Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Elizabeth Rolls

  But this was not the time to sort through her feelings.

  Bjørn kept muttering as they moved on through the woods. She thought again of the unpleasant blast of his sour breath on her face and realized she should have known at once that he had partaken of far more than his share of mead. Had been up all night with it, if she had to hazard a guess. She had seen the like before on too many mornings to count. Who had not who lived in halls with men who preferred a full cup to courage?

  Aelfwynn could feel the dagger concealed at her waist, safely beneath her cloak, as she walked. And she took comfort in its presence there. She needed only wait for the right moment to use it, and would. She could still feel the ache in her neck from when Bjørn had shaken her and knew she would have no trouble wielding a blade.

  The truth was, she had felt safer in Thorbrand’s hands than she ever had anywhere else. How had she not recognized it? How would you know safety? she asked herself then. When have you experienced it? She missed her mother dreadfully. She suspected she always would, as all children missed their parents when they died, no matter that it was the way of things. But her mother had concerned herself with war. Fighting and bloodshed without end.

  Aelfwynn had either been by her side or left behind somewhere, waiting for word.

  She had disliked both. Neither had been safe.

  Safe was a gift. Only Thorbrand had ever given it to her.

  As the morning wore on, Aelfwynn found a kind of rhythm in the walking. It made her think of the cottage. The simplicity of a day arranged around how food was made, and when. Though all days were structured in this way, Aelfwynn had never been the one to oversee the tasks that needed doing. The days in the cottage had a beginning, when she woke. And an end, when Thorbrand laid her out before him near the fire or tumbled her into the furs, and she thought no more of domestic tasks until morning. Each day was the same and yet not the same. There was a pleasure in the making of things. A joy and satisfaction in preparing food and drink that would sustain them both. And the reward that came every time he touched her.

  If she married him, she could see very clearly, that would be their life. A simple, beautiful, shared life of rhythm and structure.

  Until such a time as his king called him back. And then they would return to these wars, these bloody battlefields, these games men played when kingdoms were in the offing. Yesterday she had thought it an impossibility. How could she marry him and live as they had in the cottage, forever knowing a call could come at any time? And that the call must be answered as a matter of honor? It was too cruel.

  But here in these woods, captive once more and in a way that boded only ill, she rather thought it would be worth it. However long she could spend with Thorbrand, in the life they made to suit themselves, it would be worth it.

  As she thought that, she knew something else. She would do whatever was necessary to get away from this drunken oaf, because she wanted the sweetness and simple joy of that cottage once again. Even if it were only for a season. A mere breath between battles. It would still be more safety, more happiness, than she had ever known.

  Love, a voice inside her said. That perilous word.

  You may love Mercia, Aethelflaed had said when Aelfwynn had gathered up her courage one day when she was yet a girl and had asked her mother if she might not consider a love match for her only daughter. You may love Mercia as hard and as deep as you can, daughter. You will need no other love match. And her gaze, so much like Aelfwynn’s own, had been steady when it met hers. For no other love match will you make. Though if you are lucky and if you dedicate yourself to the task as if were a military campaign, you will find that any match can be made over to suit you.

  Her answer had not surprised Aelfwynn, necessarily. She had witnessed her parents’ union. She had seen it with her own eyes when her mother had ascended to rule Mercia after her husband’s death. Still. Some are permitted to love. Why should I be denied it?

  It is a silly girl who loves the men that court her with pretty words and gold-bright promises, Aethelflaed had told her, in a voice soft for so strong a lady. But a wise wife who takes her time and the measure of the hall before offering the same.

  Here, in these cold woods, Aelfwynn smiled fondly where Bjørn could not see her.

  I have never wanted your kingdoms, Mother, she said quietly inside. To a pair of steady gold eyes like hers. But I will fight all the same for the simple pleasures of a cottage.

  And so she waited. She walked as carefully as she could, not wanting a twisted ankle to make the situation worse. If such a thing were possible. On and on they walked, until the sun hit its midday peak, not very high at all this time of year. And Aelfwynn tensed when the man behind her slowed.

  “We will rest here,” he told her. “Mayhap I’ll take a turn at what Thorbrand has had full access to first.”

  Vile pig.

  Aelfwynn turned to face him, for she might not be a warrior queen like her mother, but she was no coward. “Do you not fear that Thorbrand is on your trail, even now?”

  “You think highly of yourself,” Bjørn sneered. Then made a show of tossing off the cloak he wore and fumbling at the fastening of his trousers. “Your charms must be great indeed.”

  What was there for Aelfwynn to do but stand still? And prepare herself. She wrapped her arms around her middle, hoping he would mistake it for frailty. When instead she gripped the hilt of her dagger. Steady, she told herself. You may only have the opportunity to strike but once.

  “Thorbrand may rejoice to find you gone,” Bjørn told her. He did not pull out his male flesh, for which she was grateful, but the threat of it seemed to loom large over the small, cold clearing she found herself in.

  “He might indeed,” Aelfwynn agreed in as serene a manner as she could manage. “But that would not change, I think, his king’s directives. And the king is who we serve, do we not?”

  “Not you, little traitor.” Bjørn’s scowl took over his face. He took a step toward her. “You are Edward of Wessex’s niece, the daughter of the Lady of the Mercians, reduced to nothing but a Northman’s hōra. And yet you look no worse for wear. Your uncle wanted you dead when you sought a blameless nunnery. What will he do to you when he learns the breadth of your other talents? When I tell him?”

  He staggered closer, and though he was wiry and pale, he was yet a man. Bigger than her and no stranger to battle. She gripped her knife harder and held herself still.

  “What I don’t understand,” Aelfwynn said quietly, very deliberately, “is why, in all of these scenes you have made up to amuse yourself, you imagine that you, a ragged-looking Northman who smells of drink, will stride forward to engage King Edward of Wessex in casual conversation. Where would this take place? When would it happen? You will be shot dead by a thousand arrows before you make it a day’s walk into Mercia. You will never, ever reach his side.”

  The sneer on Bjørn’s face seemed to elongate, then turn into a nightmare. “Then I had better make sure to take my taste now, tík.”

  With that slur hanging in the air, likening her to a female dog, he lunged at her. But Aelfwynn was ready. She did not try to slash at him or engage in any of the complicated knife maneuvers she’d seen men perform while they practiced for war. All Aelfwynn did was hold her hands before her as if in prayer. But with the blade up.

  So when Bjørn reached for her to haul her against him and hurt her, he cut himself.

  He howled, staggering back.

  Now did Aelfwynn hold the blade the way she had seen men do. High before her, in the hope that the next time he ran at her she could do yet more damage.

  “Niðingr!” he roared at her, calling her yet another name, this one deeming her less than a person. A nothing. A thing. “Little tík!”

  He slapped a hand on the place where she’d cut him on his arm, his palm coming away red with his own blood. And she watched the man in him
, what little there was, leave him. His eyes went flat. His lip curled.

  If she died here, Aelfwynn thought resolutely, she would do so as gracefully as she could—and she would leave him in ribbons first.

  He lunged at her again, but she darted to one side, holding the knife before her. She dared not look away from his twisted, furious face. She hardly dared breathe. For she knew that now, having seen her knife and felt its sting, he would go for it first. Aelfwynn intended to make sure it cost him.

  They circled each other in the clearing, and Aelfwynn felt far too many things rise up within her, one feeling after the next she dared not entertain. Not now. If she survived, if she lived another day, she could entertain all the feelings she wished.

  Bjørn stopped moving, clearly recalculating the situation. Aelfwynn stopped moving too, aware that her chest was heaving as if she’d been breathing heavily all along. Perhaps she had been. She found she did not know.

  The wood all around them was quiet. The cold winter sun hardly cleared the bare tops of the trees, heedless and uncaring. Aelfwynn shifted her grip on the dagger, and warned herself to prepare to fight, for none would save her. She must save herself, and so she would.

  She yet had that much of Aethelflaed within her.

  Harder she gripped the dagger, and this time, she intended to swing—

  “I see I will have to teach you how to wield a blade, sweeting,” came a dark, low, wonderfully familiar voice from the edge of the clearing. But Aelfwynn dared not take her eyes off Bjørn. Not yet. Not before she knew whether or not she was dreaming. “Though from the looks of it, you have already hit your mark. Which is more than you can say, Bjørn, you mewling rassragr.”

  Aelfwynn didn’t have to know what the word meant to know it was a vile insult. Because Bjørn threw back his head and let out a kind of howl. Frustration. Rage. But it was not until he turned to face Thorbrand that Aelfwynn did too.

  She had never been more pleased to see a man. To see this man.

  Thorbrand stood at the edge of the clearing, looking bored, though he was dressed for war, his shield at the ready and his sword in his hand. Bored, that was, until she looked closer at the way his dark blue eyes blazed. Hot and bright with fury she had never seen before. His gaze raked over her, then dismissed her, returning to Bjørn. And darkening.

  Which was as well, for all Aelfwynn wanted to do was drink in the sight of him.

  Her wild Northman warrior, who regarded her captor as if he were a field mouse he’d caught in a trap and now intended to bat about, then slay without a second thought.

  “Why should the spoils go to you?” Bjørn howled at him. “I have fought at Ragnall’s side the better part of a decade. Why should you be chosen?”

  “I can think of a great number of reasons,” Thorbrand replied in a harsh voice Aelfwynn had never heard from him before. And she was not so gentle as she wished she was, for the sound thrilled her. He was powerful beyond measure, and he wished to marry her. She flushed slightly and knew it to be pleasure. “But first, I do not stand in the middle of a forest in winter with my pants at my knees and my dick in the wind.”

  “I will kill you for these insults,” Bjørn whispered, so pale with fury his beard shook. “I will wear your ribs as a helmet.”

  “I believe he has had too much of the drink,” Aelfwynn felt compelled to state. “He is not well.”

  “Ah, but you do not know our Bjørn.” Thorbrand stepped into the clearing and faced the other man, though his body was loose. He sheathed his sword and tossed his shield aside, then looked as if he’d relaxed completely. As if he thought there was no threat here. Aelfwynn blinked, then realized this, too, was an insult. “Always the last to volunteer and the first to complain. The quickest to charge into battle when the king is watching, yet less quick toward his own death when left to his own devices. No injury too small to be nursed forever. No boast too large, yet too little to back it up. Bjørn is no warrior. He is a boy who never learned how to be a man.”

  “This boy will make you eat those words,” Bjørn bellowed, pulling free his sword, and then charging.

  Aelfwynn sucked in a breath, expecting Thorbrand to reach for his own sword again—

  But he didn’t. He merely watched the other man’s attack as if it was happening slowly. As if he had all the time in the world. Then, just before Bjørn’s sword should surely have cleaved his head in two he stepped to one side and somehow, with a quick, fluid motion Aelfwynn could not comprehend, both relieved Bjørn of his sword, and sent the other man sprawling to the cold ground.

  “I have a better idea,” Thorbrand said, in a quiet fury that Aelfwynn could feel inside her, like heat. “I will leave you to eat your own sword.”

  And then he lifted it as if to pierce the other man straight through where he lay.

  “Thorbrand.” Aelfwynn gasped out his name. “Not while he lives. Defenseless before you. Where is the honor in that?”

  It seemed to take a very long while for Thorbrand to lift his gaze to her. When he did, the blaze in his eyes was so intense that Aelfwynn took a step backward and nearly dropped her dagger. “Yes, Aelfwynn, let us protect the man who would even now be glutting himself on your body had I not arrived when I did.”

  She didn’t understand the fury she could plainly see in him, still, though Bjørn had been laid flat upon the earth. Yet her chin seemed to lift of its own accord as she aimed a cool gaze at Thorbrand in return.

  “I have not asked you to protect him. I merely thought you might not sully yourself with a death like this on your hands, when surely, it would be better if he explained himself to his king and accepted the judgment owed him.”

  For Ragnall, she was sure, would not give a creature who stole from him an easy death.

  Thorbrand studied her for a moment, then flipped the sword he held, bringing the hilt down, and hard, against Bjørn’s head. So the other man lolled there as if dead, though Aelfwynn could see his breath on the air.

  “Now, Aelfwynn,” Thorbrand said, in a pleasant voice completely belied by the thunderous look he threw at her. “Perhaps you can tell me why it is you calmly walked away from the village with this man on the very day we are to wed. Looking, by all accounts, more than happy to accompany him. Into the dark forest.”

  And now his voice was scathing. “Alone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Det som göms i snö, kommer fram vid tö.

  What is hidden in snow, is revealed at thaw.

  —Old Nordic Proverb

  Thorbrand wanted to tear Bjørn apart. He wanted to make him an example, a monument of blood and pain to make it clear to all living men, everywhere, that Thorbrand would tolerate no hand on his woman save his own. Ever.

  He was not entirely certain he wouldn’t still do precisely that.

  And maybe in so doing, appease the gods—and his father’s memory—for the woman he had not protected once before.

  But Aelfwynn stood before him, still clutching her dagger with her golden eyes bright and mutinous. And his heart beat so hard it jarred his ribs, but though she looked dirtier than was usual—mud splattered all over her gown, her hair a wild snarl, and high color on her cheeks—he could detect no signs of ill use. She did not look hurt. She did not even look afraid.

  It was the only reason Bjørn yet drew breath.

  For were there so much as the faintest bruise upon her, or any hint of fear or sorrow on her lovely brow, and he would have killed the man where he lay. Defenseless or not, it would have made no difference.

  “Do you plan to answer me, then?” he growled at her, Bjørn incapacitated and therefore of no more interest to him.

  Aelfwynn’s chin rose higher and it called to his blood. It fair sang for her, damn her. “I thought he was taking me to your king.”

  “Does my king spend his mornings lurking about in Northumbrian woods, then? That
is new.”

  “I have heard tell he might indeed be part troll.” She only looked demure when he scowled at that insult. “He has quite a reputation, Thorbrand. I assumed he cultivated such himself.”

  “Ragnall might kill a troll or twenty and consider it a lazy morning,” Thorbrand said darkly, not at all sure why he was debating trolls, “but what he would never do is send a depraved weakling to handle a woman who was important enough he dispatched three of his best men to spirit her away from Mercia to begin with.”

  “If Bjørn is so disgraceful a warrior, why did he come here with your king anyway? Surely accompanying Ragnall on a journey is a coveted position. Available to only the strongest and best men, handpicked for their valor and honor alike.”

  “There is nothing to say that Bjørn was expected to return from this journey. The wolves are hungry in winter, and better a small man provide them a meal than a king. Or you or me.” He shook his head. “Three villagers tending to the cattle saw you, Aelfwynn. Merrily wandering off into the woods. No hand upon you, no knife at your back.”

  “I would hardly call the way I walked into uncertainty merry. Or anything like a wander, come to that.”

  “Do you deny this is what you did?”

  “How was I to know what he had in mind?” Aelfwynn asked, sounding exasperated. With him, if Thorbrand was not mistaken. She huffed out a breath. “As far as I was aware, he was a chosen warrior bound to Ragnall’s side. Why should I not imagine he came for me on an errand for his king? In case it has escaped your attention, I am not one of you. Your king only yesterday was happy enough to speak of potentially killing me should he wish it. And I make a habit to be as accommodating as possible when around men who wish to kill me, Thorbrand. You should know this well. It is why at least two kings have plotted my death in recent memory, yet I live.”