The Unspoken Journey of The Northman and The Mad Woman: Chapter 4
The walk back was silent, except for The Furies screaming in Senua’s ears.
How could you?
You betrayed Dillion.
He is a Northman.
She stole a glance at Thórgestr then, frowning at the expression he held. He was upset, but she couldn’t be sure if it was from anger or sadness. Regret, possibly. Did he regret nearly kissing her?
The thought made her deeply unhappy.
The healer was already inside when they arrived. She directed Thórgestr to take a seat on the bed. He did as she said. Beside her were a few different items. The ointment, proper wraps for his wound, and what looked to be a collection of different dried herbs. There was also a kettle and a basin of water resting by the cold fireplace.
“I have made more than what I will use tonight so you may take it when you leave. The ointment will sting, but it’ll heal faster than without. You must also drink as much tea made from these as you can stomach. The taste is bitter, but not entirely unpleasant.” Senua approached carefully, like a hunter not wishing to startle its prey. She grabbed the herbs with a nod at the old woman.
“I will start brewing it.” She was met with a smile. Senua returned to the kettle, pouring water in it and setting it over the flame of the fire she had created. Fargrimr sprinkled some of the herbs in a cup to help.
His relationship with Thórgestr was complicated, to put it mildly. He was once close with Thórgestr’s father, and had known the younger man for most of his life. Over the years, he had grown a sort of familial attachment to Thórgestr, viewing him much like the nephew he never had. Things soured, of course, when his father decided to take the island over by fear. Fargrimr didn’t hold it against Thórgestr, not like others did. He was just a boy, after all, when this whole mess started. However, he was a man now, one that seemed to be realizing the error of his ways.
The hope he felt when he saw Thórgestr, waiting for Senua’s return was immense. He knew Senua was special, and he thought that if anyone could return Thórgestr to the kindhearted boy he once knew from the coldhearted enforcer he had become in years of late, it would be Senua. Women have a way of doing that. Repairing what had long sense been broken.
These glances, shared between the two of them. Fargrimr recognized them. It was the same way he used to look at his wife in the beginning of their relationship. Equal parts fear and longing. He knew there was once a different woman Thórgestr had intended to make his bride. He did not know the exact details of her fate, but he knew once she was gone, so was the last bit of humanity that Fargrimr saw in Thórgestr. Or it was, at least, until their journey with this woman. He wondered if she knew how her presence healed pains and horrors so deeply seeded that Fargrimr once believed only Ragnarök was capable of destroying them. Everywhere she went, she brought hope.
“This tea, Senua. It helps to heal the body and the mind, but it does not come without some consequence. It can cause hallucinations. Distressing ones.” Fargrimr spoke to her, but his eyes did not meet hers. “I can stay with him tonight if you would prefer. If that is not something you feel inclined to help him navigate.”
His words hit her strong and fast.
He doesn’t trust you to care for Thórgestr.
Of course he doesn’t.
You wanted to leave him to die in the beginning.
Don’t you remember?
“I am fine staying with him.” She responded, pouring the freshly boiled water into the cup.
“Alright then.” Fargrimr hesitated. “His mother was a healer. I wonder if that’s why he keeps smiling at her, despite the pain.”
Was?
Is she dead?
Dead like your mother?
“Was?” Senua asked, parroting the question that was being shouted in her ears. Fargrimr hummed in response.
“One of the best on the island. Before the goði decided to conquer, all of us lived in relative peace. His mother would travel from settlement to settlement, teaching other healers some of her tricks. We were all better for it.”
Senua felt a shiver run down her spine at his words as memories of her own mother were conjured in her mind.
“What happened to her?” Senua felt she already knew.
“For a time, the Goði brought peace to the lands. Protected his people from any harm. But one day, The Tyrant appeared in the settlement. I was there the day it happened. Thórgestr was just a boy. He had been reckless in climbing a tree. He’d hurt himself, and his mother was doing her best to mend him, but he was in and out of consciousness. The Tyrant found them. By some miracle, she was able to hide him under some fallen branches before he struck, but she was not so lucky. He plucked her up, and then she was gone. I don’t think he saw it, or if he did, he wasn’t able to comprehend it. He was unconscious when I found him. It was difficult for Thórgestr to accept her death. He spent a long time denying it.”
Senua breathed in deeply. Something about that story didn’t quite sit well with her. The giant appearing from nowhere to kill Thórgestr’s mother. The Goði’s wife. The first one dead?
“You have known him for a long time then?” She was met with a smile.
“In a sense. Things changed after his mother’s death. In him and within the island. That is when the Goði started taking. We became estranged. This is the most time I’ve spent with him in years.”
That’s why he wanted you to show mercy.
To spare the slavemaster.
To save the boy he knew.
Does that boy still exist?
Not long after, the healer and Fargrimr took their leave. Thórgestr was sprawled out on the bed, attempting to focus on anything but the pain in his leg. The burning in it made his whole body feel uncomfortably warm and his leather felt unpleasantly sticky to his chest. He smiled at her, attempting to appear stronger than he felt in that moment. She saw through it like he had seen through her on the beach just days prior.
She lifted her hand to his forehead. Warm and clammy, it was almost as if a fever had materialized out of nowhere. She set the tea carefully on the floor beside the bed. “Do you want out of your armor?” He nodded his head, failing to find the strength to verbalize his answer.
Her hands reached to help him loosen and remove his top. She set it down gently before picking the tea back up and handing it to him. Reluctantly, he took the cup and drank it as swiftly as he could.
“Can you handle another.” She asked, sweeping the damp strands of his hair back against his head.
“Yes.” He responded, leaning into her comforting touch. His eyes were closed as Senua padded back to the kettle that was currently steeping the rest of the tea. She hesitated, taking one more glance behind her before she changed into linens that were much more suitable for sleep.
She grabbed the kettle and poured him another cup as she settled into the bed besides him, their knees just barely touching. The silence stretched on as he drank. He felt weak in that moment. Vulnerable. He knew from way she was attending to him that she did not judge him, but he judged himself. His mind grew more hazy with every sip.
Shadows grew longer, he felt dizzy. He blinked once. Twice. Then, he was no longer in his bed. No longer gulping down cup after cup of disgustingly bitter tea. No longer savoring every second he felt Senua’s leg pressing into his.
He was alone and cold, wandering aimlessly in near total darkness. While there was some light from a source he could not identify, he couldn’t see anything but the fog swirling around him. That’s when he heard them. The whispers that seemed to grow louder in his ears.
Horrible whispers.
So many voices, some he recognized immediately. Others were not as clear. Altered in only the way an old memory could be.
His father was calling to him, but the tone caused him great trepidation. He followed the sound of his father’s voice confused by the words being spoken. “When we had not heard from you…” , “simpleton”, “Souvenir”. They echoed around over and over again. Still, he marched on. He would be safe with his own father, wouldn’t he?
He kept walking until he came face to face with his father, or, what he thought was his father. The image was distorted, like a reflection in a pond after a pebble is thrown in it. The air had grown so cold, Thórgestr could see his breath. He could see the sword in his father’s hand, too.
“My boy. Why did you have to turn your back on me?”
His blood ran icy and then he ran. As fast and as far as he could. He was in danger. He could feel it like he had when he first came across that slaughtered village with Senua. He did not stop until suddenly he was no longer in the darkness, but falling through branches right onto the forest floor the had appeared below him.
The air left his lungs painfully and he rolled to his back. He stared at the light, scattered by the leaves above him. This time a woman called out to him.
“Thórgestr! Oh, my baby.” She sounded frantic as she cradled his head in her lap, “are you alright? What hurts?” He could not answer her, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to lift his hands up. To touch the face of the woman peering down at him. A face he hadn’t seen since boyhood. He tried to blink away the tears he had in his vision, wishing to see her clearly for the first time in a long time. He was always told he looked more like her than he did his father. As a child, he did not see it. The sentiment offended him, even. To be compared to a woman when he was a man. As an adult, he was thankful for it because he liked to imagine she was still there with him, peeking through his reflection.
His reunion was over sooner than he was prepared for. He heard twigs snapping. He heard his father yelling again. He heard the hysterical way his mother kept repeating “no”. Then he was being dragged away and hidden in the foliage like a baby deer. He could still see her clearly from where he was as she dashed away from him. She hadn’t gone more than 15 feet when his father came into view. She tried pushing him away when he grabbed her arm but she was not strong enough.
Thórgestr felt a terrible wind, heard it’s howl, and saw it conjure what he feared most.
The Tyrant.
Thórgestr watched as his father forced his mother to her knees and pointed his sword right at her back. “Here! I have your tribute.” He watched in horror as that sword was plunged right through his mother. He didn’t hear a scream. He only heard a thud as she hit the ground. Then, he heard a crunch after the giant took her body and threw it into his mouth.
He felt his vision fading in and out. He heard his mother’s voice once more in his ears. “My son, you have always known. Haven’t you?”
He was floundering now. Drowning in the sea, his eyes stinging as he watched slaves and his men sink beside him. They were reaching out to him. Trying to pull him down even further. He was thrashing now, trying to break free from their grasp.
“Thórgestr.” He heard his name through air bubbles in the water and he saw the face of the mad woman, unclear in the distance, stretching her arm to him. His hand reached out to her, and she grabbed it gently with both of hers. He caressed it before her fingers wrapped around his wrist and yanked him up.
He once again felt himself falling, but this time, when he looked up, he realized he was back lying on the rocky shore where he had first fought Senua. He felt her on top of his chest, her knees squeezing on either side of him. However, when he opened his eyes, she was not holding a rock above his head, ready to end his life.
She was stroking the sides of his face, speaking softly in contrast to the yelling he still could hear in his ears.
“Thórgestr. I am here. Come with me, out of the darkness. The whispers, the visions, I will not let them harm you.” She paused, a tremor making it’s way to her voice. “Come back to me. I know what it’s like, to be trapped in the darkness, seeing all manner of horrors. I shall guide you to the light.”
They were no longer on the beach, but back in the void, surrounded by the fog. Their hands were intertwined tightly and he never wanted to let her go. The more they walked, hand in hand, the brighter his vision became until he was lying down in the bed, safe with Senua within the hut.
He was shaking, his words lost for what felt like the one hundredth time that night. She let go of his hand and threw her arms around his shoulders. Senua pulled him close. He collapsed into her, his head resting on her chest, his arms around her waist as they slowly lied down. He felt the shame crawl up his throat when warm tears streamed down his face and into her linen clothes. She stroked his hair and his back, whishing desperately to bring him the comfort he had brought to her the previous night.
Hold him.
He chose you.
You saved him.
“I have you, Thórgestr. You are safe.”
