God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (33 page)

“Fare you both well,” Leif said. “I will send word after Calder’s return. If I can, and if I would be welcome, I will sail to you and tell you myself.”

“Of course you will be welcome.” Brenna then lifted her arms and threw them around Leif’s neck. Vali could see that Leif was as surprised as he was by such an impulsive display of affection.

When Leif returned her embrace, Vali felt a queer mix of jealousy and doubt. Not doubt in Brenna, but in his own feelings about Leif. Brenna was stingy with her personal affections. To see her so unreserved in her faith in and affection for Leif did make Vali wonder if he were too harsh regarding the man.

But then she stepped back, and he saw her neck. She made no attempt to hide her new scars; they were, to her, battle scars and no source of shame. But they reminded Vali of what their ‘friend’ had, at best, made no attempt to prevent. No. Brenna had had a blind spot about Åke; she might well have the same blindness about Leif.

Leif held out his hand to Vali, who took it after enough pause to convey his disdain.

“I regret any part I had in all that befell you both, but I did all I could think to do to save you. I would have us friends again. If it is proof you need, Vali Storm-Wolf, proof you will have.”

Vali nodded once, and took his hand back.

With that, Leif gestured to a young man behind him, one Vali did not know. That young man stepped up and brought a bundle of white linen forward. He held it out on his two hands, and Leif unwrapped it.

The longsword that Leif and the other men had presented to Vali on the day of his wedding. Meant for Brenna to hold in safekeeping for their descendants. Vali watched as Leif took the sword and handed it to her. He could see the emotion roiling in his wife’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft with feeling.

Leif smiled at her and then turned to Vali. “Åke took it to claim as his own, as he took Brenna. I only return it to its rightful place.”

Vali was moved; to himself, he would not deny it. The sword was important, a symbol of the strength of his union with Brenna. And, as well, a symbol of their friendships in Estland.

But he was not so moved that he was blinded to the scar circling his wife’s throat or the furrows in her back, or deafened to her cries in the night. As Leif had said, he had only returned the sword into the hands from which it never should have been taken. As Brenna never should have been taken.

So Vali simply gave Leif another single nod. Then he turned and helped his wife onto their boat so that they could leave Geitland and its new jarl behind.

~oOo~

As they had expected, the other jarls had been prepared for battle with Åke and were relieved to find instead a small karve docking at their shores, with a new jarl and the balance among them all restored. That the new jarl was Vali Storm-Wolf, who was wedded to the God’s-Eye, was all to the better.

Vali took his opportunity with Finn and then with Ivar, when each wife had drawn Brenna off for womanly chat, to judge their feelings about Calder. Both considered Calder a shadow of his father, and bore him little affection. Then Vali made the kind of statements that would indicate that, should the alliance break between Geitland and Karlsa, Jarl Vali would be their true friend.

Jarl Vali. Such a strange sound those words had together.

It was a delicate balance, to persuade a man both that the alliance was sound and peaceable and that, were it not, Vali would be the stronger friend, but Vali had always been good with words.

When Brenna and Ivar’s wife, Alva, returned, Vali moved the conversation to a more neutral topic and then stood to take his wife’s hand. She wore leather breeches and tunic on the karve, but in the jarls’ halls, she had reverted to more elegant, womanly dress—all of which had been taken from the belongings Hilde had left behind. Vali would be glad to get his wife to their own hall, where clothes might be made new for her.

“We would like to walk the town on our own for the afternoon, if we have your leave,” Vali said, pulling Brenna close.

Ivar, an old, grandfatherly man with a snow-white beard, the braid of which lay over his vast belly, yet still hale and astute despite his years, smiled and laid a gnarled hand on Brenna’s shoulder. “Of course. I remember you both as young children. You were strong then and you have grown into legends. It pleases me that I may call you friends and equals now.”

“May I ask, Jarl Ivar…does my mother yet live?”

Ivar made a serious face. “Dagmar Wildheart. Yes, I believe she lives. She has not been to Halsgrof in many a year, but I am certain word would have come to me if she had gone on from this world. Do you know nothing of her?”

“No. I have had no word since my father died, long ago.”

“Brenna God’s-Eye. I’m sure it has been difficult to live with such a gift as Odin gave you. I saw with my own eyes how you struggled as a child, and I imagine that what I saw was little more than a flash of understanding. I realize why you might have run away. But you have done your mother a grave injustice all these years. Perhaps you are now my equal, but I am much older than you, so I speak the wisdom of age when I tell you: to lose one child is a great agony. To lose them all—I cannot imagine that pain. To lose one while she lives? Even gods have been driven mad by such a loss.”

Vali sensed Brenna’s back straighten in self-defense, and he wasn’t surprised at the edge in her voice when she answered, “I know the pain of losing a child.”

Ivar’s expression softened. “Then I am deeply sorry for you both.” He turned and held out his hand to Alva, who came near and took it. “But perhaps knowing that pain, you might find compassion for her?”

“Thank you for your wisdom, Jarl Ivar.” Brenna’s tone was chilly. Knowing her the way he did, Vali understood that Ivar had made a much greater impression than she would admit.

~oOo~

She was quiet as they walked through Halsgrof toward the woods. Vali noted the smithy, but he barely looked. That was not his father’s shop. The sounds and smells of it turned his stomach, but that was always the case, whenever he neared any smithy anywhere. It was a phantom memory, without fists.

Once in the woods, near the shoreline, Brenna paused at a great old tree. Vali took no special meaning for the place, but his wife crouched at a small nook in the base of the tree and stroked it as if she expected the bark to feel her touch.

“It’s so small.”

He crouched at her side. “I don’t understand, my love.”

“When we came to town, my mother and father would send me away while they did their business. Mother would give me a bit of hacksilver for the sweets-monger, but I never used it. I hated going there, where all the children were. Adults were fearful or suspicious, but children were mean. So instead, I would come here, and tuck myself down into this nook. I would spend the afternoon almost asleep, my eyes closed, telling myself stories about what my life would be like. I imagined myself to be a great shieldmaiden and voyager. I even imagined that I might be jarl someday myself.”

“And you achieved all of that.”

She smiled. “You are jarl, not I.”

“I would hand the title to you in the space between two beats of my heart.”

“No. I don’t want it. When I was a girl, all I saw was the wealth and comfort. Now I know what goes on behind. And I don’t speak well with people. I will stand with you, but it is right that you are jarl.” She stroked the tree again. “I cannot believe that I ever fit into such a tiny space.”

“You were very small when first I saw you. You grew tall and strong since, but then, I took you for much younger than you were.”

“I was in my little nook when I heard you and your father. You and he were there.”

She pointed to a stand of pines not far off, and suddenly the memory of that day struck him in violent, vivid detail. He shut his eyes and shook his head at the force of it.

“Vali?”

The memory of his father’s abuse, and of his own terror as his tongue was yanked forward, and as the knife bit into it, gave way to the sound of Brenna’s young voice, loud and sure, full of righteous fire and fury.

“Vali?” Brenna laid her hand on his arm, and he opened his eyes.

That small girl who’d save him from the horror of that day, who had saved him from so much more, was the great woman at his side now. A storied shieldmaiden. His wife.

“I love you, Brenna God’s-Eye.”

Usually, she flinched when that name was used, but this time, she smiled—the first full, brilliant smile he had seen from her since they had been reunited. “And I love you.”

He slid his hand into her hair and made a fist, knotting the tresses with his fingers. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He kissed her.

Over and over, he repeated those three words, punctuating each repetition with a kiss, and as he did so, he took control of her. He laid her down on ground soft with moss and fallen pine needles, and he pulled her finely woven gown up her strong, scarred, beautiful legs.

There in the woods where they’d first met, he loved her deep and long.

~oOo~

The next morning, Ivar happily lent them two fine, strong horses for the ride to the village of Brenna’s birth. The occasion of riding horseback provoked Brenna to ask about Freya. Vali considered telling her that the mare was safe, but instead he told her the truth.

Her eyes glittered with sadness, but she nodded. “It was a good offering. The gods were with you, so they saw her worth.”

Vali believed that as well. For all they had suffered—for all Brenna had suffered—now they were together and strong, and they had set right more than merely their own lives.

Perhaps they were about to set right one thing more.

It was past midday when they approached a tiny cluster of buildings. Brenna’s posture changed, as if she were trying to see more clearly.

“This is your village?”

“It is where I was born, yes. Up that hill there, deep in the woods, is where Oili lives. If she still lives. She was an old woman when I was a child. She is a healer and a völva—it was what my mother meant for my life. But if my eye is Odin’s gift, and if any power at all comes from it, it is not the power of the sight.”

“No. It is the power of the spirit. Your spirit is stronger than anyone I’ve ever known, shieldmaiden. You have a godly spirit.”

She turned to him. “Then you do believe my eye is inhuman?”

“I believe it does not matter. However you came to bear Yggdrasil and all the colors of the worlds in your right eye, whether it was a gift from Odin or an accident of birth, your spirit is a mighty thing. If your eye is the way that people see your greatness, then so be it. Perhaps that was all the gift Odin thought you needed: no mystical power, merely something to set you apart.”

She cocked her head, thinking about his words, and then she smiled. “I like to think of it that way. That feels right. All my life I’ve struggled to understand, but that feels right.”

They had been riding as they’d spoken, and Brenna had led them off to the east, toward the wooded hill. They neared a small homestead that seemed to have fallen on hard times. None of the village seemed prosperous, but this stead was in dire need of repair.

Brenna nudged her horse forward and took the lead. She pulled up just outside a door. Before she could dismount, the door opened, and an old woman stepped out. Her hair was a dull, greying blonde, woven into a simple braid over her shoulder. She wore an oft-mended woolen dress and worn leather shoes. But she stood tall and straight, a simple woolen shawl over her shoulders.