Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XXXVII - Roth

Njord — A god (Vanir) particularly associated with wealth, fertility, the sea, and seafaring in historical Germanic religion.

Dawn was far from nigh, the weary sun still lingering beyond Midgard's hinterland for all Roth bade it come the sooner.

The lamps had gutted out long before he found his fitful rest — if rest it was. With his mother he had spoken very little despite her attempts to reason with Renic and himself. There would be time enough for that when they returned, winter's endless darkness would see to that, but he had no patience for her excuses now.

All their lives he and Renic had suffered under the specious belief that they were Haraldssons, having at least inherited their sire's colossal height if not the blaze of firelight in his coloring; and now to find that they were nothing but imposters to a chieftaincy that was not rightly theirs... That the patrimony was, in truth, without an heir seemed almost risible. Moreover, it was Ragnar and Søren now that were far better entitled to the jarldom than either Renic or himself.

Such were his thoughts and they plagued him well into the small hours so much so that he finally abandoned all hope of slumber; he would have, no doubt, only beckoned nattmaras in his present state of acrimony.

Thus he left the hall, its benches packed with sleeping inmates, to make his way to the river for a midnight swim, the water so much like blackened ice in the moonless hush that even the starlight was swallowed by its depths, an eerie dearth of coruscant lights atop its unmoving surface. The crescent moon had set just as the sun had done hours ago.

When he returned he betook himself to where Heida lay sleeping, her pale arm thrown across Brenna's waist, and he watched her till his disquiet eased. That this girl, with moonlight in her complexion and steel in her bones, could soothe his restive mind and spirit so was transcendental in a way that disturbed him.

She was by no means a great beauty, only passing pretty really, but she was all that was perfect and winsome to him. Howbeit, she loved Eirik.

And he, the pretender heir that he was, had not the freedom nor the authority to change her mind for her, as was his impulse, because he himself was not his own man. Ironic, really, that an almighty jarl of the Blackmanes was indeed powerless to choose for himself.

Let her have Eirik, he thought, a grimace pulling at his lips as he turned away. Let one of us be happy at least.

He supposed he was selfless enough to want that for her. Or was he? He had rather not contemplate his selflessness tonight — not as it concerned her. So it was that he spent the rest of the night staring into the embers the while he willed his head vainly to calmness.

The aubades and lays of the birds at last betokened dawn's arrival and saw the men gathering along the beach as their drakkars were loaded with supplies and all the accoutrements required for their bivouacs. This time their weapons were honed for hunting more than riches, for this would be no raid, but a sport of necessity.

Most of the faces of Roth's men were as yet still rubicund from the night's excesses and he, notwithstanding his sleepless cogitations, felt strangely alert and unhindered by fatigue. As the last of the provisions were stowed, he approached his mother as Renic, who'd already dispensed with his own phlegmatic farewell, moved away.

To her icy cheek he pressed his even colder lips, their eyes meeting and conferring silently. He had yet to forgive her and she had no words to comfort him with; he would not have accepted them had she thought to share any.

Frida's kiss was only somewhat warmer, and that only because his face was, for once, devoid of its usual sardonicism. It had been on the tip of his sharpened tongue to taunt her with mocking gallantries, but Heida was right: he must needs make the effort to establish peace between them as opposed to continuing his puerile abuse of her; though, he would as lief do neither.