by A. E. Rayne
Eydis almost didn’t reply, but she could sense that someone was standing beside Evaine, and she didn’t want to appear rude. ‘Yes, I hope so.’
‘Hello, Eydis,’ Runa Gallas smiled. ‘That storm is awful, isn’t it? I wish they’d keep the doors locked. It feels as though the wind’s about to tear them off their hinges!’
Evaine turned to her mother with an embarrassed grimace, wishing the old woman away. And though Runa was only middle-aged, in Evaine’s youthful eyes, she was a grey-haired, fussing old crone always trying to get in between her and Eadmund, the man Evaine knew she was fated to be with.
She wished Runa would just go away and bother someone else.
Eydis smiled. ‘I like storms.’
‘Do you? Well, I am surprised,’ Runa said, ignoring Evaine huffing and puffing beside her. While they were in the hall, with Eirik and his guests present, she felt much more confident around her daughter, knowing that Evaine would not dare do anything to cause trouble. She needed to keep on the right side of Eirik Skalleson if she wanted to marry his son, though Runa secretly hoped that Eirik would never encourage such a match. The thought of Evaine as the next Queen of Oss was a nightmare she didn’t want to live through. ‘Next, you’ll tell me you like the cold too!’
‘Well...’
‘Runa. Evaine,’ Eirik grinned, coming to a stop in front of the dais with three of his guests. ‘Have you met the Berras’ yet? Lord Hector and his good wife, Cotilde. Their daughter, Orla, too.’
Runa’s face, usually tense and anxious, broke into a genuine smile. She was always pleased to meet new people. Oss was a tiny island; a place she had lived her whole life, and though she had no real desire to leave her home behind, new faces were always welcome.
Evaine’s nostrils flared with distaste, though she fixed a smile on her face, running her eyes over the girl. Hardly a girl, she thought, trying not to sneer. She looked like a desperate woman, well past her prime, with that gaping, toothy mouth and all that ridiculous orange hair. Not someone Eadmund would look twice at, she was sure. Hardly a woman suited to being the next Queen of Oss.
‘I am sorry for the weather,’ Runa apologised. ‘It won’t leave you with the best impression of our island, will it?’
‘No, but it will give you an honest one,’ Evaine smirked.
Eirik glared at her, not sure why Evaine felt the need to share her opinion about anything. The irritating girl was like a wild horse that Morac had failed to tame. She was quickly becoming a problem he would have to attend to.
But Orla smiled happily. ‘I must admit that I like stormy weather. It’s quite exciting really, all that wind and rain.’
They looked at her as though she was mad, listening as the howl of the wind intensified into a painful cry.
Eydis felt puzzled. Her dreams warning her of trouble contrasted sharply with the sweetness she could hear in Orla Berras’ voice. She sounded as though she was often smiling. It was confusing, and Eydis started to doubt her dreams again, wondering what use she was to her father at all. Perhaps she was simply imagining everything? Causing him problems by revealing what she saw?
Then the loud bellow of Thorgils Svanter distracted them all as he burst inside, doors banging behind him, shaking rain and sleet from his shaggy hair and furry cloak, stomping his way towards the fire.
Eirik sighed in relief, seeing his bedraggled son standing with him.
Standing was a good start.
He encouraged Orla and her parents towards the fire, realising that he needed to get back to Ake Bluefinn who appeared to be looking around for something to drink. ‘I’ll go and grab that son of mine and be right back, then I think it will be time for something to eat!’
Evaine turned to follow him, but Runa put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back.
‘I don’t think the king wants you there,’ she said nervously. ‘Best we leave them to it.’
Evaine flung Runa’s arm away, almost snarling as she headed after Eirik, only to be blocked by Morac, who grabbed her hand and bustled her towards the green curtain that shielded the bedchambers from view.
Once they were safely out of sight, in the torchlit corridor, Morac spun around, peering at his daughter down his long thin nose. His usually sallow face was almost purple with anger. ‘You will not cause trouble, Evaine. Not now. Let Eirik have his fun without any interference, do you understand me?’ he hissed, watching her face twist and turn as she tried to escape his hold. Glancing up and down the corridor with cold grey eyes, Morac was relieved to see that they were alone. ‘You won’t help your cause by becoming a problem, will you?’
‘And if Eadmund likes this girl?’ Evaine panicked. ‘What if he does?’
Morac laughed. ‘Eadmund? He hasn’t liked one of them yet, has he? Why would he start now? And, more to the point, why would she want Eadmund? He’s a stinking mess. You were a mere child the last time he held a sword long enough to do damage to anyone except himself. Why would a lord like Hector Berras want his only daughter married to Eadmund?’
‘Perhaps because he wants her to be a queen, married to a king, which Eadmund will soon be!’ Evaine wasn’t convinced by her father’s argument, and she was starting to worry that Orla Berras looked more likely than any of Eirik’s previous candidates combined. Evaine could feel her heart throbbing in her chest at the thought of Eadmund being tempted by the woman, and, clamping her teeth together, she seethed at her father. ‘I will not let anyone have Eadmund, Father. No one! No one can have him but me. You know that!’
Morac was struggling to maintain his patience around his increasingly erratic daughter, though he needed to calm her before Eirik stepped in. ‘Go then, but keep your distance,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be able to stop anything if Eirik banishes you from the fort. And we all know that he’s capable of it.’ Morac eyed Evaine sternly, but she was already brushing stray hairs away from her face, smoothing down her pretty blue dress. And before Morac could open his mouth to say any more, she spun around, flouncing out through the curtain, scanning the hall for Eadmund.
Morac watched her go, shoulder blades tight, the deep crease between his wiry grey eyebrows a jagged cut. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his face of worry as he followed after her.
‘Lothar’s going to have trouble with Jael,’ Gudrum murmured, his eyes on the warriors grappling and grunting in the training ring. The ring where he had trained and fought against his friends, his enemies. Ranuf. Gant too. ‘Can’t see why he let her live. After Ranuf died? What was he thinking? Surely you warned him, old friend?’ He glanced at Gant, whose stern face had never given much away. Despite his grey hair, he appeared little changed from when Gudrum had left Andala. He was still lean, his hands calloused from working daily with a sword.
Much like him.
Gant didn’t move his head, his eyes seemingly fixed on the battle between two reasonably matched warriors, neither prepared to give in. Boys. Boys like he had been with Gudrum once. Gant had never liked him, but he’d always admired how tough he was in battle. Ranuf had kept him by his side for years, insisting that victories would be easier to come by with skilled warriors working together, whether they liked them or not.
That had been true.
There had been many victories to savour, but the bitter taste of Gudrum’s betrayal remained.
‘You say that,’ Gant muttered. ‘But you could have killed Jael. I’m sure Lothar would have considered it. Instead, you chose to take her horse. That’s the sort of game-playing that got your family into this mess in the first place.’
Gudrum sucked cold air through cramped teeth. The lice may have left his head, but they now appeared to be living in his beard. The itch was so intense that he wanted to scratch his chin until it bled. But he grunted, shoving his hand down by his side instead, pressing it against the railings they leaned over. ‘You think I should kill her for Lothar? Me?’
‘You had reason to then. You’ve reason to now,’ Gant suggested coldly. ‘And Lothar would
thank you. So you choosing not to says you’re either afraid that she’d beat an old man like you, or you prefer a little torture to a helping of revenge. Not sure your son would agree either way.’ He was working hard not to turn around and punch Gudrum in his smug mouth. ‘Think I’d rather my father killed my murderer than played children’s games with her.’
‘Ha!’ Gudrum laughed, ignoring the anger that felt hot as it rushed up his body. Gant Olborn had bettered him more than once over the years. Many times, in fact. Ranuf’s favourite. His pet. And now, here he was, betraying Ranuf’s children by clinging to Lothar like a desperate barnacle. Old and soon to be irrelevant, Gudrum was sure. ‘Seeing as how you didn’t know my son well enough to say such a thing, how about we leave it to me to decide the best way to avenge his death.’ He snorted, turning his attention back to the fight as the younger of the two men felled his opponent with a powerful hook to the jaw. ‘Death is easy. Final. Living with loss... that’s what’s hard. Losing everyone you love, one by one... that’s what’s hard. Death is no revenge. Where’s the pain in that?’
Gant heard the bleakness in Gudrum’s voice, and he turned towards him, but Gudrum’s eyes appeared to shrink even further into his hairy face, masking the true meaning of his words.
‘Besides,’ Gudrum smiled, pushing himself away from the railings as the rain came down with force. ‘I need a new horse.’
4
The storm worsened, and nobody left the hall.
Parts of the roof felt as though they were lifting, which worried Eirik who had only just finished having it replaced; though it was obvious now that it hadn’t been constructed with much skill or care considering the leaks that were multiplying as rain dripped down into buckets.
The three members of the Berras family didn’t appear to notice. Eirik had ensured the kitchen staff remained busy, and the mead girls attentive with their buckets of golden liquid. Though, panicking suddenly, he spun around, searching for Eadmund, worrying how much mead his son had already consumed. He raised his eyebrows at Thorgils who sat at a table, arm wrestling Torstan, which seemed like a pointless exercise, Thorgils’ arms being nearly twice the size of his much smaller friend’s. Thorgils blinked, losing concentration as Eirik inclined his head towards where Eadmund sat with a group of friends, urging him to go and check on him.
Torstan slammed Thorgils’ hand down onto the table to a few hearty cheers, but Thorgils was already on his feet, worried too; he could see Ake Bluefinn eyeing Eadmund curiously.
Pushing his way into the darkest corner of the hall, where flaming torches spluttered through a deluge of leaks, Thorgils found Eadmund leaning on their friend Erland. He was slopping more mead over the side of his cup than he was managing to deliver into his mouth, attempting to tell a joke in between gulps.
Thorgils stopped.
Eadmund looked happy. Almost. And turning around, he could see that Ake had turned away, talking to one of his lords. Thorgils shrugged at Eirik, not seeing any need to intervene. Eirik frowned back, nervous, but he agreed. Best to just wait and see. He could feel himself almost holding his breath, though, too afraid to look away, knowing that Eadmund had ruined everything else he had tried. It was surely inevitable that he would shove this off a cliff too, but... perhaps not?
‘Is there somewhere we can go and talk? In private?’ Ake wondered from his right. He was a hulking man, though quiet-spoken, with a deep, reassuring voice; a man whose reputation as the greatest warrior Alekka had ever seen appeared not to have gone to his head.
Eirik nodded, leading Ake through the curtain, down the corridor towards the bedchambers. He had another chamber reserved for more private conversations, and turning to the right, he pushed open the door, pleased to see a fire burning. Wind rushed down the smoke hole, rain sizzling the flames, but the room felt almost warm. A jug waited on the table with two of Eirik’s finest cups. Bronze, ornately decorated with coiled knots. From Kalmera. A wedding gift for his third wife.
He frowned suddenly, tension rising and falling, trying to leave his worries about Eadmund at the door as he made his way to two chairs placed on opposite sides of a low table. Motioning for Ake to take one, Eirik took the other.
‘You have a lovely daughter,’ Ake began, grabbing the cup Eirik handed him. Eirik’s wine was a delight, flavours he had never tasted before: an odd combination of crowberries and rhubarb that had him intrigued, ready to take a barrel or two back to Stornas with him. ‘It makes me wistful for my own. They wanted to come, of course, but they are so young. Perhaps next time, when I shall have one more, or maybe this time, a son?’
The light in the chamber was diffuse, a dull golden glow flickering around the dark room, and Eirik could see the warmth in Ake’s eyes. He smiled. ‘I wish you luck with that. It’s hard to have a daughter, especially a blind one. I worry about her. Spend my time trying to think of how to keep her safe. Though, it’s been much easier than having a son!’
Ake smiled, though he did not laugh. He could almost feel the pain in Eirik’s words, and though they had been enemies for as long as they had been kings, he did not revel in it. He was a serious man with a hooked nose; short, thinning brown hair and a long, olive-skinned face dotted with stubble. Thick eyebrows sat low over a pair of prominent brown eyes; sometimes full of merriment, often weary. Being a king had sucked the fight out of him.
Ake had been hungry for Alekka’s throne as a young man; fought for it for nearly two decades. Through blood and grief and death and pain, he had conquered every enemy, every rival, every faction in Alekka. Made it to the throne alive. And then he’d met his wife, and she had given him two daughters, and now, like Eirik, he lived in a world of worry and problems.
Always fretting about what came next.
Ake ran a hand over his stubble, scratching his cheek as he leaned forward. ‘Though we have been enemies, we have more in common than most friends.’
Eirik smiled, sipping his wine, relaxing slightly. ‘True.’
‘It is better, I think, to have more friends than enemies,’ Ake suggested. ‘To unite with those you can respect and admire, instead of remaining stuck, clinging to the old ways. Living in the past, holding on to those things which no longer serve us. We need to move towards the future we want to create for our children and their children. A better one than either of us had.’
‘I agree,’ Eirik nodded. ‘What was the point in all we fought for? Just to keep fighting till we die? Not even a moment to savour victory? We claimed thrones with our own blood, yet how little time is there to sit on them and enjoy what we built?’
A bowl of nuts sat on the table, and Ake grabbed a handful, popping two in his mouth. ‘Ahhh, now you’re just teasing me, Eirik. Sitting and savouring? Don’t you mean sitting and listening to moaning, arguing, raving people who all want something from you? Mother and father to them all? Arbiter of every argument? Chooser of every fate? Ha! We may as well be gods!’
They both laughed, enjoying the rare occasion of being able to share the burden with one who knew what it felt like to carry the same cumbersome weight of leadership.
Thunder crashed, and Ake’s face was suddenly serious. ‘The alliance we forge will be important for both our kingdoms. More important than either of us realises today.’
Eirik had the distinct feeling that Ake had more on his mind than he was prepared to reveal.
‘Alekka is a big kingdom. So much land, but spread wide and thin, much of it uninhabitable,’ Ake went on. ‘My people are growing divided again, ruled by their hate for their neighbours.’ He sat back, his bloated belly protruding, embarrassed for a moment that he’d let himself turn into a soft-bellied king. ‘My kingdom is held together by the smallest of stitches now. Held together by me. By my reputation. It’s all we have, in the end, isn’t it? Our reputations. What people believe about us, true or not. And when they stop believing...’
‘You sound as though you’ve seen something coming,’ Eirik wondered, draining his cup. ‘You have a dreamer?�
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Ake froze. He knew Eirik Skalleson’s last wife had been a dreamer. A woman he had taken from Tuura, though how Eirik felt about dreamers himself, Ake wasn’t sure.
Still, he had to trust someone.
‘I do. And she sees trouble coming. Always trouble.’
Eirik shook his head. ‘I know how that feels. My dreamer sees the same.’
Ake was surprised by that. He had not seen any dreamers in Oss’ fort; none that Eirik had revealed to him at least. ‘Well, we are both in the shit, then!’ he laughed. ‘So we may as well come together. Things will only get worse, won’t they? Better to help each other swim through it all.’
Eirik lifted the wine jug, offering it to Ake, enjoying the rich tang of the deep-red liquid warming his chest. ‘We may as well,’ he agreed, banging his cup into Ake’s. ‘So tell me, then, what is it that you have in mind?’
After her unsatisfying talk with Edela, Jael had left the cove behind, walking further away from the fort, needing to think. She had wanted to head for the stables, take Tig and ride until they couldn’t be found, but she couldn’t leave her family behind. Lothar dangled them over her like an unspoken threat, glinting eyes always seeking her out when he was talking to Gisila or Edela or Axl. Even Aleksander.
Like a cat considering a mouse.
No matter how playful that cat pretended to be, padding gently with soft paws, its sharp claws were always there, hidden, ready to strike at any moment.
Finally returning to the fort as the afternoon shadows lengthened, Jael was irritated to see Osbert walking towards her, a familiar smirk on his face. Her cousin was an annoying shadow at times, always where she least wanted him to be.
She needed to find Aleksander and work out a plan.
She didn’t need to deal with Osbert.
The rain showers of earlier in the day had given way to a luminous blue sky and a late summer warmth, and as Jael hurried around Osbert, she almost felt like removing her cloak.