by Sandra Lake
She ran her hands down her belly. The sun spent more time in the sky each day. It would soon be spring, and before long she would be holding her babe in her arms.
Perhaps all of her concern and paranoia over Klara was imagined. Her last pregnancy had been filled with anxiety and heartache—maybe she was too pessimistic to relax and savor the impending joy that her babe would bring.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She jumped, startled by the pounding knock on the chamber door. No one interrupted her while she rested in her chamber, as the jarl had ordered.
“The jarl requests you in his war council chamber, Friherrinna,” Mikko announced through the door.
“I will be there directly.” She put on her thicker, fur-lined slippers. Magnus had ordered them for her last week when he noticed her ankles swelling. ’Twas truly shocking how large she was getting. Magnus was a substantially larger man than Urho, but she never thought a child in the womb would measure so vastly different. She still had months to go and yet she already felt so full.
Mikko offered her his arm—it was another new standing order from her husband that she was never to leave her chamber without aid on the stairs. Her heart warmed with the thought that he cared to such a degree.
The wall torches and braziers were all lit, spilling light and warmth into the corridor. As Lida entered the large chamber, she could immediately feel the hostile atmosphere. It was so pervasive that her knees nearly gave out. The chamber was crowded with Klara, her three sons, her daughters and their husbands, several of Magnus’s top commanders, Ragna, and Ylva, with all eyes on Lida. The men were seated at the table, the women standing behind their chairs. Her husband sat at the end of the long table. His fists were clenched, outstretched before him.
Standing next to the jarl, Klara stepped forward. Her eyes locked on Lida, she tilted her head and addressed the jarl. “The size difference is great,” the housekeeper said. “She may spew falsehoods with her foreign lips, but her woman’s body can’t hide the truth of breeding all woman abide by.”
Lida searched across the blank faces of the people in the chamber for an indication of what terrible event had happened.
“Sit,” her husband said, with a noticeable snarl on his lips.
Janetta held back Ylva’s arms, and Klara grabbed Ylva’s skirt and pulled it up over her belly. Ylva turned her head, looking away. Her husband did nothing but stare at his wife’s pregnant stomach.
“Magnus.” Lida gasped for air. “I beg you make them stop. This woman has only ever done what was commanded of her. She is good and hardworking.”
“Silence.” Her husband’s word cut through the chamber as sharply as his stare. “Dag, speak.”
“The Finnish spy confessed he tumbled with her on every visit he made to Turku. That her price wasn’t coin but favors he would grant her bastard daughter.” Dag spoke to her husband but kept returning his critical gaze back to Lida.
“You carry the fisherman’s bastard,” said Casper, Klara’s other son. “He already had a wife. ’Tis the reason you wed our Jarl.”
Words caught in her throat. This cannot be happening again.
God grant me strength, she begged silently.
Chapter 19
Lida forced her lips to move for her defense. “Magnus, I had not been with a man since my husband was killed,” she said quietly.
“Hah!” Klara sauntered closer, her secure position of authority in the room empowering her. “If I had a silver coin for every time one of my wenches lost count of all the swords she’s polished,” she said, and her children snickered. “How do you explain your bloated gut, Lida?” Her humor was gone now, replaced with a seething hatred. She poked her finger at Lida’s stomach. Lida slapped it away. “You are twice the size of Ylva. Your bastard will be born within a week. You will not make a fool of our Jarl and claim an early birth.”
Shaking with fear and anger, Lida said quietly, “This is Magnus’s child.”
“Ugh.” Janetta flicked her long, thick hair over her shoulder. “The jarl wants a child of his own blood, Lida, pure Norrland blood. Not some fisherman’s bastard.” The nurse had learned well from her manipulative mother.
“Magnus.” Lida looked only at her husband. No one else mattered. “I carry this child larger than I did Katia. You are much larger than Urho—”
“Enough.” Her husband burst out of his chair, sending it crashing to the floor. “Leave us.”
Klara brushed past Lida and whispered in her ear, “You sank your claws into him and fooled yourself into thinking he loves you, and you’re partially right. Magnus loves deep, but his hate will always be deeper.” Her vicious tone sent a bitter chill into Lida. This dangerous and destructive scheme of Klara’s was more than jealousy. ’Twas a hardened hatred, a deep-rooted, unreasonable contempt that Lida could not understand.
The chamber emptied.
“You would have me believe everyone in my household is lying,” her husband said. “You would have me believe my own eyes deceive me.”
Lida summoned all her courage, keeping her chin held high. “I have been with no other man. This is . . .”
He raised his hand, his volume rising. “This is your warning: no more lies or I will grant you the punishment you deserve.” He lowered his voice and hissed at her. “Come spring this child will return to the fisherman. You will yet birth me a son, woman. I will fill you with my seed every day after the bastard leaves your womb. I will have you bear me a son every year until you dry up, and then I will send you back to the land of your bastards to wither. Get out.” He turned his back on her. “The sight of your bloated body sickens me.”
She sank to the floor. It was not purposeful disobedience—her knees had locked up.
“Dag!”
“Yes, my jarl.”
“Take her away.”
Crumpled on the floor, blinking in disbelief, numbness filling her limbs, her ears buzzing, it felt as if her heart had stopped beating all at once.
***
The day he locked his disloyal wife away, Magnus departed for his most northern hunt camp. For a month, they brought down bear, elk, and wolf, until they could not keep count of the carcasses. He captured fifty-eight Morgdor hatchet men, who would be a stout addition to his mining crew. They killed, they butchered meat, and they drank. Still, none of his usual sport soothed him. To nobody’s surprise, Hök had disappeared. His brother’s nomadic spirit was born out of self-preserving necessity. He never truly felt at home or welcome amongst Norrlanders nor the Sami tribesmen of his mother’s people. He was no doubt most at peace in his own company. However, this time, Magnus began to resent his brother for deserting him.
Tonight, they were camped just a short distance from Tronscar. They would return home tomorrow. Magnus filled his horn with grain wine and slumped back into his chair by the fire. The floor of the longhouse was lined with slumbering men.
On his departure, he had directed that his wife was to be well feed, kept in good health, and never allowed more than an hour a day with her child. He would preserve the girl from the pain of a corrupt mother, as his father had protected him. He’d come to the decision to raise his stepdaughter as a son. She would have no scheming, deceitful womanly qualities.
“Have a bowl of red stew for a weary tracker?” His brother stepped out from the shadows.
“First sell me your birthright.” Magnus snapped his fingers. “Ah, that’s right, I already wear the ring.” He returned his attention to the fire and his drink.
“Who cares for a ring when I can visit the real thing anytime I want?” Hök said, referring to the tree that their father had originally been buried under. Their father had been clear that he wished to be buried in a crypt under the church he’d help build, so eventually Magnus had dug up his remains and taken him back to Tronscar. “Who has need of old bones and bits of gold when this mighty tree holds
the blood and spirit of our father in its roots and limbs?” his brother had said.
“I was meaning to send lumbermen to the north this summer. I need a new chair to rest my sore arse upon when I return to my fortress.” Magnus said, slamming his horn to the floor.
His brother did not flinch. “You need to go home, Mag. I shall guide the way in the dark. We will be there before she wakes. You need to see her.”
“Nay, I do not.”
“Aye, you do,” Hök said. His words were followed by a long moment of silence that helped Magnus to control his temper. “You are afraid of her.”
“You are correct. I fear gutting the woman like a fish and soiling my blade.”
“Stop, Magnus!” his brother shouted. Hök never shouts. Magnus did not even know he was capable of it. “You care for her. She scares you to death because she is the first person since Father that you have allowed yourself to love. Go to her. Now. Go to her now or you will regret it until the day you die.”
“Has she had the bastard then?” He spat on the floor. His brother looked away. Magnus winced at his own careless words. The label had only ever been a jest, a taunt between them, never an insult. “I regret my words, brother. She inflames me. Sit. Let us have a drink—”
His brother pointed south. “You put her in that cold iron tower. You put her on your ship and took her from her people. She is your wife. She made you happier than I thought possible for you. You go to her now or I will call you my brother no more. Bastards are children left unclaimed, Magnus. You claimed me, father claimed me, but this night, I reject you. You will be a bastard to me after this night if you do not go to her.” His brother turned on his heel and left.
Magnus thought of the words for a few moments, then, out of concern for no one other than his brother, he followed him out into the celestial night. He was more intoxicated than he’d realized.
Under the rainbow-colored glowing path of the northern lights, he followed his brother’s footprints in the snow for several hours, allowing his mind to go blank with the calming sound of the crisp crunch underfoot.
Finally, as dawn broke, they arrived at the iron fortress. Magnus didn’t want to wake the house or disturb the village by having the main gates opened, so he used his father’s secret mountain tunnel, which led underground into the stables. Stepping as quietly as a thief in the night, he ascended the south tower. He had placed his wife across the corridor in the secondary master chamber that he had originally designed for his brother. His hand hesitated over the iron latch. He could charge sword-first into battle, but at this moment he found no such measure of conviction.
Magnus placed his hand on the latch, and the well-oiled door hinge swung open silently.
Embers glowed bright in the hearth, casting a low light into the corners of the chamber. He crept to the bed and pulled back the velvet curtain. The bed was empty, with only rumpled sheets remaining, yet he could still smell Lida’s apple scent, feel her warm presence.
“Down here.” A small voice came from the opposite side of the bed.
He circled and found her splayed out on the floor atop a black bear rug, her massive belly like a boulder pinning her small body to the floor.
He rushed to her side.
“I was stretching my back,” she cheerfully explained. She must have struck her head in the fall.
“You fell from bed?”
“Of course not, Magnus. I needed to stretch. The bed is so soft that sometimes it hurts. My back is in knots. How are you? Was your hunt a success?” she asked sincerely. Perhaps her confinement had softened her head, he thought—or was it her guilty conscious that had created her bizarre, cheerful disposition? Was it another ploy to lure him in?
In a thin nightgown with her hair braided to one side, she was as wretchedly beautiful as she had ever been . . . although perhaps a bit thin in the cheeks. “I knew you would come.” She took his hand and squeezed it.
“This is my fortress, woman. Of course I would come.”
“It will not be much longer, Magnus. Perhaps a month, so you must send for another midwife. I will not use Klara’s woman. I cannot trust her.”
“You will use who comes.”
“Shhh, I know ’twas not your fault. Let me show you.” She pulled him down, forcing him to one knee. “This is your son.” She placed his hand on the high point of her stomach under her breast. He felt the strong kick under his hand. His wife took his second hand and guided it to the lowest point of her belly. “This is your other son or your daughter. I have not decided if I will give you two sons or one of each. I am thinking one of each to punish you for going hunting for so long, but if you stay and hold me now, I will reconsider.” She smiled a truthful smile.
A strong kick slammed into his hand. A second kick of the babe, but from opposite ends. He could not breathe. Could the child be so large that it moved all over her stretched stomach? He roamed his hands over her, back and forth, and he felt the movement, everywhere, all at once.
“They are sparring in the ring, I think. I may kiss the pair of them and then promptly spank them for giving me no rest.” She rubbed her stomach.
Astonished, he asked, “How can you be—?”
“Trust me, I am sure. Feels like a herd of elk on my organs.” She giggled and offered her hands to him so he could help her rise. “If you do not believe me, wait a month. I will be right and you will be wrong, and you will spend the rest of our lives making it up to me. For I will remind you of it daily to be sure.” She eased her way down to the bed.
“The fisherman, he—” Magnus began to say.
“I will not speak of that with you. Otso is my friend. Unless he was beaten, I cannot see why he would lie. Ask Tero. You know he interrogated half the village before we wed. Can you pass me a drink of water? I am painfully thirsty. The fire is burning low; you might see to it for me.” She pointed to the woodpile for him to feed the flame.
He stared at her, stunned. No anger or bitterness—all business and practicality.
“Women that breed more than one babe at a time present early and grow larger. I only remember two such births in Turku. One fared well. One did not. The birth will be difficult. You must send for skilled midwives that have birthed multiple babes before. Neither Tero nor I trust Klara’s midwife. She tried to feed me bitter tea after you left. Tero quickly removed her from the keep. I never trusted her. You will not have much time to get an experienced midwife here, so why not go now and command some men about?”
Magnus continued to stare.
She continued to smile. “I am so glad you are home safe. Has Hök returned with you?” Like a cat, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes, then promptly fell asleep without waiting for his reply.
Two babes? Twins? It could not be possible. In a haze, he wandered out into the corridor, finding his brother leaning against the opposite wall.
“I need to show you something now, before the house rises,” Hök said.
Without a word, Magnus followed his brother out to the kennel and to Lika, who was chained to a post.
“Someone burned her. Often.” Hök flipped back Lika’s furry ears and revealed the brand of a fire poker.
Magnus unchained the animal, stroked her firmly several times, looked the beautiful beast in the eyes, and found no resentment.
“Do you want to speak with Otso before or after we break our fast?” his brother asked.
“Will this be my third apology before the sun rises?”
“In all likelihood.”
Magnus groaned. His father had been correct. Women blind you and make you lose your senses. He had been an observant man before he wed Lida. Now look at him. He felt like the lack-wit of Tronscar, rather than the master. He should have examined the hound himself.
He stood in the doorway to the master of the guard’s chamber, his displeasure mounting. A scullery maid, scarc
ely more than a child and most definitely not the man’s wife, slept naked next to the guard. He was more than twice the girl’s age.
Magnus kicked the bed. “Roffe, I will speak to the Finnish prisoners.”
“My jarl! I . . . um.” Roffe scrambled for his leather breeches.
Magnus reined in his temper for the sake of the cowering girl. “Be off to the kitchen with you, girl.” The girl fled out the door, clutching her garments to her chest.
A fastidious ruler was the last thing Magnus desired to be, yet had his permissiveness come at the detriment of the most vulnerable in his care? He granted his men the freedom to live as they pleased; holding fast only to the basic laws of order. Rape was never permitted, yet the practice of taking young girls to bed had never set right with Magnus. And now, seeing a girl just six or seven years older than Katia, in bed with a man, the practice turned his stomach.
“Roffe, the prison appears in poor repair.”
“Aye, my jarl. I have . . .” Roffe began, his face a wash of sleep and confusion.
Magnus began to absorb the shame of being blind to the corruption and degenerate practices that he had allowed pollute his fortress. “Changes will be made.”
“I will see it right,” Roffe said.
“Aye, you will, and you will be seeing to keeping your hands off the girls that are not half your age too.” Magnus would need to confer with Tero and Aleksi to find a way to implement a code of conduct with his men. Men wishing to be promoted and live within his walls would be held to a higher standard.
Roffe shuffled quickly to the fishermen’s cell.
“Where is the other prisoner?” Magnus would take both men’s testimony and uproot the truth of this conspiracy to falsely accuse his wife. He suspected it had originated with Klara, yet she could not have acted alone. He would see all guilty parties flushed out.
“Died last month,” Roffe answered without making eye contact.
