Frida

Chapter 24 - Freyja's Hair

"Helga, help!" Frida exclaimed in a laugh, "Come quick, she is trying to get in!"

Frida tried the best she could to keep the little girl out of the bath tub, but her arms were not entirely long enough to lift her. Helga came running into the room and smoothly lifted the grinning Angrboda away from the warm water in which Frida was bathing, and she chuckled at the child, her eyes full of affection.

"She loves water just as much as her father," Helga smiled as she sat down at the fire pit with Angrboda on her hip. She sighed out a short chuckle that sounded like Floki's. "This one is just a bit cleaner, isn't she?" Helga tweeted, while nudging her daughter's cheek, both of them laughing heartily. 

Frida laughed with them and let one of her feet escape the warm water, mindlessly letting her finger travel the surface of the water. Her thoughts wandered. 

When you leave one home behind to find another, it is only natural that you will see change in your life. Most often, this is why people leave places. To see change. In Frida's case... well, she had not exactly been given the choice of whether to leave her old home behind or not, but as she sat there in the warm bath, the smell of rose hip steaming lovely into the air around her, she realized that a lot of things had changed. Of course, there had been the big stuff like the different language, the colder weather, the faith, the laws of life and such. But there had also been smaller changes, changes that she had not really noticed beneath all of the seemingly more important things. 

Things as appearance, or, hygiene was one of those small things. Frida giggled to herself as her mind wandered back to her first night here in Kattegat, when she had just arrived from England. The very first thing she was told to do was actually to have a bath! And Lagertha had come to her room, groomed her hair and offered her clothes, while Frida had not thought this peculiar at all. This would have been considered so very strange, if a king had done this in England or in any of the kingdoms that she had ever heard of. 

Frida had also started cleaning her teeth. Ragnar had showed her how he did it one of the first nights they had spent together. This was also considered strange back in her old home, or at least a thing not exactly of the common folk. But there was a certain want for cleanliness here in the North, as was very obvious to any foreigner that would happen to stumble upon a Norseman. Any Northumbrian would be shocked to hear that it is normal to bathe once a week here. 

Can you imagine? Once in every seven days! 

Frida let her eyes wander back to Helga and Angrboda and watched the two of them with a warm heart. 

She simply loved being around Helga, and she had been pleased when Ragnar told her that she was to stay there for the night. Tomorrow was the day, the most important day in Frida's life.

She was going to get married to the man she loved, to a Norseman, to the king of Denmark, to Ragnar Loðbrók, and she could not wait. Impatience had her feeling very anxious, and she was sure that she would not be able to sleep at all tonight as her thoughts were blazing around in her head, expectations and fear fighting against each other in her mind.

She had no idea what exactly to expect from tomorrow, she had never experienced a Norse wedding before, and now she was to get wedded herself, even becoming the queen of this land. Although she felt a certain want for running away, for hiding until it was all over, she felt in her heart a grand wish for standing in front of Ragnar right now, for promising to be by his side for the rest of her life.

Frida thanked the servant that handed her a horn of mead as she was sitting in the bath tub, her eyes still soft on the mother and daughter at the fire pit. Angrboda was a very beautiful little girl.