Frida

Chapter 14 - Hvitserk

Frida awoke in the middle of the night when she heard a small creaking by the door to Ragnar's bedroom.

With her eyes still heavy from sleeping, she sat up and looked over to see a young boy standing just in front of the bed. She recognized it quickly to be one of Ragnar's youngest sons, Hvitserk, and he stood rubbing his eyes while looking at her. Frida would guess him to be around seven years old, and she smiled at him drowsily.

"Hvitserk," she voiced tiredly, "do you want me to wake him?"

Hvitserk looked at her with big eyes, and she quickly regretted having said anything. This boy did not understand her language.

But before she could reach over to tug at Ragnar's shoulder, Hvitserk shook his head. He walked over to Frida's side of the bed, and he looked down at his hands, as if nervous.

"I," he started in a shaky voice, "I cannot sleep. Ubbe told me yesterday that you will be our new mother."

She saw that he was not blinking at all as he was speaking, and she felt her body jerking slightly at his words, an awkward feeling rising in her body.

"But that is not so, right?"

Frida widened her eyes and gulped down. How does one answer a question like that?

She felt herself wishing for Ragnar to wake up and save her from the strange situation she had woken up to.

She sighed out, padding the bed at her side. "Come," she whispered, and the boy soon walked over to sit beside her on the bed, looking down into his lap.

Frida breathed calmly, reaching her hand up to tuck some of his blonde hair behind his ear. She could see tears at the corner of Hvitserk's eyes, he had been crying.

"Tell me about her," Frida breathed.

She had already come to understand that Ragnar had had two wives in his life. Lagertha she knew, but somehow she had not heard much about Ragnar's most recent wife, known as princess Aslaug. Hvitserk looked at her and slid himself further down on the bed, making himself a bit more comfortable.

"She..." Hvitserk breathed, his small voice trembling greatly, "she is dead."

Frida felt her heart ache from the boy's words, knowing all too well how not having a mother feels like. She reached up her hand to stroke his forehead, looking at him intently. "How was she like?" Frida asked in a whisper.

She did not know exactly how she was going to comfort this boy, especially when she could not just feed him the same story about death that her own Lady Liofrun had given her the many times she had asked her about her mother. She knew that princess Aslaug was not in Heaven.

Hvitserk looked at her. "She was very sweet. And caring. And she was beautiful too," he answered.

Frida smiled at him, and she pictured Aslaug for her eyes. She had to have been very beautiful, the queen of Denmark, to have produced such sweet and handsome boys. She was going to ask Ragnar about her when he woke up, Frida thought to herself. She was intrigued in knowing more about their family ties.

"Hvitserk," she whispered softly, "I am not your mother. I will never be. No one is going to replace her."

Hvitserk looked up at her, tears swelling in his blue eyes. Frida exhaled. "But I might stay here... And be a friend to your father, if that is alright with you?"

She could see how Hvitserk weighed her words in his head, his mouth frowning slightly. "Will you have children?"

Frida was taken a bit aback by the question, but she quickly swallowed her surprise, when he continued: "Because I hear you trying to, in the night."

A feeling of guilt washed up into her mouth, tightening her throat and drying out her tongue. She mindlessly put her hand on her stomach, a warm feeling still lingering there from earlier. She knew that Ragnar had planted himself there, she could feel her body nursing something inside her, something small and alive.

"I, uh..." Frida tried, not wanting to hurt the boy, "I think that we are, yes."

She closed her eyes, fretting his response.

"Good," she heard Hvitserk chirp out, and she felt him reaching over to cover himself beneath the furs of the bed. "That will make my father very happy, I know. So you can stay."

Frida opened her eyes to see the boy smiling at her, while lying beside her. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were stuck on her tongue. She lied herself down next to him, and looked into his blue eyes that bore such a strong resemblance to his father's, a smile made her lips curl.

This boy was very clever. She could sense a certain calmness in his air.

"I will then," Frida chimed in a breathy voice.

She watched him close his eyes as he was laying there, and she felt his calmness over her, consoling her. When sleep was already breathing out over her body, she heard Hvitserk whisper to her in the darkness: "But can you please make a girl, then? I really want to have a sister."

Frida smiled to herself and reached an arm over to stroke his hair. "That is for the gods to decide, is it not?" she finally whispered, and she could feel the boy relaxing beside her, his breathing heavier with every second.

Hvitserk nodded slowly, and she heard the boy finally giving in, sleep falling over him next to her.

Frida soon had herself falling asleep too, Ragnar on one side of her, and his son on the other. Her dreams were filled with images of her running between trees, trying to catch a glimpse of a boat that was sailing along the coast of Kattegat's surrounding mountains, both Ubbe, Hvitserk, Ivar, and Bjørn waving at her from behind the railing of the boat. Her sleep was deep and calm.

...

Frida spent the next couple of weeks on learning whatever she could about the Viking culture. Athelstan devoted many hours of the following days to teach her Norse, which she found to be way more difficult than she ever would have imagined.

Sometimes, she had wanted to rip out her own tongue in frustration, as it always curled when it should not, always doing the opposite of what she wanted it to. Athelstan was a very patient man, Frida had concluded, but his patience spread onto her, and they trained her tongue and ears as often as they could.

After a while, she had started to get the hang of their language. To her relief, the language was very slow, the rhythm of it like a gentle drum compared to her high beat English.

Ragnar always chuckled to himself when she answered him in Norse. He said that her accent sounded childish and sweet.

Frida also came to learn a lot about the plans of the Norsemen, and that Ragnar was very ambitious when it came to raiding other countries. Apparently, the Vikings always went off to raid other lands during the summer, however, it was not only to bring home riches for their kingdom but also to explore what these other lands were like, in both cultural, economic and social regards.

When Frida asked Ragnar why it was so important for him to see other lands, he always responded with the same screed: That he was only a farmer, curious to see how men from different parts of the world nourished their crops and soil.

But Frida always saw a small light sparking in his eyes when he spoke of the lands he had not yet discovered. She knew that he was not only a simple farmer: He was a king, a warrior, and an adventurer.