Frida

Chapter 10 - Savior In the Sky

Frida spent the whole afternoon with Athelstan.

Not only was he a very amiable person, he was also very clever and knew all sorts of things, not only about the Viking culture but also about the cultures of all sorts of countries she had not even heard of before she met him. She came to understand that before he was brought to Denmark just like she was, he had too lived in Northumbria, in a monastery as a religious man who transcribed the Holy Book. But as she watched him sit beside her, grinding the edge of his axe with a stone, she did not exactly see a whole lot of Christian in him.

"Can I ask you a rather personal question, Athelstan?" she asked while mindlessly pulling at the grass she sat on.

He smiled at her. "Of course."

She returned his smile. "Now that you are here, how is your relationship with the Lord?"

He sighed out with a curl on his lips and put down his axe. "Huh," he chuckled, "All I can say is that he does not show himself in these parts of the world as much as I'd liked."

Frida chewed on a straw while narrowing her eyes at him. She could see a small flash of pain crossing his eyes.

He shrugged his shoulders lightly. "And you?" he smiled, "How are you and the Lord coming along?"

Frida laughed out heartwarmingly. "We do not really," she chuckled, "Never have."

Athelstan's eyes widened. She explained to him how she had never in her life really felt the Lord's presence, and that she'd always felt abandoned by him in a country where everyone so firmly believed in his existence. She told him how hypocritical she had come to see the laws of the Lord, when the men that supposedly were closer to him misused their power over the poorer people. "That was never, I suppose, the way God wanted things, was it?" she mumbled.

"Well," sighed Athelstan, "Ragnar has what I regard to be a very clever saying about the men in power."

Frida jerked lightly at the mention of Ragnar's name. She mindlessly pressed her legs together. "Power, he says, attracts the worst and corrupts the best."

She weighed the words in her head.

"Does that go for him too, then?" she asked before she pulled out of her mouth the straw that she'd chewed on for quite a while.

Athelstan nodded his head at something behind her, and Frida turned her head to see Ragnar walking towards them.

"Yes, I believe so."

When Ragnar reached them, he pulled off a beautiful white fur and laid it on Frida's shoulders. Its warmth had her shiver, as the air was getting cooler, the night slowly creeping towards Kattegat.

Ragnar curled his lips into a quick smile, as he said: "'m glad to see the two of you are getting along. Is he teaching you our language?"

Frida turned to look at the ground, embarrassed that she had not even thought about asking Athelstan whether he wanted to teach her yet. They had just had so much else to talk about.

"No," Athelstan explained, to Frida's great relief, "We were discussing religion. It seems that Frida had a visitor this night."

Frida stared at Athelstan with big eyes and an open mouth, shocked that he would just reveal what she regarded to be something so very private. Of course, Athelstan had no reason to believe that Ragnar and Frida were not private, they had spent last night together. Frida gulped down before gazing into Ragnar's eyes.

"Is that so?" he asked in a serious tone, and he sat down on a wooden log next to Athelstan.

Frida did not know what to say. She did not even know whether she believed it to have been their god Odin whom she had seen in her dreams. It was just a dream after all.

Athelstan chuckled lightly before he got up on his feet. "I'll, uh, see you two at supper."

Frida watched his back as he marched down the small path that led to the fireplace where they had spent the afternoon. She heard Ragnar clear his throat. His air seemed kind of misplaced, as if he was nervous.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked almost in a whisper.

Frida turned her head to watch him while her lips curled into a puzzled smile. "For what?"

Ragnar shrugged his shoulders. "You are the woman, you tell me."

Frida laughed out and slapped her hand over his knee while he sent her innocent eyes. They sat there while smiling at each other for several minutes before Ragnar looked into the reddening sky and blinked.

"You believe there is a savior up there?" he asked, a certain graveness darkening his voice.

Frida watched his face and wondered how it must have felt to come from a country like this and enter England, where everyone suddenly believed in a religion so different from his own. She could not imagine it herself, as she had always thought the Lord to be a picture created by man for an earhtly purpose. If the Lord truly existed, his words were not used only in his intentions, that was certain.

"If there is, then he surely is very shy," Frida breathed, earning a slight curl to twist Ragnar's lips.

Frida felt kind of anxious to tell Ragnar about her dream. It was different with Athelstan, because his relationship with the Norse gods was still very new, but Ragnar... Athelstan had told her that it was rumored that he was a descendant of Odin. That would make him their faith's Jesus Christ, now, would it not?

She sighed out before pulling herself together.

"I saw a man," she whispered, "He came to me while I slept. He was accompanied by two ravens, and he only had one eye."

Frida closed her eyes when she saw Ragnar kneel down in front of her, his eyes intently staring at her face.

"What did he say?" he murmured eagerly, reaching his hand up to stroke over his beard. She could feel his eyes pierce at her skin.

"He never spoke a word to me. His raven did. It told me not to be afraid. It showed me that I would be home when I finally reached him. And then..."

She sank hard, shivering when she once more saw the face of the old man clearly in her head, as if she was dreaming all over again. She opened her eyes only to stare into Ragnar's, the resemblance between the two canny.

"And then, I saw his one eye. Your eye," she whispered, "in his skull."

Ragnar trembled before her, and she could see that he was thinking very hard, a cloudy film covering his eyes.

Frida grew impatient.

"Ragnar, what does it mean?" she surged with a shaky voice. She had a feeling that this was a serious matter.

"I do not know," he rushed before quickly jumping to his feet. "Come," he ordered while reaching his hand for her to take, "You have to talk to him."

"Who?" Frida inquired as she too rose.

"The Seer."