loud yelp. The belt came a second time, with the same result.
“When we are done here, you will throw that knife in the fjord,” Ragnar said and why the man so infuriatingly calm? Athelstan didn’t have time to wonder. The belt made it hard to concentrate. “I will not have you hurt.”
That was so absurd he had to concentrate on it, if only for a moment. “You don’t want me hurt? You really don’t want me hurt?”
The whipping paused.
“Well, I only want you hurt if I’m responsible. You’ve made me angry, Priest. That was foolish. Almost as foolish as hurting yourself. Being foolish has a price.”
The whipping resumed.
Ragnar had been right; it was like an iron was being held against his skin. Every time the belt landed somewhere new, a stripe of skin blossomed in pain. Every time it landed someplace it had already visited, a new set of tears dripped down Athelstan’s face. He shifted his feet, trying to see if there any way to escape the leather.
“Keep moving and this,” Ragnar tugged at the brown robe, “comes up.”
Athelstan was too busy sobbing to saying anything. His backside and thighs suffered another three strikes before Ragnar let him go. He fell to his knees, crying from pain, humiliation, and loneliness.
Ragnar knelt beside him and tipped his face up. “I am not a cruel master, Priest. I do not starve you. I do not insult you with every waking moment. I do not make you worship my gods. If you wanted to, you could join me and my wife in our bed.” He smiled when Athelstan blushed. “But I will not be defied and I will not let you hurt yourself. You do either of those and we will be back here and you will be unhappy.” His thumb wiped away a tear. “Understand?”
Somehow, Athelstan managed to nod.
“Good.” Ragnar wrapped his arms around the priest and drew him close. They fell into one another although it was not as awkward as it should have been. They sat and slid against the wall, with Athelstan fitting between Ragnar’s legs. The Viking maneuvered Athelstan’s head against his shoulder and murmured words too soft to be understood. They sounded like a prayer or a lullaby and, coupled with the close touch, made Athelstan tense. He opened his mouth to protest, but was hushed with a finger to his lips. “I will not take you against your will, but it is not good to be alone all the time. The gods did not make us to be without companionship.”
“Mine did. I’ve sworn never to know a woman.”
“Perfect. I am not a woman.” Ragnar tightened his hug and, against his better judgment, Athelstan leaned into him. As the ache in his rear faded and sobs became sniffles, he felt he ought to point something out.
“You don’t whip your children like that.” Aside from a few light swats or maybe a smack upside the head, Ragnar and Lagertha never physically punished their offspring.
Ragnar laughed. “They know better than to speak to me as you did.” He combed his fingers through the dark curls. “And they so young. Do you think I should?”
“No. God no. I don’t think you should whip me. I’m old.” The last time he had earned a similar chastisement, he had been younger than Bjorn.
“Nineteen. Almost as ancient as Odin.” Ragnar pressed his lips against Athelstan’s temple, taking care not to disturb the bandage. “Priest, when you need a hammer, you use a hammer. When you need an axe, you use an axe. When you need a belt, you use a belt.”
“And how often do you expect to need your belt?”
“That depends on you,” Ragnar said. “There are other tools. If I need to use words, then I’ll use words. You can use them too. If you need to talk to someone, talk to me.”
“How can you tell me not to disrespect you, then tell me to talk to you when I’m upset?”
Ragnar gave him a Look. “Do you really not understand the difference between telling me how you feel about the death of your friends and damning my soul?”
Well, when it put in that manner… “It is hard. To speak of them and home.”
“Try.”
After a few moments, Athelstan began to talk.
The knife barely made a splash in the water. It hurt to let it go, but a glance at Ragnar told him what would hurt worse if he didn’t send the blade flying. Besides, the confusion and anger that had ruled him for so many days were fading away. Ragnar had listened. The Viking had been surprisingly sympathetic, and there had been no judgment when Athelstan admitted to waking up at night drenched in sweat with the smell of a burning monastery still in his nose. He had simply rubbed the priest’s back and told him many
men had nightmares of battles. He was not alone.
It hurt to sit for the evening meal, but only a little. Lagertha didn’t mention why he was shifting in his seat, and Ragnar told him the children knew nothing. At least he had been spared that indignity. He went to his sleeping mat in the corner of the house feeling a single stinging swat that he suspected was to remind him to stay between the blankets until dawn.
He didn’t. When he woke up hearing the screams of the dead and seeing the body pushed over into the sea, he crawled to Lagertha and Ragnar’s bed. Carefully, so as not to wake the woman who would doubtless skewer him with a hot iron for interrupting her sleep, he shook Ragnar awake.
The Viking gave him a sleepy look. “Nightmare?”
Athelstan nodded. “May I…?” he asked. Then, because Ragnar might get the wrong idea and he really did not want him to get the wrong idea, he said, “not because I want to, you know.” He was blushing again. “But, may I just stay with you?”
Ragnar nodded and motioned for the priest to come closer. Athelstan curled next to him, enjoying the feeling of warmth and the Viking’s arm around him holding him close, and trying to ignore the fact that the other man was as naked as Adam in the garden. He was not engaging in fornication. His vows were respected. He was still a priest.
The last thought Athelstan had before drifting off into quiet rest was that Ragnar really was very gentle.