Alfheimr Renaissance

It's shortly after noon, when Bodil who is sitting outside carving another chess piece, comes in and say we might have visitors. Three horses are arriving to the farm; two shieldmaidens escorting an obvious high status woman. I have had time to look out the window and see a well dressed woman who gracefully slips off the horse and starts walking towards our cottage. Now what? Iselin and Ciara have straightened their clothes and are ready, so with Alith behind me I go out and receive out visitor. Tall stately woman who is definitely of high birth, with good posture and impression, and I who have no real idea over etiquette here. Should I talk first? Will she? Should I bow?

"Sejdmann Robert Arnesson?" I nod. "My name is Kari Alfgeirsdotter and King Asbjörn Aeriksson has assigned me to be your teacher in language, reading-writing, culture, etiquette and other subjects." she says, making a graceful nod and curtsy.

"Welcome Kari Alfgeirsdotter, I'm Robert Arnesson. Hope you excuse my honesty, but I have no idea what the protocol is here and would immediately need a lesson in how to receive a noble woman."

"Sir has a higher rank than me, and is a Sejdmann, so Sejdmann Arnesson doesn't have to do anything special other than be polite and hospitable. Eloquence is appreciated, but it's not necessary."

She may believe I have a higher rank but she definitely has the attitude, the knowledge and the nice words that are difficult to understand.

"Then I ask Miss Alfgeirsdotter to come in." She's surprised when I hold the door open for her and show her in, but goes in first without sitting down. This will be frustrating before she teaches me enough.

"Let me introduce Miss Iselin Vigdisdottir, Miss Ciara Mawr, and Shieldmaidens Alith and Bodil. Am I making an error if I ask you to sit down on a bench?"

"It's not an error, but since Sir has a higher rank, I sit after Sir. Sir is the one who sits first, eats first and so on."

So I sit down at the bench on the other side of the table and gesture for her to sit down. She does everything so gracefully and elegant.

"Shouldn't your guards come in?"

"No Sir, their orders are to return to the King's castle."

"Pardon me, especially given the purpose Miss Alfgeirsdotter is here for, and I hope I don't make a huge etiquette faux pas, but I would appreciate a more straight forward simpler way of speaking until I've started to learn. All etiquette and rules of address easily become distracting and we have no other guests here, and those in my company have learned I prefer it more informal. You won't make me angry or annoyed if you would give me factually sharp criticism, and I also need to learn the words."

Obviously, Kari thinks this is entertaining, and knows that I'm way out of my depth. She have a charming smile and seem to hold back from laughing.

"Sir's educated, but I understand this is all very new."

"You say I have a higher rank, but what is my rank?"

"Sir has declared himself as Sejdmann Robert Arnesson in front of many powerful witnesses including King Asbjörn Aeriksson. This means that Sir is outside the usual noble ranks just as Völva and Gothi. In some situations, the King will be the lower title, but it is unwise to claim so within the borders of his Kingdom, so Sir should always address or refer to the King as just 'the King' or King Aeriksson, in his vicinity Sir should always address the King with 'King Aeriksson' or 'Your Majesty'. If King Aeriksson adress Sir with only Sir's first name can Sir do it back since Sir is a Sejdmann, and it would be a great favour to get that honor. In general, all sejd users are women, and this is the first time anyone knows that the King has honorably referred to someone as 'Sejdmann' repeatedly before witnesses, and that makes it indisputable. Sir is Sejdmann Robert Arnesson to all the Kings subjects."

Geez, talk about I didn't get that. Our discussion drags out as we get to know each other a little, and I get to learn the words and the way of how to address a higher or lower noble woman and noble man, and also a free man and woman. How to know which is which? It's just something you need to know. Using wrong and addressing a higher with a lower is an insult, and addressing a lower than oneself with a higher rank shows reverence and one considers the person worthy of a higher rank. Someone with a really low rank, as most slaves, shouldn't talk to one with too high a rank without good reason, or in certain situations. Easiest and safest for me is to address with their title and last name, but given my own special rank I can use only last names for Jarls or lower, but I don't need to if I'm there as Sejdmann, especially not if I'm called or 'required' to come, as sejd users that are called or requested to a home have special status. I can then use only first names straight off, and possibly do a little head nodding. It's always best to use title and last name, and I need nothing more than that due to my status.

So nice! Everything just became so much easier.

Keeping track of everyones rank and status is very difficult, especially if you haven't met them before, and it's quite common to have a servant or personal maid stand a little discreetly to the side and whisper in your ear. When I ask if it just isn't easier to avoid nobility as much as possible, Kari gives her first cautious laugh.

Since we will be spending a lot of time for so long, I ask if I can use her first name Kari to make it easier, asking her to use my Robert. It's a bit too familiar because we've just meet, but Kari understands adapting to the situation, which is part of the etiquette, and as the higher status I can ignore and dismiss such rules between us. Had I been lower, she would have had to take the initiative to do so, otherwise it's rude of me, but if we are the same rank, anyone can take the initiative. And so on. It also depends on formal or private setting. But my title as Sejdmann allows me to call her by name directly, especially in private, as sejd users are outside the social structure, and this also applies to the King, but stupid to do so as long as the King doesn't take the initiative. Again about respect and statuses etc.

Argh.

But good.

I like Kari, and she's charming, but I'm very suspicious of her. She's nice to talk to, charming, educated and seem to have a nice personality. She's also another in the long line of beautiful Elf women, maybe a few years older than the others but it may just as well be that she's taller, but I have always had a hard time guessing women's age. It's ridiculously difficult, and not made easier when they're Elves, but the advantage is that people seem to age faster here. I assume it's malnutrition, harder life, out more in nature and so on.

Kari has long blonde hair, almost golden, that reaches her buttocks and is held in place by a gold hair band. Deep blue eyes in a beautiful face. Longer than the others and only about 8-10 cm shorter than me. Graceful body shape, not muscular, fat or slim, but only good proportions and normal sized breasts and doesn't seem to have the muscles and body tone that Alith, Bodil and Iselin have. Kari has probably never done any physical work. Her clothes seem to be excellent quality; a nice patterned light brown dress that ends just a few centimeters above the floor. Embroidered collar with black and gold thread, with a deep wide V-neckline that makes the most of her breasts and the dress doesn't rest much on the outer parts of her shoulders.

It wouldn't be possible to wear a bra under that dress without it being visible, and she has a much larger neckline than what women here usually wear. It's more common with a circular rounding than a deep wide V, but that might just be so for nobility and among the rich. It's probably a fashion thing. She has a gold necklace with small black stones, with a larger stone in a pendant that tries to attract my eyes to her cleavage with contrast and movement, and matching earrings. A discreetly decorated waist belt blends nicely into the dress in terms of color, and shows her body shape. She is color-matched to hell and gives a very elegant impression where she sits with her hands on each other in front of her and completely straight in the back. Definitely a Lady, and Iselin seems a bit awed and embarrassed by just being in the same room.

When asking about Kari's schedule, I expect to hear that she will be coming back here every day, but no. Apparently she's going to live here. Not on the farm. But in here. With us. I'm blanking out a bit as there's only two bedrooms. Of course, she can't sleep in my room, nor can I ever let her in there because of my things and I have to use technology.

I explain the situation with bedrooms and there are only two, but there is an extra bed inside my room so if we move a single bed from the front room and place it in the large common room, Ciara can sleep there, and Kari can sleep in the larger bed in the front room. I don't know how we will solve it otherwise, without someone sleeping in my room, which probably Iselin or Ciara would do, but isn't desirable.

Kari says it sounds like a great idea, but she's probably too polite to say if it weren't, so we move a couple of beds. Which to Kari's surprise and slight disapproval, I help with, instead of getting Ciara to fetch some workers on the farm. Kari's packing has been unloaded outside, and gets carried in. A nice wooden chest that finds a place in the front room as well, but it's quite crowded there now. I bring Ciara with me out in the garden, and I have her sit in my lap as I hope she understood why there was a relocation, which she of course does, but she appreciate I'm assuring me of her well-being and she's happy that her new sleeping place is closer to me. I kiss Ciara's cheek and give her a hug.

We have dinner and I introduce Kari to the same rules as everyone else, and if she doesn't mind, she should eat the right, varied diet.

I spend a bit of the afternoon talking to Kari out in the garden, sitting at the table in the shade of a tree. Looks like apple but could be something else. I'm not a garden person. We talk about a little of everything, partly to get to know her, but above all to get to know the Kingdom I am in. I use the small slate board and she looks curiously when I scribble on it. So I explain that I needed something temporary to scribble on so I arranged this. A surprising but appreciative look and she tries to take notes and draw on it herself. We will use a couple of bigger ones in a wooden frame for my languages and writing lessons, which I really need to learn. I'm too dependent on the others. I also hope that Kari doesn't take it badly, but I wish that Iselin and Ciara can participate in the lessons, but if Alith or Bodil wants, it's fine by me. Iselin's reading and writing also need to be improved, which Kari easily accepts as she's at my service. I excuse myself for having to work on the maps to King Aeriksson and we will talk again a little later when the light isn't suitable to work in.

In the evening my lesson gets side-tracked as I introduce Midgård numbers for all of them and why they are better to use than the usual system here. I've already brought it up to Iselin when she went through their system to me. It's quite easy to show how to divide something, or add fractions easily, and count up and down in decimals when they begin to understand the worth of a positional value system. The basic four arithmetic methods are easy to show. Alith's the one who seems to have the most difficulty with it, but she has probably done well enough before in life with just a little easier plus and minus, and not really noticed the problems. As a craftsman's daughter, Bodil might having seen the problems before, and she's better at math than any of them. I probably should introduce an Abacus since they don't seem to have them.

Ciara feel quite good about herself, and she tries to learn and be more of a use to Robert. It's hard, but every little step helps. Being in charge of the food means that she has something important to do, and she tries to make it a little more special and improve what's cooked for them from the farm, even though she has never been good at cooking. Ciara retrieves when the food is ready and gets help to carry it from the other maids there, a free woman and two slave women. Even the free woman is careful and respectful in Ciara's vicinity, but she understands that. They're the Kings guests, and Sir has such a high status that Ciara automatically gets status as his slave, because her necklace shows that Sir obviously considers her important, and her everyday dress is finer than most free women's.

She talked to Alith and asked about those wooden things, and Alith showed it to her with a smile, gave instructions and also how hygiene must be maintained. Ciara doesn't want to become sick and be a burden again. She also learn about oil or saliva, preferably the right oil with the right additives. But they have such oil so Ciara can use it. Alith helped her make her own wooden thing and the little wooden thing in the back feels... different. She doesn't get the pleasures Alith says she gets. But Ciara intends to persevere in using it for a while every day. She won't give up so easily - she has learned that. She will be ready.

Ciara doesn't mind being moved out to sleep in the common room as it's closer to Robert even if the wall is thicker, and she will know if Robert leaves his room. Kari is so beautiful, well educated and elegant. Even when Ciara was a Lady and the wife of a Earl's son, she wasn't that elegant. She looks forward to learning from Kari, especially together with Robert.

Kari lies and thinks. A Sejdmann confirmed by the King, and a really powerful one, even though he look so normal. The world has changed. Mostly for the better, but still. She has never liked Völva, Seerman and Gothi's. Fjölkunniga and Medicine of course, but much of the others predictions, advice and information are obviously wild guesses and as vaguely as it can be, so it can be interpreted either way - especially afterwards. If it's all lies, what's the truth? She has often begun to think about whether the Gods are real in recent years, because in other parts of the world there are other Gods or just one. Why are there different Gods everywhere? How can people believe in different things and everyone be right? How can people just start believing in completely different Gods all of a sudden?

Sejdmann Robert Arnesson. She has only known him one afternoon, but thinks that the King and his councilors have been too quick to place Sejdmann in a comfortable known category, because he seems to be a much better man, and he is completely different than expected in appearance, but above all, in manner and views. No one who sees him can imagine he is a powerful sejd user. He looks like a really tall stately masculine man, and he has more beard and hair than she has ever heard a man have. Hair on the arms and legs. She had expected him to be a dominating and lustful man, because he had two maids who slept in the same room on the tavern and during the boat trip, and only two shield maidens as guards. As if he wants a woman available all the time, or doesn't want men around him.

Kari understand the lack of men, for all men will look down on a Sejdmann as unmanly - ergi - a deep insult that can easily lead to a duel between two men, but not as serious as ragr. Sejdmann is automatically ergi, because sejd is a female art, and men wouldn't want to serve a Sejdmann because they themselves can be perceived as less masculine or be tainted by the sejd. Like most men, male guards had probably tried to rank themselves, like wolves. Without male guards, Robert is automatically the male of his flock.

But Kari no longer believes that to be the case. He seems too kind, respectful and caring towards the women, regardless of the status of the woman, and out of sheer habit he also thanked the slave woman on the farm who left the food. He seemed uncomfortable just sitting there and being served. It's also as if he's more comfortable around women than other men, apart from the sexual overtones. As if he has nothing in common with men, but he also has very little in common with women. Maybe he sees himself outside of everything? He's a Sejdmann and how has his life been? When did he become a Sejdmann and how was his childhood? He may be used to being alone, separated from both men and women.

On such a voyage, most men would have sought mead and female company in every port, but he already has plenty of the latter. Even if he was only in town for a couple of nights, how many men wouldn't after a long voyage - even with female company - want to go out and meet other men, to drink mead and feast? At least visit the one of the feast halls. They always ate in his room, and even the guards tended to be in there most of the time. A charming and stately man, with power and wealth, who spends most of his time in a room with four unbound women who enjoy his company and likes their master. That should be a simple conclusion, especially considering how his two maids look at him.

It was completely unexpected that he created a new and funny, but practical, garment for women. His name is on every bra, a cursive discreet RobA in foreign runes, as if he has signed his work or put a hand on each woman's breasts. Maybe it's a discrete way to brag, so that every man who sees such a bra in front of them will know that Sejdmann Robert Arnesson was there before them, and that they should be happy - see how attractive it can be. Especially with a Valhalla. I can see the benefits and will buy one to try. Iselin's padded one really makes a difference, and she's glad of her improved cleavage.

They will sell quite a lot of them. Padded for those feeling unblessed. Unpadded for the too blessed. Sport for the active. And Valhalla to the rich. Valhalla will probably be the hardest sell, not because of the price, but since it's wealth that won't be shown. Then again, enough will be shown or hinted at by dresses with the right cleavage, and that would be a way to show wealth. Showing that it's there, just mostly hidden by the dress. Because the woman is wealthy enough to have such clothes, without needing to show it off. Valhalla might change what is fashionable.

Sejdmann Robert Arnesson. His name has spread among seafarers in the harbour like wildfire, and male seafarers are beginning to see Sejdmann differently. In addition to the fact that he has made and shown North Arrows - which is a powerful undisputed sejd - both that life preserver and the hammock are his creations. Hagan was very proud of his vest and couldn't praise its creator enough. How can a man just sprout ideas that way? Like that slate and chalk crayons he casually showed, which he seemed to have invented because he needed something to 'scribble' on. It would revolutionize so much, and Robert knows about it - he just hasn't spread that information yet. How many times has I not seen slate and chalk as art, on buildings, floors or carved, but never thought about that use? How many other ideas has he just sprouted out in a short time?

Not to mention those numbers. It will take some time to get used to, but I can see the benefits, and Robert was so fast in adding a long list of numbers, not to mention all the other methods, and he obviously knows a lot about math, but is accustomed to other dimensions and length units. I wouldn't be surprised if his number system is what is applied in trade, crafts and nobility within a couple of decades. Especially if he sell that simple counting contraption too. How many ideas does he have? Most of what he does isn't sejd, it's something anyone could do, it's just that no one has seen the possibility. Robert sees the possibilities. Is that why he is a Sejdmann? Because he sees possibilities and paths no one has seen before? I wonder what possibilities he sees in Sejd.

How do I get him to see the possibilities and value in me?

It won't be easy to seduce Robert when he has this kind of company, and is so controlled. He seems to be a kind and good man. Rich and will get richer, but he doesn't seem to have ambitions of power or even wealth. Just offering my body to him will only make me lose, and he would probably be disappointed. How can I make him want me to be his?

I have to convince a good man to want me. Someone that might ask the King for my hand, or be important enough to be given a gift. It should be easy to get some man to covet me, maybe love me, but it have been hard as I am kept apart. Getting a good man to give me a good life, and as I cherish to call mine, and maybe even marry me, is so much harder. It's been impossible the last few years, because the King has made sure of it. Robert is the first in many years that I've even had a chance to spend enough time trying to seduce, and I haven't even been able to practice it. The King has just kept me isolated most of the time. Free to visit the town, and shop for his family and friends, but always guarded and forbidden to spend time with men. Sentenced to be given to some rich powerful man whom the King wants to reward or bind to himself. It's hard to understand that I, who turned 22 a few weeks ago, wasn't given away several years ago, and I should've given birth several times by now.

Children.

My future has always been as a concubine, whose main duty is to give a powerful man pleasure and children, whose wife may be barren, who will surely hate me, especially if I produce a male heir who doesn't bind her family to the son via blood.

I always feel dread when I'm introduced to a man at a feast, especially some men. Women talk to each other, maids like nobility, rumours go, and I know that some of those men are nasty pigs whose wives want nothing more than to avoid them, but have no choice but to endure, and they prefer that their husbands take concubines or mistresses just to avoid them. Someone like me. I don't want my first time to be under some drunk fat pig who barely knows what soap is, who lacks most teeth and with a breath that makes me want to hurl. I shudder when I think of such things, because I have to play along and pretend as to not offend my man's masculinity, and thus be a bad gift from the King. An insult instead of a gift. Or my first time might be as an exotic bed slave in some faraway country, being used and thrown aside until the next time. And I have to pretend to enjoy that too for the rest of my life.

He didn't say so, but the Kings choice of me as Sejdmann's teacher, obvious means that he wants Sejdman Robert Arnesson to covet me and maybe try to force me to become his, while I seduce and spy to find out his thoughts, purpose and secrets. In bed or not. If I fail, the King will surely give me to some unpleasant man as punishment for my failure, and as a warning to the younger ones.

Robert is only a bit more than a handful of years older with a long well nourished physique, charming and he seems to really care about those around him, regardless of background, and that might be a way in. I don't doubt he has a well developed mind behind those gray-blue eyes, and he has a comfortable playful way that appeals to me. No dominant, violent or tightly controlling man, but there's certainly a lot of will behind those eyes when he so desires, because as Sejdmann, his path through life must have been difficult and special. He has walked alone through life, spiritually and physically. He's so much better than expected, and this will be my last chance to have some influence for my future and for a good man. It will just be difficult to seduce him...

Perhaps I instead can make him see a value in my continued presence by his side? Make him care about me, about my future? When I am his woman, it won't be hard to get him to take me to bed, and mead and wine loosen most morals.

I may have less than two weeks, and I absolutely must succeed before any powerful Storman or noble family manages to bind Robert to them. They will throw their daughters at his feet and offer good proposals to secure a marriage when they understand his value, especially if the King gives him that land for his Academy, and had they known that Jarl Myrun Skiringe has carried out a good discreet plan to attract Robert's Academy to Skiringsalr and Robert to herself, they wouldn't think for long. She haven't made any known moves toward a man for herself since her husband died all those years ago.

That made me start to re-evaluate Robert before I even met him. It's only through Hagan that small, but oh so valuable, information has reached here; that Skiringe has given Robert a farm and an offer, for Robert has said nothing, and that information seem to be missing in Jarl Skiringe's letter to the King. An Jarl loyal to her King, but who doesn't hesitate to strengthen her own region, power and family if the King don't take the opportunity. After meeting Robert, I'm surprised that she let him leave, and that should be telling about his power. She could have easily made Merchant Danr an offer or similar to hold the ship there a few days or a week, but she didn't. That is not like Skiringe. She has a reputation to be cunning like a fox, and ruthless when it suits her.

Something made her back off, and be careful.

Either way, my future is either with Robert, or really unpleasant, and the days are few.

I must succeed.