Chapter Text
Prince Jude Bellingham of Britannia could barely contain his disdain.
Erling found these incredibly amusing.
The Omega looked like a pampered cat that was made to step into the barn to catch mice. The prince looked so out of place in his fine blue and silver attire, standing out like a rose in a tulip garden of weather-worn wood and salt-stained fur from Nordheim. Jude’s nose wrinkled at the wet pine and smoking fish, and when a thrall handed him a horn of mead, he accepted it with the expression of a man who was being offered poison.
For Erling, life in the fjord was his norm, and he would not entertain the idea of being in the same position as the Omega, shipped away into a foreign nation where he did not speak the language or understand the culture, he doubted he would maintain the same composure as the Prince. Either way, the situation was delightful to watch.
The main hall was packed to the brim, decorated with the colours of the Haaland House, the Jarl had spared no expense; the tables were full with different meats, a whole wild boar was displayed, there were different types of mead and ale, and there were more vegetables than Erling had seen in his lifetime.
Jude was sitting next to Erling at the high table, he had perfected the art of looking politely interested when in reality he was disgusted. Erling was sitting like a savage, sprawled back with one arm slung back like he owned the hall, which in fairness he did. The smell of the different meals, herbs, and smoke was nauseating, and the Alpha’s presence next to him was not helping. Erling was big, bigger than any Alpha Jude had seen in his life in Britannia, and the scent of him! Jude was drowning on pine and salt.
“You’re not drinking,” pointed out Erling, leaning into Jude’s personal space, taking in the sweet smell of ripe fruit and flowers.
“I’m savouring," Jude defended, holding the horn close to his chest, the lie was so heavy he could taste it.
"You've been savouring for a while," said Erling, serving Jude a portion of wild boar with a hint of glee in his eye, “here, try this. I swear it won’t bite, and if it did, the cook did a terrible job.”
Jude looked at the plate in front of him and then at the roasted carcass being carved by a thrall three seats down, its skin glistening under the torchlight. “I must confess I am unused to meals that still resemble the animal they came from.”
Erling barked out a laugh loud enough that a couple of heads turned their way, and Jude felt his ears heat with the sudden attention. “In Nordheim, we like to know what we are eating.”
“In Britannia, we like our meals to have some dignity before they reach our tables.”
“Dignity doesn’t fill your belly through a Nordic winter, little prince.”
Little prince. Jude seethed at that, the idea of him being small in any way was simply ridiculous, he had trained in every sport, he had hunted; he had just, it was not his fault that everyone in this forsaken place was built as if they were carved from the same slab of granite as their Jarl.
“Good thing I won’t see a Nordic winter,” he snorted, taking a sip of the mead he was provided.
“Good, because I don’t think you’ll survive it, your royal highness," Erling snickered.
Jude did not dignify him with a response; he resumed eating his meal with the whole intent of ignoring the Northman.
“You wound me,” Erling said, not sounding wounded in the slightest, popping the discarded piece of boar into his mouth since Jude wasn’t going to eat it. “Here I thought we were getting alone, little prince.”
“We are not getting alone. We are coexisting, and do not call me little prince.”
“Coexisting.” Erling tasted the word as if it were foreign to his vocabulary, then he grinned. “Fancy word for it, but sure. Let’s coexist together, little prince, the night is young after all.”
Before Jude could gather his breath to answer something quick and cutting to Erling, he was cut off by the Jarl – that until this moment, was talking with his mother – who stood up.
“My friends!” He announced, his voice loud enough to hush the voices in the hall, “Kingsman, free people of Nordheim and our dear distinguished friends of the house of Bellingham.”
A ripple of attention moved through the tables. All the eyes were on the Jarl, even the thralls had stopped pouring the mead.
“For too long, our people have looked at each other across the water with suspicion.” Alf-Inge continued, one hand raised, a horn of mead in the other. “Raiders, they call us.” A ripple of laughter, good-natured, moved through the hall. “Savages. Men without gods worth the name, without courts worth the title.” He grinned, unbothered, the same grin Erling wore like a birthright. “And perhaps once, that was fair.”
Jude went very still beside Erling, some old instinct very deep in his stomach telling him he was not going to enjoy where this was going.
“But today," The Jarl went on, his smile getting bigger, “we stand together. Britannia and Nordheim, bound not only by paper but also by blood.” He turned, and for the first time he looked down at the table, his eyes looking directly into where Jude and Erling were sitting. “It is my honour, and the honour of the House of Haaland, to announce that my son, Erling Haaland, heir to the Jarldom, will be wed to Prince Jude Bellingham of Britannia upon the coming of the fall solstice.”
For a moment the hall fell into a crisp silence and then erupted into cheers. Huscarls started to pound their fists on wood, horns were raised and clashed together hard enough to slosh mead onto the tables. Somewhere down the hall, someone had already started singing.
Jude did not join the cheering.
“Wed?” he said, and it came out far less regal than he intended, more strangled. He turned to look at the Alpha, half-convinced this was some elaborate Northman joke, the kind of thing that ended with everyone laughing at the soft southern prince. “Fall solstice?”
To Jude’s surprise, Erling was looking at his father with the same shocked expression, mouth still slightly open in the motion of eating a piece of boar he had forgotten to get into his mouth. “Pappa,” he gasped, his voice sounding betrayed, “we agreed on next year. You," he accused, “said next year.”
“I said soon,” Alf-Inge corrected cheerfully, not remotely bothered by his son’s betrayed expression, “the fall solstice is soon.”
“That is two moons away!”
“Then you had best get acquainted quickly.” His father’s grin did not sway in the slightest. Beside him, Gry Marita wore the satisfied smile of a woman that had gotten away with what she wanted, and she knew that she did.
Jude turned to his own mother, half out of his seat, forgetting entirely to keep his voice at a proper volume. “Mother–”
“It is not a matter to be discussed in public, child,” Denise said, smiling brightly at the hall, at the cheering Northmen, and at anyone who might be watching the Britannian queen’s reaction to the news. Her voice, pitched only for him, was less gentle. “Sit. Down.”
Jude sat down. He did not stop staring at her.
Beside him, Erling had reached the same conclusion, looking at his parents as if they had betrayed him immensely; the discussion was fruitless, no matter how much they argued or pleaded, their futures were entangled, and there would be no undoing of it, not tonight, not tomorrow, not when the passage of time or the fall of the Spanriad kingdom.
Jude and Erling were to be wed the day of the fall solstice.
“Well,” Erling huffed, turning to look at Jude, that half-grin creeping back despite himself, though it looked considerably more strained than it had been five minutes ago. “Guess we’re coexisting a lot sooner than planned, my wild rose.”
Jude closed his eyes, briefly, summoning what remained of his – already sparse – patience. “I hate you already, and don’t call me that.”
“The feeling is mutual, wild rose.”