(English!) The Rose and The Bleeding Stag

Prologue

Prologue

Norway, 865 A.D.

If that land could speak, it would have told about him. Everything there, belonged to him, to everything he was, to his words, to his soul. And he loved that land, deeply. He had never denied it, he would have never done it, he never would have parted from what he was, from everything it represented for him.

Yet, in the summer nights preceding the raids, he had experienced some unusual dreams: a new land, a faraway land with its rains and the deep breath of its winds that kept on calling his name every night. And every time he tried to ward those thoughts off, by placing them in nothing more than in his own dreamlike universe, that idea would come back to life in his mind. It was as if something, in that land with no name, was calling latching on to him, letting its own voice slide into his deepest and most inner self.
After the third week during which that vision had repeatedly come up during his sleep, he decided that he could not ignore it anymore, not after what had he had seen in his most recent dream: a rose had blossomed out of that wet soil, whispering his name, softly and gently.

And that morning he had decided to set the matter, with words that were less oneiric and fairy, to its clan, to its people, to his father.

Summer raids were certainly not something Northmen could live without, but he had a troubled soul, that was swiftly and constantly changing its direction. His emotional balance was constantly challenged by his restless nature, and he was fed up with that flat life he was living, he had been waiting for something that would wake him up from that dreary state he had fallen into.

The sea knew his name too well, as did each single blade of grass, each grain of sand, each wolf howling in the forest. Every single living creature knew about him: Thor's favourite child, the Prince of Dreams and War, that's how they called him. But this had nothing to do with the fact that he has the King's eldest son: he had made his own reputation with his hands, blood and sweat, proving wrong those who thought he would've died because of his physical appearance. Too short, too thin to be a Viking, that's what they said. Since he was a child, he had to prove that no, he was not "too small" to be a child of the Northern spirits. And now, his efforts had been rewarded: his fame was huge, as huge as his will to prove his honour elsewhere. Everything there was too easy, for him. Furthermore, there was something in that land that kept whispering his name, something that belonged to him. He didn't know what, but it was there, waiting for him to come and claim it as his own. He knew it.