Archive of Our Own

It was cold in the old keep, even in the parts that were still standing, cold and damp, the walls in his bedroom dripping with it. The tattered tapestries did nothing to make the room warmer, neither did the quilt he’d wrapped himself in, nor the fire mere inches from his wool sock-covered feet.

‘Starting fires for the crows’, his mother used to mutter under her breath, complaining how the old chimneys in the building sucked most of the heat out onto the roof where the crows gathered, rather than into the no-longer-grand rooms the family occupied.

However, his mother had started her last fire in these hearths more than ten years ago, to rest forever in her own damp sleeping quarters at the burial grounds.

Roar shook her fading image from his head at a hesitating knock on his door. “Yes?” he said, the sharpness in his voice making sure the intruder would know they were not welcome. No one still living in this building could disperse his morose moods anyway.

The knocker might have left at that sharpness, as there were only long silent moments following his irritable exclamation, but then the door creaked open, after all.

Roar turned in the chair, his frown deepening and his mouth twisting in disgust. Ravn.

The young man slipped inside his room on silent feet to stand beside the door, back to the wall. He had wrapped his slender frame in a quilt, as well, the patchy threadbare thing as unlikely as his own to produce any substantial warmth. It was a big quilt, though, and Ravn’s pale delicate face was the only thing showing, his long likewise pale hair hanging over his shoulders. Overall, it was a light and pleasant image against the dark wall.

Roar turned his gaze back to the fire with a frown. In spite of the wretched creature’s only purpose, there was nothing pleasant about Ravn, he thought. It was not fair that he lived, and his father was dead.

“What do you want?” he snarled.

Ravn hesitated. “Your… brother…”

“What about him?”

“He is… he is… rough.”

Roar waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “Be grateful that someone is fucking you, or why do we feed you from our winter rations? Wait until the pass clears of snow, Njal will bring an actual woman here, and he’ll leave you be. I’m sure you can manage until then.”

“I would not complain, but… He… he makes me bleed.”

Roar felt queasy. “What do you want me to do? You think because I’m the eldest, Njal listens to me. You’re his now, he’ll do what he wants.”

“Your father would have…”

Roar was out of the chair in a heartbeat, only forcefully stopping himself from slamming the whore into the wall. “Don’t mention my father,” he roared, “or you’ll be running back to Njal to beg him to save you from me, understand?”

Ravn could not back up further with his back already to the wall, but his blue eyes widened in fear as he nodded once in acknowledgement of the order.

Roar had to hand it to him; any other slave would have fallen to their knees at such anger from a free person, begging forgiveness in terror. He sunk down into the chair again, putting his cold feet back up to the fire. He had no appetite for the violence needed to undo his father spoiling Ravn into not knowing when it was best for a slave to bend their knees. Let Njal take care of that, he had both the stomach and the authority, did he not?

“I’ll talk to him,” he still heard himself say.

“Thank you, Master,” Ravn said.

Roar did not hear the door creak. “Was there anything else?” he asked.

“It’s… it’s cold tonight. Your bed will be cold…”

“Go, Ravn!” Roar told him.

Again, there was silence, but then the door did creak open and closed again, and he felt emptiness settle over the room once more. Roar pulled the quilt tighter. It was freezing cold tonight, but he’d rather sleep with a corpse than let Ravn under his covers.

He hadn’t always felt this aversion.

Both Ravn and himself had seen twenty-one winters by now, and had shared this building since their eleventh year, when his father had brought the boy with him home from one of his many raids. They had had other things in common, too, apart from being the same age. Sharing a slender lanky build, straw-colored hair and cornflower-blue eyes could have fooled anyone into thinking they were brothers. Much more so than Njal, who had another mother and took after her darker looks.

By Ravn’s longing eyes at his and Njal’s sword practice, wrestling, hunts and horse racing, Roar understood they could have had even more things in common still, but... his father had never allowed it.

He’d felt sad for Ravn then and wished he could have been a friend or a foster brother, but his father hadn’t brought another brother for his sons, he’d brought a plaything for himself. He had allowed none of them a single thing that could make them think otherwise.

So, Roar and Njal had grown into men. Hardened by play and practice, skirmishes and weather, muscles built by plenty of meat, hands widened and calloused by swords and axes, they had become more and more different from their father’s slave. Less meat and entirely different kinds of exercise made Ravn slender still, and as he seemed to take to it all quickly enough – the longing in his eyes dying down – he grew his hair, scraped his beard off as it started to grow in, and dressed in long tunics – all in obvious mimicry of a woman,

He was not bad at it either.

Too good, maybe. At least if the often occurring angry yelling of Njal’s mother about the slave had been any indication. Well, Ravn had managed to survive the lawful true wife, as Njal’s mother had joined his own at the burial grounds three years ago, wasting away in the same cold sweats and coughing fevers.

It was too damp and cold in the keep at winter; it killed their women and infant children. Njal and himself were only the two children who had survived.

Well, Ravn had been brought to the keep the following spring after his mother’s death, but Roar could not believe he had been an actual replacement for her. His father had still grieved his mother and had only needed more accommodating company than his lawful wife, surely. The choice of a boy then was… unexpected, yes, but his father’s hidden needs had not been Roar’s business, and he’d avoided thinking too much about it.

Even so, Roar hadn’t wondered at his stepmother’s hate, but he hadn’t shared it. Not back then. Ravn couldn’t help his situation, and he was only trying to survive and adapt as best as he could. Even as an eleven-year-old boy, Roar had understood that. What would he himself have done?

Now, he knew that’s where he had gone wrong in his thinking. Any free male – even a young boy – with any honor, dignity and pride would of course rather have died fighting if taken as a slave than adapt to any such things. Njal most certainly would have, and Roar would never have admitted to anything else either. However, deep down, he hadn’t been so sure, and that tiny amount of doubt had made him accept Ravn’s presence in his home with benevolent indifference.

He might never have shown Ravn much kindness and generosity openly, but he hadn't been unkind to him either. He’d stopped his brother from being so, many, many times, reminding Njal he should respect his father’s belongings, reminding him how strong their father’s flogging-hand was if they didn’t, but that was all. All he could do for Ravn.

Well, he could do even less for the slave now, and wasn’t sure he wanted to any longer.

Roar yawned, stood from the chair, put more logs on the fire and went to bed. For only a short moment, as the chill of his bed swallowed him whole, he regretted turning down Ravn’s offer.

Breakfast was as rich as their late winter rations allowed, as both Roar and Njal had always been ravenous in the morning. They ate in the kitchens, where it was the warmest, seated on either side of the only table, the slaves huddling close to the hearth with their much more meager bowls in their laps. No guests could make it through the mountain pass at this time of year to witness them all sharing a meal in the same room anyway.

Only Ravn was on his feet, serving the masters. At the moment, he was the only thing in the building resembling a woman, and as such, the other slaves made him eat last, or maybe they only took pleasure in having their petty revenge on the before so favored bed slave. Roar hadn’t heard Ravn complain about his demotion, silently obeying, but if he knew him correctly, he was only biding his time and was plotting his own revenge on the other slaves inside that fair head of his.

Ravn stiffly rounded his chair, wincing as he leaned over his shoulder to put a plate of food before him. Roar pretended not to notice, but he thought Ravn’s offer to warm his bed the night before had been made much more in the interest of his own preservation than any concern for Roar’s cold feet. Njal had obviously used the slave hard during the night.

The food tasted less in his mouth at the thought. Why was his brother so intent on spilling his seed in the same hole as his own father had? Why would he take to bed something he knew his own mother had hated?

Roar asked himself these things, when he should have asked himself why it bothered him at all, only he knew at least one reason it did. It bothered him that Njal owned Ravn, but not that he owned the yellow-haired bed slave in particular, but that he owned Ravn, and everything else. The keep and everything in it, the land surrounding it, all the livestock, all the slaves, the horses, the weapons, whatever riches were left from their father’s raids… everything belonged to Njal.

Himself, he had nothing to show for, but a few horses and other smaller personal belongings.

That was as it should be, he knew. As the oldest son of a true wife, Njal inherited everything, and any other sons, younger or older, had to seek their own fortunes elsewhere. All his life Roar had known this, and their father had prepared him well for it, too. He was strong and good with any weapon, agile on horseback, and would not shame himself in any raid; he was sure. Come spring he would leave the keep and seek his own fortunes. He would not look back he told himself, not miss the mountainsides of his childhood. A grown man didn’t… shouldn’t…

He’d always known, always prepared, so why did it still sting so badly when their father was now gone and all played out as he always knew it would?

Perhaps because it hadn’t been his father’s time yet, or perhaps because – the law be damned – Roar didn’t think Njal worthy of it all. He was the eldest, after all, and even if he only had two years on Njal, it made a big difference. Njal was hotheaded and reckless, much less mature. Come spring he’d hurry to the nearest public houses, Roar was sure, and waste every piece of silver they had on ale and whores. He’d be starved enough of cunt then to forget everything else. The keep was run down now, but it’d be a ruin before next winter, while Roar knew just what he would do to make their lands flourish again instead – if any decisions were his.

It irked him to no end that blood would trump competence, and it stung even more considering his mother had been who their father had truly loved. Yes, his mother had only been a concubine, not a true wife, no family name, no riches brought into the house, but it had been her grave their father had spilled his tears on, and it had been Njal’s mother their father had wished into a grave.

It didn’t matter; nothing mattered. Njal owned everything, and he was the one who would have to leave.

“Would it kill you to go easier on the slave?” Roar blurted out, pushing away his almost untouched plate.

Njal looked up from his own almost empty plate. “Huh?”

“Ravn! Why do you have to fuck him so harshly? One night only and the slave can hardly walk.”

At the corner of his eye, Roar saw Ravn freeze up by the hearth, hanging his head, red in the face, while the other slaves snickered around him. When he’d begged him the night before to talk to his brother, Ravn had probably hoped he wouldn’t do so in front of everyone. Roar hadn’t meant to either, but his resentment had taken over.

Njal smirked at him. “I didn’t know you were interested, brother, or I would have been more careful with that tight little asshole of his. Well, is it such a big deal? It’ll heal up soon; just use his mouth in the meantime.” Njal waved a greasy hand in the air and went for the last piece of meat on his plate.

Roar might have always been aware that his brother was the “real” son, but Njal had always been profoundly aware of this, too. It had never bothered Njal in the least how he was always just that little bit worse than Roar in everything, because his blood was the right kind, and it made all the difference. He never needed to listen to his older brother, never needed to take advice or care about any misgivings, concerns or valid complaints he might have, and now, when their father was dead, he could just dismiss him, overall, with a simple wave of a greasy hand.

Roar still held the knife in his hand, from a meal he had hardly started, and felt his knuckles whitening around the handle, his arm trembling with the effort of not driving it right through his brother’s wooden plate to get his full attention, finally.

“Do not use him that harshly again,” he warned.

Njal stopped smirking to look confused instead. “Really? You want to fight me, brother, over a slave whore?”

A question asked in enough honest befuddlement to make Roar come to his senses. No, of course, he didn’t, that would be completely absurd, after all, and not a victory he could ever feel any pride over. He put the knife down on his plate and looked away.

Njal was at least smart enough not to give him another smirk, maybe sensing the danger in the air, and perhaps starting to realize Roar’s anger had only partly to do with the yellow-haired slave. “All right,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “All right, I’ll be more careful next time”.

“Good,” Roar replied, as calmly and with as much indifference as he could muster. “Then we won’t speak of it further.” He pulled the plate back and finished his breakfast.

At night, when there was a knock on his door again, Roar knew it would be Ravn, and gave him a much more resigned permission to enter this time. The slave snuck inside with the same caution as the night before, wrapped in the same quilt, pale face as serious.

“I wanted to thank you, Master,” he said, “for this morning.”

Roar gave up a dry laugh. “What is there to thank me for? As I recall, I only managed to humiliate you before the other slaves, and spite Njal. He’ll probably be harsher on you next time, only to spite me back.”

Ravn was silent for several heartbeats. “The others know what I am,” he finally said. “They humiliate me enough already, without anyone’s help, and you did mention it to your brother, which was all I asked. Whatever he will do to me, I believe… you meant well.”

He watched Ravn now, too, in silence. He was just a slave, and the only concerns of such a man, Roar would have thought, was to find ways to suffer as little as possible, but Ravn had always seemed to accept a small amount of suffering for some unspoken goal beyond it.

Roar had witnessed Ravn being the victim of other slaves’ contempt, ridicule and spite many times throughout the years, something Ravn had always seemed to bear without complaint, and yet… so many of those slaves had ended up the victims of strange accidents, had they not? The lucky ones had only seen themselves humiliated in their turn, but many others had ended up more or less severely injured and at least one of them they had had to bury behind the scrap heap where the slaves laid their dead.

Perhaps some of those incidents had been mere coincidences, but surely not all of them.

Ravn had never roused suspicion in neither his father nor his brother, and Roar had never voiced his, never wanting to admit he watched the slave that closely. To his father, Ravn had been a pleasing, pretty little thing to warm his bed and amuse him in his old age, and to his brother, Ravn was a… nothing. They would miss how something always went on behind those cornflower eyes, wouldn’t they?

Miss the slave’s cleverness and patience.

Sometimes there had been months between a slave mocking the ‘girly weakling’ and ‘accidentally’, spraying his new tunic with horse manure as he walked past – and that same slave falling head first into the same pile of horseshit, claiming to everyone’s roaring laughter an ‘invisible rope’ had tripped him up. Roar had noted that Ravn hadn’t joined in the laughter, but he’d also seen the pleased glimmer in his eyes.

Ravn must have understood Roar would make a mess of it, if he asked him to talk to his brother, so it would seem he had another reason for it, than only the hope of less harsh fucks. Perhaps the same reason was behind this show of gratitude, as well, seeing as Roar had hardly earned it. It bothered him that he couldn’t figure out what this reason could be, and he didn’t like the feeling he was somehow being manipulated here.

Roar didn’t acknowledge Ravn’s assessment of how ‘well-meaning’ he was. “Was there anything else?” he demanded instead.

Ravn hesitated even longer than the night before. “I am grateful, Master,” he said, “but I would still advise you… not to… spite or provoke your brother again.”

Roar narrowed his eyes. “You advise me? A mere bed warmer thinks he can advise the eldest son of the house and has the gall to warn him against his own family. What made you think you can speak this freely with me, slave?”

At least Ravn had the good sense to bow his head in seeming shame at his admonition, but he pressed on nevertheless. “I wouldn’t presume… I don’t think… I know my place, Master, and I apologize for speaking above my station, but… I’d still risk your ire, Master, to, again, ask you to please be careful.”

“Why?” Roar blurted out, stunned at the insistence. “Why would you ask that? Why would you even care?”

Ravn looked up at him again then. “I wouldn’t, but… You were always kind to me, Master, in… your own way and… and you never took advantage of me, of my body.”

Again, Roar was stunned. “All right,” he finally said, bereft of any other words. “I’ll be careful then.”

Ravn nodded in all seriousness, bowed to him, and left the room, but Roar couldn’t sleep after that.

The next morning, after breakfast, Roar visited the site of his father’s death, which had happened only a few months earlier. Well, he couldn’t yet visit the actual spot because it was still not possible to go up the pass because of the snow. He ventured as close as he could, though, and stared up at the site from the back of his ragged horse.

Their father had fallen to his death up there, and Ravn had been the only witness to the accident.

His father had went up the pass in late autumn to visit the world outside of their keep, one last time before the snow, bringing his pet, Ravn held close to his chest in the saddle. Half way up the pass the horse had been spooked by something – Ravn had claimed he had spotted no reason for the sudden panic – and the animal had thrown them both. Ravn had hit the ground hard close to the edge of the precipice, but his master hadn’t been as lucky, and had fallen to his death at the bottom of the ravine.

Roar had to breathe deep and slow to control the pain in his chest at this thought. It was too cold to cry, his nostrils were already sticking together in the frigid air as it was.

There were no reasons to hold any suspicions about the incident, of course. The pass was dangerous to travel, even in summer. It was why the keep had once been built in this place, after all, and their father was not the only one who had ended their days in these mountains. No one had doubted Ravn’s words as he came running back to the keep, no one, but Roar.

Roar had known of Ravn’s talent in making ‘accidents’ happen around him for a long time, after all.

The thing was, Roar didn’t for a moment doubt the clever slave could have arranged a similar accident, it was only that he could think of no reason why the slave would.

What could Ravn possibly gain when all that would happen would be a harsh and uncaring Njal inheriting him. It didn’t make sense, overall. Why would a slave as clever as that concoct a plan where he’d be as much at risk to die as his ‘intended victim’? Ravn might have figured out a thousand ways to spook a horse and hope the rider would be fatally wounded being thrown, but why would he do so with a horse he himself was on? No matter your scheming skills, you could not hope to control a panicking horse’s movements to such an extent you could assure one co-rider falling into the ravine and the other not.

Of course, Ravn could have lied altogether. Maybe they had stopped for some reason, to dismount, and Ravn had managed to push his master into the ravine. Only, the horse had joined his owner in the fall, and Ravn himself had been bruised and scraped all over from being thrown, clutching a broken arm as he stumbled back to the keep screaming for help. Ravn couldn’t have pushed the horse over the edge, too, could he? He couldn’t have caused himself those injuries… could he?

Well, even if Ravn somehow had been able to, Roar’s thoughts kept coming back to the fact that the slave had nothing to gain by such a murder, and his father had always treated him kindly… well, apart from taking him in the first place, he supposed. Even so, Roar had watched Ravn, and seen that hateful glimmer in his eyes whenever anyone had hurt him – he’d never seen the slave eye their father like that.

With his rational mind, Roar could not believe Ravn was behind his father’s death, but his heart didn’t trust the slave.

Roar turned the horse around and made his way back to the keep, where his brother met him on the yard with a big grin.

“Out riding this early already?”

Roar nodded, jumping off the horse. “I tried to go up the pass a bit.”

“Why? The snow won’t budge for months yet.”

“I know… I was only… I wanted to think.”

Njal barked a laugh. “Think? Careful, brother, don’t wear your mind out.”

Roar ignored the stupid joke. “Has it never occurred to you that our father’s death was… strange?”

Njal’s grins died down on his face. “Strange? What do you mean?”

“Well, our father was a good rider, and he knew the pass so well. That horse, he was one of our most stable and reliable horses, too, when was he ever spooked by anything. We used to practice sword fights on his back and he remained indifferent to any yelling, clanging and waving things about. Very sturdy, strong and sure of foot that horse, and that’s why father usually took him up the pass, wasn’t it, especially when having Ravn in the saddle with him. Ravn also said he couldn’t understand why the horse had reacted like he did.”

Njal nodded in all seriousness. “It is a bit odd, I suppose, but, it can happen to the calmest of horses, and what does a slave like that know of horses anyway.”

“Nothing, I believe,” Roar conceded. “I still think there is something strange with…”

Njal interrupted him by putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Roar, we both grieve and miss our father. It makes the mind troubled in the day and the heart aching at night, but… we are grown men, who have to accept things as they are.”

Roar looked down, feeling his brother’s hand squeezing his shoulder. He could find no words to contradict.

Later, Roar found bloody rags in the outhouse and next he saw Ravn, he was limping, his pale face drawn with a pain he could no longer hide. He beat Njal to it then, before he withdrew to his room in the evening, and ordered the slave to his bed.

Njal raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. He could have protested, Ravn was his, after all, but even he might have recognized how petty it would be to deny his own brother.

All the way to the bedroom, Roar didn’t speak with the slave, neither did he say a word as he crawled into bed and lifted the covers in a silent, grudging, invitation. Ravn readily joined him and let Roar pull his back close to his chest and put a leg over his thighs. They both shivered at the cold and damp covers.

“I… I’ll make it good for you,” Ravn whispered softly in the darkness. “If only you’ll spare the backside of me, just for tonight, I’ll make it good… in other ways.”

“I want warmth only,” Roar replied. “And silence.”

Ravn said nothing else.

In the coming weeks, Roar went against Ravn’s advice and drew his brother’s ire by stealing Ravn to his bed as often as he possibly could, without Njal finding a good reason to put his foot down about it.

The tension between Njal and himself grew as a result, yet Roar persisted.

He lay in bed with the slave on one such night, when Ravn risked breaking the silence Roar usually ordered.

“Master, since you are still not asleep… May I ask a question?”

Roar muttered something into the slave’s hair that he might have taken as permission to do so.

“I’m here, in your bed, ever only for warmth. Is it because you’d rather wait for the women in the public houses come spring, or… is it me in particular who doesn’t appeal to you?”

Roar turned in the bed and opened his eyes to the darkness at this question. He would have barked at the slave to stay quiet at such annoying conceit, if it wasn’t so obvious it was nothing of the kind. Ravn wasn’t trying to fish for compliments, he was only fishing for information.

“I’d rather be with a woman, overall, but your looks are a nice enough alternative in a pinch,” he replied truthfully. Ravn was pretty, after all, there was no denying that.

“Six months of isolation in a house without women is a pinch, is it not? Yet, you’re not fucking me.”

“It’s because your uppity manners appeal to me less than your face,” he snapped. “Now, be quiet and let me sleep!”

Ravn did stay silent, for quite a long time even, but then… “Forgive me, Master, but you’re a kinder man than your brother. You let me warm your bed, so that I’m spared bleeding in his. I understand. You’d fuck me in a pinch, perhaps, but you delight in a lover who comes to you willingly and smiling. I’ve seen it, at feasts, when your father and stepmother lived and the great hall was open to guests. A pretty girl with a dance in her step approaching you, her greedy fingers curling in your beard, that’s what lit your fire – the other’s desire. You believe I’m dragging my feet over here, only to avoid your brother, so, you use my body heat while I’m hiding anyway, but that belief lights no fire in you.”

Again, Roar was stunned silent at the slave’s words.

“It’s partly true,” the slave continued, “that I hide… but perhaps, maybe, I too… have… desires…”

“You talk too many words, slave, after I’ve already told you to let me sleep,” Roar said, unable to think of anything else to say.

Ravn obeyed this time.

Roar took to standing in the yard every morning after breakfast, in all but the worst weathers, to stare at the mountain ridges that surrounded the keep, trapping them all in, glaring at the peaks, as if the heat of his gaze alone could melt the snow and make spring come sooner.

Feeling restless as winter seemed endless and being sick and tired of the cold and the almost constant darkness was nothing new in itself. It happened to them all every winter, but theirs had once been a home with many more people, and they had all, together, done their best to chase those bad feelings away.

Now, it was only his brother and he – the slaves didn’t count, not Ravn, either – and they were bad company for each other. Without an outside force keeping them apart when their different natures clashed, or giving them something to work on to bring them together in a common goal of completion, or distract them with suggestions of hunts or games – all that was left was to nurse their resentment toward each other.

Oh, he missed their father so much.

Maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad to leave here, after all, when spring finally came, but Roar still couldn’t abide the thought.

If only Njal would mature some, and stop being so proud and stubborn, he would learn to listen to an older brother’s advice and they could… Yes, why couldn’t they bring this keep back to its former glory – together?

Did he really need to leave? Why couldn’t they instead learn to cooperate? It wasn’t that Roar wanted to lay claim to Njal’s birthright, not really. He’d gladly and openly acknowledge his brother’s ownership of it all, if Njal would acknowledge his ideas and suggestions, his skills and competence. What did it matter who owned things on paper, if both worked together to bring their family name back into fame, glory and riches?

The house had plenty of room for two families, after all.

Njal coughed behind him. “The snow won’t melt no matter how you glare at it,” he teased. “Can’t wait to leave, eh?”

The smugness of his brother’s voice galled Roar. “Actually, I’ve been thinking, I might not leave, at all.”

Njal scoffed behind him. “Why wouldn’t you? There is nothing for you here now.”

Roar felt the ire rise. Why was his brother so blind to what they could accomplish – together!

“Why is there nothing for me here?” he said. “We were both born here, we both care about this place; we both know it like the back of our hands, why couldn’t we both build it up again?”

“Because,” Njal said, his eyes hard now, a warning in his voice. “Because the keep is mine. Are you challenging my birthright, brother?”

Roar’s hands fisted at his sides. “You stubborn… I wasn’t at all… That wasn’t what I…”

There might have been a fight, if not, at that very moment, their two-year-old, not yet broken in; wildest stallion came galloping between them across the yard, snow spraying at his hooves, jumping the fence at the other side. The two stable boys came running after him, swearing and cursing, beseeching their masters in passing to forgive them, they had no idea how the Helish beast had managed to escape again.

It took them all a good hour to catch the horse.

Roar went to his room to change out of his wet boots and start a fire to dry up after the wild chase in the snow, but Ravn was already in the room when he barged through the door, and was already on it, starting up the fire.

“Please, sit down, Master!” he said. “I’ll pull your boots off shortly.”

Roar had seen the pale face in a window, watching them chase after the horse. “I assume you let the stallion out,” he said, slumping down in the chair, too tired and resigned about it all, even to pretend to sound angry at the deed.

Ravn didn’t deny it. “Forgive me, Master, I could think of nothing else in the moment.”

“Njal and I only had a disagreement,” he said. “It’s not as if we would have taken swords to each other so that you had to do such a thing.”

Ravn turned from the fire and knelt at his feet, grabbing at his left boot. “I’m not as sure about that as you are, Master.”

It made his anger flare up again. “I do not need a male whore mothering me,” he snarled. “For the sake of the bloody gods, Ravn, you think me that weak? If Njal had come at me with a sword, which is fucking absurd, then what of it? You think I couldn’t have knocked it out of his hands within moments. He never could measure up to me, and I certainly don’t need someone who’s never even touched a sword to speak as if he thinks I couldn’t defend myself. Gods!” he yelled, throwing his hands in the air.

Ravn didn’t react to his angry words, only finished pulling his boots off and reaching for a cloth to dry his feet, but there was hurt in his eyes when he looked up at him.

“Forgive me, Master, I don’t at all think you weak. I’ve seen you and your brother train and practice with each other for ten years by now, I know he couldn’t best you in a fair fight. I’m only concerned he… might not want to fight fair.”

Roar wasn’t entirely placated. “You are badmouthing one brother to the other; you can’t be too concerned with your own safety, can you?”

Ravn looked down to dry his feet and shook his head sadly. “If only he’d treasure your loyalty… if only you would treasure mine…” He looked up again. “I’m probably the only piece of his property he doesn’t value very highly, Master, so if you want to destroy me for badmouthing him, then go right ahead. I certainly couldn’t defend myself.”

That did placate him. “You know I would never do that,” he said. Roar sighed deeply. “I just don’t understand what your game is.”

“I’m not playing games, Master, I’m only saying he might feel threatened by you, and you should be more careful.”

Roar stared at the slave at his feet. Playing games was exactly what he had always thought the clever slave was doing, something he couldn’t even really blame him for. Yes, he hadn’t doubted there was a game being played and he had only been annoyed at never being able to figure it out. However, if Ravn was actually telling him the truth here, and he wasn’t playing games, then…

“You… You know something, don’t you?” he blurted out.

Ravn looked up at him, in shock this time, shaking his head in denial, and Roar knew then he was right.

He grabbed one of Ravn’s wrists and pulled him up at eye level with him. “Tell me what you know, slave!” he growled. “Tell me!”

Ravn’s face contorted in pain. “Please, Master,” he gasped. “That hurts… very badly.”

Roar realized he was nearly crushing the slave’s thin wrist in his hand and hurried to let go again. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt… Please, Ravn, for the love of the gods, tell me what you know.”

Ravn rubbed at his wrist, his face still showing the pain. “Master, listen to me, you once forbade me to talk of your father, but let me say only this. He loved you the most, always.”

Roar sank back into the chair. “He… he told you that?”

“No, why would a master tell a slave such a thing? But I lived closer to the man than any others ever had, save your mother, and whether or not he really knew me, I knew him. He was fond of me, and was kind to me, but I was not really a person in his eyes. A man with pride and dignity does not cry, regret things, or show weakness, not to their equals, but he will let tears fall before the furniture in his rooms, and the pretty trinkets on his shelves. I was only one of those trinkets, part of the furniture, and I saw... so many things.

“I know he loved nothing else in life more than your mother and therefore also the son she bore him. Njal was dear to him, yes. He was proud of him, delighted in his fierceness, and he would have risked his life equally for both of his sons, but he loved you.”

Roar sank deeper into the chair, fighting his tears now.

“Forgive me, Master, I don’t want to upset you with painful memories, but you want my honesty, not my games? Then I will tell you, if I didn’t think my dead master was right in his feelings for you, I wouldn’t have much cared what in Hel free people think of each other and how they conspire and betray. Let them destroy each other, for all I care. However, a fool as I am, I don’t want to see you destroyed. So, please, Master, I do know things, but please, please, don’t force it out of me until we can get through the pass. Promise me, Master, and when the pass thaws, I’ll tell you everything I know. In the name of your parents, promise me!”

“I promise,” Roar said, what else could he say.

“Thank you, Master! In the meantime, please don’t provoke your brother! Please, keep us both alive until spring is here! It’s a mere month away, surely you can manage?”

Roar shook his head. He still couldn’t believe Njal was such a threat to him, but it was clear Ravn would not be persuaded otherwise. He slowly changed his shake into a nod.

“I promise,” he repeated.

A month later, the pass had thawed and Roar pulled Ravn up on his horse before him and let him share his saddle.

He’d chosen a strong, sturdy, sure-footed not easily spooked horse to take Ravn up to the pass. Their horses might be small, ragged and ugly compared to the elegant, small-headed, shiny-coated, long-legged animals he’d seen people import from faraway lands, but no other horses were stronger or better at climbing these stony ridges.

Ravn’s added slight weight didn’t bother his chosen steed.

The slave was clearly bothered by the ride, though. His slender fingers almost seemed to cramp in their desperate grip of the horse’s mane, and when they neared, and stopped, at the site of the accident, which had killed his father, he could feel how hard Ravn’s heart was beating, holding him close with a strong arm around his chest.

Was it fear… or guilt?

“I have done everything you’ve asked of me, Ravn,” he said, “at no little cost to the relationship with my brother. You asked two impossible things of me: to keep you safe and not to provoke Njal. That has not been easy, seeing as keeping you out of his bed hasn’t exactly eased his bad moods. However, I have done so. You are not entirely well, I fear, but you are alive, and I have had to swallow so many words I have wanted Njal to hear, swallow so much ire, only to avoid him as much as you seemed to think I needed to.

“Against better judgment, I have grown fond of you, Ravn, but what secrets you have to tell me, had better be worth all this, do you understand?”

Ravn nodded. “I… I think they will be,” he simply said.

“Very well. As you can see for yourself, the pass is cleared of snow, so I will take you back to the keep and you can tell me, but first, you will do something for me. You know this site?”

“Y- yes…”

“Then tell me, and please be truthful, because I will not hurt you in either case. You hold secrets as hostage and so I will take you down this ridge alive no matter what, but I need to know, Ravn. Did you kill my father?”

Ravn seemed to turn to ice in his arms. “No,” he gasped. “I didn’t… I swear... I would never… You… You- you’re asking the wrong person.”

It was Roar’s turn to gasp now. “Surely, you’re not suggesting Njal would have…”

“I don’t know, Master, I truly don’t know,” Ravn interrupted. “Please take me away from this place, Master, please, and I will at least show you the only one who had the motive to somehow cause that horse to go mad and hope it would end both master and slave, was your brother. It certainly wasn’t me. What reason could I have had, when your father was all that kept me alive and the only one who cared for me in this cursed place? I might have been a mere trinket to him, but I was a treasured one, why would I have done such a thing. Why? Please believe me! Please!”

Roar held him closer then, pressing his face into Ravn’s yellow hair, as he turned the horse around on the narrow path. “I do,” he said. “I do believe you.”

Ravn wept the entire way down.

There were no traces of Ravn’s earlier tears when they finally sat down on Roar’s bed to speak. Calm and collected he sat there, radiating the resignation of a slave who knows whatever he would say now, every choice and decision was forever taken out of his hands.

“Now, keep your part of our agreement,” Roar demanded, “and tell me what you know.”

Ravn sighed deeply but looked him straight in the eyes. “Njal is not the heir of your father… You are.”

“What?”

“You’re the rightful heir. You own all of this, the keep, the lands… you own me. I know you have never fully trusted me, but I have only ever done what a slave should, and loyally served my true master.”

Roar almost laughed, shaking his head. “But… but that’s absurd. That can’t be true, how can that be true? Njal is born from my father’s true wife, and my mother was only his concubine.”

Ravn nodded. “That’s true enough, but your father was very young when his parents betrothed him to Njal’s mother. There was never any love lost between them. Then he met your mother. Did you know he spoke of her in his sleep? He never loved anyone else, but he was a man of honor and his first wife had rich and powerful kin. Divorcing Njal’s mother didn’t seem like an option, and so he took your mother as a concubine instead.”

“I know this,” Roar said irritably. “Where are you going with all this?”

“Please have patience, Master. I only want you to understand, finally, just how deeply your father loved your mother. Just look at me, Master! I know it won’t endear you to me more by me pointing this out, but… I look like your mother. Why else would he have picked a boy, and encouraged me to grow my hair like her, if the resemblance hadn’t been so uncanny. You look like her, too, but you needed to grow into a strong man. I… didn’t. When your mother passed away, it drove him nearly mad with grief, and that grief made him do things he would otherwise never have done – such as taking a boy with the same face into his bed. However, that was not all he did to appease, remember and honor his dead concubine.”

Roar was ever more mystified. “What else did he do then?”

“He legally divorced Njal’s mother and turned him into a bastard in the process. That leaves only one living son, born of an official concubine, passable to inherit it all, only because a legitimate son is now lacking. You!”

Roar was stunned silent, getting up from the bed to pace the room. “But… This would have been ten years ago, and my stepmother lived here until her death. My father never said anything about this, and… I just can’t believe all this, Ravn.”

“I’m telling you, Master, it is the truth. He never told anyone, no, not even the wife he divorced, because… Well, I don’t know why, but maybe he regretted it? It was a mad thing to have done for a lover who had already passed, after all. He was fond of Njal, too, but now he’d made a bastard of him? I think he might have deeply regretted that. This keep was falling into ruin, your family not as rich and respected as they once used to be. Throwing his wife out and insulting her kin was the last he needed. The deed could not be undone, but he must have regretted it, so he kept quiet. Your father was a brave man, Master, fearless in battle, but before his own family, he was a coward. For years, he never told any of you. Njal’s mother died believing she was still a true wife, comforted in her last moments by the thought her son would inherit it all. No, he didn’t tell for many years, but… in the end, I think, he… might have finally told the bereaved party – Njal!”

Roar’s head swam as he slowly realized what Ravn was implying. “You think Njal… The horse… He did something to the horse… to… to… hide he was no longer the heir?”

Ravn nodded; a grim look on his face. “I can’t prove it, but I heard them argue in your father’s bedroom the night before. I never could make out what they were actually saying, but the next morning, your father was dead and I barely survived.”

Roar kept pacing the room, still in disbelief at what he was hearing. Njal couldn’t have… Their own father… out of greed?

“But that is just it, slave, you have no proof. You have no proof of anything. How can I believe a single word of this? Even if it is true, how could you know? A simple slave? Our father never said a word to his own family, but he would have told you? Is that what you are trying to make me believe?”

Ravn frowned at him. “Of course not, Master, of course your father never told me anything. I didn’t know until after your father’s death. While you were busy grieving your father, Njal gathered all papers from your father’s rooms that could in any way prove the truth, and he took them outside to burn them in a pit, when I…”

“The unbroken stallion!” Roar interrupted. “The day after my father’s death, the stallion mysteriously managed to escape and we all had to chase it around the yard, just like when you thought it would come to a fight between Njal and me… It was you, back then, too?”

Ravn nodded. “I had watched Njal closely, and seen him take papers from your father’s rooms. I understood he was about to burn something important, so, even as much pain as I was in, black and blue all over, with a broken arm, I made it down to the stables unseen and let the horse out, distracting Njal.

“While he chased the horse with the rest of you, I went through the papers left at the pit, where he hadn’t yet started a fire, and I found the divorce document. It all made sense to me then. I took that paper only, hoping Njal wouldn’t notice one document was missing whenever he would return to burn the pile. He didn’t.”

Ravn reached into his tunic, produced a folded up paper, and urged Roar to take it. “Njal believes, I’m sure, he burned all the evidence that day, but I have it here. All the proof you need. You are the rightful heir… Master!”

Roar didn’t yet reach for the paper, still staring at Ravn as if he had never seen him before. “But how… You’re just a slave; you can’t read. How could you know what the correct paper was?”

Ravn only smirked at him. “Please, I was eleven when your father took me; I learned to read at six.”

Roar was truly and utterly gobsmacked. Had he even once considered where Ravn actually came from and what life he had lived before his father brought home the spoils of that year? No, he had never really considered any of that. For some reason, he couldn’t look Ravn in the eyes now. Red in the face, he snatched the paper out of his hand, and went to stand by the window where the light was better. The document was exactly what Ravn said it was; the legal, signed and witnessed paper where his father divorced his stepmother and made a bastard of his brother.

He was the rightful heir.

It filled him with so much sadness. His stepmother and brother had never deserved to be treated like this… but his brother had reacted to the truth by hiding it, and… murdering their father…

A rage such as he had never felt before, came over Roar. “Njal!” he roared stalking towards the door. “Njal, you bastard, I will fucking kill you, I…”

He didn’t quite reach the door. Ravn ran after him and threw himself on his knees, putting his arms around Roar’s legs. “No, Master, please, don’t,” he cried in desperation. “Please, he will kill you, too. There is nothing for us here, please leave it all to him and let’s go over the pass. Please, Master, please…”

Roar would not listen to that. He tore the slender man’s thin fingers off his legs with ease and left him a weeping pile on the floor. He would revenge his father, come what may, or he could never claim any sort of honor to his name for the rest of his life.

Roar barged into his brother’s rooms, carrying two swords, slamming the document down on a table before him. Njal turning paler than Ravn at seeing a paper he thought had been destroyed told Roar everything he needed to know.

“You murdered our father, over this,” he roared, pointing at the paper.

Njal gathered himself quickly. “So, you found out the truth about my mother? I have to say, I am shocked to see that paper. Ravn?”

“Yes!”

Njal snarled like an angry beast. “I should have killed that slave a long time ago. So, the meddling whore stole a paper. I admit, it doesn’t look good for me, regarding our… disagreements over the keep, but, accusing me of murdering our father is low, Roar, even for you. It was an accident, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know that. I know that you killed him. I’ve known all along there was something strange about it, and now I know why. I thought it might have been Ravn, but that didn’t make any sense at all. This, however, does.”

“You’re talking out of your ass, brother. You chose your suspect between the slave, and me, and you end up believing it’s me? Your own brother? Do I have to remind you, Ravn was the one who was with our father when he died, not me.”

Roar threw one of the swords he was carrying to Njal, who instinctively caught it. “You cannot talk your way out of this one, brother. Best me in a fair fight, kill me, and it won’t matter what I think, will it?”

Njal held up the sword in a placating gesture. “I will not fight you over this, Roar, are you insane? Kill the slave yourself, have him stop poisoning your mind and you will see reason again. Are you so horny for the yellow-haired little man that you can’t think straight anymore?”

Roar was not going to back down, he knew who had really been poisoning his mind, and it wasn’t a poor helpless boy, who his father had once stolen and thrown into this outpost of Hel on earth.

“I said, fight me!” he roared, and raised his sword.

Njal only just managed to fend off Roar’s first blow, not being prepared, but then he only held his own for a few more, before Roar made him back up, Njal desperately trying to avoid his furious attacks.

Their father had taught them to practice safely with each other, but he’d also taught them dirtier tactics separately, to use in actual battles. On the battlefield, there is no room for sportsmanship. Slash to get close, turn the sword and knock them out with the pommel, stab them in the armpit as they go down…

Roar was not practicing sportsmanship with his brother, using wooden swords, today. No, today he was on his own battlefield.

He would have made short order of it, too, had not Njal called for help. One of Njal’s trusted slaves came running and defended his master, by hitting Roar over the shoulders with a fence pole. It hurt, badly, and dazed him as well. If that had hit his head, he would have been done for. Now, he gathered just enough to spin around and run the sword through the slave’s stomach, only to have his brother slash him over his right upper arm.

The angle had been bad, Roar could feel the wound wasn’t very deep, but it didn’t matter, it was enough to make him drop the sword, and his brother would neither miss the opportunity, nor come at him at a bad angle a second time. He tried to turn away from the next blow, which miraculously saved him, but only because he tripped over the slave’s dead body.

He fell hard on his back and Njal put a heavy foot in the middle of his chest, taking the wind out of him. He raised his sword over Roar’s throat.

Roar was too shocked to react. This was not how it was suppose to end...

“Join your whore of a mother in Hel,” Njal roared. However, before the point could sink into his throat, the hateful face above him twisted into a grimace of pure agony instead, and Njal dropped the sword.

Unable to understand what he was seeing, Roar watched Njal slowly sink to his knees, and collapse over his legs…

… and behind the dying Njal stood Ravn, wide blue eyes, pale cheeks and bloody dagger in hand.

Heart pounding in his chest, Roar pulled his legs out from under his brother’s body and staggered to his feet, staring at Ravn in shock.

Ravn seemed just as shocked. He stared back at Roar, fear forming in his eyes, and his hand shook uncontrollably as he raised it once more and held the dagger out for Roar to take.

“I… I killed your kin,” he said. “My life is in your hands now.” He lifted his chin and persisted in offering the dagger.

Roar shook his head. That brave… foolish little thing. He took the dagger and threw it on the floor, pulling Ravn into his arms, embracing the trembling slight body, caressing the long yellow hair down his back. “It’s all right,” he said. “You did well. We’ll figure out what to do – together.”

Ravn finally hugged him back then, and cried.

Roar had gathered all the slaves on the yard and told them they were free to go, giving them horses, livestock and tools to take with them. None of them had understood, most of them had hesitated, some had protested, scared of the unknown. All of them had finally left with whatever they could carry when he’d yelled at them and threatened them with death if they stayed.

Then Ravn and he had put Njal’s dead body in his bed, and the dead slave in Roar’s bed, dressed in his clothes and wearing some of his jewelry. Lastly, they had packed what they wanted to bring onto the rest of the horses – and set fire to the keep.

Anyone coming here would think the brothers had died in an accidental fire and that the rest had abandoned the destroyed keep. Roar would be free to create his own future now, take a new name; go where no one knew him.

He felt sad watching the keep burn from a safe distance, half way up the pass, but he told himself it was only the boy inside him who cried over all the memories, and as for his grown up self, both Njal and Ravn had been right in one thing – there was nothing for him here anymore.

A slender shivering hand reached for his arm from behind him, “Where are we going?” Ravn said. “What are we going to do?”

Roar didn’t take his eyes off the fire, but he put his hand over Ravn’s in a gesture of love and assurance. “Away!” he said. “And whatever we fucking please.”