With his hand on the mare’s neck, soothing her, he drew the blade across her throat, cutting deeply so that blood washed over his arm. She went immediately down on her front knees, and Vali went down with her, cooing softly at her ear as her rear haunches dropped. When she died, her head simply bowed until her nose touched the earth, and there she stayed, as if she had dozed off.
Emotion surged up from Vali’s heart. He cared little for this beast, except that his wife had loved her, and he loved his wife. He bent his head and buried his face in the long, creamy mane.
“Brenna,” his whispered, his throat tight and his heart heavy. “My love. Be strong. I am coming.”
It had not occurred to him that she might not be alive. He would not allow that thought to take hold in his mind. She was alive, and she was waiting, and he would go to her.
A beetle lumbered across the earthen floor near Brenna’s face, and she brought her chained hands up and caught it. She ate it quickly and scanned the floor for more. Her first sustenance in days—she had lost track of how many days.
Daylight crept around the door and through cracks in the walls, so she might have used the sun and stars as her guide to track time, but she couldn’t account for the periods of unconsciousness that had broken her understanding from the beginning of this ordeal.
Calder had beaten her badly, and they had been at the coast before she’d woken. When she’d struggled against her bonds, he’d beaten her again, and she’d woken to the rocking of a ship on the open sea.
They had not dressed her. She had been dropped on the floor of the ship in her linen sleeping shift, and a fur had been tossed over her. She had been offered occasional drops of fresh water but no food. By the time they had landed at Geitland, she was nearly delirious with cold, hunger, and fever.
Leif had been there, though he had done nothing more than watch her. He had not spoken to her at all. No one had spoken to her. She had tried to speak once and been kicked in the head for it. So she’d spent the voyage in silent misery and grief.
Leif was with Åke, even now. The thought that they had all been betrayed by a man whom they’d trusted utterly, whom they’d loved, who had led them—that thought burned a hot fire of hatred in her soul. Brenna thought it was that fire, that need, which had kept her alive and undefeated so far.
With a rope around her neck and wrists, in nothing but her shift, they had dragged her from the Geitland docks. People throughout the town had come to gape at the God’s-Eye so humbled. When they brought her to this dark hovel, they had shackled her neck and wrists. The shackle around her neck was connected by a chain bolted deep into the earth. The chain was no longer than the distance from her fingertips to her elbow. She could not sit up. She could barely move at all. When her body needed to shed its meager waste, it did so where she lay.
Since they’d left her here, no one had come in, not even with water. Although she had no understanding of how much time had passed, although it seemed infinite, Brenna knew it could not have been long. Without water, in her ill, weakened state, she would survive no more than a few days.
She didn’t understand Åke’s purpose. If it was to kill her, why had he not simply opened her throat? It could not be to reclaim her as his shieldmaiden, because he had abased her thoroughly. And he had, she feared, killed Vali. No, she knew he had. She had overheard enough of the raiders’ talk during the voyage to know that they had left death and devastation behind them.
Åke knew her; he had to know that she would never bow to him again after this.
So why did she still draw breath? Was it her eye? If so, if he feared Odin’s wrath, why was she chained to the ground?
Knowing the answer was irrelevant, she focused her mind on the question even so, because it was something that might be answered. Something that would keep her reason engaged, her sanity, and kept hopelessness and grief at bay. She worked the puzzle and waited for another beetle to cross close enough, until hunger, thirst, hurt, exhaustion, and illness took their due, and she slept.
~oOo~
The creak and drag of the iron hinges and heavy wooden door woke her. The room was full dark; it was night. Hours later? Or days? She didn’t know.
Staring into the darkness in the direction of the open door, she waited to see who would come in. Whoever it was bore no torch, but there was just enough starlight to show her a large body that filled the door space. A man, then. Come for what? No one yet had used her to sate their itch, but it was the last abasement she could think of, so she expected it would happen soon. Perhaps that was the punishment Åke had in mind for her—to turn her into a slave whore.
The door closed, taking what little light the starlight had offered. Brenna waited.
Then she heard the familiar slosh of water in an oaken bucket and the drag of a ladle along its side. Her dry throat cramped hard with needful hope.
“Brenna.”
Leif’s voice killed her hope. If he had come to bring her water, she would not take it. She would take nothing from him. She had not used her voice in days, she had not slaked her thirst in she knew not how long, but she opened her mouth and forced the word “No” from her cracked lips.
She heard the press of his boots on the earth and the slosh of water in the bucket as he came to her. When he crouched before her, he was near enough that she could make out his vague shape.
“I have water for you. And leiv bread. And I would talk with you. You must heed me, my friend.”
“I will take nothing from you.” The words came as if dragged over loose rock. “You are no friend. I would choke your life out with the chains that bind me if I could.”
Again, she heard the glorious and agonizing song of moving water, and then it fell over her lips. Leif was pouring the full ladle lightly over her face. The bliss of the cool water wetting her feverish skin, seeping through her parched lips, drizzling down her swollen tongue, was too much, and a whimper escaped her.
“I understand your hatred. But Brenna, I am your friend still. I am the reason Åke did not kill you. I am the reason Vali still lives—and, I hope, more of our friends. We were too few to defeat him at the castle. So I am trying to keep you alive until we can make you free.”
“Vali lives?” Her erratic heart stopped for a moment.
“He does. And so do you. Åke believes I killed him, but I did not. I got him out of the way so that he would live.” As he spoke, he held the ladle out to her. This time, she lifted her chained hands and held it to her lips. She would have drunk it all except that he pulled it from her before she could.
“And I? You could not have gotten me out of the way?” Brenna hated the petulance in her broken voice, but this bit of kindness, and this sliver of hope, had opened a crack in her heart.
She felt his hand on her face. When she didn’t flinch away, he brushed her matted hair back gently. “Åke would not have left you behind, alive or dead. There was no way for me to hide you. You are his gift from the gods. He was enraged that you wanted to leave him. Please forgive me, but it was my idea that he could make you a slave again. It was all I could think to do to keep your heart beating.”
“I will not serve him. Vali will come, and we will destroy Åke and all he loves.”
“Vali has no ship, Brenna, and few men. I believe he will come, but not for months, until he can build a seaworthy vessel and gather a force. Until then, you must live. You must give Åke what he wants. Living is the important thing. Perhaps we will find a way ourselves, and you will be free when Vali returns.”
As he spoke, he found her hands and placed a small chunk of the flat bread in them. Brenna shoved it into her mouth and swallowed it so quickly that she barely tasted it.
But the flavor lingered, richer and more wonderful than ever leiv bread had tasted before.
“More. Please.”
He gave her a drink first, and then another small chunk. “No more, Brenna. It has been long since you’ve eaten, and you will be ill and lose the good of it. I will come a
s I can, in the night, and help you. I will try to bring you herbs for your fever soon. But I must be careful. I cannot cross Åke now. Not until we have a way to defeat him. We must both comply until then.”
Brenna tried to take small bites of this chunk and make it last. “I cannot serve him, Leif. I have served him well these long years, and yet he would have destroyed everything I love. He might yet have. I cannot serve him, no matter the purpose. I will not.”
“If you do not, Brenna, first he will break you—and then, when you break or he loses interest in the breaking, he will kill you. And Vali will come back to grief.”
She would simply have to make the breaking of her a challenge, then, and keep his interest until she could take his head.
~oOo~
The water that her jailers gave her was brackish and full of silt. No food was offered. But Leif came in the nights with clear water and bread. He even brought a small bite of meat. And herbs for her fever.
He had come to her three times, and her fever had passed, when one of her jailers—a rotund, red-nosed brute named Igul, whom she’d known of in her earlier days living in Geitland—slammed the door open and let bright sun spill into her dim hole. She blinked in the sudden light and tried to see him.
Usually when he came, he dropped the water bucket before her and made a coarse comment about her filth while he checked her chains. She shrank back against the wall as far as she could. He had a repulsive reputation for his treatment of female prisoners. He had not yet touched her, but she remained leery. She supposed her eye gave her some protection even now. Her attitude about people’s superstitions had changed since her life in Estland. Before she had understood that others’ fear and awe could be exploited, but she had still wished it away. Now she recognized it as a truly potent weapon and a shield.
She had come to an understanding of herself in Estland, and was no longer her own enemy. Now, she valued the power of her eye, and in her current situation, she was especially grateful to have its protection.
This time, she noticed that the water in the bucket was clear, and instead of a ladle, there was a wad of linen floating in it.
And then a second man came into the hut, his sword unsheathed. Brenna didn’t recognize him, but she knew she was in danger, and she shrank back again, the chain tying her to the ground going taut.
Igul reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, then bent low and got his ruddy face down with hers. “The jarl wants to see you. You’re in no fit state for the great hall, so I’m going to clean your filth. I’ll unchain your hands, but if you give fight, my friend there will shove that blade so far up your hole you’ll taste iron. Do you understand?”
Days with the merest possible sustenance, overcome with ague, and tied to the ground, had left Brenna too weak to fight with anything but her mind. They could do to her body what they would; even if they unchained her completely, she could not have stopped them.
She nodded.
Igul opened the shackles on her wrists, and then released her neck as well. “You move how I say,” he grumbled and yanked her by her arm up to her feet.
Brenna’s feet and legs exploded in thousands of painful pricks. Her knees promptly gave, and she fell.
Igul crouched low again. “You stand, or I’ll shackle your neck again and chain you to the wall.” Again, he yanked her up, and this time, prepared for the pain and weakness, Brenna managed to keep her feet.
Then Igul tore her tattered, filthy shift from her body, and she stood naked before these two men and anyone who passed by the open door. With that, Brenna found some last reserve of strength, and she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. She would not cower before these vile men.
When he looked at her face, she caught his eyes and held them, and she took no small comfort in the way his contemptuous smirk faltered in the focus of her right eye, and he looked away. He feared her. Even now.
The water was icy cold, and Igul was brutishly rough as he scrubbed the linen over her body. He was especially cruel—and especially thorough—at those parts of her body he thought his touch would shame her. His fingers, covered in the increasingly soiled linen, probed deep between her legs. He hurt her, and disgusted her, but she stood tall and silent. She would make him pay for this.
When he was finished, he dumped the bucket over her head. Then, while her body was still wet, he dropped a clean, light woolen shift over her head and ordered her to put her arms through.
“You still look like a half-rotted rat, but it will have to do.”
He shackled her again, with a longer chain, and the iron sat even more painfully now on her raw skin. Then he pulled on the chain and dragged her out of her prison and into the daylight.
~oOo~
The great hall was nearly empty. Åke sat in his fur-covered seat, his posture relaxed. His grown sons, Calder, Eivind, and Ulv, sat nearby. Leif was with them. And Viger.
Brenna had not seen Viger since before the feast in Estland. She remembered missing him at that feast. Now she wondered if he had been somehow instrumental in the betrayal. He must have been.
She stared long at Viger, until the man felt the heat of her contempt and looked away. Yes, Brenna thought. Viger would know the bite of her blade.
She had neither shield nor sword, of course. But that was a matter of details.
“Brenna God’s-Eye,” Åke said, drawing her attention to his seat. “How fare you?”
Before she tried to speak, she swallowed to be sure her tongue was not too dry to move. “I am well.”
He smiled. “You are strong, there is no doubt. There are few men who would yet be able to stand after so long in your circumstance.”
There was no question to be answered, so Brenna remained silent. She stared and waited.
“I bring you here, in private, to save your dignity. I would have you renew your oath to me. That is all I ask. And then you will be released to serve me as you did when first you came to me.”
“As your thrall.” It wasn’t a question. She knew the answer. And it was irrelevant in any case.
“Of course. You think that I would allow you to bear a sword after the way you’ve disrespected my fine care of you? Trust is lost, Brenna God’s-Eye. It must be regained. Perhaps someday it will. But for now, you will return to serve me and mine.”
She found her full height. “I will not. I abjure you.”
The smug, false benevolence with which Åke had been speaking, and the easygoing posture he had affected, vanished with those words. His expression went dark with violence, and he sat forward. “What power do you think you have to abjure me? I am your jarl!”
“No. You are not.” Brenna could just see, from the corner of her right eye, Leif reacting in some way. She didn’t need to change her focus from Åke to know that he was upset with her. But she would not yield. Let Åke try to break her. He would fail.
For a long silent moment, while tension crackled in the room, the jarl and the shieldmaiden stared at each other. Finally, Åke sat back, affecting his calm demeanor again.
“You will break, Brenna God’s-Eye. And I will watch it happen.” Looking beyond her, he addressed Igul. “You know where to take her.”
As Igul grabbed her chain leash, Leif stood. “Jarl Åke.”
Everyone turned and gave him their surprised attention. Åke seemed ready to order Igul to take Leif as well. “You have something more to say, Leif?”
Despite the obvious threat, Leif’s voice was steady. “She is the God’s-Eye. Do you not invite the gods’ displeasure to do her harm?”
Åke answered Leif’s question with his eyes on Brenna. “So you say. Yet the gods gave her to me, and she abandoned her oath. She lay with my enemy and wed him. The gods agree that such disloyalty must be punished.” He nodded at Igul. “Take her and prepare her. I think the rods will do. Let us see the limit of the God’s-Eye’s strength.”
~oOo~
Brenna knew fear, fear so deep her empty belly felt full of ice, but s
he didn’t fight. She was too weak to win, and fighting to lose looked like nothing so much as desperation. Igul took her into the room where Åke had his questioning done. Justice was meant in their world to be determined at a thing, democratically among the members of the community, but Åke had always meted out certain kinds of justice beyond the notice of his people.
She was stripped again, and then bound prone to a long table, stained dark with the blood of others before her. She knew what Åke had meant when he’d mentioned ‘the rods.’ Face-down, with her arms and legs shackled and bound to the table legs, she knew what would happen next.
God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) Page 24