His second cousin went slowly down on one knee and passed the shrouded body into Magnus’s arms. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then stepped back a few paces to join the others. Bendik didn’t need to say anything. Magnus understood his best friend’s grief for him.
“Light as a feather,” was on the tip of his tongue as he cradled his wife against his chest for the last time, but such a remark would be inappropriate. Ida had always been dainty.
He bent to place the body in the bottom of the grave, then eased his muddied arm free. He arranged her legs, appreciative of the care his mother had taken to wrap the corpse. He preferred not to see Ida’s face again. The prominent nose inherited from her father had denied her the chance to ever be considered beautiful. Death in childbirth had stolen away what fairness of face she possessed.
He straightened and stared at the brown muck seeping slowly into the linen. “We were born the same day, you and I,” he said, his throat as dry as the Eastern plains. “But the gods have decreed we won’t die together. I will miss you.”
He swallowed hard. There was an emptiness in his heart, yet claiming he would never recover from Ida’s passing tasted like a lie. They hadn’t known a love as deep as the one his parents shared. Bryk and Cathryn Kriger could still set a room on fire with a simple glance, despite their advancing age. It had been taken for granted since the day of their birth that Magnus and Ida would wed. They got along, but it saddened him they—
A sob threatened to rob him of breath, but he coughed instead. No use yearning for what was lost forever, and the worst was yet to come.
He clenched his jaw and looked up. A grim-faced Bendik knelt on both knees in the wet grass at the edge of the grave, offering a bundle at arms’ length. Magnus accepted it and clutched his son to his chest. “Farewell, little warrior,” he croaked.
His mother sobbed, but she would find solace in her strong Christian faith. She believed the dead child had a place with God in his heaven. Bryk Kriger stood beside his wife, jaw clenched, his raw anger plain. His grandson had been denied the right to earn a warrior’s reward in Valhalla.
“It wasn’t to be,” Magnus whispered to the bundle.
He kissed his son’s forehead. The coarse muslin caught on his chapped lips. The scent of a newborn still clung to the cloth though the costly fabric shrouded a cold, lifeless body.
He nestled the child on top of the woman who’d died bringing him into the world. A world he’d brightened for only a day.
His tearful mother bent to give him Ida’s keys. The metallic clink echoed in the silence as the ring passed from her trembling hand into his. He tucked the symbols of his wife’s rank under his babe’s body.
Bendik’s mother handed him Ida’s glass beads. “I aided in my niece’s delivery,” she said hoarsely, her face wet with tears. “I never thought to be present on the day of her death.”
“Thank you, Aunt Sonja,” he said softly, turning to place the jewelry atop the body before beckoning his eldest daughter. “Come say goodbye, Aleksandra.”
“No,” the child shrieked, sending a chill racing up his spine. “He killed my mother.”
Flocks of squawking songbirds rose in flight from nearby apple trees, leaving only silence in their wake.
He tried and failed to meet the scowling gaze of the six-year-old. How to explain the loss of a mother to a little girl when he barely comprehended the events of the past few days?
She buried her face in her grandmother’s skirts. Magnus nodded his thanks to his mother, then stopped breathing altogether as his grief-stricken father picked up Brynhild, cradling the weeping four year old to his chest.
He looked back at the shrouded bodies of his wife and child. The rain had started again, a light drizzle, but if they didn’t fill the grave soon—
For a brief moment he was tempted to let his trembling legs buckle. He could lie with his loved ones until he too was dead, suffocated by the rich red earth of his native land.
But he had two beautiful daughters and was heir to his father’s title. Vilhelm Longsword, Duke of the Normans, depended on the Kriger family and its army to maintain peace and order in the valley of the Orne, and his father expected him to follow in his footsteps as Comte of Montdebryk.
Their fortress home was a symbol of power and government, a refuge for local folk in times of strife. Magnus was destined to assume his father’s seat on Vilhelm’s Ruling Council of ten Viking noblemen. He and his father and brothers had built a formidable army of mounted knights. Norsemen traditionally fought on foot, but after the battle for Chartres thirty years before, Bryk Kriger quickly realized horses gave an army a decided advantage.
As he climbed out of the grave, it struck Magnus full force that he’d not made much effort to console his daughters. Aleksandra had a right to be angry. He’d been too wrapped up in his own grief.
The priest intoned the necessary Latin prayers. Magnus bent to pick up Aleksandra in one arm, took Brynhild in the other and felt the warmth of their tears on his neck as the heavy clods of earth were shoveled into the hole.
“Freyja, watch over my daughters,” he prayed inwardly to the Norse goddess of fertility. “Protect them from their mother’s fate.”
They watched in silence until the earth was mounded over the grave. Choked with grief for their loss, he set his girls on their feet and his mother shepherded them back to the fortress. The rest drifted away until only Magnus and his father remained.
His sire lay a hand on his shoulder. Bryk Kriger had made no secret of the death of his first wife in Norway before he’d come to Francia. However, Magnus had never heard his father speak openly of his despair then. “Life goes on, my son. I didn’t think I would wed again after Myldryd. She was heavy with my child. But I was wrong. I met your mother, and—”
“I’ll not marry again, Papa,” Magnus replied, filling his lungs with the cool air. “I have my girls, and my memories.”
It sounded pathetic.
His father frowned. “Aleksandra is a courageous child, but a girl cannot be comte. You must sire sons.”
He walked away, too weary to argue.
Grab Viking Betrayed here.
About Anna
“Getting Intimate With History”
Thank you for reading VIKING DEFIANT. If you’d like to leave a review where you purchased the book, and/or on Goodreads, I would appreciate it. Reviews contribute greatly to an author’s success.
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Passion conquers whatever obstacles a hostile medieval world can throw in its path.
Besides writing, I have two addictions-crosswords and genealogy, probably the reason I love research. I am a fool for cats. My husband is an entrepreneur who is fond of boasting he’s never had a job. His ancestry is Norwegian so he LOVES this series. I live on Canada’s scenic west coast now, but I was born and raised in the UK and I love breathing life into European history.
Escape with me to where romance began and get intimate with history.
I hope you come to know and love my cast of characters as much as I do.
I’d like to acknowledge the assistance of my critique partners, Reggi Allder, Jacquie Biggar, Sylvie Grayson and LizAnn Carson.
Viking Defiant (Viking Roots Book 2) Page 16