“Ah.” Her pulse slowed. That was a spectacle she did, indeed, wish to see. She took Lawmaker’s proffered arm and he led her to the longhouse flanking the stable, the one used for odd work and weapons practice in winter when the weather was bad.
The house had been cleared of the few bits of furniture it normally housed. Only the central fire remained, to both warm the room and serve as an interesting obstacle to be negotiated during battle practice.
Her kinsmen packed the benches on each wall and stood three deep in the doorway. The Scot’s indoctrination to their ways provided the folk of Fair Isle endless entertainment. In fact, they’d followed Grant’s progress with a relish she’d not seen since the quarterly games Gunnar used to hold when he was jarl, to encourage fitness and sportsmanship.
Wagering was at a peak. Her kinsmen bet on everything from Grant’s skill—or lack thereof—at the tafl table, to his memory for verse, which was a pastime much revered in her culture.
Rika pushed her way through the crowd and squeezed onto a bench next to Lawmaker. “What’s happening?” she said, and tried to make sense of the knot of men hovering around Grant at one end of the longhouse and around Ottar at the other.
“They are nearly ready.” Lawmaker nudged her. “Look, he makes a splendid Norseman, do you not agree?”
Rika’s eyes widened as Grant stepped forward.
She did agree.
He was clad only in breeks and boots, his chest bare, his long tawny hair loose about his shoulders. He bore a halberd, a spear whose linden-wood pole was as long as most men were tall. Grant was far taller than most men, and the weapon seemed dwarfed in his grip.
Ottar was similarly garbed and armed, but appeared a gangly youth next to the Scot.
Rika was annoyed at this matching of boy against man. “Ottar has no chance against the Scot. Grant has two stone on him at least.”
Lawmaker seemed unperturbed. “Ottar has more at stake. It is a good match, and one that is long overdue.”
Rika watched as the two opponents circled each other. “You speak in riddles, old man. What has he at stake? I don’t understand.”
“Nay, you wouldn’t. You’re a woman.”
Rika snorted.
“Ottar hovers on the brink,” Lawmaker said. “He has the body of a man—well, nearly so—coupled with the hotheaded emotions of youth. A dangerous combination. His pride is easily wounded.”
“Hmm, methinks you are right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
She smirked at the old man and turned her attention back to the match.
Ottar was as tense as she’d e’er seen him, circling Grant as a predator would its prey, jaw set, eyes afire. Grant, conversely, appeared relaxed, loose, and lighter on his feet than she would have expected for a man of his size.
The two of them parried awhile, jabbing and ducking, taking care to avoid the central fire. Matches usually lasted until the first serious blood was drawn. However, the definition of what was serious and what was not was left up to the audience. Glancing around the room, Rika spied more than a few who she knew thirsted for serious blood sport.
Ingolf among them.
And she suspected he cared not which of the two combatants did the bleeding.
Ottar grew impatient with Grant’s lack of offense, and moved in to strike. Rika gasped as the youth’s blade grazed the Scot’s chest.
The crowd let out a collective roar.
She breathed again when she realized it was just a scratch. A thin red line materialized ’neath his curling chest hair. To her amazement, Grant nodded at Ottar and smiled. Was he not angry?
Brodir would have been furious had a youth of Ottar’s inexperience drawn first blood. Brodir might have killed him over the insult. Not in public, mind you. He’d find some private place for his revenge.
Rika shivered, remembering the times she had crossed him.
Ottar’s confidence exuded from every pore. He grew bold and reckless, and more than once nearly backed into the fire pit. Grant worked him around the room, allowing the youth an occasional harmless strike.
Again Lawmaker was right.
To Grant this was merely an afternoon’s amusement—a chance to hone his skills with a foreign weapon. But to Ottar, it was serious business. He was hell-bent on besting the Scot. She could read it in his eyes, in the fierceness of his expression.
Grant read it, too, and she wondered how the Scot would deal with him. She knew what Brodir would do, or any man of her clan. He’d crush the youth at the first opportunity.
Dominate. Destroy.
That was the way of things on Fair Isle. The Scot, she surmised, was not much different in his thinking. All men were the same.
Or so she’d thought.
Grant backed Ottar toward the fire. She held her breath when the youth nearly slipped. He used the butt of his spear to brace himself from falling, leaving his right side unprotected. Grant had his chance. And did not take it.
Rika was astonished.
An instant later, Ottar regained his balance and delivered an unexpected jab to Grant’s torso. Unexpected to all, save Grant. He saw it coming in time to thwart it. She read the hesitation in his eyes.
Then something extraordinary happened. Grant froze, his decision made, and Ottar’s blade licked him cleanly across the chest. Blood seeped from the wound, and a shout went up amongst the men.
Rika was on her feet, choking back a cry, and would have rushed to aid the Scot had Lawmaker not grabbed the skirt of her gown. “This is men’s business,” he said. “Do not interfere.”
Interfere? Grant was hurt. She must go to him and—
Rika stopped dead. Thor’s blood, what had she thought to do?
Grant looked at her, breathless, sweat beading on his brow. After a long moment that made her insides tingle, he smiled. A smile she would remember.
In the ensuing uproar, Ottar was lifted off his feet by a throng of men and carried on their shoulders as befit a victor. The jubilation on his young face made her heart swell with new-found admiration.
Not for Ottar, but for Grant.
“You are a fortunate woman, Ulrika,” Lawmaker said. “Only you do not know it yet.”
Night fell and the wind died. The rain had stopped hours ago, and Rika prayed the weather would hold. She took one last glance at the clearing sky before stepping into the warmth of the longhouse.
Spirits were high and the honeyed mead flowed. Ottar sat by the fire, at his feet a knot of younger boys who bid him tell them one more time how he bested the Scot that afternoon. Likely, the tale would be told a dozen times more before the night was over.
Lina brought him a plate of sweet cakes. Her eyes washed over him with predatory intent. Ottar smiled wide. The vixen was far more dangerous to the youth than was Grant, though Ottar was too stupid to see it.
“Come hither, girl!”
Rika turned toward Hannes’s voice and was surprised to see Grant sitting with him at a gaming table in the corner.
“So, you have not yet tired of the tafl board?” She felt good tonight, better than she had in a long time, and spared the Scot a rare smile. His behavior at the mock battle that afternoon had won him her respect, and that was something she bestowed not lightly.
“I’d be willing to give it another go,” Grant said, “but beware, Lawmaker has schooled me in some of the finer points of the game.” His eyes flashed mirth, and his cheeks were tinged with a ruddy glow. She’d ne’er seen him so…relaxed.
If she didn’t know better—how he loathed their honeyed drink—she would swear he was in his cups. Hmm. Mayhap that silly chit Lina had discovered a keg of ale, after all. Of course there had been no barrel that day Rika accompanied her to the storehouse. It was deceitful ploys like that which caused men to think women underhanded.
“Nay, there will be no gaming tonight for you,” Hannes said to Grant. “You have yet to master the task I set for you days ago.”
“Which is?” Rika nudged the
skald aside so she might share his bench.
“Och, I told ye I canna do it.” Grant refilled his drinking horn. “The words mean naught to me, and are too bloody hard to pronounce.”
What on earth was he talking about?
“I taught him some verse to recite for your father,” Hannes said.
“Really?” Now this impressed her. Few of her own kinsmen took the time to learn such things.
“And a poem,” Hannes added.
“Aye, let me see if I can remember it.” Grant drained his drinking horn and rose from his seat. No one paid him any mind, and Rika was grateful. She did not wish to see him make a fool of himself in front of the others. He cleared his throat ceremoniously and began.
His accent was terrible, and though he butchered the words he did not falter. He was confident, and her father liked confidence. She was beginning to think Grant would win Rollo’s favor after all.
Then, on the third stanza, she recognized the poem.
Her teeth clenched instinctively behind thinned lips. The Scot rambled on, and with each new stanza her temperature rose. Her reaction was not lost on Hannes.
Finally Grant collapsed onto the bench and grinned. “I’ll be damned if I know what it means, but I did a fair job of it this time, did I no?”
Rika’s face flushed hot.
“What’s the matter?” Grant frowned at her reaction, and looked to Hannes for some explanation. “Did I say it wrong?”
“Nay, ’twas dead-on, was it not, Rika?” The skald’s face was a mask of pure innocence. He no doubt learned that little trick from Lawmaker.
“You’re skating on thin ice, old man.” She shot him a deadly look.
“I got the words right,” Grant said, and looked at her with what she believed was honest bewilderment.
“Hannes said ye would like the poem. That I should recite it to ye at the first opportunity.”
“Oh, did he?”
Hannes sputtered beside her. “I didn’t exactly say that—”
“Did he tell you what it meant?” she snapped, and eyed Grant for the slightest sign of duplicity.
“He did.”
“I ne’er actually said that—”
“Quiet, old man.” If Hannes so much as opened his yaw again he’d be eating her fist.
“He called it a drottkvoett—a warrior’s meter. ’Tis a poem paying tribute to some great victory. Am I right?”
The blood in her veins hardened to stone. “A great victory for the warrior in question, ja.”
“Well then—”
“Won not on the battlefield, but in the bridal bed.”
Grant’s face reddened. “Oh. I hadna thought of that.” He reached for the flagon, but Rika snatched it from the table.
“Methinks you’ve had enough. As for you, poet—” she cast Hannes an icy look “—school’s over.”
Both of them sat there like idiots. Grant was clearly drunk. Thor’s blood, that’s all she needed—a husband who couldn’t hold his liquor. Her father would laugh him right out of his house.
Rika moved to an open bench as far from the Scot as she could get. On the way, she sniffed at the flagon. Hmm, ’twas mead after all. She handed it off to the nearest man, and he hiccuped in response.
She mouthed a silent curse.
Tomorrow they would sail, clear weather or not. She was sick of this waiting. And the longer they delayed, the greater the chance of others discovering their plan.
Grant had promised not to speak of their bargain, and so far he’d kept his word. But honeyed mead had a way of loosening a man’s tongue, and secrets were never long kept on Fair Isle, given the close quarters in which she and her kinsmen lived.
Ingolf dogged her every step. Even now, he sat in a corner watching her, honing his knife as he had that first night when Grant had come to them. How much, if anything, did he know? And what did he plan?
Had there been a way to send word to Brodir, Ingolf would have done it in a heartbeat when her plan to wed the Scot became known. But no one knew Brodir’s whereabouts, not even the trusted few he left behind to keep a watchful eye on things in his absence.
Besides, no one sailed in winter save to avert some pending disaster, and her marriage to the Scot hardly qualified as that. Lawmaker and the other elders would have had to agree to any such voyage, and Ingolf knew enough not to dare ask.
Lawmaker had set guards to watch the byrthing. She cast Grant a sideways glance and saw that his head was lolled back against the wall, his eyes barely open. The Scot, no doubt, thought the guards were there for his benefit. Ha! As if he could sail such a vessel on his own.
She met Ingolf’s gaze head-on.
The guards were for him and his cronies, should they think to commandeer the ship and sail in search of their jarl. Rika smiled at him, and the blade of his knife stilled on the whetstone.
She was exhausted, and longed for sleep. Perhaps she’d stay in the longhouse tonight with the others. The cottage sat off the far end of the courtyard, isolated from the other houses.
Ingolf moved the blade over the stone again in a slow circular motion, his eyes riveted to hers. If some evil should befall her out there in the night, no one would hear her cries for help.
Rika closed her eyes and drew a deep, calming breath. Get hold of yourself, Ulrika. This nightmare will be over soon.
George watched the two of them through slitted eyes. Rika looked drained, as if she hadn’t slept in days. Ingolf’s gaze burned into her with a malevolence that kept George perpetually on his guard.
’Twas long past the hour at which Rika normally retired to the cottage. Mayhap tonight she wouldn’t go. George prayed she would not.
No one else seemed aware of Ingolf’s malice toward her. Not even the youth Ottar, who was always the first to rush to her defense when danger reared its head. The boy was a good ally for Rika to have, but he was just that—a boy—and had not the experience to deal with vermin like Ingolf and his henchmen.
Besides, the youth had other dangers to thwart this night. Lina sat on Ottar’s lap and tittered prettily at every word he spoke. George suppressed a smile. A boy had to grow up sometime, he guessed. Ottar would grow fast in that one’s clutches.
A bittersweet chord tugged at his heart. He was reminded of another youth. His brother, Sommerled. Oh, how he missed him. A wave of raw emotion gripped him, and he gritted his teeth against the agony it wrought.
He must get home.
That’s what mattered. He’d been on Fair Isle nearly a fortnight. By now his clan would have sent riders to look for him and for Sommerled. Mayhap they’d stumble on the news of their taking to ship from Inverness. News of the wreck.
Mayhap they thought him dead.
He ought to be dead.
It wouldn’t bring his brother back, but ’twould be just payment for his own negligence. He breathed a silent curse and vowed to rid his mind of this misery. There were other matters to deal with now. Once he was safe in Scotland and had made good on his contract with August Sinclair, he could grieve without distraction. But for now—
Rika shot to her feet, and George’s mind snapped to attention. He let his head loll sideways against the wall, feigning drunkenness, and peered through a fringe of lashes at Ingolf and his pack. The henchman was on his feet, his dagger in hand.
George’s own hand closed surreptitiously over the hilt of the dirk he’d been allowed to carry since that afternoon at the match. He would have preferred a broadsword, but the dirk would do. Not that he couldn’t dispatch a man like Ingolf with his bare hands. But given the heathen’s half-dozen friends eager for a piece of him, the weapon was an added comfort.
Rika spared George’s seemingly lifeless form not a glance as she snaked her way through the tables toward the door. On the way, she slipped a short ax from the belt of a passed-out kinsman and shot Ingolf a backward glance.
A warning.
As soon as she was out the door, Ingolf and his pack followed in her wake. George watche
d them until they quit the room, then bolted to his feet.
“Ho!” Hannes started beside him. The skald had been dozing. “Where are you off to, lad, with so grim a look on your face?”
“Nowhere. Go back to sleep.”
He suspected that Rika would rather have cut off an arm than beg protection from any man, but he didn’t intend to offer her a choice in the matter.
No one else questioned him as he moved swiftly to the door and stepped into the night, the dirk itching in his hand. He squinted in the dark. Aye, ’twas as he’d feared.
Rika stood backed against the well in the middle of the courtyard, brandishing the short ax, Ingolf and his men spread out in a half circle around her.
In five strides George was there.
Ingolf whirled on him.
“Dinna even think it,” George said, and had the point of his dirk against the henchman’s throat before Ingolf could even blink.
The others drew their weapons, and George tensed, prepared to take them all.
“Not so fast,” a voice called from behind him.
Erik.
George pushed Ingolf away.
“What have we here?” The Norseman flanked George. Leif and a half-dozen others whom George did not know fanned into a line behind them.
For a moment no one said a word.
“We were just having some sport is all.” Ingolf nodded casually at Rika, then sheathed his weapon. “With the new bride.”
“Ja, well, we’ll reserve that for her husband, eh?” Erik said, and beckoned Ingolf toward him. “Come, let us share a flagon and leave the newlyweds to their pleasure on this fine, clear night.”
The weather had cleared, George realized. He glanced up and marveled at the spray of stars peppering the sky.
A moment later, he and Rika were alone. She cast the ax into the dirt and turned away from him, bracing herself against the wide lip of the well.
“Ye may have need of this later,” George said as he retrieved the ax from the dirt and offered it to her.
“I would feel more assured of your safety if ye kept it.”
“What concern of yours is my safety?”
He moved up behind her and sensed her anger—nay, not anger. Fear. She was trembling. George leaned the ax against the well and gripped her shoulders.
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