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God's Daughter (Vikings of the New World Saga) (Volume 1)

By Heather Day Gilbert

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Chapter One




Some bulls are just better off dead.
The beast huffs on the other side of the wooden fence. The fence has no permanence, like the rest of the makeshift houses in this camp at Straumsfjord. A stopping place, Finn said, just a place to live until we can search for Vinland. And now we have been here over two years. I hate this empty land as much as I hate this bull.
I grip my seax, its long blade tight against my thigh, and walk toward the bull. Deadly as my knife is, I would be lucky to sink it into the bull's side without being gored or trampled first.
“Get on with you.” Usually my low-toned warning works, at least with the smaller bulls my father gave me. But this bull, his reddish hair dropping out in patches, his horns far too long, paws the ground and bellows.
I hold his gaze, stepping backward on the soft grass. We have two pastures here, and one is far too small. The four cows who survived the winter are crowded into the larger pasture, giving this bull his fill of summer grass in his own pen. Even so, he causes no end of trouble when he can’t be with the cows to breed them.
“Don’t move, Gudrid!” Freydis shouts from a tree on the other side of the fence, her red hair gleaming in the afternoon light.
Freydis acts more like a brother than a sister—always prying into my love life, practicing with knives, and climbing up trees. She knows no better, since her father, Eirik the Red, trained her with swords and bows from the time she could carry them. She’s the only family I have here. Her brother, Thorstein the Red, was my second husband for such a short time. Yet even after his death, I remain part of Eirik's family.
What does Freydis have in mind? If I stand still, the bull might charge me. But I won’t let her risk her own life for mine. She is with child, even though she forgets that fact most of the time.
Surely someone in the longhouse at the foot of the hill can hear this bellowing. Surely someone other than my overly confident sister-in-law will protect me.
The bull plods to the fence and rubs his head on it. Maybe he just needs to scratch. But the top board breaks as he pushes heavily against it.
Freydis inches down the tree, her pale legs sticking out beneath her skirts.
The bull charges. Turf rips and boards splinter close behind me. He’s out of the fence. Freydis gives a distracting warrior shout as I race toward the closest maple and scramble up.
I catch my breath, hanging onto a limb. Freydis stands in the middle of the pasture, her bow drawn and ready. The arrow she releases penetrates the bull’s rump. Our men finally approach from the bottom of the hill, axes and swords drawn.
Before anyone can move, the bull turns on Freydis. He struggles to gain speed, trying to run up the hill. Blood trickles out of the wound, but not enough to kill him. Freydis turns and runs, fast as any wild animal, toward the other side of the fence. She climbs toward her previous tree perch just as the bull collapses, sides heaving, in the middle of the grass.
Before the men reach the bull, Snorri Thorbrandsson positions himself beneath my tree. The man has an uncanny sense of where I am at all times. I tell myself this is only because he’s my husband’s trading partner, and not for a more personal reason. But it’s hard to forget he once asked me to marry him.
He extends his arms, waiting for me to drop into them. Instead, I scoot down the tree, pinning down my rough linen skirts with my hands.
I could have died today in this foreign land, with practically no family to mourn me. Here, it makes no difference that I’m a chieftain’s daughter. Here, I bring water to angry bulls, grind barley, and do countless other slaves’ chores, making myself and everyone around me uncomfortable. For it is necessity, not loss of position, that has forced this work on me.
Perhaps sensing my dark thoughts, Snorri nods without a word, then walks over to help the men repair the fence. Someone pulled the arrow out of the bull, and though it’s still panting and sweating, it’s grounded for now. I’m glad Freydis didn’t kill it, so the cows can keep calving and we’ll continue to have milk. But I won't be the one to feed it again.
Freydis, short husband by her side, makes her way to me. Though he has a name, most of us call him “Freydis’ husband,” for he lives in her shadow. She tosses her red curls, proud of herself.
“Did you see that shot?”
I throw my arms around her to stop her bragging. “You foolish, foolish girl, what were you thinking?”
Her blue cat’s eyes regard me slyly, as if I should know. “I told Leif I’d look after you over here.”
“He wouldn’t want you to do it at the expense of your own life!”
“Well, my fair Gudrid, wouldn’t you be shocked to know what my brother would want me to do?” She glances at her silent husband. “Go, be of some use in this camp, Ref.”
Her mention of Leif brings a picture to my mind—Leif, his soft beard the color of chicks, telling outlandish stories just to make me laugh. Leif, begging me earnestly not to leave his farm at Brattahlid to sail here. I didn’t listen. And though I traveled across the ocean so Finn and I could be closer, it’s still Leif I dream of every night.
Finn and I married two winters ago in Greenland, when I was only twenty-two but already twice widowed. He planned to sail for Vinland, legendary land of grapes, wood, and self-sown wheat, to seal his fame as a trader. Leif encouraged this, thinking Finn would leave me behind. But I was with child and didn’t want to be alone again. So with a crew of nearly a hundred men and three of Leif’s ships, we left Greenland, our baby boy coming soon after we set up camp at Straumsfjord.
“I’m not ready to die yet, you know.” Freydis breaks my thoughts as she hitches her bow over her shoulder. “And the gods know it.”
“But only one God controls these things, Freydis—the Christian God. Who knew the bull would charge the fence today?”
Freydis snorts. “Same as Thor, your God kills whoever he wants to. He’s no different, really.”
Sometimes I wonder at the depth of my love for this wild girl, so determined to fight with everyone she knows. Usually, I don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing my anger. But, as the bull starts bellowing again, everything I’ve seen today builds in me, until my very arms shake.
“I served Thor for years, Freydis. I saw how he warps the mind, bringing nothing but death to women and babies alike. Death is nectar to Thor. The Christian God takes no delight in death, even of the wicked.”
“Well, I won’t serve either one; I don’t care what you say.” Freydis kicks a torn clod of turf at my leg.
A rough shout fills the air. “Go bother someone your own size, Freydis, like your scrawny husband.” Hallstein lumbers up the hill, almost like a bull himself. The swarthy old man is a never-ending curse on this camp. He tries to win my favor now by interfering with Freydis. But I only despise him more for it.
“I told your husband I’d make sure you were safe.” Hallstein’s eyes rove over my body. “We wouldn’t want that vexing bull of yours to hurt you, now would we?”
“Leave us, Hallstein," I say. I doubt Finn instructed this rogue to check on me.
His dark face wrinkles and his jaw tightens: he has no choice but to obey. Not only am I wife of the expedition leader, Thorfinn Karlsefni, but I am ward of Leif Eiriksson, his chieftain.
He mutters all the way back down the hill, his solid form finally vanishing into the longhouse.
“If he had just died on his last trip to Vinland, I wouldn’t have to kill him over here.” Freydis blows a curl off her face and shoots me her winning half-smile. Freydis came here to take lives--to avenge her older brother, Thorvald, who was killed in this land by a native arrow. But, like the goddess she was named for, she shows no discretion in her killing. She hates Hallstein, because he shows her no respect.
I will ignore her today. But I know the day will come when I can ignore both Freydis and Hallstein no longer.

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