Saga didn’t like what she was hearing. Or was she being too sensitive? Just when she was about to offer a rebuttal, a wave of sickness washed over her. She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed hard.
“Saga, what is it?” Giric asked.
She shook her head and closed her eyes, but that made the room spin so she sat up. Giric wrapped his arms around her shoulders and put the back of his hand to her forehead.
“You are warm,” he said. “Lie down again and I will get Freydis.”
“I do not wish to lie down. The room spins more when I do.”
“Do you think ’tis the poison still?”
“Nay, it is not the poison. I only feel like this when I wake in the morning and after a while it passes.”
Giric rose from the bed, dressed quickly and left the chamber. Saga sat on the edge of the bed until he returned with Freydis.
“She says she is only like this in the morning,” he said as they entered the chamber.
“Only in the morning?” she asked with a grin.
“I do not know what you find amusing,” Saga said. “I feel like I will lose my guts if I move.”
Freydis sat on the bed beside her, her smile holding. “Saga, when did you last bleed?”
“She has not bled since we arrived here four weeks ago,” Giric said.
Saga pieced together Freydis’ question and Giric’s answer. Surely they could not mean what she thought. A babe was a blessing she had not considered would be bestowed upon them so soon.
“You are with child,” Freydis said as she reached over and lifted Saga’s breasts. “Tender?”
“Very much so,” Saga said and peeped up to look at Giric. The smile on his face reached his eyes. “I did not know it would happen so soon,” she said.
“For some it does,” Freydis said. “This is a sign from Freya. She has blessed your marriage, Saga.”
Freydis left the chamber then Giric took her place on the bed. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “I am so happy, Saga.”
“You are not worried?”
“I am not. You are the strongest woman I know. Our bairn will be as well.”
She rubbed her still flat belly and thought about that which grew inside. She had always assumed she would one day marry and have children, but both had been thrust upon her so quickly, she was not sure she had time to catch up. She looked up into Giric’s eyes. Fortune had smiled on her the day he’d crossed the Firth of Clyde to land on her shores. The sea had given her a husband and now a babe, and she would be sure to thank the gods properly once her brother arrived. For the first time since coming to this place, Saga felt like she was becoming rooted here, as though the prospect of raising children with this man in this place was right and this was another demonstration.
Saga looked into Giric’s eyes. “I already know it’s a boy child.”
He laughed. “You do? How do you know that?”
She rubbed her belly again. “I just do.”
Giric kissed the top of her head again. “Well, my wife and my son, we need to get you dressed and fed. I will not have either of you wasting away.”
Saga smiled at the thought of the extra care she sensed would be coming her way. Not that she wanted to be pampered in any way, in fact, she despised it, but for the first time in her life, she could think about more than what she wanted. If that meant letting someone do something for her, so be it. She would let him.
Giric and Saga reached the great hall as the servants were laying out the morning meal. She had to bite her lip when the smell of roasted meat met her. She tried to hide her revulsion, but Giric was too focused on her to miss it.
“Do you want to break your fast in our chamber?”
“Nay. I will survive it. The babe needs the meat as do I.”
“Babe?” her sister asked from behind her.
