The Viking's Promise

TVP | 3

The bag felt like a thousand stones in her hand. It weighed her down until she couldn't breathe, until she had to stop running. Just like yesterday. This man...he was doing things for her no one had done before. He was worried about her in a way no one had been before. He was looking at her and speaking to her in a way no one had before.

And she was expected to see him tomorrow.

Tomorrow, where she would again humiliate herself because she didn't know what to do in front of him. Would he bring her another gift tomorrow? She looked at the bag in her hand, guilt overcoming her. She had done nothing to deserve these berries. He had just given them to her out of the kindness of his heart...or a bribe to get her to like him. But why? Why would it matter to him if she lived or died, if she hated him or trusted him?

Maybe she would find out. Maybe, eventually, if he kept wanting to see her, she could try to talk to him.

Try.

That's all she could do. She knew how to talk, what the words meant, and how to get her lips to form properly to say a word. She had been yelled at enough to learn a thing or two. But actually producing the sound? Her lungs seemed to freeze every time she tried to talk. No sound would come, even though she knew it was there, ready to be let free.

She took the sack of berries back to the other sack, the one she had received from him yesterday. Her portion of food had been eaten, and all that remained was his—though he was never getting it back. Guilt ate at her as she divided the berries in half, keeping some for herself, and putting the others in yesterday's bag. Her stomach ached to just have her face stuffed into the bag until the contents were gone, but guilt wouldn't let her do it.

She hiked it over her shoulder, made sure that she wasn't being followed by the heir, and then hiked the long trek to the village.

Her journey was over too soon. By the time she arrived at her destination, she was shaking with nerves, yet knowing she had to do it. She walked to the stand where she had tried to steal bread from the day before. The second the old lady saw her, she reached for a long stick-thing, holding it out of her protectively.

"Come to steal from me again, have you?" the old woman said, cackling madly. "Well, go ahead! I'll bash your damn head in."

The girl raised her hands defensively, the bag weighing one down. The old woman noticed it, sneering. Before she could say anything else, though, the girl ran forward and placed the larger half of the bread of loaf on the stand, along with a handful of berries and some beef.

Then, as the old woman began to open her mouth, the girl scampered off. She didn't want to stick around for the insults or degrading words. She wanted to do her business and leave—which she did. It physically hurt her to part with the one thing that she wanted most—the food that she hadn't stolen—but...she had to. She had stolen from the woman before. It was only right that she repay her what she could.

Cold set into her veins like she had fallen into the frozen fjord. It was eating at her, tearing her a part from the inside-out. The sack and her pathetic excuse for clothing was the only thing she had for warmth. She had tried to take refuge in the small establishments that dotted the fjords. The taverns, the blacksmith's shop, the stables. Anything she could find.

Yet the second she entered, she was forced out—and she understood why. No one wanted a beggar girl to slow down their business, and that's exactly what having someone like her would do.

No one would take her up for work. Farming. Unloading the docks. Being a maid. Even dressed as a boy hadn't helped her case. She was sentenced to a life of misery on these lands, with no escape.