Read Online Shieldmaiden by Marianne Whiting - Free Book Online Page A

and I brought him much humiliation and little comfort.
    I was expecting Ragnar’s child. It was a great happiness to me but also dread. Hauk would not be able to accept a bastard without losing the respect of all those who were already laughing about his reluctant bride. Ingefried was beset with worry.
    â€˜Don’t tell Hauk just yet,’ she said, ‘if you wait you can make out the child is his. Then we can say it was early. Don’t annoy Hauk. You must keep him thinking it is his child.’
    I waited another turn of the moon then I spoke to Hauk. I went to meet him as he led his men back from the day’s work. They had been clearing a new field and their weariness showed in their slow step. I greeted them, smiled at Hauk and, for the sake of my unborn child, I took his hand and led him to one side. I could hear the men snigger when they thought themselves out of earshot. This was part of my plan, it wasn’t just Hauk who had to believe in my deception, they must all think I had turned into a dutiful wife.
    â€˜Hauk, husband, I’m carrying your child. If Freya wills, you shall have a son.’ At first he looked at me without expression. Then the tired furrows on his brow lifted and he laughed out loud as he picked me up and swung me round and round until I had to plead with him to be careful lest he dropped me.
    â€˜Sigrid, I would never let you fall.’ He held me then, tenderly, my head resting on his chest. He stroked my hair and kissed my brow and in a voice hoarse with feeling, he whispered of how he had loved me since he first saw me at the Thingmound many years before.
    â€˜Sigrid, my little wife, all will be well now, won’t it?’
    â€˜Yes, Hauk.’ I was glad he couldn’t see my face.
    Hauk stopped spending time with Lydia. I persuaded him to order her to do the same work as the other thralls. I smiled when I heard her shrill protest. It was a cheap victory and cost me dear later on. Hauk was attentive to me when, over the next few months, I struggled with my huge body. I kept pretending I was happy but sometimes my sorrow broke through. I blamed the pregnancy, I blamed grief for my family and for a time Hauk was persuaded. But when I asked that, if the baby were a boy, he should be named after my father, Hauk shook his head.
    â€˜Kveldulf was a good man but names carry meanings.’ I knew what he meant; wolf of the evening – a shape-shifter. My meekness melted away.
    â€˜What are you saying about my father, Hauk?’ He remained silent and would not meet my eyes. ‘My father was a brave man, a warrior, a clever man. My…your son could do worse than be named after him.’ He turned then and walked off. Later his mother came to sit with me with her spinning.
    â€˜Don’t goad Hauk about his lack of fighting prowess,’ she said, ‘he’s my only child. I don’t want him to think he has to seek honour in battle. We need him here.’
    I should have listened to her then. But I didn’t. I never considered Hauk as a person. He was the man I had married to please my parents and to avoid being left an old maid. I had run away before the marriage had seen three moons and, since my return, I had been sick with grief. Now I needed him to be father to my child. I neither contemplated what kind of man he really was nor what I kind of man I was turning him into.
    I was mindful of my duties as a wife during the day but I could not control my dreams, which became increasingly vivid and disturbing while the child was growing in me.
    â€˜Come sit with me a moment, wife,’ Hauk said to me one morning when I brought him his breakfast. I joined him on the treetrunk he had felled, steadying my bulk by holding on to his shoulder.
    â€˜You speak in your sleep.’ I had taken care, as always, to sit on his uninjured side but now I wished I could see the colour of his scar to judge his state of mind. ‘You call out