His fingers inched towards where his dagger lay concealed in his boot. He hated harming a woman, but she’d left him no choice. His duty was to keep Bjartr alive and return him to his father. If there were no warriors here, then he could still win.
‘Don’t make me kill you. Remain alive.’
He inwardly smiled. This would-be Valkyrie didn’t have the stomach for killing. Her bravado was smoke and mirrors like the soothsayer had used back when he was a young boy. He breathed easier.
He palmed the dagger, and took a step forward, towards her. He could end this fight and provide Bjartr with a victory. Then they could return to the camp and he could finally gain his promised lands. All he had to do was reach the Valkyrie, wrestle that bow from her hands, then...
An arrow whizzed past his left ear, so close it ruffled his hair and landed with a thud in the back wall, knocking another bee skep to the floor which rolled to come to rest against his shin.
‘Ha—you missed.’ He gave the skep a contemptuous kick.
‘I beg to differ. I would keep still and drop that knife if I were you.’
Bees crawled up his legs, getting into his boots and the bare skin under his trousers. Several landed on his wrist, stinging him fiercely, making it difficult to hang on to the dagger. He tossed the knife, but it landed to the right of the Valkyrie.
‘Quite an amusing game we are playing, isn’t it?’ she remarked. ‘My turn again? Or are you willing to accept defeat?’
A bitter laugh escaped his throat. The Valkyrie was a better shot than he had imagined. And her planning had been exceptional. She’d known precisely where the arrow would land. A worthy foe indeed.
She jerked her head towards a bulky shape on the ground. ‘You don’t want to end up like that one. Do you still consider I need warriors to hide behind?’
A corpse with an arrow protruding from its throat lay on the floor a few feet from him. Moir whispered a prayer to the gods that it was not Bjartr. He’d given his oath to Bjartr’s father to protect him and, unlike Moir’s father, Moir kept such oaths. ‘You have convinced me. A woman like you has no need of warriors to guide her hand.’
‘Sense from a heathen. Will wonders never cease?’ She muttered something else, something he failed to catch.
‘Who?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper towards the jumble of bodies when the silence except for the buzzing of the bees became oppressive. ‘Who died? Can anyone tell me?’
Bjartr called out the man’s name from where he lay somewhere to Moir’s right. Moir breathed easier. Bjartr remained alive. He could still keep his promise to Andvarr.
The dead man was the one who had consistently undermined Moir’s counsel and had encouraged Bjartr in his more reckless acts, the one who had called Moir a coward earlier.
‘Drop all your remaining weapons.’ The Valkyrie’s ice-cold voice echoed around the hall. ‘You have more. I can see them.’
Moir pulled his eating knife from his belt and dropped it to the floor. ‘Will you kill us in cold blood? You have already captured all of us.’
‘You have surrendered. That is possibly enough for now.’ She nodded.
At her signal, someone brought in a smouldering torch. The light cast shadows over the tapestries which lined the walls.
He groaned. They were surrounded by a group of women, old men and young boys armed with swords, sticks and bows, not warriors. They all wore some sort of netting or thin cloth over their faces. One of the boys gathered up the discarded weapons. The torch was tossed on the fire, creating a thick smoke to subdue the bees.
He sank to the ground and tried to plan a way to escape. He might have surrendered for now, but not for ever. He would return his jaarl’s only son safe and sound. In doing so, he would finally erase the stain from his family’s name and regain the honour his father had casually thrown away.
‘You are our prisoners,’ the woman with the auburn hair said and her voice echoed ominously above the buzzing. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, ready for binding. Unless you would prefer an early date of reckoning with your heathen gods like your friend here.’ She gestured to a couple of the boys, who came towards them with lengths of rope.
Moir and the others did as she asked.
‘Who is the leader here?’ she called out. ‘I will parley with him and him alone.’
‘I... I...’ Bjartr’s face was streaked with tears. He cradled his arm as if it were broken. He made no move to resist the ropes which were being placed around his wrists. ‘Moir Mimirson speaks for us, Lady Valkyrie.’
‘Do you intend on killing us eventually?’ Moir pressed, grinding his teeth. And he would remind Bjartr of his words later. Bjartr had issued his last command. Moir had no intention of releasing the responsibility Bjartr had ceded to him lightly. ‘Or merely torturing us?’
‘Interesting question.’ Her teeth shone white in the light. ‘I shall have to ponder it.’
‘Answer now,’ he insisted. ‘We deserve to know our fate. What are you going to do to us?’
The woman tilted her head to one side as if she was listening for something. Satisfied the bees were calm, she removed the cloth from her face. Her features were strong but regular. There was something in the way her jaw was set. If the Mercian army had had warriors like her, the Great Horde would never have won any land.
‘At the moment you and your companions have some worth to me—alive.’ Her lips curved in a predatory smile. ‘I have, however, been known to change my mind.’
‘Who are you? My friend swears you belong to the handmaidens of Odin, the ones who pluck worthy warriors from the battlefields.’
Shocked laughter from her helpers rippled around the room.
The Valkyrie moved her chin upwards in a gesture of defiance. Her eyes were almost catlike and an unusual greenish-brown. She might not be conventionally pretty, but she was striking, the sort of a woman who would haunt a man’s passionate dreams if he were given to dreaming.
‘Ansithe, second daughter of Wulfgar, the ealdorman of Baelle Heale manor where you have trespassed. And you are, Dane?’
‘Moir, son of Mimir. We are from the North country, not from Denmark, Lady Ansithe.’
There was no need to explain about Bjartr or his parentage, not until Moir was certain he could keep his foolish charge safe. Far worse enemies than the Mercian woman who stood before them lurked, waiting to pounce. This woman clearly sought to keep them alive...for now.
‘What are your plans for us?’ he asked, trying to wipe the remaining bees from his face with his shoulder. ‘Can you share them in more detail?’
She coughed, pointedly. ‘We intend to trade you to the commander of the Danes, Guthmann Ulfson.’
The helpers who had bound them stamped their feet in approval.
Moir’s heart sunk. Guthmann Ulfson, better known and feared as Guthmann Bloodaxe. After Moir’s interference in Guthmann’s ‘sport with the ladies’ as he termed it, Guthmann had demanded Moir’s head. Bjartr’s father, Moir’s overlord, had sought to diffuse the situation by sending him to act as steward to his only child as he toured the lands of Mercia to find the correct spot for the hall Andvarr planned to build, predicting Guthmann would have forgotten about their altercation by the time Moir returned. Privately, Moir had his doubts that Guthmann would forget the fierce slash to his face any time soon.
If he was going to get Andvarr’s son back unscathed, he was going to have to disappoint this Valkyrie made flesh. There would be no meeting with Guthmann Bloodaxe. No prisoner exchange. No wholesale torture followed by an agonisingly slow death.
He willed Bjartr to keep his fool mouth shut about his importance as a hostage. If this woman considered them unimportant to Guthmann, matters would be far easier.
‘What do you think you will get in return for us? What can this Dane, this Guthmann, give you?’ he asked, feigning ignorance of his
arch-enemy. ‘Danes dislike parting with gold for no good reason.’
‘My father. My sister’s husband. They are being held hostage by him.’
A knife twisted in Moir’s gut. His fabled luck had finally run out. The Valkyrie had every reason to trade them to the Danish commander and Guthmann had every reason to end their lives or at least torture them until they were little better than dead men walking. Moir’s promise to Andvarr that he’d ensure his son became a leader was little more than a hollow boast.
He should have listened to his instinct, rather than permitting a few jibes about his courage and relationship to his jaarl to goad him into inaction. He should have forced Bjartr to relinquish the command of the felag to him days ago when the guide vanished and they’d become lost in the woods.
He clenched his fists and the ropes dug into his wrist. He could not undo the past, no matter how much he might wish to. He had learnt that lesson well years ago.
‘Are you certain you will get them back?’
Her eyes flashed green fire. ‘For a sum, they have been promised. Word arrived two days ago.’
Moir concentrated on keeping his face carefully blank. He pitied her father and brother-in-law. Few emerged from Guthmann’s care intact. But that was not his concern.
‘Are you truly that naïve? Guthmann will eat you alive.’
Chapter Two
Ansithe struggled to keep her bow steady.
Even with honey dripping down his face, the tall warlord was far too handsome and confident for her liking. It was as if he expected to get his way simply by speaking in that deep rich voice. Maybe women melted before him, but not her. The Danish warlord eat her alive? She had stopped listening to tales told around the hearth years ago.
‘Issuing orders already, Northman? From where I stand, I have an arrow trained at your throat and you have what? Your silver tongue?’
‘I use what I can.’
‘I can think of other uses for your tongue.’
His mouth quirked upwards into a half-smile. ‘Can you, Valkyrie? I generally like to know a woman for longer before putting my tongue to alternative uses, but for you I am prepared to make an exception.’
Ansithe’s cheeks heated at his heavy-lidded glance. There was no mistaking his double meaning. And he was doing it deliberately to make her squirm. She knew what she looked like in this old gown which she’d chosen for the freedom of movement it gave her rather than because it enhanced any of her meagre charms. ‘I am warning you, Northman. I am not in the mood to banter.’
‘Pity. We could have fun.’ He made an expansive gesture with his arm. ‘Put your bow away. The Danes will not pay any gold for our corpses.’
‘Why do you fear Guthmann Bloodaxe?’ Ansithe asked, keeping her bow steady and the arrow still trained at his throat.
‘I don’t fear him any more than I fear you.’
She kept her face impassive. The man was trying to save his skin. But she’d spotted his startled reaction to Guthmann’s name. Good. It meant she might get more for him from the jaarl. ‘I’m pleased you have sense enough to fear me.’
In the faint light, she slowly counted again. Six men alive and one dead. Despite her older sister Cynehild’s warnings of total disaster, she had managed to best them, even though she had had to destroy most of her beehives to do it.
She had done more than just drive them off; she had captured them all. None had escaped to raise the alarm with any waiting band of marauding warriors. How many warriors had accomplished such a feat? Her father would surely have to admit that she was as good as any son when he returned.
‘You have achieved a victory, true,’ he said in a gentle voice as if he were soothing a fractious horse. ‘But victories have a way of slipping through fingers and vanishing to nothing if proper precautions are not taken. This is doubly true in this case when the inexperienced lead.’
‘You lie. The victory is mine and will remain such until the end of time. You are my prisoners to do with as I will,’ Ansithe said in a voice that carried to all parts of the hall.
‘Only as long as we remain under your control and alive.’
Her temper rose. Was this man implying that she was less than honourable? It would be a Northern trick to slaughter prisoners, not a Mercian one. ‘I will keep you alive to exchange for my father and brother-in-law. I give you my word.’
‘You are personally acquainted with the Danish commander, then?’ he asked. ‘Do you know what he is like? How many men he has killed? How many women?’
‘I have not had the misfortune to meet him.’ A prickle ran down her back. She had heard the whispers about how he’d emptied villages and abused women. But she had to believe he’d treat her father and brother-in-law like the valuable prisoners they were...except he had already sent Leofwine’s finger back to them, adorned with his signet ring. Cynehild had taken it very badly. ‘However, Guthmann Bloodaxe must know Mercians do not part with gold for corpses either.’
‘Guthmann is an untrustworthy snake,’ the Northman said patiently. ‘He will cheat you and then he will punish you for being arrogant. You don’t want that, Lady... Ansithe.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I have seen what he does to women and the pleasure he takes in his sport.’
There was something in his voice which gave her pause. If Guthmann’s reputation was far from savoury in the North, it was not her concern. ‘Tell me something new.’
‘Guthmann doesn’t expect you to raise the ransom,’ the Northman continued. ‘He seeks to use your failure as an excuse to attack you and gain these lands. You will not recover your father by sending my men to him. You will lose everything when you seek to parley with him.’
Ansithe drew herself up to her full height and met his ice-blue gaze without permitting her own to blink. ‘That is my decision to make, not yours, Northman who speaks my language better than I’d have credited.’
‘Other ways exist, other opportunities to do what you want without endangering all you hold dear. Listen to me. Trust me.’ His voice lowered to a whisper, one which made her think of soft fur piled high and velvet darkness. His gaze lingered on her body. ‘You are not naturally a warrior. Mercian women, particularly women as stunning as you, are not trained in the arts of war. You are used as prizes to be won. I’ve learnt that much in my time on this fair island.’
She ground her teeth. As if flattery could make her change her mind. She knew her defects. No one would ever think her stunning. ‘I’m not most women.’
‘Something we can agree on. I have never encountered a Mercian woman like you before.’
Never encountered a woman like her before.
She knew that damning phrase from her father. Normally said with a curl of his lip after she had done something he found particularly trying. Ansithe concentrated on the rushes and filled her lungs with air, trying to rid herself of the familiar sense of complete inadequacy.
Everything had worked out beautifully. Even Cynehild, who had watched from the shadows, was going to have to admit that Ansithe had accomplished something beyond all imagining and prediction. She was the heroine. Finally, she was the saviour of her family instead of the near destroyer.
The knots in her stomach eased. ‘You have little idea what I am.’
‘Perhaps I should like to learn.’
His gaze raked her form again, but this time she remembered her height, gangly arms and less-than-well-endowed chest. She’d spent years waiting for the luscious curves her sisters and mother enjoyed to appear, but they remained conspicuous by their absence. Then, one day, she’d decided that they should not matter. Curves would not help her scrub floors, keep bees or do any of the myriad other tasks she needed to do after her mother’s death. She would be practical and capable, instead of waiting to be rescued by some handsome kind-hearted warrior.
‘I know what is best for my family, for my people, for these lands,’
she said and concentrated on standing erect. ‘I defended them well today.’
‘Don’t be too proud to consider alternatives—that was one of the first lessons my jaarl taught me,’ the Northman continued in that soft persuasive voice of his. ‘Ways which will be more beneficial to you and these lands are available.’
Ansithe curled her fists and ignored his rich tones. ‘Six Northern warriors must surely equal two Mercians. And I am sure he will take some interest in you. You know his name.’
‘It is possible to know a name and not know the person,’ he continued with a faint smile playing on his lips. ‘What is going to stop him from simply attacking your estates? He will see you are a company of women rather than trained warriors capable of a fight.’
‘I presume you are trained, and yet we defeated you.’
The Northern warlord winced. He slowly looked around the hall, in search of more malleable prey. ‘Do you make the final decision?’
Ansithe kept her gaze away from Cynehild and her disapproving frown. No doubt her younger sister, Elene, also watched the exchange with round eyes from her vantage point. ‘From where I stand, I have earned that right.’
‘Then I will have to try harder to persuade you that you are making a mistake, before you compound your error and lose everything while gaining little.’ Moir’s mouth quirked upwards as if he was anticipating the task of persuading her. ‘I come from the North. I do not bow to the Danish King. Return us to the Northmen. You will get a better price for us if you deal with jaarls from the North than the Danes.’
‘But Guthmann holds my family. All I care about is their freedom.’
The annoying man gave a pointed cough. ‘The jaarl Andvarr comes from the North. Send word to him. Send me.’
Send him? As if he’d return. He would leave his men behind and free himself. He had not led from the front, but had entered after the battle had begun.
Giving in to her anger, she marched up to him and put the point of her arrow against his throat. Although she was tall, she still only reached his nose. ‘What would you have me do? Let you go on the whisper of a promise?’
A Deal With Her Rebel Viking (HQR Historical) Page 2