The Viking's Bride

by Darlene Mindrup

  Astrid’s eyes fluttered open, then widened in surprise. “Mist?” she croaked.

  “I am here, Astrid,” she comforted, and took her sister’s hand.

  “I knew you would come,” she whispered hoarsely. “I prayed to your God, Mist. I asked Him to save me.”

  A tidal wave of joy rushed through Mist at her sister’s confession. Were the seeds she had planted at last bearing fruit? “And He did, elskling,” she returned softly, forcing the words past the lump in her throat.

  Bjorn rushed into the room, pausing just inside the doorway. Seeing Astrid, he ran to her side, sliding to his knees beside her.

  “Astrid!” he whispered. She reached for him, and he cautiously took her hand as though afraid she might break. He looked to Mist for permission, and she nodded her head, rising from her seat to give them some privacy. Bjorn took her place on the side of the bed and carefully folded Astrid into his arms.

  Valdyr stood in the doorway, and Mist joined him. They both glanced at the couple, but quickly looked away, their eyes connecting in a look of complete understanding.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  Still overcome with emotion, she smiled widely. “I think she will be fine.”

  Drustan motioned them out of the room. They followed him to another room that contained a table and four chairs and seated themselves while Drustan collected a platter of bread and cheese and set it before them.

  “You must be hungry. Eat,” he admonished, seating himself across from her. “It has been a long time, Mist.”

  Indeed, it had. Too long. “I have missed you, Drustan.”

  “And I, you.”

  He glanced at Valdyr and waited for the explanation she had been reluctant to give earlier.

  “Valdyr is my betrothed,” she told him, and found that the words did not choke her as they once had. The thought of belonging to him no longer held the terror that had filled her earlier in their relationship.

  The two men took each other’s measure and seemed to approve, though with reservations.

  “And is Valdyr a Christian?”

  She had known that he was going to ask that. Embarrassed, Mist reached for a piece of cheese to keep from meeting the old man’s eyes.

  “I would like to be,” Valdyr stated quietly, and Mist choked on the bite of bread she had just taken. Valdyr reached across and thumped her on the back, making her eyes water even more.

  Drustan was looking at Valdyr in an odd way. “For Mist?” he asked warily, and Mist held her breath, awaiting his answer.

  Valdyr looked into her eyes, and she saw a softness there that she had never seen before. “At one time I would have said yes.”

  “But now?” Drustan inquired.

  “Now,” he said, still staring intently into her eyes. “Now I have seen for myself the great power and love that this God has for His people. There is still much I do not understand, but I am willing to learn.”

  Looking relieved, Drustan sat back in his seat. “You will need to be baptized,” he told Valdyr, and Valdyr nodded.

  Mist didn’t think her body could contain such joy. It felt as though her heart was going to burst from happiness. She felt like lifting her voice and shouting to the skies.

  “All things work together for the good of those who are in Christ Jesus,” Drustan reminded her, seeing the elation on her face. Her lips quivered with emotion when he met her look in complete understanding. This must be what it was like for Drustan when someone he had been teaching came to understand the love of God.

  Valdyr took her hand and raised it to his lips to press a kiss upon it. “I love you,” he said in that throaty voice of his, and Mist felt hot color heat her cheeks at the flame that ignited in his eyes. She glanced at Drustan, who was leaning back in his chair, smiling serenely.

  She met Valdyr’s eyes again, and her heart began to race. “I love you, as well,” she answered quietly, finally free to tell him so.

  If not for Drustan sitting nearby, she had no doubt from the look in Valdyr’s eyes he would have taken her in his arms. Her heart began beating like a wild thing in response.

  “When we get back to Iceland, we will be married in the spring instead of waiting for the fall,” he directed, but then quickly tacked on, “if that is all right with you.”

  Mist hid a grin. She knew it would always be thus with a man like Valdyr. He was a man who was meant to command. Before, she would have bristled at such action; now, she felt only cherished and protected.

  “If you would allow, my lord,” she answered. “I would prefer to be married here by Drustan.”

  Drustan glanced at her in surprise, his face creasing into a wide smile. “I would be honored,” he told her softly.

  She saw Valdyr’s frown and felt suddenly uncertain.

  “You are certain?” he asked. “I thought with your father being godar...”

  He left the thought unfinished, and Mist shook her head. As main chieftain of their family, her father acted as godar, or priest, and he still clung tenaciously to the old ways. Ever since her father had informed her of her forthcoming nuptials, she had tried to think of some way of obeying without participating in a pagan rite. Her God had taken care of even that.

  “No. My father would wish to have a pagan ceremony with sacrifices.”

  A look of understanding crossed Valdyr’s face. “So be it. Drustan it is.”

  Drustan got to his feet, rubbing his palms together. “Let us then see to the matter of your baptism.”

  When he left the room to make arrangements, Valdyr stood and pulled Mist into his arms. Palms against his chest, she could feel his heart matching hers in a furious rhythm. They searched each other’s eyes for a long moment before Valdyr’s gaze settled on her lips.

  “I think I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you standing on that hill,” he told her, his voice husky with emotion.

  Mist thought back to that moment and realized that the statement applied to her, as well. There had been some strange kind of bond from the moment their eyes had connected, though in the following months she had fought fiercely with herself to deny it.

  He kissed her then, a kiss, but more than a kiss, a seal of possession that she no longer dreaded but actually reveled in. She belonged to him, and he to her.

  Epilogue

  Mist’s wedding was unlike anything she had been expecting. There was no crowd of celebrants, no performing of a sacrifice and no elaborate rites. The only witnesses were her sister, Bjorn and Valdyr’s men, who had actually bathed for the occasion even though it was not bath day.

  Mist had waited until the fever left her sister and Astrid was on the mend. Astrid stood beside Bjorn now, pale but as beautiful as ever. Bjorn’s arm was wrapped possessively around her waist as though he would never let her out of his sight again.

  Mist and Valdyr stood before Drustan while he read to them words of scripture in their own language from the scrolls he had been translating. It amazed Mist that the scriptures contained words about husbands and wives, and she wondered what other pearls of wisdom the book contained. She longed to search them for herself.

  “‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.’”

  Mist felt a moment’s disquiet. It was not in her nature to be submissive, yet the words spoken so quietly and reverently reached deep into her soul and brought her a peace that let her know that this was where God had intended her to be all along. She and Valdyr would be one flesh, and he would be the head. The thought no longer alarmed her.

  Drustan turned his look on Valdyr. “‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ lov
ed the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.’”

  Valdyr reached out and took her hand, clinging to it as Drustan continued.

  “‘In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.’”

  When Mist met Valdyr’s eyes, she knew that he would have an easier time with the command spoken to him, than she with hers. The love shining from his eyes made her feel cherished beyond measure.

  “Do you have a ring?” Drustan asked.

  Valdyr snapped the silver Thor’s hammer necklace hanging from his neck and handed it to Drustan. “Will this do?”

  Drustan took the talisman gingerly in his fingers and set it aside. Reaching inside his robe, he pulled out the gold cross that hung around his neck and, lifting it over his head, handed it to Valdyr in its stead.

  Valdyr’s mouth hung open in astonishment. The look on his face told Mist that he was about to refuse, but Drustan folded Valdyr’s large hand around the necklace. They saw in his face that Drustan would never allow Mist to be encumbered with such a pagan talisman and was willing to once again sacrifice something of great worth for someone he loved.

  Humbly accepting the sacrifice in the manner it was given, Valdyr then placed the cross around Mist’s neck.

  Honored by such a gesture, Mist wanted to give Valdyr something of equal worth. She pulled her sword from its sheath and, turning it up in her palms, handed it to him in return.

  The expression in his eyes let her know that he understood the meaning behind the gift. She was giving him her most prized possession and turning over her very life to him.

  “As you have exchanged these tokens pledging your troth, so now I pronounce you husband and wife. What God has joined together, let no man separate.” Drustan smiled at their hesitation as they wondered what came next. There would be no brudhlap, nor jumping a broom.

  “As a final seal to your vows, you may kiss your bride.”

  Valdyr willingly complied with a fervor that brought a choking cough from Drustan, and a loud cheer from the men. The thrill that rushed through her as his lips met hers told Mist that she would never get enough of his kisses if she lived to be a hundred years old.

  When Valdyr finally pulled back, Drustan continued reading from his scroll. “‘Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.’”

  Drustan placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “May God be with you always, my children.”

  Mist realized that the time of their parting had come again, and she didn’t want to leave. As much as she loved her family, Drustan held the words of life, and there was no one in Iceland who could teach them to her.

  “Come with us,” she begged the old man, clutching his arm. “Come with us to Iceland.”

  He pulled back in surprise. “I...I couldn’t. I have work to do here.” She saw a moment’s hesitation in his eyes and pressed her advantage.

  “But you are needed there,” she pleaded. “Drustan, we have no one.”

  He cupped her cheek gently with his wrinkled hand, and stared a long moment into her pleading eyes. As though coming to a decision, he sighed regretfully.

  “I cannot come with you now, but I will come after I have made arrangements for someone to take my place here.”

  He reached inside his robe and pulled out a roll of manuscripts and handed them to her. “In the meantime, you can share these with your people.”

  Mist took the manuscripts, handling them as though they were gold. She wanted to force the issue. She knew that she could by using Drustan’s feelings for her, but she could not do that to him. He had made his decision, and it would have to do.

  Valdyr took her by the arm. “We must leave now. The tide is about to recede.”

  Mist reluctantly turned to go. Drustan went with them to where the ship waited. He stood on the shore as they cast off, and Mist stood in the back of the boat with Valdyr by her side, watching until she could no longer see Drustan, and Hedeby disappeared from their sight.

  Sucking in a deep breath to hold back the tears, she didn’t resist when Valdyr took her in his arms and held her close.

  “I love you,” he whispered, and suddenly, that was all that mattered. They were no longer two, but one, and they would raise their children to know the one true God. And maybe, someday, the seeds that they sowed would bear fruit and Iceland would become a Christian nation.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460376164

  The Viking’s Bride

  Copyright © 2015 by Darlene Mindrup

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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