“Now, dress and come down. I will have Thora prepare you something to eat and drink and I will watch her do it to be certain it contains nothing else.” He stood and left without looking at her.
“Rurik,” she called before the door could close completely.
He stopped and waited for her to speak, half in and half out of the room.
“Will he…will he…she is…” She could not say the words she was thinking, but he understood her mumbled words.
“He is a man of honor who would never take advantage of a holy innocent.”
He used that tone that men did when they were completely convinced of a thing. Such as honor. The tone that warned her from arguing—nay, from even thinking for a moment—that he was not correct about his friend and his honor. Rurik’s faith in his friend was only undermined by one small thing that was unknown to him when he made that declaration.
Elspeth was not a holy innocent and neither was she. Although Elspeth certainly was an innocent, she was neither. And being the sinner she knew herself to be, Margriet could not admit this all to Rurik. So, she reasoned, Elspeth was safe with Sven so long as Sven believed her to be a nun. Margriet could not think beyond that now.
He looked at her as though waiting for any other concern to be voiced and then, with a nod, strode from the room and pulled the door closed behind him. With nothing else to say, Margriet lost no time in following his instructions and within minutes entered the common room where Rurik waited. She walked in to hear Harald and Thora’s denials of their involvement in either the drugging of Sister Margriet or helping Sven and Sister Elspeth to leave unnoticed.
“I will burn this place to the ground if I find you are lying to me, Harald.” Margriet was tempted to ask if that was his method of dealing with problems, but held her tongue. He turned as she approached. “Thora swears she sent no draught to you last evening, Sister.”
“It seems that Elspeth had her mind set on this.”
“I canna believe that she would run off wi’ him,” Thora sobbed into a piece of linen. “A nun, no less! A holy sister! An innocent led into debauchery…”
’Twas then that Rurik stopped her with a look. Harald assured him once more that they knew nothing and dragged his wife back toward the kitchen. When they had gone, he moved a bench out so she could sit. Only he, Leathen and Donald remained with her.
“The men?”
“I sent two out in each direction leading away from the village to see if they could find evidence of their path.” He paused and stared at their small group. “I wanted to keep this discussion to only this number,” he said. “’Tis a matter best handled with discretion.”
“Why would Sven take her away, Rurik?”
“Why would she leave with him, Sister?”
She was torn between telling him the truth and keeping it to herself. There was a part she could share.
“She believed he loved her.”
Rurik’s gaze faltered for a moment, but the other two were frank in their disbelief.
“He would never dishonor her in that way, Sister,” Donald argued. “Never.”
“I have known him since the time we were we’ans, Sister. He has respect for the church and all that belongs to it,” Rurik added.
Leathen shook his head so hard, Margriet thought it would loosen from his neck.
“And if she was not a nun? Would he hold her in respect then?”
The only sound in the room was the fire crackling in the hearth. She was convinced they’d even stopped breathing at her disclosure. In truth, she could not believe she’d said it aloud.
“Not a nun?” Leathen repeated the words as though she’d said them in Greek instead of Gaelic.
“Get out,” Rurik ordered. “Say nothing about this to any of the others, especially not those from Orkney.”
Donald and Leathen were quick on their feet when they wanted to be and her words coupled with Rurik’s order gave them cause to move. The silence was harsher still when it was only the two of them.
“I am waiting to hear your explanation, Sister? How is Sister Elspeth not a nun?”
He leaned back and watched her with such a dangerous air that she feared revealing even part of the truth. With one ankle resting on the other knee, he sat waiting. She would rather deal with an angry Rurik, such as the one who stood outside the convent gates, than this quietly deadly one.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out the first time. Or the second. It struck her that fear was a powerful silencer. As though he was being kind, Rurik reached out, poured some ale into a cup and handed it to her.
“Pardon my inhospitality, Sister. I forgot you have not broken your fast yet this morn. Should I call Thora for some bread and cheese?”
She drank some ale down in one gulp, but there would be no way to make food get down her throat now. Not with the way he glared at her across the table. Not with the way danger rolled off of him in waves, like the musk of a predator. Not when he repeatedly clenched and relaxed both his jaws and his fists.
“Nay,” she cried out. “I need no food. Only ale.”
He lifted the metal pitcher as though it were empty and filled her cup once more. “Enough?” he asked in a quiet voice that set her nerves on edge.
Margriet sipped from the cup and nodded, trying to formulate an answer to his question.
“Now, explain to me how she is not a nun?”
His foot bobbed now, rising and dropping in time with some internal measure. His jaw still twitched, but he had opened his hands and placed them on the table in front of her. It made her more nervous.
“We feared for her safety,” she said.
“We?”
“Mother Ingrid and I. When you and your men showed up at the convent making demands and yelling and scaring everyone with your…”
She would have continued, but now his eyebrow began to carry on the same twitching movement that hers did when she was tense. Knowing what it meant forced her to stop making excuses.
“When Elspeth offered to travel with me, Mother and I thought the habit would protect her against ‘the ravenous hungers that men experience,’ as Mother described it.”
She would swear he fought a smile just then, but no one would describe the expression on his face as a smile.
“So, instead of relying on my honor and that of my men’s as I swore it to you, and on your father’s wisdom in making the choice of who would escort you home, you decided a piece of clothing would protect the girl?”
“Not just a piece of clothing, Rurik, a nun’s habit. Men behave differently around one.”
In that moment, too many thoughts were crossing to and fro in his mind to make any sense of her thinking in this. Truly, at that moment, he wondered how he ever thought her clear-minded. Instead of telling him the truth, that Elspeth was her companion, she’d lied in some ill-gotten plan to protect her virtue. It was incomprehensible.
No, it was just like a woman.
“Let us begin anew, here, Sister Margriet. Who is Elspeth?” He clenched his teeth together to keep from swearing and cursing the way he wanted to. Rurik feared that if he began, he would not stop, and they still needed to find Sven and the girl.
“Elspeth is the daughter of one of the landowners near the convent.”
“A commoner?”
“Aye.”
“Betrothed?”
“Nay.”
“Taken vows of any kind in the convent?”
“Nay.”
“Intending to stay with you in Orkney?”
“Well, I do not intend to stay in the Orkneys, Rurik. I am only returning long enough to convince my father to give me leave to…”
He knew her concise answers could not continue forever, but he held his hand up to stop her. “Did she intend to stay with you in the Orkneys?”
She sighed then and nodded her head. “I promised her a place in my father’s household if she wanted it and a chance to make a good match.”
He stoo
d then, unable to sit any longer. If he had known this, he could have prevented trouble. “Did she say anything about Sven to you? Last night?”
A blush crept up her cheeks, making it obvious that the girl had told her something. Something she thought able to manage on her own. Instead she’d ended up drugged and sleeping while the two crept away at some time in the night.
“She claimed he loved her.”
“Did he say that?”
“Does any man?”
He slammed his fist down at that comment, loud enough to draw Thora from the kitchen. Sister Margriet waved her away before he could yell or threaten and they were alone yet again.
“What did you tell her last night…when she told you he loved her?”
“She said Sven loved her, not that he had declared it in any way.”
Was it possible for a man’s head to explode atop his shoulders? Rurik felt as though his would at any moment. “And you said what?”
“Rurik, we both saw them after the fight. We both know that she is not of the same standing as he, that her place would be as a servant in his house or a leman in his bed. That nun’s habit was the only thing standing between Sven and her…virtue.”
’Twas the truth, as much as he’d like to argue against it. Still, if Sven thought her a nun, he would not dishonor her. If he thought her of the lower class, then…
“You see, do you not?” Margriet asked with a smugness in her voice that spoke of being right.
“But did he think her a nun when they left?” he fired back.
Her silence was not nearly as satisfying as he’d hoped. And when he noticed the tears gathering, he felt like the worst of villains.
“’Tis all my fault,” she whispered. “I told her it would work. I told her she would be safe until we reached my father’s house. That she could tell him the truth and learn how it stood between them. Now…now…”
Her blubbering could not have shocked him more if she’d stood naked while doing it. Nay, that was the wrong image to take to mind while blaming another man for doing exactly what he’d done.
Coveting a nun.
Falling in love with a woman denied to him for many reasons.
When the tears began to fall, he did what he’d seen Connor do many times to soothe Jocelyn—he moved closer, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. God Almighty, it felt good to hold her close and comfort her. A few minutes passed and she quieted against him. Reluctant to let the moment go and yet knowing he must, he leaned away and waited for her to regain control.
“Do you have any idea of where they might have gone?” he asked quietly. “Does she have family anywhere?”
Sister Margriet dabbed her eyes as she shook her head. “None that I ken.” She sniffled then. “Would he offer her marriage? Would his family allow it?”
“He might wish to, but unless there was something of benefit, they would not permit him to marry so far beneath them.”
As far beneath him as Margriet was beneath his own standing. In Sven’s situation, wealth or connections could make the difference, but the girl had neither.
“Should we not follow them? Mayhap if we reach them in time…” She paused and her bleak eyes said she did comprehend the truth of it, no matter what her soft heart wanted to believe.
“I cannot follow them unless you are safe, and this would seem to be the safest place for you to wait.” He looked around at the worn-down building. “Well, once we have word of their direction, and I suspect they travel on ahead of us, we can get on the road, too.” He stood now and looked out the small window to the place where his men gathered. Rurik would need to tell them something.
“I would go speak to the men, give them some story about what has happened.”
“Do they know? Did Sven confess anything to Magnus or one of the others?” She stood now, and smoothed her hands down the coarse tunic.
“I spoke to Magnus, who was shocked by this. He saw…they all saw her display yesterday, but thought she was overwrought from being ill and from Sven’s kindness to her then. None expected this.”
He opened the door and followed her into the yard next to the inn. The horses were gathered, packed with supplies and ready to ride. A pile of discarded sacks lay nearby, from the horses whose riders now needed speed to catch the couple. As he calculated, those horses would need to rest before they could travel north, so they would lose another day. One day, if Sven took her toward the islands, more if he rode in any other direction.
She waited by the door of the inn, while he spoke to the two groups, Scots and Northerners, offering no explanation but that the couple was gone without word and ordering that no assumptions be made until they were found. A word to Donald and Leathen separately assured that they would not share the revelation they’d heard about Elspeth with any of the others.
Rurik felt guilty in not sharing the information with Magnus, but something held him back. He wondered if Sven’s disappearance was part of something else, for something had dogged their path since the first letter from his father. Each time arrangements were made, they needed to be changed for some reason or another. Then, when they were making good time, the illness hit. Now this. An uneasy feeling tickled his thoughts, but he could not see the whole scheme yet.
The day passed slowly and when the noon meal was offered, no one felt like eating. Later in the day, he allowed Donald and Leathen to take Sister Margriet to walk along the river, with a special warning about her clumsiness where water was concerned. The glare he got for that made him smile. If she was angry at him, mayhap she would not worry so much about the girl.
’Twas nigh on sunset when three of the four searching groups returned as ordered after finding no sign of the couple. As he suspected, Sven was heading home. The arrival of one of the final two men sent out this morn only confirmed it. The problem was that they were now separated by a day in time and distance and that would grow to be more with each passing day.
For it was easier for two people to travel faster than the group under his command. He hoped that the man tracking them could stay close enough and keep watch until they met up again, most likely in Thurso. As he was checking the inn for the final time and taking his place at the bottom of the stairs, Rurik was struck by the feeling that he was being led into a trap.
By whom or for what reason, he knew not. But years of fighting and watching his back taught him not to ignore such things. His life and the lives of those he guarded had been protected when he listened to the warnings from within. He would not begin to ignore them now.
The next week moved forward at an agonizing pace, for the weather turned bad and hampered their journey every day. Because the winds and rain came every day, they could only ride several hours instead of most of the day. Margriet still instructed the men in Norn and Gaelic as they rode, but her joy in it seemed diminished now. Margriet seemed a different person, still blaming herself for Elspeth’s disappearance.
The next problem was her health and, although the stomach ailment of the first days did not return, she was exhausted by midday and could not stay upright on her mount. Because there was no other way to continue on, or so he told himself, he began carrying her on his horse, first riding pillion and then, after she nearly fell off when sleep overtook her, held in front of him. She argued the first time she woke in his arms, wrapped and kept dry and warm in the length of tartan wool he’d brought from the MacLeries, but soon even she seemed to accept it.
When they passed the final village and he knew they grew close to Thurso, he sent men on ahead to meet with an old friend of her father’s who’d promised them food and shelter. The man’s estate was south of the town, which suited Rurik, for he could leave half of his men there to see to Margriet’s safety and comfort and send the other half to Thurso to find Sven and Elspeth.
The unusual arrangement he’d made with the man was to have use of the house without any others present. When they arrived, Rurik found it all as he’d asked—a well-stocked larder,
fresh horses for their use and clean beds. There was even a barn large enough to house most of the men.
Within two days, Magnus had secured places on a ship going north to the islands and discovered Sven’s hiding place. Now, he waited only for nightfall to uncover the truth.
Chapter Fifteen
Margriet had finished her prayers and lay completely awake in the large bed. This was the one comfort she could become accustomed to—a soft feather bed on top of ropes that kept her off the hard ground while she slept. This was nothing like the pallet on which she slept at the convent, nor the bed at the inn that she’d shared with Elspeth. This one was piled high with pillows and blankets and even some animal skins to keep her warm.
And they did.
The weather was changing and the cooler air crept in as autumn approached. She dreaded going north now, in a boat that would be tossed about on the sea. Margriet wondered though, as she had walked around the perimeter of the house before she retired, whether it was the boat or the destination she feared the most.
Now, when sleep should be coming, it did not. Although Rurik tried to hide it from her, she knew that he’d found Sven and Elspeth, and was going to confront them this night. She could not imagine the outcome, for no matter which way she turned it over in her mind, she could see no good end.
If Sven knew Elspeth’s truth, and she prayed Elspeth had revealed no other secrets but her own, she doubted the girl was still a virgin. Rurik could not demand marriage between them, as they were not equal for the girl’s honor to matter in that way.
All she could do was wait and pray, both for the well-being of all involved and for forgiveness for her part in this. If she had not resisted her father’s call home—nay, if she had no reason to fear her father’s call—none of this would have happened to Elspeth. The girl would be safely living at the convent until her parents made arrangements for her marriage to a suitable man they knew. Now, and only because Margriet had dragged her into this charade, the girl would suffer.
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