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Third time raiding in England
The town was gloriously ablaze, its wood and stone edifices crumbling all around him—the hubris of man, of Christians, trying to resist the gods. Ivar felt the elemental power of it, the flames mesmerizing him even though he knew he should leave. Most other people had already moved on, so quick to return to mundane concerns, to shy away from the power of the gods. Ivar had no such fears.
He did eventually get hungry, though.
He was crawling past another flaming hut and paused to admire it, just for a moment, when he saw an unnatural movement inside it, and his gaze sharpened. Assuming it was an injured animal, he hefted his axe, prepared to put it out of its misery.
But it wasn’t an animal dodging falling beams and crouching under furniture inside the hut, it was a small child. Ivar put his axe back on his belt and rolled over to sit up.
“Hey, you!” he called to the child. It looked up at the sound of his voice, its face smudged with soot and tears. “Come on, come here.” He spoke English and also gestured vigorously. “Come on, come now!”
The child hesitated. Ivar supposed that was understandable—he could see an adult’s body nearby, no doubt someone the child had known, whose violent death it had perhaps witnessed. On the other hand, the child had a small window in which to escape the fire and save its own life. Would it be smart enough to do so?
Ivar even took off his helmet so he looked more human to the child. “Come on, come here now!” Fate would decide if the child would live or die in this moment, if Ivar would have a new being to care for or not. “Come here, child!”
The child decided and darted out of the hut just before the roof collapsed in a beautiful burst of sparks. Ivar caught the child in his arms, though his armor might not have been the most comforting. “That’s it, you’re alright now, aren’t you?” he soothed the child. It could walk, but not very steadily, indicating its youth, and it had nothing to say beyond incoherent sobbing. “Hush now, hush now, you’re alright.” Examination showed it to be uninjured, and a girl.
Now Ivar looked around, frowning when he saw he was all alone in the street. Trust his fellow warriors to dash off just when he needed something, he huffed. Well, no matter, he was used to getting along by himself.
The child had calmed somewhat, standing in the mud in her bare feet, clinging to him so trustingly. Small children were stupid that way, but that was how the gods had made them, and Ivar was not necessarily immune from their pull these days. “Okay, I will explain what we’re going to do,” he announced calmly. “I am going to roll over, and you will climb on my back. But you must hang on when I move, or you will fall off! Okay?” The child made no clear response. “Okay,” Ivar decided, and he rolled over, propping himself up on his elbows. “Come on, get on. Get on.” He freed one hand to pat his own back, which was neither elegant nor easy in this position.
Gratifyingly, the child seemed to grasp the concept and struggled onto his back. Little feet stomped in places that would have been painful, if not for his armor. “Are you hanging on?” Ivar prompted. He reached up and back to tap his collar. “I think you must hang on.” That was only supposition on his part, he was not in the habit of giving rides. Warningly, he started to push himself up more on his hands.
There was a squeal and grubby little hands clutched at his head, almost blinding him. “No, hang on to my clothes—” he sputtered. The grip slid down to his neck—the child’s arms were almost too short to reach around him as tightly as they desired to, which would probably have cut off his air supply. Ivar rolled his eyes. “Okay, we will start with this,” he allowed, and started to drag himself through the mud.
It was a hard slog and a messy one, but it was how Ivar was used to moving around, independent of others. And now he could use it to transport other people as well! Small people, but still.
He got himself into the view of other warriors, finally, outside the village where the Vikings had set up camp. The first few just stared at him, and Ivar kept his head held high and didn’t look at them. Eventually a shield-maiden he recognized approached and asked if she could assist him. “Yes, take this child to my wife,” he allowed grandly. “It is a gift.” The shield-maiden went to pick up the child, who squealed in Ivar’s ear and clung tightly to his throat, almost choking him. “Be careful, don’t damage it,” he coughed out. The shield-maiden was apparently experienced at these things, though, and knew the secret to detaching the child safely, and together the party went to find Sansa.
**
If Bjorn was surprised to see Ivar crawl up to the table with a small child riding on his back, he was careful not to let it show. He merely shot Ubbe a look—Hvitserk was laughing openly—and watched as the child dismounted when ordered, waited for Ivar to boost himself onto the bench, then obligingly raised its arms so Ivar could pick it up. He set the child on its feet on the table, where it could stand unaided but seemed in imminent danger of toppling over.
“Ivar the Baby Thief strikes again!” Hvitserk joked.
“Yes, Sansa says it is a good gift,” Ivar agreed, hands poised to catch the child if it started to fall. “When we return to Kattegat, we will have four children, and probably another on the way.” This was clearly a source of pride for him.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Hvitserk asked tolerantly, as the child stepped on the edge of his plate and flipped it over.
Ivar blinked silently for a long moment.
“Don’t you know?” Hvitserk laughed. “Didn’t you check?”
“It is a girl, I think,” Ivar finally recalled, uncertainly. This was not a point of great importance for him, and he didn’t like Hvitserk laughing at him about it. “What do you care, anyway?”
“What else is there to ask about, huh?” Hvitserk shrugged.
Ivar scoffed at this. “There are many questions one could ask,” he claimed, “if one was not an idiot.” Hvitserk rolled his eyes. “What does it like to eat?” Ivar mused thoughtfully, holding the girl’s hands to steady her. “What is it good at? What does it think about?”
Despite Ivar’s efforts the child plopped down hard on the table, disturbing several people’s food, which he didn’t care about at all. Her little face, now clean, started to screw up to cry, but Ivar made an exaggerated expression of “Oh!” at her, which oddly seemed to make her feel better.
“I’m guessing the answers are everything, nothing, and nothing,” Hvitserk predicted.
“You are wrong,” Ivar informed him. The child picked up a random person’s crust of bread and began gnawing on it; said person knew better than to protest. “It does not like porridge,” Ivar revealed, observing the child closely. “It is good at holding on while I crawl. I do not know the answer to the third question yet,” he admitted.
Finally Ivar spared a glance at the other people around the table and, eyes always on the lookout for something unusual that might be valuable to him, easily spotted the small kitten Bjorn was cradling in his arm, occasionally feeding bits of chicken to.
“Ah, I am not the only one to find a prize,” Ivar noted, making little attempt to hide his envy. He would like to have the baby and the cat and everything else there was to have. “A creature worthy of Freya.” Bjorn shrugged a little, not making a big deal of it. A thought struck Ivar. “Is a cat a better gift than a baby?” he demanded.
“Well, I never saw a baby catch a rat,” Bjorn noted. He knew which one he found more useful.
To Ivar this was a very good point, and he turned, leaving one arm in the vicinity of the child in case she shifted. “Sansa, would you rather have a cat than this?” he shouted at his soulmate.
Sansa was directing some slaves closer to the fire. “No, Ivar, I like the baby,” she assured him, and he turned back to Bjorn smugly.
“How will you bring this one back?” Ubbe intervened smoothly. “If you put her in a box, she will get out.”
“No, we need to put a lid on the box,” Ivar acknowledged. “Like a weasel.” With effort, the little girl pushed herself to her feet again, and Ivar made a celebratory noise. “It is smart and it can walk! You are doing better than me!” Such self-aware comments, rare though they were, were the only thing that gave his brothers some hope.