Re: Sigvard's Hall: Lagertha/Ragnar
The anger was there in the back of her throat, creeping over her shoulders and down along her spine. It drew her up straight and tall, rock and metal in her bones, giving her strength. Bjorn was gone. It kept coming back around to that. Bjorn was gone, but Ragnar was here, and that shifted everything onto its side, its head. It changed things.
She closed her eyes and remembered what it was like to stand with a man who respected her - not only as a wife, but as a warrior. Sigvard had never respected that part of who she was, had only wanted her to sit quietly at his side, lay quietly in his bed. And she had. For four long years, she had. He may not have remembered what she was (warrior, shieldmaiden), but she remembered.
When she opened her eyes again, things had changed. Her eyes were sharp and heavy with her anger. Ragnar had moved closer, hand extended. Sigvard breathed heavily in his own drunken emotion, the stench of ale and his breath rancid in the air between them. The people sat with resignation and interest and fear on their faces. She saw all of it in that first second, and then her gaze locked on Sigvard. She stared at him as she dragged her fingers (two scarlet paths in their wake) along the side of her face. Without dropping her eyes, without looking over, she reached out to touch her fingers to Ragnar's palm, leaving the mark of her blood there on his skin.
"You claim me as your wife," she said, voice lower and dangerous. Not that Sigvard realized or recognized the hatred and anger within it. "Yet the man I divorced has more respect for me than you, husband." Her voice and face twisted with distaste at calling him that. "You have struck me more than once. You have tried to force yourself on me in our bed. ...I have killed men for less." The truth of it was written in her stance, fighter beneath the soft and rich costume of an Earl's wife. "I told you once that if you struck me again, I would take your hands. And I did not, the next time it happened." The threat of today hung in the hall.
"You are a disgrace of leader. A mockery of a husband. Wherever my son is, I am glad he is no longer here to witness your lack of dignity. You are too low to even be called a man." The last words were forced from her mouth filled with disgust.
Sigvard's face had grown blotchy red as she spoke to him, sputtering as he searched for his own response. And while her words stayed low (though audible to everyone in the hall), he began to speak over her, his own voice rising. He called her things that had people's eyes widening in shock, insulted Ragnar, insulted their son. Her jaw clenched at that, but she did not move until he reached for her, intending to grab her, haul her away from the table, strike her again until she remembered her place. But she moved first, quicker in her battle-nerves and sobriety.
The knife that had been next to her plate on the table was suddenly buried to its hilt between two of Sigvard's ribs. And she stared at him calmly, as if she hadn't even moved, though her fingers still clenched its handle, twisting the blade until it scraped against bone, the man's sounds of pain beginning to fill the hall.