Sailing to Borgarsandr, day 11
After breakfast, I ask to be alone in the cabin, and ask them to come back in only when I tell them, probably around noon, and if they want something to knock quite loudly, and wait for my okay before they enter. Alith stands and guards the door very seriously.
Time to study. I boot up the tablet and starts going through what documentaries and I have. It feels nice and normal to use something really hightech again. I believe I have a short documentary series about sex throughout history that I put there a couple of years ago before another trip - an unexpected advantage of being normally lazy, for who cleans the computer before they need the space? I use earbuds and jump a bit in videos, and the series turns out to be in three parts. Victorian sex machines, corsets, and that sex has been used as a cure for 'hysteria' is entertaining, but I jump to more modern times. And there is information I'm looking for. It's just a quick little picture, on a plastic T with copper wrapped around the parts and a quick animation, but the scale on the side makes it so valuable and it's worth its weight in gold. I knew the design and principle, but not the exact size. Details matter. The Dalkon shield also shows the dangers of getting it wrong.
After checking through what other documentaries I have, and confirmed I have a couple I thought, as well as a lot of books that will be valuable, I shut down the tablet and feel so pleased. I thought about starting a game of OpenTTD, but it will just be wasting battery power and time - a lot of time. The battery will last a few more hours, and the powerbank isn't exhausted yet, but it just feels so wrong to force them to stay out of the cabin by playing a silly computor game. I still havn't used the solar panel - I don't want to risk it during the boat journey.
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It's a lazy afternoon and evening, mostly just spent talking with my company, especially with Iselin, to practice language and learn more about them and this world. I find out that Iselin's only twenty and a half year old, born at the end of winter a month before the spring equinox, and been a slave all her life until a few days ago. She was born as a slave, but to slaves with more status owned by a Storman (Grand man), which is someone who owns a lot of estate and properties. Her parents are married, which is uncommon for slaves to be and she's legitimate, and her parents also made sure that Iselin learned to read, write and count so she could become more valuable, useful and have a better life. Anyone who can read and write runes is automatically more respected, not matter how much they use that knowledge. There's power in runes, and with all their other beliefs I'm not surprised that it's viewed as something almost magical, and a form of power. Because reading and writing is. It's just something modern society consider everyone should learn.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Iselin grew up on an estate she had only left twice, both on shorter trips. This is the farthest she's ever traveled. She doesn't really know where that estate is, where her parents are, or if they're alive. She knows that it overlooks a fjord, and that her previous owner Storman Eidr gave her to Jarl Steinnes three years earlier and she arrived there by boat after two days. There are many fjords and bays that fit her description within that distance from Kambsnes. Her parents hoped that Jarl Steinnes would be a good man and Iselin would eventually become a free-neck, and perhaps a lover or concubine. But they didn't know how Jarl Steinnes really was.
We've moved outside to enjoy the nice weather and started talking to Alith about where she comes from etc. Turns out that Alith and Bodil are from neighboring farms and grew up together. Alith's father was a warrior, and her mother was a shieldmaiden who trained both Alith and Bodil, and gave Alith her strong desire for adventure and independence, and Bodil followed along, even though she doesn't have the same desire for adventure and to become famous. Alith would like to become a famous and honorable shieldmaiden, but it's difficult to gain respect and become famous, and without that it's difficult to join a Viking raid or travel. But there are few raiders nowadays. More trade, but it's difficult to accompany those too when space is valuable.
Alith otherwise enjoys just being in nature, hunting or fishing when she can, and also tells us her life would have been easier if she had been born a boy like her older brothers. She would have had more freedom and opportunities then. She laugh a little and says it would also be easier to shoot a bow and hunt if she hadn't had large breasts that are in the way. Iselin admonish her a bit that Freya gifted her beautiful breasts and that Alith should be more appreciative of her breasts. Alith replies that she likes her breasts, and likes how men look at them, and she's happy that she has put rings in her nipples and how they feel under the clothes, but the breasts are often in the way and it's annoying to keep them wrapped.
It's good that Iselin has already informed me of what I consider to be a disadvantage. Being a Sejdmann makes women more comfortable discussing such things in my vicinity and saying things they wouldn't to ordinary men, because sejd's female and I'm outside the ordinary rigid division between man and woman. I'm sort of in between, and it's good I have a big circular beard, because the first impression is that I'm very manly, as the second isn't. But I'm uncomfortable that my female guard so openly discusses her breasts with me, especially when I have them at head height where I sit. I'm thankful when it's time for the evening meal.