Surrender My Love (3 page)

“This…something else.” He shrugged. “I merely have time on my hands now, with naught to do but amuse myself in your hall for the next fortnight.”

With a half-dozen women still ogling her handsome brother, she turned to her husband and said, “Mayhap ’tis not such a bad idea.”

Royce laughed. “Do you get the impression she does not like you underfoot, Selig?”

“’Tis not funny, Saxon,” she said in annoyance. “I love my brother dearly, as he well knows, but I like having my hall run smoothly, which it never does when he is about. Mayhap if you would take him out and break his nose, as I have suggested more than once—”

Royce cut in with a hoot. “You never did.”

“I should have.”

“I suppose I could go with him,” Royce said to placate her, “to stand as the second interpreter.”

“With the way you hate Danes? You would go there with one hand on your sword and the other gripping a dagger. Better I go than you, and there would be no need for a second translator, since I speak both languages.”

The narrowing of his green eyes proved Royce did not take well to
that
suggestion. Send his beautiful Kristen into a host of Danes who had just spent years pillaging and ravishing and taking for themselves whatever struck their fancy? He would put her back in chains first, even though the last time he had done so, she had made his life miserable.

All he said was, “Nay, you will not.” But his look dared her to argue about it.

Selig intervened before she thought to. “Father would skin me alive did I let you journey to East Anglia without a full army
at your back, Kris, and well you know it. Nor would you care to be parted from your children and husband that long. Both of you have better things to do, but I do not. And besides, Royce has a number of men who speak Celtic, any one of whom could stand as the second interpreter.”

“Elfmar could do that well enough, I suppose,” Royce allowed, only to point out, “But the bishop may not like things so complicated, having his words pass through two others before they reach Guthrum.”

“As to that,” Selig replied, “’tis more than likely that Guthrum will have his own interpreter on hand who can be used, while Elfmar and I merely stand present to assure that Saxon interests are protected. Either way, the deed would get accomplished.”

“Aye, well, ’tis a moot point, and the bishop’s decision to make.” And Royce grinned to show that what he was about to add didn’t reflect his own feelings. “He may prefer to return to Alfred rather than trust a Norwegian Viking to represent Saxons against a Danish Viking. You would be amazed how many Saxons do not differentiate ’tween the two.”

Selig laughed at those last words. “I recall clearly there was a time when you did not.”

“That was before I came to know this particular Viking.” And Royce hauled Kristen across the bench and onto his lap—without protest, Selig noted, and no easy task, for his sister was a giant compared with Saxon women. “She has a
way of making a man think of other than war.”

“And what are you thinking of now, husband?” Kristen asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“That the hour grows late.”

Selig grinned, watching their play. It was a fact that he and his family had had to accept, that she loved this Saxon dearly.

“Aye,” he said. “I needs must find my own bed if I am to be off to East Anglia come the morn.”

“
If
you are,” Kristen retorted. “And make your choice quickly if you mean to share that bed. I do not care to hear them fighting over you as happened the last time, not when I have guests to be wakened by it.”

Selig rolled his eyes in protest. “That was not my fault, Kris. Edith had not understood yet that I will not—cannot—tolerate jealousy.”

“Aye, you would drive a jealous woman to murder right quickly.”

“Leave go, vixen,” Royce interjected, just managing to keep from laughing. “You have teased him enough this eventide. He begins to blush.”

“Him?” she scoffed, feigning disbelief. “He stopped blushing over his women when he was ten and five. My brother has no shame—”

“Since she will not heed her husband,” Royce cut in, lifting Kristen in his arms as he stood up, “I will see if I cannot occupy her mind with other things.”

Selig heard no complaint to that suggestion. Kristen said merely, “You will break your
back trying to carry me up those stairs again, milord.”

“God’s mercy, I
hate
it when you throw out challenges like that.”

Royce did carry her all the way to their chamber upstairs, and if it was difficult for him—her extreme height guaranteed she was no lightweight—he would no doubt see that his wife made up for it with those “other things” he had mentioned.

Kristen was right, however, about her brother. There were too many women here to choose from, too many willing and eager to be that choice. And if Selig hadn’t spread himself around to all those who were available, he wouldn’t have such problems. Truly, he ought to be more discriminating…nay, he couldn’t be that selfish.

He grinned and crooked a finger at Edith. He should have picked another. She had fought over him—and won—but he had punished her enough by consoling the loser of that fight. Yet Edith’s jealousy and possessiveness were a unique experience for him. He had never had such feelings himself, and his women knew better than to succumb to them as well. If they wanted faithfulness, they would have to look to another for it.

“You want more ale, milord?” Edith asked as she reached him, a degree of sulkiness in her tone.

He gave her the smile that had won him the hearts of more women than he could count. “Just you, sweetling.”

She nearly knocked him off his bench, no easy task when he topped her by more than a foot and outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Yet she threw herself at him with such force, he was unprepared for her, her mouth voracious on his, her hands already slipping beneath his tunic. He had to laugh. Mayhap jealousy was not such a bad thing after all.

Chapter 3

S
ELIG DEPARTED FOR
East Anglia the next morn. As it happened, the old bishop was delighted to accept his services, and in fact knew a smattering of Celtic himself. Elfmar still joined their party, however, for the sake of clarity. Only the bishop, though, was looking forward to entering the land now ruled by the Danes. The others had all fought against them too many times to feel comfortable going amongst them, peace or no peace—except Selig, who had known Danes long before he knew Saxons, and bore them no grudges.

But it would be several days before they left the borders of Wessex behind, for, due to the bishop’s advanced years, their journey was slow, with many stops for rest at manors they came to, or along the roadside when there were none.

The slow progress didn’t bother Selig. His was a very easy nature, slow to temper, quick to laughter. And he hadn’t seen much of this land that he had decided to live in, other than when he had searched for Kristen and the others after he had recovered from the wound
Royce’s cousin had given him, and when he had joined the war. So he was enjoying the trip.

His sister had been there to send him off with a promise. “I will see that Ivarr and your men do not wreck your new home if they return before you. But you had better hope there are no women at Guthrum’s court, or they will not let you leave.”

He had merely laughed. She did love to tease him, though half of what she said was perfectly true and only meant to annoy, though it rarely did. His men did likewise enjoy teasing, calling him Selig Angel’s-face rather than Selig the Blessed, as he had been dubbed at his birth, a name which came not from a face that mesmerized women, but because the midwife had pronounced him dead at birth, yet his father had breathed life into him.

The second day of the journey dawned with a cloudless sky and a hot sun that had them riding even slower for the bishop’s sake. But the company was pleasant, the land lovely, with all the colors of fertility in full bloom.

As they passed through a small woods with welcome shade cast over the narrow way, Elfmar was amusing Selig with tales, and was now telling of a pagan goddess who had come down to earth in search of a mortal lover. But all the great and mighty warriors were off to war, and the only person she could find to bestow her favors on was a lowly swineherd. Yet this was no ordinary swineherd, was in truth a god in disguise, one who was so smitten by the
goddess that he would do anything to spend one night in her bed, even wallow in earthy muck. But the goddess had guessed the god’s trickery and—

The ambush took the party completely unawares.

Out of the trees they dropped, and from the bushes they leapt, with clubs and daggers swinging. There was no time to draw a sword or offer a last prayer, so swiftly did the blows fall. Out of a dozen faces, Selig saw only one, no one he recognized—a thief, he supposed, though the man did seem too finely dressed, the sword that cut the bishop down too finely wrought. And then pain exploded in the back of his head and he was falling.

A young man led a fine destrier out of the woods to his lord. The lord mounted to survey the carnage his men had left behind.

“Take their horses,” he ordered his captain. “And what coin they have so it will appear they were robbed.”

“And what if Alfred sends others?”

“Then they will meet the same fate.”

Chapter 4

L
ADY
E
RIKA PUT
the large ladle to her lips to taste the green pea pottage and sighed, for once again the cook needed instruction. “More saffron, Herbert, and do not be so stingy with the salt either. The merchant is due back again, and I will replenish all the supplies that have gone missing, including your spices.”

She should not have had to say so. Seven years was long enough for these people to learn that their new lord, though a Dane, was not the miser their old lord had been. But they were a timid lot, these serfs, and no wonder, with as brutish and cruel as she had found the houseguards to be.

Erika had put an end to the indiscriminate beatings when she had come to live here four years ago—her brother Ragnar giving her a free hand. Not that she was soft. She could order a whipping when called for—a hanging, too, for that matter. She couldn’t rule her brother’s holdings in his absence without doing what was necessary when the situation warranted it, and she had no difficulty with that. She merely believed in
being fair and having the punishment fit the crime.

She had taken her brother to task for what he had let continue for the three years before she came. Yet it wasn’t actually his fault that he had done naught, since he had been away with the army for most of those three years, and therefore unaware of the situation.

It was a fine holding he had, and he had obtained it without bloodshed. The old Anglian lord who had lived here had been terrified he would lose all he possessed to the invading army, and so had offered Ragnar Haraldsson his only daughter in marriage. And Ragnar had been delighted to have her and all she brought with her, which included the loyalty of her people.

The old father died of natural causes soon after, and the transition of lordship had gone smoothly because Ragnar was wed to the daughter of the house. And because there had been a lawful marriage, the people’s loyalty easily survived the sad death of their lady in childbirth nine months after she was wedded. They were Ragnar’s people now—and Erika’s.

When she had come here, not only the beatings had ended, but also the near starvation, the rapes, the deaths for minor crimes. However, these people had lived too long under such a brutal yoke, just about every one of them bearing the marks of the lash. It would take more than a handful of years for them to forget the drudgery of the past.

Which was why she had spoken so softly to the cook, and now tempered the reprimand with a smile. “Mayhap a bit thicker, too, Herbert, as I know you like to make it. I do so prefer your recipe to mine.”

The praise had the cook beaming as Erika left the kitchen. But then, that was her usual effect on the servants, whether she offered praise or not—at least on the male servants. Because she was uncommonly pretty, just a smile would do it.

Her beauty was not something she had always appreciated, since it had caused her female siblings to pick on her for many years. Yet she was comfortable with her looks now, even glad of them finally. She had high cheekbones, a short, straight nose, lips rosy and full. Her eyes were powder blue, with thick lashes and gently arched brows. But her glory was her hair, long and golden with a subtle shading of red.

She was a tall woman compared with the people she lived among. But she was small-boned, which gave her a willowy, delicate appearance. Not to say she was skinny. Her curves were well rounded and dented in all the right places, her breasts larger than most but well proportioned to her size, her long legs lean and firm.

Eyes would follow her as she crossed a room, and did now as she left the kitchen. Rarely noticed anymore was the shadow that moved away from the wall to follow her out into the bailey.

Torches lit the way to the hall. She hadn’t realized the hour had grown so late, or that everyone would be waiting to eat. The last meal of the day had been delayed because of the latest thefts, and taking a tally of exactly what was missing this time had occupied her and the kitchen staff for several hours. So she hurried to the hall because Herbert wouldn’t begin sending the food in until she had taken her seat. But her mind was still on the thefts.

“Seven loaves of bread and half the spices,” she said to her shadow. “The spices will be sold, no doubt, but the bread?…Have you noticed anyone getting fat?”

The grunt she received in reply meant No.

“Has Wulnoth no clues who our thief is?” she asked next.

The same grunt. Erika sighed. They had been plagued for a fortnight now with the pilfering of their food supplies, weapons, even several of the livestock. Either there was a very clever stranger sneaking in and out of the manor, or one of their own was selling the goods in Bedford for a tidy profit. It was a wonder Wulnoth, the captain of the guard, hadn’t caught him yet, for the crime warranted a lashing at least, and he did so love using his whip.