Conveniently Wed to the Viking

by Michelle Styles

  ‘We survived the night. Survival is important.’

  Her brow lowered, but her eyes started to twinkle, turning from dull grey to brilliant silver. ‘You are teasing me. You enjoy teasing me.’

  He bowed low. ‘Guilty, my lady. I’ll do my utmost to ensure your reputation remains untarnished.’

  She rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I have turned it over and over in my mind. Urist was odd, but I don’t think he intended to cheat me. He is loyal to my father. He made a point of telling me that. It was a point of pride for him. Something made him leave early and now I’m wondering if perhaps he was wary of you.’

  ‘Of me?’ Sandulf shook his head. ‘He should never have taken my gold, if he was wary. It would have saved us both trouble.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘I trust that he waits for me at the bend in the river where there is a good place to camp at night. It is simply further than I remembered, or, as you said, I took a wrong turn earlier. When we last spoke, he mentioned it several times. And I do recognise one or two of the landmarks.’

  ‘Consider the subject changed.’

  She rolled her eyes and skittered around a muddy puddle. Sandulf smiled at the indignant twitch of her backside. Somehow that great aching place in his centre, the one which had gnawed at him since the massacre of his family in Maerr, had eased a bit this morning.

  Vanora stopped abruptly, whimpered and slunk back against Ceanna. Ceanna bent down and instantly tried to reassure the dog that all was well.

  The sound of an owl hooting drifted across the moorland, defying the time of day. Sandulf froze, reached out and grabbed her arm, shoving her behind him.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He unsheathed his sword. ‘Stay here with your dog. There is a noise I want to check. You will be safe with her.’

  Sandulf tried to bury the sudden unsettled suffocating feeling deep down within him. That specific sensation had taken to arriving at increasingly awkward times since his brother’s aborted wedding, but he’d suffered from it ever since he was a little boy. It seldom meant, as his mother had once claimed, that something bad would happen, but this time he ignored it at his peril.

  ‘I am certain the meeting place is close. I saw the forked tree back there. Urist mentioned that in his message.’ She pointed in front of them, towards where the owl had hooted.

  ‘Even so, you remain here until I return.’ He crouched down so Vanora could see his face. ‘Look after your mistress.’

  ‘What is going on? Why are you both so jumpy?’ Ceanna started forward. ‘I demand to know.’

  ‘Do you, your ladyship? Do you really want to know? I am trying to protect you, as I promised.’

  ‘I am not some child to be fed pap. What is up there and why should I be concerned?’

  ‘I am not certain. It is better to be safe.’ Sandulf pointed with his sword. His nerves steadied with the blade in his hand. He could handle whatever lay ahead. He could keep his promise to her.

  Ceanna’s eyes widened. ‘You expect trouble?’

  ‘I am prepared for it. There is a difference.’

  Her mouth became a thin white line. ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘But can you keep quiet? In order to protect you, I need you to be silent. If I tell you to run, you do that.’

  Her eyes blazed with barely suppressed fury. ‘You go ahead. I can wait.’

  Sandulf cautiously crept around the bend and cursed loudly when he saw what was ahead. The scene with its wholesale slaughter was far worse than he’d feared. The last time he’d seen anything close to it was back in Maerr.

  He stood looking at the scene for what felt like a long time. Nothing moved. One of the bodies looked to be that of their erstwhile guide, but he was unnerved by the stillness. He methodically checked the ash from the fire—warm but not hot. There was something odd about this which did not sit right. But he saw no reason to keep Lady Ceanna away from this place. Whoever had done this was long gone. But equally it would be a great shock to her to experience it. He knew what women could be like.

  What if...? He turned and ran back towards where Lady Ceanna waited with her dog. She sat on a rock, but rose the instant she saw him.

  Her brow knitted. ‘What is it? Overly active imagination?’

  Sandulf pointed towards the scene of carnage he’d left behind. ‘Someone else knew our guide was coming here and they made plans.’

  ‘Plans?’

  ‘They were attacked. Bodies are strewn everywhere. No one lives. We will have to find another way.’

  He waited for her to meekly agree or dissolve into horrified sobs, but instead she stood straighter. There was an innate elegance in the way she moved.

  ‘No, I have to see it. I assume the attackers have gone as you’ve returned safely.’

  He stared at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the dead need to be honoured. Whoever they are.’

  Chapter Four

  Ceanna stuffed her hand into her mouth and willed the scream which was welling up inside her to be gone. She refused to disgrace herself. She kept her head erect and walked up to each body, looking at it while the ache inside her grew.

  Screaming would make matters worse. Though how this could be worse she wasn’t sure. But the destruction which lay before her sent violent shivers down her spine. She should have been here. She should have been one of the dead. Sandulf’s insistence they stop for the night had saved her life. Just as his detaining the lad from the tavern had allowed her to escape. She owed him a life debt.

  Could the dead hear when you screamed?

  Beside her, Vanora gave a soft whimper and clung to her side. Ceanna grasped a handful of her fur and nodded towards Sandulf, who raised his sword in a salute. The simple act restored a small measure of calm and the urge to scream evaporated like the summer mist under the sun.

  ‘Dead, all dead,’ she whispered and then cleared her throat. ‘Urist’s travelling group. Urist lies over there. It was supposed to be a large group travelling. He worried about bandits.’

  Her voice sounded amazingly calm and forthright to her ears, revealing none of the awful churning which occupied her gut.

  ‘You confirmed what I thought. Thank you.’ He inclined his head before putting a hand on her elbow. It took all of her strength not to lean against him. He gave a little squeeze and then moved away. ‘You’re doing well.’

  ‘Well for a lady? You expected me to faint, or worse?’

  ‘Well for someone who has not encountered these things before. I was violently ill my first time after a battle. My brothers never allowed me to forget it. Always joking and teasing. It is not easy.’

  ‘Your brothers are less than kind.’

  ‘They’d die for me. And I for them. It is part of the training—they want to make sure I know where I come from, that I stay humble as the youngest son.’

  ‘They should be better.’

  He gave a harsh laugh. ‘When I see them, I’ll inform them that Lady Ceanna, the new holy maid of St Fillans at Nrurim, has decreed they must treat me with respect.’

  ‘It might do the trick.’ She stared again at the carnage which was spread out in front of her, trying to be dispassionate. Urist’s body lay next to a woman whom she did not recognise, but who appeared to be wearing Ceanna’s best cloak, the one she’d carefully packed in her trunk.

  A swift anger went through her. Ceanna clenched her fists and tried to hang on to her temper. Proof if she needed it that Urist had actually intended to rob her. He had already sold her clothes to another. ‘That was my cloak, the one the woman is wearing. She could have been me.’ A sudden realisation sent shock racing through her body. ‘Maybe they thought she was me, if they attacked in the night.’

  Sandulf tilted his head to one side. ‘Could she be mistaken for you?’

  Ceanna started to shake. If ev
erything had gone as planned, she would have been the one lying there, the dead body instead of the breathing woman looking at the scene. ‘I don’t know. She could have been, or she could have been too afraid to run. She didn’t stand a chance.’

  A great lump developed in her throat. That woman might have stolen her clothes, but she had been a person with a family. It was not right how she died.

  Ceanna wanted to be more than a tool to be used by everyone else who sought power or riches. She wanted to matter in her own right. She firmed her mouth and pushed the unworthy thought away. Crying over something was not going to change it and she certainly was not about to show the Northman that Urist’s betrayal bothered her.

  The carthorses had been brutally slaughtered and a sickly-sweet stench hung in the air. Rifled belongings lay on the ground. Ceanna spotted two more of her cloaks and one of her gowns festooned a branch.

  Sandulf motioned to her to remain still. Ceanna nodded and tightened her grip on Vanora. Standing upright was about all she could manage.

  Sandulf silently patrolled the perimeter, moving with a stealthy swiftness which reminded Ceanna of a sleek tomcat getting ready to pounce on his prey.

  ‘They could return. We need to put some distance between us and this,’ he said, returning to her side and speaking in a hushed tone. He watched her with wary eyes, as if he still expected her to panic. ‘We don’t know how big the travelling party was, but hopefully most escaped.’

  Ceanna wrapped her arms about her middle and stuffed the scream back down her throat. ‘Is that supposed to be comforting?’

  Sandulf’s mouth twitched downwards. ‘Honesty saves time.’

  ‘Thank you for your brutal honesty, then.’ Ceanna concentrated on where the woman lay, face down. The cloak was now heavy with rain. She hated to think that someone had confused that woman for her. ‘Do you think it was a gang of thieves who prey on travellers? Urist was supposed to be an experienced guide. He was supposed to travel with guards. Men with good sword arms, or so he promised.’

  ‘He also promised to wait,’ Sandulf reminded her.

  ‘True.’

  ‘I think this was far from a random attack; they were searching for something or someone.’

  ‘How can you tell? It looks like confusion to me.’

  Sandulf’s face became grim. ‘Experience.’

  Ceanna swallowed hard. ‘You’ve seen this sort of thing before?’

  ‘Once or twice. It never gets any easier. It’s worse than a battlefield. I worked the trade routes with the Rus after I first left Maerr. There was a bandit problem.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Most who go there to make their fortune end up bleached bones beside some foreign river. It made me determined to make more of my life. That means learning how to stay alive when I encounter something like this, listening to my gut when something doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ she confessed, wrapping her arms about her middle. ‘I keep thinking it could have been me. Perhaps it should have been.’

  ‘A natural enough emotion.’

  She put a hand on her stomach and was pleased she hadn’t eaten. Her stomach roiled again. ‘I won’t be sick, though.’

  ‘No, you are not the sort.’ He put a hand on her shoulder and instantly her nerves calmed. He believed in her. ‘Gather what you need, and we will go.’

  ‘L-Lady Ceanna, is that you? At last.’

  Ceanna froze. ‘Urist?’ she whispered, uncertain if she was hearing things. ‘Are you alive?’

  Urist groaned from where he lay. He tried to raise himself up on one elbow. ‘My lady. You’ve arrived.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call out earlier? Sandulf and I have been standing here for a little while.’

  The guide put a hand to his head. ‘I... I think I drifted off again. Don’t right know how long I have been here.’

  Ceanna hurried over to him. She wanted to hug him and shake him at one and the same time. ‘I thought...’

  He struggled to sit up, but his colour was paler than freshly fallen snow and his right eye was a bloodied mess. ‘You don’t stay alive for long if you don’t know how to play dead and they roughed me up good this time. My head hurts something fierce.’

  Ceanna motioned that he should stay seated, rather than rising. ‘What happened? Was it a random attack?’

  ‘They were waiting for us, my lady. Waiting for us while we waited for you. They struck in the dark, towards morning, I reckon. My lad was on watch, but he scarpered. That little lad means more to me than anything.’

  ‘Waiting for you? Why didn’t you take precautions against bandits?’

  ‘We did.’ Urist collapsed back down. ‘Or at least I thought I had, my lady. The Northman and his friends...you’re in danger from him. I can feel it in here.’ Urist struck his chest.

  ‘Listen to me, Lady Ceanna,’ Sandulf said, shaking his head and interrupting the guide’s self-serving explanation. ‘This attack may have been planned, but there was little intention of robbery in the mind of the attackers.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ Ceanna decided to ignore the sarcastic use of lady.

  ‘They left the trunks. They left the clothes and jewellery. These things have value to thieves and Northmen.’

  Ceanna went cold. ‘You think they were after something else?’

  Sandulf stopped patrolling the site. ‘I think it was fortunate you were elsewhere.’

  She went over to the corpse who wore her cloak and turned her over. Vacant eyes stared up at her. To Ceanna’s surprise, the corpse was stiff, as if the woman had been dead for several days. But it also appeared as if she’d been grossly violated, stabbed through the abdomen.

  Ceanna’s stomach roiled. She placed her hands on her knees and tried to regain her composure.

  ‘Who?’ she whispered.

  ‘Died the day before yesterday,’ Urist said in Pictish. He told her the woman’s name, and it was someone from the village Ceanna knew only by sight. ‘I suspected there would be trouble, my lady, and brought the corpse, propped up in the wagon. It were one of the reasons I left sudden like, my lady.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘She died in childbirth, my lady, the night before we left. My woman friend in the village had the idea after she heard about the Northman nosing about. If we ran into trouble, we would have a decoy. She is a bright lass, unlike my wife who shouts.’

  ‘Where is your woman friend?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say, my lady. She declined to come on the journey.’

  Ceanna’s sense of unease grew. Urist had confided in at least one person about her intention to escape, despite his promise to keep silent. ‘Keep to the tale.’

  ‘Right. Some of your gold went to purchase the corpse. It takes more than good wishes to put food in bairns’ bellies.’ Urist pursed his lips. ‘I gave my word she would receive a Christian burial. My lad’s gone for another cart. He’ll be back soon and we can go back to Dun Ollaigh and safety. There is bad folk out there, waiting for you.’

  Ceanna winced uncomfortably. That poor woman’s body had been mutilated like that because of the deception? She shuddered to think about suffering that sort of fate. But someone had come looking for her. Would they look elsewhere? At the convent? She rejected the idea. Her stepmother would concentrate the search around here. ‘It will be seen to, I can promise you that. But why have you done this? Why not warn me about the threat before you left?’

  ‘There weren’t time, like.’ He gave a sideways glance towards where Sandulf Sigurdsson stood, glowering. Ceanna noted that he avoided answering her question and her sense of unease grew. ‘I was worried about that there Northman. He was asking questions. I told the wife there might be an ambush and she said to leave straight away. You never know. He might have—’

  That made at least two other people who knew her plans. Bile rose in Ceanna’s throat. Uri
st was stalling and she didn’t know why.

  ‘Sandulf Sigurdsson is with me. He did not attack you, nor does he appear to have travelling companions. Your lady friend was mistaken about the attackers.’

  Urist’s mouth dropped open. ‘Even still, you’d do well to lose that man. They did run away quickly once they thought everyone was dead, like. The corpse were the first thing they went for. Not very bright, but Northmen are like that.’

  Ceanna rolled her eyes. Like many other Picts, Urist always proclaimed his distrust of Northmen. But in this instance he was wrong. Sandulf was innocent. Urist’s loose tongue had probably had something to do with the attack.

  Her eyes flickered to where Sandulf stood. His face had its hard-chiselled look back, the one he’d worn at the inn. Vanora had started pacing like she always did when she was upset.

  Urist—friend or foe? Danger surrounded her.

  Ceanna swallowed her rising sense of panic and forced her voice to remain calm. ‘Your caution may have saved my life and I thank you for it.’

  Urist collapsed back down. His face twisted into an expression of obsequious subservience which Ceanna instantly distrusted. ‘You’re too kind, my lady. I knew you would see sense. My lad—’

  ‘Sandulf,’ Ceanna said in a low voice. ‘We need to speak.’

  ‘What is going on?’ Sandulf loomed over them with his drawn sword. Vanora instantly went to him and whimpered.

  Ceanna breathed a sigh of relief. His appearance showed him to be the epitome of a warrior. The cowards who had attacked Urist and his party would think twice about attacking a man like Sandulf. But the far better thing was not to have to fight at all.

  Ceanna steadied her breathing. Urist had to think she trusted him. ‘Rest, Urist. We’ll speak more soon.’

  She led Sandulf away from the guide. ‘Our guide played a trick on the attackers, a trick which appeared to have worked. But something about his story rings false. My stepmother loves making elaborate tableaux as an entertainment for a feast. This feels like one of them.’

  Sandulf’s mouth became harder set. ‘I can’t understand what he is saying.’ He pointed towards where the woman lay. ‘Why is that long-dead woman there?’