For his part, the king only blinked but seemed to take no offense. “You and I have, I think, things to discuss.” He smiled a smile that seemed only for her. She’d seen it often, directed nowhere else. It had a kind of fatherliness to it.
“I not—” Hearing a mistake she made often, she checked her sentence and tried again. “I do not understand. Your Majesty.”
She had tested him as far as his patience would allow. “You’ll join me in the gardens after our meal, Astrid.”
Sitting at the family table with a mangled bird on her plate, dressed in a light wool gown, with silver threads woven into her braids and a large blue stone sparkling on her finger, Astrid was keenly aware of the limits of her power. Even the restoration of her leather breeches and sturdy boots couldn’t armor her against the stabs of all the eyes around her.
She held his look for a few seconds more, and then, with a single nod, agreed.
~oOo~
The Pleasaunce was a large green space on the south side of the castle, where servants tended plants grown for no purpose but their beauty. Long paths of small, sparkling-white pebbles crossed through the patches of green. Some of the plants bore flowers in bright colors and others were only green, dozens and dozens of differing shades and patterns. At points along the paths were trees and wooden benches, and strollers could sit and do nothing but look on the beauty, feel the sun, and smell the rich tangle of scents in the air.
It was one of the first places she’d seen of the castle grounds. Leofric had brought her to the Pleasaunce shortly after she’d agreed to be dressed in the clothes of the women here. She liked it; it was quiet and pretty, and, although the nature had been forcefully arranged by human hands, it was the most natural place within the castle grounds.
Her arm was wrapped in the king’s, and his other hand lay on hers, so that she felt almost bound to him. They walked along the white path, their feet crunching over the pebbles, and they were well into the garden, in privacy, before he spoke.
“I wish to tell you about my Dreda,” he said without looking at her.
But she looked at him. She tensed, worried even more about the talk he wanted to have while they walked, and where it would lead them.
He patted her hand. “Fret not, child. I mean you no harm. Quite the other, in fact. I think you and I have air to clear between us.”
Still he hadn’t turned to her. He kept his eyes on the path before him.
“The queen, my beloved wife, was called Dreda as well. She died bringing our daughter into the world. Eadric and Leofric were already well grown, and Dreda was too far along in life to bear another child. We hadn’t thought it possible, or we would have been more careful. Her final carrying was difficult, but she bore it with the graceful serenity and sweet spirit that was her nature. She was a woman of deep faith—not ostentatious, or for the eyes of others. Simply her own love of the Lord. I believe that the Lord let her live on in our daughter, whom I named for her. The instant I saw her eyes, exactly like her mother’s, even while my dearest one lay lifeless on the bed, I felt a peace under my grief. I knew she was still with me, and that she was with our daughter.”
He sighed and was quiet for a time. As they walked on, Astrid tried to understand his intention in opening himself so wide to her.
“As Dreda grew, I knew I was right. She had so much of her mother in her. Such a good heart and a kind spirit, such enthusiasm for life. And already, so young, she had a true faith. Not the kind that is learned, but the kind that is known. From the day of her birth, she lighted my way and kept me from the darkness of a life without her mother.”
They came upon a bench, and the king gestured that Astrid should sit. She did, and he sat beside her. He picked up her hand. The diffuse sunlight of a partly cloudy day hit the stone in her ring and threw soft rays of light over them.
“When I lost my daughter, I lost my wife as well. The grief I felt…is my own, and I’ll not describe it. But I felt an unspooling of my mind. All I knew was grief. And the way she died…I needed someone to know her pain and my own. That someone was you.”
Astrid tried to take her hand back, but he clamped down, and she would have had to fight to free herself. She was prepared to do it; she did not want to talk about the black place with the man who’d put her there.
Before she could, he said, “Please.”
She relented, but said, “I don’t know why you tell to me this.”
“Because I seek a forgiveness I have no right to have. What I did to you was wrong. Leofric showed me that, but knowing you has proved it. It was an affront to the Lord, and it was against my better judgment, and most of all, it was an abomination to the memory of my wife and child, in whose name I did it. I know what you suffered, and I am deeply sorry.”
“You not—do not—know. You can’t know.”
“You’re right, Astrid. I can’t. But I can regret. Even before I knew that you tried to help Dreda, and that you held the man who hurt her to justice, I regretted. Now, my belly is on fire with remorse. My knees bleed from my prayers. The Lord has forgiven me. In His bounty, He asks only repentance. What would you ask of me?”
Oh, how she hated this god, who would forgive a man for a wrong not done to him and call it enough, who would not seek redress for the injured. As if no one mattered in the world but himself. Her gods would sanction vengeance. Would demand it.
“There is nothing.”
The king’s shoulders sagged. “You have no understanding in your heart for a grieving father?”
“Why you—do you—care? You are king. I have no power over you.”
“You do, Astrid. You are wife to my son. You are my family. Leofric loves you with the fire that was my love for his mother. He loves you body and soul. I would have only love among us all. You have great power over all of us, Astrid of the North.”
Before she could answer, a guard ran toward them. He stopped before them and bowed low, panting. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but word has come from Garmwood. There are raiders at the western shore. Eight ships.”
“Eight!” the king exclaimed.
“Yes, Sire.” The guard’s voice quavered. “They bear the same sails as before, and more besides.”
Eight ships. They had come for her. Mihkel had told Leif, and her people had come for her. She knew it for a certainty. And they’d brought more than a raiding party.
They’d brought a war.
~oOo~
At the king’s behest, Leofric asked Astrid to ride out and parley with the raiders, before they could advance on the castle. He knew what he risked to ask her, and it was a true risk. The thought that her people were again on the same ground with her, that they had never intentionally left her to her fate, and that they’d come for her at once—that thought drew her and made her ache for what she’d lost. She didn’t know whether she’d ride to the camp to parley for her husband and his people or to rejoin her friends and her own.
But the king knew there was little other choice than to send the one person in his realm who could speak with an invasion of greater number than the soldiers he had in the castle battalion. If he sent the one they’d come for, they wouldn’t strike.
Unless Astrid turned on the king once she reached the camp.
Leofric trusted that she wouldn’t, but as she approached the camp, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. She felt loyalty to both sides, but her draw was toward home.
She knew the king’s soldiers followed her not so far behind. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. They hadn’t trusted her so far as that.
Dressed in a blue gown of light wool for warm weather, her leather breeches and good boots under its split skirt and a boiled leather corset over its bodice, Astrid rode her bay mare out of the castle wood and into the clearing near Garmwood. She carried no weapon; since losing her dagger on the day of the market, she’d had none to call her own. If she had need of defense, she supposed, there was an army at her back and another before her.
She heard the horn that announced the coming of a rider. Her.
The camp, twice the size of the first, was staked within sight of that burnt relic. Astrid understood this—to look on the memory of an outrage was to keep the fires of vengeance stoked. She saw the shields of Vali’s people and of Leif’s—and of the jarls between their lands as well: Ivar and Finn.
Raiders amassed near the camp entrance, and she saw Leif move through the crowd, looking as he ever did. Her heart beat so hard and fast in her chest that she could hear it in her ears. Leif. Her friend. Gods, how she’d missed him.
She didn’t see Vali or Brenna, but they had to be there. Vali, at the least. Some of the raiders bore the shield of his people, with the red eye.
Jaan was there. And Ulv. Ulv, who disliked raiding, had come this time. For her.
She dismounted outside the camp boundary and set her horse’s reins. Leif, his eyes wide and serious, came through the camp entrance. He held no weapon or shield. He walked straight to her and, with no word at all, enfolded her in his arms.
“We thought you in Valhalla.” He spoke into her hair.
She clutched him close and swallowed her heart back to its place. “I know. I thought myself abandoned.”
He let her go. “Never, Astrid. We’d have died to bring you home.” He raised his voice so that the camp could hear. “And now we’ll kill everyone who tore us apart!”
A roar went up among her people.
She saw Vali coming through the gathered raiders. He stopped at the entrance of the camp, leaving Astrid and her best friend to make their reunion. But he smiled at her, and she nodded in answer.
“The king’s army followed me. I don’t know how many, but as many as he had, I expect. The king fears I will turn on him and tell you all I know.”
“And will you?” He leaned back and examined her from head to toe. “You don’t seem ill used. Mihkel told that you are wedded and with child. I could not believe it, and to look on you, I can’t know what is true. Have you made your home among these people?”
“I had no choice. I was alone, and very ill used. I will show you scars if proof you need. Now I’m wedded to the king’s son. I lost the child before it could be born.”
Leif had experienced the loss of many children. “I am sorry to hear that. It seems we have much to talk about, my friend.” He hooked his big arm around her shoulders and led her into the camp.
When she got to Vali, he spread his arms wide, and Astrid went to hug him. His massive arms closed around her and squeezed. “Astrid, my friend. The gods are great to give you back to us.”
She didn’t think she’d ever hugged Vali before—or Leif, for that matter.
And then she was embraced by an entire camp, all of her old friends, and even people she didn’t know, crushing in around her, celebrating her return to them.
Had she returned to them? Was she home? If she was, why didn’t she feel the elation she’d dreamed of? Why hadn’t calm security claimed her?
Why didn’t she feel like she was home?
While her people still buffeted her with glad tidings, a horn blew—announcing the coming of the king’s army. They all quieted and dispersed, seeking their weapons and shields. With no weapon to claim, Astrid stood alone near the camp entrance and watched the soldiers come—in formation, riders at the fore and marchers behind.
At the center of the riders was a grey charger. Astrid knew the horse and its rider well. Leofric. Eadric was at his side, astride his black steed.
Leif and Vali came up at her sides. Leif held her axe in his hand. Her axe. Her mouth watered and her eyes stung. Her axe.
He held it out for her to take, and her hand lifted. Her palm itched to feel its leather and wood. She wanted to run her fingertips over the honed blade and put them to her mouth to suck the blood away.
But if she took that axe in her hand while Leofric stood there on his horse, an army at his back, she would have made her choice. Was it the choice she wanted to make?
“ASTRID! WHAT NEWS?” Leofric called, as if he’d brought an army with him with no more intent than to get word of her parley.
She dropped her hand.
Leif’s eyebrow cocked up. “Astrid?”
“That is my mate. Let me talk with him.”
“Not without us at your sides,” Vali answered with a growl. “They’ll not take you again.”
She loved these men. Her friends. Before her time in Mercuria, she hadn’t known the feeling of love, any kind of love, enough to know even when she’d felt it. Leofric had given her that. He’d taught her how to love.
“Where is Brenna?”
Vali grinned. “In Karlsa. We have a new son. He’s called Agnar.”
“That is good news.”
“Indeed. Is there good news for you as well?”
“No. I lost the babe.”
Vali, too, knew that loss. “Ah. I’m sorry for you.”
“ASTRID! WIFE!”
Vali turned a menacing sneer at Leofric. “Your man makes demands, it would seem.”
“Yes.”
Leif scanned the army before them. “We are greater in number than they. We need no parley. I say we call the archers forward and be done with them.”
“No!” The thought sent a cold spike of fear through Astrid’s heart. Fear for Leofric. She didn’t want him harmed. To Leif’s shocked expression, she said, “Let me speak with him.”
Leif and Vali both gave her looks that said they didn’t recognize her. She didn’t recognize herself. There was so much conflict and uncertainty in her heart. There was no urge in her to fight. None at all. Never in her life had she known a feeling like this, like sickness in her heart and belly, in her mind. She wanted everyone safe. She just wanted to go home.
But where was home?
With her friends on either side, and many of the raiders following behind, she walked back out of the camp. Leofric and Eadric dismounted and walked toward them.
Despite his sharp shouts before, Leofric wore an aspect of perfect despair. As soon as they were close enough to speak normally, he said, “Please, my love. Don’t leave me. Send your people away and stay. Here, where you belong. At my side. I beg you. We want no fighting.”
“Then why bring an army?”
“That was my order,” Eadric answered. “Leofric didn’t want it, but I command the soldiers. I’m sorry, Astrid, but I couldn’t leave the security of the realm to trust in one woman who has never been happy here.”
She had been happy. With Leofric, in their times alone, she’d been happy. To Eadric, however, she offered a challenge. “Would you have happy in a place where people tore flesh from your bones, again and again?”
“No, I would not.” He shook his head. “And that is why I brought the army.”
“What is said?” Vali asked.
Behind them, the raiders became restless. Someone shouted, “KILL THE CHRISTIANS!” and another slammed his sword against his shield. Others picked up that battle rhythm, and Leofric and Eadric looked past Astrid, their eyes wary and alert.
From the corner of her eye, Astrid saw something zing past her, from the soldiers to the camp. She knew, without a clear view of it, that it had been an arrow, and she wasn’t surprised when a shout went out among the raiders. One of them had been shot.
Leofric spun and faced the troops. “HOLD! HOLD!”
At the same time, Eadric fell, a spear through his throat.
And the war began.
Astrid found herself instantly pulled between two men: Leofric and Leif, each one with firm hold of an arm, dragging as if they meant to tear her in two. She shrieked and twisted, freeing herself from both.
When Leif threw her axe, she caught it. Leofric, his face a melting mask of grief, shouted, “Astrid, no!”
But they were surrounded on all sides by fighting men and women, and the time to parley was over.
She didn’t know what side she fought on, and neither did anyone else. So she fought the fight in
front of her. She defended herself from all comers and made no effort to advance either side.
Leif and Leofric stayed near her, keeping her safe.
There were too many of them. The world seemed full to bursting with raiders, at least two, maybe more, for every one of the realm’s men. Leofric stood between the inert body of his brother and the wildly fighting form of his wife, and knew the battle was lost. Perhaps the realm itself, if the castle fell before reinforcements could arrive.
Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3) Page 28
