~*_It is not my fault_*~

Ubbe fell silent for a moment, his boots crunching against the gravel.

He remembered that morning in camp clearly; the whispers spreading like wildfire as the nun was paraded through the tents with ruined linen in her arms, and how Ivar had sat at his war table later that night acting as though nothing had changed. But Ubbe knew his little brother better than most. He knew the dark, suffocating pride that drove Ivar, the terrible burden of a body that betrayed him, and the fierce, dangerous wall Ivar built around his agony.

If Ivar had let this woman touch his crippled legs, it wasn't because he owned her. And that made the woman far more interesting than a common church captive.

They reached the heavy timber doors of Saint Lebuinus. Hvithár was still there, sitting on an upturned wooden crate by the threshold, lazily sharpening an axe against a whetstone. The old warrior looked up as the princes approached, offering both a low, respectful nod.

Inside, the nave had transformed into a quiet, functioning battle clinic.

The frantic bloodbath of yesterday had settled into an orderly calm. A dozen wounded warriors lay wrapped in wool and linen across the wooden benches. Near the altar, two of their own army’s healers were quietly boiling pine tar over a small brazier.

Magdalena was standing by a long oak trestle table near the choir stalls, her back to them. Her veil was still missing, and her thick, dark hair hung in a long braid down her back, bound loosely at the nape of her neck. She was leaning over a granite mortar, her slender arms moving in a steady, rhythmic cadence as she crushed dried roots into powder.

Hvitserk smirked, handing his horn of ale to Ubbe. "Watch this," he murmured.

Before Ubbe could stop him, Hvitserk swaggered into the aisle, closing the distance between himself and the workbench with smooth, confident strides. He rested one forearm casually against the timber table, leaning close enough that his fur cloak nearly brushed her shoulder.

"You look far too busy for such a sunny morning, little saint," Hvitserk said in Norse, his tone laced with a warm, lazy charm. He flashed his easiest smile, tilting his head to catch her eye. "My shoulder has a bit of an ache from holding my shield yesterday. Do those soft hands of yours fix tired warriors, or only bleeding ones?"

Magdalena didn't startle. She didn't flush, and she didn't shrink away.

She simply stopped moving her pestle mid-stroke. Slowly, she turned her head, her dark, solemn eyes fixing directly on Hvitserk's handsome face.

She didn't understand a single word he had said. But she understood the swagger, the proximity, and the casual posture of a conqueror making light of her space. Her expression remained as cold, flat, and impassive as carved marble. Without missing a beat, she reached into a wooden bowl, picked up a handful of dried garlic and bitter wormwood, and dumped it into the mortar, grinding it down with a sharp, heavy crunch right under his nose.

The pungent, bitter stench of crushed garlic exploded into the air between them.

Hvitserk winced, his nose crinkling in disgust as he pulled back half an inch. He let out a bark of dry, amused laughter, holding his hands up in surrender.

"By the gods," Hvitserk chuckled, looking back over his shoulder at Ubbe. "She didn't even blink. Cold as a winter fjord."

"Because she isn't interested in your charm, brother," Ubbe said softly, stepping up to the bench. He gave the horn of ale back from Hvitserk and gestured toward the door. "Go check on the horses by the river. I want to speak with her alone."

Hvitserk shrugged, giving Magdalena one last appreciative grin before turning on his heel and sauntering out into the morning sunlight.

Ubbe stood quietly beside the table, waiting until his brother left. He looked down at the small woman standing before him; her hands stained with yellow root-juice and dried blood, her eyes wide, vigilant, and guarded.

He didn't smirk, and he didn't lean in.

Instead, Ubbe inclined his head slightly, offering her the calm, measured respect reserved for someone who had earned her place in a camp.

"Walk with me," he said in simple Frankish, his voice low and unhurried.

Magdalena’s hands froze over the pestle. For a fraction of a second, her body tensed as if bracing for a trap, but seeing no anger in Ubbe’s calm blue eyes, she wiped her hands on a damp linen cloth, adjusted her dark cloak around her shoulders, and offered a single, quiet nod.

They stepped out of the church together into the brisk morning air.

Daventre in the light of day was a sad, shattered shadow of the bustling river port it had been forty-eight hours ago. Smoke still curled lazily from the blackened frames of several burned storehouses down by the docks. The cobblestone streets, once crowded with merchants and townspeople, were now patrolled by bands of armed Northmen sorting through looted timber, barrel-staves, and ironwork. Frankish locals huddled in narrow alleys and doorway alcoves, their faces pale with terror as they clutched their children, watching the pagan warriors with hollow, defeated eyes.

Magdalena kept her chin low, her eyes fixed on the muddy cobblestones beneath her boots. But Ubbe, walking beside her at a slow, deliberate pace, didn't miss the sharp tightening of her jaw or the quiet, profound sorrow that settled over her features as they passed a family watching their looted grain wagon being hauled away.

She didn't speak a word. She didn't weep, and she didn't utter a single protest. She simply absorbed the ruin of her people in heavy, dignified silence.

"You are afraid of me," Ubbe noted quietly, his voice cutting through the distant clatter of iron and shouting men.

Magdalena paused mid-stride, her breath catching in her throat. She looked up at him, taking in his tall frame, the intricate braids in his blond hair, and the quiet authority he carried without ever needing to raise his voice.

"I am, my lord," she answered truthfully, her voice barely louder than a whisper, though her gaze remained direct and steady.

Ubbe shook his head slightly, offering a faint, wry smile. "I am not your master, Magdalena."

She didn't argue, nor did she smile. She simply inclined her head in a small, submissive nod and kept her hands folded neatly within the sleeves of her stained habit.

They reached the edge of the stone terrace overlooking the river, where the cold wind blew fresh off the water, carrying away the smell of soot. Ubbe rested one heavy hand against the low stone balustrade, looking out over the conquered city before turning his gaze back to her.

"I haven't had the chance to thank you," Ubbe said, his tone dropping into something quiet and solemn. "For what you did when my little brother was held captive. Most would have let his arm rot out of spite, but you saved his life and kept the limb attached to his body."

Magdalena blinked, caught off guard by the prince’s sincerity. A soft, instinctive response rose to her lips: “thank you, my prince.”  

They walked a few paces further along the wall in silence. The wind pulled a few dark strands of hair loose from Magdalena’s braid, sweeping them across her cheek.

She swallowed hard, gathering every ounce of courage in her chest.

"May I speak, my prince?" she asked, her voice tight with quiet tension.

Ubbe stopped and turned to face her fully, folding his arms across his chest. "Speak."

"The church clinic is overwhelmed, my lord," Magdalena began, her voice steadying as she spoke of her duty. "There are over a dozen of your wounded men lying on those benches. I am only one pair of hands. I cannot wash wounds, boil poultices, grind herbs, and clean linen quickly enough to stop infection from setting in."

Ubbe raised an eyebrow, quietly intrigued by her focus. "And what do you propose?"

"My convent sisters," Magdalena said, looking him dead in the eye, her posture unyielding despite her trembling heart. "Some are trained healers and nurses. They know how to tend severe burns, mend torn muscle, and quiet a thrashing man. If you allow them out of the caravan and bring them into Saint Lebuinus under your protection, we can save men who would otherwise die before nightfall."

Ubbe studied her face in silence for a long moment. He had expected her to beg for her own freedom, or perhaps ask for extra bread. Instead, she was asking for work, and for the safety of her sisters.

"My brothers and the men won't like Vikings being tended by nuns," Ubbe warned softly, though his blue eyes carried no malice. "And the warband will view them as spoils of war."

"They will be in the house of God, working beside me," Magdalena countered firmly. "I will answer for them. But they must be protected from your men while they do this work. I ask for your word, Prince Ubbe."

Ubbe looked out across the river, taking a slow pull from his horn of ale before turning back to her. A faint, approving glint touched his eyes.

"Six," Ubbe agreed quietly. "You choose them yourself. I will personally assign four of my own huscarls to stand guard at the church doors and inside the nave. No man touches them while they are under my mark."

Magdalena nodded, but she didn't step back. Her posture remained tense, her fingers tightly clutching the fabric of her skirt as she stared up at him, clearly fighting with another thought.

Ubbe caught the hesitation, a dry smidgen of amusement crossing his face.

"Speak your mind, Sister," he said softly, his blue eyes searching her face. "You look as though you're about to choke on whatever you're holding back."

She paused, taking a sharp breath before pushing further; into dangerous territory.

"And... my people are suffering too," she added, her voice dropping, though the conviction behind it did not waver. "The wounded citizens of Daventre lie in the alleys, untreated and bleeding. If my sisters are brought to the chapel, I ask that we be allowed to treat them as well."

Ubbe looked out across the river again as he weighed her request. A faint, approving glint touched his eyes at her quiet courage.

"Women and children only," Ubbe conceded quietly, turning back to face her. "I will not have my guards defending wounded Frankish soldiers who might cut their throats in their sleep. And do not deceive yourself, Magdalena; when our merchant ships arrive, your people will still belong to the Norse. They will be bound for the slave markets, just like the rest."

Magdalena swallowed the bitter lump in her throat, her chin lifting slightly.

"But they will live," she whispered.

Ubbe offered a low, dry chuckle, nodding once. "Yes. They will live."

Magdalena’s breath hitched, a wave of profound relief washing over her chest so intensely it nearly brought her to her knees. "Thank you, my prince. May God bless your mercy."

Ubbe turned his boots back toward the church incline, waving a dismissive hand into the cold air. "Keep your God's blessings for your people. They’ll need them more than I do."

.-.-.

Accompanied by Ubbe and a pair of tall, heavily armed huscarls, Magdalena made her way toward the muddy clearing where the supply wagons and captive caravans were parked.

The contrast between her position now and her last walk through this camp was striking. Then, she had been paraded in blood-stained linen with tears tracking her dirt-streaked face. Now, she walked beside a prince of the Great Army, guarded rather than led.

As they drew near the hide-covered wagons, the low, anxious murmuring of the captured women fell dead silent.

Faces appeared at the wooden slats of the caravans; pale, weary, and terrified. Sister Lidewij was the first to recognize her, letting out a sharp, choked gasp. Beside her, Sister Elinor clutched the wooden frame, her knuckles turning white.

At the front of the main wagon, Abbess Gerhild sat upright. Her dark, hollow eyes tracked Magdalena's approach, flicking sharply to the towering pagan prince walking at her side.

Just behind the main wagon, bound by heavy rope near the supply crates, sat Brother Amandus.

The sight of him hit Magdalena like a physical blow. The man who had shown her gentle kindness when others rejected her, the closest thing she had ever known to a father, looked hollowed out, his wrists raw from rope. Her chest squeezed tight with an ache so fierce it nearly broke her composure. But she forced her face to remain a mask of stone. She could not betray what he meant to her. To show affection in front of the camp would only invite suspicion or cruelty.

Magdalena stopped before the wagon. She felt a familiar, involuntary flinch deep within her chest; years of strict obedience pulling at her, but she held her head high.

"Prince Ubbe has granted us a grace," Magdalena said, her voice clear enough for every sister in the caravan to hear. "The parish shrine of Saint Lebuinus has been made into an infirmary. I have been given leave to choose six to leave these wagons and work beside me."

A collective gasp rippled through the wooden caravan.

"We are called to save lives, dear sisters," Magdalena countered, her tone quiet, firm, and unyielding. "On the bench, a bleeding man is simply a bleeding man. But Prince Ubbe has granted us more than that; we have been given leave to bring in the wounded women and children of Daventre from the alleys. We are permitted to heal our own people alongside the Norse. And inside the church, under the Prince’s mark, you will have clean water, bread, shelter from the cold, and absolute protection."

A sudden wave of quiet panic rippled through the back of the wagon. Sharp gasps broke from dry throats, and urgent, terrified whispers broke out among the captives. Sister Lidewij clutched Sister Elinor’s arm, her eyes wide as she searched Magdalena’s face, terrified that this was some cruel pagan deception; a trick designed to lure them out of the wagons into something far worse. Young Sister Judith shrank back into the shadows, weeping softly behind her trembling hands.

Before the fear could spiral into chaos, Ubbe stepped forward. He didn't draw a blade or raise his voice, but the sheer size of his frame and the cold authority in his blue eyes brought an immediate, suffocating silence to the clearing.

"She speaks the truth," Ubbe said in halting, accented Saxon, looking directly at the Abbess. "Six come to the church. Four of my finest men stand guard at the doors. Anyone who lays a hand on them answers to my axe. The rest stay in the wagons." He turned his gaze back down to Magdalena. "Choose."

Magdalena didn't hesitate. She kept her voice even, calculating every choice for maximum survival and skill.

"Sister Beatrice," Magdalena called out softly.

Lidewij blinked back tears, stepping forward from the back of the wagon without a second thought.

"Sister Elinor. Sister Elswyth."

The two younger women scrambled forward. She then chose two more sisters known for their steady hands with poultices and needles: Sister Agathe and Sister Lidewij.

Finally, Magdalena turned her head slowly, letting her gaze rest on the bound monk near the supply crates as if making a practical, detached assessment.

"Brother Amandus," Magdalena said, her voice carefully devoid of emotion, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "He knows the Latin medical texts and can boil pitch and prepare salves faster than two men."

Brother Amandus raised his head, his tired eyes meeting hers with a quiet, profound understanding. He said nothing, but the faint softening around his eyes told her he knew.

Abbess Gerhild watched with hollow, tear-filled eyes as the five women and Brother Amandus were released from their bindings and helped down from the heavy timber wagons by the huscarls. The old woman’s trembling hands clutched her torn habit, her sunken eyes searching Magdalena’s face with a profound, agonizing sorrow.

"Magdalena... filia mea," Gerhild whispered in a broken, raspy Latin, so the Northmen would not understand. "What has become of you? You walk without your sacred veil. You carry their blood upon your skirt, and now you lead our sisters into the den of the unholy. I pray for your soul, child... the Lord sees all. Lest the darkness swallow you whole."

Magdalena met the Abbess's weeping gaze. She felt no anger, only a deep, swelling pity for the formidable woman who had once been their Prioress, now reduced to a ghost in a muddy wagon.

She reached out, gently pressing her hand over the Abbess’s cold, trembling knuckles through the wooden slats.

"God sees us both, Mother," Magdalena replied softly in the same sacred Latin, her voice steady and tender. "And He knows which of us is keeping our sisters fed and safe."

Without waiting for a reply, Magdalena turned on her heel. With Lidewij, Elinor, Brother Amandus, and the others gathered tightly behind her like a fragile flock, and Ubbe’s heavy guards flanking their path, Magdalena led them away from the muddy wagons and back toward the shelter of Saint Lebuinus.

.-.-.

A/N: I really loved writing from a different POV in this chapter! Watching Hvitserk’s failed attempt to flirt with Magdalena and her total icy indifference, was so fun to draft.

Negotiating protection for her sisters and the vulnerable women and children of Daventre is a massive victory, even in the shadow of conquest. Ending the chapter with her quiet confrontation with Abbess Gerhild really highlights the central theme of her arc: while others cling to rigid dogma in the mud, Magdalena chooses action, survival, and practical mercy.

Thank you so much for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts on Magdalena’s exchange with Ubbe and her reunion with the sisters in the comments below!

Xoxoxo Nukyster 

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

Taglist:

@miksmom-blog

@g-cf2020

@authorpj

Near the side chapels, a pair of seasoned Viking healers were already bowing over wounded warriors, their broad hands smeared with pine pitch and soot. They didn't speak to Magdalena, but as she spread her clean linen across an oak bench and arranged her bone needles, they gave her a single, sharp look of acknowledgement. She was not in their way, and her hands were steady. That was all the license she needed.

Near the shattered wooden doors of the vestry, Brechje stood frozen, her knuckles white as she clutched her arms to her chest, her wide eyes darting wildly between the blood-smeared floor, the groaning warriors, and the chaotic smoke filling the nave.

"Brechje!" Magdalena’s voice rang out clearly off the stone. 

Brechje flinched, her gaze snapping toward the altar. Magdalena pointed a blood-stained finger toward the stone fireplace at the far end of the aisle.

"Boil the water!" Magdalena commanded, her tone sharp enough to cut through the girl's paralysis. "In the copper cauldron by the priest’s hearth. Boil it until it steams, and do not let dirty hands touch the rags!"

Brechje blinked, taking in Magdalena’s dark hair, her blood-stained habit, and the fierce focus in her eyes. Hearing a familiar voice bark orders shattered her panic. With a frantic nod, Brechje scrambled toward the hearth, grabbing the iron poker to fan the embers beneath the kettle.

At the heavy oak doors of the church, Hvithár stood like a carved stone pillar. He kept his hand lazily rested on the hilt of his broadsword, his pale eyes scanning the square outside. Whenever a rowdy group of Northmen stumbled toward the church doors looking for gold or wine, Hvithár simply stepped into the doorway, shaking his head. 

Beside the choir stalls, resting her massive grey chin on her paws, lay Garmr. Her golden eyes tracked every movement in the nave with calm, watchful intelligence. Between the old warrior at the door, the silent Viking healers in the shadows, and the wolfdog at the altar, Magdalena had been granted a touch of sanctuary.

More wounded began to arrive.

Two broad-shouldered warriors dragged a wounded comrade into the nave, laying him gently across a wooden choir bench. The wounded warrior bared his teeth in a harsh, agonizing hiss, his chest heaving. He looked from his comrade’s stern face back to Magdalena as she moved closer, the suspicion in his eyes warring directly with the sheer, blinding agony in his shoulder. He didn't want her touching him, but he was bleeding badly.

Magdalena didn't waste breath asking for his permission.

She stepped into his space and caught the eyes of the two men standing over him. She gestured sharply toward the warrior's uninjured arm and thighs.

The two Northmen understood instantly. Without a word, they leaned their heavy frames over their comrade, pinning his shoulders and legs flat against the wooden bench with crushing force.

"Hold still," Magdalena muttered softly under her breath, speaking more to herself than to her patient, stepping in close as she splashed strong spirits directly over the raw, filthy wound.

The warrior let out a strangled roar, his back straining against the weight of his brothers-in-arms, his knuckles white as his fingers dug into the wood. But with his comrades locking him in place, Magdalena was free to work uninterrupted. Her small, calloused hands moved with swift, practiced precision; cleaning the dirt from the torn muscle, slathering the honey paste, and driving her curved bone needle through his skin to stitch the edges flush.

As she tied off the final knot, the men released their grip. The wounded warrior let out a long, shuddering breath, sinking back into the wood. 

Slowly he raised his uninjured hand, touched his fist to his chest over his heart, and offered her a small nod. Here, amidst the ash and iron of a conquered town, this terrifying heathen looked at her hands and saw something of value.

Magdalena turned away before the thought could take root, wiping her needle on a damp cloth as the next stretcher was carried through the heavy church doors.

.-.-.

Night fell over Daventre, heavy and cold. Through the high leaded windows of the church, the distant sound of victory echoed across the city. Drums thrummed in a steady, hypnotic pulse. Horns sounded, and wild shouts of celebration carried over the rooftops as the Great Heathen Army feasted in the commandeered main hall, roaring over their conquest of the river gateway.

Magdalena remained in her sanctuary, sitting on a low wooden bench by the glowing brazier as she methodically scraped the dark, bitter bark off dried willow roots into a stoneware bowl for the morning’s fever tea. Beside her sat a basket of boiled linen, already rolled into neat bundles for tomorrow's dressings. The high-stakes panic of the day had finally ebbed; though the wounded still groaned softly from the choir benches and the Norse healers moved quietly between them, the frantic urge to stay death's hand had settled into a steady, manageable rhythm. 

Garmr lay sprawled near the fire at Magdalena’s feet, resting her heavy chin against her boot.

The iron latch of the church door clicked.

Hvithár stepped back inside, his long shadow stretching across the flagstones. He was not dressed for feasting; his face was grim, his eyes tight with concern.

He looked her dead in the eye, pointed at her wooden medical chest, and uttered a single name: "Ivar."

Magdalena understood instantly. Riding strapped to a chariot over miles of hard gravel must have taken a brutal toll on a man whose legs were already weak. 

She followed Hvithár across the courtyard, where the bitter wind bit at her cheeks and carried away the faint, distant noise of the feasting hall.

Hvithár led her straight to the bishop’s private residence at the far edge of the church grounds. Stopping at the heavy timber door, the old warrior pulled it open, stepped aside, and ushered her inside, firmly shutting it behind her to stand guard in the dark and cold outside.

Magdalena stood in the quiet entryway, taking in the room. The space was built for Frankish clerical luxury, but now it bore the heavy mark of desecration. Holy tapestries depicting the saints had been pulled down or left hanging askew in the shadows; silver candle-braziers lay cold, and expensive wool carpets were tracked with mud and gravel. On the carved oak desk where sacred texts once sat, a half-empty horn of mead sat pooled on parchment.

Far from the feast, the drunken roars of the Heathen Army were reduced to a muffled, distant thrum. The silence in the room was heavy and suffocating, broken only by shallow, ragged breathing.

Magdalena’s eyes shifted to the far corner. There, sitting on the edge of the bishop’s high, feather-padded bed, was Ivar.

He was stripped down to a pale linen tunic. The terrifying warlord who had commanded hundreds from a chariot was gone; in his place sat a man trembling with raw, unvarnished agony.

His iron braces lay discarded on the stone floor like broken shackles. Across his pale legs, deep purple bruises bloomed where leather straps and iron had bitten into his skin; and long, bloody furrows were gouged into his calves from the gravel road's relentless jarring. His back was locked in violent, unrelenting muscle spasms.

He didn't turn his head as her boots scuffed the floor. His fists were clenched so hard against his knees that his knuckles were bone-white, his jaw locked as he fought to keep from making a sound. The sheer intensity of the pain had turned his skin into a raw nerve; even the sound of her footsteps made his whole frame tense in violent recoil.

Magdalena set her medical chest on the carved side table without a word. She didn't ask for permission. She dropped to her knees in front of him, just as she had done in his tent that morning, and reached for a bowl of warm water left by the hearth.

"Touch me," Ivar growled through his teeth, his voice raspy, dangerous, and tight with defensive agony, "and I will break your fingers."

Magdalena didn't flinch. She soaked a clean linen cloth in the warm water, squeezed out the excess, and laid it gently over the raw, bleeding leather-burns on his shin.

Ivar let out a sharp, harsh hiss, his entire frame going rigid as if struck by fire. His hand shot down, fingers locking like an iron vise around her wrist. His blue eyes burned through the dark, wild and volatile with pain, vulnerability, and humiliation.

"I said don't," he snarled softly.

Magdalena looked directly up into his eyes. She didn't pull her hand back. She didn't tremble.

"You can break my fingers if you wish, my lord," she said, her voice steady and quiet as stone. "But then there is no one around to treat your skin before infection sets in."

For a long, dangerous beat, Ivar stared at her. His grip on her wrist was suffocatingly tight, his chest heaving as he fought the fire raging in his spine.

Slowly, his fingers loosened. He let his hand drop back to his knee, leaning his head back against the cold timber wall of the bed with a low, agonizing exhale.

Magdalena went to work. She cleaned the dirt and dried blood from his torn skin, slathering a soothing compound of willow bark, honey, and lard over the raw friction wounds. When a violent spasm wracked his lower back, forcing a muffled gasp from his mouth, Magdalena shifted closer, pressing her palms firmly into the tight, knotted muscle above his hip, using her full weight to work out the agonizing tension.

As the knot beneath her palms finally yielded, Ivar opened his eyes.

The air between them suddenly turned thick, heavy, and motionless. Magdalena froze, her hands still resting flat against the curve of his waist. They were breathless inches apart.

She could feel the overwhelming, radiant heat pouring off his skin, and the deep, steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her fingers. When she lifted her gaze, she found him staring.

He was looking directly at her. His icy blue eyes tracked the curve of her jaw, her dark hair spilling over her blood-stained habit, and the quiet, fierce resolve in her eyes. Ivar was completely silent, his gaze searching her face in the intimacy of the dark with an intensity that made her pulse flutter wildly against her ribs.

For the first time, he simply saw her: raw, fierce, and holding his pain in her hands.

Slowly, Magdalena pulled her hands back, her skin still tingling from his warmth.

"Go back to your chapel, Magdalena," Ivar said, his tone dropping into a low, quiet timbre softer than she had ever heard it. "Your pagan patients must be waiting."

Magdalena offered him a single, solemn nod. She gathered her salves, packed her wooden chest, and pulled her dark cloak back over her shoulders.

Stepping out into the cool corridor, she shut the heavy timber door behind her. Hvithár was waiting in the shadows, his arms folded across his chest. With a quiet, approving nod, the old warrior stepped in beside her, escorting her safely back through the cold night toward Saint Lebuinus.

.-.-.

A/N: This chapter is a huge turning point as Magdalena steps back into her element as a healer; prioritizing saving lives above all else and earning some respect from the Vikings.

And then there's that late-night moment in the dark with Ivar. She saw him at his most vulnerable, getting dangerously close to... do I dare say it, a kiss?

Thank you so much for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this scene in the comments!

Xoxoxo Nukyster 

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

Taglist: @miksmom-blog

@g-cf2020

@authorpj

Before he could answer, her fingers reached beneath the neckline of her habit. She pulled out a thick cord and held up what rested at the end of it: his Mjolnir pendant, he had given her in the convent infirmary back in Utrecht, when both of them believed his execution was imminent.

She held the silver out toward him, her palm trembling slightly in the space between them.

Ivar went entirely still.

A sharp, unexpected strike went through his chest. He remembered that night with brutal clarity; the smell of damp stone and his own blood, her hands trembling as she unfastened his necklace, and the quiet defiance it took for a holy nun to hide pagan silver against her chest alongside her wooden cross. 

He had assumed she had thrown it in the dirt by now. Yet here it was, kept hidden against her pulse through every mile of the march.

For a second, the cold, calculating mask of the conqueror cracked. Panic flared in his gut; a sudden, suffocating realization of how easily this girl was cutting through the armor he had built over a lifetime. He could not afford this. Not today. Not when over fifteen hundred men were waiting for his order to unleash blood on the river ridge.

Ivar reached out, his fingers closing over her smaller ones. With a firm, forceful shove, he pushed her hand back against her chest, pressing the silver back beneath her habit.

"You keep it," he growled.

He didn't wait for her to reply. He didn't dare look into her eyes again. He snatched his heavy crutch off the ground, dug the iron tip into the dirt, and heaved himself upright in one swift, violent motion. He swept out of the tent without another word; not because he didn't want to speak to her, but because if he allowed himself to feel even a flicker of fear over her wellbeing, the ruthless focus he needed to survive the day would shatter.

Outside, the pre-dawn air bit into his lungs like swallowed glass. Hvithár was already waiting by the supply carts, adjusting the harness on a heavy draft horse.

"Hvithár," Ivar called out, his voice returning to its sharp, unyielding military edge.

The old warrior turned instantly, stepping toward the prince.

"Put her in the wagon with Garmr," Ivar ordered, pointing a blunt finger toward the tent entrance. "Do not let her out of your sight. If she tries to leave that cart, or if any of the men so much as breathe on her while I am in the city, I will strip the skin from your back myself."

Hvithár grunted, giving a firm, solemn nod. "She stays in the cart, Prince."

Satisfied, Ivar dragged himself toward the meeting with his brothers. 

.-.-.

The map lay unrolled on the low wooden table inside the command tent, its edges weighted down by iron daggers and heavy silver torcs. Under the flickering amber glow of tallow candles, the ink lines of the river Isla and the surrounding marshes looked like a network of dark veins against the pale vellum.

Ivar leaned his elbows on the wood, his eyes dark and razor-sharp as he stared down at the handwriting.

Ubbe stood across from him, broad shoulders blocking the tent opening, his arms crossed over his leather cuirass. Hvitserk leaned against the central tent post, tossing a small iron hatchet from hand to hand with restless, quiet energy, while Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye slouched against a heavy wooden chest, picking dirt from beneath his fingernails with a bone-handled seax, his jaw set in a hard, doubtful line.

"Fifty garrison men," Ubbe said, his deep voice rumbling low in his chest. "Plus whatever local militias and archers the priests can drag from the town square. If we land the longships along the wooden wharves, their archers will have the high ground on the docks. We will lose twenty men before the first shield hits the timber. I am not eager to throw good blood into a bottleneck."

"I’m intending to lose none," Ivar said softly.

Sigurd let out a harsh, mocking snort from his corner without looking up. "Intending and doing are two different things, brother.”

"And how do you propose we take a walled settlement without blood on the docks, Ivar?" Hvitserk added, pausing his tossing to eye his brother with a wary, skeptical tilt of his head. "Or are we just trusting your sudden instinct over sound iron?"

Ivar didn't rise to the bait. His finger dragged slowly across the parchment, tracing the blue line of the river where it curved past Daventre’s lower wharves, then flicked sharply to the east.

"Because Ubbe is going to give them the exact battle they are praying for," Ivar murmured, a cold, dangerous smile touching his lips.

Ubbe’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing in immediate suspicion. "I am?"

"You and Sigurd will take forty longships down the main channel at first light," Ivar commanded, pointing a blunt finger at them. "You will be as loud as Thor’s hammer. Bang your broadswords against your shields. Blow the war horns until the river fog shakes. Rain flaming arrows onto their wooden docks and granaries. Make every priest, captain, and guard in Daventre believe the entire Great Heathen Army is pouring out of the water to breach their gates."

Sigurd’s eyes snapped up his gaze locking onto Ivar with cold annoyance. "So you want us to row directly into their fire, draw every bowman in the settlement onto the high timber, and stand there like targets while you watch from the reeds?"

"You want me to act as the spearhead?" Ubbe demanded, stepping closer to the table, his hand resting heavily on his sword pommel. "If they hold the high ground and realize it's a decoy, they'll pin my ships against the riverbank before we can even disembark. It’s a fool’s risk, Ivar."

"I want you to be the bait," Ivar corrected smoothly, his voice dropping into a harsh, dark purr, completely ignoring Ubbe's anger. "When the bells start screaming, the town commander will panic. He will march every single defender he has down to the riverbank to hold the wharves against you. He won't be looking at your armor; he'll be looking at forty longships burning his riverfront."

Hvitserk stepped closer to the table, his skepticism wavering as he looked down at where Ivar’s hand rested on the map. "And while they are staring at the water...?"

Ivar’s fingers tapped the ancient gravel ridge marked on the vellum: the cursus rapidus.

"While their backs are turned," Ivar whispered, "the land vanguard sweeps in from behind." He traced the line straight to the eastern palisade. "The Franks left the eastern gate lightly guarded because they believe the black marshes surrounding it are impassable. But this map shows a solid gravel bed buried under the peat. Stable enough to hold horses. Stable enough for my chariot."

Ubbe looked from the map up to Ivar’s calculating face. He looked back at the parchment, tracing the gravel ridge with his own calloused thumb, weighing the brutal geometry of it. The reluctance in his broad features was still there; the deep, ingrained caution of a commander who hated gambling his men's lives, but the cold logic of the trap was undeniable.

"If that marsh eats your horses," Ubbe warned, his voice low and hard, "my ships will be caught in a crossfire on the river with no land support."

"It won't eat my horses," Ivar snapped coldly. "They won't even look toward the ridge until my axe is at their backs."

Sigurd let out a long, quiet breath, sheathing his seax with a sharp click. "It’s bloody thin, Ivar. If the map is wrong, we all drown in that mud."

"The map is not wrong," Ivar growled, leaning back into his furs, his blue eyes ablaze with supreme, razor-sharp confidence. "By the time they realize the river was a ghost, my chariot will already be inside the square. We take the gateway. Daventre belongs to us before the sun touches the spires."

Hvitserk crossed his arms, exchanging a long, quiet look with Ubbe. "It's insane," Hvitserk muttered softly, though a dark, faint grin tugged at his mouth. "Properly insane. But it might just work."

Ubbe didn't smile. He held Ivar's gaze for a long, heavy moment, the lingering friction between them lingering in the air before he finally gave a single, tight nod of agreement.

"Get to your ships, Ubbe," Ivar commanded softly. "Make enough noise to wake the dead."

.-.-.

The world beyond the wooden slats of the wagon dissolved into a nightmare of sound and smoke. From her vantage point at the perimeter, Magdalena watched black coils of soot churn into the pale morning sky over the tree line. The palisades of Daventre were taking the brunt of the strike. Even over the rushing waters of the Isla, she could hear the sickening splintering of heavy timber, the deep, guttural war-cries of the Northmen, and the high, terrified screams of the town’s defenders.

Garmr’s ears were pinned flat against her massive head, her chest vibrating with a continuous, anxious rumble. Beside the cart wheel stood Hvithár. He kept one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his pale eyes darting between the rising smoke and the woman trapped inside the wagon.

The battle did not remain abstract for long.

Before the sun had even fully cleared the trees, the first carts came bouncing back along the gravel ridge. They were not carrying loot or grain. They were carrying the ruined bodies of men.

The reek of hot blood and torn bowels hit the freezing air long before the carts ground to a halt. Men were screaming; horrible, unrefined sounds that stripped away any illusion of heathen glory. One warrior clutched at the bloody ruin where his lower arm had been sheared away by a Frankish broadsword; another lay twitching in the mud, an iron-tipped arrow buried deep in his collarbone.

A few elderly thralls and pagan women moved clumsily among the casualties, slapping greasy salves on open flesh and tying rough strips of wool over spurting arteries. They were overwhelmed, moving with panicked, unpracticed hands.

And then Magdalena saw him.

Two men tumbled out of a returning cart, dragging a figure between them and dumping him unceremoniously into the churned mud near her wagon wheel.

It was a boy. He could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. His blonde hair was matted with mud, his chainmail hanging absurdly loose over small, fragile shoulders that had no business wearing iron. A deep, ragged trench had been carved across his thigh, slicing through the heavy leather trousers; a glancing strike from a defender’s spear that had severed a vital artery.

Dark, bright crimson blood was pulsing from the wound in rhythm with his terrified heart, pooling fast in the dirt. The boy’s skin was already turning the grey, waxy shade of death.

Magdalena’s breath hitched. Without a second thought she gathered her skirts and reached for her wooden chest of medical supplies.

The moment she tried to climb over the edge of the wagon, a heavy, iron-clad arm barred her path.

Hvithár stepped directly in front of the cart’s opening. He barked a harsh, guttural sentence in Norse, shaking his broad head violently. His meaning was unmistakable: Get back inside. Prince’s orders.

"Let me down!" Magdalena cried, but the words meant nothing to him.

Hvithár shoved a broad palm toward her chest, forcing her back into the wagon bed. He pointed forcefully at the wooden floor, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line.

Anger, sharp and hot, wiped away Magdalena’s fear. She did not hesitate.

She slammed her wooden supply box hard against the wooden lip of the wagon, drawing Hvithár’s attention to the bone needle, the rolled linen, and the glass jars within. She leaned over the side, looking the old warrior directly in his eyes with an unyielding, fierce defiance. She pointed frantically toward the dying boy in the mud, then thrust her own hands forward, mimicking the motion of stitching flesh.

When Hvithár hesitated, she didn't wait. She grabbed his heavy leather sleeve, yanking his hand away from the cart, and snapped at him in a voice so sharp and authoritative that the old warrior visibly blinked.

"He is bleeding to death!" she shouted, pointing at the boy, still a child. "Look at him!"

Hvithár looked down at the boy, who was now shivering violently, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his blood splashed into the mud. The old soldier looked back at Magdalena’s furious face, taking in her needle, her linen, and the absolute lack of fear in her stance.

Slowly, reluctantly, Hvithár stepped aside. He did not help her, but he did not block her path as she scrambled over the high wooden wall and dropped into the cold mud.

Magdalena hit her knees beside the child.

The stench of blood was suffocating. The boy gasped, his pale, trembling hands blindly clawing at the air, his lips babbling desperate, frantic Norse words, probably begging for his mother.

For a fraction of a second, Magdalena was paralyzed. He is a heathen, a crude voice whispered in the back of her mind. He came to burn your people. He came to kill.

Then, out of the shadows of her memory, a voice returned; soft, steady, and smelling faintly of dried lavender and holy oil.

“Do not judge,” Brother Amandus would say to her in the quiet infirmary at the convent, his aged hands gently washing the grimy feet of a beggar or draining a putrid abscess on a local thief. 

“We are not here to measure sin, Lena. We are here to lessen pain.”

The holy words cut through her hesitation like a clear bell.

Magdalena didn't see the Viking raider. She saw the dying child.

Her training took over with instinctive, practiced speed. She ripped her linen veil from her hair, balling the dense, folded fabric together, and jammed it directly into the gaping wound in the boy's thigh, leaning her full body weight into his leg to compress the severed vessel.

The boy let out a blood-curdling shriek, his small body buckling against the dirt. Hvithár rushed forward, pinning the child’s shoulders to the earth to keep him from thrashing.

"Hold him!" Magdalena commanded, not caring if the old Norseman understood her language; he understood the urgency.

With her free hand, she reached into her box, pulling out a curved bone needle threaded with waxed linen thread. Her fingers were steady despite the freezing wind. With practiced precision, she pulled back the blood-soaked linen, located the deep, spurting vessel, and drove the needle through the fascia, tying off the artery with a tight surgeon's knot.

The torrent of crimson slowed to a sluggish trickle.

Working frantically, Magdalena cleansed the surrounding torn flesh with clean linen, slathered the wound in her pungent honey-and-garlic paste, and began stitching the skin closed in neat, tight passes.

By the time she tied off the last knot and wrapped a tight linen bandage around his thigh, the boy’s rapid, shallow breathing had evened out. He was unconscious from the shock, but his skin was no longer leaching cold. The blood had stopped. He would live.

Hvithár stood slowly, looking down at the sleeping child, then up at Magdalena. For the first time, the old warrior’s eyes were stripped of their cold indifference, replaced by a quiet, profound respect. He offered her a low, subtle nod.

Magdalena wiped her blood-stained forehead with the back of a mud-smeared sleeve. She didn't get back into the wagon.

She turned her head and looked out over the perimeter. More wounded were coming. A man with a shattered jaw was being helped off a horse; another was screaming on a stretcher, clutching a chest pierced by crossbow bolts.

Magdalena grabbed her supply box and rose to her feet, stepping deeper into the field of mud and blood.

She moved from warrior to warrior, stitching flesh, applying pressure, and pouring garlic paste into open wounds alongside a few stunned pagan thralls who began handing her rags without a word. She worked until her hands were stained red to the wrists, her knees soaked through with river mud, and her back aching with exhaustion.

And as she pulled a thread through the forearm of a burly Northman who smelled of woodsmoke and ale, a terrible, crushing irony settled deep into her bones.

These hands, she thought, watching the needle pierce the pagan’s skin. These hands were consecrated in prayer. They were meant to serve God and heal the innocent.

Yet here she stood in the shadows of burning spires, using every skill her mentor had taught her to stitch together the very monsters who were putting Daventre to the sword. She was keeping Ivar’s army alive, one bleeding body at a time.

.-.-.

The smoke over the tree line turned from grey to thick, oily black as the wooden gates of Daventre gave way completely.

From the town, a fresh wave of raiders returned to the rear perimeter, driving a line of terrified, stumbling captives ahead of them like cattle. The prisoners were shoved toward the supply wagons, mostly young thralls, bewildered merchants, and weeping women clutching children to their chests.

Among the crowd, dragged by her torn wool sleeve, was a woman dressed in a coarse habit.

Magdalena’s breath hitched in her throat. A fellow nun. She was older than Magdalena, her veil torn and mud-splattered, but there was no mistaking the cut of her wimple or the wooden rosary tangled in her trembling hands. She was a sister from Daventre’s local abbey.

A burly Northman shoved the nun hard into the mud near Magdalena’s cart. The woman collapsed with a small, choked gasp, her pale face buried in the dirt, her fingers frantically turning the wooden beads of her rosary as she sobbed in frantic Latin.

“Pater noster, qui es in caelis...”

Magdalena’s heart slammed against her ribs. Instinct, buried deep beneath the blood-soaked linen in her hands, surged forward. She didn't think about Ivar. She didn't think about the battle. She only saw a sister of the faith in the dirt.

Dropping her bone needle into the wooden bowl, Magdalena hurried across the churned earth. Garmr rose from beside the wheel, her massive head low, her tail stiff, padding silently behind her like a dark shadow.

"Sister," Magdalena called softly, her voice trembling as she dropped to her knees in the mud beside the woman. "Sister, be still. You are safe from the blades here."

The nun gasped, her sobbing cutting off sharply. Hearing her own language and the familiar, gentle cadence of a fellow sister, the woman raised her head, her tear-stained eyes wide with desperate hope.

"A sister..." the woman breathed, reaching out with a trembling hand toward Magdalena’s habit. "Thank God... holy Mother of God, they haven't killed you-"

The nun’s words froze in her throat.

Her eyes drifted down from Magdalena’s face to her hands.

Magdalena’s sleeves were rolled to her elbows, her arms coated with thick drying pagan blood. In her lap lay a bundle of rags soaked in honey and garlic. Behind her sat a towering, golden-eyed wolfdog, watching the sister with quiet intelligence.

The nun’s gaze flicked upward, taking in Magdalena’s dark eyes and hair, and the faint glint of silver where Ivar’s pagan token had slipped past the neckline of her habit, resting right beside her wooden cross.

The relief in the nun’s eyes vanished, replaced instantly by something raw, cold, and terrifyingly familiar.

The stranger didn't see a captive trying to survive. She didn't see a healer.

"You..." the nun whispered, drawing her hands back as if Magdalena’s skin were burning iron, scrambling backward through the mud until her spine hit a wagon wheel. "Look at you. Traitor... Jezebel..."

"Sister, please," Magdalena begged, her voice cracking as she held up her bloody palms. "I am trying to help-”

"-Help them?" The nun spat hard into the dirt at Magdalena’s knees, her eyes burning with a dark, fanatical fury that looked sickeningly like Abbess Gerhild’s. "You stitch the flesh of the heathens who burn our churches? You nurse the wolves that slaughter our flock?"

The words struck Magdalena like physical blows. The air left her lungs.

"They brought me here as a thrall," Magdalena tried to explain, her throat tight, her voice breaking beneath the weight of her shame. "I had no choice-"

"-There is always a choice!" the nun snarled, her gaze fixing on Magdalena's bloodied arms and the faint glint of pagan silver at her throat. She let out a bitter, mocking laugh. "Look at you! playing handmaiden to the wolves! God sees you!"

Magdalena went entirely still.

The noise of the camp; the screaming warriors, the crackle of distant fires, the rushing waters of the Isla–seemed to mute into dead silence.

She didn't know this woman. Yet without missing a beat, this holy sister had looked at her, her bloodied hands, and her mercy toward the enemy, and condemned her.

Garmr let out a low, dangerous growl from beside Magdalena, her upper lip curling to reveal long, white fangs. The hound took a heavy step forward, sensing the hostility in the stranger's voice.

"Garmr, no," Magdalena said quietly.

Her voice wasn't trembling anymore. The frantic, desperate edge had vanished.

Magdalena slowly stood up. She wiped her blood-stained hands on a damp rag, no longer trying to hide the red smears on her skin. She looked down at the terrified nun kneeling in the mud, clutching her wooden rosary. 

"I am not going to hurt you," Magdalena said softly, her eyes clear and unreadable. "And I am not going to pray for you."

She turned her back on the weeping nun.

Without another word, Magdalena walked back to her wooden supply chest. She picked up her bone needle, threaded it with fresh waxed linen, and knelt back down beside the next wounded Northman waiting in the mud.

.-.-.

A long, resonant horn blast cut through the heavy smoke; once, twice, three times.

Down in the valley, the terrible clash of iron and the screaming of men began to fade, settling into the dull, rumbling hum of a conquered settlement. Daventre had fallen. The eastern palisade was breached, the river docks were secured, and the high sand ridge belonged to the Great Heathen Army.

However, Magdalena did not stop working. She pulled her thread taut, tying off the final knot on a young warrior’s shoulder before wiping her bloody bone needle on a damp cloth. Her body was numb with exhaustion, her fingers stiff with cold, her habit ruined beyond recognition with mud and blood.

The thunder of heavy wooden wheels vibrating through the earth signaled his return. Ivar’s custom chariot rolled into the rear supply perimeter, escorted by Hvitserk and a dozen mounted men. The horses were lathered in sweat, their flanks steaming in the air. The wooden frame of the chariot was splattered with dark, drying blood.

Magdalena saw his exhaustion. His face was pale beneath the grime, his jaw set in a hard line. Yet his sharp, electric-blue eyes burned with the dark thrill of absolute victory.

Ivar pulled the reins, bringing the team to a halt beside the lead supply cart.

He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the rear perimeter. He must have expected to find her cowering inside the wagon, hiding beneath furs, weeping over the destruction her map reading had wrought upon her fellow Christians.

Instead she was standing in the middle of the churned mud. Her veil was gone, her dark hair falling in tangled strands around her face. Her hands and forearms were stained red to the elbows. Around her lay a dozen wounded Northmen; every single one of them bandaged, stitched, and alive. Beside her stood Garmr, her tail swaying slowly, a silent sentinel at her hip.

And a few yards away, shivering in the mud, sat a captive nun, glaring at her with pure, venomous hatred.

For a moment the conqueror and his captive locked eyes across the tarnished land.

There were no mocking smiles coming from Ivar, no sharp taunts. For a long, breathless moment, the air between them hung heavy with an unspoken truth. He had tried to break her with the reality of his war; instead she had stepped directly into the fire and stolen lives back from death.

Ivar leaned heavily over the rim of his chariot, his voice low and hoarse from roaring commands over the din of battle.

"Get in the cart, Sancta Maria," he ordered. But the sharp, cruel bite was missing from his tone. It sounded almost quiet, heavy with an odd, dangerous respect. "We move inside the walls."

Magdalena didn't look away from his gaze. She didn't offer a meek nod, nor did she lower her eyes in submission. She simply picked up her wooden chest of supplies, turned her back on the cursing nun, and climbed into the wagon bed alongside Garmr.

The heavy wooden supply carts ground forward, their iron-rimmed wheels rolling past the splintered, smoking ruins of Daventre’s eastern gates.

As the wagon carried her inside the settlement, Magdalena took in the full, brutal scope of what she had helped create. The main thoroughfare was a chaotic maze of shouting raiders, piles of looted silver and Frankish wine, and weeping townsfolk being herded toward the central storehouses. Smoke curled into the grey sky from a burning granary, and the air was thick with the stench of copper, charred timber, and turned earth.

Every few paces, the wagon wheels jolted over the grim reality of the ambush. Dead town guards lay slumped against doorways where Ivar’s vanguard had cut them down from behind, their Frankish armor punctured and soaked in dark, thick crimson. An elderly shopkeeper lay unmoving in the gutter beside his scattered grain sacks; nearby, a young boy clung weeping to the body of a fallen archer whose eyes stared sightlessly into the pale morning sky. The mud of the thoroughfare was churned with red, smeared by the frantic boots of survivors and the dragging feet of thralls.

Yet as the wagons climbed the incline, the destruction gave way to the true prize of Daventre.

The road led straight up to the high, dry sand ridge; the ancient gravel path that Magdalena’s vellum map had described so clearly. Standing atop the ridge, elevated far above the flooding waters of the Isla, Ivar’s chariot came to a rest beside the central wooden hall.

Ivar unbuckled himself from the saddle frame. He dragged his heavy frame out of the chariot, using his crutch to heave himself toward the edge of the overlook.

From this high vantage point, the entire river valley stretched out below them. Down on the water, Ubbe and Sigurd’s longships were already docked along the conquered wharves, unloading heavy crates of grain, iron, and supplies. The river, the trade road, and the surrounding marshlands were entirely visible, completely dominated by the high ridge.

Ivar stood at the edge of his new world, his dark cloak whipping wildly in the cold river wind. He had not just raided a town for silver; he had seized the throat of the region. Nothing would move from the North Sea into the heart of the empire without his consent.

Magdalena stepped down from the supply cart, resting her hand against Garmr’s warm fur as she looked out over the sweeping vista beside the prince.

She looked down at her hands; at the blood dried beneath her fingernails. She had not swung an axe. She had not drawn a blade. Yet as she watched the raven banner unraveling from the highest tower of Daventre, Magdalena realized the terrifying truth: her mind, her voice, and her hands had handed his victory to the Heathen Army.

She turned her head to look at Ivar.

The young warlord was staring down at the winding river, his profile sharp against the gray sky, his face unreadable. He had captured his gateway, but as he turned his head and caught her staring, the dark, burning ambition in his blue eyes proved the truth: Daventre was merely the opening move. The war, the conquest, and the blood yet to be spilled were only just beginning. 

.-.-.

A/N: And that is Chapter 27! This chapter was so important for Magdalena's arc. Seeing her step out of that wagon to save a dying child.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! How did you feel about Magdalena standing her ground against the sister from Daventre? And what did you think of Ivar’s reaction to seeing her covered in blood having saved his warriors?

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis; "Our Father, who art in heaven" 

xoxox Nukyster

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

Taglist: @miksmom-blog

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Ivar flicked his gaze toward the riverbank beneath his wheels. They were riding in the exact place that slim, trembling finger had pointed to on the map in the dark of his tent. 

Ubbe had been ready to march them blindly along the western bank, lured by the wide, deceptively flat green meadows. The argument around the central campfire the night before had nearly boiled over in front of half the camp, with Ubbe insisting on the obvious open ground. But Ivar had stared through the crackling flames, his eyes locking onto his older brother’s with a lethal, unyielding intensity.

"Last time, you made a bad call and I nearly died because of it," Ivar had growled, letting the bitter weight of that old memory hang heavy between them. He had paused, watching the flinch in Ubbe’s jaw before twisting the knife. "You had to leave me behind, Ubbe. Allow me to make this decision this time. You owe me that."

And if he had not forced Ubbe to yield, their horses and his heavy chariot would currently be sinking to their chests in the black, suffocating muck of the palus profunda.

Instead, they kept to the eastern side. They trod upon the firm, solid ridge of compacted gravel and sand left behind by the Cursus rapidus. The ground held. The vanguard moved without missing a single step.

Ivar's hand instinctively pressed against his chest, feeling the stiff roll of vellum tucked safely inside his leather tunic. Combined with Magdalena’s ability to read it properly, it was his secret weapon.

He glanced over his shoulder at the supply cart trailing directly behind his chariot.

The heavy wagon was driven by Hvithár. Wedged deeply inside the cart, hidden between heavy wooden crates of salted provisions and iron spearheads, sat his slave. Magdalena looked small, her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders against the biting river wind.

Right beside her, taking up most of the space in the wagon bed, lay Garmr. Ivar had left the dog there for a reason. Garmr was a guard, an extension of Ivar's own eyes to keep her safe from the rough, predatory impulses of the camp when Ivar had to be elsewhere. And to ensure she didn't try to run.

As if feeling the weight of his stare, Magdalena’s head lifted slowly from the depth of the wagon. Her pale face emerged from the shadow of her veil, and her eyes found his over the wooden lip of the cart.

The wind whipped a strand of Ivar's hair across his eyes, but he did not blink. He did not smile at her, nor did he offer any sign of comfort. He simply stared down at her from his chariot. He wanted her to look out at the marching army on the gravel banks. He wanted her to look at Hvitsár’s broad back, at Hvitserk’s gleaming axe, and know that she had guided them here.

He needed her to feel the weight of that all. 

Because the truth was, she made no sense to him. She made him doubt his own certainties and forced him to question things he had never dared to look at. 

She mattered to him; a realization that terrified him more than any Frankish army. 

And so, it was infinitely easier to force her into hating him, to make her an accomplice to his cruelty, than it was to face the fact that a  Christian slave had found a way behind his armor.

He wanted her to hate him. He needed her to. Hate was a currency he understood; it was clean, predictable, and safe. If he could force her to look at this army and loathe him for what he was making her do, the unsettling warmth she brought out in him would die. It was infinitely easier to handle her hatred than to face the terror of her kindness.

Daventre was rushing to meet them, and for the first time, the Christians would find that the Northmen knew their river better than they did.

.-.-.

The gravel gave way to trampled earth as dusk settled over the banks of the Isla. Wagons formed a jagged perimeter, stakes were hammered into the dirt, and within an hour, the scent of roasting horseflesh and damp wood smoke choked out the clean smell of the river.

Magdalena’s limbs were stiff, aching with a deep, dull throb from hours of being wedged tightly against the rough wooden ribs of the cart. She hadn't been allowed down once during the entire march. 

The moment her wagon rolled to a shuddering stop, Hvitsár hauled his heavy frame down from the bench and unhitched Garmr. The dog gave a low, rumbling sigh and settled against the wheel, sitting like a stone sentinel in the mud while a group of northmen began clearing a space nearby to raise Ivar’s tent.

Through the gaps in the tall wooden slats of the cart, Magdalena saw Brechje maneuvering through the chaotic maze of bodies. The young woman was struggling under the weight of a massive iron cauldron filled to the brim with sloshing river water, her face lined with sheer exhaustion and slick with sweat in the orange glare of the campfires.

Brechje blinked, a flash of startled recognition crossing her weary features when she spotted Magdalena shifting inside the cart. As Magdalena carefully pushed herself up onto her knees Brechje gave a swift, barely visible shake of her head.

"You should not be standing up where the men can see you," Brechje muttered softly, her voice barely carrying over the roar of laughter of a group of drunk warriors wrestling a few yards away. "Not when he is not around. The prince has a short temper today.”

Brechje dumped the heavy iron cauldron onto the mud with a dull, ringing thud that splashed water over her boots. She wiped her forehead with the back of a filthy sleeve, stepping a fraction closer to the side of the wagon.

"The thrall girls in the back wagons... they are whispering," Brechje said, her voice dropping into a tight, conspiratorial whisper as her eyes darted toward the guards. "They say the nunna bewitched Ivar the Boneless. That you used a holy curse to keep his blade from your throat."

Magdalena’s breath caught in her chest, the raw fabric of her habit feeling suddenly tight against her skin. A curse. If only they knew that the only magic keeping herself and her sisters alive was a piece of vellum and a soul fracturing under the weight of her own complicity.

Before Magdalena could whisper a reply, the heavy thump of crutches against the hard-packed earth cut through the ambient noise of the camp.

Brechje’s eyes went wide. Without another word, she seized the handle of the sloshing cauldron, bent her head low, and scurried off into the flickering shadows between the tents, practically melting into the crowd.

The warriors who had been wrestling moments before quieted down, stepping back to clear a wide path. Through the haze of wood smoke, Ivar appeared.

He leaned heavily on his crutches, every rhythmic strike of wood and iron against the frozen earth driving a tense quiet through the camp. His face was set in hard, angular lines, illuminated from below by the embers of the central fire. His cloak hung dark over his broad shoulders, dusted with the grit of the day’s ride.

Garmr’s ears twitched, but the massive hound remained seated at the wheel, a silent boundary between the camp and the wagon.

Ivar stopped beside the wagon. His sharp eyes swept over the empty space where Brechje had just been, before flicking upward to lock onto Magdalena. He took in her position: kneeling up high in the cart, hands hidden in her stained sleeves, pale against the gloom.

Instead of a command, Ivar simply raised two fingers to his mouth and let out a sharp, piercing whistle. Garmr’s ears perked instantly. Ivar flicked his chin toward the tent that had just been raised a few yards away, then shifted his gaze to Magdalena, offering a curt, dismissive nod that told her to follow the hound.

A sharp sting of humiliation flared in Magdalena’s chest. He was directing her like an animal again. But as a bitter gust of river wind whipped through the wooden slats of the wagon, biting through her damp habit and making her teeth chatter, pride lost its edge. The thought of nesting atop Garmr’s pile of furs out of the freezing draft was far more tempting than sitting outside in the dark.

She gathered her skirts and clambered down from the wagon bed, hurrying after Garmr as she bounded toward the tent.

Inside, the space was bare and functional, set up strictly for a single night on the march. The wet floor was covered with straw. In the corner lay a low wooden bed frame stacked high with heavy pelts, and beside it sat the small wooden chest containing her medical supplies. 

Ivar crossed the threshold, and the instant the heavy fabric fell shut behind him, the formidable warlord vanished. He lurched toward the bed, letting his crutches clatter noisily to the dirt floor. He collapsed onto the pelts with a ragged exhale, sagging into the furs as the sheer, suffocating weight of the day's pain rushed in to claim him.

Magdalena didn't hesitate. Moving with quiet, practiced pragmatism, she dropped to her knees beside the bed. She reached for the heavy iron braces locked around his calves, her fingers working deftly at the stiff, cold leather straps.

Ivar’s jaw clamped tight, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the furs beneath him. Foul, hissed Norse curses spilled through his gritted teeth, every movement of his legs sending sharp agony shooting through his body. Magdalena remained silent. She kept her eyes lowered, hyperaware that a single wrong word, a sigh, or even a misplaced glance could ignite the temper coiled tight inside him.

Once the braces were stripped away and set aside, she shifted her focus to his arm. She unwound the linen wrapping, inspecting the jagged pink line across his skin. Finding no heat or red streaks, she reached for her wooden bowl, mixing a pungent paste of crushed garlic and honey before gently spreading it over the tender flesh.

"I am growing short on clean linen and honey," Magdalena said softly. 

Ivar shifted his head on the furs. His eyes locked directly onto hers.

"I’ll get some once we raid Daventre," he muttered hoarsely. 

Magdalena’s fingers froze against his skin, her breath catching tight in her throat. "You speak of it as if it were a market stall. People live there; families, children, priests-"

A cold, sharp smirk touched the corner of Ivar’s mouth. He leaned back into the furs, watching the horror ripple across her pale face, savoring the raw reaction he had intentionally provoked.

"-Simple casualties, sacrifices for the greater good." Ivar repeated, the word dripping with casual disdain. "My brothers see a fat Christian trade town. They see silver chalices in the church, barrels of Frankish wine on the docks, and cattle to slaughter. They think like wolves chasing scraps."

He caught her wrist before she could pull away, his fingers locking around her pulse point, forcing her to stay close.

"They don't understand the shape of this land," he continued, his voice dropping into a low, hypnotic intensity. "Daventre sits right at its throat; high and dry on the sand ridge where the floods can't touch it. Once we take that ridge, nothing moves from the North Sea into the heart of the empire without my leave. We control the trade, the iron, the grain. My brothers want a raid..."

He leaned in closer, his eyes glittering with calculated ambition.

"...I am taking the gateway."

"Why?" Magdalena’s voice broke through the quiet of the tent, trembling with a sudden, desperate anger. "Why are you doing this?” 

Ivar gave a sharp, bitter scoff. He shifted on the furs, pushing himself up to sit upright.

"I am a cripple," he growled, the words flat, heavy, and unyielding. "I will always be a cripple. So I have to be ten times better than any of my brothers for them to give me an ounce of respect. And that is the difference between you and I, Sancta Maria. I slit throats, while all you do is turn the other cheek.”

He leaned forward, locking his gaze onto hers like iron hooks, twisting the blade deeper.

"When a man cannot run, he learns to listen. Inside your convent I lay for days, watching the shadows, listening to your guards grumble, your old monk bless the dead, and your sisters whisper poison when they thought no one was paying attention."

Magdalena’s chest tightened, her breath catching in her throat.

"Those holy sisters you so desperately want to protect..." Ivar lowered his voice, dropping it into a venomous, intimate purr. "Behind your back, when she thought you were out of earshot; the scrawny, mousy one, Lidewij; she called you the Mozarabic bastard."

The revelation dragged a memory straight out of the dark, flashing behind her eyes with terrifying, suffocating clarity.

Suddenly she wasn't in a Viking tent on the Isla; she was four years old again, weeping because she had wet the bed. She could hear the heavy, echoing thud of her mother’s husband's boots coming down the hall, the sharp whistle of the leather crop slicing through the air, and the blinding, burning sting across her small back.

"You are a stain on this house!" he would roar, his face bloated and red with ale. "Not a drop of my blood in you! A bastard thorn!"

She remembered the agonizing weight of his hand grabbing her by the collar, shoving her down the splintered wooden stairs into the pitch-black wine cellar, locking the heavy iron bolt behind her for the night. She remembered the rats scratching behind the massive oak barrels, their cold, wiry feet running across her bare toes while she curled into a tight ball in the dirt, trying not to breathe too loudly; because even the sound of her eating at the dinner table had been enough to earn a backhand across the mouth.

Magdalena crumbled. Her hands dropped uselessly to her sides, her chest heaving as the color bled entirely from her face, her eyes wide and staring into nothingness.

Ivar watched her closely, shifting his weight. It was not entirely the reaction he had figured on. He had expected tears of denial, pious anger, or outraged defense of her holy order; not this hollow, shattering grief.

His eyes narrowed, studying the way her shoulders caved inward.

"Is that what cuts you so deep?" Ivar asked, his voice dropping low, almost incredulous. "A word? Bastard?"

He let out a short, dry breath; not quite a laugh, but heavy with dismissal.

"A bastard can swing an axe, Magdalena. A bastard can win gold, take a fleet, or claim a kingdom if he has the stomach to carve it out. Blood is cheap. Being a bastard is nothing; it is merely an inconvenience of birth."

He shifted his weight on the furs, a bitter shadow crossing his face as he tapped a hand against his own useless thigh.

"Being a cripple... being born with legs that will never carry your weight in a world that only respects strength... that is a curse."

He leaned back into the shadows, his tone softening into a rare, quiet cadence as he watched her frozen form.

"My father left me in the woods for the wolves the day I was born because of these legs. It was my mother's love that kept me alive; she fought for me when no one else would. I think you and I aren't so different when it comes to mothers?"

Slowly, Magdalena stood up.

The trembling in her limbs vanished, replaced by a sudden, rigid resolve. She straightened her spine, raised her head, and looked directly into Ivar's eyes without a single trace of fear.

"My mother is a weakling."

Ivar’s eyes narrowed slightly, intrigued by the sudden steel in her voice. "Explain."

Magdalena looked down at the dirt floor, a deep, burning shame flushing hot across her cheeks, though her voice remained steady.

"My mother's husband... he hated my mere existence," she whispered, the raw truth burning her throat. "And therefore he thrived on disciplining my disobedience."

In her mind, the dark kitchen flashed before her; the heavy leather strap raised high, and her mother standing quietly in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes fixed firmly on the stone floor while her daughter screamed.

"My mother let him," Magdalena said, looking back up to meet Ivar's intense stare. "She stood there and allowed it all. And then she allowed him to send me away to the convent, just to sweep his house clean of her shame."

Ivar’s posture went rigid, a sudden, dark tension coiling through his shoulders. He clearly didn't like the mirror she was holding up, nor did he like the strange, bitter symmetry between them.

"Cruelty shapes a person," Ivar growled, his jaw tight. "It made me walk. It made you bend the knee."

Magdalena met his glare without flinching.

"Cruelty did not shape me into anything, Ivar. It simply made me an unwanted child."

The words hung in the dark stillness of the tent, thick and suffocating.

For a long moment, Ivar said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on her, stripped of their usual mocking glint, replaced by a quiet, brooding gravity. The air felt thin; not because he was about to strike, but because for a fleeting second, the wall between a conqueror and his captive had dissolved again, leaving only two souls forged in the cold fires of rejection.

Finally, the prince shifted back into his bed of pelts with a low, weary exhale. The heavy furs rustled in the gloom as he settled his legs, pulling the dark blankets over his chest against the biting river draft.

"Lie down," Ivar said softly. The sharp, mocking edge was gone from his voice, replaced by something quiet and strangely muted. "You can sleep with Garmr. She is warmer than the straw... and tomorrow at dawn, the Great Army rides to conquer Daventre."

Magdalena didn't hesitate. She swallowed the knot in her throat, stepped carefully across the damp earth, and dropped to her knees beside the dog.

Garmr gave a deep, huffing sigh as she settled beside her, her warm flank pressing against Magdalena's freezing side. Magdalena tucked herself tight against the dog's ribcage, burying her cold fingers into her thick fur, relying on the wolfdog’s steady heat to ward off the chill of the night.

Lidewij. The name echoed in Magdalena’s mind, sharp and ugly.

For years, she had believed the convent was a sanctuary; a holy refuge from her mother’s husband. Yet all along, beneath the quiet prayers and soft-spoken hymns, Lidewij had carried the exact same venom.

Abbess Gerhild had never missed an opportunity to remind Magdalena of her mother's sin. Every midnight vigil on frozen stone floors, every hour spent scrubbing the damp chapel flags until her knuckles bled, had been framed as a mercy; a chance to scour away the tainted, Mozarabic blood in her veins. She had spent half her life carrying her birth like a heavy wooden cross she was expected to die under, apologizing for simply taking up space.

And then Ivar had casually dismissed it all as dust on a sleeve.

To him, it’s just an inconvenience, she thought, her breath catching in her throat. A detail to be worked around or crushed underfoot.

A sudden, fierce impulse tried to bloom in her chest; a dangerous, intoxicating urge to believe him. To throw off the suffocating weight of her shame and decide he was right.

But almost instantly, her holy upbringing recoiled.

No, she told herself firmly, her fingers clenching tighter in Garmr's fur as she fought the terrifying thought. He is a heathen. He does not understand the purity of God’s law. Of course a bloodthirsty pagan sees no sin in a stained origin; his people know nothing of salvation or damnation.

She tried to push Ivar's words away, to lock them behind the pious logic she had used to survive her entire life. It was a heathen's worldview, plain and simple. It didn't apply to her. It couldn't.

And yet... the words refused to leave her.

Even as she tried to dismiss him, the crack in her foundation had already formed. Ivar hadn't dismantled her shame in a single evening, but he had done something far more unsettling: he had forced a wedge into her reality. For the first time in her life, she had heard someone look at her greatest burden and treat it like nothing.

Magdalena pulled a spare corner of a fur over her shoulders, resting her cheek against Garmr’s warm, heavy flank.

Outside, the camp thrummed with the muffled clatter of iron and the cold, rushing waters of the Isla. Tomorrow, the sun would break over the ridge. Tomorrow, Daventre would burn, and innocent people would bleed for the supplies she needed to keep this crippled prince alive.

Magdalena closed her eyes, listening to the quiet, heavy breathing of the young man on the bed and the steady heartbeat of the dog beneath her ear.

She wasn't ready to let go of her cross. But as she lay in the dark, troubled and unmoored, she realized the terrifying truth: the heathen hadn't undone her beliefs, but he had shaken them. And for the first time, the holy walls she had built around her soul no longer felt quite so solid.

.-.-.

A/N: So, this is one of those chapters that turned out not like I planned. And I love it! In Magdalena’s mind, the Christian world was supposed to be light, purity, and holiness. Yet it gave her abuse, cellars, and silent betrayals from sisters like Lidewij. Meanwhile, this "savage" pagan warlord; the ultimate villain in her upbringing, just casually dismantled part of her lifelong shame. To him, her bastardy isn't a sin or a mark of damnation; it's just a neutral fact of life. 

And ‘the Mozarabic bastard’, did I outline her entire backstory including her father’s and mother’s? Of course, because what’s an OC without a proper backstory? More will be revealed along the way. 

Cursus rapidus: ancient monumental Roman trackways 

Palus profunda: deep swamp.

Love to read your thoughts as always!

Xoxoxo Nukyster

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