Chapter Twelve

"There…" Enid sighed. "Is that how it looked like?"

"Yes," Tyr nodded from behind her.

She turned on the ladder to look at him, sitting on his bed in the loft, and then she turned back to the curtain she had just hung over the opening.

"Are you sure that's enough?" she asked, smoothing it under her fingers as she studied it.

"Yes," he said. "We won't be cold. We'll have the fire and the animals."

"The animals?" she asked.

"Yes," he said again, and then he looked at her. "What? You didn't think we would leave them out for winter, did you?"

She watched him closely, searching for those signs that he was joking, waiting for that smile to break out on his lips, but a moment later and she realised she was waiting for nothing.

"They go in the back room," she said.

"Not in winter," he laughed. "They keep the house warm."

"Are the winters that bad here?" she asked.

"They can be…" Tyr nodded to himself, and then he jumped up. "But all we can do is get ready for it. The rest is up to the gods."

She studied him again, biting back that sigh and burying her anger. How many times had she tried now, how many stories of the Lord had she told him and still nothing changed. She looked at him again, this time letting that sigh out and stepping down from the ladder. There was that peace about them though, one that was lacking in her own life, one that she hadn't known even existed before coming here.

Fate, that was what they called it, that was what they believed their gods had already decided for them and all they could do was accept it. Somehow that thought chilled her, like there was nothing she could ever do that was truly in her control. Somehow she found the idea tempting. Somehow she found herself wanting to live for every moment like she saw them doing each day.

The door opened and Freya stepped in, talking and chatting with another woman, but the woman glared at Enid, handing Frigga to her without saying a word and sitting down by the fire with Freya.

"Do you think he'll let us go?" Freya asked.

"I don't know, Freya," the woman sighed.

"He will if you talk to him," Freya said.

"About the wedding?" Tyr asked from up in the loft, and that woman stared up at him, nodding and clasping her hands around her knee. Tyr jumped down, missing steps on the ladder as he did to get down quicker. "Please, talk to him, Hilda!" he said.

"It's just a wedding, Tyr," the woman laughed. "Why do you want to go so much?"

"I want to meet the Jarl! I want to get my armring."

"You're too young for an armring," Hilda shook her head.

"No, I'm not!"

Enid watched them, her eyes darting between their faces, one soft and warm, the other bright and excited. "What's an armring?" she asked.

Hilda turned to her, her eyes then sharp and pointed like daggers as she glared at her. "Water," was all she said, and Enid went to the pail, pouring her a cup of water and handing it to her without another word, knowing there was no one she feared more than the woman sitting beside her.

"An armring makes you a man," Tyr said, turning to Enid and grinning. "You swear an oath to the Jarl and he lets you go on raids in the summer. I want to go to England. I want to be a warrior like my father."

Enid had to stifle that gasp, that chill that ran down her spine. "And will you kill people when you get there, Tyr?" she asked.

"If the gods allow it," he nodded.

"People like me?" she asked, and Tyr studied her, his head tilting to the side, that smile fading for a moment before he laughed.

"But they're not like you, Enid," he said. "You came to us."

"Your father took me."

"That's what the gods decided," Tyr said. "Why are you always saying things like this, Enid? Don't you understand yet?"

"No, she doesn't," Freya said, folding her arms across her chest and scuffing her heel on the floor. "That Christ-god has ruined her mind."

Enid turned to her, her eyes narrowing as she glared at the girl, her jaw clenching. "Don't talk like that, Freya," she warned.

"Or what?" Freya asked. "Will your Christ-god get angry? What can he do anyway? He's already dead."

"That's-," Enid started.

"Think about it," Tyr cut in. "How many women were there in your old village? And out of all those women, my father found you and brought you to us. How can that not be the work of the gods?"

Enid stared at him, wanting so desperately to say something, anything that would prove him wrong, but all she could do was stand there, bouncing Frigga on her hip, her lips shut tight in a thin line.

"Enough," Hilda snapped. "You all spend too much time on this slave. It doesn't matter if she understands or not."

The women glared at each other, a chill stabbing through Enid's chest as she held Frigga closer. This woman, she was the one who made things so much more difficult. She was the one who undid any progress Enid made with the children.

How desperately Enid wanted to get rid of her, how terribly she hated her; but there was nothing she could do. The children listened to Enid either because they wanted to or because Ivar made them. She had no real power of her own.

Now that she was nothing but a slave.