around the fire. A middle aged woman stood as well and came forward. Victoria began to wonder if Jasper had double-crossed her. The men were bearded Norsemen like the one who had her in a death grip. They had been busy with various tasks and held their tools in their hands. They looked her up and down. The woman put down a basket of apples and came forward.
“Lars, put her down.”
Lars let go. Victoria rubbed her arm and tried to look friendly and harmless. “I am lost and looking for someone,” she said.
“I am Sigrid Eriksdattir. Who do you belong to?”
It seemed like a reasonable question. The woman asked it with no malice and only a little curiosity. She was being practical. Victoria would tell her who she belonged to and one of these huge men would take her home. But Victoria did not know the answer. Any answer would be wrong. And if she made up a name there was the chance that family lived just on the other side of the valley. She smiled. “I am Thor’s woman.” As good an answer as any. No one named their kid “Thor”.
“Thor Thorkellsson or Thor Magnusson?”
One of the men set down his knife and rubbed his cheek. “What about Thor Stevensson?” His brother nodded. “Could be Thor Eriksson. I heard he just got married.”
They all looked at her expectantly.
“Ah…” she blinked. She was now in dangerous territory as any of these Thors could be promptly fact-checked.
She looked around the inside of the longhouse for a clue for something to say. Anything.
Sigrid tried again, “What is your name, girl?
She said the first name she could think of that was not her own. “Maggs.”
There was a crash and the sound of breaking boards in an unseen room at the end of the longhouse. The men dropped their tools and rushed toward the sound. Sigrid frowned and sighed as she followed them with her eyes. She turned back to Victoria. “Come in, Maggs. Let me get you dry and warm. We will take you home tomorrow. It is going to storm tonight.”
Victoria was led to a seat on a bench beside the rectangular fire pit in the center of the floor. She looked up to see the smoke disappear through the central hole. Some water dripped down, but not enough to put out the fire. A warm cup of something fragrant was pressed into her hand and Sigrid picked up her basket of apples and sat on another bench. From somewhere behind her, Victoria heard the sounds of a fight. She took a sip of what tasted like warm cider. It was good. Someone was getting soundly beaten in another room. She looked at the woman. Sigrid met her eyes briefly with a half smile then returned to paring the apples. Apparently people were beaten up in her house all the time.
Victoria set her cup down. Now the sounds included muffled cries and groans of pain. Soft thuds and hard whacks punctuated loud curses. She cleared her voice and asked softly, “Is something wrong?”
Sigrid smiled again. “No. The boys have to keep him quiet.”
“Ah,” she said as if that made sense. “Who?”
“Torgal”
“Oh.” Victoria lifted her mug of cider and sipped it as another blow was landed. This one sent a body against the inner wall, causing some dust to sift down from the thatch.
There was a moment of brief quiet, then a door flew open and a man stumbled out and fell against the far wall. He slumped to the floor, breathing hard enough to be heard at their end of the house. He dragged long thick chains from each of his wrists. The ends of the chains still had pieces of boards attached to them.
Victoria and Sigrid both stood. Sigrid cried out when she recognized the man and ran for the front door. Victoria just stood there blinking. This man was not one of the four she had met. This must be Torgal. Sigrid was gone.
The front door was wide open and the cold rain blew in and rattled the shutters. Torgal limped to opening and leaned out, looking both ways before backing in and shutting the door against the weather. He turned around to face her.
She gasped. “Thor!”
He glared at her. “It’s Torgal.”
His eyes were not yellow, but a clear blue. A heavy iron band circled his throat with a protruding hinge on one side and a circle on the other that held a fragment of chain hanging to his waist.