Malice Striker (11 page)

“Think you Harald Bluetooth has some involvement in Hjørdis’s kidnapping?”

“Nay. I trust no monarch, for they are only concerned with the gaining and keeping of power, and will eliminate any who threaten their rule. But Harald needs us as allies, and Bita Veðr is a key holding for the trade routes he craves to control.” Brökk massaged his bunched neck muscles.

“I see you feel it too. Something is amiss. ’Tis like the crackling in a storm before ThMrr’s hammer strikes white bolts.” Konáll raised a brow. “Here comes Ali now and Cardas is with him.”

Brökk spied the two men, one short and rotund, one tall and lean. Cardas, Ali’s trusted captain, had been the one who harbored their mother after her escape from ThMrr’s hall. He and his two brothers owed a debt of great magnitude to both men.

“Good morn, Malice Striker, Death Blow. How fare you?” Cardas showed his white teeth as he grinned. “I hear you have taken a goddess to wife. A jötunn goddess no less.”

“Forced to take a goddess to wife. Did Ali not inform you the vows were decreed by the Emperor Tzimiskes and Harald Bluetooth?” Brökk shook his head at the other man’s garb. While Ali dressed to match those with whom he traded, Cardas favored the classic Berber
burnus
, loose breeches, and supple brown knee-high boots. Today his hooded cape was of a scarlet hue designed to draw attention.

Cardas guffawed. He shoved aside the bench opposite him and motioned for Ali to take a seat. After his commander sat, Cardas’s gaze swept the tavern. “I like not these seating arrangements. Having my back to the entrance does not bode well for my digestion.”

“Why say you that? You have ne’er worried about your back in Gufa Fiskr afore.” Konáll threw the Muslim captain a scowl worthy of his Jomsviking title.

“True, but ne’er have I seen so many langskips in the harbor.”

“There are but three ships anchored in the fjord.” Brökk leaned forward and squinted at the narrow slit revealed by the leather hide covering the window looking out to port. “And, forsooth, all belong to your master.”

“Nay. Two others pulled in after we did.”

“None has seen fit to warn us of this?” Brökk bounded off the bench and hurried out of the tavern with Konáll on his heels. They jostled through the crowded doorway.

Brökk narrowed his eyes and his shoulders slumped when he recognized one of the ships in the harbor as their youngest brother’s. “I will thrash Cardas to a pulp. ’Tis his notion of humor?”

Konáll slapped his shoulder. “I care not that Cardas has a twisted humor, so relieved am I to see Vengeance Hammer’s sails. Think you Dráddør has Hjørdis with him?”

“Pray Odin he has, and she is safe and unharmed by her ordeal.” Brökk glanced around the pier, spotted one of his men, and signaled for a skin boat to take them to Dráddør’s langskip.

Brökk scanned the fjord and concentrated on the strange ship on the far right of the harbor. “I recognize not the sails of this vessel. You?”

“Nay.” Konáll shaded his eyes.

“’Tis the type of ship used by the Arabs.” Cardas had followed them out of the alehouse. “It and Dráddør’s ship arrived as we docked. I believed the two vessels traveled together.”

“We needs speak with Dráddør first. Mayhap he did travel with this strange ship.” Brökk studied the vessel, noting the wide berth and the masts and riggings. "I would wager ’tis designed for cargo, not warfare.”

“Aye. It sits too low in the water to maneuver with speed.” Konáll spun around. “Naught to be done until Dráddør arrives on land. My belly is empty and I would fill it.”

An acrid aroma filled Brökk’s nostrils. Smoke. The alewife must have purchased a dozen salmon or more for thick curls of black billowed above the tavern’s roof. Then he saw the flames flicking in the distance. His stomach ran aground. “Bita Veðr!”

He sprinted for his horse, roaring, “To me!”

“Fire!” Konáll shouted. “To Bita Veðr!”

Brökk leaped onto his stallion and kneed the steed into a gallop. Men, women, and children dodged out of his way. Long blue plumes of flames licked from a rise to the east, and his dread soared when he realized the fire’s direction—the crofter’s hut to which he had assigned the women.

He spurred his horse up the hill to the holding. Within moments Konáll and Cardas were alongside.

“To the hut, brother. Cardas will accompany you. I will take the hall.”

“Aye.” Brökk glanced back. Raki and the rest of the men were seven lengths behind and racing furiously to catch them.

“The women are safe, Brökk. Mayhap ’tis an accident. I left the old nurse dousing the hearth.” Konáll yelled and bent low over his steed.

The three warriors crested the hill and separated. Konáll took the left to the great hall while Brökk and Cardas veered right.

Brökk reigned in as he approached the cottage. The alarm he’d kept in check threatened to spiral out of control at the sight that met his eyes. The blaze consumed the entire dwelling. With a resounding crash the thatched roof caved in, and what was left standing of the wooden walls followed.

“Stay your alarm. I smell no burned flesh. I would wager my left stone not a single soul was in that dwelling.” Cardas’s horse pranced impatiently. “Hie you to the hall, Malice Striker. Seek your goddess wife and be assured she is whole and safe. I will remain and investigate.”

Brökk needed no further urging. Blinded by a climbing fear, he whirled the stallion about and bolted for the hall and nigh howled in relief when he saw ’twas intact. He jumped off his mount afore the horse had planted its hooves and sprinted for the kitchens. For he knew at that moment Skatha would have defied him.

The cavernous room teemed with people, spit boys, maids, and older men peeling turnips. Two hulks in a corner hacked at a dismembered boar on a table. At yet another, young girls plucked feathers from a fowl. Nary a single female hostage deigned to inhabit the room.

“Where is my wife?” Brökk bellowed.

Silence fell like a series of heads being axed. All eyes spun to him, first the young girls, then the maids rolling dough, then the spit boys, and then the butchers.

Not a soul answered. Then one soot-faced youth piped, “They all left summat aback, Jarl.”

“Where to?” Brökk growled.

“Dunno, my lord, but your brother went that way.” The thin boy pointed to the stables.

Brökk stalked out of the kitchen.

The fickle wind had changed direction once again and in the distance, he saw the charcoal smoke of the cottage fire had thinned. He prayed Cardas and Raki had all under control. He rounded a bend and broke into a sprint, for Lady Gráinne and Konáll were standing in front of the stables. Both appeared to be ready to lash at each other, and their shouts could be heard even though the breeze gusted their voices away from him.

His heart nigh stopped beating when Lady Gráinne’s face paled whiter than a dove’s breast at something Konáll yelled. He pumped his legs and arms faster and screeched to a halt not ten paces from them. “Where is she?”

Lady Gráinne shuttered her eyes. She swayed slightly, and he knew sheer terror in that instant. “One of the horses appears to be missing.”

Brökk marched forward and grabbed the abbess by the arms. He shook her. “What has a missing horse to do with my wife?”

She opened her eyes and met his gaze full on. She said in a pleasant tone, a marked contrast to his thundered query, “Why, I believe she is riding the animal, Jarl.”

He dropped her arms. Stepped back. Strode forward, grasped her, and shook her again. “Are you mad, woman? She is blind!”

“Methinks your entire holding and perhaps the village below now knows that fact, Jarl.” Lady Gráinne wore an expression of pity and contempt.

“Know you what you are saying, woman?” Brökk stomped a circle around the nun. “My wife is blind. Blind. She
cannot
ride a horse.”

The abbess smiled and linked her hands at her waist. “Not only can she ride a horse, she frequently gallops o’er fences.”

Brökk choked on his own spit. His temples throbbed. “Gallop? Gallop?”

“Stop shouting, brother.” Konáll shook Brökk until his teeth rattled.

Brökk elbowed his brother out of the way and bore down on the abbess. Heat scaled his neck and face. “Fences?”

“Hedges too. ’Tis a favorite sport of Skatha’s to jump hedges.” Lady Gráinne inspected her trimmed fingernails and then gifted Brökk with a dazzling show of her teeth. She eyed him from boots to his war braids. “Why when Elspeth dared Skatha to jump not only the holly hedge, but the brook running alongside it, she fair salivated. Cleared both too.”

He felt like a wineskin about to explode.

Chapter Six

The mare cantered like a dream. The horse’s smooth, easy gait carried Skatha o’er what she assumed to be a meadow for ’twere no climbs or dips, just a level tilt. The wind played havoc with her long curls, whipping them into a frenzy. She laughed aloud at the sting of her hair on her cheeks.

Alive.

She felt so alive.

Undamaged.

Strong.

On a horse’s bare back, she needed no caution, did not have to mask her feelings, and was the equal of the sighted. ’Twas the most delicious freedom she knew. Mayhap save for the pleasure Brökk had given her, for she flew then too out of her body and into some magikal place.

The sun beat down on her back while the frigid breeze chilled her heated face. The contrast between the two, hot and cold, was sheer exhilaration. She leaned forward. Her nose brushed the mare’s neck as she wound her hands around the animal’s throat and wrapped her legs tighter around the horse’s flanks.

She urged the mare on, and the horse broke into a gallop. They raced the gusting breezes. The animal’s powerful hind legs drove the pace harder, faster, until they were nigh flying across the clearing. Worries and anxieties laid waste by the bracing speed, Skatha’s resentment and fury faded.

She let the horse have its lead for what seemed like an eternity of elation, sighed heavily, and then tugged on the mare’s mane and dug her heels into the animal’s side. The horse slowed to an easy trot. Skatha tugged on the mane again, and when the mare’s pace slackened into a walk, she patted the horse’s withers.

“I smell brine, girl. Are we near the sea?”

A high-pitched whinny was her reply. She grinned and tilted her head back trying to discern if morn still ruled the day or if the sun had begun its decline. ’Twas past noon, she decided, for the warmth no longer came from the east.

She had been gone too long for her absence not to be noticed. Rolling her shoulders to appease the guilt that knotted them together, she hung her head for a moment and tried to block the memories of Brökk’s caresses. Had she been wrong to defy him? Mayhap he would no longer consider her his dire weakness if he knew she rode like her goddess mother, Skaði, the huntress.

Anger, long her ally in surviving amid dire predictions of her demise, came to the rescue. Her temper spiked, and she jerked a fisted hand. “He forbids me. Hah! Does your stallion forbid you a gallop? He forbids me the kitchens. Fool. Lout. Does he think me a simpleton? Does he not realize I am twice, no thrice, more capable than a sighted female? Not once have I e’er cut a finger or thumb. Nor have I e’er suffered a burn. Lady Arianne has burned her fingers time and time again, and she has two working eyes. ’Twas only when she left that bucket at the top of the stairs I was injured…and to this day, I believe she did it a-purpose. Spiteful wench. ’Twas because her royal-husband-to-be said my eyes were pools of magik.”

So engrossed was she in her conversation with the mare, Skatha ne’er heard Brökk’s approach until he lifted her from her horse’s back and settled her sideways on his lap. Afore she could react, his scent enveloped her. She sighed. ’Twas time for the reckoning.

“You oft speak with mares, my lady?” His arms held her tight to him.

“Ofttimes they are the only ones who hear what I say.” Why did she not fear him? She knew he must be enraged. No matter. Even if he beat her, the long gallop had been worth the penance.

“You wronged your abbess and your friends with your actions.”

She stiffened. “They knew naught. Nary a word. If you harm them, I will harm you.”

“You threaten your jarl?”

“Nay. Not a threat. A promise.” She was past caring about anything save Lady Gráinne and her friends and nurse.

“Lady Gráinne nigh swooned.”

She twisted around and shook her head. “Nay. She would never. She is made of iron.”

“She feared how I would punish you. ’Twas fear that caused her to sway and pale, but Konáll caught her afore she fell.”

Nay. Dismay and anxiety cramped her belly. What had she done? Her foolish ire had wronged the abbess. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed her pride and temper and asked, striving to banish the anger from her voice, “I beg you to restrict them to the hut when you punish me. ’Twill grieve them to watch me whipped.”

“’Tis not possible.”

Torn between bursting into tears and scratching his face to shreds, Skatha twined her fingers together and bit her lip. Resolved not to utter another word, she straightened her spine and waited.

Leaves rustled on a sudden downdraft, and the moist saltiness in the air coated her cheeks. He reigned in his horse, dismounted, and lifted her down to the ground.

“’Tis not possible because the hut burned to the ground this morn.”

“Burned? Lady Gráinne? Elspeth, Muíríne, Dagrún—” Skatha flinched when Brökk cupped her face.

“Nay. Be not alarmed, wife. Your friends are unharmed and were not near the hut when it happened.” He brushed his lips to her forehead. “Worry not.”

His arms slipped to her waist. He drew her against him and pressed her head to his chest. For a brief moment, she tried to resist the lure of his warmth, the heady soothing scent of him, the need for comfort, but ’twas too much temptation, and she buried her nose in his tunic and inhaled in surrender.

Skatha knew not how long they stood there, not speaking, his hand stroking her spine, and all at once she remembered him speaking of danger. She drew back and craned her neck. “’Twas an accident?”