by Lola Rebel
"The bars are built into the stone, it seems. They won't be smashed down that way."
Finally Valdemar spoke. "No, there's only one way out we need to consider, and that's through the open door."
The others hushed. The criticism didn't need to be said, that the door was certainly locked. If he'd said it, then he must have an answer to the locked door, but none of them could begin to guess what it might be.
"We get the guard to come in here. You've seen him. He's violent. We've got him running for now, but what if we wanted him in here, with us? To show how big a man he is, of course he'd play along."
There was the suggestion. Gunnar liked it, but his mind started to turn. What happened if they made it out? What would he do, then? Go off on his own? Track her down and find her, make her tell him the truth? And then what? If Valdemar told it true, they didn't have any sort of future together. They'd all have to go, or he'd be stranded in a very hostile foreign land.
No, he couldn't afford that. But he had to think of something. It must have been a week or more, even on horseback, to get back to the town they'd taken her from. Why she would want to return to it, he couldn't say. But it must not have mattered to her that they'd destroyed the town nearby. Her little cottage was all she cared about, and that was good enough for her.
Perhaps it would be good enough for him, as well. He was a soldier through-and-through, but when he was with her, he hadn't thought about fighting, about dying. About his future in Valhalla.
He'd thought about children. About seeing them running through a patch of pumpkins, about teaching his boy to use a sword and shield. It wasn't the sort of thing that he'd given much consideration before, yet when he was with Deirdre the thought was… oddly enticing.
He turned his mind back to the conversation when he heard his name.
"You said something?"
"Odin's breath, we were talking about your role in this. It's an important one, are you certain you can handle it? Or are you too busy day-dreaming?"
"I'll ignore that you said that. Repeat it, I'll be able to make it happen."
"Magnus will lure him in with some behavior, sure to set him off. He's the smallest, surely if any of us can be attacked, that will be in our favor. The guard will be able to brag in the bar that he beat all of us into submission if he pummels the boy a few times. Isn't that right?"
Magnus's face was twisted into a wicked smile. "Aye, sir."
"You're right here beside the door. If I stay close, then you should have enough slack to grab him as he comes through. A quick death, and we'll have him—and his keys. The door will be open, and we'll be free to go."
"Interesting enough, but what if he is too much of a coward?"
"That's a concern—but if we wait until the right moment, we can mitigate it. When he's been in his cups, that's when we'll get him. We have already seen that he isn't opposed to drinking on the job. We just have to wait until he drinks to drunkenness, and then have Magnus do his thing. That'll be enough, mark my words.
"But what if it isn't?"
"Then we've got a problem, and we all try to smash it down. Why so many questions?"
Because if not, then we're all dead men, no one added.
Thirty
The sun was shining bright on her back, and the day was the warmest in months, and everything seemed right for her arrival home when Deirdre pulled the horse up in front. She shifted herself off, her bottom and hips sore from the ride, and then let go of the reins and stepped back. What was she supposed to do with this horse? She seemed satisfied to wander and graze on the forest grass, so Deirdre pulled the saddle off and let her do that.
The smells were all familiar, and yet at the same time it had been such a long time since she smelled them that it was almost foreign. As if it were someone else's house, someone else's stale air, someone else's herbs and someone else's flowers, now dead.
She let out a long sigh. There was cleaning to be done, and then she'd be able to enjoy a long day to herself. Like she'd always used to. Maybe she could get one of the kids to fetch her some food from the butcher—the realization hit her like a punch in the gut. Not likely, not at all likely. There wasn't going to be a butcher's shop, not any more. Not here. It was gone now.
She sat down in the wooden chair she'd set out for herself, all that time ago, to sit by the fire. She was going to be sick. The distance, the strain had all made it that much easier to deal with their deaths, but now she had nothing but her little house and the memory of what she'd been surrounded by for all this time.
She forced herself to stand back up, grab a rag, and walk out to the little well they kept out back. She filled the bucket and then brought it inside, wet the rag, and started to wipe down everything in sight. It was nice to see it all coming so clean, so nice. All of her things, as beautiful as when she'd left them. How she would manage it, she didn't know. But she did know one thing, she'd never leave it again.
That was the right way to go, she decided. Then she couldn't lose it all again. She had to toss what meat she'd had remaining. The awful smell permeated the pantry, turning her already-frustrating nausea up another notch. She managed to keep herself together just long enough to carry it out past her little garden and dump it into the compost.
Once she was back inside the smell had already faded, for which she was infinitely thankful, and she settled into the other chair. The comfortable one, but it was heavier, so she wasn't about to move that one by the fireplace. She looked at the rag ruefully, but it wasn't worth it. She'd done the important stuff already.
Deirdre hadn't realized how tired she was until she let herself sit, let the wind out of her sails. She was hungry, as well, but that could wait. It took a real force of effort to push herself up, but she managed it and started to climb the steps to the bedroom, already working the snaps on her ruined dress until it came apart.
She'd never slept with her clothes on, for years, and then she couldn't even sleep in a bed for the past month. Returning to her routine was more than she could have ever asked for. She let the dress lay in a pile on the floor. There would be time later for her to deal with it, decide whether or not it was worth repairing. The blood would likely never come back out.
She slid into her bed, the heavy blanket simultaneously familiar and foreign, like an old friend she hadn't seen in a while, and in a certain sense that was exactly what it was. She looked at the bedside. She was too old for dolls, but she could never let Mags go, either. The last little reminder that she'd had a life before living here, she had spent the last years on the bedside.
But it was a time to get acquainted with old friends. She reached over and pulled the little rag doll off her perch and into her arms, wrapped 'round them tight, closed her eyes, and let herself drift off to a light nap. Or at least, that was what she told herself it was going to be. The sun dipped lower and lower as she slept until it was gone completely.
By the time she woke again, the sun was up. She gave Mags a little kiss on the forehead and set her back on the table. Such a sweetie, she cooed in her mind. Then she pushed the blankets back off and stood up. Her wardrobe was much nicer than having to wear the same thing every day. The same mud-covered, torn, blood-soaked thing, every single day. And a pair of shoes—imagine how that would feel, after all the time since she'd had those! To finally have a stable footing in the dirt!
Already she was planning her day out. She'd have to check the gardens first, of course. There would be more cleaning to do, getting the rest of the house dusted, making sure there wasn't another pest infestation.
The thought hit her like a bolt of lightning. What was Gunnar doing? Was he alright? Had he survived? She knew he had. She'd heard the folks in some of the towns on the way home; news was spreading fast.
There was going to be a big execution in Norwich, and while nobody said they were going, it was supposed to be quite the event. They'd set it well in advance, so anyone who wanted to could come. Very pompous.
Deirdre ha
d ignored it when she heard it. After all, they had nothing to worry about. First, because those men were the very same men who had killed all those good English folks. They deserved whatever they got.
Second, because she'd seen them fight, and if they wanted to escape, how could they be kept prisoner?
She dressed quickly and was out before she could think too much about it, get herself in trouble. But instead of inspecting or cleaning, she found herself standing on the back step of her cottage wondering how Gunnar was doing. Was he alright?
It was one thing to say that she didn't care whether he lived or died. He obviously hadn't cared whether or not she was alright, or he would have come with her.
It was an entirely different thing to try to mean it. She shook her head. No, she couldn't afford to think like that. She was home. This was what she wanted. She had thought they might have some kind of future together, but obviously they didn't, so she needed to forget about it. She checked on the horse, who hadn't gone far. She could still see the girl from the front of the house.
She wasn't thinking about going to Norwich. That much she knew. There was no reason for her to go, after all. Nothing for her there except a few men she'd been kept captive by getting what they deserved.
Them, and Gunnar, who deserved what he got the most of all.
She was already pulling on a coat and packing a bag before she knew what she was doing. Getting the saddle back on the horse was easy, the Blue was a gentle little sweetheart. Getting her going was just as easy, and leaving her home again… she chose not to think about it.
Gunnar felt Deirdre in his head like an itch he couldn't scratch. She had left him behind, that was sure. But that didn't mean he hadn't spent most of the last weeks thinking about her. It was as much a habit as it was something he had to do. Something that she drove him to do.
What was she doing right now? Was she happy? Was she still safe? Had she managed to make it back to her little cottage, the one she'd wanted to return to for so long? If she hadn't, what was he going to do about it locked up in here?
He took a deep breath and tried to move on, but the pool pulled him back. He couldn't sleep—his eyes ached, his head throbbed, and he wanted nothing more than to slip into comforting sleep, but he lay awake in spite of it. How could he get over this? Death, at this point, would be a relief because at least he wouldn't feel so damned tired any more.
He imagined the sight of her, surrounded by yellow flowers. Making sure that they stayed healthy, with her little tricks. She would have little tricks to keep her flowers alive, he knew. She seemed like the sort of person who had a talent for it. He couldn't help the smile that crossed his face.
Nor could he help imagining himself there, with her. Imagining their life together, the life they couldn't ever have. Not any more, not unless he escaped from this prison.
The plan was a good one. It relied on the big oaf of a prison guard, someone had called him Luke, doing what he naturally wanted to do anyway. Then Gunnar would do what he was good at. He wanted to imagine himself as being something worthy of Deirdre, but it wasn't to be.
He was a good killer, not a good husband. A plan that relied on him grabbing a man and killing him before he could raise an alarm? That was the sort of plan that he was best at. Not plans that relied on his help to raise a corn crop and keep the cattle in their pen.
Magnus was the right choice for the target, as well. He had kept himself isolated in the corner, not speaking much. He had always seemed quiet to Gunnar, though that quietness had meant little on the battlefield. In these quarters, though, it would be a signal to the guard that he wasn't well-liked and no one would work to protect him.
The quietness would also signal that he was weak. If he were brought out and beaten a little, what would he be able to do? The interpretation there was wrong. He was a wicked little thing, with a knife or a sword. They had taken their knives, though, and their swords, before they locked the Danes up.
So it fell to Gunnar to make sure that it happened right.
The plan would have been better, he supposed, if they were able to use someone else. Ulf was the perfect choice, of course. He was the size of two men and could have twisted the man out like a damp rag. That by itself was obvious, though. He had the least slack of all of them, and was chained to the far wall. He would have to pull himself clear of the wall to even hope to touch a single hair on guard Luke's head.
Perhaps, if he was lucky, Valdemar would listen at last to reason. They needed to go back home. The men were tired from being out in the field so long. Soul-tired. They wanted to get home to their families, if they had any.
Gunnar had tried to avoid it when they could, but some of the younger ones would still be useful in their parents' harvest come next summer. It would be a great shame to have to lead another tiny group back to tell everyone that their loved ones were gone.
It had been humiliating the first time, and he'd struggled to bear the shame. To have it happen a second time… even if word of the mutiny were to get out, he would never be able to live it down. He'd certainly never be able to lead another expedition with anyone but madmen and fools.
Gunnar drew a breath through his teeth and blew it back out. He tried not to imagine that night with Deirdre, but the thought just made him think of it more. His body was sensitive, every bit of him driving towards a realization that he didn't want to make.
He didn't care what she wanted, per se. If she wanted to be free of him, then she might be able to have that. But he didn't care that she wanted it, he wanted her. He would keep trying to find her, would chase her to the ends of the earth if he had to. Wherever she was.
But his thoughts turned quickly. That was, indeed, all she'd really wanted. He had taken her away—if he hadn't been so desperate for a witching woman to cure his immortality, then he would have left her alive. Would have saved the children, and the three women with her as well.
There was nothing wrong with raiding, he thought. No, the strong got what they took. But killing women had always felt wrong, and he never liked to have to do it. He'd opened that door himself, and left it open for others to step in and do what he couldn't. What he didn't want to do.
She had been clear from the first. She wanted to go home. To be free. She never wanted to be with him. She had given him what he wanted to get away.
He sighed and turned over. He needed to sleep. His eyes stung with tiredness. Leaving her be was the right answer this time. She deserved her freedom. She'd earned it, after all.
Thirty-One
Deirdre's hips ached from the days she'd already spent riding, and she still had more to go. It seemed as if she'd been on the horse since forever, with only the one brief stop in her cottage, and now she was back on the road again with only a few short hours to soothe her aching bottom.
She couldn't even rub them, since that would mean getting off the horse, and time was definitely at a premium. She needed to get to Norwich, and soon. Feeling better, it would take time. She barely had time to eat, even—it seemed like the minute that she let herself off the blue pony, she just had to lay down a second and she was waking up the next morning.
Eating meant forcing herself to find food, meant struggling to keep her eyes open in spite of how tired she was feeling. She'd have rather just slept, but she needed to keep her strength, or she might fall off the horse in a moment of tiredness, and then where would she be?
Nowhere near Gunnar, nowhere near Norwich, and nowhere near saving anyone. She'd be right back where she was, only saddle-sore and with seemingly endless exhaustion. It felt unnatural, even improper to be so tired, all the time. But she knew better than to pretend that she wasn't feeling it.
Her teachers words echoed in her head: Your body is your most useful tool, and it will tell you when something's wrong. Don't ignore it, you're not going to get another. Well, she'd like to ignore it now.
She was thankful for the clothes she'd brought. It drew a little less attention than being blood-covered
and having her breasts practically hanging out, but for a little afternoon trying to help the locals, she hadn't needed to concern herself with suitability for the road. And of course she'd had all the buttons.
It was what let her slip off the horse, tie it up beside the others, and walk into a little restaurant. Deirdre didn't have much money. Didn't have much need for it. But she had enough to get by, and with the way she was feeling a hot soup would go a long way to helping her feel much better.
The woman who took her order was older, with looks that might have been attractive even as little as ten years ago, though she looked as if she had been in a downward spiral longer than that. She must have been a real beauty in her youth. The man behind the bar looked like her husband. He must have been proud to have such a pretty wife.
She looked around the restaurant as they left. It was still strange to be out and in public like this. Without having to worry about what people would think. The place seemed popular, over half the seats filled well past noontime, yet too early for supper.
Deirdre accepted the drink they brought and drank it down greedily. The water tasted foreign, and she had to admit that it was. Not the well-water she was used to, and not the canteen-water that she'd drank with the Northmen's camp. She drank it down greedily.
The soup came out not long afterward, and she started to eat greedily, continuing to look around for anything that would signal some sort of change around her. Anything that meant she needed to leave in a hurry.
Deirdre heard the door opening behind her, turned to look and see who came in. There was something familiar about the woman, but before she could place the woman's face, she had already turned on her heel and walked right back out. Deirdre watched her walk past the plate windows and down the road. Towards the road out of town. Where Deirdre had just come from.
Brigid couldn't possibly be here. She'd been gone almost five years, she wouldn't suddenly be back with no explanation. Besides, it had been five years. It was probably just a woman who looked similar. But Deirdre couldn't shake the feeling that she knew exactly who the woman had been.
