Page 71 of Her Viking Guardian

“My old partner was Camille,” she murmured. “She’s in North America on assignment with Erik. Sven’s second.” Mary’s lips curved. “She and I are also Pretorian Guard columbae, like you.”

I nodded, remembering the discussion in Palermo. I turned further to her with a questioning look, in hope of more information. Mary smiled.

“I’ll tell you the story later, but we didn’t find a secret sanctuary or anything. And more important… Camille and I never found each other on the tree, the way you and I did.”

The idea touched something raw and tender in me. Found each other. On Yggdrasil, yes… and here in the world below, too.

Sven guided us through a set of double doors made of dark wood clad in iron. The chamber beyond had none of the theatrical barbarity of the longship cavern and yet it seemed, if anything, more authoritative. It felt designed for thought, but thought disciplined by ritual and tradition. I saw shelves of books, maps, a long central rug. Lamps burned low behind horn-like shades. The air held beeswax and old leather. I saw a chess set laid out on a little table.

“This is the Hall of Refreshment, lille en,” Henrik told me. “I think you’ll spend many pleasant hours here, as bed thralls have done for many decades.”

But Sven led us to the side of the room, and opened another, smaller door. Inside lay a room furnished in a similar style but dominated by six large, heavy chairs carved of dark wood. In front of each of these quasi-thrones stood a footstool.

A man stood up from one of the chairs when we entered. I instantly knew him as Aksel, from the strange communication I had experienced with Mary during our joint vision. Then I had a moment of cognitive vertigo as my logical brain realized that I could well simply be imagining that I had somehow read Mary’s mind; that it seemed just as likely, if not more, that my subconscious mind had simply put together all the details I had noticed without noticing myself noticing.

Clairvoyance or meta-cognition… telepathy or quantum entanglement… the supernatural or the scientific…

Too much for an archaeologist to contemplate, perhaps, but I found myself fascinated beyond my capacity to express it—and I could see that this man, Aksel, was too.

He looked severe, but utterly brilliant: lean, pale, scarred hands, eyes so controlled they made me think absurdly of measuring instruments.

Henrik put a hand lightly at my back and brought me nearer.

“Ilsa,” he said, “this is Aksel Bergstrom. Among other things, he serves as consort to the prime minister of Jagland.”

Aksel inclined his head. “A pleasure.”

I blinked. “Consort?”

Henrik’s mouth shifted, not quite into a smile. “Functionally the first gentleman of the country, yes. The prime minister is under discipline. A bed thrall like you and Mary, submissive to Aksel.”

The statement landed in me with a peculiar doubleness. First came intellectual astonishment of a political nature: a head of government? Then came the bodily response, immediate and humiliating, a pulse deep between my thighs at the idea of a powerful woman subjected in private to exactly the dominion that had overcome me and made me my Herra’s fuck toy. I felt heat climb into my face and disliked, instantly and fruitlessly, the fact that Henrik would certainly understand the reason for it if he cared to look.

Aksel, perhaps mercifully, showed no sign of noticing.

Sven moved to another of the large chairs and rested a hand on its carved arm.

“We have no precedent for this,” he said. “Two vǫlur, one vision, mutual corroboration. So I have had to improvise.”

“Dangerous,” Giovanna said mildly.

“Potentially,” Sven replied. “But then, Bellatrix, that applies to nearly everything worth learning. Please, have a seat.”

He indicated another of the throne-like chairs. Giovanna settled into it.

“Henrik,” Sven continued, “here, please.”

I saw that the chair Sven pointed to faced Sven’s own, the two of them a little apart from the remainder of the chairs.

Henrik sat where his chief bade him. Aksel sat back down beside Giovanna with the posture of a man preparing to monitor the data that would emerge from a highly unusual experiment. For one irrational second I thought Mary and I might be allowed to remain standing outside the scene like witnesses of some obscure tribunal.

I should have known better.

“Mary,” Sven said, settling back and patting his knee. “Fetch a cunt cloth for you and one for Ilsa, then come here.”

I blinked, unsure what was happening, as I watched my fellow naked bed thrall go to a basket on a side table and take two squares of thick felt from it. She brought one of them to me, and I noticed a crimson blush as she delivered it into my hands.

“They’re to keep you from staining your Herra’s clothes,” she murmured. “Watch me and do the same when Henrik calls you.”