72.
72.
Have you ever come face to face with the daughter of an enemy you killed?
If you haven't, you may have a bit of trouble understanding how I felt in that moment.
A feeling akin to wanting to pour out four cups of viciously strong liquor, then draw three deep drags from a viciously strong cigarette and swallow the drink together with the smoke.
The instant I saw Æthelthryth's face, my father's enemy, Ælla's face, rose up, and together with my memories of my father, Ælla's final moments flashed through my head in a single rush.
The dregs of emotion held in those moment-by-moment memories likewise bobbed to the surface of my consciousness, thrashing and struggling desperately to shake the very image of my heart.
Yet I was not my father, nor, even more so, was I the already dead Ælla.
The mind of Helgi Ragnarsson did not allow the grudges of the past to devour the spirit of the present.
"Æthelthryth. You must be Æthelthryth."
After a moment's silence, such trivial words were the best I managed to utter.
"Konungr Helgi. It is an honor to meet you like this."
Æthelthryth hastily bowed her head, unable to hide the tremor in her voice.
What was I supposed to say to that red crown of hair? That I killed your father?
That he screamed like a pig when he died?
That the reason I had to kill him...
Was because your father killed my father like a mere pig?
But was my father not a looter? Was he not a looter king whose name rang throughout all of Europe, not just an ordinary looter? Did Ælla not deal a just death?
What in this world could be called just?
Could Ælla's hands be called clean, could the hands of the Pope seated in Rome be called clean? The whole world held nothing but looters with different names—hadn't Ælla, on the contrary, been the one who threw my father into a snake pit to erase his name, his throne, the authority of a king he had pulled down with his own hands?
In a corner of my heart, striving to find reason in an age where force itself was justice, an emotion I myself had not known was there thrust its head forward.
Loneliness that only a stranger to an era can feel. The solitude belonging solely to one who stands apart.
Yet with a single small breath, I blew away this futile emotion and spoke to the bowing Æthelthryth.
"I shall say the same to Botilda, the one who is to become Halfdan's wife—do not show me an excess of reverence. Are we not people who are to become family?"
Raising her head at my gentle voice, Æthelthryth's eyes held fear mingled with a faint expectation.
It was then that Sigurdeu, who had been silently watching our exchange with bated breath, let out a small sigh. Even my brother, to whom nothing under heaven was frightful, had apparently been tense for the moment his bride-to-be met her king.
But did Sigurdeu realize? That he had grasped the wrong time to be tense.
I was, in principle, of the mind that it scarcely mattered to me whom Sigurdeu married... but my mother Áslaug appeared to have held different thoughts. This would be a sin for him to bear himself.
In any case, Sigurdeu, who had recovered his own pace, chose that moment! to offer me a greeting with a sweeping gesture.
"Konungr Helgi! My Konungr! I have finished the first chapter of a Saga for you, and I mean to sing that song throughout this feast!"
"...I'd rather you refrained from making such dreadful sounds, Sigurdeu."
The instant Sigurdeu opened his mouth, mad words came spilling out.
I had thought it the worst kind of joke, but Ubba's expression, which crumpled by the second, suggested it was true. Right, I would be avoiding Sigurdeu for the time being.
"To have accomplished grand feats and yet still be unable to enjoy music...! A sorrowful soul you are, Helgi!"
"...What in the world does that even mean? In any case, I'm glad you've arrived safely, Sigurdeu."
The joy of meeting after so long lasted but a moment.
Ten seconds after Sigurdeu opened his mouth, my head was already beginning to ache. Still, setting aside Sigurdeu, who flashed a gallant smile at my greeting and said he was likewise glad, I exchanged greetings with Ubba, who seemed to have matured just a little more.
"Ubba, I'm sorry for summoning you so suddenly."
In truth, the one most annoyed might well be Ubba.
Sigurdeu and Halfdan were, after all, the ones to be married—but Ubba... to put it bluntly, did he not have nothing at all?
Given the nature of marriages, which are usually prepared over a certain span of time... such a sudden wedding ceremony was likely an ordinary nuisance to Ubba, who liked things to move like cogwheels according to a set plan.
Thankfully, Ubba's expression showed no particular change at my words.
"Sorry? Helgi, this was all Sigurdeu's fault. If anything, you may be the greatest victim. After all, you could have prepared the wedding with a bit more leisure."
"Ah. That doesn't matter to me, Ubba. Things like wedding ceremonies are best gotten over with swiftly. Don't you think?"
In truth, there was even something like grateful feeling.
"Issss that so?"
Ubba raised an eyebrow as if surprised. Beside him, Björn was leaking quiet laughter. I had to move before that eldest brother, who had (nominally) retired and grown conspicuously lighter in spirit, said something needless.
"Now, let's all go inside first. Keeping a woman with child standing outside for long is no decent thing to do."
"What? Dear, dear...! Helgi! You think of Æthelthryth as too weak a woman! Æthelthryth is a woman every bit as strong as I am!"
Sigurdeu, having mistaken my meaning, promptly wrapped an arm around Æthelthryth's shoulder and rebuked me. The red-haired woman, tucked snugly into his embrace, gave an embarrassed smile.
No doubt Ubba, who had likely been watching this spectacle all winter, shut his eyes tight and let out a sigh as if utterly sick of it.
"...Right. How nice for you, knocking up a strong woman. So, do you want to keep standing here?"
"What sort of talk is that! Æthelthryth is a strong woman, but she requires rest! You, of all people, cannot fail to know how important good rest is for even the mightiest warrior...!"
No. What do you even want, you madman?
"Heh heh heh."
Björn's low laughter as he quietly watched his younger brothers' antics was all that barely held onto my rapidly vanishing reason.
Presently, Björn walked ahead down the path and spoke in a low voice.
"Come, come, let's go in quickly. Both of our mothers will be waiting for us, after all."
Mothers?
'Right— mother was here, wasn't she...?'
No reason for me to wear myself out in a squabble here.
He might not know it himself, but wasn't Sigurdeu, in fact, an aurochs, a pig, or a chicken being led to the slaughterhouse?
Though her belly had yet to show, I moved my steps slowly for the pregnant woman who, in any case, carried life within her, and at the corners of my lips a cool smile bloomed.
This was what one might call killing with a borrowed knife. Revenge would be sweet.
*****
'His aura has definitely grown stronger.'
A bear moving right before his eyes.
That massive something in human form had now reached a stage where its mere presence controlled the very air around it.
When he faced Æthelthryth, hadn't his body seemed to freeze beneath that heavy, stifling gaze, even if only for a fleeting moment? Though it had been but an instant, he had never in his life seen Sigurdeu's expression so rigid.
Tension? No, a word like instinctual terror would be more fitting.
Ubba wondered how that gigantic warrior before him could move so smoothly, but he did not stop the thoughts turning in his mind.
'Whatever the case, Sigurdeu taking Ælla's daughter is rather a good thing. With this, the lords of Vernika will have no choice but to bow their heads even deeper to Sigurdeu and, beyond him, to Helgi. He's taken even the last remaining shred of legitimacy.'
That was why he had let it happen. When Sigurdeu had been dashing about trying to win the woman's heart, he had told Jarl Uhtred, who had been quietly leaking Sigurdeu's movements to him, to do nothing.
'Guthrum and Sigebryht are successfully rallying East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia, along with the people of the marshlands, are in great upheaval.
Because Konungr Helgi of Northumbria and East Anglia gives more than Cyning Burgred of Mercia does.'
An incomprehensible situation where Northumbria had grown more prosperous despite having fought a great war.
The royals might quibble over this or that cause and god, but for the common folk beneath them, food to eat and clothes to wear were far more important in the moment.
'I also made sure to ask Ivar to attend this wedding, so with this, all us brothers are moving as one.'
Capable subordinates and outstanding warriors still remained on the soil of Britain, but the enemy was sure to react to this unprecedented, large-scale movement of the Northmen.
'A fight we must face at least once under Helgi's rule regardless. If possible, we decide when that time will be.'
It troubled him to be drawing up such blood-soaked plans even at his brothers' feast, but Ubba lifted his head proudly.
Just like his king striding forward with powerful steps ahead of him.
He could not split boulders, nor could he fight as well as his other brothers. But his mind was sharper than anyone's.
'This is bait. Burgred of Mercia. Constantine of Alba. Æthelred of Wessex. If you do not bite, you will gain peace, but if you do bite this bait...'
They would be reeled in at a single stroke.
The first battlefield would likely be East Anglia. The patience of Edmund, Cyning of East Anglia who was crouched in the marshlands, was wearing thin even now.
Like a candle slowly melting away.
*****
"Welcome, Æthelthryth. Traveling that long way to Odda with the child in your womb... I know well how hard that journey is. You have done well to come."
Before the door of the longhouse that stood upon a low hill—destined to be my official residence and old home—my two mothers had come out in advance to greet her.
A voice and gesture softer than even the spring breeze could envy. My stepmother Áslaug, overflowing with elegant grace, embraced Æthelthryth tightly as if soothing her.
A benevolent gaze and gesture brimming with love, truly.
Seeing that, Sigurdeu gained a little confidence and swiftly opened his mouth again with a move that screamed, Now's my chance!
"Oh—! The two most beautiful mothers in all the world...! I—"
But those words did not last long.
The look in Áslaug's eyes, which had embraced her prospective daughter-in-law with the most loving expression in the world, instantly transformed into a face overflowing with frost the moment she saw her foal of a son...
At that expression, which seemed as if flames might pour from her very eyes, even the great Sigurdeu could do nothing but cut his words short.
[Let's. Talk. A. Little. Later.]
Above the hand still gently patting Æthelthryth's back, the frost-witch slowly mouthed the words, syllable by syllable, with a face that seemed frozen solid on the spot.
Not only Sigurdeu, who was forced to face that sight head-on, but Björn, Ubba, and even the guards behind them all stiffened with a sharp sense of discipline and stood at attention.
I was no different, of course.
"There, Æthelthryth. Shall we go inside now? I've lit the fire a little, so it will be warm. Good heavens, look how cold your hands are."
Tzzzt—
"Come, let us go in quickly. I've also prepared some simple refreshments..."
"Thank you... Drottning Áslaug. Drottning Asta."
Hadn't I been rambling on earlier about my feelings towards the daughter of an enemy?
How shameful those words were...
Behold my mother's bearing as she faced the daughter of the enemy who killed her husband. There was not a single flicker of hesitation, and she was resolute.
'You still have a long way to go, Helgi Ragnarsson.'
Was it a difference in innate temperament? I could do nothing but let out a bitter smile, then suddenly turned my head slightly, struck by the eerily silent atmosphere around me.
'Is this the difference between a trueborn son and a bastard?'
I at least had some resistance to the enraged dragon's petrifying glare, but my half-brothers were all in a situation where they had been completely subdued.
I had no choice but to clap my hands loudly to snap them out of it. But why had the guards gone rigid along with them?
[Clap!]
"...Uh-uh—"
"...Mother never seems to age."
Ignoring Björn's burningly filial remark, I grabbed the shoulders of Sigurdeu and Ubba, who looked about to drool from their gaping mouths, and led them along.
"Alright, alright, let's go inside—"
"Wait...! Helgi, now that you mention it, I heard you made a new house—show it to me as well...!"
"We'll go see it tomorrow. Halfdan and his bride-to-be are waiting too, so come on, let's go inside. Argh—why are you resisting so much?"
"I suddenly have urgent business—! Let me go! Ugh... I said let go of me! You monster...! I cannot go inside right now, I tell you...!"
"...Sigurdeu, if you put it that way, don't you think I'll want to drag you in even more?"
"...Konungr Helgi, whom I respect and admire with all my heart—!"
"Too late."
"Please, no!"
"Yes."
Lifting the belatedly struggling Sigurdeu with one hand, I strode proudly through the door of the longhouse.
Soon after, the news that even Ivar, who had been in Dublin, had arrived at Uppsala's 'Proof of Helgi' reached us—during that very time when Sigurdeu sat alone, petrified under the dragon's gaze, in the midst of an amiable family dinner gathering.
Clap! Clap-clap! Uwaaaah!
Khuuung—!
Of course, no one dared to speak a word about the mysterious sounds that had echoed through the night.