God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (25 page)

The answer was simple and right before them. “You are sworn now to no one, Vali. Snorri is dead. You would not renounce him to swear an oath to Åke now. And then the risk is over.”

But Vali shook his head. “I will not swear on my arm ring to him, Brenna. I will not be beholden to him. I have no respect for him.”

“He was a great warrior.”

“Yet he is no great man.”

Brenna’s heart began to race. What Vali said—it truly was dangerous, more than she had ever expected. “He claims this land in his name alone. He claims Snorri’s jarldom as well. If you don’t swear to him, then we cannot stay here. And we will have no place on his ships. We will have nowhere to go.” The thought of losing this home she had found and fought for made her feel a fear deep and cold that settled in her bones.

“As I said, there is danger all around us.”

She clutched at his tunic and shook it. “Vali, you must swear. You must! I am sworn. Leif, your friend, is sworn to him. Would we be, were he so terrible?”

“Of course you would be. If you thought there were no other choice, which is why you urge me to do the same now. But I will concede this: I will learn more about Snorri’s death. When I do, I will decide if I will offer Åke my fealty—or if I will kill him.”

“Vali.”

He pulled her close and kissed her. “We’ll not find our ground tonight, shieldmaiden. Let us rest, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I only want you to see. Do you now see?”

“I do.”

He lay down again, bringing her with him and settling her head on his chest. “Tell me that you’re with me, that we stand together.”

She had been willing to forswear Åke when she thought Snorri would have a claim in Estland. She would always choose Vali over any other. But now it meant that she would be truly homeless, more completely than ever before. “I am with you. But I’m afraid.”

“Be brave, my love. Believe that the gods are with us.”

Brenna thought that if the gods were with them, they would have had their son lying between them.

~oOo~

At dawn, they broke camp and set out for the castle, arriving at midday. Those who had stayed back had prepared for the jarl’s arrival—whether that meant good will or ill. Thus far, the mood had been friendly, though Brenna knew everyone felt what she did—a keen watchfulness, just under the surface.

Åke toured the castle and the grounds, then rode out with his sons, and with Leif and Knut, to see the village being rebuilt. He came back full of compliments and ideas, seeming enthusiastic for the settlement and all they had accomplished over the winter.

As the day’s light waned, they put out a feast in the hall to welcome the jarl and the ships. Brenna sat between Calder and Vali and scanned the long table, full of raiders and villagers, everyone talking and enjoying themselves. She felt hope.

Noticing an absence among her friends, Brenna leaned to Vali. “Where is Viger?”

Vali, still suspicious, set down his cup and scanned the room as well. “I will see what I can find out.”

Brenna laid her hand on his thigh. “No. I’m sure he is fine. He has probably caught Eha for a tumble. Åke will remark if you leave the table before he speaks.”

“I do not care.”

“But I do. Please. If this might go smoothly, then we must assume the best.”

He frowned at her but settled back in his chair. Not long after, Åke stood, and the table went quiet.

“I have seen great things today,” he began. “And I have learned of even more. To those of you who gave up a winter warm in the bosom of your families to stake our claim here, I am honored to have had your good service. I know that many of you had sworn an oath to Jarl Snorri Thorsson. He was a great and honorable man, and he died an honorable death. I would be proud and humbled to take your oaths now and call you all my clansmen. The seers tell of a great raiding season coming, one that will fill our chests with gold and our blood with battle.”

“And what of settlers for this claim?”

Åke turned to Vali, his eyes glittering with irritation at having been interrupted. “Vali Storm-Wolf asks an excellent question. I cannot spare the raiding ships to carry farmers and seeds, but I will have ships built so that we might settle this good claim later this summer.”

“Now is the sowing season, Jarl.”

Åke gave up the pretense of good humor and scowled at Vali. “You have made friends of the villagers, have you not? Some of them sit among us at this table. They can sow the fields. What concern is farming of yours, Vali Storm-Wolf?”

Again, Brenna quieted her husband with her hand on his leg. Then she stood. “Vali and I would stay here and settle. This has become a home to us. We are building a longhouse in the village.”

She could see that she had shocked her jarl and taken his tongue. For an arduous moment, he stared at her—right at her, not wavering from her eye at all. Brenna stared back, unwilling to be the one who would break.

When he recollected his power of speech, he asked, his voice more quiet than before, “You would lay down your sword and shield, Brenna God’s-Eye? You are my sworn shieldmaiden.”

“I want to build a family, Åke. I would ask that you let me.”

She knew that Vali didn’t like her tone of request, but she knew Åke better than he, and a demand would not go far with him.

“I am disappointed. You think this is what Odin wants of you?”

“I do, yes.”

Again, he stared. Then he sighed—loudly, dramatically. “I cannot defy the will of the Allfather. And you have brought me great honor, and I would see you happy. If this is your path, then you have my blessing.”

Relief nearly folded her knees. “Thank you, Åke. Thank you.”

When she sat, she smiled at her husband. “We are safe, and we have our home. He is not a bad man, Vali. He is worth your fealty.”

Vali’s brow still bunched with wary concern.

~oOo~

Brenna went up before Vali that night, feeling lighter than she would have thought. Though Vali had not yet agreed to swear to Åke, he would see that it was the right choice. They would have their home and begin their life together in earnest.

When their house was built, she would be ready to make another child. The certainty of that truth hit her as she dropped her sleeping shift over her head and then unbraided her hair, standing before the unlit fire. She grinned.

Behind her, the door from the corridor opened with force, and she jumped, prepared to complain at Vali for coming in drunk. She had left him not so long before; he must have been vying with Leif and Orm again in a drinking contest.

But it wasn’t Vali. It was Calder.

“Calder, this is the room I share with my husband.” That thought almost made her smile, too—not so long ago, the idea of a private chamber like this had seemed bizarre and constraining.

She didn’t smile, though, because Calder strode directly to her, his expression blank. She understood that she was in danger with just enough time to glance at the wall across from her, where her sword and shield hung.

Calder swung at her, but she managed to get her arm up and block him. When she tried to run for her sword, her shift tangled around her legs and slowed her down. Calder grabbed for her hair and yanked her back, punching her in the side of the head. His fist felt doubly hard, as if he’d been wearing an armored gauntlet.

The room folded in on itself, and she fell.

While she lay on the floor, trying to make words or any sound at all, still trying to understand what was happening, he punched her again, and again, and she stopped thinking.

Vali sat at the table and studied the room. From every perspective, it was a room full of rough men, well fed and well drunk, enjoying a night of leisure. There were fewer women around the castle these days, as the village had been built up enough for most families to have moved in, even if they had to share quarters for a while. They were sowing their seeds and tending their flocks, and there was no time for the trek from and to the castle each day. Now, there were only the women who’d stayed on to manage the work here.

He was glad; Åke’s men were rough even with their clanswomen, and Vali had been concerned how the Estlander women would fare among them. But the raiders who had stayed the winter were keeping their newly arrived fellows in check, it seemed.

Still, he was ill at ease. He did not believe Åke would so easily give up his charmed shieldmaiden, and it stuck wrong in his head that he had sailed in three ships laden with raiders to bring the news that he was not yet ready to settle his claim. If he had meant to bring them all home, where had he meant to put them?

Frequently, he had sought out Olga’s glance as she moved through the men, managing the meal and the drinks after. She was clearly stressed and weary, and Vali thought she seemed sad as well. He guessed at the reason: she and Leif had grown close over these months and developed a deep friendship. Even under the best of circumstances, the arrival of the ships meant that Leif would be sailing soon.

Vali had suggested more than once that Leif take her home with him. And he’d thought his friend had begun to consider it, despite his reservations about her fitness for their world and his insistence that they were no more than friends.

Then they had brought her younger brothers back from Ivan’s land, and any consideration of taking her from Estland had seemingly ended.

Now, Leif sat near the fireplace, with Calder and Eivind. Vali’s suspicions of Åke did not fully extend to his sons. Calder was a brutal man, too, as Vali had witnessed. But he had seen enough of him to know that he sometimes felt conflict between his duty to his father and his honor as a man. Eivind was too young yet to have been overly hardened by his father’s way.

And there was no better endorsement for Åke’s sons than Leif’s friendship. So Vali sat at the table and drank his mead and watched the friends talk. Then they stood together and left the room through the back entrance, toward the kitchen.

Vali thought that Leif had shot him a look, but it was gone before he could be sure. Perhaps his wife was right, and his suspicion was unwarranted.

Brenna had gone up to bed not long before. She had found complete ease in Åke’s blessing of her desire to stay and make a home here in Estland. He’d seen it in her posture as her jarl had said the words: the breath that had softened her stance and unclenched her hands. She believed that they were safe. She had let her guard down completely.

Unwarranted or not, Vali felt restless in the room now, with Brenna away from him, and neither Åke nor his sons where he could see them. He finished his mead and left the room, headed to his wife.

He had just topped the wide, curving staircase when his good friend Leif stepped out, emerging from the shadow of a side corridor.

“Is there trouble?” he asked, resting his hand where his main axe would have been had he not been in his home and making an attempt, at his wife’s behest, not to challenge the jarl.

“Yes, my friend. There is.”

Then Leif, still shrouded by the dark of the corridor—why were the torches out?—swung his axe.

~oOo~

He woke in his own bed, with his head throbbing and his arms aching. When he forced himself to sit, he groaned as the room tilted, but he pushed on until he could swing his legs over the side.

No one was with him. Had he been injured, or was he ill? Trying to clear his mind, he dropped his head into his hands and winced when he touched a tender, stitched wound above his ear.

Hurt, then. Attacked? In the castle?

Brenna. Where was Brenna?

He stood at once, and then fell to his knees when the floor pitched sharply under him. With a deep breath and formidable will, he found his feet and stood, wide-legged, until the room settled. As he searched for steadiness, he tried to remember.

Åke was here. Raiders. Calder and Eivind. They’d had a feast. Åke had given them his blessing.

Leif. Leif had attacked him. His friend. He had swung his axe; he must have hit him with the poll side.

And now Brenna was not with him.

“BRENNA!” he shouted and stormed to the door, slamming into the wall when the room slanted again. “BRENNA!”

The door opened and Orm came through, followed by Olga. Even with his double vision, Vali could see that they both looked terrible. Orm had a stitched gash through his cheek, from the bridge of his nose to his jaw, cutting through his grey beard. Olga’s lips were split, and she looked as though she hadn’t slept in days.

Orm took his arm. “Vali, it is good that you return to us. But sit and rest. There is nothing you can do in this moment.”

The horror in Orm’s words was so vast that Vali weakened and let the old man lead him back to his bed. “Where is Brenna?”

“You have been two days away. Let Olga tend to you, and then I will tell you all. We need you well, Vali Storm-Wolf.”

Olga pushed him to lie back, but he caught her hands in his. “Olga. I need Brenna. Where is she?”

She was shaking. Tears filled her brown eyes and brimmed over. “They took her. I am sorry. I did not know…I did not think he—”

“He? Leif? Leif took her?” It made no sense. When he could get no answers from the crying woman, he threw her to the side and sat up again, turning on Orm. “Tell me NOW!”

“Åke is gone. His sworn men are gone, even those who were with us this winter—those who survived. Leif was with them. Those who resisted Åke’s will are dead, or were left for dead. We are only seven raiders here now, all of us wounded. We found you bound in the stable after it was over.”

His head pounded and scattered his still-unclear thoughts. It was much like what he’d feared, and yet he could not make sense. “Where is my WIFE?”

“I was there, lying on the ground. They took me for dead, and so I saw. Åke took her, Vali. She was unconscious, beaten, and bound. Calder threw her over a horse and rode off with her.” Orm paused and took a long breath. “The ships are gone. She is gone. We are only seven now, none of us whole.”

Vali bellowed in shock and rage. And grief. No, not grief. He would not allow grief to have sway in his heart. Grief was defeat, and he would not be defeated. He would get her back. And he would kill everyone who had conspired to take her from him.

Leif, whom he had trusted completely, would go first. He would go slow and hard.

“Who is left?”

“You and I. Dan. Harald. Bjarke. Knut. And Astrid.”

“Astrid and Knut are sworn to Åke.”

“They were. They resisted his intent to destroy us, and he left them for dead.”

Vali stood up and this time shoved the woozy disorientation away with all of his will. “We shall follow them.”

Orm shook his head. “Your head is not yet clear, Vali. There are no ships.”

“The village has five fishing boats. Surely they can spare one or two.”

“And you know that the open sea would break them apart like kindling sticks. We cannot follow, not until we can build a seaworthy vessel, and that will be months.”

“NO! NO! THIS CANNOT BE!” What would Åke do to the shieldmaiden who had defied him and dared to make a life beyond his reach? The God’s-Eye, whom he considered his own gift from the gods?

Vali’s heart raced as if it meant to leave his chest completely. He felt sick at his stomach and consumed by a rage so powerful in its impotence that it drove him to his knees. “BRENNA!”

~oOo~

The castle was eerily quiet with no one else left dwelling in its cavernous depths. Even the raiders who had survived had begun to move to the village.

Alone in any way that mattered, Vali stood in the grounds and hacked at the log that would make the keel of his ship.

He had never built a ship or even worked much wood. He understood the way ships worked on the water, and he knew their composition from stem to stern, but he had never considered why they worked as they did or were composed as they were.

But his father had been a smith, and he had been apprenticed to him in a long-ago life. He had grown up among craftsmen. And he had the will. It would be enough. He would build a ship and sail back to Geitland, even if he would sail alone.

Then he would kill. And then he would collect his wife and bring her home.

Five days had passed since he had woken to find his life and love stolen from him, a week since he had lost her. He felt some lingering disorientation when he turned too quickly, and the throbbing ache at the base of his skull had not left him—but he thought that throb was rage more than wound.

Rage consumed him, waking or sleeping. He could barely speak for the way his fury had made his body taut. Orm, Dan, and the others had tried to engage him in talks and plans, but he cared about nothing but building his ship, finding his wife, and taking his revenge.

Dan and Astrid rode through the gates at a gallop, and Vali stopped his work and his black thoughts and watched them ride up. There was trouble; he could see it on their faces, and he didn’t bother to ask.

Astrid spoke, using the blended tongue that they had all picked up, their two languages combined, even when clansmen spoke together. Even Brenna had finally become competent in their communication. “Toomas rides for us. A large mounted force.”

“Four score at my count,” Dan added.

An army of eighty. Vali sighed, not sure that he cared to fight. His bloodlust was turned a different way.

“We have a peace!” Astrid growled.

“He must have learned that we are weakened beyond resistance.” Vali swung his axe down and buried it in one of the supports for the beam he’d been hewing. “He made peace with a force that had bested two of his fellows. We are no longer that force.”

“They ride for the village, Vali.” Dan gave him a weighty stare.

The village, where his half-built house stood. Where he meant to return with his wife and build a life. Where the friends he had left dwelt.

“Then we fight.”

~oOo~

Vali pulled his axe through the neck of a soldier and watched him drop. The road was piled deep with bodies, and the village burned around him, buildings so new the sap in the wood crackled in the flames that destroyed them.