Chapter Text
Askeladd had to admit that he felt a ripple of surprise seeing Thorfinn burst through the door to his private quarters that night. The kid looked rough, panting and covered in blood, but whole. Alive.
He shouldn’t be.
“Askeladd,” he growled. He raised one of his short swords threateningly, the blade glinting red in the candlelight. “You promised me a duel.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Thorfinn,” he replied calmly.
He was awake only because he couldn’t sleep, waiting for the alarm of the guards to spread from the King’s bedchambers through the royal hall. Thorfinn was covered in enough blood that suggested more than the single, planned casualty, but there was no such commotion yet, even though it must have taken him some time to sneak from the King’s quarters all the way back here.
Thorfinn was a skilled assassin, indeed. Perhaps Askeladd had trained him a little too well.
“You gave your word,” Thorfinn insisted. “Duel me now, you bastard.”
Well, Askeladd thought, he had a feeling this might happen.
Thorfinn was a useful brat. He threw himself headfirst into impossible tasks, like facing Thorkell the Tall in single combat, or slitting the King of Denmark’s throat in his sleep. He fought when told and killed when told…now if only he would die when told as well.
Their plan needed someone close to the Prince to take the blame, and the blame for killing a King would always result in death. Thorfinn should know that. And yet, he obeyed Askeladd’s orders anyway, all for the chance to kill him someday. Askeladd had hoped that he would’ve grown up by now, but alas. It seemed that Thorfinn wouldn't stop with his incessant demands unless forced to do so.
Askeladd set down the parchments he was looking at, sighing, and stood. Grabbed his sword from where it rested against the wall. “Fine, then. Let’s do this outside.”
Askeladd would give him one last duel.
Thorfinn blinked, taken aback at having his demands met so easily, but wisely kept his mouth shut and turned to walk back the way he came. If he was smarter, he might have questioned why Askeladd would want to duel outside in the open when a great crime had just been committed. But he didn’t. Askeladd shook his head and followed.
And once they were out in the main hallway, he drew his sword.
Thorfinn’s instincts were good. At the sound of metal, he turned fast enough that Askeladd stabbed him through the chest instead of the back, twin blades raised just an instant too late.
Gods, that face he made. All wide-eyes full of betrayal, like he never thought Askeladd would actually kill him. What a fool.
Askeladd kept his promises for duels throughout the years, kept the boy alive, only because it benefited him more to do so. Thorfinn had been with him long enough to know that he was not a man of honor, had seen him double cross and betray countless others, had seen him massacre his own men. Just because Askeladd deemed him worth more alive than dead didn’t mean it would always stay that way.
He pulled his sword back and watched dispassionately as Thorfinn staggered, took a step forward just to fall down, coughing and choking wetly. Askeladd nudged him onto his back with the tip of his boot, lips curling in disgust at the pitiful picture before him.
Thorfinn’s cloak was turning dark quickly, chest stuttering for breath that mixed with blood and leaked red out of the corners of his mouth. And even then he raised his weapon as if to strike Askeladd with what little strength he had left. The kid had spirit, if nothing else. It would be admirable if Askeladd cared about such a thing.
Askeladd crouched down, plucked the weapon from his grip and tossed it aside. Thorfinn’s fingers grasped empty air, his entire arm shaking with the effort to hold it up, and he snarled weakly, hand falling to claw at Askeladd’s tunic. For some reason, he allowed himself to be pulled closer.
“You…” Thorfinn’s expression crumbed and tears welled up and slid down his round cheeks. For once, there was no angry scowl or burning hatred in his eyes. Just devastation, regret, and betrayal on the face of a young boy. “How dare…you…”
“A Kingslayer cannot be met with any fate other than immediate execution. As a retainer of the Prince, it is my sworn duty to defend the crown,” he said. “You’ve been a handy brat over the years and I commend you for your loyal service. Not many men out there would take on the task of assassinating royalty so easily. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble by volunteering.”
“You…sent me…to die?” Thorfinn asked weakly, voice failing, and he took a second to gasp precious air to continue. “You always…sent me to die? You never…I thought…”
First Bjorn thinking that Askeladd actually trusted Thorfinn with the tasks he gave him because he was capable, and now Thorfinn himself? He really was getting soft in his old age.
Askeladd pulled back, stood. Thorfinn couldn’t hold his hand out any longer and it fell limp against the floor. His breathing hitched, slowing, skin growing pale.
“You always managed to crawl back one way or another,” Askeladd said easily. “It’s just your luck that you weren’t supposed to crawl back from this one.”
He flicked blood from his sword, splattering it on the wood. The boy looked at him with such desolation in his eyes, staring silently. Dying. Something deep in him tugged in his chest, and he found his lips moving on their own accord –
“Goodbye, Thorfinn, son of Thors.”
He watched as those bright brown eyes turned dull and faded. Thorfinn’s lips went slack with his last whispering breath, and then the rest of him. Blood pooled around his small body.
Askeladd didn’t know how long he stood there, just staring. Like his feet were stuck to the floor, his mind frozen in those last moments, repeating endlessly. What was it that made him unable to move, unable to look away? What was it that made his hands shake as he resheathed his sword?
Shouts, footsteps. Others were coming, the King and his guards likely found dead. They would be searching for the perpetrator. They would be here soon, and then he would tell them: Thorfinn turned traitor and killed the King. He tried to escape but Askeladd heard him and confronted him, he confessed to the crime, and they fought, and he died. Askeladd killed him.
He killed Thorfinn. He killed Thorfinn. He killed Thorfinn. He killed Thorfinn.
He killed –
Askeladd shot out of bed with a shaking gasp, trembling from the nightmare.
He brought a shaking hand to his face, feeling his brow damp with sweat. His heart was racing, he could feel it pound in his throat, his chest heaved as he tried to calm down. Calm down. Take a deep breath.
The betrayal on his face as Askeladd’s sword pierced his chest –
Quickly, Askeladd got up and heaved into the chamberpot. Nothing came out but bile, burning a trail up his throat as he coughed and spat. He didn’t feel better afterwards, sitting in his nightclothes on the cold floor, feeling oddly shaken.
The worst thing about these past few days was that he couldn’t remember exactly what he was dreaming of once he woke. He was left in sweaty nightclothes that stuck to his skin, a sickly rolling gut, a lost few hours of sleep, and nothing to blame for it except vague dreams. Askeladd was no stranger to nightmares, but they never felt like this, so visceral. So horrid.
Well. At the very least, he could get an early start on the day’s work.
—
There was no rush to prepare the body of a traitor. It took nearly a week for them to string Thorfinn up by his entrails and put him on a pike outside the royal hall.
Askeladd hid a sneer as he stared at the mangled corpse, ribs pulled open and organs spilling over naked flesh, thick rope tying deathly pale hands and feet to the wooden frame so he was displayed for all to see. Let this be an example to our enemies, Canute had said in his spirited speech. Let them see what happens to those who dare go against the crown.
Truly, Norsemen were nothing but savages.
Thorfinn had been up there for nearly a whole day already. Askeladd wondered when they would take him down, or if they would leave him there until he was nothing but a skeleton picked clean. He hoped it would be soon – despite being kept in a cold cellar until today, the body was already starting to smell. Askeladd didn’t want to have to walk by and have this monstrosity assault his senses every day on his way to Canute’s quarters.
Someone from the crowd went up to the body and touched it, grabbing the head and turning Thorfinn’s face towards them as if to get a better look. Askeladd felt a lump in his throat at the betrayed expression frozen on his face in death disgusting action. Who would go up to a long-dead corpse and touch it? How unsanitary.
Then the person – an old man, Askeladd noted – collapsed to his knees and began to cry. He wailed to the nearby guards, his shaking voice mixed with sobs, and Askeladd wasn’t trying to listen in but he still heard it anyway.
“There must have been some mistake,” he pleaded. “This boy was innocent! He couldn’t have killed the King! I just saw him a few days ago, we were – I was going to take him home –”
“Piss off, old man,” one of the guards said unkindly.
“At least let me take his body to be buried in his homeland,” the old man begged. “I will pay you all the coin I have. I will do anything.”
The other guard shook his head, looking a little more sympathetic than his partner. “Look, traitors are given traitor’s deaths. No respect can be paid to his corpse. That’s just the way it is. It would be best for you to leave and forget about it.”
“I’ve known this boy since he was a babe,” the old man argued desperately, looking ready to beg. “I lost him on a voyage when he was young. I’ve been looking for him ever since! He’s the son of a good friend of mine –”
The first guard raised his spear to nudge the old man back, making him stumble. “That’s enough out of you. As you were, gramps. Any more disturbances and I’ll take you to the cells myself.”
Despite the threat, the old man looked ready to continue. Luckily for him, a young man ran up to the scene and quickly pulled him away, profusely apologizing to the guards as they went. They stopped a ways away, farther from the rest of the people and right in the middle of Askeladd’s usual route back into his quarters. Just peachy.
“Father, please don’t antagonize the guards,” Askeladd heard the young man say. A sensible one, it seemed.
“No, you don’t understand,” the old man cried, stopping them once they were a ways away. He grabbed his son by the shoulders and even from where he was Askeladd could tell his grip was tight with desperation. “That right there is Thorfinn. You share his name, he was the one I was looking for when I bought you from those slavers. I have been looking for him for eleven years. I just saw him when we arrived in Jorvik and I tried to convince him to return with us to Iceland but he refused. I thought I could give him some time to think it over since it’s been so long, but now he’s…oh, the way they desecrated his body…! Thors, you must be cursing my name! I’m sorry!”
It had been a long time since anyone but Thorfinn had said the Troll of Jom’s name. What a sad tale. A friend of Thors, looking for his son, and finally finding him after over a decade only to find him dead and massacred. Branded a traitor.
Askeladd sighed and continued his walk. It was just the world they lived in.
The young man – another Thorfinn, apparently – held his father as he sobbed, face troubled. “But he killed the King, Father…there’s nothing we could’ve done.”
“I refuse to believe it!” the old man snapped, shoving him away, ignoring his son’s attempts to shush him. “There must be some mistake, someone must have framed him for the crime –!”
Askeladd passed them. For the briefest moment, their gazes met, and he was surprised to see recognition dawn on the old man’s face. Something possessed him to stop, halting his steps as the old man stared, eyes wide.
“I apologize for eavesdropping,” Askeladd said smoothly, for lack of anything else to say. He was the one that stopped, though, so he figured he must be the one to speak as well. “But your son is right. There was nothing that could be done for the boy. I heard his confession with my own ears. He must have gone mad, poor thing. He’d always been a troubled lad.”
Instead of arguing some more, the man continued to stare at him intensely. Something in his gaze made Askeladd’s skin crawl.
“Please forgive my Father, sir. He’s elderly,” the young man started nervously. Now that Askeladd got a better look at his face, he could tell this boy was a bit of a coward. Easily intimidated, ready to either run or bare his belly at a moment’s notice. How unsightly. So unlike the Thorfinn that Askeladd knew. This Thorfinn hardly even deserved to have the same name.
“It’s you,” the old man cut in with strength of surety that belied his aging body. His son gave him a quizzical look. “You’re Askeladd.”
Ah, so the man knew him by his face. Unusual, and, given the topic of Thors, likely troublesome.
“I’m not used to being so easily recognized,” Askeladd said casually, a suitably awkward smile painted on his lips. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t think we’ve met.”
“My name is Leif Erikson. I was there the day you killed Thors.”
Askeladd blinked, taken aback. He looked the old man up and down, from the weathered skin of his face to his worn but sturdy shoes. So this was the famed Leif the Lucky, the master sailor. The man who sailed all the way to a land far beyond the western sea and lived to tell the tale.
If this were any other meeting, perhaps Askeladd would have taken the time to ask him about the land he found there, if it was anything like the legends of Avalon described, warm and fertile, a land of eternal spring. Alas, this situation was far too hostile, not to mention the fact that Askeladd had given up on waiting for Avalon months ago.
The old man bowed his head as if he couldn’t bear to look at him. “Tell me…did you kill Thorfinn, too?” he asked quietly.
“I acted only as a loyal retainer of the Royal Family would do when confronted with a traitor,” Askeladd replied.
Leif shook his head sadly. “May God damn you, Askeladd,” he hissed. His son’s eyes blew wide in shock, mouth agape. The old man’s fist clenched as he raised it, like he was going to strike him.
So, even a man like Leif was a Christian. Askeladd knew that they weren’t supposed to curse others. But every man had his breaking point.
Askeladd could punish him for insulting the Prince’s retainer so openly. He decided to take the insult in stride instead. Curses from gods he didn’t believe in meant nothing to him.
With a shaky exhale, Leif lowered his arm. “God damn you,” he said again, defeated. “For not only killing the father, but also his only son. May you never know peace for the rest of your days.” And then he turned and left, son in tow.
Already ahead of you on that one, Askeladd thought. And kept walking.