Mastered By the Viking King by Lily Harlem
Chapter 1
“What? No. I refuse. You cannot do this to me! For the love of the gods, no, no, no!” Tove searched her mother’s thin face for signs that she might change her mind. “How could you have put my name forward to become nothing more than a glorified sex slave? Why would you? Why?”
“I’m sorry, Tove.” Ingrid scraped the skin off a turnip with a bone-handled knife. “But times are hard. We have little food, and the grain has been contaminated with mold. And without your father to hunt elk for us, I need to know you will be somewhere warm and fed this winter.”
“I’d rather freeze and starve than be wed to him! To lie with him! Who knows what perversions the gods have given him.”
“Do not talk foolish.” She paused. “And anyway, you might not be wed to the king.” She sliced the turnip in half. It was small; their stomachs would rumble all night. “If he doesn’t choose you, you’ll return and winter here with me.” Her mouth downturned as she looked at the meager pile of food supplies on the wooden shelf.
“Surely, I can find another husband, Mama? A man more… suitable.”
“You’ve had two years since your father died to find a husband, Tove. You have failed in finding even an unsuitable husband.”
Tove gave into the urge to stamp her foot, her worn leather boot huffing dust into the cold air. “Is it my fault you chose to raise me, your only daughter, in a place where time stands still? Where there is naught but the odd wanderer. How can I find a husband? It is a full day’s walk over a mountain to the nearest town, and when the snows come, the pass is impossible for many moons.”
Ingrid clenched her teeth. “I agree, we should have thought about that.” She dropped the diced turnip into a pot of boiling water over the fire. “But it is too late for regrets. The great spinners beneath the earth have weaved your fate, and now it must be accepted.”
“Accepted?” Tove stomped to the log basket, stooped and gripped a chunk of wood. Emotions were swirling. Disbelief. Anger. Frustration. She threw the log onto the dwindling flames, sending a rush of sparks flurrying upward.
The light danced upon her mother’s features, accentuating the shadows beneath her tired eyes. She was still a beautiful woman, but her hard life had taken its toll. “Aye, Tove, accepted. Accept your fate. Freya, in her goddess wisdom of the complex nature of love, sex, and marriage, has set you on this journey. You will be in the lineup before the king. He will cast his eye and judgment over you.”
“No, Mama, you have made my fate, not Freya or the spinners. By sending word to Halsgrof that I am to be one of the victims, you chose my path.”
Her mother scoffed and folded her arms, her long fingers tapping on the wool of her tunic. “Hardly a victim. Whoever King Njal chooses to be his will be treated in the manner any queen should be treated. Lavish feasts, maids, a warm home, the protection of his skilled warriors should there be a raid.” She pointed at the fire. “You won’t even have to lift your own logs. You’ll have a servant to do that for you. One click”—she snapped her fingers—“and it will be done. Anything you want will be done.”
“What if I don’t want that?”
“Only an unwise woman wouldn’t want to be warm, comfortable, and fattened.”
“And the dark hours of winter, when I have to spread my legs and take his cock? Then how comfortable will I be?” She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, frightened just at the thought of giving her body to a man.
“You will do your duty, and give him lots of sex and sons.”
Tove shuddered, a long, cold tapping sensation down her spine. She’d never seen King Njal. Her trips to his busy port of Halsgrof had always been brief, and he hadn’t been in town. He was fond of exploring west. But she’d heard of his strength and size; indeed, his name meant ‘giant.’ He ruled his people with a firm hand, the man bold and courageous. An adventurer who had won many battles and served the gods well.
“Why does he not have a wife?” Tove asked.
“He did have one.”
“And where is she now? No, don’t tell me—she’s with the gods, her head sliced from her neck.” She made a cutting motion at her throat.
“No, she was banished north for taking a wanderer into her bed and deceiving the king.” Ingrid spat on the floor. “A well-deserved fate. Traitor.”
Tove pulled a stool her father had made nearer to the fire and sat. The longhouse was cold, and she could see her breath. “Did she give him sons?”
“Yes, two—Knud and Frode. They are not yet men.”
“So, maybe he won’t want more sons with his new wife, just a woman for Knud and Frode to call Mama. Perhaps he would not desire sex.”
Ingrid huffed. “All men want sex as well as lots of sons, kings even more so.”
Tove knew that was true. She also knew her only hope of escaping a life of service to a giant king was to not be chosen in the lineup.
But how could she do that? She was bony and small-breasted, but she wasn’t ugly. Often enough her father had told her she’d bewitch men when she was older with her long white-blonde hair and eyes the color of the summer sky.
“We’ll mend the red tunic,” her mother said, studying Tove’s face. “And get you looking as pretty as a spring morn. He won’t be able to resist you.”
Tove frowned. Sometimes she could believe her mother read her thoughts. “I don’t want to be a spring morn. I want to stay here. I can hunt for us. I can—”
“If it comes to that then, yes, you will have to try and hunt for us both. But I am going to make a sacrifice to the gods that King Njal chooses you. For I wish my dear daughter to be a fat and warm queen, and the mother to many royal sons.”
Tove’s mouth hung open as she shook her head. “What are you going to sacrifice?”
“The chicken.”
She stood. “No, I forbid it. We have only one chicken left. The wolves took the others.”
“And when you become queen, Tove, you will buy me more chickens and pay for a good fence to protect them. You will buy me more of everything.”
“And if I don’t become queen?”
“You will.” She set her lips in a determined line. “You will. I know it in here.” She pressed her hand to her heart, then stirred the pot of boiling turnip chunks.
It was clear the conversation had ended. Tove would go to Halsgrof when the full moon came, and throw her destiny at the feet of a giant king. A king she had no intention of serving or obeying.
Why the hell should she? What had he ever done for her and her family?
* * *
Tove watched the stars filling the sky above the longhouse. Like small pricks of Valhalla’s crowning light shining down through a black blanket, they filled her vision.
She wondered if she’d be better off making her own deal with the gods. Sacrificing herself so her mother wouldn’t have to worry about her.
Because she wouldn’t be chosen by the deviant brute King Njal.
There was no chance she would be his new queen. Despite her mother’s best efforts with the red tunic, she still would be the poor, thin peasant girl in the lineup. She had no fine brooches, or jewels to adorn her hair, and her boots were old, leaky, and cracked.
On top of that, she’d decided not to smile at King Njal, or even talk to him if he addressed her. That way he’d think her stupid and mute, and not worthy of sitting on a throne beside him or lying in his bed. How could a brainless, silent woman be a mother to his sons?
She pulled her cloak tighter and stepped back into the longhouse. In the morn, at first light, she’d rise and walk the frozen path to Halsgrof. Her mother wasn’t accompanying her; her legs were too weak for the journey. Besides, there were things to do to keep their tiny farm ticking along, and the goats couldn’t be left to the mercy of the elements and the wolves.
“Here.” Ingrid handed her a horn of warmed goat’s milk. “Drink this. You will need strength for the walk.”
“Yes, Mother.” She’d stopped arguing about going to Halsgrof. It was a waste of breath.
“Drink up.”
Tove did just that, then set the horn to one side and climbed into her cot beside the fire. She dragged the furs up to her chin and closed her eyes.
Her mind filled with the folklore her father had told her about love and inn mátki munr—the great passion. Tove thought of KingFairhard who loved his wife Snøfrid so much that he paid no mind to his kingdom, his gaze only on her. When Snøfrid died, his love kept her intact, and he continued to gaze on her for three years, waiting for her to reawaken.
That was the kind of love Tove wanted. One that made her heart beat fast, her skin prickle, and her courage glisten. A love that would never die even when her body did.
To be married to a giant king would never make her glisten, and it would surely make her feel dead even when her body was alive. How could their marriage work? They were as different as fire and ice, as opposite as the moon and the sun.
Her father had told her about Skadi, the giantess from the mountains. When she’d visited Odin’s halls she was required to marry a god, choosing only from his feet and legs. She picked the cleanest and best built believing they belonged to Baldr—the most handsome god of them all—but in fact, they belonged to the sea god, Njord.
The marriage lasted just eighteen days.
Skadi couldn’t tolerate the awful constant crashing of the sea, and Njord feared the mountain wolves’ calls.
If Freya made a grave error and wedded Tove to King Njal, their marriage would be doomed the way Skadi’s and Njord’s had been. A poor, skinny peasant girl from the mountains and a giant, powerful king. How could it possibly be anything other than doomed?
She fell into a dream-filled sleep. Wolves, giants, and huge waves blustered through her mind. Her heart raced as she ran over snow-covered hills, and through frozen forests escaping an unknown enemy. She searched frantically for a weapon without success, then climbed a mountain, scrabbling on loose rocks that tumbled her into the arms of a king with wild hair and wilder eyes. He was naked, erect, and growled like a bear as he spread her legs, grasped her breasts, and set his weight on her, in her…
“Tove, Tove, wake up.”
“Mmm… what?” She opened her eyes and stared at her mother. Her heart was thudding so hard it was rattling against her ribs.
“It is time to go.”
Tove frowned and dragged in a deep breath. She hardly felt rested. The night had been full of terrors and turbulence. But still she sat.
This was it. The day had arrived. She must walk to Halsgrof and present herself to the king.
She only hoped he didn’t like what he saw.
It would save them both a lot of strife.