The Jarl's Son, Chapter 9-2
The Red Bear, Part 2
The Red Bear.
Gaiur needed to know more about him, to hear as much as Ida could suffer to tell of her encounter. She needed to be sure whether the marauders she’d seen in her nightmares of late were his, if he was the bloodstained man clad in matted furs that led the attack she’d seen repeated in her dreams for weeks. If so, then that might explain why the luring effect of the draw didn’t seem to be working; how she could feel the presence of distant malice in her mind, but couldn’t place where it was, or why she felt it. Thus far, the draw had only led her to dark spirits and shadowy apparitions, such as the strangling fiend that stalked the trader Jerrin or the shadow adder which plagued poor young Erik. Never before had it led her to a man.
Fortunately the passing of morning had finally brought many of Halvfjord’s people back out of their homes. Few had fully recovered from yesterday’s celebrations, but a bit of rest had rekindled their high spirits such that most took up their usual daily tasks with smiles on their faces and pleasant chatter on their tongues. So it was that Gaiur opted for the simplest solution to her problem - she asked for directions. Well, it turned out that the solution wasn’t as simple as she’d hoped. As it turned out, there were three smithies which lived on the southern end of the city. However, when she changed tack and started to inquire after Ida and her infant daughter, she at last found some luck.
Two young men, a skinny merchant’s son and a stout fisherman’s apprentice, both of whom were still in their teens, had become quite taken with the young mother and entered into friendly rivalry in their attempts to court her. Given what she’d come to know of Ida in the brief time she knew her, Gaiur suspected that she was more than willing to string them along in false entertainment of their fancies. Such young men were often foolish enough to spend what little they had on the most extravagant gifts they could muster to impress whatever pretty thing caught their eye. As a cunning young mother who wouldn’t be able to rely on the smithy’s charity forever, Gaiur didn’t doubt for a moment that Ida would happily accept whatever gifts they offered, if only so she might sell or trade them as need arose.
Contrary to Gaiur’s expectations, Ida was not at all pleased to see the young men approaching. Upon reaching the smithy, they found Ida was already waiting for Gaiur outside. She’d been whiling away the time by playing with her baby in the midday warmth. For her own part in that, the baby Selma was all grins and giggles as her mother hoisted her high above her head, only to be swiftly brought down and have raspberries blown into her little round belly. However, the young mother’s beaming joy for this activity quickly died when she spotted the pair of persistent youths. She chased them off with the mien of a rabid dog, spitting angry insults and flinging handfuls of gravel at the two boys.
Being caught in the path of this herself, Gaiur raised an arm to shield her face from the attack. Most of what was tossed were pebbles that bounced harmlessly away, but a sharp iron shard did end up in one of Ida’s throws. Gaiur winced just a little when it stabbed into her arm. Soon after the boys ran off, laughing as they promised to win Ida’s heart on the morrow. The young mother stopped her assault then, giving Gaiur a moment to see what it was that cut her.
It turned out the shard was the bent body of an old nail. The point happened to catch her in the right way to pierce the skin of her forearm. In her frustrated efforts to rid herself of those pestering youths, Ida had thrown the nail just hard enough for it to stick. She looked mortified. Apologies spilled from her lips as she ran up to meet Gaiur, but the Wolfmother merely plucked the thing out.
“Little more than a scratch,” she said, shrugging as she tossed the nail aside.
They conversed for a few minutes after that. Gaiur asked after the young men and Ida, happy both to vent her frustrations about them and get a moment’s break from tending her baby, handed Selma over to Gaiur and explained. Admittedly, Gaiur missed much of what she was saying, distracted as she was by the cheerful babe. Even so, she did catch that the boys had been at this game of theirs for a few days now.
“I wouldn’t mind it so much if they weren’t so damned persistent, but they try wooing me with their stupid gifts and boasting three or four times a day! It’s getting to the point that I dread leaving the shop for fear of having to deal with their nonsense, but neither do I want to loiter about and get in the way of Jakob’s work.”
Ida squeezed her eyes shut and gave a tired groan. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she rubbed up and down its length with thumb and forefinger. “I wish they’d leave me alone,” she exhumed. “It’s difficult enough to care for Selma as it is, I just…”
Her words trailed off. Realization played across her face, and she looked to Gaiur with a weak but hopeful grin. “You’ve an in with the Jarl,” she said. “Perhaps you could have him speak with their fathers about this?”
“I don’t think that’s something Jarl Ostock would take the time to do himself,” Gaiur said. “I could try speaking with Marten, though.”
Ida’s face lit up at the mention of his name. A yearning for gossip glimmered in her eye, and she came in uncomfortably close and said, “Oh, yes! Your beautiful, swooning man! Whatever happened with you two after I left? Did you drink? Dance? More?”
Like most Stenisian women, Gaiur was by no means shy. She was curt and direct; didn’t care overmuch about nudity be it her own or that of others; and in many other ways fit the reputation of a wild woman which had been affixed to her by the whispered appellation of Wolfmother. However, it is important to note that this doesn’t mean she was immodest. Rather, it’s more apt to say that these behaviors were born from the peculiar necessities of her life of rural wandering. The embarrassment which comes with nakedness, as well as the need felt by some to mince words, simply lacked meaningful value to folk like herself.
Amorous pursuits were of an entirely different course, however. Though it would be easy for one to assume that a wanderer of the wilds such as herself wouldn’t be at all bothered by talk of sex, this wasn’t true of Gaiur. The obvious direction of Ida’s line of questioning made her cheeks flush, and she gave a slight grimace at the implication. Naturally this only further emboldened the younger woman, whom Gaiur now believed had more in common with those young men that’d been haranguing her than Ida would likely dare admit. Ida pushed the matter, fishing for copious details about the handsome Marten; a man who, though she spoke so harshly to him outside one of the city gates just a few days prior, she very clearly pined for.
Gaiur brushed her inquiries aside and made for the house. Ida seemed to take her hint, Luthmor be praised, and hurried ahead of Gaiur so she could tell the smithy and his wife that she’d be taking a visitor. Then they sequestered themselves in the room the smithy had lent Ida. Happily, just as Ida promised yesterday, the smithy made no attempt to interrupt their discussion.
Once inside the room, Ida swaddled a now sleepy Selma. Taking a seat at the edge of her bed, she gently laid the baby in her lap. “What did you wish to speak about?” she asked, keeping her voice low so Selma wouldn’t be disturbed.
“Everything you can tell me about the Red Bear,” Gaiur replied.
Ida winced. She hadn’t shown it before, likely because she’d been too distracted with those boys and their shenanigans, but pain played across her youthful features. Her brows knitted into a frown, and she bit her lower lip hard enough to turn the skin stark white. She looked down at Selma, then up at Gaiur, and her mouth opened in readiness to form words. They never came, and she quickly turned away.
“Why do we have to talk about him?” Ida asked.
For the first time since their meeting outside the city gates, Gaiur saw the confident strength the young mother carried herself with, crumble away. Grief and fear revealed themselves not just in the countenance of the chestnut-haired woman, but in the way her hand trembled as she clenched the furs which covered the bed she sat upon. Gaiur sympathized, but she still needed her answers.
Placing her hand gently over Ida’s she gave it a reassuring squeeze. The younger woman looked up at her, uncertain. Gaiur explained her reasons, told Ida of the dreams she’d had the last few weeks. Of the village destroyed in a rain of burning arrows, and the wanton massacre committed by the fur laden berserkers. Then she told Ida what she’d seen most recently, the image of a child bearing woman with chestnut hair being marked by the leader of the ravagers, a man clad in the heavy and bloodstained furs of a bear.
Ida’s trembling ceased, but her skin went clammy and cold. She watched Gaiur with wide, fearful eyes as the dream was recounted to her. She spoke not a word throughout, gave no answer or reply. Just as well, for Gaiur didn’t need it. She saw the recognition in Ida’s eyes.
“The raiders in my dream are the same ones who attacked your village, aren’t they?” Gaiur asked.
Slowly, very slowly, Ida nodded.
“And the man who led them?”
Again Ida nodded, and a low and dreadful growl rumbled from Gaiur’s throat. The pieces were starting to fall into place. The Red Bear and his raiders. The lingering sense of distant malice in the back of Gaiur’s mind. Why she felt no sense of direction from the draw. Ida was her answer to these, the guidestone which would point Gaiur in the direction she needed to go. There was just one question which remained to be asked.
“The woman I saw had hair like yours,” Gaiur began. “Was that you? Did he mark you while you still carried Selma?”
Ida quickly shook her head. “No. No! Luthmor’s voice, no!” she said frantically as she clutched the now stirring Selma to her chest. “I birthed Selma months before that monster came. That’s why Gunvald…”
Her voice hitched, and tears welled in her eyes. One might expect Gaiur to have given her another squeeze of the hand, but her sympathies for what Ida suffered were too strong for such a meager gesture. Instead, she pulled the younger woman into a gentle embrace, tucking Ida’s head against her shoulder as those hot tears started to fall. Even through the thick fabric of the blue and white strap dress she’d worn, Gaiur could feel the wet warmth of those tears.
“It’s alright,” she whispered as she began stroking Ida’s hair. “You don’t need to tell me anymore.”
“No!” the young mother suddenly barked, and she pushed herself free of Gaiur’s embrace. Though her eyes were reddened and her cheeks wet with the tracks of her tears, resolve showed itself upon her face. After a short moment, she continued.
“Gunvald died trying to fight that monster so we could escape,” she said. “I won’t sully the honor of what he did by shirking from it. If not for him and many other men, none of us would’ve survived that day.”
Despite the grim end to that tale, Gaiur couldn’t help the soft smile she gave. “Your husband sounds like a good man,” she said.
Ida sobbed and nodded. “He was.”
Gaiur thanked her for recounting what she could, then rose and made for the exit. However, before she stepped out, Ida called for her to wait. She did so, and when she looked back, she saw the younger woman staring at her with grim determination.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Gaiur sighed. “What I do best,” she replied. “I’ll find this monster. Find him, and kill him.”
To which Ida answered, “Good.”
Thank you for reading.
The Jarl’s Son sees Gaiur the Valdunite return to embark on a new adventure and acts as the follow-up to my dark fantasy mystery tale, In the Giant’s Shadow. The previous story isn’t required reading to understand and enjoy this tale, but doing so will enhance the experience.
“Little more than a scratch,” she said, shrugging as she tossed the nail aside.
"A scratch?" retorted King Arthur "I've hacked off both of your arms!"
I like the way you foreshadow and segue from one part of the story to the next.
I think Varro is going to very much enjoy the hunt and the bear he can sink his teeth into.
I believe that Gaiur's axe is going to feast as well.