#valhala

These kitchen ladies, ladies maids, servants, chambermaids, and Viking thralls stood around the bustling kitchens, silently spitting at each other. Kitchen ladies always thought they were above everyone though…at least they got paid.

God has a plan for you my ass. If he had a plan, why was it to drag me across the seas, submit me to torture, slavery and multiple close calls to death, only to place me back at the centre of where these last months all began? God’s plan was faultless, but it was my fault for being taken prisoner, for letting the Vikings use me as they pleased. The only thing in the eyes of my fellow people to change was, that even though I had survived the constant pushback, I was now without a doubt in their eyes, a Viking whore. If being the daughter of a concubine wasn’t shameful enough, more so that the bastard child of a concubine, a Viking whore was the lowest stain on humanity. I never had a chance from the beginning, and now even more so there was nowhere I was going to fit in. Not in the Viking world, not in the Saxon world. God’s perfect plan certainly seemed to exclude me.

The snide remarks from kitchen maids didn’t escape me, no matter how subtle they thought they were being. Refusing to make eye contact, pushing through the thin gaps and the hot oven shoving me toward the flame without care as if I were invisible, spitting and stomping at my feet. Before all this, the very least I had was being called a ‘child’. As demeaning as that was, compared to now, I didn’t realise how good I had it.

Looking toward the large wooden oak door, I quietly retreated for the exit, there was nothing I could do of use here, I wasn’t trying, but they certainly wouldn’t want to let me touch anything. Before I could reach the door, the rumbling of hundreds of pairs of feet rumbled the door on its hinges. The floor itself seemed to shake beneath us. Women screamed, some dropping the bowls or platters in their hands, adding to the noise of commotion coming from the other side of the doors. A moment of panic turned to dead silence as everyone froze in their tracks, bodies trembled, hands shook, and stuttered prayers silently whispering in exasperated hushed voices. The sounds got louder and the sounds of footsteps began to clang their weapons on the ground, deep heavy grunts of cheering as Vikings shouted, pridefully basking in their triumph at taking over one of the world's most notable superpowers. But what made them happy was how easily and quickly it had come to them. But even I, an uneducated, bastard, child of a concubine, and now Viking whore, was wise enough to know that this triumph would only be temporary. That was one thing Saxons had in common with the Vikings. Saxons, too, were not a forgiving breed.

The roars, stomps and clanging continued to emit from the corridor outside, unmistakably making their way to the heart of the castle. The grand dining room. The flow of foot traffic was much larger than that that showed face at the beginning of the morn when Canute so brazenly diminished the character of his rival King. I didn’t pity the fear of the cruel kitchen people around me, but I did selflessly worry about the backlash we would receive if there wasn’t enough food to go around. That’s one thing you got to credit the Vikings for, they certainly knew how to throw a feast. ‘We are going to need a lot more food’ I cautiously announced. Instead of facing backlash, cursing and even physical repercussions I was expecting, everyone in the kitchens simply nodded to themselves as they stood stuck in fear. Rolling up the sleeves of my muddy underdress, I went toward the fruit, grabbed one of the knives from the hands of a shaking kitchenmaid and began chopping. Soon enough, the kitchen was bustling again.

Canute effortlessly captures the attention of the room, almost demanding it, yet without even having to try. As he stood at his round table, after a moment of cheering, clapping, and metal steins filled with meads, wines, and liquid splashing their contents as the men banged them against the table tops in support of their victorious King. Canute basked in the glory, before silently putting his hands up, and the room went quiet. “We have won a great victory. Saint Brice’s Day and the spilled blood of our kinfolk has been avenged!” He announced, met with equally as enthusiastic cheers as before. Canute continued to mock and belittle the young King, having his army of men ‘toast his bravery’. Sincere in tone, disparaging at its core. In a grand gesture, he motioned to the oak doors, announcing the entry of Queen Emma. She strode in, dressed in black, a show of mourning. Who had died who she actually cared about? Who knows. Canute so graciously held his hand out, Emma cautiously taking it as he eloquently escorted her to the round table at the head of the dining hall. He seemed as equally as charismatic, chivalrous, even slightly as lustful as Mathilda, as he tended to the Queen. Harald, King Edmund, and Leif all sat in silence, watching Canute, everyone unsure of his next move, his intentions, his ambition…

The feast continued for hours into the night as we working people stood to the sides, our heads down, walking as if we were invisible, filling up goblets, ignoring the touches of drunkard men, both from the alcohol and drunk on their victorious state of being in time. The men closer to the round table were more cautious as Harald’s gaze ceased to avert my movements. Canute studiously watched Harald while attending to a conversation with the Queen. As the food gradually disappeared, Canute rose again, without effort commanding the attention of all in the dining hall. I stood between rows of Vikings sitting at the table, daring not to move as he began to speak. “Our honoured guest from the North, the Ealdorman of Mercia, Eadric Streona, who will always have my gratitude for holding back his army”. He praised his guest from the North, and Streona enjoyed it. Whilst it was clear everyone at that round table was alert, Streona absently sat with comfort and ease. No fear, no doubt, no uncertainty. Canute continued his uplifting speech, congratulating everyone at the table before his speech took an unexpected twist. “New beginnings cannot happen with a traitor in our midst”. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach, and without thought, the sound of silver clanged against the ground as my grip on the pitcher unclenched from around the handle. Everyone directed their gaze to me, and I could feel myself begin to sweat.

The time had come. A traitor in our midst. Who led them to this moment in time? Who had advised the King to now build these erroneous and fraudulent alliances with the Saxon King and Queen? Who had given them the crucial information to give the Viking army everything they needed to get into the castle? Who then fled? Me. Now everyone was going to know, and I wouldn’t be able to stop. The King chuckled to himself, shouting towards the door as a Viking kicked the door open from the opposing side of the door, rolling in a wooden tree stump holding an axe. The sound of a chair scraped, turning the attention back to the round table, where Harald cautiously stood to attention, breaths slow and heavy as he directed his pupils between mine and Canute’s. Canute chuckled to himself, almost enjoying the sudden tension that appeared between the three of us. The Vikings stood to attention, some even climbing on the wooden pillar of seats to get a better view of the traitor and the fate they were about to meet. The Viking handed the axe to Canute, and he walked forward toward the crowd, toward me, almost suppressing a smile. I locked my eyes with Harald, as he instinctively directed his back at mine. “The stench of betrayal and threat” he continued, walking slowly into the crowd, closer toward me at an agonisingly slow pace. “I can smell their ambition” he taunted. “I can smell disloyalty”. Another step closer, “I can smell their…greed” another step… My eyes were now locked with the King as he stood in front of me, with his axe. I closed my eyes, feeling his breath on my own. The sound of footsteps pounded across the floor, and I could feel them coming up behind me. Canute’s rough, callous finger tauntingly swiped the single tear that trickled down my cheek. But the heavy bodies instead pushed past me, shoving my body into the King’s as I took in a gasp of shock. His hand purposefully and slowly wrapped around the small of my back, his hand nestling into the right side of the curve of my waist. Canute’s forehead pressed against mine, rotating his body to nestle into my side, his cheek then pressed against mine as he averted his face back to the front of the room. “STOP! STOP! MY MEN WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS” A shocked gasp almost leaped out of the deepest part of my lungs, my breathing heavy, fast-paced, uncontrollable. I finally opened my eyes to see the source of the footsteps now dragging Eadric Streona from his chair, the Kings cheek still pressed against mine, chuckling to himself, before pressing a firm, yet wet kiss to my flushed cheek, walking toward the wooden tree stump which the men firmly held Streona down upon.

All attention was averted to the scene at the front of the room, enough to ignore my body as it fell to the ground, my hands clutching my stomach whilst the other went to cover my mouth as I stifled my cries. Cheers continued the screams of Saxon women. The world around me had gone fuzzy, time had passed, and Canute now stood victoriously and undisturbed as he held the now dismembered head of Eadric Streona. Gruesome, blood spilled everywhere, the trail from his body flooding around the bottom of my dress. As the Vikings cheered, Canute almost posing, and the round table silent and firmly sat in their places, I gathered myself into the crowd, and exited the hall through the back door, trailing down the hallway, bloody footsteps at my feet. I kept walking until I reached the small wooden door of one of the noblemen's bedrooms, all the way on the other side of the castle.

I slammed the door behind me, placing all my body weight against the door and sliding my back down it. The once warm blood of Streona was now cold and heavy at the bottom of the hem of my dress. I screamed. I cried. I let it all out.

I didn’t know how long I had been in the room, the curtains were drawn, but the wax from the candles hardly seemed to melt. As my senses started to come back to me I panned my gaze across the room. The candles were all lit, the grand bed had exotic silks and expensive furs draped over it, and fluffy pillows adorned the green fabric that lay across the bed. The room smelt of lavender, flushing out the metallic smell that had plagued my senses previously. Across the room, steam could be seen wafting from an unknown source behind a heavy wooden divider. I swiped my muddy, flour-laden sleeve across my nose as I used my other arm to gather my weight from the floor, stumbling over to the divider. Dragging my already battered feet across the cold floor. Behind the divider, a steaming golden tub sat, lavender sprigs floating at the top of the surface of the hot water. My gaze travelled down to my dress. Mud, salt water, flour, mead, and blood stained the once-cream cloth.

I gently brought my hand up, rubbing the tips of my fingers against my prominent collar bones, slipping two fingers underneath the shoulder seams of the dress, and tugging the fabric down off one side of my shoulder, doing the same to the other. The dress had naturally gotten looser as my once curvy figure was now practically skeletal. The dress dropped my shoulders, brushing over the curve of my breast, before the coarse fabric slid down my stomach, past my belly button, and pooled around my feet. The cool temperature caused the areola of my breasts to shrivel as my nipples hardened. The only thing protecting me from the coolness was the untamed body hair that covered my pubic bone, the hair on my arms and legs unwillingly rising to attention ins response to the cold air. I didn’t care whose room this was, who prepared the bath, who might have lit the candles or left a pitcher of liquid next to the bed. I was too numb to care. Cautiously and slowly, I picked my feet up, now standing atop the stained garment, ignoring the burning feeling of my bruised and exposed flesh, getting into the hot water, and dropping my body tirelessly into the steaming water.

The hot water blanketed my body, getting into all the nooks and crannies of my naked body. I submerged myself entirely, not caring about the stinging sensation that prickles my legs, not the feeling of pins and needles that pelted my body in response to the hot temperature compared to the cool air that circulated the room. Not caring that I couldn’t breathe. Lying in the water, not thinking about today, tomorrow, the past or the future. Simply basking in the state of being.

The hot temperature dropped to a comfortable warmth as I lay in the tub, letting my skin soak up the aromatic lavender. My ears swished as water filled my eardrums. Eyes closed, just stillness. I barely noticed the water level rise and overflow until I felt another pair of legs bump against my own. Shocked, I screamed at the sudden disturbance, only to have a large hand press against my lips, followed by a deep voice. “shhh” that all-so-familiar voice urged. I opened my eyes to see his naked, hairy, firm torso facing my naked plump breasts. Legs entwined with mine, the front of his calf bone gently pressed between my thighs as he comfortably tried to squeeze himself into the tub. Harald. My breasts gently brushed against his firm chest as we sat, pressed into one another in the tub. Months ago I was ashamed of my own nakedness, as I normally would be. I would have been especially horrified by the nakedness of a man normally, but at this moment, pressed against one another, both our bodies as weak and tired as each other, I didn’t care. He gently removed the palm of his hand, smoothing it onto the surface of my cheek, swiping his thumb across in a gentle motion over where Canute had placed his filthy kiss. Slightly leaning forward, Harald pressed his forehead against mine, almost short nervous breaths emitting from his mouth, even after such a victorious win. He dipped his face down, pressing a much more gentle kiss over my cheek, replacing Canute's sinister kiss with something much…sweeter. My chest slowly rose and fell as my breast pushed against him, gently brushing each other as my breaths got deeper and deeper. Soon our breaths moved in a rhythm that mirrored one another.

Eventually, our bodies separated, yet our legs stayed thoroughly intertwined as our backs pressed against opposite ends of the tub, resting as the warmth turned cooler, and the candles slowly began to shrink into stubs drowned in piles of melted wax. His arms, one draped over the sides of the tub, now gently grabbed my hands that floated on the surface of the water as I rubbed the lavender springs to powder between my fingers. He pulled my torso toward the centre of the tub, his chest meeting mine in the middle. My legs, once tucked up into myself, naturally untangled from his, draping on either side of his thighs as he shifted himself into the middle middle of the tub, pressing our foreheads together once again. I could feel the hardness of the flesh between his legs, gently pressing against the pulsing flesh between my legs. He guided my hands, bringing them up to his face, pressing the palms of my hands against his cheeks, then wrapping his forearms around the small of my back, pressing our pulsing bodies even closer against one another. We both let out breathy moans.

Gently he placed a kiss on my forehead, then one on the left cheek, then the right, a kiss on the curve of the left side of my neck, then the right, his cock pulsing against my plump cunt. He brought his head back, arms still firmly wrapped around my centre, flicking his gaze between my eyes and lips, slowly leaning in to seal the gap. Just as his lips reached mine, I took my hands away from his cheeks, pulling back, unwrapping his arms from my body, and standing up in the tub, using his shoulders to balance. He grunted at the sudden loss of our touching skin. But his eyes trailed from my feet, slowly taking in my body before his eyes met mine as I stared back down at him. “Get out” I firmly whispered. He looked at me confused, almost offended like he was being challenged. Refusing to move from his seat. “Get. Out” I reaffirmed. He slowly brought himself to a stand, not without agonisingly brushing his torso up my body, connecting our skin once more. I looked up as his height surpassed me, eyes locked, as he gently stepped over the side of the tub, onto the cold floor. Not breaking eye contact for a second, I did the same, standing in front of him. “Kneel” I ordered, again in a crisp, firm whisper. Eyes still on mine, he slowly knelt on the floor, his gaze now directed up at me as I looked down at him. Slowly and gently, I placed my hands on his cheeks, running my fingers through the sides of his hair. With a sense of urgency and roughness, he brought his hands to my sides wrapping them around my core, pulling me close as his lips hungrily pressed into my stomach, peppering kisses from my belly button down to my pubic bone, swiping his wet tongue and hot breath back up to my belly button, repeating the process. I hissed in response. It felt so wrong yet so right. ‘Viking…’ I whispered. ‘Saxon’ he responded in a raspy hot breath. His head dipped lower, and without hesitancy, he swiped his tongue against the pulsing core between my legs, his tongue dancing between my wet folds, his hands lowering to squeeze my bottom.

I gripped my fingers tighter in his thick curls as his tongue continued to dance, making me squirm as I stood, moaning at the exotic new pleasure that swept my body. The pulsating between my legs now radiated over my entire body. ‘Haarraalldd’ I moaned, gripped so tight I could almost feel my stubby nails pressing into his skull. He let out a gruff, reaching his arms under my thighs and forcing my legs over his shoulders. As if I weighed no more than a leaf, he rose from the ground, my feet lifting from the floor as his face was still nuzzled, kissing and licking my soaking cunt. His moans matched mine before my body went flying backward, hands still gripped in his hair as my back hit the centre of the feather bed. He kneeled at the edge of the bed, grabbing my hips and pulling my body towards his without breaking contact with my centre. His wet tongue lapped up all it could, his nose nuzzling at a sensitive spot that turned pleasure into ecstasy. I gripped the sheets, my knuckles turning white at the strength of my grip, my torso arching as my moans got faster and louder. My breaths got shorter, chest rising and falling ‘Ha.. Harald….I can’t take much more’ I exclaimed, squirming. Instead of stopping, he took one of his hands from my hip, slipping his finger inside. Involuntarily, my jaw clicked as the sensation caused my mouth to moan so loudly it could probably be heard from outside the room. ‘I…need…more…’ I breathlessly exclaimed.

Suddenly his lips started to kiss up my body, from my stomach to each breast, and neck, before pressing the side of his cheek to mine. ‘Are you sure you want more Saxon?’. I didn’t know how I could get more, but I knew I wanted it. ‘Please’ I breathed out. He slid his hand down, grabbing his hard flesh, his cock entering me in a swift push. I let out a gasp. It stung, his thick shaft wrapped up tightly as I involuntarily squeezed my insides against him. His hot breath coated my neck as he moaned at the tightness. I gently brought my hands down from his back down to his bottom. This was my doing, and I was going to take control. I firmly squeezed his cheeks, a sign to tell him it was okay to start moving. His hips thrust slowly as I used my firm grip on his behind to control the speed at which his thick cock pulsated in and out, penetrating my core to pleasures unknown. As his cock slipped inside me, I held his behind close, pulling him into me fully, making him stay. Our chests pressed against each other, skin to skin, nothing between. He brought his forehead to mine, rasping breath ‘Are you okay Saxon?’ He responded. For the first time, I lifted my head from the bed, capturing his lips in mine, with vigorous power and need. He continued to thrust as our lips fought one another most delightfully. His tongue slipped into mine, there was a sweetness to his taste. His thrusts became faster and faster, his moans turning to desperate grunts as I squeezed his behind in affirmation. His teeth captured my bottom lip, gently nibbling as his thrusts stopped. A warmth filled my insides as I squeezed against him, his weight toppling me as he lost the strength to hold himself up any longer. His hands gripped the sheets next to me, riding out the feelings he had, his breathy moans mixing with my own, as our lips openly pressed together.

By the time his flesh slipped from mine, the candles had all melted away. He lay on one side of the bed, and I on the other, my back now tucked safely into his chest. Our breaths rose and fell at the same time, heating one another as the slumber of the night took us both away.

I blinked my eyes open to feel a heavy fur draped over my body. The sunlight peaked through the curtains as a yawn emitted from my body. My eyes adjusted to the room around me, a new cream dress sat on the chair facing the bed, a rusty orange colour smock lying atop with a pair of shoes sat at the foot of the chair. I smiled to myself, turning over to thank the likely source of the clean clothes. Turning over though, the bed was empty, and a young chambermaid silently fussed around the room. She looked at me, almost pitifully. ‘Where’s he gone? Harald Siggurdson?’ I questioned. ‘He came to me this morning and ordered fresh garments to the room’ she stuttered. ‘Okay…but where is he?’ I questioned again.