A feral growl came from behind her before a weight was thrown at the man who fisted her hair, making him flew sideways. The force knocked her over, pinned beneath the weight of two giant men. She gasped for breath as they struggled on top of her. Everything turned to black as she heard Leif and Bjorn yelling.
Strian wrestled the man who dared touch his wife. He had already beaten one man to death for touching her, so he had no qualms of doing it again. He tried to roll off Gressa, seeing her pinned beneath him and the man who had clutched her hair, but his opponent kept pulling them both back onto Gressa. Strian heard more than saw Leif handle the man whose cock still hung free of his pants. Bjorn added his weight and strength to Strian’s fight and helped Strian move them off Gressa. Two blonde heads with long braids carried Gressa from the fight. Bjorn backed off once Gressa was free, allowing Strian to finish the fight as was his right. He drove his fist into the man’s windpipe, crushing it and forcing the last breath from the man’s body. He turned his sights to the man Leif had laying on the ground at knife point. He stood and moved towards the last living attacker, but Freya pushed past him, knife drawn. She swiped it across the attacker’s manhood, severing it in one deep cut.
“Tyra can’t be the only one with a reputation for cutting off a man’s cock.” Freya announced as she stepped way, leaving Strian to finish the man with a knife through the eye that had viewed Gressa as a target.
“Strian! You’d better come here,” Tyra called out.
Strian ran to where Freya and Tyra had laid Gressa on the grass. There was blood on her throat. Strian feared it was from the cut he could already see on. He slid onto his knees as he arrived at his wife’s unmoving body. Gressa’s eyes fluttered open as Strian used his sleeve to wipe the blood away. She looked into eyes she had once believed she would stare into every day for the rest of life, eyes she had once feared she would never see again. She reached her hand out and cupped his cheek, running her the pad of her thumb over his stubble.
“It’s not mine. Not my blood,” she rasped. “I stabbed one of them and broke the other’s nose. It’s their blood.”
“Most of it, but the skin is broken on your throat again. I think this time it may be deep enough for stitches.” Strian looked up at Leif and Freya. “Fetch Lena and Sigrid. Have them meet us at my longhouse.”
Strian lifted Gressa into his arms before his long strides carried her to their home. Bjorn, Tyra, and Erik who had just joined them, walked behind them. Onlookers whispered as Strian carried Gressa away from the dead bodies strewn across the places where the attack happened. Strian did not stop or look around, knowing what he would see. His singular focus was getting Gressa into the safety of their home to await help from Sigrid and Lena.
Fourteen
Bjorn, Tyra, and Erik stood outside the door of Strian and Gressa’s home, glaring at the crowd that dared to follow the wounded woman as her husband carried her.
“I see my own people have joined in watching,” Erik snarled. “You shame me to see you take pleasure in watching a woman attacked by three men. Not a one of you came to her rescue when we all heard her screams. Not a one of you offered her aid. You disgust me.”
Erik crossed his arms as he glared at a crowd comprising tribe members who lived on the homestead and those who fought for Rangvald, having traveled with Erik and Rangvald to Ivar’s village.
“We feel the same shame as we look at our own people. We warned you that Gressa was under the protection of those who lead Ivar’s forces. You swore fealty to your jarl which means you are to obey those who represent him. Ivar has said more than once in the great hall that we welcome Gressa back into his family as the daughter he and Lena thought they lost just as they had so many of their own blood children. I have never seen such enmity towards one of our own.” Bjorn stood with his hands on his hips as he scowled.
“Before anyone is foolish enough to argue Gressa is not one of us because of who her mother was, remember her father captured her mother just as Gressa was after the enemy wounded while she fought our battle. Gressa was raised among us, remained with us and marry one of us. She fought alongside us as soon as she could raid. She nearly died defending our home, our people, and our safety. She has chosen us over and over, yet you still question her loyalty and her right to live among us. You are nothing but fools who would rather gather like a gaggle of hens clucking and spreading rumors. You are a disappointment to the honor we have pledged to live by.” Tyra spat at the feet of the group of onlookers.
Lena, Sigrid, and Rangvald’s wife Lorna pushed through. While Lena and Sigrid ducked into the longhouse, Lorna remained outside. She scanned the crowd, her upper lip curling.
“Those of you who are my people know how I came to live among you. You arrived in Scotland to slaughter my clan. I watched as you killed my mother, my father, and my last brother. But yet, I trusted Rangvald when he offered me a new life among you when I had nothing left to keep me in Scotland. I, too, was an outsider you ignored and spoke out against, but your jarl chose me as his bride and has remained faithful to me since that day. You have accepted me as your frú, seen me fight alongside you, and trust me. Yet I stand here now, seeing my people complicit in hatred of a young woman who has more right to the Trondelag home than I do. You are a disgrace to our clan, and you offend me as someone who was once an outsider. Gressa grew up on this homestead. She is a Norse woman just as any standing here. I will be judge and executioner to any of my people who dare stand against her again. I suggest you make yourselves scarce before I seek you out, one by one.”
Lorna’s tone brooked no disagreement, and the crowd thinned as those who belonged to Rangvald and Lorna’s tribe rushed away. Lorna now turned her scorn on Ivar’s people who were foolish enough not to escape while Lorna’s people hurried away.
“From what I understand, you blame Gressa for being Sami. Did she choose that any more than you did to be Norse or me a Highlander? Did a one of you choose your parents? I know I did not choose mine. The stories I’ve heard tell of a woman who grew up beloved by her adopted family. A woman who trained hard to earn her title of shield maiden and fought valiantly as she defended your honor and avenged the loss of your people, who included her husband’s mother. I’ve met a woman who would protect her husband, a man twice her size, before giving up. What more can you ask of her? She has bled for you time and again, but that doesn’t satisfy you. You would rather hold on to a hatred that makes no sense to feel superior. A smart tribe would have welcomed her home, celebrated her courage and a strong will to survive, and would appreciate the knowledge of an enemy who refuses to be defeated. There is much Gressa can teach us both on and off the battlefield. You are not the people Rangvald and I thought we allied with.” Lorna passed one last disgusted look over the crowd before slipping into the longhouse.
“Lena?” Strian whispered as he looked at his wife whose eyes had remained closed since he lifted her into his arms.
“She’ll be well soon enough. She’s drained from the fight. Her mind needs time to rest after the fear and the need to survive. Give her time. The cut to her throat is not so deep, and it will heal with the help of the salve I’ll leave with you.”
Strian looked doubtful but nodded his head.
“Strian,” Sigrid’s soft voice called for his attention. “She will defeat these suspicions, but you will try to stop the only way she has. You have the power to change that fate that I saw, but you must trust her to know what she’s doing.”
Strian nodded. He believed every vision Sigrid had since she shared the conversation she had with his dead father while she spirit walked. She had told him things that no one but his father could have known, and she had never met him while he lived. Strian wanted to ask her about further into the future, but he did not dare without divulging a secret Gressa had fought so hard to keep.
“You’ll all return home.” Strian heard the stress Sigrid put on the word “all.” He glanced up to see her gentle smile before her slight nod. He sto
od and kicked off his boots before walking to his side of the bed. He laid down on top of the covers but as close to his wife as he dared.
“Thank you. All of you. Thank you for caring for my wife.”
“We didn’t just care for her. We care about her,” Lena stroked hair away from Gressa’s cheek just as a mother would. “Ivar and I may not have been blessed with many children who survived their birth, but Gressa is as much my daughter as Leif and Freya. She is the daughter of my heart. I have tried to let her find her way since she returned. I have tried to honor your right, as her husband, to protect her. But my failure to show our people that she is my daughter, one I grieved over losing just as I did each babe I lost or died in my arms, has allowed people to believe she can be a target. That ends now. She cannot remain a captive here, a bodyguard with her at all times, nor can she live here with a rightful fear of being attacked. I end this now.”
Lena leaned over and kissed Gressa’s forehead. “Get well, my little flower. I’ve missed you too much to let you go again.”
The women left Strian to care for his wife. He draped his arm over her waist as he kissed her temple. Gressa shifted closer in her sleep, seeking the warmth and safety he provided. While Gressa slept, Strian’s mind would not cease replaying the scene he had come upon. He could not suppress the memory of two men pinning Gressa to the ground as one tried to violate her. He was proud of Gressa for the fight she put up, but his head pounded with a deafening cadence as he remonstrated himself for letting her come to harm. His arm tightened around Gressa as he laid his head on his pillow.
“Stop thinking about it,” Gressa’s murmured. “It was no one’s fault but those men, and they got the death they deserved.”
“I have failed you over and over, Gressa. I have not been a worthy husband.”
Gressa’s eyes snapped open as she rolled to face him. She fisted his tunic and pulled with a strength that surprised Strian, the collar biting into his neck.
“Just as I won’t tolerate anyone, including you, to say you are a coward, I will not stand for you to think you failed me. I won’t have it, so don’t ever let those words come out of your mouth again. You have protected more times that I can count. You harp on the handful of times you couldn’t but overlook the many more times you have.”
“Those handful of times you so casually mention were times that nearly got you killed. You nearly died because of my failure.”
Gressa hissed as she pulled harder on his tunic.
“Stop it,” she bit out.
Strian could not believe the strength Gressa possessed after being unconscious only minutes ago. Her fierce defense warmed his heart, but his mind was not ready to release his guilt.
“I can’t control what you think any more than I can those who wish me ill, but it infuriates me to hear you doubt yourself. It overwhelms me to know I’m the reason for that doubt.” Gressa’s eyes filled with tears. “Freya told me what you were like after Ivar and the others tied to the mast and forced you to leave me behind. She told me how you lived, how you withdrew for so long. You have lived with guilt and grief long enough. We both have. What life will either of us have, even if it’s together, if we can’t loosen our hold on the past?”
“It’s your future I fear.”
Gressa lifted her chin and brushed her lips against Strian’s.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t fear it, too. But it can’t control us. We can’t let it. We already lost so many years of being together, of having a family. I don’t want to miss our chances now. I’d rather picture a future filled with children and grandchildren. And for now, I rather enjoy picturing how we try to make those children.” She brushed her lips against him again, feathering a kiss on each side of his mouth. “But for now, I want to sleep. I expect you to hold me and not let go until I wake again. Then I want to practice making those babies.”
Gressa rolled over and nestled into Strian’s body as he spooned her. Her eyes drifted shut, and Strian soon felt her breathing deepened. As he matched his breathing to hers, he slid into slumber, too.
Fifteen
The next morning, Ivar summoned them to stand before him. Deep lines were etched between his eyebrows, ones Gressa did not remember from all those years ago. His eyes looked tired and his face drawn. Gressa was nervous as she faced the man she had longed to call father. As a child, she often wondered why Ivar could not have been her true father. Now she feared his love had run out. Ivar looked up as they approached. Before they reached him, he marched forward and pulled Gressa into a tight embrace. She felt him shudder as she wrapped her arms around him. It felt so familiar, just as it had when she was young and hurt by the unkind words of the other children or fell while playing. She half imagined he might pull her onto his lap just as he had when she turned to him for comfort as a child. She wished that he could.
“Gressa, I am ashamed of how I treated you in front of the tribe, of how I could cast doubt on you, and how I have neglected you since your return. It’s my fault. All of it. You being left behind only to returning to suspicion and hostility. I’ve said you are welcome here, but I have not shown it. I have not been the father I pledged to be or the one you deserved.” Ivar held her as he made his confession.
“I don’t blame you. You had more people than just me to worry about. You may have been, are, my adoptive father, but you are still our jarl. You did what you thought was best. You welcomed me home with the same warmth as you do now. This, this hug and these words, make up for much. Father.” Gressa tried out the word and waited for Ivar to recoil, fearing she had gone too far. Instead his hold only tightened.
“You have no idea how I longed to hear you call me that rather than Ivar. I care for you just as I do Freya and Tyra. I harbor guilt that I did not do enough for either you or Tyra. She is like a daughter to me, and I should have made her come to live with us after she lost her parents too, but she was older, and I thought it best she lived with her aunt and uncle.”
“Regret is getting us nowhere. The past is done and as it will remain. I’d rather look to a better future.”
“You have become quite sage, daughter.”
They embraced for a moment longer before they pulled apart, and Gressa returned to Strian’s side as their friends joined them.
“Gressa, we need your knowledge of the Welsh. The men don’t speak any Norse, or at least have not let on if they do. We can’t learn anything from them. You’re the only one who speaks both languages.” Ivar paused as he seemed to consider his thoughts before sharing them. “Rangvald and I need to know as much about how the Welsh fight as we can. It seems Grímr has abandoned his search for Scottish mercenaries and is relying on the Welsh bowmen. We’ve had reports that attackers have killed sentries near the borders on both my land and Rangvald’s. We believe they are trying to weaken our defenses to make it easier to attack either this homestead or Rangvald’s. Once again, you are the only one with that knowledge.”
Gressa’s gaze did not waiver once as she looked into Ivar’s eyes while he explained the situation.
“There were two hundred Welsh footmen and archers who traveled with Grímr. After the battle at the Ross keep, I would say you killed only a quarter of the force. The few men who made it over the wall and then the archers who rode into the bailey. Grímr purposely held back many of the foot warriors in case the battle tide turned against him and he needed to retreat to plan for the next one. He has at least a hundred but likely a hundred and fifty men still with him.” Gressa finally looked around the group after watching Rangvald and Lorna join them. They sat in chairs beside Ivar’s and Lena’s, showing their elevated status. “I didn’t hear of any specific plans beyond the battle at the Scottish keep. He was unprepared for your allies to arrive. He thought you would show up and was prepared to fight, but he did not expect a second wave of fighters to arrive. I suspect he once more used his son who bears an unlikely resemblance to him even though I heard he was a bastard sired by another man. He makes his son pret
end to be him, so he can move around during battles without anyone being able to keep up with two men who appear the same but are going in different directions. He has no qualms about retreating and fleeing, leaving his son to be captured or killed in his place.”
“That bluidy well explains why we can never catch the bastard,” Lorna grumbled, her brogue trying to inch into her voice.
“I was not with Grímr’s forces very long, and I don’t know what he negotiated with Dafydd,” Gressa lips drew in and pursed as she thought of just what the two men had negotiated for her to be the only woman sent to Grímr’s aid. “I can only guess based on the Welsh tactics I learned. Their archers are better than any others, anywhere. Grímr will most likely try to lure your forces into the woods near here. Then he’ll have the bowmen pick off your warriors one by one until Grímr’s men can overrun you and sack the homestead. Once he’s brought the tribe to its knees, he will either destroy the holding or leave his sons in charge before moving onto Rangvald’s. One thing I did hear was he’s no longer interested in capturing and possessing the extra land. He wants each of you dead more than the power. He figures the power and land will come naturally after he slaughters all of you.”
Gressa felt Strian’s grip on her waist tighten as he gave her a reassuring squeeze. He must have known how to she dreaded looking around the group.
“Do you know when he plans this attack?” Rangvald spoke up for the first time.
Strian (Viking Glory Book 4) Page 10
