› attempt 2

A soft knock on his door, being followed by someone calling his name. ”Ironside.” He recognized the voice of one of his most trusted warriors. With some force he stood up and walked upon his door. ”What’s wrong?” He asked the male Viking when he opened the door, his eyebrows were frowned. An hour ago he had said that he didn’t wanted to be disturbed for the rest of the night, so he knew that it had to be something serious. ”The blacksmith.” Björn raised an eyebrow and took a deep, annoyed breath. ”I’ll handle this.” The warrior nodded and took a step to the side to let Björn pass by.

He appeared in the Great Hall and immediately drew all the attention towards himself. His shoulders were pulled back and the frown on his face was easily to be read: There wasn’t much of amusement on it. ”Blacksmith.” A deep, raw voice welcomed the bearded man, although there wasn’t much of a sincere welcome audible. ”Why are you here?” Björn asked with caution and looked at the fabric that he was holding in his hands. Slowly he walked towards the man, his eyebrows still frowned with question. Their first encounter was a few days ago, but it was still fresh in his mind. Just as fresh as his meeting with Rhona right after. But he still wasn’t sure what he had to think about the man, or how he was supposed to act in his presence. It were uncertain times for Björn, with Aslaug and Ivar baiting on his position and all the new people that the size of Kattegat drew. But he was good at hiding his uncertainties, just as good as he was with handling the axe that hung in the holster on his waist.

He had to admit that the man had some extraordinary courage, to just show up in his home for whatever what reason. So Björn decided to give him a chance to explain the reason for his visit. The look in Björn’s eyes wasn’t exactly to be called friendly, but friendly also wasn’t the way he wanted to be towards the Uddevalla traitor. The man got from him what he thought he deserved until he had proven him different. ”Ironside.” the man greeted him back and nodded in a respectful way. Björn descended the few stairs until he stood in front of the blacksmith, waiting for him to explain his appearance. ”I am here to make peace with you. I know our first meeting did not end on a positive note and I am here to make up for that.” Björn scoffed.. ‘peace’, the opposite of war. ”If we were at war, you wouldn’t be standing her talking about peace. You wouldn’t be talking at all.” He said with an ice-cold tone in his voice. ”But do speak.” Immediately his voice as well as his expression softened up. The blacksmith presented a package of fabric, and for a second Björn hesitated to take it from him. ”I brought you a gift as a token of my goodwill. If you keep it or sell it is up to you, ofcourse.”

The fabric felt soft in his hands, and eventually he took his eyes down from Svart and focused on the gift. Slowly he lifted the edges of the fabric and saw shimmering gold dooming up from beneath it. He frowned his eyebrows and divided the golden amulets over his giant hand. It were five of them, each one with another gemstone in the middle. When he looked back at the blacksmith, his face had softened. ”I assume these are for the Ragnarssons?” He asked, just to be sure. Björn covered up the amulets again and placed them on the table next to them. ”I appreciate your token of goodwill, and I can see how much work and effort you have put in these.” Björn knew how valuable gold was, and by the looks of it he had used plenty. For a man like him it would cost a huge amount of time to earn it back. ”But I hope you know that I’m not to be bribed. I will still keep an eye on you, Svart. But I will certainly remember this.” When he spoke his name for the first time, he placed his hand over the little package on the table. ”I’m just still curious about how you see yourself here in Kattegat. By the looks of this it isn’t only temporarily?”