Maidensong

by Mia Marlowe

  “And if you will have me, I give you myself, too.” He tugged her close. “Marry me, Rika.”

  “Oh, Bjorn.” Rika inhaled raggedly, but there was no air in the smoky hall. She’d given her word to Gunnar, thinking it a debt she would never be called upon to repay. That calculating toad! He must have known Bjorn’s plans when he accosted her that afternoon. And now she was caught, with no way to answer Bjorn’s question.

  An expectant silence hushed the hall. To a man, they leaned forward expecting to hear her happy acceptance of this surprisingly well-spoken proposal. Her throat constricted and no words came to her lips.

  When she tore her hands away from Bjorn and bolted from him into the star-crusted night, the stunned silence gave way to murmurs of disbelief. Bjorn was quick to follow her.

  “Rika, what’s wrong?”

  “Go away, Bjorn. I can't look at you,” she rasped, tears stinging her eyes. “Not now.”

  He caught up with her and wrapped his arms around her. She struggled for only a moment and then leaned back into his embrace, savoring it, knowing it would be the last.

  “Is this still about Magnus? You know how sorry I am about your father,” he whispered urgently into her ear. She trembled in his arms. “I will spend my life trying to make it up to you.”

  “No, Bjorn, it’s not that.” His heart thumped against her spine. Her own threatened to leap out of her chest. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Ketil would die a terrifying death and Gunnar had all but promised to murder Bjorn as well if she breathed a word.

  Bjorn whipped her around and forced her to face him, cupping her cheeks in his big hands. “You just won’t have me?”

  “I can’t have you, Bjorn,” she said.

  “What foolishness is this?” He lost patience with words and covered her mouth with his. She gave herself up to his kiss, surrendering her lips to his.

  Then with a moan, she pulled herself away from him. “I cannot marry you. I am pledged to another. I gave my word.”

  “That’s right,” Gunnar interrupted. He stepped from the shadows, the stark moonlight dividing his face into dark and light planes. “Congratulate the skald of Sogna, little brother. She is to be the wife of Farouk-Azziz, our worthy trading partner in Miklagard. A match that benefits us all.”

  “You mean that benefits you.” Bjorn turned to face Gunnar, his shoulders set. “You arranged this whole thing.”

  “Indeed, I did,” he said. “Rika and I had a nice little chat after you told me you intended to free her and she agreed to the match, didn’t you, my dear?”

  “She couldn’t agree to anything this afternoon,” Bjorn argued. “She wasn’t free and you can’t hold her to anything she might’ve said.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Gunnar directed his icy gaze at Rika. “I still hold to our arrangement. All of it.”

  “Then defend yourself, brother,” Bjorn said through a clenched jaw. His sword slid from its scabbard with a metallic ring. “Because I am going to kill you.”

  Rika gasped. Magnus had always taught her that there was no more obscene battle than one between brothers. The fact that she was the cause of the rift added to her horror.

  “I’ll be happy to meet your challenge.” Gunnar lifted a haughty brow at Bjorn, but didn’t move a finger to grasp his sword hilt. “However, before you become an oath-breaker and doom yourself to banishment on earth and Niflheim in the next world, perhaps you should be sure she’s worth your trouble. First ask the lady now that she’s no longer your thrall if she wants to keep her pledge of her own free will.”

  Bjorn hesitated. When he drew his sword, he fully expected to fight his brother. The tension in his limbs proclaimed a deadly intent. Now his oath made him stop, as it should. Oath-breaking was as bad as killing a man by stealth instead of open challenge. A man who would go back on his word was worthless. When Bjorn seemed to weigh the risk and still raised his sword in defiance. Rika gaped in surprise.

  “You will not force her to web the Arab,” Bjorn said evenly.

  “No, indeed I will not. We’ll let the skald decide for herself.” Gunnar turned to Rika. “It’s up to you. Of your own free will, do you wish to marry Farouk-Azziz? I will abide by your decision and know what to do in any case.” The surety of Ketil’s death if her answer displeased him burned in Gunnar’s pale eyes. And if she told Bjorn of the threat, Gunnar would arrange for his own brother to have ‘an accident’ as well.

  Bjorn’s taut muscles relaxed as he turned to look at her. He’d been prepared to dishonor his oath for her, and she didn’t doubt he’d fight his brother. Perhaps he’d even kill Gunnar. Her heart surged with hope, then plummeted. Bjorn would be an oath-breaker, an outcast, perhaps put to death by the Lawspeaker for his breach of fealty. Or perhaps he’d die before her very eyes this night, struck down by his brother’s blade.

  Rika couldn’t speak. She looked at Bjorn, his face earnest and intent, his heart shining in his dark eyes, so hopeful. This was the man she could have loved all her life.

  “Rika?” Bjorn’s puzzled frown told her he couldn’t understand her delay.

  Her father was gone and her sweet, simple brother was all she had left. Ketil depended on her. She couldn’t purchase her happiness at the cost of his life. She couldn’t allow the man she loved to choose dishonor. She straightened to her full height and schooled her face into impassivity. A wall rose up behind her eyes, shutting off her heart from Bjorn’s reach.

  “Of my own free will, Bjorn, I choose to wed the Arab,” she said without the slightest hint of tremor in her voice.

  It was the most convincing performance of her life.

  Gunnar stepped between them. “Did you really think a woman would be content with someone who just wants to be a dirt farmer?” Gunnar shoved her refusal into Bjorn's teeth. “When you think about it, it’s not much of a contest, is it? A man of wealth and power or a man with only a ship to his name? Can’t say I blame her.”

  The point of Bjorn’s sword dropped.

  “Come, my dear,” Gunnar said, extending a hand to Rika. “We shall go announce your impending marriage to the hall and then you can amuse the men with one of your stories.”

  He turned back to Bjorn, whose massive shoulders drooped like his sword. “Rika shall be sent forth as if she were the honored daughter of the house. And as a demonstration of your renewed fealty to me and to Sogna, little brother, you shall escort her to her new husband.” Gunnar congratulated himself on that little bit of cunning. He’d placated his trading partner, crushed a woman who’d spurned him, and rid himself of his increasingly popular brother in one bold stroke.

  He snatched up Rika’s hand since she’d made no move to take the one he extended to her. He gave her fingers a cruel squeeze as a reminder of her bargain with him for the life of her brother. As he led her back to the jarlhof, Gunnar called back over his shoulder to Bjorn. “And see that she arrives in Miklagard unspoiled.”

  Chapter 15

  “Can’t someone make that infernal child stop wailing?” Astryd demanded, as she settled back on her bedding. “It’s bad enough she’s a girl. Does she have to be loud as well?”

  “She’s just got a belly gripe, like as not.” Helge scooped up the unhappy babe and patted her back. The child stopped crying and emitted a small burp.

  “There now, lambkin, there, my dear,” the old midwife crooned as she settled the little one into her tiny bed. “She’ll sleep sweet now, I’d expect.”

  “What am I to do without you?” Astryd peered out from under the milk-white arm she’d draped across her eyes. “Are you really going, Helge?”

  “My master is off for Miklagard, he says, so there it is.” Secretly, the old woman was eager to get away from Astryd’s moaning demands, though the idea of going all the way to Miklagard to escape her seemed a bit extreme. “Torvald wants a last adventure, so he does, and your husband needs a woman-servant to attend the skald to her wedding. Since I always travel with my master, it’s a simple matter of untying two
knots with one tug, so it is.”

  “Rika, again. That redheaded witch has been a scourge to me since my brother-in-law dragged her here. So haughty, so superior in her manner, and so damnably lucky.” Astryd’s face grew red with fury. “Our trading partner in Miklagard is fabulously wealthy. And now, to see that worthless thrall elevated to the status of daughter of the house and sent off in style to become the Arab’s new wife—it’s too much to bear, Helge. The injustice of it grates on my nerves worse than that child’s high-pitched whine.”

  The babe jerked in her sleep. Helge held her breath, but Dagmar didn’t wake.

  “I wish Gunnar would consider the needs of his wife and child above those of a slave.” Astryd pouted. “He’s still angry because I birthed him a daughter, I know it. That’s just how he is, spiteful and small.”

  “There now, my lady,” Helge soothed. “Don’t be troubling yourself. I expect you’ll have a son next time.”

  “I wish I could be so sure.”

  “There are ways, my lady.” Helge breathed a silent thank-you to whichever gods might be listening. This was the opening she’d hoped for. "Back when I was a girl, there was an old wise woman in the next valley over but one, who always swore that wearing the hammer was bad luck for birthing boys.”

  “What?” Astryd’s hand went to Rika’s amber pendant at her throat.

  “Oh, ja,” Helge said earnestly. “If you want a man-child, you should start wearing an image of the Lady of Asgard, Freya. You know how particular the goddess is toward men folk. She’d help you have a son, sure enough.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me when you first arrived? There still might’ve been time.” Astryd ripped the leather cord over her head. “Take this thing out of my sight!” she shrieked. “That vile skald. I swear she did this to me on purpose.”

  Helge slipped the leather strip over her own head and secreted the offending hammer down the front of her tunic for safekeeping.

  “When will you leave, Helge?” Astryd sniffled and for a moment, the old midwife almost pitied her and the helpless child left in her negligent care.

  “Since it’s a wedding party, we leave with the tide on Friday morn,” Helge said. Marriages were always performed on the day of the week honoring Frey and Freya, the twin god and goddess of fertility and increase. Since the Jarl of Sogna had no way of influencing the actual day of Rika’s wedding to Farouk-Azziz, Gunnar had decided to get the expedition off on a propitious foot by decreeing the date of their departure.

  “But that’s tomorrow. I shall be lost without you, Helge,” Astryd whined and then her voice hardened into a harsh rasp. “But the sooner the better to be rid of that redheaded whore.”

  In her tiny bed, little Dagmar flinched at the sharp tone. She woke squirming and launched into a full blown wail.

  Chapter 16

  The monotonous scrape of stone on steel outside her door made Rika want to scream.

  “Can’t the man sharpen his weapon somewhere else?” she hissed, as she paced the small room, hands clamped over her ears.

  There was nothing else she could do. Now that she’d been elevated to the status of a free woman and endowed with the distinction of representing Sogna in an advantageous match, Rika no longer had any official duties. She went to fittings for the truly splendid wardrobe Gunnar decreed for her, but other than that, she had nothing to occupy her time.

  Bjorn had turned his small room over to her, so she at least enjoyed solitude, but each time she stepped out the door, she nearly tripped over his long legs. Gunnar had charged him with seeing her safely to Miklagard, and Bjorn took his job seriously, even to the point of sleeping lengthwise across her threshold. And if preparations for the trip called him to the Sea-Snake, he left young Jorand there in his stead. She couldn’t even make a trip to the privy without an escort. In many ways, Rika was more a prisoner now than when she wore the iron collar.

  Her gaze fell on the bone flute resting on Bjorn’s wooden chest. She picked it up and put it to her lips. A hauntingly sad tune floated from the slender pipe, the exact reflection of her mood. When the last notes died away, she noticed that the rhythmic rasp on the other side of the door was stilled. Was he there even now, listening to the wistful, hollow sound of the flute? Could he hear how she longed for him?

  Even though she saw Bjorn every day, it was as if he weren't really there. His face held that same flat emptiness she remembered from the Hordaland raid. A ruthless, dead expression. He was a man who no longer cared what became of himself or anyone else, as long as he did his duty to Sogna. Bjorn had shut down his heart, his body only working from force of habit.

  And how was she any different?

  The feel of his lips on her body came back to her unbidden and her nipples tightened into hard knots. He’d awakened her to such bewildering need. Even now, she sometimes woke at night, flushed from a vivid dream of his kiss, feeling Bjorn’s hand on her, driving her to an aching fury from which there was no release. Every bone in her body yearned for that dark warrior. Why hadn’t she given herself to him when she had the chance?

  And now, she never would.

  She put down the flute and opened her door. As she expected, Bjorn was there. He rasped the sharpening stone over the cutting edge of his sword with a swift, ringing stroke.

  He looked up at her, not bothering to disguise the loathing in his dark eyes. “If it isn’t the daughter of the house.”

  He was talking to her, finally. Rika hid her surprise. “I have a request.”

  “Your wardrobe is finished, the Sea-Snake is provisioned, and Gunnar is leaning on his karls as we speak, gathering enough silver to send a dowry for you that would beggar a king,” he said baldly. “What more could you possibly need?”

  “I wish to see Ketil.” She’d been putting it off, but they sailed with the morning tide. She could avoid telling Ketil no longer. “I need to explain things to my brother.”

  Bjorn scowled at her darkly as he slid the sword back into his shoulder baldric. “Wish someone would explain things to me,” he muttered. Nothing about this turn of events made any sense to him. Surely he knew that she wanted him, cared for him as much as he did her, but she could offer him no reason for her choice. A jarl held the lives of both his thralls and his karls in the palm of his hand. Even Bjorn was guaranteed no safety on account of shared blood. Gunnar’s threats shimmered in the air around her and she held her tongue.

  “You do need to talk to Ketil. He asked for you this morning,” Bjorn said. “Though explaining things seems to be a little out of your repertoire lately.”

  His tone was scathing, but it was the most he’d said to her since the night of his proposal. She decided to ignore the anger in his voice.

  “Can you take me to him?”

  “Delivering you where you wish to go is my duty, isn’t it?” He motioned her ahead of him. “We’ll have to ride. He’s at the new fields again. Since I’m taking you all the way to Miklagard, I think I can manage to get you up the mountain.”

  At the moment, Rika was in favor of anything that would get her out of Bjorn’s room. The tiny space smelled of him, undeniably male with a sharp, fresh tang of sea air. There was no ease for her in his chamber, and even less in his actual presence, but her conversation with Ketil couldn’t be delayed.

  She followed Bjorn across the exercise yard to the stable where he saddled the two sturdy-chested geldings. He helped her up onto the horse’s back, taking care not to let his hand linger on her waist a moment longer than necessary. It seemed to Rika that he jerked back from her as though she were made of red-hot metal fresh from the forge.

  They plodded together out of the settlement, up the steep trail to the new fields. When they crested the first rise, Rika pulled back on the reins and swiveled around to look out over the fjord. The water and sky were impossibly blue. The sheer sides of the land cupped the long arm of the sea, snugging it in a deep green embrace. A stiff breeze rustled over her and Rika inhaled the crisp scent of pine. She sig
hed.

  “What’s wrong?” Bjorn asked, nudging his horse back down the trail to stop beside her.

  “Nothing,” she said. The beauty of Sogna made her chest tighten. “It’s just this place. When you first brought me here, I hated it. Now it’s hard to think of leaving. With Magnus, I traveled around so much, no place ever felt like home. I don’t know why, but this fjord does. I can’t believe that once we embark on Friday, I’ll never see Sognefjord again. I was just wondering if Miklagard will have charms to compete with it.”

  “No doubt your new husband’s wealth will be charm enough,” he said dryly. She flinched at his words. “Don’t fret yourself, Rika. The mighty city is a wonderment, never fear. It sits astraddle two great seas with a large wall to keep its people safe from harm. And from raiders like me.”

  “You’ve been there, then?” She pressed her heels into the gelding’s flank and urged him up the path. It felt good to be talking with Bjorn again, even if his resentment was still there, roiling under the surface.

  “Once, when I was a boy.” Bjorn pressed up the trail after her. “Uncle Ornolf took me with him. Made me want to keep traveling forever. It was the best adventure of my life.” Rika heard a smile sneak into his voice.

  “What is Miklagard like?”

  “There’s nothing I can compare it to,” he said. “The city is so large it would take days to walk all the tangled rabbit warren of streets.”

  “Oh,” Rika said, suddenly feeling very small.

  “They don’t build with timber as we do. The rich use stone for their magnificent houses. The poor make do with mud-bricks.” Rika glanced back at him to see his face flushed with excitement as he remembered. “The market was something. It smelled like perfume and spicy foods and great piles of steaming camel dung all at the same time.”

  “Ew!” Rika laughed and was heartened when Bjorn laughed with her. “What’s a camel?”