Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Messengers brought word of the war between King Horik and Jarl Borg to Kattegat. Athelstan asked Lagertha, after the first rumors arrived, if he should write to Ragnar about the plague.
She shook her head. “No distractions. He will win, and then he will return to us,” she said.
She shamed him with her strength. Since the first night he’d sinned with her, he’d seen no more of her tears. The other survivors whispered that she must be made of stone. The fever had not touched her; she stood fiercely and guided Kattegat through the crisis and the recovery. Without Lagertha in charge, the village would have fallen into anarchy; she enforced order, stopped those spared by the sickness from plundering their weakened neighbors, and saw to it that every fever-orphan was taken in by some relative or friend. Athelstan wondered, in secret, if Ragnar would have led his people as his wife had.
Still, Athelstan longed to write to Ragnar, call him home from his war to attend to his grieving wife and to pray for the soul of his daughter. The Norseman had tried to sacrifice him, yes, but he still craved his presence. He knew that made him weak. Lagertha, so much more resilient than he, told him that Ragnar would come when his work was done.
“Until then, we will make Kattegat strong again.”
As a slave on Ragnar’s farm, Athelstan had dabbled in the different duties associated with farming and caring for livestock. Now, he became a master of them. Wherever a household was short a hand, he went, learning his tasks along the way.
The first few days, when he was still fighting against the grasps of the sickness and the loss, were hardest. After a month had passed, then another, he realized that the exhaustion he felt each night was not from having done labor, but from the sheer amount of it.
“At least now you won’t blow away in the wind, priest,” Lagertha said, eyeing his nakedness one night. She pulled him down on top of her. “Still a twig compared to my husband, but at least now your bones do not poke me so.” And then, a moment later as she shifted, “Except one, it seems.”
The slight smile on her lips helped assuage the guilt Athelstan felt rush upon him.
He had sinned with his master’s wife almost nightly since the fever had left Kattegat. He hated that he did not hate the act. Lagertha, even in her misery, knew how to generate pleasure Athelstan had never even imagined existed.
Athelstan wished he could stop himself from coming to her chambers, but once again, he was weak. His fumbling attempts to pleasure her brought her some comfort, it seemed, and the smiles he saw as she teased him for his inexperience were the only ones he’d seen on her face since before she’d lost her unborn child.
He had not lied to his lady when he had told her he found freedom and honor in service. His faith lay in shambles, his pagan protector had brought him to an altar to slaughter, and the child he had grown to love as a little sister had died long before her time. His only happiness came when he allowed Lagertha to rule him, when he could forget about himself and focus on serving someone greater than himself.
It was a strange bond they two had formed. Lagertha had showed Athelstan the tears she hid from the world, and Athelstan had forsaken his vows to serve her so that she would not cry again.
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Each morning, before breaking his fast, Athelstan lit a candle for Gyda. Night and day, he prayed for her soul. Mostly, he prayed she would enter Valhalla, to join her ancestors and await the rest of her family; on days when the Norsemen had reminded Athelstan how brutal and foreign they could be, though, he prayed that God would grant her pure soul salvation and that she would make her way through the gates of Heaven. He thought she would be happy there, clad in white as a Bride of Christ, surrounded by others who shared her gentleness.
Athelstan could not be sure where the girl’s soul went, but he comforted himself knowing that, wherever it found its way, it was bathed in prayers. With time, the crippling wound of her absence lessened to a dull ache. There were sometimes tears to accompany his praying, sometimes laughter as he talked to the candle as if it were Gyda, regaling the flame with all that had happened since last they’d spoken.
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“Pay attention to how I do this, priest,” Lagertha mouthed around his prick, eyes sparkling as she did her best to distract him, despite her words. “I expect you to learn. My husband will demand I share you when he returns.”
She swallowed him down scarcely after she’d finished speaking, and Athelstan squirmed and hissed and missed the finer nuances of the lesson entirely.
Ragnar had been gone more than six months now. If he did not return soon, he’d have to winter abroad. Lagertha, stubbornly, had declared Athelstan ‘passable’ at pleasuring her, and declared she’d now teach him what he needed to know for when Ragnar returned. She had fisherman watch the shoreline each day, but so far, no ships had been seen, and none of the traders coming to Kattegat carried word of her husband.
“He will return before winter,” Lagertha insisted. “Now, pay attention. There’s a spot just below the jaw.” Her fingers trailed down his face to it. “He loves to be bitten there.” She demonstrated, then had Athelstan practice, and practice, until she was satisfied.
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Winter came and left with no sign of Ragnar. With so many dead from the fever or gone off to war, the winter supplies held strong for the few that remained. Athelstan passed his time working, talking to Gyda, and studying carnal sin with Lagertha. He learned to fuck through four layers of clothing and heavy furs on the bed. Lagertha showed him how he would need to prepare himself for Ragnar’s sex. The thought of that coupling terrified him, both morally and physically, but also left him achingly hard.
“Don’t be so eager,” Lagertha teased as she pressed fingers inside of him, as she assured him Ragnar would do before he took Athelstan. She loved taking him apart like this, crooking her fingers to make him moan despite himself. “My husband will think I have traded his sweet priest for a whore while he was away.”
“How could I be eager? I’ve seen the size of him. It won’t fit,” Athelstan panted back. It was an old argument now, worn down into a jest between them.
“It fits inside me, priest. I’m sure my husband will manage with you. He’s stubborn.” She offered him her neck, and Athelstan kissed the spots his mistress said Ragnar liked best. The brothers that had taught him at the monastery had always said he was a quick study, and it seemed that held true for the worldly as well as for the spiritual.
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With the spring thaw came word, at last, of Horick’s victory against Borg.
“Ragnar’s victory,” the villagers whispered.
“My husband will return soon,” Lagertha reassured Athelstan, when the ships failed to appear on their shores in the days following the message. “First, the king will host a feast in his honor and shower him with gifts. Ragnar cannot leave until the celebration ends.”
“Nor would he want to, if they are singing his praises,” the monk added. He had lived in two very different worlds, met many men in various positions of power, but none of them could even cast a shadow on Ragnar Lothbrok’s ego.
Lagertha snorted at that. “He will stay for the feasting, but do not fear, priest. He knows we sing much sweeter songs in his bed than they will in their halls,” she whispered, teeth nipping his ear as she spoke.
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Another month passed, then another, and the citizens of Kattegat stopped talking of victory and started watching for the absent warriors whose fields they struggle to tend. Even unfailing Lagertha began to watch the shores, lips pressed tight in a line. More squabbles arose, as they do when more work must be done than those working can possibly hope to finish. The shield-maiden dealt with them, but Athelstan could see her patience wearing thin with each day. He did what he could to ease her burdens, carrying out any order given, and many that were not. Each morning, he woke a little earlier to light Gyda’s candle before starting a day that was even fuller than they day before.
And then, one day, Ragnar’s ship appeared.
All work ceased immediately, except for the servants of the hall who scrambled to prepare a great feast for the returning warriors. The rest of Kattegat lined the coast, watching as the ships drew nearer.
At first, a giddy joy filled Athelstan. Finally, Ragnar would be here. They would no longer have to stretch themselves thin to hold their village together. Lagertha had her husband back. Athelstan would finally know if all of the outrageous claims she made about her husband’s prowess were truth.
The smile fell away from his face. Would Ragnar be happy to discover that Athelstan had known his wife in his absence? He had invited Athelstan to join his bed, so long ago, it seemed, but for them to have lain together without his permission or his knowledge…
Ragnar had meant to sacrifice Athelstan before. Obviously, his life had little value to his master. Who could be foolish enough to assume that a man would be happy that a man he had tried to kill had taken that man’s place in his own marriage bed?
And then Athelstan realized. Time had dulled the pain of their loss, but Ragnar didn’t yet know. The Viking was sailing home, expecting his faithful wife and gentle daughter to greet him. All other news would pale in comparison.
The monk felt sick. How would they tell him? How could they relive that terrible loss? He wanted to scramble back to his room, pull out his hidden rosary, and pray.
Lagertha put a hand on his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts. She said nothing, but her presence was enough. They had survived everything so far. This reunion would not be easy, but certainly, after the pain had passed, there would be joy as well.
Time seemed to slow as they waited for the ships to reach shore, each moment passing more sluggishly than seemed possible. The other ships reached land, and the men climbed out amid great cheers. Ragnar’s ship, usually the first to land, came last.
Athelstan had almost bitten his lip bloody with nervousness by the time the longship touched land and those inside emerged. He feared and longed for Ragnar.
Beautiful, barbaric Ragnar, who at last appeared, leading by the hand a beautiful woman with an infant cradled in her arms.
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