Free The Viking’s Sacrifice by Julia Knight Page B

said, and not one they shared often with thralls, who made do with buttermilk.
    “See, now meat ain’t all that common here, excepting at slaughter time and what they can preserve. It’s all about what the others see, what you can keep because of the winter. Too long to keep most the animals and feed them. So Winter Nights is a big feast where they eat every damn thing they can’t keep from the slaughtering. It’s the milk and what you can make of it that they live on, mostly. This meat’s tougher than boots by a liar’s mile. Been cooking all day though, reckon you won’t break a tooth. When they start the slaughter, then you’ll get your fresh meat, though you and I won’t get the good stuff. But Agnar’s not so stingy as some. He likes his thralls to eat enough to keep them healthy.”
    True enough, the food wasn’t the best Wilda had ever eaten—the stew was as tough as predicted, and no butter or honey on the thralls’ bread—but it was hot and filled her, and that was enough.
    When they were done, Bebba and Wilda collected the bowls and rinsed them. The two thrall boys went off to their space in the hayloft, both yawning prodigiously. Agnar took his leave with a tender kiss on Idunn’s forehead and went out into the snowy night. Once he was gone, Idunn’s rod-straight posture wilted and Bebba hurried to help her up from the bench. A quick, stern look at Wilda stopped any comment until Idunn had been installed in the bed and the partition closed.
    Bebba bustled about doing nothing much, her shoulders stiff to ward off any comment, but finally she sat down across the fire. Sparse tears lay scattered on her cheeks. “Breaks my heart, that it does.”
    “What does?”
    “Idunn in there. Dying she is, no doubt about it, but won’t show a damn thing to Agnar. He don’t know, the old fool. Thinks she’s just tired of late is all. The spae-wife—that’s like their, I don’t know, not a priestess, more like the goodwife, see? Knows all the old charms and herbs. Anyway, she brings up a thing to dose her with, make the pain go enough so she can sleep. A sad thing, I calls it, when she won’t take comfort from a husband she loves, and who loves her. But there, one way they’re different, the Norsemen. Courage is everything to them, even the women.”
    Bebba wiped her face with her apron and got up, all business again. “Can’t be sitting around with idle hands. Here, you take the wool. It’s washed and it needs combing. Their combs is much the same as at home.”
    Bebba took out two long-tined bone-handled combs and left her to tease the wool into order while she went into the ale room. Wilda set to, almost happy in it. Combing she could do, without too much taking the Lord’s name in vain. A mindless task she could lose herself in, not think, just do. Lose herself she did, in the soothing movement of hand and eye. She could pretend she was at home, that Myldrith was just waiting for her next “Goddamn!” or that Bayen would be here any moment—soft, comforting thoughts. Even if it hadn’t been her life of choice, it was a life she knew, where the rules made sense. And yet that seemed pathetic, to want what she hadn’t wanted, just because it was familiar. As though she had forgotten who she was.
    The bang of the door made the combs skip from her hands as she jumped up, half expecting Bayen to be standing in the doorway. Instead, it was Toki. He hesitated, as though gauging her reaction. When she made no move, he ducked his head shyly and bent to pick up the combs and wool, now tangled worse than when she’d started.
    Bebba came out of the ale room, wiping her hands on her apron. When she saw who it was, she tutted and began to hector Toki, but he paid her no mind. Instead he handed Wilda the combs, his head still ducked, and went to sit on the same bench as before across the fire from Wilda. Bebba’s voice trailed off when he still took no notice and instead went to fetch him a cup of ale with