Ice Maiden

by Debra Lee Brown

  “A week? Christ, lad, ye’re slipping. I would have thought ye’d have had her wrapped around your finger from the very first day.”

  “Aye, we did get on well from the start.”

  George nodded, satisfied. “Then, ’tis all settled. I shall step down, and ye shall have your bonny dark-haired bride.”

  “But, the king. What shall we d—”

  “Leave William to me. I have a way with him, but he’ll have to be dealt with in person. A missive willna suffice.”

  Sommerled exhaled in relief. “Oh, George, ye dinna know what I’ve been through these last hours.”

  “Aye, I know.” He idly twisted Rika’s wedding band on his little finger.

  Sommerled’s gaze was drawn to the hammered silver band, and his fair brows knit in confusion. George quickly stuffed his hand into his pocket.

  Too late.

  “Those rings. They’re twins. What are they?” Sommerled poked at his pocketed hand.

  “They’re nothing. Just something I picked up.”

  Sommerled’s frown deepened, then all at once he jumped from the bench, his young face alight with recognition.

  George’s stomach did a slow roll.

  “Ye’re marrit!” Sommerled cried. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  He looked at his brother sheepishly and shrugged.

  “Good God, what the hell happened out there?”

  George shot to his feet and started down the flagstone path, Sommerled dogging his steps. “I dinna know anymore. Damn the bloody woman! If only she—”

  “Who is she?” Sommerled jumped in front of him and blocked the path. “Tell me. Where did ye meet her? Is she a Scot?”

  “Nay, nay.” He shook his head and waved his brother off. “The truth is, she’s a Viking. A Norsewoman. There, I’ve told ye. Are ye happy now?”

  His brother let out a whoop that George was certain would wake the entire household. “A Viking! Is she fair? Can she fight? I’ve heard their women are courageous and wicked tall.”

  “Aye, she’s tall, and courageous. And fair, but in a different sort of way. Ye wouldna understand.”

  He didn’t understand it himself. He told himself he would put her out of his mind for tonight. But now his head spun with naught but thoughts of her.

  “Ye’re in love!” Sommerled cried.

  “Shut it!” He clamped a hand over his brother’s mouth, but Sommerled pushed it away.

  “Ye are, aren’t ye? Ye love her, this Viking woman, this…”

  “Rika,” he snapped. “Her name is Rika.” He met his brother’s gaze. “She’s my wife and, aye, I love her.”

  The words seemed to hang there on the breeze, ringing in his ears. He could hardly believe it, himself, and was compelled to speak it again. “I love her.”

  There. He’d said it.

  ’Twas true.

  It had always been so, from the first time he saw her looming over him on the beach. From the very first words she spoke.

  He is perfect.

  Nay, she had it all wrong. She was the perfect one. And he’d left her. Like a fool he’d left her, alone in a foreign land with naught but boys to protect her.

  “What have I done?” he breathed.

  Sommerled didn’t hear him. He was going on and on about some other Viking tale. Something he’d heard on the hunt that day. “…and this silly woman offered a fortune in silver for the prisoner, but—”

  “What?” He grabbed his brother by the collar of his fur wrap. “What did ye say? What woman? What fortune?”

  Sommerled wrested out of his grip. “Calm down. If ye’d listen, I’d tell ye. ’Twas today on the hunt we met him—one of Sinclair’s kinsmen newly come from the quarry at Dunnet Head.”

  Dunnet Head.

  He grabbed Sommerled by the arm, dragged him back to the bench and pushed him onto it. “Tell me. What woman? What was her name?”

  “What in bloody—”

  “Tell me!”

  Sommerled looked at him as if he were a madman.

  “Dunno. Only that she came to the quarry with a chest full o’ silver to buy the release of one indentured slave. Her brother.”

  Brother.

  “Gunnar, son of Rollo. Was that his name?”

  Sommerled nodded. “Aye, that was it all right. But how did ye know?”

  An overpowering anxiety coiled tight inside him. “And the woman—what happened to her? Did she make the trade? Did she free him?” A hundred small mysteries that had nagged at him for weeks suddenly made sense.

  “Nay, she didna. The silver was snatched from her very hands by some big Viking bloke. ’Twas her dowry, they say, and he her betrothed.”

  George’s heart stopped for the second time that day.

  “Can ye imagine?”

  He could, and a sick horror washed over him.

  “He took her and the lads she had with her for slaves.”

  “What? She works the quarry?”

  “Nay, no her. Just the lads. She’s…what did Sinclair’s kinsman call it? Aye, I remember now. ’Tis a Viking custom.”

  “What?” He grabbed his brother and shook him near senseless. “What’s the whoreson done with her?”

  Sommerled’s face tightened, as if he just that moment realized who the woman was. “They…they say she’s his…bed slave.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  He would never forgive himself for leaving her.

  George slapped the lathered stallion’s rump and it shot forward into MacInnes’s stable. The man himself stood in the courtyard, his mouth agape.

  “Ho, lad, what have ye got, a bee in yer bonnet? What the—”

  “There’s no time!” George half dragged him into the stable. Sommerled dismounted and followed them inside.

  A minute’s worth of explanation on George’s part and MacInnes had the whole of his household in an uproar. In seconds they’d selected fresh mounts. He’d known the Scot would help them.

  “Ye rode all night?” MacInnes said.

  “Aye.” George shaded his eyes against the dawn.

  “’Twill be cold and clear today. We should make good time.” MacInnes pulled himself into the saddle of a tall gelding and raised a hand in farewell to his wife, who stood in the courtyard wringing her hands.

  “Godspeed,” she called out as the three of them, along with twenty of MacInnes’s men, guided their mounts out the gate and spurred them west toward Dunnet Head.

  Please God, keep her safe until I can get there.

  For the first hour they made good time as the path was gentle and nearly free of snow, but were forced to slow their pace when they entered the wood.

  “Damn it to bloody hell!” George shot MacInnes a nasty look. “Can we no go around?”

  “The wood? Aye, we can, but ’tis farther out of our way. If we stick to the path we’ll make the quarry late tonight.”

  George swore under his breath.

  “Besides, now is an excellent time for ye to tell me the whole of it.” MacInnes arched a peppered brow at him.

  Sommerled lowered his eyes and dropped back with the others, and George was grateful for it. He would not have his brother suffer again the tale of his stupidity. MacInnes flanked him, and as they cantered through the wood George recounted the whole of his adventure with Rika and her folk.

  MacInnes listened without comment, but George could tell by the occasional snort that not all of the tale was new to him.

  Finally he said, “Ye knew more than ye let on, that day we quit your house for Rollo’s.”

  MacInnes shrugged. “’Twas all conjecture on my part, but aye, I knew something was amiss from the start. A newly wedded man doesna sleep on the floor of his wife’s chamber with her in the bed.”

  They exchanged a look.

  “Besides, I had ye followed to Rollo’s castle, and again when ye left there. On the way, my kinsmen lost yer tracks, and didna come upon the place where blood was spilled until ye’d gone.”

  “What
? But how, without our seeing—”

  “Remember, lad, this is my birthplace, and ye are but a visitor. I know all that goes on for twenty leagues.”

  He cursed himself silently for the hundredth time that day. Was he a complete idiot?

  “When ye split up three days ago on the road above my house, and ye rode south and she west, I knew for certain ye’d lied to me.”

  “I never—”

  MacInnes raised his hand. “Well, no lied exactly, but kept the truth o’ things from me.”

  “I didna know the half of it myself.” He drew a breath and ground his teeth. “Bloody woman.”

  MacInnes laughed. “Aye, I’d tan her hide were she my wife.”

  He swore again.

  “Dinna fash, lad. I know this Brodir. ’Tis no the killing he fancies, but the power that comes of domination.”

  That came as no surprise to George. A dozen tiny moments with Rika flashed across his mind. Her irrational fear on their wedding night, her shame when she realized he’d discovered Brodir had bound and abused her.

  Above all, her driving need for control, that damnable pride, and her relentless focus on winning—all of it made sense to him now. Aye, she sought power as a way to thwart those who would oppress her.

  He smiled bitterly. In truth, her quest for independence drove her to take on the worst traits of those who had used her ill. Would that she could see it. He, himself, was not immune to such sensibilities.

  Did he not once wish for a wife whose love would be measured by the magnitude of her submission, and her loyalty ensured by blind obedience?

  Mayhap he was not so unlike Brodir after all.

  “What about this Anne Sinclair?” MacInnes said, wrenching him from his thoughts. “Ye are pledged to her. What d’ye plan to do about it?”

  In recounting the tale to MacInnes, he’d skipped the part about discovering that Anne and Sommerled were in love. ’Twas best not mentioned until he squared things with their king. He glanced back at his brother and frowned. “I know not. I have other matters to put right first.”

  “Aye, that’s the truth. But have a care, lad. William the Lion is no a man to be trifled with. A chieftain’s marriage is made on the bargaining table, no in the heart. And a pagan wedding will mean naught to your king.”

  “Is he no your king, too?”

  MacInnes grinned. “There are benefits to dwelling in a land so remote it escapes the interests of kings, both Norse and Scots.”

  What he wouldn’t give to be so overlooked. The edge of the wood came upon them without warning, and George spurred his mount faster. MacInnes dropped back with Sommerled and the rest of the men, and George urged his steed to a gallop.

  Why in God’s name had he left her?

  How could he have been so blind to the truth?

  Rika’s character alone should have made him realize there was more at stake in this dowry business than merely buying her own freedom. She had flaws, God knows, as did he, but reckless selfishness was not one of hers.

  He’d thought from the first that a sea voyage in the dead of winter was madness, that they risked far too much—their very lives. A vision of Lawmaker dragging Ingolf over the side into the sea replayed itself in his mind’s eye in hideous clarity.

  And for what? A chest of silver so that Rika, daughter of Fritha, could be rid of her appointed husband? Nay, she would ne’er have risked her kinsmen’s lives on her own account.

  He could kick himself for believing such a lame tale. Why did she not tell him about her brother?

  “She doesna trust you, ye fool,” he muttered to himself, and kicked his mount faster.

  And without trust, there could be no love between them.

  Not that there was much chance of that. He was no great prize, after all. Hadn’t she made that clear to him on a dozen occasions? Her cold dismissal of him at the crossroads that last day haunted him still.

  The steed stretched out onto the open moor, and George breathed deep of the chill air. Hoofbeats pounded in his head, and his heart kept time.

  The wind was mercifully mild and the sun warm, but the day was half-gone and he feared what he would find at the end of their frantic journey.

  Bed slave.

  “Rika,” he breathed, and his gut twisted in anguish.

  “George.” She whispered his name to herself as if, by doing so, he would miraculously appear.

  Not that she wished him here in this awful place, but were she to see his face once more it would give her the strength she needed to do what must be done.

  The door to the crude bedchamber creaked open on rusted hinges. Rika froze, prepared for another round with Brodir. She’d not seen him since early that morn and had had plenty of time to think on her vengeance.

  But the pair of dark eyes peeking tentatively into the chamber were not Brodir’s.

  “Ottar!” she cried. “What are you doing here? He’ll kill you if he finds you with me.”

  The youth burst across the threshold, eyes wide with shock as he surveyed the damage to the room—the result of Brodir’s rage—and her state of undress.

  “Don’t just stand there, cut me loose.” She nodded at a dagger above her, stuck deep into the timber wall over the bed.

  Ottar’s face bloomed red with rage. Tears filled his eyes as he severed the bonds that pinned her to the foul and stinking bed. Rika’s heart went out to him.

  “I—I’ll kill him,” Ottar said in a voice shaking with a man’s anger and a youth’s fear.

  She sat up carefully, feeling the circulation return to her hands, then massaged her raw wrists. She had truly thought Brodir would kill her. But, nay, that was not his way, was it?

  “H-here,” Ottar said, handing her the crumpled garments Brodir had stripped from her body the night before. He turned away while she quickly dressed, and she heard him choke back a sob. He was only six and ten, she reminded herself.

  “It’s all right.” She rose and squeezed his shoulder. “It wasn’t so bad this time.”

  He turned on her. “How can you say that? The monster. He…he…”

  She willed him look her in the eye. “He didn’t.”

  “He…didn’t?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Nay, he…couldn’t. I don’t know why.” She recalled similar instances on Fair Isle. It was not the first time Brodir’s incapacity had spared her his abuse. “When he found himself unable, he flew into a rage.”

  Ottar’s face brightened. He swiped at the tears streaking his cheeks.

  Footfalls sounded in the corridor outside, and they both snapped to attention. Ottar brandished the dagger and stepped in front of her. She held her breath as the sounds got louder, then died away.

  “That was close,” she said. “We must get out of here before someone else comes.” Suddenly it dawned on her. “How did you get in here? There are guards everywhere.”

  He smiled at her. “When I found out you intended to trade the whole of the dowry away for Gunnar’s release, I pocketed a handful of the silver and—”

  “What? How could you do such a—”

  He grabbed her arm to still her railing. “Not for myself, for God’s sake. For us. I thought we might have need of some coin on the journey back to MacInnes’s. Lucky for me, I was overlooked when we arrived. The guards searched only Leif and Erik. Anyway, I bribed my way in here to find you.”

  God, how she loved this reckless, courageous boy. “You might have been killed, you idiot.”

  “We’ll all be dead by nightfall if we don’t get out of here. I heard the quarry master tell that very thing to one of his guards.”

  “Ja, Brodir said as much to me last night.” She looked Ottar in the eye. “Tell me, how fares my brother?”

  “He is well, truly. I was with him myself this afternoon. He is beside himself with worry about you. I fear if we get out of this, you will suffer both his joy and his anger.”

  Rika nodded. “I knew he’d not be pleased to see me here, but I could not, w
hile I lived, leave him here, alone, to wither and die.”

  Ottar smiled. “He knows that. You two are much alike. Come now, we must flee this place and go for help.”

  “Help? Where?”

  “To Tom MacInnes’s. We can steal back our horses and—”

  “Nay, it’s much too far. We could never ride there and back in time to save the others.”

  “To your father then. Rollo’s castle is but a few hours’ ride.”

  She shook her head, but knew Ottar was right. They needed help. Nothing she could do or say now would change Brodir’s mind. Why he hadn’t already slain Gunnar was hard to fathom.

  Perhaps he enjoyed the drama of dragging it all out, prolonging her agony a few hours more, making certain she knew her brother would die and all that they had suffered to free him was in vain.

  “Whoreson,” she breathed. “I will kill him myself.”

  Rika wound her braid atop her head and secured it with a thick sliver of wood from one of the crude benches Brodir had smashed to bits in his rage the night before.

  Together they peeked around the edge of the cracked door. The corridor was empty.

  “Wait.” Ottar retrieved something from the floor by the bed. “Here, you forgot these.”

  Her bracelets.

  His face flushed scarlet. She stared at the hammered bronze circlets for a long moment, rubbing her scarred wrists. “All right, give them to me.”

  Ten minutes later they were in the quarry, hiding among the heaps of fetid slag. The sun was not yet set, and a host of laborers slaved at the other end of the open pit.

  “You should have listened to me, Rika.”

  A guard patrolled too close for her liking, and she shoved Ottar’s head down. “What do you mean?”

  “You should have trusted him. You know who I’m talking about.”

  She did. Grant.

  “The man’s your husband.”

  She snorted, but her heart wasn’t in it. Ottar was right. She should have trusted Grant with the truth. He would have aided her in her cause. Not because he loved her—for how could he? But because that was his way.

  He was a good man.

  The best of all men.

  “MacInnes, too—and your father. They love you, though you cannot see it or you refuse to believe it, I do not know which. All of them would have rallied to our cause had you but told them the truth of things.”