The Briton by Catherine Palmer

smelled of salt and sea and dried fish, and his beard hung tangled and matted across his chest. He tore off a bite of mutton, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve before addressing her.
    “So, you had a safe journey,” he said. His tongue, thick Catherine Palmer
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    with the ale he had drunk, slurred over the words. “Haakon is a good guide. I trust him well.”
    Bronwen tipped her head. “He is your son?”
    “The child of my first wife.” With a stubby finger he pointed out the sandy-haired man at the end of their table.
    “Haakon is my only offspring. His mother has not been long dead—five or six years perhaps.”
    As Bronwen struggled to make sense of such a dismissive statement, a servitor set a large trencher of greasy roast mutton before her. With no ewer to wash her hands and no linen to dry them, she had little choice but to pick up a knife and cut into the meat.
    “How fares your longboat?” she asked, hoping to have some conversation with the man her father had chosen.
    Olaf grunted. “Badly damaged. We struck a reef near the Irish coast. Six men died at sea.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Sorry for your loss.”
    With a quizzical expression on his face, Olaf chewed for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Why be sorry? We can repair the snekkar, and death brings glory to ourselves and honor to the gods.”
    Bronwen reflected on the Celtic deities of her forefathers.
    Then she recalled the man she had met in the seaside hut, Martin, and his lifetime devotion to Jesus.
    “Which are your gods?” she asked.
    “Baal, god of the sun, of course. And Odin, Thor, Frey, Balder, Aegir—”
    “What of the Christian God?”
    “A God who allows Himself to be killed?” Olaf scoffed.
    “Yet I suppose each deity—weak or strong—has some purpose. Our great joy is to die in battle, for no man can go to Valhalla of the gods if he dies not by the sword.”

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    “But surely illness or disease takes many men.”
    “No Viking male may die except by the sword. We do not permit it.”
    Bronwen was taken aback at this information, but her husband returned to his meal as if indifferent to such a barbaric practice. Unable to eat, she listened as Olaf’s men rose and began to tell battle tales—one gruesome, horrific and bloody story after another. The drunken narratives were difficult to understand, but Bronwen was able to make out awful accounts of severed heads and men torn apart, their entrails drawn from their bodies while they were still alive. Soon she had no doubt she had been united to the most vile and despi-cable race on the earth.
    At the tale of the Viking practice of slicing open a man’s chest and pulling out his pulsing lungs, she could endure no more. Standing, she excused herself. Olaf acknowledged his wife with a nod but made no move to stop her. Feeling ill, Bronwen hurried from the hall to the staircase that led to her bedchamber.
    “They are animals,” she told Enit as she entered the room.
    “Worse than animals. They glory in torture, suffering, murder.
    They kill without thought. Their swords swing heedless of a man’s age or station in life. My husband tells me that every man must die by the sword if he wishes an afterlife. Every man!”
    Enit reached to soothe the young woman, but Bronwen brushed her aside and went to the window. “How can I stay here?” she cried clutching the rough stone sill. “They worship gods I do not know and welcome death with every breath.
    Enit, how can I bear the filth, the barbarity, the bloodshed?
    Tomorrow I shall send word to my father. He must allow me to return to Rossall and end the marriage.”

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    “Impossible, Bronwen. You made a vow.”
    She pursed her lips. “I cannot allow that man to touch me.
    Do you hear what I say, Enit? You must bar the door against him tonight.”
    “La, child, stop talking nonsense.” Enit took Bronwen’s shoulder and turned her from the window. “You are his wedded wife, and