《Viking Tribute》Introduction

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I am dying.

Not today, not tomorrow, but I can feel my body slowly giving up the fight.

It doesn't matter though, I'm ready. I have lived a long and fruitful life, and those of my children who survived the hardships of our existence are adults now.

Death does not frighten me. My husband faced it often and we had many an argument about the afterlife. Despite all these years trying to convert him to the true Faith, he still believes in Odin and his heathen deities. I will soon have proof that I was right. It will quite amuse me to watch his face when he joins me at Heaven's gates, only to discover that Christ is the only God.

My only regret will be not to have seen my family again.

I wasn't born in this place. My father was a thane of good status, in a faraway country we called England. He ruled a quiet little borough, close to Chester, on the Mercian coast.

I was the youngest child, and the only girl. My mother passed away from a fever when I was a toddler, I was always told that I was the spitting image of her.

Maybe that's why my four brothers and my father doted on me. As a kid, I was spoiled rotten. I drove the servants mad, knowing I wouldn't be punished. No harm could come my way, I was invincible. Well, my warrior brothers were. I was a she-devil, yet a happy one.

A peaceful life we were having, behind the old walls built by King Alfred. I liked to wander on top of them, watching the sea, to the despair of Ailith, my maidservant.

However, the old King was no more. In his place reigned a weak man, Aethelred the Unready. Far from the military prowess of his predecessors, he had lost many battles. His last defeat, against the Dane King Sweyn Forkbeard, had cost him dearly. He had to pay an exorbitant tribute to the Vikings to buy peace. I was twelve when it happened, and I can still recall the shame on my father's face at the news.

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Two years passed, and the pirates got greedy.

One of them, a raider from a large northern island, found our little haven. He came heavily armed, with many warriors. We didn't have the forces to fight him. Many of our kinsmen had died or been taken into slavery in the King's wars, and the walls alone couldn't protect us.

We were relieved when he didn't attack, asking for a ransom instead. For ten pounds of silver a year, he would leave us in peace. It was a heavy price, but what could we do when the King himself had bowed? He wouldn't help us.

My father swallowed his warrior pride and emptied his purse for the good of our people.

The raiders returned the following year and we paid their price, only just.

That year I didn't receive the jewels I coveted for my birthday. I didn't complain; we couldn't afford them.

Yet life went on as if nothing happened, until the following summer. Dreadful thunderstorms stroke, unleashing heavy hail. Our crops were flattened to the ground, irremediably destroyed. If we didn't want to starve that winter, we would have to buy out our food.

My father was so sad these days, pacing the Hall and spending hours praying. I could see he was desperate. The Vikings were coming soon and we couldn't pay.

I remember his strained smile on that fateful morning, when I wished him a good day.

Little did I know that I would never do it again.

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