Frida

Chapter 11 - The Seer

A hideous smell hit her nostrils when she stepped into the dark wooden house, confused and actually kind of frightened.

There was a very strange air around Ragnar that she had never felt before.

He had not explained anything to her. Who was this Seer? What was a seer?

Frida took small steps while carefully taking a look around her. Candles were spread aimlessly around on shelves, small tables and chairs, while weird strings filled with bones and herbs and dried out flowers hung down from the loft. A lazy fire was burning in a fireplace that curiously was not placed in the center of the room, as was usual here in Kattegat, she had noticed.

She saw that Ragnar had taken a seat on a stool at a table, and Frida slowly walked over to sit down beside him. And that was when she noticed him.

At the other side of the table sat someone, a cloaked figure in the shadows, and she felt her blood freeze and her eyes widening. His face...

His face was mutilated, wrong. Where his eyes should have been there was only pinkish flesh, his lips were swollen and black as the night, and he sat as silent as a rotten corpse.

Frida felt her knees shaking, and she quickly sat down before they would give up on her. She gazed over at Ragnar, hoping to get a comforting smile from him or maybe feel the warmth that his eyes would produce in her stomach, but he only looked very rigidly on the Seer, waiting.

Frida's skin turned into gooseflesh when she heard an unearthly grinning, and she turned her head in horror when she realized it came from the Seer. Her stomach turned when she felt his eyes on her, but she turned her face to stare into the table, too frightened to look him in the eyes. Or whatever she should call it.

"Ragnar," rattled the cloak in a watery voice, before he said something she did not understand.

She felt Ragnar look at her as he answered the man in Norse, and she promised herself that tonight she really had to ask Athelstan to teach her their language. This was a conversation all too important for a mere language barrier to be the problem.

She wanted to know every word that they were saying.

The cloaked man rattled through his throat longer this time, and she strained her ears eagerly to just pick up a few words. She was not surprised at the mention of Odin's name, but she jumped in her seat when Ragnar leaned over the table, closer to the Seer, and whispered something eagerly, a question forming on his lips. Frida turned in her eagerness to look at the Seer, hoping that she would in some way miraculously understand him, but she gasped in shock when she saw that the Seer too had turned his face towards her, an eerie smile curling his lips.

Frida gulped down, and she heard a low gurgling grin sounding from his throat.

But she suddenly felt her eyes to be locked on him, and while she could not move, the seer breathed one last sentence that contained another word that was familiar to her.

"Freyja."

She felt her heart stop for what seemed like forever, and she stared at the cloaked man as he reached out a white and boney hand at her. She looked at it in disgust. It was thin and gnarled, all of the fibers in her body stopping her from reaching out for it.

She felt Ragnar's hand on her shoulder. "Lick it," he whispered tenderly into her ear.

Frida felt her throat tensing, a warm portion of vomit slowly crawling up into her mouth. But Frida knew what she had to do. She turned her eyes only to stare into Ragnar's blue ones, earning her body to faithfully react like it always did when she gazed into the windows of his soul.

The hand tasted earthy, stale and filthy.

Just as Ragnar and Frida closed the door to the Seer's place, a deep voice greeted them happily, and Frida saw Rollo waving at them, walking over to wrap his hand around Ragnar's shoulder. Frida almost blushed when she saw the eyes he was giving her.

"Hm..." he smiled cunningly, raising his eyebrows in quick movements at her, "You like him, yeah?"

Ragnar hissed out in irritation, tossing Rollo's arm off him with a quick move.

"Where is Floki?" Ragnar spat, looking around them with a worried look on his face.

Rollo answered in Norse, causing Ragnar to strive off hastily. As Rollo turned around to look at Frida with a jumbled expression on his face, Frida was sure hers looked just the same.

When Rollo opened his mouth, Frida knew what he was going to say: "I don't know," she said, tears quickly swelling in her eyes.

It was not her intention to cry, especially not in front of Rollo, but she was so disconcerted by what she had just experienced that she could do nothing else.

What was the meaning of all this? Why was Ragnar acting so strange? Why had he just run off without letting her know anything?

She could see that she had Rollo feeling uncomfortable, and she hastily started to walk along the wall of the house with her legs shaking. It was not long before she was pulled to a halt, and she felt big bear arms reaching around her, her face soon buried in the black fur that covered Rollo's shoulders. He was... hugging her.

She stood with her arms lamely hanging down her sides, and when he released her, tears were streaming down her face. He bent down to put his hand up and stroke her chin softly with his thumb.

"Okay?" he mumbled, the concern genuine in his eyes.

She nodded before wiping her tears away. "Thank you," she smiled heartwarmingly before they accompanied each other to the long-hall.

Ragnar did not show himself on his throne before all the night's food nearly had been removed from the table.

He and Floki entered the long-hall, but Ragnar did not look at her, he simply walked over to grab a leg of a lamb and a horn of ale before plumping himself down on his stool. Frida looked over at Floki, and was surprised when she saw him looking at her over his horn while drinking heavily. There was something different in his eyes, something that did not really connect with the Floki she had come to know. His eyes were not filled with loathing or anger, but rather a blaze of curiosity shone from them.

Frida herself drank heavily from her horn, her heart pounding in her chest.

Why was she so different in this land? Why did she not understand the things that they did?

She felt irritation bubble in her blood as she gulped down the rest of her ale before filling her horn once more. Someone sat down beside her, but she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to realize who it was. It seemed like Ragnar deliberately avoided looking at her.

A big hand flared in front of her face, making her slide back into reality.

She looked at the owner of the hand, who was grinning at her. He was a young man with white blond hair and very blue eyes, and she felt like she knew him from somewhere.

"I'm Bjørn," he smiled as he nodded his head in Ragnar's direction, "Ragnar is my father."

Frida made big eyes as she recognized the strong resemblance between the two, and before long, Bjørn's calmness made her forget, even if it was just for some time, how much of a stranger she had felt herself to be in this land.