Seduction of the Bear (Bear Kamp Book 1)

by Rachel Robins

  “Husband, why have you brought back a woman?” she asked, her voice pitched so that everyone could hear her. The chatter around them quickly died as people turned to look. Reidun pointed a long, thin finger at Frida. “That one there. Why, you would have to be blind not to have realized that she is a woman, whatever she is wearing. She doesn't even carry herself like a man.”

  Agnarr slowly set down his foster-son and turned to face Frida, his expression livid. “Is this true?” he snarled.

  Frida took a step back, eyes darting around the group. Finnr strode towards her, his hand already on the hilt of his sword. He grabbed Frida's chin roughly in his hand, his fingers tight enough to leave bruises along her jawline. “Is this true?” he echoed. When Frida didn't respond, he grasped her seax, which he now carried at his belt.

  Daegal's hand snaked out and caught Finnr's hand before he could draw the weapon. “Of course it's true,” he scoffed. “Don't you have eyes, Finnr Finlayson?”

  There was a long silence around Groenthjal, and Frida found herself holding her breath as Finnr's hand clenched even tighter on her chin. “You knew about this already,” Finnr accused the priest, finally pulling away from Frida and drawing his sword on Daegal. “Perhaps you even planned this—to humiliate me and tarnish my family name. I'll not stand for that, I tell you!”

  Agnarr strode quickly over and caught Finnr's arm. “Now, now,” he cautioned his compatriot. “Let's not shed blood unnecessarily. Who knows where we'd find another magician to carry us through the storms.” He stared at the priest with a furrowed brow, though, and Frida could tell the war-king was planning to have words with the man later. Then, Agnarr looked consideringly at Frida. “What's your name?”

  “Frida Grimsdottir,” Frida mumbled, looking shyly up at him through her lashes.

  “And Frida Grimsdottir, what exactly are you doing here?”

  Frida shrugged and kicked at a couple rocks on the ground. “Better that you take me as a slave than as a wench,” she muttered. “I have no interest in being your plaything.” She lifted her chin. “But you were foolish not to realize it sooner,” she said haughtily, not sure where the words were coming from. “There was a reason none of the other townspeople of Daelfjord would even look at me.”

  Agnarr looked amused and shrugged at Finnr. “It's your decision what you want to do with her,” he said. “But I don't think she should be killed. She seems intelligent, which is rare amongst the female kind.”

  Finnr frowned consideringly at her. “Perhaps she can be of use as–“

  “If I may,” Daegal interrupted. He hardly spared a glance for Finnr, his eyes instead focused on Agnarr. “As you know, I'm in need of an apprentice–“

  “Absolutely not,” Finnr said, yanking Frida closer by a tight grip on her upper arm. “She's part of my loot. If you want her, you would have to buy her, just like any other man would. And we all know that you lack the coin for such an endeavor.”

  “You have a loving wife and two daughters to help out around the house,” Daegal pointed out mildly. “Perhaps you might have had need for a male slave to help in the fields or to chop wood and other such tasks, but you have no use for a female slave.” He turned back to Agnarr. “The woman was Daelfjord's healer. She has talents that could be far more useful than anything Finnr could task her with.”

  Agnarr frowned at the priest. “Are you suggesting that I give you a slave?” he asked, a hint of disapproval in his voice. “Do you forget–“

  “Not a slave,” Daegal said, before the war-king could finish. He shrugged. “She would be more of an assistant, if you will. She could help out with certain spells that I do around the homestead—warding and things like that. I don't do much work with potions or anything of that sort, but she could be useful. And if we bring her along with us while we're at battle–“

  “We can't bring along a woman to battle,” Agnarr said, sounding scandalized.

  Daegal looked sharply amused. “She already dressed up as a man and survived the trip from Daelfjord to Groenthjal,” he pointed out. “Clearly she doesn't need to be treated like just any other woman.”

  Reidun made a quiet, scoffing noise, and Agnarr turned to look at her. “It doesn't matter how strong the woman pretends to be,” she said. “She's still a woman, and she still shouldn't be there with you while you're gallivanting around showing off for one another. If she really is a healer, we could use her talents here in Groenthjal—especially if she knows anything about livestock. Why, just last week, one of Dagrun's sheep died while giving birth, something which might have been preventable if we'd just been able to staunch the bleeding...”

  “My father was a farmer,” Frida was quick to say. She couldn't imagine what it must be like to go off with the raiders during all of their voyages, to have to watch village after village fall beneath their greedy swords and to have to watch the endless parade of wenches throwing themselves on the soldiers' pikes.

  It made her sick just thinking about it. Especially because she knew that it would then fall to her to ensure that each wounded warrior survived to fight another day. Essentially, by saving their lives as she was forced to do, she would be ensuring that someone else died at the warrior's sword the next day. She didn't think she could stand for that.

  Agnarr looked thoughtful, though. “That could prove very useful, keeping her as a livestock healer,” he said slowly, nodding approvingly at his wife. “Perhaps it would be best if she became a member of our household. Then Daegal, you could still make use of her services when needed, but she could also help out around the strong holding while we were away.”

  The priest nodded. “That sounds like an excellent plan, my lord,” he said quietly.

  Frida stared at the man, imagining how smug he must feel. He had played the situation just right so that he had got exactly what he'd wanted. She couldn't help but wonder at him...and at the relationship that he had with Agnarr. They didn't act like father and son, but there seemed to be some sort of kinship bond there between the two of them, something that allowed Daegal to manipulate Agnarr without the other man minding.

  Sure enough, Daegal turned to wink at her. “Why don't I show you the previous healer's hut,” he suggested, leading her away from the group. “Agnarr and Finnr can determine some way to make up for Finnr's lost loot.”

  She would need to figure out what their bond was, she realized, if she had any hope of escaping. She didn't doubt that any escape attempt that she made would need to be with the tacit permission of the magician, who seemed able to anticipate the movements of the universe with ease. He would know when she was leaving, and he would need to agree to such an escape.

  Chapter 4

  Frida came awake with a choked gasp, reaching blindly for something, anything, to defend herself against the scarred warrior. For a long moment, she stared uncomprehendingly into the darkness, the after-images of his pale, glittering scimitar still embedded in her minds-eye.

  She swallowed and sat up slowly, knowing from previous night’s here in Groenthjal that she would never be able to get back to sleep now. She rose soundlessly from her bedroll, pulling her thin, woolen cloak around herself as she moved towards the door.

  Outside, it was still dark, a few hours before dawn. She stared up at the stars and pulled her cloak even tighter around herself, blinking back tears.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Frida jumped at the voice behind her and turned with wide eyes to find that Daegal had followed her out into the yard. His hair was mussed and stood up on one side, a clear indication that he'd been sleeping a lot more soundly than she had been. She winced. “Did I wake you up?”

  The priest shrugged and moved to stand beside her. “You haven't managed to sleep through a whole night since coming to Groenthjal,” he said, as though she might not have realized it herself. “I assume there's a reason you're up every night, and I'm guessing it isn't just that you're fascinated with the movements of the stars.”

  Frida
shook her head mutely. “I just...” She didn't want to tell him about the nightmares; she felt foolish enough about them as it was. She had never had such a childish problem before. And it was starting to really affect her waking hours, too—she didn't really feel like she was fully there most of the time, and she kept making stupid mistakes when Reidun assigned tasks to her.

  “Did this happen to you when you lived in Daelfjord?” Daegal pried.

  Frida bit her lower lip. “When I was an adolescent, I used to have dreams,” she admitted. “Dreams that one day, the war-kings would come across the sea and take me away with them on their longboats.” She laughed a little, as though there were anything to laugh about. “I suppose that's come true after all, hmm?”

  The man's brow furrowed. “Are you Sighted?” he asked. “Were your dreams a foretelling of the future?”

  “I thought so at the time,” Frida said, shrugging a little. “But no one ever believed me, and I started to believe I'd just been making things up to soothe the restlessness in my soul. I never really fit in in Daelfjord. Everyone else wanted to settle down in the fortress and find a mate and have children. I always wanted something more.”

  “And yet you remained there,” Daegal said. “You aren't an adolescent anymore. You could have left.”

  “Things became difficult,” Frida said. “My grandmother was the town's healer, before I was. After my parents… Well, she basically raised me. And she raised me to follow in her footsteps. I could have gone someplace else, been a healer anywhere, but while she was alive, doing so would have killed her; I was the only family that she had left. And now that she's passed, I feel tied to the town more than ever before. The people expect me to be there. And I can't leave them without a healer.” She frowned and shook her head. “Gods only know what they must be doing now, with me here in Groenthjal.”

  There was a long silence. “The dreams that you have now, do you think they might foretell the future?”

  Frida stared thoughtfully up at the stars, picking out the constellations that she knew. They were still close enough to home that everything looked nearly the same, although there was the faintest glow of light around the horizon that had never been there before. “I don't know,” she answered honestly. “Some days…well. I don't know.”

  “Have you ever been tested for–“

  “I don't believe in any of that,” Frida interrupted, shaking her head. “I don't believe in any of that.”

  Daegal snorted. “You don't really get much of a choice to believe or not if you have Gifts,” he pointed out. “There's a reason you were given–“

  “Don't,” Frida said, before he could finish that thought. She frowned and hugged her arms around herself. “If I had been able to foresee anything, don't you think I would have foreseen what happened to my parents?”

  Daegal was silent for a long moment. Then, he slowly put an arm around Frida's shoulders, pulling her close. “That's not the way the world works, and you know it,” he said quietly into her hair. “Your Gifts weren't given to you to save you from all of life's hardships. But imagine if you could learn to harness–“

  Frida shook off his arm. “You don't even know for certain that I have any Gifts,” she snapped. “Anyway, I'm not really dreaming anything of substance at the moment. I catch quick glimpses of whatever it is that I'm meant to be seeing, but nothing that I could actually string together into a...into a prophecy or anything like that!” She shook her head, trying to rein her voice in so she wouldn't wake everyone else up, realizing it had become a bit shrill. “If you'll excuse me, I'm going back inside.”

  “Frida, wait,” Daegal said, reaching for her arm. But Frida moved away from him, avoiding his grip. Once she was back inside, he wouldn't dare try to touch her, she knew, not at the risk of waking anyone else up. So even though she knew she would get no more sleep that night, she made her way back into the hall and back to her sleeping pad, moving silently through the dark. Then, she lay there staring off into the darkness until finally she heard the movement of the others waking up.

  It was only when she went outside to wash up the following morning that she realized she had never heard Daegal come back inside, and his bedroll was still empty.

  Chapter 5

  Frida knelt down beside the river to dunk her bucket in the water, breaking away the thin sheet of ice that had formed there. It was beginning to get cold overnight—perhaps not as cold as it would be in Daelfjord at this time of year, but it was getting close. The main thing was the wind there, which had almost flattened the crops a few nights before.

  But tonight, they were celebrating a successful harvest, and the final bales of hay had been stored that afternoon in the great tithing barn near the church.

  There was to be a feast, the idea of which made Frida cringe, remembering how the marauders had behaved after they'd sacked Daelfjord. She could only imagine how raucous things would be that night—whether the men had wives or not. She doubted that made any difference.

  She'd spent most of the day helping Reidun prepare everything for that night, from cooking to cleaning. Now, the woman had sent her down to the river to wash and to fetch water. She took the moment to breathe and to have a little peaceful, quiet time to herself—something that she rarely had a chance for these days. Although there were clear benefits to working in Agnarr's house, his household was undeniably the busiest of all the households in Groenthjal, and he or his wife kept Frida running errands and doing chores from early in the morning until it was time to sleep again. By the time she reached her bedroll at the end of the night, she was usually exhausted enough to fall instantly asleep.

  She'd been in Groenthjal for well over a month now, and things were still very similar to how they'd been when she'd first arrived: the men would disappear on hunting expeditions during the day or do work out in the fields, while the women cooked and cleaned and made everything ready for the men's return. At the end of the day, they all lay down in their bedrolls in various halls.

  Daegal had given up trying to speak to her once she'd turned outright hostile towards the man, threatening to get Agnarr involved if he wouldn't leave her be. And Agnarr would have gotten involved, she could tell—the man had made a couple advances towards Frida over the time she'd spent there, and he wouldn't want to know that anyone else was making advances towards her, especially not Daegal, who seemed somehow to be the man's rival. Reidun hadn't reacted with jealousy, though; instead, she'd acted as though she was oblivious to the whole situation. For that, Frida was grateful; she hoped the older woman could see how little Frida wanted to bed the war-king.

  Frida took a long drink of the crisp water and then splashed some water over her face. She was exhausted—she still hadn't been sleeping well, shadowy phantoms come to interrupt her sleep seemingly every night. She was tempted to talk to Daegal to see if she could find some sort of herb that would ease her sleep, but she didn't know the area well enough and she didn't want to discuss her sleep troubles with him.

  A twig snapped behind her, and she whirled, reaching for the blunt knife that she had finally been allowed to carry. She was surprised to see the priest himself standing there, his arms outstretched to either side. “I didn't mean to startle you,” he said lowly.

  “What are you doing out here?” Frida asked him. “Surely Reidun didn't send you to fetch water as well.” Most of the men bathed in another spot further upriver, where the water was deeper.

  “She didn't send me to fetch water, no,” Daegal agreed, looking amused. He cocked his head to the side but didn't offer any explanation for why he was out there. “We will leave on our ships soon,” he told Frida. “Now is the time for you to decide whether or not you will join us.”

  “That's not up to you or I,” Frida said, shaking her head. “Agnarr will have the final say on if I will accompany you—and I think it's doubtful. He doesn't seem to believe that I am truly a healer.”

  “Perhaps not,” Daegal agreed, inclining his head towards the woman. �
�But perhaps you ought to show him–“

  “What reason could I have for joining the war ships?” Frida interrupted. “The last thing I need is for Finnr or Agnarr or one of the others to try to claim me as his...” She trailed off, pursing her lips distastefully.

  Daegal shrugged expansively. “You have the power to choose your own destiny here,” he pointed out.

  Frida rolled her eyes. “That's easy enough for you to say, I'm sure. You were probably chosen as a priest when you were very small, and you grew up knowing no other path for your life. There is no choice for me here; I was a healer in Daelfjord, and without me, the people are surely...” She shook her head.

  “You would return there, given the chance?” Daegal asked.

  Frida snorted. “That's hardly a question,” she said. “Of course I would return there. My kin still live there—those of them that survived the attack, that is.”

  “Your family?” Daegal asked.

  Frida's face twisted. “All dead,” she said. “From before the raiders came. But that doesn't mean there's nothing for me there.”

  “Hmm,” Daegal said, but Frida could tell he didn't agree with her.

  “What would you know of it anyway?” she asked bitterly. “You've never been dragged to a foreign place and made to do the work of a slave.”

  The priest looked amused. “Haven't I?” he asked. He grinned at Frida. “Do you mistake me for a Kjotan warrior?”

  Frida frowned at him. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You're...” But she trailed off uncertainly.

  “I come from over the seas,” Daegal said. “Like you, I was brought here as a slave. Like you, I had the choice to make something of myself or to continue railing against the fates and pining for what I once had. I chose to accept my Gifts and build a better future for myself here than I ever would have been able to back home. And I'm telling you, now you have the very same chance to alter the course of your life and to build the future that you wish to live in.”