Malice Striker (22 page)

“She tried to kill you.” Konáll’s lips flattened.

“It matters not. We will bury Etta in the Viking way. To do aught else would dishonor Skatha when we marry.” Brökk studied the blanket-covered body lying on a pallet. Bitterness coated his tongue. He had no taste for this duty, but never had he shirked his obligations as jarl.

“Do we this in secret?”

Brökk shook his head. “Nay. I will have no lies between Skatha and I.”

“Wise. ’Twere me I would not play false with a wife born of a king and goddess.”

Brökk rubbed his aching head. “I needs speak with Skatha. I will not have her hear of the burial from another.”

“Go. Seek your goddess. I will handle all.” Konáll cuffed Brökk’s shoulder. “Go.”

Brökk needed no further urging. He spun around and marched out of the stables. How would she react, his little cat?

Lady Gráinne had sent word the women were not accepting visitors until the morrow, but this could not wait. During the morn, the door to his lodge had been replaced by a thick slab of oak reinforced with bands of iron. He stared at the intricate grainy swirls for some moments afore knocking.

“Lord Brökk.” Lady Gráinne opened the door a hand’s width. “Is aught amiss?”

“This eve we bury Etta in the Viking way. I ask you allow me a few moments to tell Skatha this news.”

The abbess’s lips flattened and lines formed between her brows, but she stepped back. “Enter.”

Skatha sat on the bed pulling a bone comb through Hjørdis’s tawny curls. Cocking her head, she squinted in his direction and shaded her eyes from the bright noonday sun.

“Brökk!” Hjørdis jumped off the bed, ran to him, and threw her spindly arms around his thigh. She rested her chin on his leg and beamed up at him. “I told Skatha you would come. Where is Konáll? And Earl Tighe? I have heard all about Skatha’s wolfhound, Lawri. Think you we can bring her to Bita Veðr?”

Brökk grinned. Being held captive for two moons had not dimmed their bright star in the least. “Earl Tighe has left to reclaim Castle Stillhaig and return Vengeance Hammer. Dráddør will make haste to Bita Veðr before the ice claims the seas.”

He reached for his sister and settled her on his hip. Hjørdis promptly wrapped her long legs around his waist and snuggled into his chest. “I missed your smell.”

He tweaked her ear. “I have come straight from the hot springs. I do not smell.”

“Yea, you do. You smell strong and safe.” She tugged his war braid. “Does he not, Skatha?”

During their play, Skatha had come to stand next to him. “Aye. You do, my lord.”

Brökk kissed his sister’s forehead. “Bright star, I needs speak with Skatha now.”

“I know. You needs speak of Etta.” Once more he marveled anew at his sister’s indomitable spirit and ancient wisdom. “Aye. Finish braiding your hair, bjartr stjarna.”

After he set her down, Hjørdis skipped to the abbess and offered her the comb.

“I know Etta is dead, Brökk. I fear I nigh tripped over her corpse.”

Raki had told him of Skatha’s discovery, and Brökk had hoped his wife would not hold a horror of what she had seen. He studied her even features, the serene set of her ruby lips, the twinkle in her violet eyes. Her seeing eyes. Pray Odin, her sight would ne’er be taken again.

He had no notion of how Skatha would react to the tale of Etta’s deceit and tyranny. He captured Skatha’s hand, pulled her to the farthest corner of the cottage, and tugged her to sit next to him on the other side of the bed. She smelled of spring and sweetness, and he wanted nothing more than to be inside of her. But the news he had to deliver to her was of the direst sort.

“I wish I had not to speak to you of this.” He cleared his throat and told her what he had pieced together after speaking with all concerned.

Skatha surprised him again. She squeezed his hand but remained unperturbed. “Etta was not the woman you should’ve taken to wife.”

“I know.” Brökk studied his small cat. She showed no upset at his tale. “You were meant for me, Skatha.” He twined their hands together.

The abbess approached the two of them. Brökk glanced at her and knew from her creased brows and thinned lips she had been listening to his and Skatha’s conversation.

“Lady Gráinne.” Brökk stood, not knowing how to react to such a commanding expression.

“Jarl.” The abbess folded her hands. “Forgive me, but ’tis too small a chamber for your tale to have gone unheard. My ladies and I will prepare Etta for the ceremony.”

“Nay—” Brökk would not have Skatha attend to Etta.

“Skatha will remain here. I will not tangle you and Skatha in this upset. We will handle all.”

Brökk was sore tempted to embrace the abbess.

Lady Gráinne signaled her ladies. “We will go now to attend to your wife. Skatha must attend the ceremony, however. ’Tis only fitting.”

By Odin, he could not have asked for more. The abbess had him at his knees. He would have kissed her senseless in thanks.

“I will remain here and watch this ceremony from afar. I know, Brökk, that ’tis something you must do. I honor your duty.”

If he had not been in love with her before, then he would have tumbled fast and hard. At once. She understood. He needed to do this, but he could not put her through it.

“I will take your leave.” He kissed the vein beating at her wrist.

“Worry not of me, Brökk. I am the daughter of a giantess and strong of mind, though I may be small in stature. I would have this duty behind us both.” Skatha tiptoed and brushed her lips to his cheek.

Brökk escorted Lady Gráinne and her charges out of the lodge. They traveled in silence.

Moroseness dogged him. He did not want the abbess to see Etta with the knife in her chest. “Lady Gráinne, I should warn you. ’Tis not a pretty sight we approach. I would have you steel yourself.”

“Jarl, I have seen much in my short life. ’Tis nothing you show me that will shock me.” Lady Gráinne adjusted the wimple he so hated. “’Tis a duty of horror you perform, but ’tis a duty of necessity. With this you have proved yourself worthy of Skatha.”

He knew not what to say. They had reached the crofter’s hut, and the task ahead sat not well on his belly. “Do you need my assistance, my lady?”

“Nay. We have done this many times afore.”

He threw open the door to the cottage and swallowed hard. He had once lusted after Etta. The blanket covering her corpse was white and pure and seemed too chaste to be there. He pointed to the pallet closest to the wall. “Etta is there.”

Lady Gráinne strode forward followed by her charges.

Brökk remained close to the doorway observing the females intently.

The abbess stooped and drew back the linen covering Etta’s face.

She gasped and her face paled. “Arianne.”

“For the life of God. Arianne.” Lady Muíríne sank to her knees.

“Nay.” Lady Elspeth clapped her hand to her chest. “Arianne?”

“How?” Lady Gráinne touched a finger to the body. “How came she to be your wife? She left Sumbarten for court. The queen herself sent me a missive of her arrival.”

Brökk wasted no time. He hustled them all out of the stables and separated the abbess from her wards. “My former wife is the Lady Arianne?”

Even as he said the words, Brökk did not believe them.

Lady Gráinne nodded. “I do not understand this. But yea, she is.”

Brökk considered the abbess’s words. He had met Etta at court, but Loudon had not been in attendance. “I would have you view Loudon’s body too.”

Brökk escorted the abbess back into the hut. He flung the shroud from Loudon’s body. “Do you know him?”

“Aye. He is the Lady Arianne’s betrothed. He visited the abbey on more than one occasion. Truth be told, he seemed entranced by Skatha and babbled about her magikal eyes.” Lady Gráinne knuckled her wimple-sheathed brow. “I can make no meaning of all this.”

“Betrothed? Loudon and Etta did not marry?” Mayhap he had never been wed to Etta after all, if she had married Loudon. Brökk dared not surrender to the elation soaring in his veins.

“Arianne was to be lady in waiting to Queen Lorna while the king and queen were at Scone. They were to marry afore the court moved to Strathclyde. He was not Baron then, but the second son of the Earl of Haddish. We knew him as Sir Colin. The Queen would have sent me a missive if their vows had been said, and Sumbarten would have received the coin due for Arianne’s training.”

Cursing Loki for his mischief making, Brökk glared at the dead man’s craggy features. “I would give odds he was no baron. Etta, nay, Arianne was behind this scheme.”

“Nay. They must have been in this together.” Lady Gráinne clasped a hand to her chest. “I cannot even comprehend the villainy of it. The two of them. Plotting this. ’Tis abominable.”

Brökk shook his head. “I must tell Skatha.”

“Aye. But how? And what? That her nemesis plotted to kill her husband?” Lady Gráinne chewed her lips. “I do not think you can make this news pleasant.”

Skatha took the news better than he expected.

“’Tis a horrid tale. Arianne, Loudon, and Niketas conspiring to sell Hjørdis to the caliph of Persia. Forging the missive from King Kenneth so you would steal me for ransom and then they would have two goddess-born females to sell to the caliph.” Skatha’s lip curled. “I heard Arianne boasting about how much he would pay for Hjørdis’s maidenhead and lamenting the loss of mine as I would not command a richer purse.”

“’Tis a tangled plot. Your abbess suspects Arianne must have seen your jötunn mother, Skaði, during one of her visits to Sumbarten and then realized all the rumors of your birth were fact.”

“I knew I had heard her voice afore, but could not think where or when. Witch. She left that bucket at the top of the stairs a-purpose. I am convinced of it. But ’tis done. I want not to think of this anymore.” Skatha lifted her chin. “Arianne is dead and that is enough.”

Chapter Eleven

Courting Day One

“Think you ’tis a fitting present?” Brökk glanced at the bone-enameled mirror in his hand, and then swathed a square of cloth around the oval object. He glanced at his brother and quickened his pace up the steep incline.

“Aye. We are speaking of a woman who has seen little in her life. And she knows not what she looks like. ’Tis fitting indeed.” Konáll halted at the fork in the dirt path. “I take your leave here. Sigrid, Árne, and Eldar depart on the morn tide and I am to meet them at Gufa Fiskr. I learned last eve Eldar fostered with the Earl of Moray.”

Brökk blinked. “By Loki’s balls. You have the luck of the Roman goddess Fortuna. Yet, this news makes the hairs on my nape bristle. Olaf Longface receives an edict signed with Harald Bluetooth’s and Kenneth of Scotland’s seal that the marriage between you and Earl Moray’s daughter is confirmed yester morn. And you discover Eldar was raised with the man last eve? I am uneasy at the coincidence.”

Konáll let out a long sigh. “I, too, find it remarkable. But, I can nay refuse the chance to gain insight into the Earl.”

“You have the right of it.” Brökk scanned the clear sky and calculated the peak of the tide. “Make haste, brother, for the midday approaches.”

“Aye.” Konáll adjusted the handle of the axe sheathed on a belt slung low on his hips, gave Brökk a by-your-leave nod, and then marched to the right.

2Twas a rich alliance both kings had arranged. The marriage contract called for Konáll to donate the gold coin Kenneth of Scotland needed to arm his warriors against the contender, Malcolm.

Harald Bluetooth added another stronghold to secure the shipping routes he craved.

And Konáll gained the vast lands and rich estates his betrothed had inherited upon consummation of the vows. All gained, none lost.

Brökk tramped up the muddied path and greeted the men standing guard over his quarters. He knocked on the door of his own lodge, a fact that caused him grievous irritation.

When Lady Gráinne, with her placid smile, greeted him, he bared his teeth. “I am here to court my wife.”

“Your betrothed.”

Lady Gráinne smiled that smile that made his cock go flaccid in a second. How he hated that serene smile. He fought the need to adjust himself and pasted a grin that spoke of pain on his face.

“I am here to court my wife.” He refused to admit Skatha wasn’t his wife.

“Your betrothed. Skatha, the jarl is here.”

The way the abbess said jarl made him shudder. But then Skatha came to the door, and she curtsied so delicately and so perfectly his cock engorged to boiling and he nigh spilled his seed.

“My lord.”

“Brökk.” He wanted her to wrap her mouth around his cock, taste him deeply, and suck him to the core.

“’Tis for you. A courting gift.” He shoved the parcel into her hands and immediately felt like a fool. She was his wife. No matter what the damned abbess said.

She unfolded the green velvet that wrapped the gift and frowned. “A mirror?”

“For you to see yourself.” He pulled at the tunic that felt too close to his neck. “It does not please you?”

“Aye. ’Tis a fine gift. I should like to see your face in it.” She curled her hands around the mirror but her eyes never left his. “All my life I have wished to see. And now I am so happy because your face fills my mind. I crave every inch of you.”

“You may join us while we sew and read verses from the bible, Jarl. The day is too wet and too chilly for any other activities.” The abbess sat in
his
chair and picked up a length of cloth from the floor.

Brökk nigh choked on his own spit. He was not to be allowed alone with his own wife?

* * *

Courting Day Two

“I am here to court my wife.”

“Your betrothed.”

Brökk longed to stuff the two words down the abbess’s throat.

“Skatha, your betrothed is here.” Lady Gráinne said the words to taunt him, Brökk knew it.

Skatha came to the door and beamed up at him. “Lady Gráinne has granted us permission to visit Ali H’malik’s ship.”

His cock twitched. Ali’s empty ship.