Loving the Norseman: Book 1: Rydar & Grier (The Hansen Series - Rydar & Grier and Eryndal & Andrew)

by Kris Tualla

  Could Rydar feel her heart hammering? It was trying to break out of her chest.

  “You safe now, Grier,” he said over his shoulder. “Do no’ be afraid.”

  “Aye. Thank you.” Better he thought her afraid, than realize she was responding as a lonely, warm-blooded woman to his very compelling masculinity.

  Chapter Thirteen

  June 4, 1354

  Lightning blinked repeatedly. The day grumbled in response, pulling its gray blanket of clouds lower. It was a good day to work in the kitchen by the fire, lulled by the soft patter of rain.

  Grier served Rydar a substantial mug of cider while he finished off yet another loaf of bread, this one with a honey comb. She had a pile of mending to do and this seemed a bonny time to do it. Because of the storm, there would be no traveling to Durness for lessons today. Grier settled on a stool where she could see Rydar easily.

  “I have no’ eat this,” he held up the comb, “after I was boy.”

  “Were there no bees in Greenland?”

  “Bees?”

  Grier made a buzzing sound and wiggled her hand in front of her.

  “Oh, aye. No. No bees.”

  “Ye were no’ born in Greenland.” Grier pulled her threaded needle through the stockings, then gazed expectantly at Rydar.

  “No. Norway.” He wasn’t looking at her.

  “How did you come to be in Greenland?”

  Rydar considered his sudden fists, resting before him on the table. His brow twitched. “My pappa hopes for better there.”

  “Better than what?” Grier asked, dropping her eyes back to her task. She sensed his unease and thought he might talk more easily if she didn’t look at him. She hoped he would, at any rate. He was still such a mystery and she longed to know more of him.

  Rydar was quiet a moment then heaved a sigh. “First son gets all, aye?” His tone held no discernable emotion.

  She nodded and stuck her needle into the knit garment.

  “The—two—son?” his voice lifted in question.

  “Second. Second son.” Grier kept her eyes lowered, concentrating on her stitches.

  “Aye. Second son go to God. And the,” he paused.

  “Third son.”

  “Third son is—solidus—for king,” he reverted to Latin.

  “Soldier.” Grier did look at him then. “And your father?”

  Rydar held up four fingers. “He helps first brother with land and money.”

  “He was his brother’s chamberlain?”

  Rydar shrugged. He didn’t understand.

  Grier waved her hand, ignored the difficult word and pressed on. “So how did you come to be in Greenland, then?”

  “He had”—Rydar pounded his fists against each other—“with first brother when I had ten years.”

  “Do ye ken what it was about?”

  “No. He no’ say. Nor my mamma.” Rydar’s countenance shifted, the strain and sorrow of the past etched in deepening lines around his mouth. “There is heap o’ crying, and we sail.”

  She lowered her darning to her lap. “Logan’s da was chamberlain to my Da.”

  “Your Da is first?”

  “Aye. He was laird. King Robert Bruce gave my grandda, Innes MacGowen, this land about fifty years ago as a reward for battles won against the English.”

  “Is English close here?”

  “No! We’re sae far from the English here!” Grier chuckled and shook her head. “MacGowen was raised on the border and he asked for lands as far from England as could be had.”

  Rydar shrugged. Grier put down her mending.

  “England and Scotland have”—she pounded her fists against each other in imitation of him—“for many years. But he grew up on the border, that’s why we speak mainly Scots English instead of Gaelic. It’s how we were raised.”

  Rydar squinted at her and Grier recognized his lack of understanding again. She continued her account slowly, hoping he would catch the important parts. She really wanted him to know more of her. For reasons she didn’t understand, it seemed important.

  “My Da, Rory MacInnes, drew papers leaving the castle and these lands to his brother, Davy, if something happened to him afore he fathered a son. He believed I would be married and have my husband’s lands, ye see. But a son never came and the Death did. When he died so suddenly, everything went to Davy.”

  Grier paused and bit off her yarn above a knot, using the diversion to once again swallow the bitter resentment over what this chain of events had cost her. If only they had known the devastation their future held, the papers could have been rewritten and she would be laird now. She would have her own lands and her own home.

  “And now Logan is laird,” she finished quietly. She met Rydar’s gaze and saw surprising understanding and empathy. It might be that he somehow understood her situation.

  Rydar waved his hand, indicating the castle. “MacDavid? He make this?” he asked, changing the direction of the conversation.

  Grier smiled a little and shook her head. “No, it was here for hundreds of years. He just made it better.”

  “Better?”

  Grier gestured while she explained. “He built walls to make separate rooms from the great hall. He moved the kitchen inside. He put glass in the windows. And he divided the chamber upstairs into private sleeping rooms.”

  “I ken.” Rydar nodded.

  They sat in comfortable silence a while. The kitchen door was slightly ajar and the patter of rain and the scent of wet dirt filled the space between them. Grier finished the stocking, picked up another, and steeled herself for whatever Rydar’s reaction might be to her next words.

  “Will you tell me of Greenland?” she asked softly. He never spoke of it and she wondered why. What had transpired there that prompted his very risky departure in that very fragile craft?

  A subtle change came over his face, as though an open door was purposely pushed closed, latched, and a bar lowered. Not quickly as in anger, but with deliberate intent. As if what was behind the door needed to remain behind the door.

  “I do no’ have your words,” Rydar demurred, pale eyes hooded. She saw the pink scar on his cheek ripple through his beard as his jaw tightened.

  Grier tamped down her disappointment, surprised at the resultant emptiness she felt. “Aye. Another time then.”

  Rydar pulled himself up by his crutch. He hobbled across the kitchen, stopping at the door to grab a basket. “I get onions,” he mumbled over his shoulder. And he stepped into the storm.

  ***

  He stood in the pounding rain, closed his eyes, and lifted his face to its caress. He inhaled the erotic scents of fertile earth, pungent heather, wet rock, salt spray. For a pace, he simply existed in its cooling and comforting embrace.

  Why did Grier have to ask about Grønnland? He was getting better at pushing those memories from his mind. These days he looked forward, not back. Back was death. Life was in front of him; and if not life, at the least a meaningful death in its pursuit. Not a futile death in a dying settlement.

  Rydar bent down to pull onions.

  He liked onions a lot. He liked them sliced between pieces of warm bread. Or boiled in any stew. He particularly loved them fried with turnips and herbs. Perhaps he’d ask Grier to fry onions with the ‘neeps’ for supper tonight.

  Limping back into the keep, he left both the brimming basket and a spreading puddle in the deserted kitchen. Then he went to his room to change into dry clothes. He took his time, stripping to his braies and drying his skin with his linen shirt. He pulled on a clean pair of hose, a clean shirt and tunic, and looked for somewhere to hang his sopping apparel. He opened a cabinet and draped the items over its door. Curious, he opened the rest of the cabinet’s doors.

  The tied rolls of parchment inside were far too tempting to ignore. Rydar selected one and unrolled it. It was a map. He tipped it toward the window’s rainy light. The castle was outlined and labeled, as was the road to Durness. Looking closely, he saw the layout of
the nearby town.

  That was interesting enough.

  He unrolled another parchment, a map of Scotland. He set that one aside to examine later. The third one made his heart pound with happy disbelief. It was a map of the North Sea and it showed Grønnland, Iceland, Skottland, the Orkneys, the Shetlands and Norway.

  Norway!

  He was shocked by how close it was. If the map was to be believed, he was already three-quarters of the way home! Rydar measured distances with his fingers and figured he had less than three hundred miles yet to go.

  He sat down hard, his heart somersaulting, the knee of his good leg gone weak. He had no idea he was so close. His multiple failures faded in the proximity of the nation so near to the east.

  A week.

  With a good boat he could be home in a week. Yesterday’s resolution to form a plan was suddenly half accomplished.

  A hesitant knock on his door diverted his attention. It took him a moment to bring his mind back into Skottland, Durness, the keep, the room. He stood and hopped on one leg to the portal.

  “So ye are in here. I saw the onions. Thank you,” Grier said. She noticed the map in his hand. “And ye found the maps!”

  Rydar looked down at the parchment he held, surprised it was still in his hand. “Maps. Aye.”

  “I love maps! Do you no’?” she asked, her enthusiasm sincere if her expression was true.

  Rydar corralled his thoughts with great effort and answered, “Aye.”

  Grier leaned forward. “Which have you got there?”

  “Um, Nord Sea.” Rydar hopped back into the room and sat on his cot. He patted it in invitation. Grier followed and sat beside him. He unrolled the parchment and she held one edge. “Here Grønnland,” he began. “And here Norway.”

  “Yes. And here’s Balnakeil Bay,” Grier offered, pointing.

  “Is seven days on boat.”

  “What is?”

  Rydar pinned her with his gaze. “Here to Norway.”

  She blinked. “Norway?”

  “My home.” He pointed at the map again, dragging his finger from Grønnland to Balnakeil Bay. “I sail here… to here now. Norway is no’ far!”

  She looked confused.

  “I very near home, Grier,” he said softly.

  She gave a jerky nod and looked around the room. She retrieved the first map he found.

  “Here is Durness,” she said, sitting next to him again. “When the rain lets up, we should go, aye?” Grier smiled at him with her lips. Her eyes were strangely dim. “I have no’ been there in a good bit.”

  “Aye?” Rydar answered. Her shifted attitude confounded him.

  She stood and moved toward the door. “I’ve mending to finish and cooking to do.”

  “Grier?”

  She spun to face him, expectant. Her hair, tied back from her face, whorled in shining copper coils around her shoulders. Her clear blue eyes opened wide. They claimed his and commanded his full attention.

  Suddenly his question seemed so very wrong. He asked it anyway, not knowing what the right question to ask her was.

  “You fry onions with neeps for supper?”

  Grier sucked in a breath as if she had something of import to say. It left her body in a long, slow sigh. Her demeanor sagged. The word was so muted, he barely heard it.

  “Yes.”

  June 6, 1354

  Rydar stood on the bluff behind the keep and stared beyond Balnakeil Bay at the North Sea. The turquoise sky, thickly woven with fat white ribbons, reached as far as he could see over the constant rolling of the distant navy water. Home was just over there, to his right.

  Two days ago he felt triumphant when he found the map. Now he felt hollow, frustrated once again by his constant limitations. How might he procure a boat? He had no supplies. He had no money. He had no help. And June was aging already; the solstice—and his thirtieth birthday—were but a fortnight ahead. Soon he would have no time.

  He turned and skirted the keep, not wanting to see Grier while mired in this uncharitable mood. He wandered around the castle yard, talking to the tenants, testing the strength of his leg little by little. He was determined to remove the splint by his birthday, even if Grier objected.

  His first chat was with the baker. She kneaded dough on a flat stone, her ruddy arms revealing the strength her job required. It was her responsibility to bake bread for all those who worked at the castle, a job that required far fewer loaves now than before the Death.

  “You sell bread in Durness?” Rydar asked.

  “I could. That man died two years back,” she said, breathless. “But I’ve no’ enough yeast.”

  Rydar watched her, entranced by the rhythm of her pounding, folding, pounding, folding, pounding.

  “It would be a help if I could,” she continued. “The Death took my husband and I’ve two sons to raise up.” Pound. Fold. Pound. Fold.

  “You need yeast?” Rydar asked.

  “Aye.” Pound. “With the money, I could buy more flour.” Fold. “It would be a help.”

  “Where you can get yeast?”

  She paused and pointed with her chin. “The brewer. He uses it to make ale. But it’s no’ free, aye?”

  Rydar thanked the woman and walked to the brewer’s barn, using his crutch as a cane. His leg hurt to walk on, but he ignored the pain.

  The smell of yeast overpowered all else in the stone building. Oak barrels, set on their sides, rose four high along the outer walls. The brewer was standing on a stool, stirring the contents of a huge copper pot with a wood paddle. Below it, a young apprentice stoked the fire.

  Rydar watched for a while, propping up his leg to relieve the persistent ache. Finally, the brewer nodded and climbed down from the stool. He approached Rydar with a wary expression.

  “Might I help you?”

  “My name is Rydar Hansen.” He offered his hand. The brewer took it. “I’m guest in keep.”

  “Oh, right! You’re the one Lady Grier fished out of the sea!” The man wiped his sweating brow on a rag. “How are ye gettin’ on?”

  “Lady is healer. I heal.”

  The man was balding and plump, but Rydar thought he was younger than he looked. “You are brewer for long?”

  “Only this past year. My father—God sain his soul—taught me everything, and I was his apprentice for six and a half years.” The man shrugged. “Not enough for a guild member, but enough to know my business.”

  “You have helper?” Rydar indicated the adolescent.

  “My boy, William.” He turned and considered the gangly boy. “And he’ll do.”

  Rydar broached the subject that was tickling his mind. “I talk to Baker. She say she sell bread in Durness, but needs more yeast.”

  “It’s a fine idea. I could supply the tavern there as well, if I had more barrels.”

  “And yeast?”

  The brewer narrowed his eyes, and leaned toward Rydar. “I can’t sell it. Unless I have money to buy more.”

  “With more barrels, you make more money?”

  He nodded slowly. “Aye.”

  Rydar nodded back. “Aye. Thank you.” He stood and crutched his way out of the barn and headed for the cooper. That man had a similar situation; he could not make more barrels unless he had more iron bands.

  “No man here makes bands? ” Rydar asked.

  “No’ these days.” The man crossed himself. “No’ since… Ye ken?”

  Rydar nodded. “Aye.”

  So the smithy was in Durness.

  And a trip into Durness suited Rydar’s restless mood quite well.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rydar was like a fox on a rabbit hunt. He ate a quick lunch without Grier. She was gone from the keep without explanation, but his quest called too strongly for him to be irritated by that.

  He rode Salle bareback to the McKay’s home in Durness. Margoh was surprised by his unexpected appearance, and he apologized to her for coming unannounced.

  “No, it’s fine! Only allow me
to, um…” She rushed from the room, leaving Rydar alone with her sister Hanne.

  “Please, do sit down, sir. Give comfort to your leg.” She spoke in Norse and gestured toward a chair.

  “Thank you, Madam Larsen,” Rydar answered in kind. “And are you well?”

  “As well as I might be without husband or children. Or a home of my own.”

  “Perhaps there is yet hope?”

  Hanne gave him a contemptuous look. “At my age? You are either cruel, or a jester. And I doubt there is a difference.”

  Margoh reappeared, her gown changed and her hair covered by a jeweled headdress. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Rydar?”

  “I was hoping you could take me to the smithy.”

  Confusion played over her face and she struggled to maintain a happy countenance. “The smithy?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” Rydar stood and offered his hand. Margoh’s soft fingers were dwarfed by his larger, rougher ones. “Shall we go then?”

  Smudges of red bloomed on her cheeks. “Yes.”

  Margoh slid her arm through Rydar’s right arm and she hugged it close as they left the McKay’s. Her hip slid against his with every step. Her offer was uncomfortably clear.

  She led him to the smithy at the far end of the town, closest to the sea. “So, the baker needs yeast from the brewer, who needs barrels from the cooper, who needs bands from the smithy?”

  “That’s it.” Rydar glanced down at her. “And I’ve come to see what the smithy needs.”

  “How do you know he needs anything?”

  He chuckled. “Everybody needs something!”

  And he was right.

  “My leather apron and gloves are worn through.” The smith, also a McKay, held them up for Rydar to see. “So, I can’t do big work until I can get new ones.”

  “What stops you?” Rydar inquired.

  “Roy MacTanner is asking too high a price. If I could sell bands to young Gavin MacDonald, I could pay Roy. But he’ll no’ take credit, and I don’t fault him.”