A muscle jumped in his cheek and his lips became a thin white line. ‘I’ll be damned if I allow that man to dictate when or where I perform!’
‘He will be expecting to see a bloody sheet.’
He stilled. ‘Why? You swore such things were unimportant in your culture.’
‘He knows I was a shield maiden. Shield maidens are supposed to be virgins. Sif knows your customs and he is determined that no one will have cause to say anything against this marriage.’
Aedan swore softly. Dagmar was going to be humiliated when the linen sheet had nothing on it. She’d have been a virgin, but he’d already taken her maidenhead.
She was far too keyed up to enjoy it and he wanted their first married joining to be special, something to be remembered, not endured with ribald joking outside the door. Until her father’s interference, he had planned on taking her to the hut he’d occupied when his brother was alive, his refuge from the mess he’d made. Before Brigid’s betrayal he’d planned it for his bride. He hoped Dagmar would be different from Brigid and would appreciate it. He consigned her father to the furthest corner of Hell.
‘Something needs to be done or otherwise your father won’t be satisfied.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Dagmar’s brows wore a worried pucker. ‘Do you think if he does not see the blood that he will demand to actually see us couple instead? With weddings in the north country, sometimes the couple would perform in public to placate the gods and ensure the bride’s fertility.’
‘That is definitely not going to happen.’ Aedan threw the covers off the bed, revealing a pristine white linen sheet.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Cheat.’ Aedan took the small eating knife from the chest. ‘No one will be able to tell whose blood is on this sheet.’
He prepared to cut his thigh, cursing Kolbeinn as he did it.
Dagmar put her hand over his wrist, stopping the motion. ‘Wait! I’ll do it. My blood.’
‘Are we going to argue about that as well?’
She gave one of her smiles. His heart twisted and he realised that he needed them in his life. He was taking out his annoyance at Kolbeinn on Dagmar who looked beyond beautiful, but exhausted. ‘My parents used to argue. Then they stopped and the awfulness started.’
‘I led a quiet life before you happened along,’ he said to the sheet.
‘Did he, Mor?’
Mor the traitor gave a slight shake of her head.
‘Up on the bed then.’
Her body bore a network of scars where she’d obviously received wounds. He hated to mar her skin again. Silently he renewed the vow that he’d secretly made during the wedding—that she would not have to fight again. If Kolbeinn’s crew failed to punish Olafr, he’d do it himself, but Dagmar would not lift a sword again. She’d suffered enough.
‘It is going to have to be deeper,’ she said with a frown. ‘That is no worse than a pinprick. The point of the exercise is that I bleed on that sheet.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
She removed the knife from his fingers. ‘Five summers campaigning means pain holds little fear for me.’
He winced slightly as the knife sliced through her flesh.
She grasped her thigh and forced the blood out, gasping slightly as she did it. Aedan’s stomach twisted. Less than a day into the marriage and she bore a fresh wound. He was worse than his brother for breaking promises.
‘That should do it,’ she said briskly and rubbed the blood on to the sheet. ‘Where did you learn this trick?’
‘I’ll get a cloth.’ He turned his back on her and forced the bile back down his throat. He’d never been sick at the sight of blood before, but seeing Dagmar’s white thigh gleaming red, he struggled. She’d probably laugh at him, tell him that it was barely a trickle. He schooled his features and turned back towards her. ‘The cut is noticeable.’
‘I can tend to it.’ She got off the bed and dipped the cloth in the mead before dabbing it on the cut. ‘Do you want the floor? Or the bed? Your choice.’
Aedan frowned. The ease between them had vanished and it caused a hollow to open in his chest. He had destroyed her dream, but he had to think about his people. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor and you take the bed.’
* * *
Dagmar curled herself into a tight ball. She could hear the steady sound of Aedan’s breath intermingled with Mor’s.
She had tried and tried, but sleep refused to come.
She could understand him not performing as he called it, but did he have to sleep so far away? He had barely looked at her after she cut her thigh. Despite her brave words earlier, she knew Mhairi had spoken truthfully. Like her father, Aedan knew kings needed sons and he’d remained unmarried until now, until he was left with no option.
She firmed her mouth. Begging was not going to happen, but the first time he looked at another woman, she would be sharpening her knives. She was not going to be made into some cowed wife who allowed her husband freedom while accepting none for herself.
* * *
‘Are you awake, Dagmar? I need the sheets. I see the Gael performed as your father and I hoped.’ Her nurse’s whisper penetrated through Dagmar’s confused dream.
Dagmar blinked awake. Her nurse stood by the bed. Most of the furs had fallen on the ground and even in the dim light, the stain on the sheet was clearly visible. ‘Where is Aedan?’
‘He has taken your trousers and tunic. Your father ordered me to burn them, but Aedan said that he would deal with them.’
‘Probably wants the pleasure of burning them himself.’ Dagmar’s mouth went dry. She leapt out of bed and started searching on the floor. ‘Where are my boots?’
Her nurse wrinkled her nose. ‘They are there. I am not to touch them. I had brought a pair of fur-lined slippers which had belonged to Ingebord, but your husband insisted you’d prefer your old boots.’
The tension eased from her shoulders. Her boots were here. She still had the gold, in case everything went wrong. And the sketch she’d made of the house she’d build for her mother when the vow was fulfilled. That piece of parchment had travelled with her for the last nine years. ‘My husband spoke true.’
‘I have brought a selection of gowns.’ Her nurse clapped her hands and a number of gowns were carried in—all in deep green and silver. Her stepmother’s colours.
‘I will wear my own gown, rather than one of my stepmother’s.’
Her former nurse gave one of her hard stares, the sort which used to command instant obedience from Dagmar. ‘The blue gown you wore for the wedding looked to be fraying at the seams. You will need new gowns sooner rather than later. Even your mother when she was married wore gowns.’
‘I will deal with my clothes when I get to Kintra, but until then I wear the blue gown. The style they wear is sure to be different. I am the Lady of Kintra, not a Northern lady now.’
‘I really think you should look at everything in the trunk your father saved for you.’
Dagmar remembered the tone of voice from when she was little and had done something wrong. This time, however, it was about pleasing her father. ‘There won’t be time. Aedan will want to leave as soon as possible. Making silly noises over unwanted gowns makes me want to gag.’
‘When you were little, you used to love going through your mother’s trunks, trying on her jewellery and finery.’
‘When I was little, many things were different. I believed my father actually cared about me, instead of seeing me as a tool to further his own ambitions.’
Her nurse gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Every time your name day arrived while you were gone, your father would take himself away and get blindly drunk. He has missed you.’
‘He can keep his kindness. I haven’t required it for over ten years.’
‘You need to stop thinking like a child.
’
‘I’ve experienced five years of the blood and stink of war. I’ve earned the right to be called an adult.’
‘You still see your mother and father with a child’s eyes,’ her nurse scolded. ‘Your mother was far from blameless, whatever she claimed. Your mother was quite vocal about only ever having one child. Your father wanted many children. Your mother was always threatening to leave him if she did not get her own way. He did not think she meant it until she went. She’d humiliated him in front of everyone. He lost his temper.’
‘I know my mother’s side.’
‘What you might not know is that your father loves you and has always loved you. He rescued me because he worried that his wife, your mother, was neglecting you. Once Alf found you playing in the embers of a fire. Your mother was too busy with her sword practice to be bothered with what you did.’
Dagmar pressed her hands against her eyes. She could dimly remember Old Alf telling her the same sort of tale about the time he’d found her playing in the fire. Her mother had laughed and said that his memory was going. It was entirely possible that her mother had become distracted. She often forgot the time or to eat if she became too involved in practising her skills. ‘How do you know this?’
‘Alf brought you and your burnt forearm to me. Tears streamed down your face. It was the first time we met. Your father forbade me to go with you both when you left because he thought your mother would return, once she calmed down, as she needed help in looking after you.’
‘He misjudged her.’
‘Yes, he did and he misjudged Ingebord’s determination as well.’ Her nurse continued in a softer voice. ‘Over the years, he did often speak of you to me. It is why he kept me with him when Ingebord would have seen me gone. He always hoped you’d return.’
‘I won’t wear my stepmother’s things.’
‘But you will take the trunk. Look at it with an open mind when you do?’
‘As you will give me no peace until I do, yes.’
‘I’ve packed another trunk full of tapestries which used to hang in the hall back when you were small.’
‘My mother’s tapestries? The ones which had belonged to her mother?’
Her nurse tilted her head to one side. ‘They may be. What you do with them should be your choice. Just as it was your mother’s.’
‘Sif, my mother didn’t have a choice.’
‘We always have a choice. She chose her path, but I remember her well enough to know she’d have wanted you to be happy and content. Have you been?’
Dagmar traced one of the motifs on the chest. Her mother had warned her to never marry because she would be unhappy. However, Dagmar knew she’d be unhappier away from Aedan than with him. ‘My mother’s memory will not be disgraced.’
Her nurse caught her hand. ‘I know, but remember your parents’ marriage is not yours. Aedan mac Connall is a good man and he cares about you.’
Dagmar blinked hard. ‘You will be telling me next that you believe in people living happily ever after.’
‘Why not? Your father and I—that is what we are doing.’ Sif put her hand over Dagmar’s. ‘In the darkest times you have to believe, Dagmar, and I for one believe in you and your ability to make this marriage work.’
Chapter Twelve
Kintra with its gabled roof shone out over the water. To the right Aedan could make out the gleaming stone cross which honoured his dead nephew and niece, the one he had put up once he discovered how his brother had sought to conceal the truth about why the boat had capsized by blaming Liddy, and how his brother had failed his people through insisting vast amounts of gold be spent on a fleet of unseaworthy ships. Like every other time when he spotted the cross, the weight on his chest increased and he renewed his vow to keep Kintra safe. He would not fail it like his brother had.
Aedan concentrated on Kintra bay and the purple Paps of Jura rising behind. He’d rescued his people. His brother’s legacy of debt and extravagance no longer cast a shadow over Kintra, but would they see it that way? Before he left, there had been grumbling about how he always managed to put Kintra into more danger. He would have to convince them that Dagmar represented safety, rather than servitude to the Northmen, or the grumbles from a few could swell to an angry chorus.
Despite her nurse’s confident prediction that Dagmar would wear a new gown for the journey, Dagmar had appeared at the waterfront wearing her blue gown and her boots. Part of him wanted to cheer her independence, but another part of him worried she’d find her new role impossible. In saving Kintra, would he destroy this woman’s spirit?
‘I take it, from Mhairi’s delighted screams about the crowds of people thronging to the shore, we are looking at Kintra,’ Dagmar said, wearing one of her fiercest expressions.
Aedan reached over and touched her hand. She flinched and turned her face away. He hated that she had retreated into her shell again. He’d had no time to speak to her this morning and reassure her that all would be well before her nurse had bustled in. He at least had managed to secrete her old clothes away before the old biddy could dispose of them. They were far too much a part of Dagmar to destroy.
‘That is indeed Kintra, your new home. Try to look as though it is something more than a dung heap when you greet people.’
Her scowl deepened. ‘You put words in my mouth. I know nothing about your home. I can barely see the shore.’
He sighed and piloted the boat to the jetty.
As Mhairi had predicted, everyone who lived close to the bay was on the shore and more kept arriving with every heartbeat until the wharf area teemed with his people, laughing and cheering as each person came ashore until only Dagmar remained thunder-faced on the boat.
Aedan held up his hand and the throng fell silent. He extended his hand and Dagmar’s cold fingers curled about his. He led her on to the jetty.
‘Who is this woman?’ one of the farmers called out. ‘Another woman you rescued from that butcher?’
‘Dagmar Kolbeinndottar, now my wife and your new lady. You are to welcome her with Kintra’s customary warmth.’
Dagmar stood on the rickety jetty. A faint breeze whipped her hair into her mouth. With impatient fingers, she pushed it out. She hated that everyone was staring at her like a prized cow. When she had worn her paint and had fastened her hair in plaits, at least she had been able to hide behind them. Out here she felt naked and vulnerable.
At Aedan’s announcement, the crowd of people stopped cheering and instead regarded her with hostile eyes.
‘You married a Northwoman?’ someone called out. ‘Why? Aren’t our women good enough for you? Mhairi became a hostage for you!’
Several others uttered a few choice phrases in Gaelic, making unflattering comparisons. More proof if she needed it about her physical assets, but her heart kept whispering that she needed to give Aedan another chance. He had made her feel beautiful. Dagmar kept her back straight. Never, ever allow them to see your hurt—the advice from her mother proved as worthwhile now as it had done on the practice field.
‘Because I value peace above all things,’ Aedan declared in a ringing tone. ‘Kolbeinn has cause to keep his promises. He favours us with his daughter, his only living child, as Kintra’s lady.’
Dagmar’s heart thudded. This was far worse than being at Constantine’s court. There they had accepted her because she was part of Constantine’s army. When she first went to her mother’s lands, Old Alf had been there before she and her mother arrived and had eased the way.
Here they would judge her on her ability to keep an estate, not on how well she fought or who her mother was. On any great estate like Kintra, the lady had much to do, from ensuring a good harvest to making sure all were clothed and tending to those who were ill, a thousand and one mundane tasks.
Her mother had left such things to Old Alf’s woman rather than bothering with them. When she
died, Dagmar silently vowed she’d be different. She’d had plans to learn after she gained her lands, but the battle and Olafr had happened. She had striven to be the best warrior and now she’d strive to be the best lady, and that included defending the land against any raiders.
‘I look forward to getting to know you,’ she said in Gaelic. Her voice sounded high and frail to her. ‘I’m sure I will soon feel at home here. From what I can see of Kintra and its sheltered bay, it has great potential.’
‘The Northwoman knows Gaelic!’ rippled through the crowd.
Aedan held out his hand to help her down, but she ignored it. She wasn’t like that Mhairi, leaning on men. She stood on her own feet. She fought her battles herself. Those men had mocked her, but they would guard their tongues from now on.
Dagmar bit her lip and concentrated.
Face the future and the next battle, instead of trying to win the last one again.
Practical considerations instead of dream-spinning about a future with Aedan that could never be. They were not going to go off adventuring. They would be staying in this place. The gabled hall loomed over the bay. ‘I should like to see where we will live.’
‘We wait for the priest’s blessing. It is customary.’ Aedan gestured towards the assembled throng. ‘Where is Father Cathan? He may have arrived a few weeks before I departed, but I do expect my priest to adhere to certain standards which include greeting the laird when he returns.’
A man with a narrow face and a sallow look strode forward. The sneer on his face increased the closer he came to Dagmar. Dagmar concentrated on a point behind his left shoulder, rather than flinching.
‘You wish to have a blessing on this pagan marriage? Why did you not consult me first before contracting such an unwise alliance, Lord? You’ve wilfully imperilled your immortal soul and that of all the souls in Kintra.’
‘Far from a pagan marriage—’ Aedan’s face became hard ‘—Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe ensured the marriage was done according to the rites of our church. My wife has renounced her old gods. She understands the requirements of being Kintra’s lady.’
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