Leaning into the dragon's head at the prow of the ship, Svea gazed over the ocean that stretched endlessly before them. Yet, they would arrive home all too soon. She closed her eyes for a moment, embracing the salty air eager to hit her face. She slid down to sit beside the Saxon warrior who was accepting his fate on the deck of the longship. She hesitated but reached into her little rucksack.
"Would you answer questions if I had them?"
"What kind of hostage would I be if I didn't?" The soldier, Alaric, jested in return before nodding his head to give her permission to ask. He wondered if he had missed his opportunity to ask a question of his own. Would you release me if I asked?
She bit her plump bottom lip, her fingers fiddling between two pillaged items sitting at the bottom of the sack, nearly soundless. Finally, she pulled out the book she had found in the bed of the home she had entered with Dragmall.
"What is this?" she asked.
Alaric grabbed the book once she untied his hands, inspecting it as he thumbed through the pages. "It's a collection of one's thoughts."
Svea tilted her head, puzzled by the unfamiliar word.
"A book," Alaric clarified. "It's the thoughts of an individual, written down."
She shook her head, unsure. The Norse didn't have a written language - not completely.
Alaric gestured toward some of the Vikings rowing who bore runes tattooed on their skin.
"What are those?"
"Runes. They make sounds, words. At times, the gods even use them to speak to us." she explained.
Alaric nodded, shaking the journal at her. "This is full of - well, they're similar to runes, only in the common tongue. A booklet such as this is when someone puts all of their thoughts down in the. . . runes, so they never forget them. It's called writing. If you take the information from the booklet, it's called reading."
"Reeeding." Svea sounded it out.
Alaric smiled.
"Reading," he corrected.
"Reading… can you reading this?" Svea asked as he looked over the words again.
"I can read this," he corrected her again, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Svea waited, mulling over the difference between words such as reading or read.
"It's actually quite personal. . ." he admitted, uncomfortable, yet with no idea what the future held for him, he decided he could at least distract himself with the trivial concerns of a farmer's daughter.
His fingers moved back to the first page, reviewing the words before he began to read them aloud for her. He allowed her to lean closer, slowing his pace when he noticed Svea following the shapes of the letters with her eyes, trying to absorb them - to understand. He couldn't imagine she would know which word or line he was on, but she seemed content enough to try.
He neared the final entries of the journal before speaking again. "Girls are not taught to write… somehow, she managed. Her letters are still quite clumsy."
"Why are girls denied this?"
"They're girls," Alaric replied, seeing the blank look in her eyes. She narrowed them then, and though she didn't entirely understand, she knew enough to take offense.
"In kingdoms such as this one, it is sons from well-off families or those trained as monks and priests who learn. Girls are expected to focus on household skills. . . such as weaving." He offered her a small, apologetic smile. "Do you know what weaving is?"
"Of course. All women weave, just as the Norns taught us," Svea replied. "We tend the farm, we fight - "
Alaric listened as she spoke of her life, fascinated by how many roles the women of the North carried. It was strange to picture his own younger sister, who had married into a merchant's family, learning to read or lifting a weapon. Still, he couldn't deny that Svea and other women, such as Asvoria, had managed both.
He wanted to imagine a future where all could learn, because from that would grow conversation worth having, and perhaps someday. . . the end of needless wars would follow.
In that kind of world, Alaric might never have been taken captive.
Now, he felt a sharp desire to read the book to find what he had been missing. Women, multi-faceted, like Svea existed out in the world. So why not in a little seaside village, just like the one where they had fought? Why not the girl he had lost his freedom to save?
He cleared his throat, cracked the spine of the little book, and began.
"Brother tells me parchment is not for girls. So I write here, and I hide it deep.
The monks would be cross if they knew he has been teaching me, even in secret. Despite his warnings, Brother has taught me the letters for my name again. I can write it now without looking:
M O D W E N N A
I like the sound it makes on the parchment.
I wonder if Heaven sounds like names being spoken by those who love you.
Someday, in the Lord's forever kingdom, I will know when our eldest Brother, Dunstan, says it once more.
I hope someday to be a nun. That makes my father happy, yet my mother sad. It also makes the man who visits from the sea laugh. His eyes are like the ocean he came from. I told him perhaps someday I could write for our Lord as well. He laughed more. He does not know that my brother has taught me."
Alaric gripped the book, exhaling heavily before turning the page.
"Today, I brushed my favorite cow. She, like me, has a spot of color behind her ear no one else does.
I'd like to tell you more, my dear friend, but there is shouting near the fields today. Someone has told my father that ships are coming in.
Whoever they may be, I hope they come with songs and not swords.
I ask the Blessed Virgin in my prayers every night to wrap her mantle over our little village, not to forget us or let harm come to us.
I know she must grow tired from shielding so many. Still, if she hears my voice. . . please let her hear it just once more. Let us all be safe. Send us your winged messengers to protect us.
I pray to grow up to write for God. If I cannot, then at least I have written to Him.
When I next see Brother, I will tell him of the visitors coming on the two ships. Only after he has done as he promised. . ."
Feeling cheated, Svea took the journal from Alaric, flipping to the next page. The ink was gone. Blank pages, one after another. She turned them faster, desperate, but there was nothing more.
Only disappointment.
"Why did she stop?" she demanded.
Alaric lowered his eyes, holding out his hand for the diary. He didn't want to say, but she had asked.
"You arrived."
Her nails dug into the leather binding of the pages, leaving small dents where her anger had settled. She stared at it, grinding her teeth.
So this was the price of war: untold thoughts, stories cut off mid-breath, even the girl she had seen earlier in the closet. Just moments before, she had been writing of her God, of her favorite cow who shared her same little birthmark. It reminded Svea of the cow she had loved as a child, before she was taken as a slave.
She didn't remember her own village - whether it had been ravaged by flame and hatred. But this girl, Modwenna, had. Even if she grew to achieve all she wished, Modwenna would always carry the terror she had been subject to, all because of another's war.
A war she would never be permitted, on the basis of her sex, to fight in. . . yet would still be expected to die for.
Svea shut her eyes. The irony hurt her.
She had only done what she knew best, but this little girl was one who might have written stories of her own, would never forget that a woman had stood before her, hiding her away moments before burning down her village. Svea begged her gods to wipe the child's memory of her face, even if they could not cleanse the blood from her hands.
As heavy as the truth was, it pressed down on Svea's lids until she could barely hold them open. She looked to the waves around them. The prisoner said nothing, yet both knew how easy it would be for Alaric to blame her, even though the girl had lived.
In the end, Modwenna was a girl like any other, no matter where she came from. She had brushed her hair that morning, brushed her cow, hidden her secrets. . . and now she had been altered for the rest of her life.
Though Svea did not believe in their god, she looked up at the clouds. The Norns had already decided her fate.
Still, she asked her own gods silently: let this girl with the spot behind her ear grow to become a nun. . . whatever that is.
"I will keep it," Svea told him, tucking the diary into her bag.
Needing to move on from the weight that pressed against her ruthlessly, she looked up at Alaric as she held out the wooden cross she had taken.
"And this?"
This brought a different reaction from her guide into the Saxon world.
Alaric grabbed the cross, gripping it tighter.
Even amongst the heathens, his Lord had not abandoned him.
"Why did you take this?" he asked.
Svea grunted and turned her head.
She had never been asked such a ridiculous question before.
"I wanted it," she replied shortly, then pursed her lips to the side.