Father's Sun (The Northwomen Sagas Book 4)

  THE FREAK CIRCLE PRESS

  Father’s Sun © 2017 Susan Fanetti

  All rights reserved

  Susan Fanetti has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

  The Northwomen Sagas

  God’s Eye

  Heart’s Ease

  Soul’s Fire

  The Brazen Bulls MC

  Crash, Book 1

  Twist, Book 2

  THE NIGHT HORDE MC SAGA

  The Signal Bend Series

  Move the Sun, Book 1

  Behold the Stars, Book 2

  Into the Storm, Book 3

  Alone on Earth, Book 4

  In Dark Woods, Book 4.5

  All the Sky, Book 5

  Show the Fire, Book 6

  Leave a Trail, Book 7

  The Night Horde SoCal

  Strength & Courage, Book 1

  Shadow & Soul, Book 2

  Today & Tomorrow, Book 2.5

  Fire & Dark, Book 3

  Dream & Dare, Book 3.5

  Knife & Flesh, Book 4

  Rest & Trust, Book 5

  Calm & Storm, Book 6

  Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

  Love & Friendship

  The Pagano Family

  Footsteps, Book 1

  Touch, Book 2

  Rooted, Book 3

  Deep, Book 4

  Prayer, Book 5

  Miracle, Book 6

  The Pagano Family: The Complete Series

  PRONUNCIATIONS AND DEFINITIONS

  To build this world, I did a great deal of research, and I mean to be respectful of the historical reality of the Norse cultures. But I have also allowed myself some creative license to draw from the full body of Norse history, culture, and geography in order to enrich my fictional representation. True Viking culture was not monolithic but instead a various collection of largely similar but often distinct languages, traditions, and practices. In The Northwomen Sagas, however, I have merged the cultural touchstones.

  My characters have names drawn from that full body of history and tradition. Otherwise, I use Norse words sparingly and use the Anglicized spelling and pronunciation where I can. Below is a list of some of the Norse names and terms used in this story, with pronunciations and/or definitions provided as I thought might be helpful.

  NAMES:

  Åke (AW-kyuh)

  Bjarke (BYAR-kyuh)

  Håkon (HAW-kun)

  Leif (LAFE)

  Solveig (SOL-vay)

  Vali (VAH-lee)

  Ylva (IL-vah)

  TERMS:

  Æsir—(ICE-eer) the pantheon of Norse gods.

  Ångermanälven—(OHWNG-yer-mahn-AY-lev-en) a river in mid-Sweden.

  Bifröst—(BEE-froost) the rainbow bridge leading from Midgard (Earth) to Asgard in Norse mythology.

  Hangerock—an apron-like overdress worn by Viking women.

  Húsvættir—(HOOS-vai-tir) nature spirits who kept the household, like the English “brownie.” Singular: húsvættr.

  Jötunn—(YOH-tun) one of a race of giants.

  Norðrljós—(NOR-dhee-ohs) the Northern Lights.

  Sjaund—(SHOUNd) a funeral feast, after which the deceased’s heirs claim their legacy.

  Skald—a poet or storyteller.

  Skause—a meat stew, made variously, depending on available ingredients.

  Skeid—(SHIED) the largest Viking ship, with more than thirty rowing benches.

  Thing—the English spelling and pronunciation of the Norse þing. An assembly of freemen for political and social business.

  Úlfhéðnar (OOLF-hyeh-nar)—a special class of berserkers who took the wolf as their symbol. They were known to be especially ferocious and in some sagas are identified as Odin’s elite warriors. Singular: Úlfhéðinn.

  In memory of my father.

  Six Years

  As the ships sailed into the harbor, Solveig ran to the fore of the crowd and pushed in between her grandmother and Håkon, her brother.

  “Usch, child,” her grandmother said, combing back a loose blonde tress and tucking it into Solveig’s braid. “Always you are elsewhere than you should be. And where was that this time?”

  “Helga’s cat had kittens!” She loved kittens. And puppies. And goatlings. And all baby animals. But kittens best of all.

  Her grandmother shook her head. “And are kittens such a rare thing that you would miss the return of your father and mother from their great raid? Two of your mother’s cats littered while they were away. We are overrun with kittens.”

  “Dagmar. Something’s amiss.” Bjarke, at her grandmother’s opposite side, spoke, his voice low and dark, like night thunder. There was such foreboding in his tone that even Solveig understood it—even Håkon, more than a year younger, seemed to understand it; his hand grasped Solveig’s and squeezed.

  She looked out at the nearing longships, which had come close enough to drop their sails and go to oar, and tried to see what Bjarke could see. Their mother and father had been gone for a long time, Solveig thought, but not too long; summer was still warm and bright. They had gone off to raid in a faraway place called Anglia.

  Her father was the Jarl of Karlsa. He’d left Bjarke, his good friend, in charge of Karlsa, and their mother had left her mother in charge of their children.

  Their father raided every year, sometimes more than once, but this was the first time in Solveig’s life that their mother had gone as well. She was Brenna God’s-Eye, a great shieldmaiden, and the skalds told many stories about her—and about Solveig’s father, Vali Storm-Wolf, as well. Both were legends.

  But to Solveig, they were simply her mother and her father. She missed them when they were away, and she was glad they were back. But something was wrong. She didn’t understand what it was, except that usually when the raiders came home, everyone was loud and happy. They had been that way when she’d run from Helga’s house to wait at the pier. But now everyone was quiet. There was a low mumble rolling through the gathered crowd; she tried to open her ears wide and hear what people were saying. Behind her, two women spoke, and she turned her head so she could focus her ears on them.

  “Where is he?”

  “He always stands at the prow, but I don’t see him. Where is she?”

  “Would the gods take them both at once?”

  “That is how it should be, the two lovers hand in hand, though I hope not yet. They are too young. Their children—”

  “Öhm! Enough!” Solveig’s grandmother wheeled on the women, whose mouths snapped shut, and then turned to Solveig and forced her head forward again. “Pay them no mind, child.” Her hand shook against Solveig’s cheek, like she was chilled. Or frightened.

  Solveig didn’t know who they’d been talking about. So she did what her grandmother said and stopped thinking about them. She looked for her mother and father on the ships. Her father was usually standing up front, just behind the dragon’s head, when he came home, but there was no one th
ere this time.

  The people on the ships were quiet, too. Usually, people on the shore called out to the raiders, and the raiders called back. Usually, there was much more noise.

  Solveig began to understand that the wrong thing was about her father, who was not standing where he should be. Raiders were warriors, going off to fight for and win treasure and honor and glory, and to have their stories told in the sagas. Many, many times, she had watched her mother and father and all the other warriors in Karlsa practice fighting, with swords and axes and spears and shields, so they could make war on the weak people of other worlds.

  She couldn’t see her father or her mother. The ships were pulling up to the piers now, and she couldn’t see them at all. She let go of her grandmother’s hand, and her brother’s hand, and she walked forward.

  “Solveig!” her grandmother called, but she moved forward, drawn by a terrible curiosity.

  Her mother was there; she had been sitting, and now she made her way to her feet. Solveig saw her fair hair in braids she knew, and, relieved, she broke into a run just as men jumped out to tie up the first ship.

  Her mother’s arm and neck were wrapped up in dirty bandages, her arm bound to her side and across her middle. She’d gotten hurt in the raid. She had many scars, but Solveig had never seen her hurt before.

  “Mamma!”

  Her mother looked up. Weary anger had pulled her face tight, and Solveig felt real fear, though she didn’t understand yet why.

  Solveig’s grandmother reached her just then and clamped her hand around her wrist, keeping her in place. As she drew Solveig into a stifling hold, she called down to the ship. “Brenna. Daughter, are you well? What do you need?”

  Her mother gave her a small, tired smile, but she didn’t come out of the ship. She turned and looked down again, and Solveig finally saw what was really wrong. Not her mother in bandages.

  Her father, her mighty father, bound to a litter, being lifted out of the ship by six men, carried up to the pier. He wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed. His chest was bare except for bloody, dirty bandages. His skin was shiny and grey.

  A strange whoosh went through the crowd as the men carrying him climbed onto the pier, and the people on the shore saw the litter. And then all sound seemed to die.

  Solveig stood in the silence and watched the men carry her father toward the great hall. Her belly felt funny, like something small and frail inside her had curled up at the bottom and died.

  “Come, daughter.”

  She felt her mother’s hand on her head, and she looked up into the beautiful face she loved above all others but one. “Did Pappa go to Valhalla?”

  The weariness in her mother’s eyes twisted into something like hurt, but then she smiled and brushed an errant lock of hair from Solveig’s eyes. “No, Solveig. He is the mightiest of men, and he lives. It is up to Frida and the gods to make him well now. Hello, Håkon. I have missed you all so very much.” She patted Solveig’s brother on the head, then bent down and lifted little Ylva, the youngest of them, into her unhurt arm. To her mother, she said, “We need Frida, Mother. There is so much fever, and he hasn’t woken for days.”

  “She was at the pier, waiting for Jaan. She is already in the hall.”

  Solveig’s mother nodded and headed up the berm toward the hall, Ylva in her arms. Her grandmother and brother went after them. Solveig stood and stared at the emptying ship. Everyone had been happy when they’d sailed away. Everyone in Karlsa had been happy when they’d seen the ships on the horizon. Now everyone was sad.

  Her father was the Storm-Wolf. The stories said that he’d fought Ægir, the lord of the sea, and won. He’d challenged Thor himself to combat and remained standing. He’d been split in twain in battle and put his parts back together to fight on.

  He denied all these things, said they were stories, not truths, but Solveig believed them all. Never had she known her father even to be ill. He was big and strong and fierce. He was kind and warm. He was the mightiest of men, and her mother was the mightiest of women. Everyone agreed they were favored by the gods. How could they have been hurt?

  She didn’t understand. Her head filled with noise, like Thor’s thunder, and her chest seemed to shrink and squeeze her heart.

  “Solveig! Come!” Her grandmother stood with her hand stretched out, beckoning.

  Solveig ran the other way.

  Ten Years

  Geitland was a much bigger place than Karlsa, and Solveig always felt smaller and less brave in the wild bustle of the town. On this visit especially, when they had grand guests from afar, her parents’ good friend, Astrid, and her husband, Leofric. He was a prince, which made Astrid a princess. They would be King and Queen of Mercuria someday.

  Mercuria. A kingdom of Anglia. Solveig remembered that her father had almost been killed in a raid on Mercuria, and her mother had been badly hurt. She remembered the grief of the failed raid; Karlsa had lost many warriors. They’d thought Astrid dead for a long time, too. She didn’t remember many of the details, only enough to be confused by the celebration of their visit. They were friends, even after all that had been suffered and lost.

  Her father and Jarl Leif of Geitland had once taken a massive fleet back to Mercuria to start a war and had returned instead allied with the people who’d almost taken her parents away.

  She’d seen it many times in Karlsa’s great hall. Her father wanted people to be friendly when their conflicts had been settled. He believed that there was greater strength in friendship than in war.

  Her mother didn’t always agree. Many times, Solveig had lain quietly in her bed, feigning sleep and listening to her parents talk out their own disagreements on matters of the hall. She listened because she wanted to understand. She was the daughter of the Storm-Wolf and the God’s-Eye, her life was filled with great heroes of the sagas, people touched by the gods, and she wanted to know all she could of everything, so that when it was time, she could take her place among them.

  “Their ship is so grand,” Magni, said, stretching out on his belly beside her. “I want one like it when I grow up.”

  Solveig rolled her eyes. Magni was the only living son of Jarl Leif and his wife, Olga. He was almost a year younger than she and still a child with much to learn. He needed to listen better. “Our ships are much grander than his. His is too big and too deep and can sail only in open water. Our ships can go anywhere.”

  “But his has rooms. With beds.”

  “Comfort is for soft people, not warriors. It’s why we’re better than they are at everything. Where’s Håkon?” She looked around; she was supposed to mind her brother, but he’d gotten bored with watching the hall, and she hadn’t. She liked to listen in when the adults didn’t know. She learned far more from the things they tried to keep from her than from the things they tried to teach her.

  She’d heard him leave, but she hadn’t thought long about it. Only they two had sailed with their parents for this visit. Ylva, Agnar, and little Tova had stayed home with their grandmother. Håkon was next oldest. He had eight years and was old enough to mind himself, even if their mother didn’t think so.

  “Gulla found him and sent him to bed. She’s looking for us, too, but I went through the goat pen and she didn’t see me.”

  “She’ll not find us here.” Solveig had discovered this gap under a grain bin, against a wall of the great hall, a few years earlier. She’d kept it a secret unto herself until Magni had demanded to know where she disappeared to so often. When he’d claimed that Geitland was his home, not hers, and it was wrong to keep secret places from him in his own home, she’d made him swear an unbreakable oath never to reveal it. They’d cut their thumbs and mingled blood.

  And then, the very next summer, he’d let Håkon follow him, and she’d had to make her little brother swear on blood as well. Magni hadn’t meant for Håkon to follow; he simply hadn’t noticed—which was just as bad, and perhaps worse.

  Boys were fools.

  She wasn’t sure h
ow dolts like Magni and Håkon might someday grow into great men like their fathers. It seemed a tall mountain for them to climb. Nearly as tall as her climb to her mother’s greatness.

  Solveig appraised the boy beside her now. She knew, from listening, that his parents and hers wished them someday to be wed. Since she’d heard that, during their last visit to Geitland, she’d tried to imagine mating with Magni. She’d known him all her life, and she liked him well. He couldn’t help that he was a boy and boys were fools.

  He was pleasant to look at—as tall as she, though he was younger, with long blond hair and dark blue eyes like his father. For all that, he was not so bad. But she couldn’t imagine doing with him the things men and women did together—the grunting and groaning and sweating.

  Truthfully, she couldn’t imagine doing those things with anyone. She turned from Magni and resumed her watching. It seemed strange and unpleasant, even though men and women all seemed to seek it out as much as they could. Her parents certainly did. In the great hall right now, most people had wandered back to their own homes, and those that remained—Astrid and her husband, Magni’s parents, her own, a few others—had stopped talking amongst the group and started murmuring in mated pairs. While she watched through the gap under the wall, her father pulled her mother onto his lap and put his hand between her legs with a loud grunt like a bear.