by Connie Mason
“What journey?”
“I…he did not…I assumed you knew.”
Oh gods, he was leaving. After last night. After everything.
Katla ran out of the longhouse and down the winding path to the wharf. Brandr was setting the rigging on the coracle and arranging bundles of cargo to distribute the weight evenly. Finn’s water keg rode in the center of the craft.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked when she reached the spot where the small vessel was tied up.
“What’s it look like?” Brandr shielded his eyes against the glare of sunlight to look up at her for a moment then resumed his work. “I’m preparing for a voyage.”
Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. Why had she let herself need him? He was still leaving.
He’d said he would, she reminded herself sternly. She shouldn’t have been surprised. She swallowed hard and steeled herself not to show her bleeding soul.
“Where are you bound?”
“Where are we bound, you mean?”
“We?” For a moment, her heart leaped up in gladness. He hadn’t intended on leaving her after all, but it didn’t mean she could go with him. “No. I’m not going anywhere. There’s too much for me to—”
“Don’t worry, sister.” Finn’s voice came from behind her. “You won’t be gone long.”
“That’s right. I won’t be gone long, because I won’t be going at all.” She fisted her hands at her waist. “Where is it I’m not going?”
“To Jondal,” Brandr said calmly as he accepted and stowed the bundles Finn had brought down for him.
Katla recognized the vibrant blue of one of her dresses peeping from the top of a rucksack. Someone had taken her key, gotten into her trunk, and packed clothes for the voyage without her knowledge.
“I’m taking you home,” Brandr said as if that ended the matter.
“This is our home.”
“No, it’s not,” Brandr said. “It’ll always be your place. And no matter how long I bide here, I’ll always be Brandr the Thrall when folk think I’m out of earshot.”
She started to protest, but he silenced her with a piercing look.
“You know it to be true,” he said quietly.
Inga padded softly up and handed Brandr the basket of food he’d requested.
“Ask Inga,” he said. “She’ll tell you it’s so. Even once the iron collar’s gone, there’s a shadow about our necks no amount of scrubbing can clean.”
“I would travel with you as your servant, mistress.” Inga cast a darting glance in Katla’s direction then averted her gaze to the rough wood of the wharf. Her submissive demeanor spoke volumes. She felt the weight of her past keenly.
There were times when Katla had struggled with jealousy, but now she felt nothing but pity for her late husband’s bed slave.
Surely things would be different for a man. Brandr was well liked. She’d seen it herself. With time, her people would come to accept him as master here.
“Perhaps when we return, Inga, we’ll take you on the next trip. We won’t be gone long,” Brandr said. “Three or four weeks—five at most.”
Brandr strapped an oilskin over the cargo to protect it from the elements.
“Finn and your other brothers have agreed to wait till I can collect your bride price from my share of the bounty my friends and I brought back from Byzantium. We’ll return to Tysnes Isle before the weather turns and can stay for a bit, if you like,” he said. “Then we’ll sail back to Jondal to winter in my brother’s hall.”
Katla’s jaw gaped. “But it’s my duty to care for the people here. I can’t leave them.”
He climbed out of the boat and walked toward her. “I didn’t think I could be a thrall either, but a person can get used to anything. You might be surprised what your people can do on their own. Besides, your brother will see to the folk of this holding, won’t you, Finn?”
“Ja, of course I will.” Her brother drew himself up to his full, lanky height.
“Oh, Finn, you can’t even see to yourself, much less run a farmstead.”
Even though Finn wilted a bit as she said it, she stood by her assessment. He’d shown his quality of late, but she couldn’t trust him to carry on without her. Katla turned back to her husband.
If this was the first battle of wills between them, she was determined to win it.
“Brandr, I understand you feel you have to leave. My bride price has been agreed upon, and you must honor your debts,” she said primly. “I wish you safe travels, and will see you when you return.”
“Our honeymoon isn’t near done,” Brandr reminded her.
A month of loving and feasting and sipping the special bridal ale and mead was usual for the newly married. It wasn’t her fault they wouldn’t be enjoying their time together.
“It’ll be an odd honeymoon with you gone, but I’ll manage,” she said stiffly.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “And you think that ends the matter.”
“There’s no other way to see it.”
He shook his head and sighed. Then he grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder so her head hung down behind his back and her bottom smiled at the sky.
“What about now, wife?” he asked. “Do you see things differently from that angle?”
“Brandr, put me down!” She tried to squirm away, but he held her fast.
“Stop wiggling, or you’ll feel my hand on your backside,” he warned.
Her bottom heated at the thought. “Lay a hand on me, Brandr Ulfson, and you’ll have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life.”
He laughed and gave her buttocks a love pat. “You didn’t complain of my hands last night.”
Since it was within reach, she gave his bum a sharp smack. He ignored her.
“Farewell, Finn.” Brandr clapped his free hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “I’ll be back with the bride price before you know it.”
“And you’ll be welcome, so long as you don’t try to return the bride,” Finn said with a laugh.
“Don’t just stand there.” Katla pressed against Brandr’s back to raise herself up so she could glare at Finn, but she couldn’t break free from her husband as he stepped into the swaying coracle. “Help me.”
“Sorry, sister. I can’t even see to myself, you know.” Finn slipped the chain that held her all-important keys off her neck and secreted them in the pouch at his belt. Then he loosed the mooring lines of the coracle. “Doubt I’d be any help to you.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Did you not?” Her brother gave the vessel a shove into the deep water of the cove as Brandr deposited her on a small trunk. “I never can tell when you’re joking, Katla. No matter. Safe travels.”
She stood, and the coracle bobbled dangerously. Brandr unfurled the sail.
“Can you swim, Katla?” he asked with maddening calm.
“No.”
The water temperature was so cold, few in the North bothered to learn, since the ability to swim would only prolong dying if a boat capsized. Better a clean, quick drowning than a miserable, desperate struggle against an end that would come in either case.
“Then I suggest you sit down,” Brandr said as the wind freshened and the coracle lifted in the water, quickening in the breeze.
She turned around on the trunk, facing forward so she didn’t have to look at his smug face for another heartbeat.
Chapter 23
“I don’t know what to tell you, Malvar. Women are more fickle and changeable than the sea. She ought to have been ordered to accept the match.” Albrikt Gormson curled his lip in disdain. “Why her ball-less brothers even gave her a choice I’ll never know.”
Malvar Bloodaxe poured wine into two precious goblets of Franki
sh glass. He usually reserved these special vessels for celebrations. They’d have to do to console his ally in an especially ignominious defeat.
To be turned down in favor of a thrall.
It must gall Albrikt more than liquor on an open wound. If a woman used Malvar so sore, he’d have her tongue cut out and fried up with onions for his night meal.
He handed one of the goblets to Gormson.
“You wouldn’t have sailed across the North Sea to bring me this ill news unless you had a plan to counter it,” Bloodaxe said.
Gormson shrugged. “I had thought to attack the farmstead and so claim the harbor we need, but there’s a signal fire system among the islanders. Katla the Black would receive help in short order.”
Albrikt drained the wine and slammed the goblet down with far more force than the fragile glass would bear. A tiny fracture in the delicate stem bloomed near the bottom of the cup.
A muscle in Malvar’s cheek ticked, but he knew the value of controlling his ire. He simply marked down the ruined goblet to Albrikt’s account and knew, someday, the man would pay for this mistake as well.
“It seems fairly straightforward to me,” Malvar said. “You must send a small party ahead, advancing from the opposite side of the island, to disrupt the signal fire, and then you sail into the cove with three or four longships and overwhelm the residents.”
Gormson shook his head. “It’s not as simple as that. That cursed thrall she married used to be a captain in the Varangian guard,” the Stordman said. “He’s a fierce fighter.”
“One man among a couple dozen sheep.”
“You didn’t see him,” Albrikt said. “He’s is the sort who can rally others, and he has a military man’s eye. There were a number of goodly sized men in the household. I wouldn’t doubt Brandr Ulfson has started training them for defense.”
“Ulfson?” Malvar’s ears pricked at the name.
“Ja, Brandr the Far-Traveled has come home.”
“And recently wed. Don’t forget that,” Malvar said, rubbing salt into Gormson’s wounded pride. “Ulfson will be too interested in what’s under his new wife’s skirt to be wary. He’ll not be looking for an attack.”
Albrikt nodded slowly, seething resentment making his eyes narrow for a moment. “You’re right. The timing might make all the difference. We’ll take that cove by the end of next week.”
“Of course you will. The Old Ones have told me it will be so.”
Malvar smiled when Albrikt surreptitiously made the sign against evil. Fearful people were always more easy to control, and it amused him to think that Albrikt believed he could protect himself from the Old Ones with a mere gesture.
So Brandr Ulfson has returned. Interesting.
There was bound to be a way for Malvar to use that information against the traveler’s father. It might be the last stone needed to crack Ulf Skallagrimsson’s flagging will. If nothing else, it would please him to inform the jarl that both his sons were about to fall into a trap from which there was no escape.
One their father’s weakness had made possible.
Chapter 24
Katla’s back was as straight as a red pine as they continued to cut through the dark blue water of Hardanger Fjord. She turned her head to follow the flight of a pair of eagles headed for their aerie, and gripped the gunwale when the waves grew rough, but she never said a word.
The old proverb is right. “It’s the still and silent sea that drowns a man,” Brandr thought ruefully.
Whenever Brandr tried talking to her, she pretended not to hear him. He’d expected her to sulk for a while, but the whole day was spent, and the dim purple smell of nightfall was on the brisk wind.
Even now she wouldn’t speak to him.
“Might as well talk to a tree,” he muttered as a light shower of rain pattered over them. He raised his voice. “There are a couple oilskin cloaks in that trunk, princess. Perhaps Your Highness would deign to fetch them out for us.”
That made her shoot him a glare over her shoulder that ought to have turned him to stone. But to his surprise, she seemed to acquiesce. She rose and opened the trunk.
And pulled out one cloak for herself.
She spread the oilskin over her shoulders and sat back down, still facing away from him.
Brandr tied off the tiller to keep the boat in trim and stomped to the center of the craft. He stood over her as the rain fell in stinging needles, but she gave no sign she was aware of his presence.
“Move,” he ordered when she continued to ignore him.
She drew her hood tighter around her face, snug and dry under the pelting rain.
Brandr bent over and yanked the trunk out from under her. A finger’s width of water had accumulated in the bottom of the hull. She gave a little yelp when her backside landed in it with a wet plop.
“Don’t expect an apology.”
Brandr opened the trunk and pulled out the remaining cloak. He flipped the oversized gear that could double as a tent around himself and made his way back to the tiller. Ordinarily, he enjoyed a bobbing vessel. Dancing with the sea to keep his balance was part of the fun of sailing, but his mood was too surly now to enjoy anything about this trip.
Especially since Katla had made it plain she wasn’t enjoying anything.
“You’ve no one to blame but yourself,” he growled.
“Really?” She moved back up to perch on the trunk, facing him this time. “Did I force my way onto this boat? No. Did you ask me if I wanted to come with you? No. I had no say in the matter at all.”
He untied the tiller and brought the heading of the prow around a point or two so they’d clear the rocky shoulder of mountain jutting into the fjord.
“Would you have come with me if I’d asked?”
“No.”
“Which explains why I didn’t.”
Now that she was faced toward him, he almost wished she wasn’t. Her eyes were filled with recrimination.
“What will happen if one of the children comes down with a fever? Suppose Haukon’s arm takes a turn for the worse. Will Finn know what to do?” she demanded. “Did it occur to you that there are people on Tysnes who need me?”
Did it occur to her that he needed her?
“I suspect you’ve taught a few of the women a thing or two about herbs and cures. Inga, for one, is more capable than you credit her.” A tightness about her mouth appeared and disappeared in flash. He wished he’d chosen a different example, but the point was valid. “The people of your household will be fine.”
Which was more than he could promise about their marriage at the moment.
“Brandr, this is not going to work,” she said with a heavy sigh. “You can’t settle all our disagreements by picking me up and carrying me off.”
“Want to bet?”
A man had to run with his strengths, and Katla made him weak in several ways. It was only fair he should use whatever advantages nature had given him.
“Oh, you’re bigger and stronger than me, I’ll grant you,” she admitted.
At least on the outside. If Katla was sized to match her will, she’d be a giantess.
“Our marriage is but a sapling. It’ll never make a tree if we continue like this. We’ll have no peace if you treat me so.” She rose and glared at him. “And that’s a promise.”
The conversation obviously over, she turned around and plopped on the trunk, faced away from him.
Brandr stared at her back. Where was the soft, pliant woman from last night who’d admitted she cared for him?
The rain shower passed as quickly as it had come. They glided deeper into the fjord, the sides of the mountains enfolding the water in a snug green embrace.
Brandr inhaled deeply. The air smelled of pine and dark earth and the brisk tang of the sea.
He sighed. If only he was bringing a willing bride home with him.
***
Twilight didn’t linger in the North. By the time Brandr maneuvered the coracle close to the steep bank, stars peeped though the scudding clouds. He leaned over the prow to loop a line around a tall boulder, then dropped the anchor stone off the stern.
“There are a few lights in the hills,” Katla said, pointing in the direction of one. “Will we venture out to see if the crofters can give us shelter?”
Brandr was mildly surprised she initiated a conversation, but he wasn’t about to complain.
“No. I want to speak to my brother about relations with the other families in the fjord before we stray far from the water,” he said. “You’ll allow that things may have changed over five years.”
“We’re asking only for a roof for a single night.”
“Last time I abandoned caution in a port, I ended up with an iron collar.”
She grimaced. “About that. I’m…sorry.”
His brows shot up. The woman constantly surprised him. An apology was the last thing he expected from her.
“Your brothers are the ones who clapped it on me.”
“But my stubbornness kept the collar there,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t have.”
He shrugged. “You wanted revenge for your husband. I understand that. It was a little misplaced, but your motives were sound. Besides, it’s a comfort to me now.”
“A comfort?”
“If something happens to me, it means you’ll feel bound to make someone else’s life miserable in my honor,” he said with a laugh.
She sank back down on the chest and covered her mouth with her hand. Her shoulders shook. He thought she was laughing with him for a moment, but then the starlight struck her glistening cheeks.
Loki’s sweaty balls, she’s crying.
Against a woman’s tears, there was no defense known to man. If Katla ever learned that little nugget of wisdom, he was done for.
“That’s what I’ve done, isn’t it?” she said with a sob. “I’ve made your life miserable.”