In this room Olaf kept a latched chest of his treasures. Ragnvald opened it and found the expected silver, along with a few pieces of gold and some finely wrought bronze brooches, the like of which he had never seen grace the breast of either his mother or stepmother. Hilda’s now, Ragnvald decided.
He was turning one of these pieces over in his hand, admiring the way the lamplight rippled over the burnished surface and lit the garnet eye of one hound, whose mouth opened to swallow the leg of its fellow, when the lamp’s flame wavered and Vigdis walked into the room. Her hair was uncovered, still wet at the ends. Ragnvald saw a flash of her tending Einar, her hair dragging through his blood.
“I thought you might come to me,” said Ragnvald. He had imagined this moment as soon as he was old enough to want a woman. Not quite like this—in those fantasies he had not killed Olaf, though Olaf was usually dead and far away, and Vigdis came to him, her hair down, a smile on her face, saying that she desired Ragnvald.
“All of those men knew I would come to you,” said Vigdis, as though that did not shame her.
Ragnvald kept silent. He wanted her, and perhaps taking her was his right, but she had been half mother and half goddess to him for so long, and this was strange.
“So here I am.” She seemed also at a loss.
“Why, Vigdis?” Her name was strange on his tongue. “I will not harm Hallbjorn. He is only a boy.”
She lowered her eyes. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” he said roughly. He should send her away, but as she smiled at him, a knowing, satisfied smile, he knew he would not. He took her hand, gently for a moment, then wrenched her closer. Why should she be different than a thrall? Why should he care what she thought of him? He had power over her now. He sat and pulled her on top of him, to make her work for it, make her prove that she was here by choice, though when her weight pressed him into the down mattress, her breasts soft against his chest, her hand between his legs, he feared it would be over too quickly.
“Wait,” he said, and reached up to snuff out the candle.
“Would you not like to see me?” Vigdis asked. “I am your spoils.”
Ragnvald rolled her over onto her back and pressed her hands above her head, leaving the candle lit. “Are you mocking me?” he asked, though he decided he did not care if she was. She was here, and that meant more than whatever she said.
“Why should I mock the boy who has grown into more of a man than my husband was?”
“Don’t flatter me.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Should I not? Young men enjoy flattery.” She took hold of him between his legs again, over his britches.
“I do not.”
“I think this fellow does.”
“He likes a firm hand,” he answered. “Take off your gown.”
She gave him another amused look and pulled her gown up over her head, then helped Ragnvald take off his tunic and unlace his britches. She pulled him in to enter her as soon as they were both unclothed, and remained irritatingly unmoved as Ragnvald spent himself in her.
When they lay cooling, he played with her breast and watched her nipple stiffen between his fingers, until she wriggled away.
“Was it what you imagined?” Vigdis snuggled up against his side again, as though she had not just herself pulled away.
“Like many things, it was better in the imagination than in reality,” he said. “I imagined you would take more trouble to pretend you desired me.”
“I thought you didn’t like flattery.” Her smile still held the same magic it had from before they joined, a teasing, promising smile, as though nothing had changed between them at all.
“I don’t. I thought some women enjoyed it, though.”
“They may,” she said. “Do you want to please your wife? With more than just jewelry and servants?”
“Yes,” said Ragnvald tightly, though he did not want to think of Hilda like this, not when Vigdis’s hair still stuck to his sweaty skin, and her breast lay heavy on his arm.
She hesitated, and Ragnvald worried he had given all his power away by wanting something from her. She propped herself up on her elbows. Her hair framed her face, and the candlelight made her skin gold. All of Ragnvald’s muscles felt tired, but he wanted to trace her features with his thumb, to touch her and make her gasp and cry out in pleasure. To reach her in some way that was more than just his body on hers.
“You’ve made a good start,” she said, “by not falling immediately asleep. I will show you more, if you like. But may I say not tonight?” Pain tightened her face. “Today has not been easy.”
He loved her a little at that moment, more than any other. In her way, she had been brave to come to him like this, after he had killed her husband. Like a man, like his own mother, even, she did what was needful.
“Yes,” he said, pleased to be able to give her something she truly wanted.
*
He woke with aching shoulders in Olaf’s bed, next to Vigdis. She stirred as he watched her, and opened wary eyes. For a moment, he felt they looked at each other as two strange animals must when they are in the same territory, ready to fight, and then her smile went warm and liquid. A smile he could not trust.
“Why do you look at me so?” she asked. “What do you mean to do with me, now that Olaf is gone?”
Gone, dead, dead, after Ragnvald had killed him like an animal, like a slaughter. He had died with his sword in his hand, at least.
“I will decide tomorrow,” he said. “After you give me that promised lesson.” He raised his eyebrows at her, and she smiled archly. “This is a trade, isn’t it? What do you wish? I could send you to your family across the Keel, and you could take Sigurd and Hallbjorn with you.”
“Sigurd is not my son,” she said. “What do I want with that weakling?”
Ragnvald shook his head. He must not pity Sigurd now. “You could go to Thorkell. He looked for a bride, I think.”
“You know kings, and I think one day you will be a fine jarl. Perhaps even a king,” she said. “I would rather be a king’s mistress than a farmer’s wife. ‘A woman is lucky who is a widow.’”
She had misquoted the proverb. “A rich widow,” Ragnvald corrected her. Vigdis as his mistress—Hilda would not like that, when she came, not until she had borne him a few sons at least. Vigdis could never live with another woman without striving against her.
“For now, we have not many women here with my sister gone,” he said. “You should not be lying so long abed.” He sat up and picked up his tunic from the floor, brushing off the dirt before pulling it over his head. It smelled of the sweat and blood of yesterday’s battle. “You will defer to my mother in all housekeeping duties.”
She sat up and gave him a look he could not read. “You do like to give orders, Ragnvald.”