The Prisoner of War (Pilot): Part I of the Serial Novel

Ragne had been helping Kolgrimma pound oats out in the cook-house and had not heard the shouts announcing the return of the longships. She had just emerged and was starting down the path to see where everyone had gone, when Erik came running up from the opposite direction. Ragne was so surprised that she simply stopped in the middle of the path and stood gazing at him.

  Erik ran up to her and scooped her into his arms as easily as if she were a sack of feathers. "Little Moo!" he cried. "Don't look so surprised - I told you I'd be back before the harvest festival!" He swung her around in a circle and began to recite a rhyme about the sweetness of homecoming.

  "Erik, how long have you been back? Please, put me down."

  But he was already carrying her back toward the house, and in a few bounds he had reached the threshold. Once inside, he danced with her once around the great table before finally depositing her on the high seat.

  Ragne quickly scrambled down. Her cheeks were flushed and she was frowning, although it was clear that she was really bursting with happiness.

  "Suit yourself," said Erik with an impish grin. "I can't make you a queen against your will."

  The words rolled off his tongue lightly, but they seemed to echo through the great hall, and they lingered in the stillness long after the sound of his voice had died away. For a moment his eyes met Ragne's. The hall was utterly quiet except for the distant shouts from the beach, the crackle of the fire, and Erik's breath, still ragged from the exertion of running.

  "You look so different," said Ragne at last, when it seemed that too much time had passed in silence. "The summer has changed you."

  It was impossible to tell in the dusky light of the longhouse, but it was possible that Erik blushed a little. "A summer at sea will change a man," he said seriously. "But I hope I am not altered beyond recognition?"

  Ragne took a shy step closer to him so that they were standing a mere arm's length apart, and they stood in silence gazing at each other. He did look very different. When he had boarded the ship three months before, there had still been much of the boy in him. Since then his shoulders seemed to have added almost a third of their width, and she could see that his arms and torso were as hard as those of any man who had spent several seasons at the oars. All the baby fat was gone now, and there remained barely a trace of the puppyish softness she knew so well. The only hint of the old Erik she remembered from her childhood was the gentleness of his smile and the kindness in his eyes.

  Erik shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "Moo-" he said teasingly, trying to lighten the mood. Then, seeing her wince, he began more tenderly: "Little Moo -" but his voice trailed away and soon the silence was once again thick between them.

  He belonged to Gruntal a little less now, she knew; he had taken his first steps into that wider world of politics and trade, of battle and honor and making a name for oneself - the world that would eventually swallow him up and change him into a man with far greater concerns than his former childhood playmate.

  She opened her mouth, wishing to say something that would bring him back to her, something to make him reassure her that things would stay the way they had always been. But before she could speak, a voice at the back door broke the quiet of the longhouse."Can that be my Erik?" Kolgrimma pushed into the great hall, casting a shaft of sunlight into the shadowy interior. "Can it be you, Erik? Back so soon!"

  "There she is, the apple of my eye!" Erik cried. He spun around and danced over to where Kolgrimma stood. "Did you miss me, Granma?"

  "Ah! It is you!" said Kolgrimma, delight spreading across her face. "They said a ship was coming, but I assumed they were just talking nonsense like everyone else these days. You have no idea the silliness I hear from--" but before she could go any further, she had been lifted off her feet and wrapped in a great hug.

  "How you've grown!" she said when Erik at last let her go. "But then a summer at sea will turn a boy into a man faster than anything else." She took a step backward and cocked her head to one side, admiring her favorite of Agnar's children. "And my, have you grown into a fine one."

  Erik bowed as though accepting a great honor. "Many thanks, my lady," he said. "And you are looking lovelier every day - the years don't seem to touch you." His eyes strayed to the open back door and out over the pastures beyond. "Oh! I have to run and tell mother we're home."

  "What? All the way up to Dwarves' Glade?" Kolgrimma cried. "You'll miss the stock-taking!"

  Dwarve's Glade was a clearing at the top of Brokkr's Beard, a low mountain half a mile from Green Helm, where Erik's mother lived in a small stone house.

  "I'll run all the way there and be back before they start," said Erik with a grin. And before she could protest further, he had planted a kiss first on her and then on Ragne's cheek and was racing out the door and across the back pasture.

  "You'll miss the ceremony!" Kolgrimma called after him, but he was already out of earshot.

  Once again Ragne watched from the doorway as one of Agnar's children ran laughing into the distance, leaving her behind.