Róisín had spent the night in a foreign land; Captive, but not a slave; welcomed, but not a guest.
She sat beneath the golden beams of a timber hall, warmed by hearth and song, surrounded by a people whose tongue she could not understand, but whose spirits burned brightly enough to be felt.
She had expected savagery. Frostbitten cruelty. The bloodied edge of a realm where might made right and kindness froze in men’s chests before it could bloom.
Instead, she found something older. Something grander.
Men of war, yes; but also men of craft and care.
Maidens fierce and maidens fair, their hair braided with silver filigree. Warriors laughing as they played lutes and lyres, their voices raised in praise and poetry.
Drinking mead from horns; not crude but glorious, etched in bronze, capped in silver, wrapped in runes.
At the far end of the hall, a contest raged; not of strength, but of words. The winner was awarded an immense horn encrusted with garnets and gold.
They roared with laughter as it was passed down, and even in a language she did not speak, Róisín could feel the reverence.
She understood none of it. Latin and Gaelic were her world. Norse was a storm of sound and fire.
And yet… she was captivated.
“They say he tore the old goði’s throat out with his teeth.”
The words were a blade at her shoulder. Cold. Intimate.
“That he did not slay him like a man, but like a beast. Possessed by the hamr of the wolf whose pelt he wears. They say it happened in the snow, with the gods and their ravens watching.”
The voice was soft. Amused. Ancient.
Brynhildr stood behind her. Silent as snowfall. Watching her with that unreadable smile.
“You… you speak Gaelic,” Róisín murmured.
Brynhildr tilted her head.
“I spoke it before your monks remembered it had a name.”
Róisín swallowed hard.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“Because my son needed you to feel alone.”
“And because I wanted to know how long you’d last on your own two feet.”
Brynhildr’s eyes flicked toward the fire-lit figure of Vetrulfr at the high table, laughing with warriors, half-shadowed and half-watching her.
“They were speaking of him,” she said. “How he killed the one who ruled this land before him.”
Róisín’s eyes narrowed.
Brynhildr only smiled wider.
And then she was gone. Her grey cloak vanished into the swirl of flame and feast.
The laughter swelled. The music soared.
Róisín sat in the warmth of the mead hall; but the words felt colder now. Sharper.
Throat torn out with his teeth.
Even as she tried to shake the image, it lingered. That man. That beast. That… husband?
She glanced around the hall. Every horn was in use or passed between hands. The hearth cracked with laughter and shadow. She needed air. She needed solitude. She needed a drink.
Spotting a horn half-filled and forgotten on a bench, she reached for it without ceremony. The mead was cold, but strong. Honey, herbs, and smoke. She winced and drank again.
She wandered through the corridors of the mead hall’s upper level, only half-aware of her path.
Down a curved stone hallway lit by flickering tallow lamps, past heavy timber doors carved with snarling beasts.
A trail of warmth led her toward the private quarters Vetrulfr had shown her in passing. She assumed he would still be feasting; holding court at the high table with the other warriors.
Her hand pushed open a door left ajar.
The room within was dim, but glowing with the low light of a private hearth. A bed too grand for a savage. Soft, fur-lined, draped in wool and Arctic fox. She barely registered the figure within as she stepped through.
“Well, hello, little hare.”
The voice was velvet and iron, soaked in amusement.
“Come to see me so soon? And here I was expecting you to fight our marriage for another year at least.”
Róisín spun, nearly dropping the horn.
Vetrulfr reclined half-covered in furs, one leg bent, one arm resting behind his head, the firelight catching the pale scars on his chest like old runes half-buried in snow. His hair was loose, his wolf-cloak draped at the foot of the bed like a sleeping beast.
He looked like a saga.
She didn’t have the words. Not in Latin. Not in Gaelic. Certainly not in Norse.
Only her wide, stunned eyes; and the blush rising like fire from neck to cheek.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t expect me to retire early?”
“Or were you hoping I wouldn’t be here?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her tongue was useless and her pride was too bruised to retreat.
So she drank again. And stayed.
Róisín lingered in the doorway, eyes drifting from the fire to the bed. Vetrulfr lay reclined beneath the fox-fur duvet, propped on one elbow, his silhouette framed by the glow of the hearth.
He wore only a woolen shorts, modest but unashamed, like a man long comfortable in his own skin; and the stories that clung to it.
Her gaze fell to the clothes folded neatly on the chest nearby. A shift. A wrap. Soft, clean linen.
Still, she hesitated.
That was when he spoke; casually, without looking up:
“I don’t bite… if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“At least not outside of battle.”
She didn’t smile; but the line disarmed her enough to speak.
“At supper,” she said quietly, “the men were boasting of how you tore out the throat of the last chieftain who ruled these lands… before you.”
She looked at him then—not fearful, but searching.
For once, Vetrulfr didn’t answer immediately.
The fire crackled. Wind brushed against the shutters like breath.
“In the heat of battle,” he said at last, voice low, “men see what they need to see.”
He shifted, sitting up slightly, shadows dancing across his bare shoulders.
“I wear the skin of a wolf. I am possessed by its hamr. Sometimes… men speak of things glimpsed between flashes of lightning they thought they saw.”
“And if they see a beast?” she asked.
“Then perhaps,” he said, “it’s because something inside them needed to.”
Vetrulfr said no more.
He turned from the fire and laid down on the bed, facing the wall, his back to her. One arm tucked beneath his head. The other resting loosely across his stomach.
No demand. No invitation.
The room settled into crackling calm. Shadows danced across the fur-strewn floor.
Róisín stood still, the horn still clutched in her hand. Her pulse was still quick. Her pride bruised by her own breathless reactions.
What had she expected? That he’d pull her in? That he’d make her sleep on the floor?
Instead, he gave her space, and turned his back.
I’m a captive, she reminded herself, jaw tensing. Not a wife.
She stepped carefully inside, set the horn down, and crawled onto the far edge of the bed; closer to the hearth light than to him.
As she laid beneath the weight of the fox-fur duvet, she felt the heat of his body across the space between them. She cursed herself for being aware of it.
She turned to face the fire.
And whispered to herself: