Viking: Legends of the North: A Limited Edition Boxed Set (130 page)

Alarik burst from the hall, grateful to see that Sleipnir remained where he’d been abandoned. Bounding into the saddle, he didn’t wait to see whether he was followed.

Already, the eerie orange brightness of fire blazed into the night sky.

The sound of its roar intensified as Sleipnir flung behind them earth and snow, racing the distance toward the vale. Fury burned at Alarik’s gut, as he urged his mount faster—not that he feared the fire would spread. The remote little church sat too far from the rest of the steading to endanger any but itself, and the remaining snow upon the ground would further arrest it.

Reaching the raging inferno well before the others, he leapt from his mount, swearing profusely.

They were too late.

The small structure was completely engulfed.

Olav reined in, slipping from his saddle, muttering in anger, and Brother Vernay, who had run nearly back to the manor house after Alarik, came staggering behind.

After him hurried his people, many shouldering buckets hastily filled.

“My lord!” Vernay panted, his face scarlet in the raging reflection of the fire. “’Twas Hrolf! I...” He paused to catch his breath, and looked as though he would weep. “I... I could not stop them! Lost!” he lamented, his breath a white mist against the frosty fire-lit night. “All lost!” He threw a hand skyward. “All our precious labors!”

“Heathen pigs!” Olav shouted wrathfully, staggering backward as the roof exploded into glowing fragments.

Helpless in his rage, Alarik swore again, batting the fiery flakes away from his face and hair as they rained down upon him.

“M-My lord,” Vernay continued, still breathless. Alarik turned toward the monk, his gaze burning hotter than the fire at his back. Vernay fell to his knees. “They dispatched me with a message for you. Hrolf said to tell you that if you value what you hold... you will not rebuild the kirken.”

A staggered murmur erupted from those gathered, yet all fell immediately silent as Alarik advanced upon Vernay.

Vernay stumbled backward at the look in Alarik’s eyes. “M-My lord?” he appealed. “I am but the messenger! This little church bore my hopes, as well! Please, my lord!”

“No one!” Alarik bellowed, seizing Vernay by his frock in frustration, “no one tells me what I can—or what I cannot build upon mine own land!”

At his declaration, Bjorn elbowed his way to the fore. “I thought you cared not for the kirken, mine brother?” he challenged. “I thought you built it simply to appease Olav? Why should you care now that it lies in ruin?”

Only silence met his imputing questions. Alarik released the trembling monk. Vernay fell at his feet. For the briefest instant, Alarik’s wrathful gaze sought out Olav’s, sharing Olav’s question: Had Bjorn been party to the fire?

The evidence seemed weighted against him, for he’d left the
skali
earlier and had never returned...

Until now.

And he had met with Hrolf.

Still, some part of him could not accept the possibility. He turned to his youngest brother, holding his rage in check. But Bjorn would not let it go.

“Let it lie in its filthy ashes!” Bjorn persisted. “Mayhap then you would send the Fransk shrew back from whence she came!”

A feeling of hysteria unlike anything Alarik had ever experienced swept over him at the merest thought of Elienor leaving. “Nei!” he exploded, lunging at Bjorn. He seized Bjorn by his woolen tunic, nigh renting it in his wrath. He shook his brother violently. “I’ll not! do you hear? I’ll not! The kirken shall be rebuilt!” He glanced about at his wide-eyed people. They shrank back from him, never having seen him in such a fury. “Any man who thinks to oppose me,” he roared, meeting their gazes one by one. “Any man!—including you, Bjorn—” his gaze returned to his brother, and he shook him once more, “will taste Dragvendil, by God!”

Bjorn’s eyes accused him. “Which god, mine bror?” he asked softly. Even dangling by his tunic, and under the heat of Alarik’s gaze, he dared ask once more, “
Which
god?”

Alarik shook with fury. “It matters not!” he snarled. “What I believe in mine own soul concerns only me, and none other!” he declared, meeting his people’s gazes once more.

He swallowed as his burning eyes returned to Bjorn—eyes that stung from smoke, and tears he could not shed—would not shed. He wanted to accuse Bjorn in that moment, wanted to ask him what demons had possessed him that he would betray his only brother.

He wanted to fall to his knees and weep with sorrow for the brother he’d loved and would have died for. But he said naught of those things. His face grew red with silent fury, and then he shoved Bjorn back into the melting snow, with a violence barely suppressed. “I would have plucked out mine eyes,
brother
—” he said the word with contempt, and a touch of melancholy, “and handed them to you... had you only asked!” And with that declaration, he turned, bellowing out orders for the dousing of the fire.

It was daybreak when Alarik returned.

As had the rest of the steading, Elienor witnessed the scene at the kirken, but with tempers so high, Alarik had ordered her at once back to the longhouse, fearing for her safety. He was well aware that some followed Bjorn’s way of thought... though unlike Bjorn, they would never have betrayed him. Unlike Bjorn, they seemed to know he would never force their hearts, for if he’d intended to, he’d have done it long ago, back when Olav had first taken up the cross.

He stormed into his chamber, soot blackened and sodden with sweat and melted snow. He found Elienor sitting upon his bed, wringing her hands. She gasped in surprise at the sight of him, leaping up as he entered the room.

He looked like a demon, his face covered in ashes and soot, his fine tunic tattered and blackened, yet Elienor had to fight the incredible urge to fling herself into his arms.

He tore his gaze away and slammed the door behind him. “Olav awaits me in the stables!” he told her more sharply than he’d intended, for he still could not vanquish the image of her ring about Olav’s neck.

Elienor wrung her hands. “You will seek out Hrolf?” she asked tentatively.

Grimacing, Alarik peeled off his tunic, hurling it to the floor. “I will,” he said, meeting her gaze.

Elienor’s heart turned over at the pain nestled in his piercing silver eyes. Confused, she averted her own gaze, her heart twisting... in dread? Her vision came back to her swiftly, and she feared for his safety. More than anything, she wanted to tell him, but she knew better.

It would be a fool thing to do, for he’d not believe her anyway... even if he chose not to persecute her for it.

He moved toward her in silence, lifting her chin with a finger. ‘Tears?” he asked in astonishment. “Elienor...” He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you cry?”

Elienor tore her gaze away. She shook her head unable to speak.

“The kirken?”

She nodded the lie, swiping away the tears that rolled so shamefully down her cheeks.

Disappointed it seemed, Alarik sighed wearily, and nevertheless drew her within his embrace. “The church shall be restored,” he assured her. “That I pledge you.”

Elienor raised her tear-stained face to his, fighting back a new flood of tears. “You... you will take care?”

He blinked at her question, as though startled by it, and then his eyes lit with rare emotion as he gazed down upon her, stunned by her behest.

Alarik opened his mouth to speak, but knew not what to say. He swallowed, afeared to hope. Cupping Elienor’s chin within his palm, he nodded. He bent to kiss her lips, those lips that had made him burn from the first, those lips that shocked and plagued him still. “You take care as well, my little nun,” he whispered, lifting his mouth from hers. He bent once more, unable to resist. Her delicate lids closed as he kissed them too. He wrapped his arms about her, holding her close. “To be certain... I shall leave my best man, Sigurd Thorgoodson, to watch over you.”

The tender spell of the moment shattered.

A vivid picture of Sigurd, dancing nude over the bodies at Phillipe’s castle, was conjured within Elienor’s mind, and her eyes widened in alarm. “Nay!” she gasped, breaking free of him.

A shadow passed over his features. “I trust him more than I do mine own kin,” he assured her, his tone strained.

Sensing the pain beneath his words, Elienor nodded her acquiescence, her gaze dropping against her will to his bare chest. The sight of it made the blood course through her, and she stared as though transfixed.

His answering chuckle was low and rich. It sent quiver after quiver through her.

Gratified with the way she gazed upon him in that moment, Alarik drew her into his arms, and bent to kiss her, unable to take his leave without partaking once more of the sweetness she offered. With a hand to the small of her back, he coaxed her forward, parting her lips with gentle pressure. Elienor opened willingly unto him, arching to accept his hunger, and his body quickened in response.

He reveled in the taste of her. Never would he have imagined he’d enjoy such a thing so well.

Alas, it seemed the Fransk were good for more than swords and wine.

By God, it would be so easy to lose himself... so easy to stay. Shuddering over the need that coursed through his veins like terrible jolts of thunder, he crushed her to him, devouring her mouth without mercy.

Her hands entwined about his neck and he groaned his torment, knowing he could not have her just now.

Damn him, he was loath to leave, but he could not linger... lest the filthy culprits escape him in the meantime.

Now he had yet one more reason to kill Hrolf Kaetilson.

“Elienor,” he murmured huskily. He took a deep breath, tempering himself. His heart hammered like that of a fresh-faced youth. “If only you knew what you do to me...” He groaned in regret. “Later,” he promised, and bent to nip her gown where it cloaked the tip of her breast, a guarantee of his word.

To Elienor’s shame, she delighted in his wicked promise. Leaving her weak-kneed with anticipation, he turned his back on her, and she watched as he strode to his chest, lifted up the lid, and removed from it a fresh tunic. After it, his mail, laying it aside as he donned his tunic, and then, kneeling, he beckoned her to him with a wriggle of his finger. “I cannot arm myself alone,” he told her, a ghost of a smile twisting his lips. “Come aid me, Elienor.”

Elienor didn’t hesitate at his command. Alarik observed her advance in silence, smiling when she struggled to lift his heavy mailed tunic.

Elienor’s cheeks flushed. “I did not think it would be so heavy!”

“’Tis larger than most, I’ll warrant.” His dark eyes twinkled.

Together, they guided the mail
brynie
over his head, and once it was in place, she sat again upon the bed to watch as he positioned his scabbard across his hips. Lifting up from the coffer his crimson mantle, he drew it on, placing it carelessly over his shoulders, and then he fastened it with a brooch that was fashioned to look like a blazing sun with a hawk in its center. Finally, he retrieved his sword, inspecting it painstakingly, running his hand over the runes carved so meticulously into its gleaming blade.

“What do they mean?” Elienor asked, cocking her head in ill-suppressed curiosity.

Alarik followed her gaze to his blade, and gave a nod of comprehension. His silver eyes met her violet-blue ones. “Dragvendil,” he told her. “’Tis the name of mine sword, it means readily drawn.” He gave her a meaningful sideways glance. “As is another blade I own.”

Alarik ignored the way she shivered at his disclosure, the way she averted her widened eyes, telling himself he didn’t give a damn if she feared him still.

But he did.

Mayhap by the time he returned... Alva would have something to tell him.

If not, then mayhap he didn’t wish to know what haunted the wench.

After all, no matter what...

She was his. And would remain so evermore.

He’d not give her up—her uncle be damned, the church be damned, Bjorn be damned—Olav be damned!

With a foreboding hiss, Dragvendil was sheathed within his scabbard. The thought of Elienor’s ring deposited about his brother’s neck clenched at his gut. Without a word, he procured his shield—he wasn’t certain he trusted himself to speak—and with a final glance at Elienor, seized his helm and started for the door.

Nothing in his gait suggested he would pause to bid her farewell, but he spun abruptly in the doorway to face her, and stood an unending moment, saying nothing, his visage dark. Their gazes locked, clung to one another, and there was longing perceptible within the silver glint of his eyes... as though he anticipated something more of her, Elienor knew not what, and then a momentary sadness in them, when nothing was spoken between them.

His gaze narrowed to shadowy slivers. “Take care, my little nun,” he whispered sullenly, “for I vow I shall return.”

And with that promise he departed.