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Thorfinn woke up screaming, as he so often did, but the sound tore through his skull and almost made his ears ring with a sharp pain. He clenched his teeth and kept his eyes closed as the pain faded until it was just a constant throbbing in his head and behind his eyes.
His body felt heavy, and he was sure he felt the uncomfortable scratchiness of bandages over his face and torso.
Where was he?
Why was he there?
What had happened?
He didn't have the strength to open his eyes, but the smell of medicinal herbs and ointments stung in his nose.
Was he in a sickhouse?
He tried to remember, but the throbbing pain in his skull made that very difficult. He knew the feeling, at least. He was injured, and he was sick. His body ached the way that only wounds could make it ache, and he felt hot and restless underneath the blankets.
He couldn't remember the last time he had been sick, and he couldn't remember why he was here or why he was injured.
A group of armed men had become very angry at him for some reason, but Thorfinn could not understand them, and he couldn't speak their language, so there was no way for him to clear up what had clearly been some kind of misunderstanding. Had Thorfinn not been surrounded by so many people, he would have been able to avoid the sword.
Being attacked like that in broad daylight was not something he had seen coming, of course. They got him across the face, and another stabbed his sword—a sword so much like the one Snake used—through his abdomen, luckily not hitting any vital spots.
That was how he had been injured, but maybe the sickness was an effect of medicines that he was simply not used to. Maybe, if that were the case, it couldn't really be called sickness.
Thorfinn would only be aware of those facts many hours later.
Thorfinn had fallen asleep again, and now, instead of waking up on his own, he was woken up by a gust of wind and the sound of footsteps. Something creaked, not just the floorboards. Thorfinn thought that it was either a window or a door.
"Gudrid?" He called out the name of the first person he thought of. His wife. He barely recognized his own voice. His throat was dry and sore, and when he tried to wet his lips, it didn’t do much. He just sighed and waited for the person who had entered to let their presence be known.
It took a while. Whoever it was stopped for a moment, and then there was the sound of something screeching across the floor. Probably a chair, and then it was quiet again, so quiet that Thorfinn wouldn’t have known anyone was there if he hadn’t heard them enter.
"I heard the rumors that a young, short, and blonde Nordic man with lots of scars had gotten injured around here. It sounded familiar, so I thought I'd take a look."
Thorfinn could, at that moment, no longer bear to keep his eyes closed. His head hurt as he opened them, and he stared at the dark ceiling above him as he felt a bead of sweat run down his face. When he turned his head, he saw that the face matched the voice.
"Hello there, Thorfinn."
He wasn't surprised.
"Askeladd..."
For some reason, Askeladd seemed surprised when Thorfinn spoke his name, his eyes widening just enough for Thorfinn to see it. Then it was quiet again, and Thorfinn looked back at the ceiling.
It was a dream. Thorfinn knew it was a dream. He had figured that out as soon as he heard Askeladd’s voice.
His dreams weren't always the same in the beginning. Sometimes he would see his father; other times it would be any other day with his friends or with his family, whether that was Gudrid and Karli or his mother, Ylva, Ari, and their children; other times, like now, he would see Askeladd. but they always ended the same way.
"You don't seem surprised to see me."
"Why would I be? I see you often."
It was quiet. That was okay; Thorfinn hadn't awaited an answer. He stared motionlessly up, waiting for someone—someone—to grab a hold of him, to curse him, and to tear at him. He waited to fall, just so he could try and climb up again. None of that happened, though.
Thorfinn looked back at Askeladd, not even sure if that face was Askeladd's. There was a chance he had forgotten the details. He sometimes wondered if he had forgotten his father's face as well.
Askeladd's face looked like it had aged, with more wrinkles under his eyes and beside his mouth. His hair was grayer and his eyes a little duller, and next to him, resting against his thigh, was a cane for walking.
Askeladd was smiling. He was sure that that was how Askeladd used to smile, like he was aware of something that Thorfinn wasn't. Something that was supposed to be obvious.
"Is that so?" Askeladd asked, clearly rhetorically, and Thorfinn groaned, which hurt his throat, and he began to cough.
Thorfinn was told as a child that he should pinch himself to see if he was dreaming, because if you felt pain, you were awake. Thorfinn had forgotten that.
Askeladd got up, and a moment later he was back with a bowl of water. He didn't know where he got it from, but he was offering it to Thorfinn.
"Tell me, what's got you in this state, Thorfinn? You got into a fight?" He asked, his voice sounding oddly disappointed at the thought. Thorfinn refused to take the water from him, and he sat it on the bedside table.
"I don't... remember." Thorfinn spoke slowly, wracking his brain for an answer while he spoke. "But I'm fairly certain I wasn't in a fight. No, I don't fight anymore, not if I can help it."
"Is that so?"
"Can you... stop just saying that?"
Askeladd hummed, and he seemed to be searching Thorfinn's face for something.
"You have changed, haven't you, Thorfinn?"
Those words cut deep. They always would. He wanted to change, and he had changed, but not enough. Maybe it could never be enough. Still, every time someone told him that, whether it was Einar, Leif, or now Askeladd, and hopefully one day Hild as well, it made him happy.
"Thank you..."
"Huh, I don't think I have ever heard you say those words to me in all the years we spent together."
"I realized a lot of things since then."
"So what happened after that day?"
"That day?"
"My death"
"Ah..." Thorfinn sighed. He didn't think of the fact that he was recounting his past to what was supposed to be a figment of his imagination, to someone—a dream—that should have already known it all. For a long time, he had wanted to tell Askeladd it all, to let him know that he didn't get stuck in that life and that he had moved on. "A lot... I became a slave for a time, but I’m free now. I learned new things. I learned how to live... I even made friends, and I reunited with my family. Now I even have a family of my own."
"What? A Mrs. Thorfinn and a little baby Thorfinn perhaps?"
"Gudrid and Karli"
"I didn't think you had it in you."
Thorfinn frowned at the clear insult, but he wasn't actually that offended. He wetted his dry lips and prepared to speak again. "But you..."
Hm?"
"You..." he tried again. "You believed in me, didn't you?" At least it seemed like you did, now when I look back on those days."
Askeladd said nothing; he simply stared at Thorfinn as he slowly began to remember moments that hadn't mattered then but had come to matter in the future. Moments that made him think differently of Askeladd and the relationship he had with him.
"You chose me to be your scout and sent me on important missions, like getting Canute that day in the forest."
"I sent you into a forest fire; I didn't actually think you'd make it out."
Thorfinn knew that that was a lie. If he hadn't expected him to make it out, then he wouldn't just have sent him to get Canute.
"And you always tried to change my mind. You tried telling me to give up on revenge," he swallowed. "What you said that day... in the hall as you were dying..."
Thorfinn didn't need to finish that sentence. Askeladd understood. What he had said that day was important. It had stayed with Thorfinn for all these years.
"You believed I could make it here, didn't you?" He asked for confirmation again.
"If you let go of your anger, I knew you could, and it seems you have." Askeladd sighed, like it was a bother to actually admit it. "Even your anger towards me"
“Yeah” Thorfinn sighed, remembering the empty feeling he had been left with when he stopped really hating Askeladd. “I stopped hating you long ago. I mean, I don’t think you’re a good person. You have done so many terrible things, but I’m grateful for the things you did for me,” he said, his voice beginning to shake. It was never easy seeing Askeladd. It always brought so many memories back. “The things you still do for me... even if you’re not really here anymore.”
He could tell that Askeladd didn’t know what to do with that information. Forgiveness was not something Askeladd had ever expected.
He seemed at such a loss that he simply decided to change the subject.
"So, why are you here in Greece?“
“I’m a merchant now, so I’m selling narwhal horns.”
“So you’re a scammer?”
Thorfinn groaned. He didn’t like the thought of tricking people the way that he was, but who was he to say that the horns didn’t have medicinal value even if they weren’t unicorn horns? He liked to think that their value was the same, although he knew it wasn’t.
“I need money. I’ll be going to Vinland after this.
“Vinland?”
“It’s far to the west."
"Yes, yes, I know what Vinland is; even I know of Leif the Lucky’s journey to the new world. And you plan to go there now."
“Yes”
“Why?”
“To escape... and to let others escape as well. There’s no place except Vinland, where slavery doesn’t exist. If I can keep it that way, then...
“A peaceful world... that’s what you want, eh?”
“More than anything.”
Askeladd considered it, humming as he pictured such a place. Thorfinn wondered if it was an idea the real Askeladd would have liked, what with the things he and his mother had to go through. Maybe if such a place existed back then, Askeladd could have fled there instead of fighting alongside the Danes that he hated so much.
“Hm, not a bad idea. Maybe you deserve it after everything you’ve been put through.”
“Not me… It’s for everyone else. I don't deserve peace. Not really…”
Askeladd sighed again, although more dramatically this time. “Did your father not deserve peace?”
Thorfinn looked in tired surprise.
“Of course he did.”
“Then you do too.”
A sound of footsteps can be heard from a different room. It was quiet; Thorfinn had a hard time even hearing it, but it made Askeladd get up, grab his cabs, and look down at Thorfinn.
“I expected something different from this night, but I must say that I enjoyed this talk and seeing you like this, little brat.”
There was so much affection in that insulting name that he had always called him by that Thorfinn couldn’t even be the slightest bit offended by it.
“You’re leaving now?”
“That’s for the best." Askeladd nodded, and then he reached down and placed a hand over Thorfinn’s face. Over his eyes. “And you should go back to sleep."
“What?…”
Thorfinn was confused. Wasn’t he already asleep? Strange…
Thorfinn couldn’t fight it. He didn’t even want to. The darkness, the sudden quiet, and even the pressure on his face made him fall asleep quickly.
He was only vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps leaving before his consciousness faded away completely.
There were no more nightmares that night.
The next day, Thorfinn felt better than he remembered feeling that night, although that had been a dream, so he was not sure how sick he had actually been.
He still wasn’t completely healthy, but he sat up while he held his son in his lab and talked with Gudrid and Einar, who recounted what had happened in the market that caused him to get injured. He was just happy that the rest was safe, and it was only him that had gotten injured.
"Sorry, we couldn’t be here for you. If it were allowed, I would have stayed by your side all night long.” Gudrid apologized and took his hand. He just smiled and shook his head. He was told that the sick house he was in didn’t allow family or friends to stay for the night.
"It looks like they took good care of you, though,” Einar grinned, standing beside Thorfinn’s bed. “They brought you water; maybe to go on your forehead?”
“They did?” Thorfinn asked, looking up at Einar, to see that he was looking at Thorfinn's bedside table.
Thorfinn’s looked and
“Uh…”
That bowl of water...
“Is something wrong?”
"No, it’s just..." Thorfinn quickly trailed off. He remembered Askeladd getting that bowl of water. so how…
No. He shook his head. One of the nurses had probably placed it there. It was only a coincidence that he had dreamt about it…
“No, nothing is wrong. That was kind of them.”