by Sandra Lake
“I know not one, mistress. From my experience, and the talk among us women, the jarl took his pleasure but was careful to never pass his seed . . . in a way that makes a babe, that is. He told one wench that he would not burden a child with being born a bastard. His wife Helena was the only I knew that he had a child with, and he only bed her when she came to live in Tronscar.”
“I see.” Lida drew in a deep breath of musty, damp air. “Ylva, pack your things. I will see you over to Freda’s myself.”
The evening fire pits and stands of the lower bailey burned high and bright as Lida trudged back to the fortress. The snowfall had eased, flakes floating down in a hypnotic haze.
What a foul mess.
Surely Magnus was unaware of all the dealings of his domestic household. Or was he? That was what she needed to sort out.
Her instinct was that Klara must be removed from her position, but how? Since her honored sons’ return, she was treated as the revered holy mother. All of Klara’s children held key positions in the jarl’s house, and those that were not her children were her allies due to the “good care” that they received from the domina. Removing her from Tronscar would be a mighty feat. Lida would need to proceed with discreet shrewdness.
She had no intention on birthing her babe in a household—
“Lida,” Otso called out from across a fire pit, and rushed around to greet her. “I cannot believe my eyes. ’Tis true. You are the wife of the jarl.”
“Otso!” She embraced her friend and then quickly stepped away. She was rapidly learning that the yards of Tronscar had eyes. “I pray you are well?”
“Aye. I believe that is thanks to you. The steward Tero said Lief owes his life to you. He said that you petitioned your husband to honor your countrymen with the best care, and so it has been given.”
“I told my husband that you had helped me greatly over the years. Oh, Otso, you are a welcome sight.”
“You exaggerate. But I would share with you grave news from Lylasku. That you departed when you did—”
“Lida!” Her husband voice cracked as lightning across the upper bailey.
“I must go. We will speak soon. I must ask the jarl for permission, but I will petition that you may take a meal with us,” she said in a hushed voice as her husband rapidly marched toward her.
Magnus grabbed her by the arm. Through the thick white fur of her cloak, he squeezed with bruising force. “Where were you?” He glared from Otso to her with rage building in his eyes.
“Otso has news to share from Lylasku and—”
“See after your child. She is injured and has need of her mother.”
Chapter 18
Lida dashed into the hall and found Tero holding Katia on the bottom step of the south tower. Her daughter’s hair was matted to her face with sweat and tears. “My love, where are you hurt?” She sat on the step and her child scrambled over onto her lap, locking her arms around her throat and weeping onto her neck.
“The dog bit her. See.” Janetta raised Katia’s sleeve, revealing bright red skin. Lida saw with some relief that the flesh had not been torn.
“Oh, my love. You will mend. We shall wrap a cool cloth on it and then it will be better, I promise.” Her traumatized daughter wept harder.
“Where is the healer, Tero?” her husband shouted. Katia flinched. “Get him here. Now!”
“The skin is not torn, my jarl. She is scared above all else. The bone is not broken.” Lida spoke as calmly as she could, to reassure both Katia and her husband that all would be well.
“How can you be certain?” he asked, quieter, but still with a bit of gruffness.
“I can press along the arm with care. The bone is solid. I will bathe her and see her to bed. She will be well again in a few hours.” With Katia clutching her around the neck, Lida stood and prepared to climb the stairs.
Her husband stopped her. He took her daughter from her arms and tenderly pressed her little head into his shoulder. Katia clutched her arms around his neck and cried harder, releasing all her grief onto his mighty shoulder.
Lida followed behind, mesmerized by the possessive, loving manner her husband had with her child.
***
The fire cracked and sizzled, waking Lida with a start. She had unintentionally fallen asleep in her daughter’s bed. Her poor child had wept until she had exhausted herself into sleep. Each time Katia started to speak, the tears would flood her eyes and she would hold her breath. Not a word would come out. Lida suspected that she loved the dog so dearly that when it nipped her arm, it broke Katia’s heart.
Lida rose and stretched her sore back.
“Are you hungry?” Her husband’s low voice carried from across the chamber. “You have not eaten.” This important man would be better served reigning over his great hall than this small chamber, yet here he sat, waiting, displaying concern for both her and her daughter.
“My thanks. Is the hour very late? The cooks must have retired.”
“No matter the hour. If you have need of nourishment, you will take it,” her husband said. A deep grunt of annoyance followed. A tray of sliced meat, cheese, and bread rested on the table next to him. Lida helped herself and claimed the seat across from him.
“My thanks, my jarl, for seeing to this fine fare,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
“You called me Magnus before when we were alone,” he said. “Now you call me Jarl. It does not please me, Lida.”
“Magnus, I have—I have much I would speak to you of. But I have a headache and my heart is weary and all I wish to do is sleep. Is the nurse sleeping in the alcove to hear Katia if she awakes?”
He nodded, piercing Lida with an intense stare. There was so much to say. Where was she even to begin? She sensed her husband felt the same.
As they walked down the long corridor, she asked, “Where is Lika?”
“Chained. When I wake, I will see the animal destroyed.”
“You will destroy it?” Lida gasped.
“’Twas a trusted beast. It turned on her. It will never be trusted again. It must be destroyed.”
“Magnus, I beg you to wait.” She clutched her husband’s hand. He halted outside his bedchamber door, looking down at her, waiting for her to speak. “Let Katia explain to us first. She may have come up with a foolish idea and the dog reacted from instinct. I have seen a good dog bite its master while it was biting at an offered bone. We do not know the situation. That dog is tame and well-mannered, which leads me to another thought. She is a mighty dog—I would expect if she had meant to harm Katia, she could have torn her arm open as good as not. The bruises are there, but she never engaged her fangs. Let Katia rest and then we will have the story from her and make sense of this.”
Magnus felt the rage slowly start to drain from his veins. His wife stepped softly around their chamber, undressing and preparing for bed. She washed her face and ran her fingers through her hair, releasing her spun-gold braids. He could not fathom her composure. The child had cried for hours. He was ready to slaughter the hound with his bare hands, and here the mother wanted to forgive, and what’s more, she made sense in her reasoning. The dog was bred to protect its master and kill in the hunt. If Lika had wanted to remove the child’s arm, she could have done it in the same time it took her to cause the bruise. He decided to let the matter go and focus on his wife.
Since Lida had revealed that she carried his child, Magnus had begun to notice changes in her each day. Trying to be considerate, he now coupled with her at an undemanding pace. She was too tempting a bedmate not to touch, but he continued to sense her holding back. There was an unseen barrier between them. Was it the fact that she was with child, or something more? Could it be her dead man, or did she hold something for another man—or was it the look of pain in her eyes from the bathhouse?
Magnus sat by the hearth, raised his hand, bec
koning her to him. Obediently, she came. He drew her before his chair, caging her between his legs and raising her shift over her head. Her ripening form made his mouth water. Her pert, enlarged breasts were directly in front of his face, beckoning him to taste. Her belly was a defined, round ball that had not been there just the week before. In there was his son, already strong. He lowered his face and touched his nose to the soft, sweet-smelling flesh, and pressed in a kiss.
Her fingers stroked through his hair. “’Tis strange, I never developed this quickly with Katia. Mayhap because this is my second child. Or mayhap he takes after his large father,” his wife whispered. He nuzzled her belly with his nose.
“I am glad I can see him,” Magnus said. “I want you big and round before the thaw.”
“I will do my best, my jarl,” she said. He looked up to search her eyes and found a bright, honest smile across her face.
“I am not your jarl in here, Lida. Here I am Magnus, your husband.” He tightened his grip on her hips, pulling her in closer.
She giggled. “Or merely Papa.” Her fingers raked through his hair and he closed his eyes to the soothing sensation. This woman of unfathomable complexity, who was she? He pressed his cheek to her stomach and, as he did so, felt a connection with another person that he had never thought possible. A part of him was growing inside her, and she nourished him, loved him, wanted him.
His wife did not pull away.
Clinging to her tighter, he felt a part of something greater than himself, greater than Tronscar, greater than Norrland.
***
Magnus crumpled up another sheet of parchment and tossed it across his council chamber into the fire. His mind refused to settle and focus on his task at hand.
Following the dog’s attack he’d experienced daily disappointment. Katia remained withdrawn. The housekeeper and nurse explained that the child was jealous of the upcoming birth and not to worry, that she would adjust. But a week passed and all the girl did was draw pictures of cats and horses. His concern grew.
He looked up at the sound of a knock and saw that a grinning Tero stood at the doorway. “Master, you have a visitor.”
A large man in a gray cloak loomed behind his steward.
“Hök!” He charged across the chamber. “God’s tooth, you took long enough. You are four years late for the next hunt, you good-for-nothing dog.” He locked his brother in his arms and squeezed him until he received a ceremonial jab to his ribs.
“The death penalty, without my last meal? Where is your humanity, brother? Slipping away with old age?” his brother said in between counter maneuvers.
“Grin and bear it,” Magnus said, unable to release his hold on his beloved half brother’s fur mantle. He had dreaded never seeing Hök again. To have him locked in his arms gave Magnus immeasurable pleasure.
Hök is alive.
“It does my eyes good to see you.” He breathed, taking in the fresh scent of mountain air still clinging to his brother’s hair. He looked good and healthy, older—he was no longer the young pup of years ago, but a man with the deep tan lines and snow-burned red cheeks that came from years spent conquering the highest peaks in the north.
“I had to come see for myself.” Hök gave him a crooked smile. “They say a young Finnish girl rules your castle of rust.” Thor’s toes.
“She is not herself as of late, homesick for your cursed kind. Perhaps you will brighten her.”
“What—the tale is true? I last saw you sailing for Tripoli with a shipment of weapons for the sultan. You invited me to come with you to buy a harem of well-trained whores who spoke a tongue you need not understand.” His brother chuckled and claimed Magnus’s preferred chair in front of the fire.
“Turns out women nag you in any language,” he said laughing along with his brother. “I decided that I would rather stick with one woman at a time.”
“Take caution, Magnus. If you turn the corners of your mouth up like that too long, they may get stuck and never come back down.” Hök slapped his knee. “You appear well; fat, but well.”
Magnus patted his own stomach with satisfaction. “My wife is with child. You will be an uncle by summer.”
“I take it today is your turn to carry the offspring. How forward-minded of you.” His brother leaned forward and patted his gut.
“Why, you good for nothing—” He launched himself at his brother and they crashed to the floor. As always, they wrestled to establish who was the strongest.
Lida froze in the arched doorway of her husband’s council chamber. Her husband was occupied on the floor, fighting a man she had never seen before. Her first instinct was to call the guard, but when she heard a strange snorting sound coming from her husband that was possibly a laugh of sorts, she decided to wait it out. They did not have weapons, so she crossed the room and sat far from the brawl.
The stranger caught sight of her and pushed away from her husband. “Do not tell me this lovely creature is Lida.” His black hair was spiked out to one side, the collar of his leather tunic yanked open, a bright smile blooming across his handsome face. “My condolences for your recent matrimonial misfortune. I wish I could reassure you that he gets better with a longer acquaintance, but, alas, that would be a lie.”
She could not help but return his smile. Besides his apparent wit, she found the stranger devastatingly handsome. He had longer, darker hair and a darker complexion than her husband, but was nearly his twin in every other fashion. “I am learning to manage. May I have the honor of an introduction, my jarl?”
“Call him bastard or rotten-breathed bastard. He answers to both.” Her husband grunted and pushed off the floor.
“Well, that does not sound neighborly at all,” Lida said.
“This is Hök Tuisku. He is from the great divide between your people and mine.” Her husband smiled with a hint of laughter in his tone. “He is my brother,” he added with clear pride.
Her brother-in-law reclined in a chair by the fire. “Half brother. That explains my handsomeness compared to him.”
“We share a sire. But I did not get to spend as much time with him growing up.”
Hök raised a long, animal-skin-covered leg and rested his foot across his knee. He was clearly comfortable in her husband’s private chamber, a place where only Katia and Tero were welcome as far as Lida knew.
Her husband had also put his feet up and reclined more in his chair. He was relaxed, unguarded and playful—Lida had never seen this side of him before, but she liked it a great deal.
Many hours later, Lida helped her husband climb the stairs. Hök had brought with him an extremely potent brew that put half the men in the hall in stupors within the first hour.
“He likes you,” her husband slurred in her ear as she guided him into his chamber.
“Good to have at least one scoundrel-in-law on your side.”
“Scoundrel-in-law.” Her husband broke out into a renewed belly laugh. “You are a jester, Lida. A sweet-smelling, beautiful jester.” He flopped down on the bed. If he were not so loud and loose-limbed, she would like this version of her husband more.
“Do you need help with your boots?” she asked, and then realized she was speaking to a sleeping man. She undressed him as best she could, placed a pitcher of water by his side of the bed, and crawled in next to him.
“What if he is a girl?” he mumbled in his sleep.
“Who is a girl? Katia?”
“Nay, my son. What if he is a girl?”
Lida would love another daughter. “Well, we will call her Hök and at least get a namesake out of the mess.”
Her husband’s shoulders shook with more laughter. His arms came around her, locking her into a sloppy embrace. “What if she looks like you? We will need more steel.”
“You have more steel than most kings have need for. If we have a daughter you will teach her to be mean-spir
ited and cross. She will scare her suitors away, if that is what you are worried about.”
“But I want a little Katia, one that smiles and does not know the meaning of fear.”
His drunken yet truthful rant tugged at her heart. Katia had changed, and that worried her more with each passing day. “Take your rest, Magnus. We shall speak more in the morning.”
“Aye. Wife. Sleep.” He kissed her with a wet, open mouth, his whiskers tickling her neck, making her giggle. He just mauled her more. She could not stop laughing at drunken Magnus. He was rude but adorable.
“Indeed, let us sleep now.” She patted his arm as she would a small child.
“You will never leave me, Lida. Never,” he slurred, and then promptly passed out on top of her.
Using all her strength, she rolled him off. Once she got him on his back, she cuddled unashamedly into his side.
Knowing that he would not remember any of this in the morning, she said, “No, Magnus. I will never leave you. Despite myself, I am falling in love with you, so I will be your prisoner forever, I am afraid.” She kissed his bare chest and closed her eyes.
***
Several days later, Lida hugged her fur-lined robe around her a little tighter. She stared out her bedchamber window, overlooking the vast snow-covered fields and forests. She had tried to rest after the midday meal, but her mind would not quiet. She hadn’t had a chance to discuss the nasty business of Klara with Magnus yet; she wanted it to simply blow away with the winter winds, so that she could chalk it up to poor judgment and old ways that no longer would be continued. She wanted the incident in the bathhouse to have just been a mistake.
Yet watching her cold, brooding husband transform into a fun-loving boy for the part of each day that he spent with his brother had swept her worries into the background. To the world, he was Jarl Magnus Knutson, cousin to the king, fierce ruler and protector of Norrland. But with his brother, he was simply Mag: wrestling partner, drinking partner, lewd joke teller. She liked the second Magnus quite a lot. He smiled more, laughed more, and sometimes even slacked off his duties. She did not want to jeopardize the joyful atmosphere with her domestic problems
