The Viking’s Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Very well.”
    “Wilda!” Myldrith’s face was pale and as blotched as turned milk. “No, we can’t—”
    Wilda took Myldrith’s hand. “We have to. We’ve no choice, not against men armed and armoured.”
    “But they’re heathens, animals.” Myldrith glared at Sigdir, which made his mouth twitch in amusement. Myldrith dropped her voice. “They’re godless.”
    “What would you have me do?”
    “Anything! Anything but go with them. The king—the king will help, other thanes, your father. They might ransom us.”
    Sigdir growled out some words and waved a hand at them, seemingly having lost patience. Two of his men, shoulders hulked from being at oars, took hold of Wilda. They weren’t gentle, but neither were they too rough. That didn’t stop Myldrith screaming fit to burst.
    Wilda did her best to make her see sense. “There’s nothing I can do that won’t end in our deaths and those of everyone here. We’ve no one to call on for help. King Rædwulf died against Northmen not a week ago. Bayen had word this morning. The thanes are in uproar and the Northmen ready to take advantage. No place is safe and we’ve no one to call on for help. I need to make sure the town is safe, at least until a new king is found. Maybe now Rædwulf is dead, Æthelred can take the throne again. Until then, we’re friendless. We need to live long enough for help, for ransom to reach us, if that’s what they’re after.” In her heart, Wilda had doubts about that. If ransom was the goal, why kill Bayen, the one most likely to pay?
    Myldrith dissolved into tears but Wilda didn’t have time for pity, for herself or anyone else. The warriors marched them toward their longships. Myldrith kept up a long stream of sobs, but Wilda held herself straight, and the warrior who held her gave her at least the dignity of not dragging her by the waist as Myldrith’s escort had to. Instead she walked through the town, hers and Bayen’s, past the stunned white faces of so many people she knew.
    Bayen’s men-at-arms knelt, heads down, on the greensward in front of the church. Their captain—a hard-faced man in his forties with hands scarred from a lifetime of wielding blades and a mind just as scarred from the battles he’d fought—knelt at their head. He didn’t keep his head bent as Sigdir’s slave spoke in his ear. Instead the captain watched Wilda with mix of impotent anger and admiration, and he graced her with a knowing nod as she passed. At least one person saw she’d done the right thing. Not much of a blessing, when the chill in her heart told her nothing.
    The warriors helped her onto the ship, though they had to drag Myldrith, and before the day was done, their home, their life, was a blurred light on the horizon.

Chapter Three
    A fool is he named, who nought can say,
For such is the way of the witless.
    Havamal: 103
    The Norwegian fjords, in the year of Our Lord 844
    They called him many names. Once the by-names had been full of praise. He had been Einar Skinfaxi, Einar Strangi, Einar Fagri, Einar Ungi; Einar sheen-mane, the strong, the handsome, the young. Those days were long gone. Now they called him Burlufótr, Hokinn, Kamban, Kleykir, Nidingr, and those were the kinder—clumsy-foot, crooked, crippled, disgraced, coward. Mostly he was Toki, the simpleton. No one bothered with his real name anymore, all knew who they meant. The coward who had lost his mind in the raid that claimed Arni’s life, whose courage had failed, who had run away to be stabbed in the back. Whose fear had turned him mute and witless.
    Toki chewed the names over in his mind as he looked up from the meagre patch of high summer pasture that was grudged to him. The soil was poor, too shaded by dark firs and the angle of the mountain for much to grow, and the snows had come early this year, leaving him unprepared. Even the pig looked half-starved, and it had taken him over a year to gather enough fox furs to buy it and the horse that made life