The boat made a scraping noise as it hit the shore. Ragn was jolted forward and her stomach hit the railing. The ill-favoured crew leaped out and dragged the boat further up the shingle.
Ragn’s legs wobbled slightly when she first set foot on the rough shingle. She forced them to stagger a few steps. ‘Svana, firm ground. Good ground. Safe ground.’
‘It wobbles.’
‘Only because we have been on the sea. It will pass quickly.’ Ragn prayed to any god that her words were correct.
She glanced about the barren windswept beach. Their approach had to have been noted. They had come in peacefully with the shields down. And it was obvious from the smoke lazily curling in the sky that someone was at home.
To hide her discomfort, she directed the long-nosed captain to put her trunks on the shore above the tideline. The man shrugged his shoulders, muttering about the tide turning and having to leave quickly.
When she was about to give in to despair, a large man came out of the hall. A shaft of winter sunshine illuminated him, turning his skin and hair golden. His shoulders were broad and powerful, a man used to fighting and hard work, rather than a courtier like her late husband, a man a woman could count on to fight for her and her family and win. Her next thought was why in the name of Freya did a man who looked like that need to send to the north for a wife? Women would be buzzing about him like bees around a honeycomb.
‘He isn’t very friendly and wants us gone. He should have tankards of ale to offer strangers, but his hands are empty.’ A worried frown puckered Svana’s forehead. ‘Something is very wrong, Ragn, isn’t it?’
Ragn forced a laugh. ‘They do things differently here, I suspect. We will soon have their manners.’
Svana glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘On the ship, they said I brought that storm. I didn’t. I promise. I am not bad luck and shouldn’t be thrown overboard.’
‘As if I’d allow that to happen to you!’
‘You are wearing your serious face, like you did when you spied Vargr and his berserkers riding towards our old home.’
Ragn forced her lungs to fill with air. Vargr believed them dead in the fire he and his men had set. He did not know they had escaped just as the roof caved in. He would not come looking for them, particularly not with the North Sea between them. Vargr had feared the North Sea ever since his father perished on it.
‘Nothing is wrong, sweetling. Wives are for civilising. Warriors are for defending their land. It is why he has sent for a wife—to learn how to be civil. I can do that.’
‘Who goes there?’ her soon-to-be husband asked, placing a hand on the large sword he wore. ‘We are a simple farm, not a market. I’ve little wish to waste your time or mine. Best be gone before the tide turns.’
Despite its roughness, his deep voice was easy on the ear. Ragn placed her hand on her stomach and bid the butterflies to be gone. It was possible the captain had made a mistake and this golden mountain of a man wasn’t her intended. Her husband was probably old, missing a limb and confined to bed. This warrior would lead her to him.
‘Ragnhild Thorendottar, the contracted wife of Gunnar Olafson, come from Viken as requested.’ She made the sort of low curtsy she’d make to the King or Queen.
The only sound was the cawing of the seagulls. The man’s stance turned more foreboding. He drew his brows together.
‘Contracted wife?’ he said after what appeared to be a lifetime. ‘Of whom did you say? Gunnar Olafson?’
‘Are you Gunnar Olafson, also known as Gunnar the Strong Arm, of Kolbeinn’s felag? Or his steward?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side. Her voice sounded thin on the breeze. She swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Or must I seek him elsewhere?’
Ragn watched the man from under her lashes now that she clearly saw him. His features were regular, his hair was a dark blond which had begun to go to brown and had been shaved at the sides but allowed to grow long on top. He sported two golden rings in his beard. Everything about him proclaimed vitality and virility.
She pressed her hands together to stop them from trembling. His gaze raked her form, making her immediately aware of her many failings from her lack of curves to her above-average height and overbearing manner which made men’s manhood shrivel to nothingness. Her late husband’s taunts, the ones he said when he drank far too much ale, echoed in her mind. She tried to list the good things she brought to a marriage—her willingness to work hard, her knowledge of making ale, and...her mind went blank. She no longer possessed any land or riches of any kind, nothing to tempt a successful warrior like this one.
‘I seek Gunnar Olafson.’
‘I am he,’ the man confirmed with a puzzled expression. ‘But I’ve made no contract for a wife. Ever. I have no wish or desire for one at the present. Who plots against me?’
Ragn’s stomach swooped and knotted. There had to be some mistake. She refused to risk Svana on the sea again with that crew. The captain of the boat had driven a hard bargain to bring her and Svana out here—a one-way passage only, no return or onward. Eylir the Black had paid for her passage as the morning gift for the marriage, but the captain had demanded double for Svana. She had relinquished both her grandmother’s gold brooches to pay for it. After sacrificing her gold necklace to calm the waves during the storm, all she had left was her mother’s silver necklace, but that would not pay for the return passage or safeguard Svana from being tossed overboard if the ship encountered another storm.
‘Eylir Rokrson, whom some call Eylir the Black, made the contract,’ she said, banging her fists together and bidding the doubts to be gone. ‘Are you saying that he played me false? Or are you not the Gunnar Olafson who grew up on the fjord near Kaupang? The Gunnar who served with Dagmar Kolbeinndottar and now serves her father?’
The man’s mouth became a thin white line, but without the slightest sign of a welcome. ‘I am that Gunnar Olafson, but I’ve never asked for a wife to be sent from anywhere. You came on the whisper of a false promise. Go back to where you came from.’
He turned his back and marched towards the hall. The rudeness of it nearly took her breath away. She had travelled here on more than a whisper or a promise.
Behind her, the long-nosed captain rubbed his hands together with glee at the thought of her paying more gold, gold which she didn’t have.
‘Eylir paid for the passage as the morning gift,’ she called out. ‘Why would he pay that much gold if the promise was untrue? Is he always that reckless with his gold?’
The man halted. His eyes narrowed. ‘Why in the name of all the gods would Eylir send a woman like you?’
His words hammered like physical blows, proof if she needed it that men always failed to look beyond the physical unless there was a possibility of material gain. Her sister’s fingers had grown ice-cold. The air chilled and the first spots of hard rain began to fall. Ragn wanted the earth to swallow her up. Her day of hope and triumph was fast turning into one of despair.
‘He informed me you were occupied in building your new hall, but required a wife from your home fjord as soon as possible. Have I been lied to?’ Ragn tightened her hold of Svana and resisted the temptation to hide her face. Her troubles were supposed to be behind her in this foreign land—instead, everything had become far worse. ‘Have I travelled here for nothing?’
‘Have you? Only Eylir can answer.’ Gunnar Olafson scratched his neck. ‘All I know is that your arrival is news to me. I never requested a wife from anyone, least of all from Eylir. I’ve no intention of taking one simply because some woman turns up on my beach, making outlandish claims. Now I bid you good day. May the gods guide your journey to wherever you need to go. I’m sure you will make some poor man a very able wife.’
Ragn squared her shoulders. This man, the person who was supposed to be her saviour, was not going to get away that easily. She would make him see reason. She marched up t
o him and caught his arms, halting his progress. His look was dark and furious. She released his arm and backed up two steps.
‘We have travelled a long way.’ She kept her head up and ignored the rain dripping off her nose. ‘Why would I have travelled this far on a whisper? Why would I leave my home and friends at this time of year? Will you listen to my tale? Please?’
The man brought his upper lip over his teeth. ‘If I listen, will I be rid of you quicker? Many matters require my attention.’
‘Please, my sister shivers from the cold. We have travelled across the winter sea because of your friend’s promise.’
He tugged at his beard. ‘You have until the tide turns.’
Gunnar Olafson ground his teeth as he stared at the slim dark-haired woman standing in front of him declaring with a toss of her head that she was his contracted wife and demanding to be heard. A wife! He’d never asked for such a thing and most certainly he didn’t require one. Until the curse was lifted, how could he risk any woman’s life?
The idea was laughable that Eylir would send this woman. Her face was far too angular, her mouth oversized and all teeth, her curves non-existent and her hair from what he saw peeping out from under the kerchief was dark as a raven’s wing. His tastes ran towards buxom blondes with easy smiles, few expectations and little taste for conversation, rather than sharp-tongued raven-haired women who had desire to order everything.
Eylir and his blasted bag of gold at Jul.
‘The tide will be turning soon.’
‘You gave me until it actually turned. My sister needs to get out of the damp.’ She paused as if she expected him to invite her to the hall.
A silver-haired girl of no more than ten ran to the woman and grasped the woman’s hand so tightly that her knuckles shone white. There was a resemblance, but there was no way they were mother and daughter as the age gap was not enough. She, too, watched him with big eyes, inward-turning eyes which reminded him of his youngest sister, stirring unwanted memories. He turned towards the longboat. The crew were an ill-favoured lot.
‘Where is Eylir? Precisely.’ He half-expected to see his so-called friend rising up from the boat, his eyes creasing with laughter. Eylir’s jokes had finally transgressed beyond acceptable. He would have to teach the man a lesson about interfering in other people’s lives, but that was a task for another time.
Her eyes flashed with a hidden fire, but her voice was steady. ‘I’ve no idea where Eylir is. We parted company on Kaupang’s quayside.’
‘I swear he is trickier than Loki. Come out, Eylir, you have had your fun. Now let’s see what you are truly on about.’
The sailors stopped moving the trunks and regarded him as if he had lost his mind, but his friend failed to appear.
Gunnar swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Is this the wife you have been threatening to acquire? She has your same sense of humour. This prank has gone on long enough, Eylir.’
The seagulls mocked his call, but otherwise the only sound was that of the waves. The woman watched him with perfectly arched brows and a faint supercilious smile on her overly large mouth.
‘He remained in the north. He had business to attend to, but will arrive in the new year.’ The woman adopted a tone more suited towards talking to a young child than a grown man.
‘What business?’
‘His second cousin died. He needed to get the estate in order before sailing again to the west.’ Her hand trembled, betraying her nerves. ‘We agreed that it was best for all concerned if I undertook the journey immediately. There was nothing to keep me in the north.’
Her voice trembled on the last word. Fear? Fear of what? Why had she braved the sea at this time of year? What drove her to risk her life and that of her sister’s?
Gunnar frowned. Becoming interested in this woman’s problems was the last thing he needed. Better to get rid of her and be done with it. It was a slippery slope to caring and, if he cared, women died.
The soothsayer’s dying prediction resounded in his ears. His friends had warned him the old man had supernatural power, but he’d refused to allow the man to slaughter those young girls. He’d lost his temper and killed him. The necessary sacrifice to the gods instead of the girls who reminded him of his sisters, he’d proclaimed with a laugh. He’d stopped laughing when he’d discovered the bodies of his mother and sisters. By his reckoning, they had died about the same time as the soothsayer. And then it happened again with Dyrfinna’s betrayal and death. He forced his mind away from the past and back to the present.
The woman was connected to Eylir. How? He narrowed his gaze. Family matters had forced Eylir across the North Sea. Eylir had no sister. She had to be the family-forced bride as she was not the sort Eylir would take as a concubine.
‘Indeed.’ He forced a short laugh. ‘I suspect he wished to avoid being torn limb from limb once I got my hands on him. Your husband is notorious for his pranks, my lady.’
‘Eylir is most definitely not my husband.’ The woman made an imperious gesture towards where the longboat was pulled up on shore. ‘Ask the captain if you doubt me.’
‘He did tell Ragn to come!’ the girl called out. ‘He is soon to be married to our cousin, Trana Ragnardottar.’
‘How did you know that, Svana?’ Ragnhild asked, drawing her brows together.
‘I overheard them speaking as we left. He was kissing her.’ The girl smacked her lips. ‘They will have to get married after that as they will have lots of babies.’
‘You are being ridiculous, Svana. Trana’s father requires a different husband for his only daughter. Not a penniless sell-sword like Eylir.’
Gunnar kept his face impassive. Eylir had hidden his wealth from them.
‘After what he did for us, Trana will defy her father.’ The girl lifted her chin. ‘I just know it. And I made a wish about it as we left.’
Ragnhild gave an exasperated sigh. ‘You and your pronouncements. Would that the world was ordered the way you wish. One must be practical, child.’
‘Trana thinks he has fine legs and a good backside,’ Svana confided from behind her hand. Gunnar struggled to keep a straight face.
Ragnhild pinched the bridge of her nose, making her skin appear even more sallow. ‘That is more than anyone, let alone Gunnar Olafson, needs to know. Curb your tongue.’
Svana hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’
‘Next time remember some things remain private, but you are young, Svana, and I forgive you.’
Young. The girl was indeed too young to have made this journey in the winter. The fact knifed through him. While Eylir might enlist the aid of a woman, he would not stoop so low as to send a child on a perilous autumn journey.
‘Why did Eylir send vulnerable women alone on the sea?’
The woman gave a small cough. ‘We agreed that I’d travel alone as the circumstances dictated.’
Circumstances—whose? Eylir’s or this woman’s? Something had driven her across the seas, but she wanted to keep it a secret. ‘Truly?’
‘Would that he was here! You would greet your friend properly and we would not be forced to stand in the mizzle.’ A convulsive shiver racked her slender frame, but she kept her head proudly erect and her hands at her sides.
Gunnar winced at the accusation of less-than-proper hospitality. Worse, her words rang true. His mother would have been appalled. He’d allowed a lady, any lady let alone a lady of breeding, to stand outside while the rain pelted down. Despite the years since her death and against his instinct, divorcing himself from his mother’s teachings was impossible. ‘Into the hall with you. Get dry.’
Her eyes gleamed triumph. ‘Thank you.’
She motioned for her trunks. Gunnar gritted his teeth. Ragnhild would learn that he might have given on one point, but he would not give in on the other. She was most definitely not the wife for him.
‘No, they stay outside. It should not take long to clear this mess up.’
* * *
With its piles of filthy rushes, half-finished benches and the nearly cold hearth, the best thing Ragn thought about the hall was that it was out of the icy rain. But she was inside and that was a start. She would make this warrior understand that they needed to stay for the night, that returning on the boat to Kaupang was not an option. She’d worry about the future after that. Little steps, rather than focusing on the mountain looming in front of her.
‘Has there been a mistake, Ragn?’ Svana whispered. ‘He is going to allow us to stay, isn’t he? He won’t behave like... Vargr?’
Ragn glanced towards where Gunnar was busily filling tankards.
‘The future is in front of us.’ Ragn bent down so that her face was level with Svana’s. ‘Keep the past behind you. Never mention Vargr again. He is dead to us.’
Svana gave a little nod. Her sister was too young to understand that if Gunnar knew her brother-in-law’s identity, or the danger they faced in Viken, that he’d close his doors to them as many of her so-called friends had done. Survival depended on keeping their troubled past hidden.
‘Promise me you will remember that.’
Svana worried her bottom lip. ‘I’ll try.’
Ragn withdrew the rune stick, which she had insisted Eylir write, from her pouch. It should be sufficient to make Gunnar Olafson see reason now that he was being hospitable.
Once he had finished ensuring the captain and his men had drinks, Gunnar returned to where they stood. His face had settled into even harsher lines. Svana shrank back against her.
‘You are out of the wet. Explain.’
No please. No courtesy of any kind. Perhaps he had taken one look at her and decided, no, that she wasn’t attractive enough. Ragn stiffened her spine. This marriage wasn’t supposed to be about attraction, but mutual assistance. ‘We need to discuss our contracted marriage.’
Gunnar allowed his breath through clenched teeth. ‘I know my friend better than that. Tell me the truth. Where is Eylir?’
Sent as the Viking's Bride Page 2
