by Connie Mason
Might was the only truth, blood the only currency that mattered.
Shoved underground, belief in the Old Ones was growing stronger now. Men who craved violence and bloodshed as much as the ancient gods did were drawn to worship them.
In Orkney, the Hebrides, in deceptively quiet fjords along the Norse coast and barrier islands, Malvar Bloodaxe was amassing allies. He appealed to those who had a score to settle. They were second sons who didn’t stand to inherit their fathers’ lands, men who longed for a return to the way of the warrior. They wanted to resume the Viking raids, when a man might increase his wealth with a sword stroke instead of by trade or tilling.
The Old Ones would see it done. Those ancient spirits delighted in mayhem and murder and atrocities that turned men’s bowels to water. With the army Malvar was gathering, the Old Ways would return.
There’s not a farmer or a merchant in the lot, Malvar thought with a contented smile.
Satisfied the spirits had heard his prayer and supported his intent, Bloodaxe stooped to enter the cairn. He was forced to crawl along the passageway burrowing into the heart of the man-made hill.
Even the most powerful leader must be humble before the specters of Old Ones, he supposed.
For he was born to be a powerful leader. His grandsire had been Eric Bloodaxe, exiled king of Norway, the man who’d earned the chilling name Malvar was proud to bear. Which meant Olav Tryggvason was a pretender, and Malvar Bloodaxe was the rightful Norse king.
With the men whose allegiance he’d claimed and the power of the Old Ones behind him, he’d take back his grandfather’s crown.
But first, he needed the right information, the right fjord to target for his initial incursion. Once he’d subjugated an entire fjord, he’d be able to move on to the next. As terror of his might heralded his approach, the subsequent fjords would fall into his hand like ripe plums.
Dragonships would sail the Northern seas once more, bringing death on the wind.
Malvar reached the end of the tunnel and stood upright in the open chamber where the ceiling vaulted to twice a man’s height. Torches blackened the walls, and the place was ripe with the stench of burning pitch. A thin ribbon of smoke found its way out the shaft at the apex of the vault, but the air was still unwholesome if one had no relief from it for extended periods of time.
Especially when the air currents sent a whiff of human feces and misery wafting along the subterranean corridors to mingle with the smoke.
The guard at the interior opening of the tunnel snapped to attention when he recognized his leader, both spiritual and temporal.
“How is our prisoner this day?” Malvar Bloodaxe asked.
“Not very talkative.”
“Well, that is something we shall have to remedy, isn’t it?” Malvar said as he strolled over to survey the available whips and knives laid out on a table. “Has his back healed?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. We’ll concentrate on the front then,” Bloodaxe said, picking up a cat-o’-nine-tails and cracking it. The sound echoed through the subterranean vaults, and a muffled wail came in response from one of the other tunnels leading off the main chamber. Anticipation of pain was almost as effective as pain itself. “We’ll start with this. Bring him.”
The guard disappeared down one of the short corridors and came back, half-dragging his charge. The prisoner was naked, his beard and hair so matted with filth only shearing him like a sheep would render him human once more. His ribs stood out in stark relief. He stooped as he shuffled along, because he was unable to stretch out to his full height in the tiny cell in which he was kept.
“Greetings, Ulf, Jarl of Jondal,” Bloodaxe said courteously as the guard bound the prisoner’s unresisting hands spread eagle between two posts.
It was a stroke of luck the man’s vessel foundered off the Orkney coast and he’d been reported lost with the rest of his crew. As far as anyone else knew, Ulf Skallagrimsson was freezing in Hel. No one would ever think to look for him in the bowels of the earth.
“I trust you’re enjoying your stay with us,” Malvar said with a laugh.
The man peered from under his shock of rapidly graying hair, the mad glint in his eyes the only evidence of a living soul in the soon-to-be-broken body. Ulf worked his mouth for a moment and then spat a gob of phlegm on the packed dirt at Bloodaxe’s feet.
Malvar smiled. Naked loathing was such a deliciously powerful emotion. It shimmered in the foul air, and Malvar’s arms strengthened with the force of his captive’s hate. He’d send his own venom right back to the jarl.
The cat flicked over Ulf’s chest, leaving an artful cluster of red weals. The man gritted his teeth to keep his agony silent, but Malvar knew that restraint wouldn’t last long.
“Now, then what shall we talk about?” Malvar sent the whip singing again. This time it drew bright beads of blood and a grunt of pain. “How about…the defenses of Hardanger Fjord?”
Chapter 10
Albrikt Gormson stayed as Katla’s guest for three more days. During that time, there was no more water carrying or wood chopping for Brandr, though he did still wait on her at table. She seemed to want him to hear all of Gormson’s conversations, for each night after slipping away from the drunken feast, she asked Brandr’s opinion of what was said.
Whether she’d act upon Brandr’s thoughts was another question. She held herself aloof from everyone.
When she disappeared into the bath house each evening, he drilled Haukon in swordplay. They met in a secluded clearing a little apart from the longhouse, where the clack of the wooden swords he’d insisted upon wouldn’t be heard by others. The lad was quick, but Brandr refused to let him practice with a real weapon until he mastered the basics.
At Katla’s command, Brandr followed at a discreet distance when Gormson insisted on walking the boundaries of her land with her. And one afternoon when Albrikt wasn’t with Katla, Brandr kept a watchful eye on the Stordman as he inspected the private wharf and considered the sheltered bay that brought traders almost to her doorstep.
It was such a well-hidden cove, a man might sail past its narrow inlet without realizing two dozen ships could ride at anchor unseen beyond the curtain of rocks and trees. Being a sailing man, Brandr understood the bay’s value.
And Gormson’s interest in it.
Albrikt insisted upon a daylong hike through the forest to the highest peak on Katla’s property. Brandr dogged them, ostensibly to bear the food and drink for Katla and her suitor, but he suspected he’d been ordered along because she didn’t feel safe with the man so far from the rest of her people.
Gormson was the sort to take what he wanted if he thought he could get away with it. Brandr was glad Katla seemed to know it.
From the most elevated point on Katla’s steading, a man could view the island’s edges, north and south. To the East, the mouth of Hardanger Fjord opened invitingly. It was also the place where a signal fire was laid and ready to be set in the event Katla’s people came under attack. If the rectangular stack of wood, which stood as tall as a man, was ablaze, it would be visible for miles.
“Who will come if the fire is lit?” Gormson wanted to know.
“We have alliances with several other farmsteads on Tysnes, but have no fear. We’ve been at peace for so long, the wood for the signal fire is like to rot before it’s burned,” Katla said with satisfaction.
On the last evening at night meal, Albrikt pressed his suit with fervor.
Brandr smiled broadly when Katla refused to give him an answer beyond thanking him for his offer. Her brothers had promised her a choice from three suitors, she said, and she would not give any a yea or nay until she’d had proper time to consider all her possibilities.
Brandr could have kissed her on the spot. If he hadn’t given his word not to, of course.
H
onor was a damnably difficult thing to live with sometimes.
***
“Katla, I don’t know what you’re playing at, putting him off that way,” Finn said as they stood side by side on the wharf to see Gormson off. “You’ll never do better than Albrikt.”
“Send for the next two suitors, and let me be the judge of that,” she said as Albrikt’s broad-breasted knorr cleared the bay, its red-and-white striped sail swaying from the single mast in the choppier open water. “Son of Ulf!”
“I’m right here.” Brandr stepped forward, adding through gritted teeth, “And I’m not deaf.”
She knew he was nearby. Hadn’t he been her shadow the whole time Gormson was in residence? Even if she hadn’t ordered him to keep watch over her, he’d have found a way to do it on his own. Now that the Stord Islander was gone, Brandr breathed easier, but the iron collar chafed his soul no less. And the need to find a way to free himself so he could return home was no less on his mind.
She pursed her lips at his grumbling. It bordered on disrespect, but she let it pass. Katla evidently had other things on her mind besides humbling him.
“I’ll be gone the rest of the day,” she told her brother.
“Where are you off to?” Finn asked.
“I need to gather gull eggs, because someone butchered too many of my laying hens for his huge feasts.” She shot a glance toward Finn, curling her lip. “So we need to let the next several batches of eggs hatch.”
“Can’t even entertain a guest to suit you.” Finn shook his head in disgust. “Since there’s no pleasing you, Katla, why are you surprised when I don’t try?”
Katla flinched as her brother stomped away. Brandr wondered why no one else could see she wasn’t as immune to hurt as she tried to seem.
While the rest of her people headed back up the hill to the longhouse and their day’s labor, Katla started walking down the wharf toward a trim little coracle. Brandr fell into step with her from force of habit.
It had nothing to do with she being his mistress and he being her thrall. It was the swing of her skirts that drew him this time.
“The bird cliffs are on the far side of the island,” she said. “How good a sailor are you?”
His mouth twitched. “I sailed to the Great Inland Sea and back without getting lost. I think I can manage a trip around Tysnes.”
“Ja, well, then you’ll have no trouble readying the coracle while I fetch food and water,” she said brusquely as she turned to follow her people up the hill. She glanced over her shoulder at him and, amazingly enough, shot him a quick smile. “I’ll be right back.”
Brandr stepped into the small craft. His chest swelled with pleasure when the shallow hull swayed under his feet.
A man needed the wind in his face and the salt spray on his cheeks from time to time. He’d been landlocked only a short time, but even so, he missed the sea.
The climbing tackle and ropes they’d need to gather the gull eggs were in a tangled pile near the prow. By the time he recoiled the ropes, checked all the coracle’s lines, and made sure the sail was in good repair, Katla was making her way around the last bend in the path leading back down to the wharf. She carried a couple water gourds and a basket.
And her smile was still intact.
A whole day on the sea.
And in the company of a comely, smiling woman. His heart hadn’t been this light since before the iron collar was bolted around his neck.
He scrambled back onto the wharf to hand her into the coracle. Once she was settled on the seat near the prow, he loosed the mooring lines and gave the little boat a shove. Brandr leaped into the craft before it bobbed too far from the dock. The hull dipped under his weight but then righted itself so the waves didn’t wash over the sides.
He unfurled the sail and caught a breath of wind. Once out of the sheltered cove, the wind picked up, billowing the sail. The coracle lifted above the curling whitecaps, skimming along with eye-watering speed. Katla turned sideways on the front seat to watch the island’s coastline whip by them in a green blur where the heavy pine forests rushed down to meet the sea.
Brandr was content to watch her.
Sunlight danced on the water, and the wind loosened her hair from its kerchief. She trailed a hand in the spray, with a laugh full of joy in the wind-whipped, sunny morning. It was a musical sound, a sound to bind a man’s heart. And if that weren’t enough, her smile was blinding.
Brandr realized he was finally catching a glimpse of the real Katla.
She played the dour matron with conviction. She oversaw her people and stock with grim efficiency, husbanding her resources against the unknown. She was as ruthless as a general strategizing how best to make use of his forces for an upcoming battle.
But Katla’s foes weren’t armed with axes and arrows. She struggled against want and hunger and cold. No one in her household would suffer from them while she drew breath. She fought them away from her people with dogged relentlessness, land bound and thoroughly wedded to her duty to care for those in her charge.
But she really wasn’t so tied to the land as she first appeared. She obviously loved the ocean far too much.
In her heart of hearts, she was a sea nymph. A laughing, beguiling water sprite who’d somehow washed ashore on Tysnes Island. Without a man at her side, she’d been forced to act the part of the severe leader and provider for her people. She did it well, but seeing her now, breathless with joy as they bounded over the swells, Brandr knew she was out of her true element most of the time and shouldering a far heavier burden than she ought.
He wished he could lighten it for her. If for no other reason than being able to see her mouth lift in a genuine smile. Mayhap there was even a way to make those frown lines between her brows disappear completely.
He shook his head at himself. A sea nymph? He wasn’t usually so fanciful, but Katla seemed to bring out the hidden skald in his soul.
“You really do know how to sail,” she said as they skirted the coastline, tacking and reefing when needed to keep their forward momentum going.
“And you really love being on the water,” he said. “Did your husband take you sailing often?”
“Osvald?” She rolled her eyes. “No, he never sailed if he could avoid it. He’d rather have taken a couple days and tramped across the island on the plank road than take the coracle, even though the boat is much faster.” She patted her belly. “Weak stomach.”
Brandr laughed and nodded. His brother, Arn, had been the same way as a boy, but their father forced him to stay on a longship until he stopped puking and learned to roll with the ocean. It had seemed cruel at the time, since Arn couldn’t help his weakness, but once he found his sea legs, he never heaved his guts over the gunwale again.
Brandr had to admit it was one time when their father’s harshness hadn’t been the wrong course.
“I used to sail to the bird cliffs with my father,” Katla said, her tone suddenly wistful. “My mother used to go with him, but she died when Haukon was born. I’m the eldest, so Father spent more time with me than he might have otherwise. He taught me to handle this coracle.”
“Really?” It was an odd thing for a man to teach his daughter. Work was fairly well divided among the sexes, with the women toiling inside, cooking and weaving, the men out in the elements, farming and hunting.
And Viking, in the not-so-distant past.
“My brothers didn’t care for the sea or fishing or even traveling for trade. Of course, Finn and the others don’t care for anything that resembles work, but I loved sailing. How can you even call it work if you can feel the sun on your face and the wind lifting your spirits along with the sails?” Her smile faded a bit. “My father used to say I should have been born a man.”
“I’m glad you weren’t,” Brandr said as they glided into the deep shadow of th
e land.
Briny spray misted around them from the waves dashing against the rocks, and the coracle heaved more wildly as they drew closer to their destination.
Her smile returned. “Well, I’m glad not to be a man. Now especially,” she said as they tied up the coracle at the base of the cliff where a huge flock of gulls nested in the craggy granite.
The sheer rock face rose over six times Brandr’s height. Beneath the waves, jagged rocks lurked. A tumble from the cliff into the water was to be avoided at all costs.
Katla handed the climbing tackle to him, her grin turning wicked. “I’m very happy to be a woman. After all, the man gets to climb to the top of the cliff first.”
***
Never should have given the man trousers, Katla lamented in silence as she watched him scramble up the rock face from the bobbing coracle. The morning after Gormson had arrived, she’d found a baggy pair that covered Brandr decently yet weren’t fine enough to elevate him from his lowly status as her thrall.
She sighed. This climb would have made for a spectacular view if she hadn’t. She’d be treated to the sight of his well-muscled thighs and tight buttocks as he worked his way up the cliff.
But he needed the protection of his trousers. The sharp rocks might cut his knees and other more important parts to shreds otherwise.
Brandr was about halfway up, the climbing tackle coiled over his broad shoulders. He flattened himself against the granite and stretched to reach the next fingerhold.
A chunk of stone broke off in his hand. It tumbled from his grasp, splashing into the sea next to the coracle. Katla was drenched by the spray but couldn’t tear her gaze from the rock face.
Brandr’s feet slipped, and he dangled by one arm.
Katla gasped.
“Are you hit?” he called.
She shook her head, not trusting her voice.
Then he grinned down at her, obviously unaware her heart had skipped several beats. He swung himself back around, found a toehold, and clutched a different bit of rock. This one held his weight as he lifted himself with just his arms to a narrow ledge. The rest of the climb passed without incident, but several times, Katla had to remind herself to breathe.
