"Oh, Livvy. Love is always the issue."
"For you, maybe."
"And there is the baby."
Liv had her ducks in a row on that one. "Women have babies on their own all time now. And in my situation, with plenty of money and Mom and Hilda and Granny and the aunts just longing to help out in any way they can? Come on. You know that baby is going to be fine."
Elli heaved a big sigh. "Maybe you're right."
"Of course I'm right."
"So then, the only one who has to suffer is Finn."
Liv scowled. "The implication being that he's in Tarngalla because of me."
"What other reason can there be? Finn followed you to America to get you to marry him. He failed. So he comes home and he pays the price."
"Oh, puh-leese. I refuse to marry Finn and he gets thrown in jail. Where's the sense in that?"
"Sense has exactly zip to do with it. This is Gullandria. And in Gullandria, if a man doesn't marry the woman who carries his child, there's bound to be Hel to pay—they may spell it differently, but hell is Hel, you know? Eternal fire or blasted towers of ice, it's big Trouble. Capital T."
"What it is, is barbaric. Unbelievable. Totally unacceptable."
"Call it whatever you want. The bottom line is, Finn's in prison. And you're not."
Liv didn't like the sound of that. "Wait a minute. Was that some kind of accusation?"
"Of course not. Just a statement of fact, and hold on, Brit wants to say something now."
Brit came on the line. "So you're getting the picture?"
"All too clearly."
"When are you coming?"
"This could royally mess up my internship, you know? First, there was Elli's wedding. I really couldn't afford taking time off for that. It's only a three-month job, after all. If I want the units, I have to—"
"When?"
"I keep asking myself, how can this be happening? How did I get myself into this crazy, impossible, ridiculous—"
"Livvy."
Liv muttered a very bad word.
"When are you coming?"
"Damn it. As soon as I can find a flight."
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
« ^ »
Liv did have a number where she could supposedly reach her father. He'd given it to her and Brit when he'd had their travel arrangements set up before Elli's wedding. She could have called him and asked him to send one of those royal jets of his to get her. He'd have it ready and waiting for her at Executive Airport in no time. But she couldn't bring herself to speak with him—at least not until she was face-to-face with the man and could deliver the head-on dressing-down he deserved.
So she went online and, for an outrageous price, got a flight out of San Francisco leaving that afternoon at five, nonstop to Heathrow. From there, she'd board a smaller, commuter-type plane for Gullandria.
She packed her bags. By then, it was almost four in the morning. Hours to go until she could do much else and she was far too keyed up to sleep. She paced the floor and tried to read and channel-surfed, all the while thinking of Finn, aching for him, hoping he was all right, and mentally rehearsing all the scathing things she'd say to her father.
At eight o'clock, she called the Attorney General's Office and explained that a family emergency had called her away again. No, she didn't know for how long. She sincerely hoped it would only be a few days.
That grim job accomplished, she threw her bags in her car, locked up and went to tell her mother that she was leaving—again.
When Liv burst in the back door, Ingrid and Hildy were sitting in the breakfast nook, having their morning coffee together as they'd done for all the years that Liv could remember.
"Darling," Ingrid exclaimed. "What's happened? You look positively wild."
"I am wild." Liv hauled out one of the kitchen chairs and dropped into it. "And I want some coffee, but it's not good for the baby, is it?"
"No darling, I'm afraid it isn't."
"Orange juice?" Hildy offered.
"No thanks. I think I'm going to murder my father. He's a monster and I hate him. He's thrown Finn into Tarngalla, did you know?"
"No, I didn't know." Ingrid sipped her coffee. "But I can't say I'm surprised."
Liv glared at her mother. "How can you be so calm about it?"
"Darling—"
"Could you stop calling me that?"
Ingrid blinked. "I've always called you that."
"Well, it reminds me of Finn now. And that … upsets me."
"Ah." Ingrid and Hildy exchanged a look. "Sorry, sweetheart—so you're going to Gullandria?"
"How did you know?"
"Well, what else can you do?"
Liv made a growling sound. "Exactly."
Ingrid and Hildy shared another freighted glance. They did that all the time, carried on private conversations just by looking at each other. Sometimes—like right now—Liv found it irritating in the extreme.
Ingrid said, "Your father is … who he is."
Liv threw up both hands. "You sound like Brit. Next you'll be telling me you and he are reconciling."
Ingrid shook her head. "No. I'm only telling you that nothing you do or say will change Osrik Thorson. And believe me, I know whereof I speak." She set down her cup and leaned closer, across the table. "Livvy, I lost so much. I gave up my sons to keep my daughters, to raise them here, in America, to make certain at least my girls would be safe from that place and all the scheming and dangerous maneuvering for power that goes on there. Yet what's happened? There's an old Norse saying…"
Liv stifled a groan. "Enough with the Norse sayings."
Her mother repeated it anyway. "The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago."
"Meaning, specifically?"
"What have I accomplished, by fighting my fate? My sons are dead. Perhaps they would have died anyway, but at least, for the years they lived, I would have known them." Blue eyes glistened. Ingrid turned away, collected herself and then faced Liv once more. "And my daughters? Where are my daughters now—the daughters I meant to keep safe from all things Gullandrian? One has married a Gullandrian; one went to Gullandria for a visit and refuses to come home. And one is on her way back to Gullandria just as soon as she can finish telling me goodbye."
Liv put her hand over her mother's. "I'm sorry, Mom."
Ingrid covered Liv's hand, so it was held safe and warm—at least for that moment—between both of hers. She was smiling, a sad little smile. "There is no fighting fate. You and your sisters each have a road to travel. I might have pulled you from your paths temporarily, but now, unerringly, each of you seems to be finding her own road again."
Liv couldn't help asking. She and her sisters had asked so many times and never gotten any real answer. "What happened? Why did you leave him, really? What did he do?"
Ingrid slid her hands free of Liv's and sat back in her chair. "Now is not the time."
"Mom. It's never the time."
Hildy cleared her throat. Ingrid glanced toward her lifelong friend. Yet another of those speaking looks passed between them. This time, Liv felt no irritation at the silent communication. She had a clear sense that Hildy was on her side. Hildy wanted Ingrid to reveal at least a little of what had happened all those years ago, what had been so terrible that it had torn their family in two.
Finally Ingrid faced Liv across the table. "Remember, I've told you I had a younger brother who died before you were born?"
Liv nodded. "I remember. His name was Brian."
"Yes. Brian—we all adored him, Nanna and Kirsten and I." They were fraternal triplets, Ingrid and her sisters, just like Ingrid's daughters after them. "Brian was obsessed with all things Gullandrian. When he graduated from high school, he came to stay with us, with Osrik and me and our two sons, at Isenhalla. Osrik was newly crowned then. Kylan was a baby and Valbrand was just three. It was only to be a visit, a few months, in the summer. Brian was set to attend Yale…"
"He wou
ldn't go back?"
"That's right." Ingrid waved a hand. "Oh, it's a long, sad story."
"Tell me."
After a moment, Liv's mother continued. "Brian wanted, so badly, to become a true Gullandrian. To be accepted by Osrik, by the others at court, as one of the jarl. He badgered Osrik constantly. As king, Osrik had it in his power to make him a citizen, to declare him high jarl. Also, there was the fact that Freyasdahl is an old and respected Gullandrian name, so no one would have argued Brian's right to take his place in the nobility."
"But Father wouldn't grant him citizenship?"
"No. Granny Birget and your grandfather didn't want it. They wanted their son home, in America. They wanted him to finish his education and pick up his 'real' life here. Osrik, naturally, wanted to please his wife's parents. And Brian was … spoiled. Hotheaded. There were a couple of incidents. He seduced and abandoned a serving girl. When the girl became pregnant, Osrik arranged a marriage for her with a steady, hardworking farmer. Also, Brian beat one of the grooms in the stables almost to death for putting his favorite horse away wet. Osrik wanted to send him to the Mystics then, the wise men beyond the Black Mountains. In Gullandria, troubled young people are often packed off to the Mystics, where they're taught a little discipline and made to understand the error of their ways.
"Brian refused to go, of course. And I interceded for him, to see he wasn't sent away. Brian was … a troublemaker. I see that now, from the perspective of many years. He had a cruel and selfish little heart."
"But back then?"
Ingrid lifted one shoulder in a regretful shrug. "I was used to loving him unconditionally. He was the 'baby' of our family. It was a huge blind spot with me. I wanted him to have what he wanted: citizenship and the title of prince. And Osrik kept putting him off. I was torn, I guess you could say—my beloved baby brother on one side, my parents and husband on the other. Finally Brian demanded the right to earn his place as a Gullandrian prince if Osrik wouldn't simply grant it to him. You see, in Gullandria—"
Liv smiled. "Mom. I know." Ingrid had explained it all, years ago, in her stories to her girls of the land of their birth. If a man or a woman of another country desired Gullandrian citizenship, he or she could take a Gullandrian spouse, or petition the king for a special quest—an assignment that, when accomplished, would earn the petitioner all rights as a true Gullandrian. "Why didn't Brian just find a Gullandrian girl and marry her? What about the servant he—"
Ingrid made a low sound in her throat. "My brother, marry a servant, a mere freewoman? Never. Didn't I mention he was a terrible snob?"
"My uncle sounds like a complete rat, and if not the serving girl, what about some lady or other? He was heir to a few Freyasdahl millions, right? And he was also the brother-in-law of the king. Even if he was ugly as a gnome and a total jerk on top of it, that should have made him attractive enough to some ambitious lady with the proper pedigree."
"Brian didn't want to do it that way. As time went by, he became nothing short of obsessed with the idea of 'earning' his citizenship by way of a special quest. Usually, in the past century or so, when the king grants a quest, it's something pretty mundane—to paint a public building or clean up a roadway. That, along with a routine course in citizenship and proof that a man has a means of supporting himself, is usually all it takes. But Brian wanted something dangerous, something exciting. And blinded to his faults as I was, that seemed to me a noble thing, a proof that he was a better man than everyone else thought him to be."
Liv knew what came next. "So Father finally gave your brother what he wanted."
Ingrid nodded. "It was a covert mission into the Black Mountains and on to the Vildelund, to bring back a certain high jarl lady who'd run off to join the kvina soldars. The lady never did return. I understand she became a fine warrior. My brother was found dead at the gateway to the mountains, his head severed from his body and left on a pike a mile farther on—and a mile beyond that, his male parts were tied so they dangled from the branches of a spruce tree."
Liv winced. "That's bad."
"Yes, it was."
"And you blamed Father."
"Not at first. First, I demanded that he muster all his military forces and send them marching to the Vildelund, to avenge Brian's death. He refused. He said that Brian was hated by many and there was no way to be certain who—or what—had killed him. Also, there was the fact that his body had been so horribly mutilated. In Gullandria, they only do things like that to the corpses of rapists or child molesters. Osrik said Brian must have deserved what he got. Osrik told me he wouldn't wage war on his own people to avenge the death of a cruel, spoiled fool—and after that, yes, I hated him. You girls were born and I never returned to our marriage bed. I insisted I was leaving him. At first, he said he would never let me go. But then I swore I'd divorce him. It was, after all, my right as a Gullandrian woman. He kept me captive in Tarngalla for a while. Eventually, when he couldn't stand the shame of being known as the king who had to keep his wife under lock and key to make her stay with him, we struck a bargain. I got you girls and the freedom to live in America. He kept our sons to bring up as candidates for the throne when the Kingmaking came around again."
Liv reached across the table once more. Her mother's hand clasped hers.
Ingrid went on, "At the time, I was wild with grief—and guilt, too, I realize now. I even imagined Osrik had wanted Brian dead. That he'd as good as killed him, to send him on that hopeless mission. When at last he allowed me and you three girls to leave for California, I swore never again to set foot on Gullandrian soil."
Liv asked softly, "And now?"
Still holding tight to Liv's hand, Ingrid pushed back her chair and rose. She came around the table and stood over her daughter. "Now, I would like once more, however briefly, to hold my eldest daughter in my arms."
"Oh, Mom…" Liv surged upward into Ingrid's embrace. Over her mother's shoulder, Liv sent Hildy a quivery smile.
After a minute, Ingrid took Liv by the arms and held her away enough to look into her eyes. "It doesn't matter what vows I make now. Now, as the mother of three proud and beautiful daughters, I only ask the gods most humbly that the three Norns of destiny show my girls the way on the twisting roads of their own separate fates."
* * *
The rattling fifty-seater Liv took from Heathrow arrived in Gullandria at three the following afternoon. It was a clear, cool day, with a brisk wind that made the rotors of the windmills lining the road to Isenhalla spin so fast they seemed like ghostly circles, rippling against the sky.
There had been a black car waiting for her at the airport—sent by her father. She didn't ask Kaarin Karlsmon, who'd been assigned the job of escorting her, how her father knew that she was arriving. It suited her just fine that he knew she was there.
At the palace, Kaarin led Liv to the same rooms she'd shared with Brit during her previous visit. Brit was there, waiting, arms outstretched. Liv freshened up a little and changed into her favorite all-business dove-gray silk suit.
Brit hugged her again. "Knock 'im dead," she whispered.
"Oh, don't I wish."
Kaarin was ready and waiting in the suite's formal sitting room. "This way, Your Highness." She turned for the exit to the hallway.
* * *
Kaarin left her when they reached the tall doors. The guards pulled them wide. Liv's pulse picked up speed as she crossed the stone floor of the antechamber.
Her father was alone, seated behind his massive inlaid desk. He looked up as she entered.
"Well," he said. "It's about time."
She'd had a thousand trenchant, scathing points to make. She'd planned to descend on him, eloquent in her righteous fury, to bend him to her will—and to doing the right thing—by the sheer force and brilliance of her arguments.
But instead, she discovered, she had nothing to say to him beyond, "I'd like to speak with Finn, please. Will you have someone take me to him?"
* * *
Ch
apter Fourteen
« ^ »
The cell was of lusterless gray stone—all of it: walls, ceiling and floor. One small barred window, high up, let in a square of light and meted out a view of a tiny slice of Gullandrian sky. A rough stone fireplace contained the usual Gullandrian-style insert that meant it burned natural gas. At least, Liv thought, as cheerless as the accommodations were, he wouldn't be cold.
An arch in the wall perpendicular to the entry door led into shadow—a sleeping alcove, Liv assumed, maybe some rudimentary sort of bathroom. The furniture was the basics only: a rough table and two straight chairs. A recessed and grated ceiling fixture directly over the table cast a weak glow on an area perhaps four feet square, so that the corners of the room faded out into gray gloom. On the table lay a stack of books, a tablet, a few pens…
"Give a call through there, Highness, when you're ready to leave." The guard gestured at the small barred grate in the top of the heavy door.
Liv quelled a shiver. "Thank you. I will."
The man saluted and backed out, pulling the door shut as he went. Liv faced the room again and heard the key turn in the lock behind her.
Finn's voice came to her out of the darkness of the second room. "You shouldn't have come."
Liv swallowed away the traitorous tightness in her throat, faced the dark arch and announced, "Well, great to see you, too—that is, if I could see you."
He took form beneath the arch as he moved into the meager light. Her heart leaped and then seemed to stop cold in her chest. He was unshaven, his white silk shirt wrinkled and half-unbuttoned, his slacks unpressed. His eyes seemed so deep—and lightless. There were dark circles beneath them.
How could this have happened? How could her lighthearted playboy prince have been brought so low?
She wanted only to run to him, to throw her arms around him, pull his tousled head down and press her lips to his. But something in his haggard face stopped her. Something in those lightless eyes warned her to keep back.
"Why?" she asked simply.
For that she got a rueful shrug.
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