//------------------------------//
// The Shimmering (not to mention Fragrant) Path 
// Story: Bifröst 
// by Carabas 
//------------------------------//

Deorcung looked to her husband-to-be and ventured, with a certain hopeless desperation, “I don’t suppose you’re much of a reader, are you?”

Her betrothed, Gestenc, was caught off-guard by the question as he absent-mindedly picked a louse out of his beard. He looked bemused for a moment, before he seemed to realise and gave her a reassuring pat to the forearm. As he leaned closer, Deorcung’s nostrils lodged their umpteenth protest of the day. “Don’t fret, my beloved Thingumy, whatever your name was,” he said, “I have a priest who does that for me.”

Deorcung sighed, and tucked a dark strand of hair back behind her ear. This wasn’t the most promising marriage, even as arranged marriages went.

There were some things to commend it, granted. Gestenc was a rich thane, able to support many warriors — all of whom, it seemed, had shown up to his wedding day and filled the smoky hall and enthusiastically lent their own sour musk to the overall ambience.

Gestenc outdid them all, though. He was an Anglo-Saxon thane, after all, and worked himself to a sweat every day by doing all the role demanded of him — charging into the muck of battle, riding horses till they foamed at the mouth, bullying nerdier Anglo-Saxons to do any heavy thinking required — and then cheerfully marinating in said sweat each and every night.

In hindsight, Deorcung realised that moment during their first meeting when Gestenc admitted he’d had a bath last year, as if baring a deeply embarrassing part of his soul, had been something of a bad omen.

What could she do? She’d developed the curious hobby of literacy as a girl, and had read all the books and manuscripts the monasteries and libraries near her home had had to offer. There’d been fascinating histories and accounts of the isle’s ancient Roman rulers. Apparently, and this had been a wondrous revelation to Deorcung, they bathed. They set up bathhouses and aqueducts and plumbing and all sorts, and Deorcung had shortly after ridden out to see the ruins of one of these bathhouses and learned that the fabulous legends were true.

After giving herself a crash-course in architecture and painstakingly drawing out a set of sketches of pipes and plumbing, she’d gone to her priest with the idea. He’d listened, at least. But once she’d finished talking, he’d then kindly explained that the Romans had in fact been godless heathens, whose hobbies were making horses senators and marrying dormice and crucifying God, and weren’t to be emulated by well-brought-up young ladies.

And so Deorcung struggled to bathe herself as best she could, and endured the reek of everyone else, and found herself due to share the marriage bed of a man who was tantamount to an assault on the senses.

Gestenc saw her looking at him as they stood before the altar, gave her a fond if somewhat absent-minded smile, and then picked his nose. Deorcung suppressed a sigh.

There seemed to be a clamour outside the hall. Maybe it was a storm blowing in.

“We are gathered here today,” the priest before them announced, drawing a chorus of whoops and table-thumping from Gestenc’s warriors, “to join these two in holy matrimo— stop yowling, you rude buggers, you’ll put me off! — to join these two in holy matrimony under the eyes of God. Let us … did I not just tell you all to stop interrupting?”

“That wasn’t us,” a warrior said. “That was something outside.”

“What do you mean? Who’d dare to interrupt such a holy ceremony as this?”

The answer came a second later, when someone outside screamed.

“Bloody Vikings at it again!”

And then the hall’s door was smashed right off its hinges.

Deorcung’s eyes flew there, and she beheld an axe-wielding silhouette step primly past the frame. Was this Northmen? She’d only heard stories about these strange raiders who came swooping down on coastal towns and up the rivers to pillage and kidnap and steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. She leaned forward for a closer look, craning her head over the line of warriors forming a hasty shieldwall.

She realised they were a Northwoman.

Under a decorated helmet, the iron face mask and cheek guards inlaid with fine patterns of gold, the Northwoman’s two dark purple braids swung. Her sapphire-blue eyes gleamed out confidently at the hall, and her fine byrnie of silvery chainmail glittered as she stepped forward. She sported an axe, a brilliantly-painted shield, and a whole coterie of fellow Northmen and Northwomen who came in at her back.

“Good day!” the Northwoman said, bright and clearly. “You have what I’ll presume to be the absolute pleasure of being visited by Sjaldgæfni, Favoured of Freyja. Oh, I’m not interrupting anything, am I? My sincerest apologies. Just a minor gift of whatever precious metal and gemstones you might own just to show goodwill, and we’ll leave you to get on with it.“

Deorcung’s eyes were drawn to Sjaldgæfni as if they were being dragged. To the beauty of her armament, to the clean silkiness of her hair and exposed skin, and as best she could tell from this distance — and this was where her nose joined the appreciation party — her lack of an immediately offensive odour.

If fireworks existed in western Europe at this point, they’d have undoubtedly gone off in Deorcung’s mind.

“Fear not, my beloved … er, Something,” Gestenc said suddenly, his close breath making Deorcung gag and almost pass out. “I’ll see off these invaders.” He stepped past her and brandished his sword at the Northpeople. “Away with you, heathens! Your seductive wiles and godless cleanliness have no place here!”

“Oh God in Heaven, that one on the left’s handsome,” groaned one of the younger Anglo-Saxon warriors. “Oh no, his hair’s groomed.”

“Stay stalwart, lad,” growled the elder by him. “Ignore his clean, strong limbs and kissable lips.”

“Ah, tsk.” Sjaldgæfni shook her head. “An impasse? I do dislike those.”

“I know your sort well,” growled Gestenc. “I battled Ivar the Spleenless himself, and scoured Thorvald Squidfiddler’s raiders off the face of Nossex. You won’t find anything here, Viking. Away with you! I’ve a beautiful bride whose name temporarily escapes me to finish getting married to.”

“Oh, come now. You’ve surely got something to pillage.” Sjaldgæfni was still for a moment as she eyed up the hall and the men inside it. Her gaze was cold and thoughtful, as if she was weighing risks and any possible rewards.

And in that moment, Deorcung made the best and most reckless decision of her life.

“Me!” she blurted, charging her way past confused and odorous Anglo-Saxons, making straight for the startled Sjaldgæfni. “Pillage me.”

There was a stupefied silence for a long moment.

Then Sjaldgæfni said, “Well. Er. Gracious. That’s rather forward.”

“Look, please, just take me.”

Sjaldgæfni looked flustered and took a step back. “I, er, look, I’m aware there’s stories about us, but I don’t, um—”

“No, look. Please just literally take me away in your longship. I’m standing next to you and my nose isn’t threatening to fall off out of sheer protest, and by God, that’s a new and wonderful experience for me. I want it to last.”

There came a wail of realisation from Gestenc. “Oh no! You blasted Vikings! You’ve used your seductive wiles of bathing on my betrothed!”

Sjaldgæfni met Deorcung’s eyes for a long moment, as if weighing her options. She sniffed, and seemed to suppress a recoil. Deorcung belatedly realised her own hygiene habits, pursued as best she could, probably didn’t compare well to the Northwoman’s.

“Between you and me, darling, I was hoping for easier pickings than this hall full of warriors, but I don’t want to be seen rushing off with nothing,” Sjaldgæfni said in a low tone. “Tell you what, if I pillage you, do you promise to let me give you a thorough education in our own habits of cleanliness?”

“Absolutely yes.” Deorcung thought for a moment and then said, hopefully, “I’ve been doing some research on that front. Do you have plumbing? I could tell you all about plumbing.”

“Gosh, you do know the way to a woman’s heart. Tell me all about it after.” Sjaldgæfni winked, slipped her axe back into a loop at her belt, and then smoothly seized hold of Deorcung and slung her up and over her shoulder with effortless speed — her beautiful frame belied muscles like iron. “Here’s enough treasure! Back to the dragon ships, everyone! Odin’s patted us on the head and given us good fortune today!”

Deorcung felt the lurch as Sjaldgæfni turned and started running, was aware of all the other Vikings running alongside them, and dimly heard curses from the Anglo-Saxons and a cry from her would-have-been-husband. “Don’t worry, my beloved Whatchimaflip!” Gestenc wailed. “I’ll put together a warband and come liberate you from their wiles and Satanic cleanliness! Everyone, spread out and muster the fyrd! Let all know the stupid, sexy Vikings have gone too far this time!”

And just like that, as Deorcung breathed easy and sweetly, her wedding day was looking up.