by Sandra Lake
Feeling guilty for placing his mother in such an awkward position, Hök said, “Worry not for her, Mother. She holds the heart of a snow leopard. She is beautiful and intelligent, but she will scratch your eyes out and lick her paws clean when she’s done. Trust my word on this.”
“I trust your words,” Lida said. “I also trust my eyes and my instincts. I am sorry for the heartache you have suffered,” she said, her tone wrought with anger. “A mother is only as joyous as her saddest child. I felt your pain and grieved it with you those many years ago. Yet, what of Sovia’s pain? Who grieved for her? What life has that young woman suffered? What do you truly know of her character?”
“Her character is well known throughout the Baltics, Mother,” Stål said, and all their younger brothers snickered.
“Nay. That is her reputation,” his mother said. “What have you observed with your own eyes, and not heard from some boasting, bloated sailor?”
Tero cleared his throat.
“Speak, man. Do not stand on false modesty here,” Jarl Magnus said.
“She is bold. Some would say brazen.” Tero spoke in a firm, clipped tone. “Yet, what I observed in her I would define as bravery. Moments after her father’s death, seconds from facing her own torturous end, she spoke on the executioner platform with no fear, and did not once beg for mercy. ’Tis a day I will never forget. She stilled the tongues of that mob and that of every clergyman present. They had not one witness to speak against her other than a bitter former queen who had been jilted by her young lover, who had his eyes set on Sovia for his wife. That brave girl looked every one of her accusers in the eyes, including Jarl Brosa, and she never flinched. Not once.”
“Aye. I believe we had a taste of her spirit this very night,” Lothair said. “She silenced Kat, more than once. That takes a lion’s amount of courage.”
“And she speaks to the lowest among us with care and compassion,” Tero added.
“In a single afternoon, Lady Sovia has won the heart of every female servant in Tronscar,” his mother agreed. “If she is a woman to be never trusted, nor treated with common courtesy, why would she bother with false modesty and generosity of spirit to those beneath her distinction as a king’s grandchild?”
“Perhaps it is a ploy to lay the foundation for her traps,” Katia said. “Mother, she treated Hök’s heart like a toy, and then robbed Father—”
“Or perhaps she is not at all reprehensible, but merely human,” Lothair said. “I suppose you never made a dangerous misstep or two, dear wife?”
“Lothair, I swear I will wear my practice armor to bed if you make one more mention of Bogolyubovo.” His sister pointed her small dagger toward her husband.
Lothair tilted his head and sent Katia a softer expression. “Need I remind you, my love, that I share a kinship with a woman who has been unjustly branded with the label of whore.” It was not a well-guarded secret that his brother-in-law was the illegitimate son of Duke Henry the Lion and his chambermaid. His statement created an uncomfortable silence.
Jarl Magnus shifted in his seat and seemed to be hiding his face slightly in his cup. Lida had turned toward her husband, staring at him as if she could wait all night for him to finish hiding in his drink.
“Aye, Lothair,” Lida said, directing her words toward Magnus. “I cannot imagine a more shameful situation than a woman being unfairly given that unfortunate title.” Slowly, Lida stood, and without bidding anyone a “sleep well,” as was her custom, took her leave. With her departure, the siblings’ pride and anger seemed to drain. The hall was redolent with their mother’s disappointment.
Soon after her exit, Katia and Lothair retired with their children, who had long since fallen asleep on their laps. Jarl Magnus moved from the table to his larger chair by the great hearth, and Tero sat across from him, speaking in hushed tones. Hök’s younger brothers disbursed to the lower tables, joining in a few games of dice and chess.
Hök rubbed his temple. “All I ask is to climb into my bed and sleep for a year,” he said quietly to his twin.
“Go then. I’ll cover for now with Father.”
“She is already in there, remember?”
“Move her in with the maids.”
Hök leaned closer to his brother to make his confession. “I can’t bear have her near me and I can’t trust her out of my sight.” He had already spent too many nights fantasizing of reaching out and pulling her round bottom against him, filling his hand with her breast, and tasting the sweetness of her bare neck.
“Take my chamber. I’ll bunk in the barracks—”
“Hök.” His father raised his hand, summoning them over.
“I’ll fill your cup. You’ll need it,” Stål said.
They joined their father and sipped the fresh supply of grain wine to soften the severity of the lecture about to befall them. Hök had hoped to return to Tronscar a hero, or at least a son who had made his family proud, but instead, his first day home had been spent hiding and arguing.
To most in the hall, his father appeared as he always did—at ease, contented, holding court around a hearty fire. This night, however, those in his inner circle could see a subtle difference in his countenance. He sat reclined, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. His arms were crossed casually, but the veins in his neck were a little too pronounced, his jawline taut and his eyes shifting in an unsettled pattern.
“Older men develop their wisdom through the trials of pain and suffering that befall all men, over the course of life,” his father said. “When a certain kind of inner fortitude is found in someone as young as Lady Sovia, it is often a reflection of a large measure of hardship overcome in early years.”
Stål scoffed, “You can’t possibly think that because she can spout off some rehearsed speech of stolen wisdom, that her past is simply erased and forgotten among us. We were all there in Polska. She set a trap for—”
“The right provocation can force even the guiltless into practicing deception,” Tero said quietly.
“Guiltless? Have you met the hellcat?” Stål snapped. “I respect your even temperament, Tero, but sometimes you must call a creature by its true name.”
“Enough, brother!” Hök said. “She is my wife. I swore an oath to protect her.”
“She is your bride still, not wife. I know you haven’t lain with her,” his brother said and Tero groaned.
“She will be my wife until my last breath. Insulting her does not help.”
His brother recoiled. It was clear he had not meant to rub salt in the wound.
“I am glad to hear you speak like this, Hök,” his father said. “I believe your brother’s reaction, much like my own, is due to an instinct to protect you. You have worked hard for your people and I wished to see you blessed with as fine a wife as I am with your mother.”
“Sovia will never be like Mother.” Hök drank deeply from his cup.
“Few women could ever be,” Magnus said.
Tero wisely changed the direction of the conversation. “I have observed your lady wife over her years at court, and she appeared eager and willing to do the bidding of her father. However, one of her dismissed maids once told me that she lived in great fear of her father. To me, she has always appeared to be a shrewd woman of unbreakable spirit.”
“Hmph.” Hök rested his head in his hand, weary. “Father, Tero is in need of a very long, restful retreat. His head has gone soft.”
“I do not fault you for not trusting her,” Tero said, “but I do believe she can in time become a great benefit to you as your wife.”
Jarl Magnus looked to Hök’s twin. “Stål, why is your right knee weak and prone to giving out when you run?” his father asked, changing the subject.
“Because I injured it, sir,” Stål said, sighing and resigning himself to what was clearly going to be one of Magnus’s famous lessons.
“And why did it never heal properly?”
Hök was too tired for boyhood lectures. “Aye, Father, we know. Stål went against your counsel, the healer’s counsel, and Mother’s instruction. He did not give his leg time to heal and tore his wound open time and time again. We all suffered through the winter he spent in and out of bed.”
“It is not that his leg couldn’t be of full use to him today,” his father said without sympathy. “If the limb had been given proper time and opportunity to heal, Stål may have still run faster than his brothers.”
Hök held up his hands in defeat. He wanted this conversation over with. “I give up. Tell us what you are trying to say.”
“Sovia has never been given a chance to heal, Hök. A beautiful, quality instrument does not have a choice of how it is played or who plays upon it. It is my belief that your wife was not a co-conspirator with her father as King Sverre would have the court believe, but simply put, her father’s cruelly used instrument,” Tero said. “Perhaps she will continue to give you cause for distrust, or perhaps you could consider giving her time and opportunity to recover from her troubled past and earn your respect.”
“For the love of the saints, Tero, she’s not a lute. She is grown woman and made her own choice about whom she obeyed,” Stål snapped. “How do we know she is not still Pavlik’s instrument?”
“First you openly insult my wife.” Hök glared at his brother. “Now you insult me by suggesting I would ever allow Pavlik or his agents near her.”
Stål shook his head dismissively. “I ask your pardon, brother. The sight of that woman provokes me.”
His father leaned forward. “Tero has read the original decree of Sovia’s grandfather, King Sigurd. Sovia’s lands can only pass through her bloodline. If she births no children, the land returns to the crown’s holding. Tero and I believe that the first chance Sverre gets, he will make peace treaties with our Kievan Rus enemies. It is the wisest course of action for him to guarantee his sole rulership over Norway and undermine Lendmann control in the south.” It was the Lendmann party that had plotted with Pavlik and the Kievan Rus court to support the former King Erlingsson, and plot against King Sverre. Signing a contract of peace with the Kievan Rus army would secure King Sverre’s seat on the throne, the Rus army would gain ground and influence with their neighbors, which would mean all Hök had worked so hard for would come to nothing.
That sobered Hök up. He had planned on his brothers and their sons securing control over Toraslotte and the regain of Nidaros. “Fak!”
“The sooner your wife produces your heir, the safer our peace accord with Norway will be,” his father said.
Tero added, “When babes grow into cousins and prized grandchildren live on both sides of the mountain range, our peace with Norway will be secure.”
“I’m not breeding children with that woman!” Hök said, far too loudly. Sovia was safe. His family was safe—at least for now. What was not safe was his sanity. He could still feel her small hand resting on his chest as she urged him back into his chair tonight. The smallest touch from her challenged his very willpower. Bedding her would place his heart back into the center of her hands, where she could squeeze and tear at it until there was nothing left of him. “I can’t so much as touch her.”
“Then your sacrifice for peace will be short-lived,” his father said flatly. He reclined in his chair, crossing one booted ankle over his knee. “A delegation from Viken who claims kinship with Lady Sovia has already requested visitation. Her people will expect to see their beloved princess soon. Within a few months, I would expect that spies from Toraslotte will begin flooding over our mountains looking for her this very summer, and when they find her being treated no better than a serf, I do believe your design to protect Tronscar will not outlast the year.”
His brother made an annoyed sound. “At least Sovia will be pleased. This next war will not be over greed, land, or power, but for vengeance over her.”
“The heart of a free and willing loyal warrior is something to be truly feared,” Magnus said. “I would have expected that as a son of Tronscar, this fact would be well known by you.”
Hök looked down into his cup, uncomfortable to be the source of such tension in the family. “Then I am fated to fail you again, Father. For I cannot do of what you ask me, sir.”
“I have spoken with Father Phillip,” Stål said. He leaned forward in his chair. “I believe I have come up with a plan to rid Hök of his unwanted bride.”
Chapter 15
“Her debauched ways are known to all,” Stål said, too eagerly for Hök’s liking.
“I have a solution that will keep the peace and free Hök from this situation. I suggest sending an envoy. I volunteer. I will arrive in the Viken with a letter from the bishop of Uppsala annulling the marriage contract on the grounds that Sovia is impure. No one will dispute that. I will explain to her relations the great service Hök performed by removing her from Norway saved her from execution. Hök will appear to be her champion, and the Norwegians will honor him for it.”
Tero shook his head. “To start, we will have made an enemy of Jarl Brosa, and the last time I checked, the bishop of Uppsala worked for Brosa. And second, the newly formed Norwegian court will simply give her in marriage to another, along with her lands. Most likely she will be wed to one of our enemies as repayment for the insult of going back on the marriage contract. It will not matter if you have a decree from the pope himself. Lady Sovia will be used by King Sverre to secure his throne and put an end to any division of loyalty.”
Stål slammed his fist on his knee. “Then we send her to a nunnery ourselves. But she cannot stay here. Hök should not have to suffer any more for the security of Tronscar.”
“I say what I will or won’t suffer for, Stål,” Hök said, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to alleviate the headache that pounded at the center of his brow. “She’s not going to a nunnery. I made an oath and I will not break it.”
Silence enveloped the group. Hök tried to concentrate on the crackling of the fire and drown out his raging thoughts.
The lines on Magnus’s forehead softened, and his eyes filled with sympathy. “Son, you were . . . favorably drawn to her once, even if for a short while. Perhaps in time you will grow attached to her again.”
Feeling more exhausted then he ever had before, Hök said, “The sight of her drains me of all logic, my sanity is barely left intact. I will go speak with her relations in the Viken myself, assure them that Sovia is well and content with her new family. Mother’s hospitality is well known. They will believe me.” A heavy blanket of silence now rested upon the group, each man thinking about how best to proceed.
Quietly, his father began to speak. “Men enter wedlock of dozens of reasons. Love, respect, or attachment are not usually among them. Your mother did not wish to wed me. She rejected my offer how many times, Tero?”
“At least ten times. Not including the times she blocked her brothers’ attempts to force her,” Tero said.
“I know you are aware that Katia’s father died before her birth, but what you may not know is that Katia was born only a few months after your mother wed that man. Your mother’s in-laws beat her, blaming her for their son’s lack of moral restraint, when it was he who had seduced your mother, who was but a young maiden. Chief Lyyski called your mother a whore and sent her away in shame. To add further to her unjust hardship, I used your mother’s vulnerable position in her village to pressure her into accepting my offer of marriage.” His father’s eyes closed and his voice grew quieter. “From the first moment I saw her working in the fields, I wanted her. She was beautiful, and strong. I had to have her for myself and had lost my head . . . logic and reason escaped me, leaving me blinded by my . . . love for her.” His words trailed off and a small smile grew upon his lips for a moment, then quickly faded away.
“While you boys were growing inside
your mother, I failed her. I trusted a witch’s words over the words of your mother. I turned my back on her and for many months believed she was . . . unfaithful to me.”
Hök and his brother shifted uncomfortably in their seats and they both sat up straighter, displeased to hear the word unfaithful and their mother spoken about in the same breath, even if it was by their loyal father, who loved her.
“I treated your mother with contempt, and it is to her credit of a long-suffering heart that she forgave me. So when I speak this counsel, that the heart of a woman is sound, deep, and nurturing, but not predictable or comprehensible, I speak from experience.”
Hök could not look up from his cup. He swirled the clear grain wine in the chalice while his father’s words shifted about in his head, the confounding reality of the last month twisting and melting into facts. He had never heard such an account of his parents, but it must be true if his father was speaking it.
Magnus continued. “My father taught me that a wife was to be beaten into submission—controlled and rendered serviceable and silent. He claimed that love for a woman made men blind and weak, and toppled kingdoms. On this matter, your grandfather was a fool,” his father said coldly. He spoke in a tone he had never before used when speaking of his father, whom he had loved and admired so greatly.
Hök sighed. “How is a person to leave the past behind, if the person does not ask forgiveness, nor feel shame for what they’ve done? She is unrepentant, Father. I swear she takes pride in her past misdeeds, for as often as she speaks of them herself.”
His father shook his head drowsily, weariness etched into every crease of his face. “If the king or Brosa or one of my enemies insults me, I can handle it. Their insults have no lasting effect on me. A soul mate however, as your mother is to me, or my heart, as my children are to me, or a trusted friend, as Tero is to me—often these are the people in our lives that we have the strongest reactions to. Sons, I don’t understand it myself. But it is easier to forgive a distant neighbor or relation for causing a major injury to us than it is to forgive a small jab from those that live under the same roof with us.”
