A sweet sickly stench hung in the air, the sort which hangs over battlefields. It was clear in a glance that something had indeed happened here. Moir’s stomach clenched.
‘Ansithe?’
‘Where did you hide?’ Ansithe asked, putting her hand over her mouth. The smell was awful, but she was not going to disgrace herself. She was battle-hardened. The thought made her straighten her spine and stare straight ahead when all she longed to do was walk into Moir’s arms and draw comfort from him. His eyes turned tender.
The steward pointed to a hollow in the tree. He had gone a funny shade of green. ‘I was too scared to even breathe. After they went, Lady Elene said they would make for the charcoal burner’s hut we had passed.’
‘Where is that hut? Precisely?’
‘I can’t remember. I thought I knew the one Lady Elene mentioned, but I’ve racked my brains on the way here and it is a blank. I should have gone with them to see precisely where it was and then left.’ Ecgbert collapsed in a snivelling heap. ‘I’m a miserable coward, my lady.’
‘If you hadn’t returned, we would never have known this happened,’ Ansithe said. ‘We have a slim chance of finding her, but it is a chance. The hut should be close by.’
Moir bent down and started to examine the grass. ‘The outlaws did not cover their tracks.’
‘There was definitely a battle here. I have found some of the missing Wessex warriors,’ Bjartr called out. ‘It is not a pretty sight. And I think there is a Dane as well.’
Moir cursed loudly.
‘How can you tell the Danes were involved?’ Ansithe asked, wrapping her arms about her waist.
Moir held out a broken axe he’d found. ‘It is Danish. It is unlikely an outlaw would have it.’
‘But we don’t know that for certain.’
‘How many dead?’
‘Two Wessex and three Danes. There is also the body of a woman. Not the Lady Elene, my goddess, but a woman with a large mole on her upper lip and grey hair.’
Ansithe recognised the description and closed her eyes in grief. Gode had been their mother’s servant before she was theirs and she had volunteered to go with Elene. She silently said a prayer for her.
‘How many guards were sent with you?’ Moir asked.
The steward pursed his lips, ‘Eleven, I think. I kept telling them they needed more to look after fierce warriors like you, but they said that was all our gold was worth. They couldn’t even fight off those outlaws.’
‘They fought off the attackers or you wouldn’t be here,’ Moir pointed out.
‘Elene didn’t waste time burying the bodies,’ Ansithe said. ‘She wanted to get away. She showed sense.’
‘Let’s find this hut.’
* * *
When the shout came, Ansithe raced towards it, but Bjartr was standing by the hut, shaking his head. ‘There is no one here. They have already left. I can tell by looking.’
Ansithe’s knees threatened to give way, but Moir instantly put an arm about her waist, supporting her.
‘No one there,’ she whispered. ‘How could it be? Ecgbert swore she was going to make for safety.’
‘Do we know they were here?’ Moir went in and emerged with a dark green cloak.
Ansithe gasped. ‘It belongs to Elene.’
She looked up at the clear blue sky and blinked rapidly. Her sister wasn’t dead. She was sure she’d know deep down within her soul if that had happened. ‘Do you think they were followed and attacked?’
‘Do we have to know how they were taken?’ Bjartr asked. ‘Isn’t it enough to know they left?’
Moir glanced at Ansithe. ‘The lad is on to something.’
‘These men are prepared to stop at nothing,’ Bjartr said. ‘It takes guts to attack a force that large.’
‘They were not prepared. We are,’ Ansithe said, her hand going to her bow. ‘We can hunt them. They can’t be that far ahead of us.’
‘This is a great huge forest,’ Ecgbert bleated. ‘They could be anywhere within it.’
Moir leant over to her ear. ‘It does not look good for your sister.’
‘I know, but I’d sense inside me if something had happened to her. She is somewhere out there and still alive.’ She lifted her chin up. ‘As long as she is alive and we can free her, I will be content. I do know what happens to women who are captured. You don’t need to coat the truth with honey for me.’
‘We will find her,’ Bjartr declared.
‘I agree.’ Ansithe started to search the ground. ‘We had worked out a scheme about what to do if one of us was taken and I am sure Elene will have implemented it if she could.’
‘Was that down to you?’
‘It seemed sensible.’ Ansithe’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. ‘I just hope she was able to leave a trail.’
‘I wish I could return to Baelle Heale.’ Ecgbert wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘I’m no warrior. I’m no good at this. I prefer ledgers and books.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Ansithe answered before Moir had a chance to voice his concerns. ‘We can’t spare anyone to take you back. And you never know when you might prove useful.’
‘I was worried about that, Lady Ansithe. Your father...’
‘My father would be furious if I didn’t try to rescue my sister.’
Ecgbert crumpled under her gaze. ‘If you say so, my lady. I had always considered he valued his own life more than his children’s. He’d want to be ransomed first and then take charge of any investigation. But I may be mistaken.’
His words held a certain amount of truth. But it didn’t change things. ‘I need time to think. What did my sister do when she had to leave? She would have known that Ecgbert would try to lead us here, but might get in a muddle afterwards. She may have left the cloak on purpose.’
Moir rapidly detailed men to bury the bodies while he left Ansithe to ponder. He had a quiet word with Bjartr and explained that the steward needed to be closely watched. Bjartr seemed to grow two inches when Moir told him that he was the only person who could possibly undertake such a task.
‘You care about her.’ Bjartr’s eyes widened. ‘Palni said to remind you of Guthmann’s threat to any woman you might care about.’
Moir rolled his eyes. ‘Palni becomes like an old woman. I can handle Guthmann in a fair fight.’
‘Is that what you want? A fight with Guthmann? My father wants to prevent that from ever happening.’
‘I want to make sure her sister is safe. If we free her and somehow find Lady Ansithe’s father in the bargain, we will be free and can go back to your father in triumph.’
Bjartr made a noise as though he wanted to say more, but Moir gave him a hard look.
‘We need to be searching, not speculating, Bjartr, about what your father intends.’ Moir turned to examine the ground. A small bit of metal winked out at him a short way from the hut. He rapidly crossed to it and picked it up. ‘Ansithe.’
Ansithe hurried over and took it from his outstretched palm. Her cheeks were wet with tears. ‘It is one of my sister’s earrings. The bracken seems to be more trampled down beyond and I think I can see a bit of thread hanging off a fern.’
‘Then I suspect she was able to escape.’
* * *
When the mist came down and it became too dark and dangerous to travel, Ansithe reluctantly decided they had to halt for the night. Progress had been slow going, particularly as Bjartr had the habit of declaring that he had seen something and running towards it, only for it to be nothing. As a result, they had lost the trail several times. Before the mist came down, Ansithe was convinced they had merely gone in several overlapping circles. At her orders, they had pitched the tents and bedded down for the night.
After a simple fish supper, most had retired to the various tents. Bjartr had been no trouble, not even baulking at having to
help catch the fish or cook it. It was as if, in being given the slightest of chances, he had decided to change.
However, Ansithe found it difficult to sleep alone in her tent. The hoots of a tawny owl taunted her.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Elene’s features. Elene would never have been in this position if Ansithe had not insisted that the brooches be taken to court.
‘Can’t sleep?’ Moir’s soft voice came through the velvet darkness. It amazed her how attuned he was to her. It was as though they were two halves of the same whole.
Ansithe gathered her knees to her chest. ‘I wish I could. Even Ecgbert is sleeping. I am certain I can hear his snores. The ground is hard, but no one else seems to mind. I wish the mist hadn’t come down and we could have gone further.’
‘You get used to sleeping on hard ground. Even Bjartr has become accustomed. His snores have joined those of your steward’s. It is a luxury to have a tent.’
‘But you don’t sleep.’
‘Sleep evades me.’
She rose and peered out of the tent. Moir sat on his own beside the embers of the campfire. Other than them, the entire camp appeared to be shrouded in sleep. Somewhere far away a tawny owl hooted.
He patted the bare rock beside him. ‘Come sit. I can use the company. My watch lasts a while longer yet.’
She pushed her feet into her boots and wrapped a fur about her shoulders before going out into the misty night air. ‘Do you think anything will happen tonight?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing moves in this mist. Our quarry will be sheltering, waiting for it to clear. I’ve been keeping watch for years. You learn to read the weather.’
‘You wanted Bjartr to stay at Baelle Heale,’ she said. ‘You were annoyed with my decision for him to join us. Cynehild would never have given him that cross if she doubted his sincerity.’
‘He would have been safer there.’ Moir ran his hand through his hair. ‘But maybe he is right. Maybe we have all treated him like a child. It is why he tried to prove himself.’
‘Why did Andvarr entrust him to you?’
He turned towards her. ‘He did it because Bjartr has acquired the habit of annoying people and I had had a fight with Guthmann. Andvarr killed two birds with one stone.’
‘And he felt that your quarrel with Guthmann would have blown over by the time you returned?’
‘Andvarr felt it would. I assumed there would be no need for Guthmann and I to encounter each other again this summer.’
She drew her upper lip over her teeth. Two very different views. ‘But you expect to fight him.’
‘I never look to the future. I live in the present, remember?’
‘Even warriors have to plan ahead when they go into battle.’ She leant forward. ‘You think about the future even when you proclaim you do not. You would not have stayed alive as a warrior or been made a warlord if men did not believe in you.’
She did not mention that she believed in him as well. It would be revealing far too much.
He sat for a long time. The tawny owl began its hooting again.
‘I had never considered it in that respect,’ he said, breaking his silence. ‘You are right—I do think about war and strategy. I just don’t think about my own future. There is a difference between planning and dreams.’
Ansithe’s heart knocked. She wanted to ask him why he was like that, but the last time he had refused to speak much about his past.
‘I saw the look the others gave you when you discovered the Danish axe. Could Guthmann have attacked my sister?’
He stilled. ‘To what purpose?’
She noticed that he didn’t deny the possibility. ‘You had a fight with him. He swore vengeance. It is possible that he learnt who my captives were when Elene handed the badges over to your jaarl?’
‘Why attack your sister going back to the manor? Guthmann or one of his minions would know that I was not in the group. I could have understood waiting until my men and I departed Baelle Heale to attack us then, but attacking before that makes little sense.’
Her stomach tightened. He was definitely keeping secrets from her. ‘But it is why you are sitting up, puzzling over it, is it not?’
‘We were lost in this forest, starving for over a week when we stumbled upon your manor. It is possible that there are other groups of Northmen or Danes in a similar position. They saw the convoy and attacked.’
‘That is one explanation, certainly.’
‘Whatever happens I am determined to keep you safe.’
His words had a fierce ring to them.
She gave an uneasy laugh. ‘I am in no danger from Guthmann. I doubt he even knows I exist.’
Moir sat silently for a long time. ‘We have no idea what he knows or doesn’t know. He would probably thank you for capturing me.’
‘What did you do to make him hate you that much? It can’t just be that you stopped him from taking that woman.’
‘Guthmann is a predator and I deprived him of his prey. He felt I was arrogant and should show more circumspection given my heritage.’
‘Your heritage?’
‘Unlike Bjartr or Guthmann, I did not have a jaarl for a father. Nor did my family have lands. My father betrayed his comrades and left them to rot. At first when he returned, he was lauded as a hero and made the jaarl’s hand. A year later two of his fellow prisoners made their way back and the truth came out—how he had given up their leader in order to walk to freedom. He tried to claim that he had intended to return and free them, but his new responsibilities had prevented him. There was a trial and he was found guilty, stripped of everything and executed.’
‘How old were you when this happened?’
‘Eight. My mother died the following spring and her last act was to give me the amber pendant that I wear so that I would remember to be a better man than my father. I swore on her grave that I would always be loyal to my jaarl.’
‘Did your father ever give you an explanation?’ she asked in a whisper, trying to understand what it must have been like for Moir as a child.
‘He told me he wanted to be there for my name day, but I discovered when I was older that he’d told others he’d returned for my mother, so I don’t really know what to believe. In the end, it doesn’t really matter why he did it, only that he did.’
Ansithe pressed her hands against her eyes. That was a terrible burden to lay on a young child. Much as her father had made her feel responsible for her mother’s death, a little voice inside her said.
‘And then what happened? You are clearly a warrior now.’
‘I held true to my mother’s wish and made my name by my sword. The way to rise in the North used to be based on one’s prowess in war.’ Moir shrugged. ‘I have been Andvarr’s man and shown my loyalty many times. I hope in time he will see I am not my father.’
‘Bjartr’s father entrusted his son to your care.’
‘And see how I have repaid that trust? Bjartr is a captive and has been shown to be a coward, rather than the future leader his father required.’ He made a disgusted noise. ‘And it is my fault.’
Ansithe put her hand over his. ‘He is old enough to make his own mistakes and to learn from them. It was never your choice, Moir, but mine to bring him on this rescue attempt. He will be helpful. He already has been on this journey.’
‘What, making us go around in circles?’ Moir laughed. ‘I swear he is worse than Ecgbert with his seeing of new trails in the bracken.’
‘He is young and he does look up to you even if you refuse to see it.’
Moir laced her hand through his and brought it to his lips. ‘You are good for him, but I am not sure you are for me.’
Her heart pounded. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. You make me want to dream and plan about my future, not just what will happen in the next battle. You make me thi
nk of what could be, instead of what is. That can be fatal when you are a warrior. My mother used to tell me not to have my head in the clouds. Weaving cloth out of air, she called it. She told me that it would get me killed. I had to be better than my father. I had to know what my duty was.’
Her mind began to build halls in the clouds. She could see them with children and a farm, somewhere where it didn’t matter that he was a Northman and she a Mercian.
‘Is dreaming and planning for your future such a bad thing?’ she whispered when the silence grew too much for her.
He picked up a stick and stirred the fire. Tiny sparks flew up into the sky, flaring for a brief time and then fading to nothingness. ‘Possibly.’
‘What are you going to do after this...after you are ransomed?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘That’s too far away to start planning for.’ He let out a large breath of air. ‘Let us find your sister first.’
Ansithe hated to think of the unknown woman from the North who shared his heritage who he’d eventually marry and with whom he’d settle down on the lands he’d won. ‘I agree. My sister must come first.’
They sat in silence for a while. Ansithe didn’t want to consider that her long-term future would have no Moir in it. Against all expectation she liked the large Northman. More than liked him, she knew she cared very much about what might happen to him. And she most definitely did not want him to become a captive of Guthmann and face his wrath, but she also had a duty to her family. She couldn’t live with herself if she failed them again.
Moir turned her face to look at him. His eyes were intent in the darkness of the night. ‘We will find her, Ansithe. I won’t stop looking until we do. No matter what anyone says.’
‘Thank you.’
She leant forward and his mouth lowered to hers. Her lips instantly parted and their tongues met. His touch was instantly soothing. She moaned in the back of her throat.
‘You are bad for me,’ he rasped against her earlobe. ‘I am supposed to be keeping watch rather than being entangled.’
‘I should say sorry, but I’m not.’ She moved a little way away from him. ‘I will be good now.’
A Deal With Her Rebel Viking (HQR Historical) Page 18
