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

by Kris Tualla

Three sets of shoulder relaxed.

  “Do you have any more questions?” Rydar asked.

  Three heads wagged.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Get yourselves settled today.” Rydar untied Salle’s reins. He mounted the mare and turned her toward the main street of Durness. As he rode away, he heard the sounds of boyish jubilation erupt behind him.

  He grinned.

  When he saw the McKay’s house, Rydar realized that the entire exchange with Kristofer, Lars and Gavin had been in Norse. And now that he had the means to leave Scotland, he no longer needed to pursue their language.

  Ryder reined Salle away from the main street and toward the road back to Durness Castle.

  ***

  Logan sat across from Grier at the kitchen table. Excitement shot out of him like lightning; the air fairly crackled around him. Grier sat very still and nursed a steaming mug of gingerroot and mint for her rebellious stomach with willowbark added for her aching head.

  Never again will I act so foolishly, she resolved. It is no’ worth the price.

  “So I’ll fetch Malise every morn after breakfast and return her home after the midday meal!” Logan leaned back looking very pleased with his plan.

  Grier hadn’t been listening to him. She tried without success to recall what he said.

  Logan tilted his head. “Will that suit you, Grier?”

  “Ev—every morn?” she stammered.

  “Well no’ on Sundays, of course!” Logan demurred. “But there’s a heap to learn about running the castle. I see no reason to put it off, do you?”

  Oh. Teach Malise to run the castle. Every morning. Grier drew a bracing breath. “No, Logan. I think you’re wise to start right off. There truly is a heap to learn.”

  “I kent ye’d agree with me, Grier!” Logan pushed to stand. “I’ll go to her now and tell her. We’ll begin on the morrow!”

  Grier squinted one eye at him. “The morrow?”

  “The wedding is in four weeks, Grier. That’s no’ much time, aye?”

  Grier’s stomach clenched and threatened to pitch what little it held at Logan. She managed to clamp down the urge, and forced a tremulous smile.

  “No’ much time at all. You go and tell her, then.”

  Logan stepped close to Grier and surprised her with a brief hug.

  “Thank you, Grier. For everything.” He swallowed and his face reddened. “You are the only family I have left, ye ken. I owe my life to you. Ye’ll always have a home here.”

  Before Grier could speak, Logan spun and strode from the room. The door to the keep creaked open and clanked shut.

  Grier’s head dropped to her folded arms. Despair crushed her and she wept under its weight.

  ***

  By supper time, Grier was able to look at food again without growing nauseated. Two loaves of bread were finishing in the ovens, and she stirred a thick rabbit stew over the fire, made from the bounty of Rydar’s hunting expeditions.

  Rydar. What was she going to do about him?

  “I love him, I do,” she murmured. “And he’ll sail away in a few weeks and I’ll no’ ever see him again.” She pulled a breath, pushing against the heaviness of loss that squeezed her chest.

  Grier removed the bread from the ovens and set the pot of stew on the table. Grabbing the water bucket, she went outside to the well. She started to pull the bucket of fresh water up from the dark depths but stopped. Letting the bucket tumble down to a distant splash, she dropped on the grass to logically ponder the paths before her.

  Grier held up a single finger. “I can stay here, teach Malise, and go on with my life without changing a thing,” she said. While expected of her, it was not a particularly inviting path. It was the path of surrender and it left her with nothing of her own.

  She held up a second finger. “I might move away from Durness. I might even go to Edinburgh. Try to make my own way.” It may be she could practice healing, or open an apothecary shop. Even if she hadn’t ever known a woman who’d done such a thing, surely someone had.

  Then she held up a third finger and stared at it in silence for several minutes. This was the hardest one. The one she ached for. The one she could not choose on her own; it was dependent on him. But once she said it aloud, she kent it was the one she would pursue.

  “I could go to Norway with him,” she whispered.

  Grier waited. The earth didn’t crack open; lightning didn’t fall from the sky. The sea didn’t crest over the castle wall and claim her. Only a soft evening breeze and the warming colors of sunset surrounded her.

  “That’s it, then,” she resolved. She felt as if one huge stone was removed from her breast, only to be replaced by another just as heavy.

  “I can no’ just tell him I’ll go! What if he does no’ wish me to?”

  She stood and began to tug at the rope, lifting the laden bucket from the well and spending her frustration on the straining effort. The answer was obvious and infuriating. Infuriating because she couldn’t compel it to happen.

  “I can only go and he asks me to,” she muttered. “And that’s the way of it.”

  Grier grabbed the handle of the bucket and unhooked it from the rope. She paused. A black vine of familiar despair trailed through her gut. She tried to draw a breath deep enough to strangle it.

  “How did I come to this?” she wondered aloud. “Less than two months ago I pulled a stranger from the sea. Now, my own future and my own happiness rest on the whim of that stubborn Viking!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Rydar stood in the kitchen and snuck a taste of the rabbit stew. Grier must be recovered from the previous night’s overindulgence if she could cook such a rich meal. Light from the kitchen’s doorway dimmed and drew his attention.

  Grier paused there and her cheeks scarleted, making her eyes look like liquid cobalt. She straightened her shoulders, then one brow lifted and her lips curved.

  “It seems a changeling took my place yester eve,” she said as she moved into the room. “Did you perhaps see her?”

  Rydar was charmed by her unexpected words. “Aye. I did.”

  Grier hung the bucket of water on the fire hook to heat. She considered Rydar over her shoulder. “I understand she behaved rather foolishly. Has she ruined my good name?”

  “No, Lady Grier.” He bowed from the waist. “All there kent she is no’ you.”

  She turned to face him. Her smile tugged at his heart; her unassuming beauty tugged at parts lower.

  “I’m quite relieved,” she said in a soft voice. “I would hate for you to think less of me.”

  “No. No’ less.” Rydar reached for her hand and struggled to express his thoughts in the still-unfamiliar tongue. “Many things change at one time, aye? Is very hard to change you at same time.” He shrugged, hoping Grier understood him. For a moment he reconsidered the language lessons.

  “Thank you, Rydar.” Grier lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek, so warm and smooth against his rough skin. Her eyes fluttered up to his. “Ye’re a very fine friend to me.”

  His eyes fell to her parted lips and he leaned toward her, drawn by their invitation.

  “Rydar!”

  He pulled back as Logan’s voiced bounced down the hall, frustration and disappointment coloring his response to the laird.

  “Aye.” he growled.

  The younger man rounded into the kitchen.

  “I have no’ seen you today, but Malise said ye were in Durness. Were ye about the boat?” Logan sniffed the stew and grabbed a bowl. “It smells sae good, Grier! And I’m famished! Here—” He handed Rydar a bowl. “Tell me about it, then.”

  Rydar chuckled at Logan’s exuberance, his own irritation eased by Logan’s boundless enthusiasm. He sat at the table, filled his bowl and broke off a chunk of warm bread to dip in the steaming stew.

  Logan took his place and Rydar waited for Grier to join them before he explained about the three young Norse fishermen from the Shetland Islands, and the deal he struck to exchan
ge their labor.

  “I talk to car-pen-ter today and have wood on morrow.” Rydar looked hard at Logan. “I use tools, aye?”

  Logan nodded and swallowed a bite of stew. “If my men are no’ using them.”

  “I no’ keep tools, only use tools,” Rydar clarified.

  “I understand.”

  “And I hunt. On third days.”

  Logan smiled knowingly at him. “Ye must pay for the wood, aye?”

  Rydar grinned. “Aye… I no’ a rich laird like you!”

  Throughout their conversation Grier had been pale and silent, but she chuckled at that. Logan poked him in the ribs.

  I shall miss Logan, Rydar thought suddenly. The young man had been a steady and helpful presence for him here in this unfamiliar land.

  Rydar turned to Grier and caught her watching him. He winked at her and she blushed, looking adorably embarrassed, and yet undoubtedly pleased.

  Perhaps she could grow to love me yet.

  June 24, 1354

  Little about Grier’s life was the same as it was before the twin debacles at the Mercat Fair. The most immediate change was the appearance of her new apprentice, Malise McKay. Logan rode into Durness after breakfast each morning to fetch his intended and deposit her into Grier’s tutelage.

  Grier began to lead the young woman through the tasks required to assure the keep and castle were well run. Malise was obviously overwhelmed by the prospect. She repeatedly asked Grier, “But ye’ll be here, aye? To help me?”

  “Aye,” Grier answered to calm the girl, though truthfully she was not at all certain of what she might yet choose to do.

  After the midday meal on the first day, when Logan returned Malise to her home, Grier climbed the stairs and stood before the closed door of her parents’ bedchamber. She rested her hand on the latch, but could not force herself to push it open. In the face of her lost future, it was as if the door was solid stone, and her strength that of a gnat.

  “Oh Da, Mam. I always thought I would bed my husband here,” she whispered. “No’ my cousin Logan and his child bride…”

  Unable to move beyond her grief, Grier put off for a day the mournful task of removing her parents’ remaining presence there. Her father’s clothing, her mother’s jewelry, the coverlet and curtains that had always adorned their bed; somehow having those things in place made it seem as though her parents were only away. Not forever gone.

  She was no more successful on the second day.

  Grier stood in the hall and leaned her forehead against the wooden portal. She couldn’t resign herself to the rapidly approaching end to her life as she knew it. The prospect of living out her days as a servant to Malise seemed a dark cave that swallowed any light of hope.

  “It might be I save this task for last,” she reasoned. “I’ll wait until Malise is able to do for herself a bit, and then I’ll take the time to prepare their bridal bed.”

  Grier turned her back on the chamber door and went down the stairs to find another task—any other task—to occupy the rest of her day.

  The more subtle change in her life encompassed the dooming shift in purpose for Rydar’s absences from the castle. On the first two days, he returned from his boat very late and very hungry. Though he tried to converse with her, exhaustion stole his English words and he fell silent, all but sleeping at the kitchen table when he finished his meal.

  The third day, when he returned from hunting just after midday, Grier waited for him. She accepted the game he brought, then sat him down and fed him.

  “Are ye no’ eating then, ye foolish Viking?” she asked as she ladled him a second bowl of fish stew. “You do no’ have weight to spare, ye ken! It’s my cross to bear to try and fatten you up!”

  Rydar grinned with his mouth full. “I no’ take your food. I eat after, aye?” he mumbled.

  “Is that so?” Grier squinted at him. “And what about the boys?”

  Rydar looked confused. “The boys?”

  “Do they eat?”

  “Oh!” Rydar paused, frowning. “I no’ see they eat.”

  Grier pointed her ladle at him in accusation. “So you’re starving them as well, are ye?”

  Rydar looked at her, his face a comical blend of realization and embarrassment. “Boys hungry, aye?”

  “I would expect so.” Grier shook her head and grabbed the opportunity. “Starting on the morrow I’ll bring ye all a solid meal in the midday.”

  “Is too much work, Grier,” Rydar objected. But not too strenuously, she noticed.

  “Blethers! Malise is taking over the keep. I’ve both the time and the inclination. And ye’ve naught to say about it, Viking!” She jammed the ladle back into the remaining stew then tossed him her most beguiling smile.

  Rydar’s head pitched back and he guffawed. His booming enjoyment echoed around the kitchen and his pale green eyes glowed with mirth.

  “I not say ‘no’!” he laughed. “You come. You bring food. Is your say, aye?”

  Grier happily filled his bowl for the third time, satisfied in her suggestion and very glad of his enthusiastic response.

  July 3, 1354

  Rydar straightened his back and tugged his shirt off over his head. He used it to mop sweat from his chest and then tossed the damp shirt to the ground. The Scottish sun was strong today and it glittered atop the North Sea’s undulating surface. Rydar scooped a cup of cool drinking water. He looked west, but didn’t yet see Grier. So he turned back to the boat.

  On the first day that he and the young Norse fishermen started work on the vessel, Rydar led them to the water’s edge and drew his ideas in wet sand. The boys nodded politely as he talked, but glances bounced between them like juggler’s balls.

  Rydar paused in his sand-sketching. “What is it?”

  Kristofer cleared his throat. “We had some ideas…”

  “Go on,” Ryder urged.

  “It’s not that anything is wrong with your plans, sir!” Lars squeaked.

  Rydar chuckled. “I understand, Lars. Tell me what you were thinking.”

  “Well, the boat is to sail to Norway, and then be ours when you’ve done with it. So we’d like it fit for longer voyages, not only fishing,” Kristofer explained.

  “We thought we might like to explore the world ourselves,” Gavin added.

  “While we’re still young yet.” Kristofer’s eyes rounded with horror as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “Not that you’re old, sir!”

  Rydar gave him a patient smile. “I am not as young as I once was, nor as old as I shall be, God willing.”

  Kristofer blinked, looking a bit confused.

  “May I draw what we thought of, sir?” Gavin held out his hand for the stick. Rydar handed the boy the branch and stepped back.

  Gavin spoke as he sketched. “We thought of only two full decks, one on the bottom for storage, and one above it as the main deck… We wanted to build a cabin at the bow that would be for cooking and gathering together out of the weather… At the back we thought a separate sleeping cabin.”

  Lars nudged his older brother. “Show him where the rudder’s handle will go.”

  “Oh! Here.” Gavin stuck the stick in the sand. “See, we’d make the tops of the cabins the third deck, but part would be in front over the kitchen cabin, and part in back over the sleeping cabin.”

  “Here’s the mast,” Lars added in his eagerness to be involved.

  Rydar was impressed. The design was well thought out and practical. He nodded and slapped Gavin’s shoulder. “You’ve convinced me. It uses no more wood than my plan so it shouldn’t cost any more money. But,” Rydar considered the teens, “it will take a bit more time.”

  “We will work hard to see it still done in a month,” Kristofer assured him.

  “Or less!” Gavin added.

  Rydar laughed. “Then I agree! Shall we get started?”

  Now the bottom storage deck was finished and they were installing the main deck. Lacking the iron nails of his native homeland, R
ydar used a brace and bit borrowed from Logan to create peg holes to fasten down the rough boards he bought from the carpenter. The four men worked together in an easy rhythm. At this rate, the boat might truly be finished sooner than he expected.

  “Lady Grier is coming!” Gavin called down.

  Rydar turned from the water bucket to see her slowing Raven to a walk. Two deep food baskets hung on either side of the gelding’s saddle and Rydar wondered what delicacies she brought this day. Grier smiled and waved. Rydar smiled and waved back. And he experienced the odd lightening in his chest that always accompanied her arrival.

  He recognized that his days working on the boat rotated around Grier bringing their midday meal. The hour she spent feeding him and the Norse teens, then examining their progress with sincere interest, seemed to give him the impetus to work through the blisters, burning muscles and aching shin that plagued him daily. She always left him with a soft kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of his arm, and the reminder not to stay so late that his supper was burnt.

  She took very good care of him. Did she care for him?

  It seemed that she did. But her enthusiastic regard for his labors confused him, because the sooner he finished, the sooner he would leave her. Did she hope he might change his mind? Or was she resigned to his departure?

  “I fried the neeps with onions,” Grier said and handed Rydar one of the baskets. “Then I made them into pasties with the grouse.”

  His mouth watered at the aroma and description. “Will be good, Grier. Always good!”

  She blushed and gave him a knowing grin. “You’re always so hungert that I could bring hay soaked in ale and ye’d thank me!”

  “Aye, is true.” Rydar shrugged and laughed. “With much ale!”

  The first day Grier came to feed him, Rydar saw the longing in the young fishermen’s expressions. When she brought out the victuals, they stared openly. And when she told them the food was for them as well, Rydar thought Lars might cry. Grier was right; the boys were starving. He hadn’t considered that, but she had realized it first off. He loved that it was so ingrained in her to be aware of others and do what she could to alleviate their discomfort.