Chapter two: Ivar.
CW: Slaves in a medieval society, abuse,
The only thing keeping Ivar alive in this hellhole was his desperate desire to kill Katherine Blackthorne.
It was a freezing November night and Ivar knew he was supposed to die here, trapped in this narrow kennel in the middle of the castle's courtyard.
During the day, he was on perfect display, stripped of his clothes and dignity for the English to gawk at. But now, the night engulfed him in darkness as thick as the northern sea during a night dive.
Pain pulsed through Ivar’s legs. They twitched, unable to straighten in the cramped space.
The kennel's icy bars warmed as they pressed into his shins and he leaned his clammy forehead against them. They felt almost good against the burn of his fever.
His back must have gotten infected after the last whipping. The soiled hay in his kennel stuck to the dried blood on his back, irritating the crisscross of partly crusted wounds. Every twitch pulled his skin painfully, and he trembled violently in the frigid air.
Somewhere to his right, a heavy metal door slammed shut. The servants’'s entrance? It was too loud for a wooden door and not loud enough for a castle gate. But this late at night?
A pair of heavy steps rushed towards the courtyard, joined by a couple lighter ones. Nervous whispers echoed through the cloister walk as they drew near.
“Does Lady Blackthorne know of this?” asked an older maid. Ivar strained to listen. Nothing ever happened in Blackthorn castle without the bitch’tes knowledge. And explicit permission.
“Not yet,” came the gruff reply.
“But- you can’t bring a stranger inside! Who even is this girl? Oh gods, what if she's a witch?”
“Doubtful. Found her out in the woods, totally out of it.”
“But- The woods? At this time? A girl shouldn’t be in the woods at night. And why- why is she naked?” The woman's voice pitched high within discomfort on the last question.
“Dunno. Should I have left her to freeze to death?”
“No! But- but I have nothing to do with this, you hear. Nothing.”
A lone lantern flame cast their long shadows onto the courtyard as they rounded a corner. Hissing, Ivar shifted onto his side to see them set foot on the wet cobblestones. They glittered in the light.
The head of housemaids hurried ahead, head turning hectic on her long neck to spot any possible witnesses lurking in the dark. Her bonnet sat askew on graying brown hair, thrown on in a rush no doubt, but her black servants dress fell straight down to her ankles, the dark linen pristine and bar any wrinkles. In stark contrast to the bulky, mud smeared appearance of the huntsman following her.
His boots and leather trousers were crusted in late autumn slush. A thick scarf and hat obscured half his face. Only his frostbitten red nose and grim eyes were visible, looking down at the person he carried bundled in his coat.
“By the gods, did you hear that?” Ivar could see the woman's face now, her sharp features drawn tight in displeasure. Her thin lips pursed as she spat out: “I think that Norse pig is awake.”
The huntsman didn’t answer. Instead he wrapped his brown leather coat tighter around the unconscious girl in his arms. Pale, dangling legs and a shock of blond hair stuck out of it.
“How can you be this calm?” The woman spat, black skirt swishing as she faced him. “What if he rats us out for some extra food?”
The huntsman's bushy brows furrowed. “The Norse are too proud to bargain for food scraps.”
Ivars dry lips cracked in a smile, when a sudden burst of wind whipped across the courtyard, its howl drowning out the servants' protests and extinguishing the lantern flame. When it hit him, his black salt-sweaty hair blew into his gray eyes, hay flying everywhere.
“A bad omen,” hissed the maid. Cloth rustled and a match scraped against a matchbox’s striking strip. Once. Twice. “I tell you all this is a bad omen.” It lit with a crackling sizzle.
The wind carried a smell that sent goosebumps down Ivar’s back.
The sweet decay of death hit him like a battering ram, catapulting his thoughts to abandoned battlefields full of angels sprouting from the ground, decomposing the corpses of his comrades.
Why would the huntsman haul an angel touched corpse from the woods? Ivar wondered, swallowing down bile.
After some fumbling the maid’s lantern flickered back to life and Ivar noticed the small puffs of warm breath escaping from the unconscious girl. So she wasn’t dead?
A draugr perhaps? No, Ivar doubted it. Never would the huntsman make such a mistake.
But angels only took the living. And never let go of the dead.
Whatever this girl was, a living corpse or a human, Ivar knew at least one thing for sure:
She was an unplanned disturbance in Katherine’s meticulously run machinery of a castle.
And during war, disturbances meant chances.
Ivar curled up in his frigid kennel, back burning at the stretch. For the first time since his capture, he smiled.