by Sandra Lake
The sudden silence that filled the chamber scorched the tips of Sovia’s ears. Threats of violence were certain to come next. Her hope of safeguarding her babe was dissolving before her very eyes.
Hök’s eyes found hers through the mix of men that stretched out between them.
Sovia mouthed the words “forgive me” and watched a veil of understanding come crashing down over his youthful features. He instantly knew what she had done to him, that she had seduced and lured him into this chamber to suit her father’s interests.
He reached for his sword belt on the floor and pushed up off his knee, coming to stand equal to Jarl Knutson in height and a full head taller than her father.
“A grievous injury requires an equally great compensation,” her father said. “You have soiled my precious daughter.” Precious daughter, Sovia thought, what a joke. She was more like his reliable pack mule.
The Jarl of Tronscar nodded solemnly to his men. With this simple gesture, most of the men, including her father’s guards, retreated out into the corridor. The jarl and his two sons remained, as did their Danish host, who stood next to her father in support of his claim.
With a cold, steely expression, the jarl said, “Speak plainly, Losna. What is it that you want?”
“I want the port of Serovo to be added to the Sea Dragon list of approved and protected ports.” As of late, Sovia’s father and his companions had complained at length about the Sea Dragon league, a powerful fleet that controlled trade throughout the Baltics. They were a group of independent merchants from Sweden, Lübeck, and Demark who answered only to the Holy Roman overseers, not to their various kings, and the league was spearheaded by no less than Jarl Magnus’s son-in-law, Baron Hanseatz. Piracy was on the decline and with that the prosperity of the merchants had increased. Ships that sailed under the protection of the Sea Dragon league were empowered to rise up out of the hands of their warlords. Warlords like the ones to whom her father was a close friend and deeply indebted. “I will also require no less than the ten ships, one thousand Norrland swords and shields, one thousand pieces of gold, and one thousand pieces of silver.” The prepared list of demands rolled off her father’s tongue with a single breath.
“Your list is well prepared,” the jarl said with a feral snarl, his upper lip turning up ever so slightly. The jarl was a wise man. He would never concede to such a blatant ploy of extortion. Her father had been stupid to plot against such a man.
Sovia’s father had greatly miscalculated his own position. Clutching her stomach, she took a small step away from him. A cold sweat collected along her spine and the chamber began to spin. She forbade herself from fainting.
Baron Losna crossed his arms. “What is a little steel over preserving your son’s skin?”
The jarl towered over her father, the muscles in his jaw clenched, murderous wrath pooling in his eyes.
“Perhaps we should ask your lovely wife what price she is willing to pay for her son’s life?” her father added, quite stupidly in Sovia’s opinion. It was like watching a small boy poke a bear in the eye, over and over again.
“You go too far, Losna. I will make this offer to you one last time: unite our houses. I will grant you protection under my banner. ’Tis known that your king’s claim to the throne is weak, and that King Sverre Sigurdsson holds the will of the people for now. Unite our houses, and your daughter and her lands will be secure.”
“I have no need of your help to achieve that.”
“By my word, continue to threaten my house and you will be declaring yourself an enemy of Tronscar,” Jarl Magnus said. “You shall have your price but I guarantee you will not live long enough to enjoy it.”
Her father grinned and plucked a stray hair from his sleeve, as if he were bored with the warlord. “Have my steel loaded on my ships.”
Sovia felt queasy. Her instincts told her that the jarl’s pronouncement was not as shallow as her father’s threats always were. She placed a second hand over her womb, hopelessly shielding her unborn child from the frigid fear that crept over her skin.
“So be it.” The jarl strode past her and out the door without a glance in her direction. Without saying a word, she knew what he was calling her in his head. Whore. Harlot. Jezebel. Tonight, the true meaning of the label sunk into her heart . . . she was a loathsome person. Perhaps she had always been. Could a child be born pure out of her tainted body? She touched her mother’s medallion, which she carried in a concealed pocket of her skirt. Her loyal servants Aina and Hunt said it would protect her, yet she had never felt so scared and adrift.
Her father had stepped aside, waiting for the jarl’s sons to depart. But the two young men seemed to be rooted in her chamber, staring at her.
Through stiff lips, Hök said, “I would have given you anything—I will give anything. Just—” His voice was low and gravelly. Sovia could barely stand her own skin. She cast her eyes down to the floor, feeling shame wash over her. Her father had gambled and put her up as the prize, and she had spun a web of lies with fluttering eyelashes and soft smiles. “Look me in the eye and tell me why,” Hök demanded.
“Be gone with you, Magnussons,” Baron Losna said before she could muster a response. “You’ve had your fun, now off with you. You have my ship to load.”
Hök didn’t budge. “Why, Sovia?” The rims of his eyes were red. Guilt felt like hot stones in her belly, weighing her down and tormenting her insides. “Why?”
Stål grabbed Hök’s arm and tugged him to the door. “Come, brother. Leave this whoremonger’s den.”
Perhaps because the title was true, her father paid no mind to the insult and continued whispering with his guard. As always, he was focused on himself, showing no concern for Sovia’s safety or her decimated pride.
Hök jerked away from his twin and took one step closer. “Why?” he said in a lower voice, his pain and anger rolled completely into one small word. With no one left to protect or defend her, Sovia had to summon the will to protect herself.
“Because I could! Because it was easy. Is that what you want to hear?” She jerked her chin up into the air. The hypocrisy of the world crashed in all around her. She hated her life, and felt bitter and resentful toward people like the young Magnussons, who had enough purity and honor to have no understanding of the black hearts of women such as herself. Men played with women’s hearts and lives every day without care or consequence. Was she really such a villain for doing just the same?
Sovia was sick to death of it all. “I’ve done you a favor really. An important, albeit costly lesson to learn. Love is a grave madness of the mind. It doesn’t exist. Only lust is real, and that fades quick enough once a man’s appetite has been satisfied. Maybe next time you will think twice before masquerading as your brother and playing with the heart of some random girl you met at a crowded feast.”
Hök grabbed her by the shoulders. Immediately, Stål yanked at him to let her go, and her father shouted for his guards.
Over the chaotic noise, the only thing Sovia registered was the hate coming from Hök’s blue eyes, cutting a hole directly into her already splintered heart.
Chapter 3
Seven years later . . .
1184—The royal city of Bergen, Norway
Revenge was what separates men from milksops and monks. Hök didn’t care who tried to deny it, revenge felt good. It was a simple truth that righteous men tried unconvincingly to disown, yet, the common man had, from time to time, a justifiable need for it.
Like the angry waves of a winter storm, the villagers pushed Hök, now a high commander in Tronscar’s naval fleet, and his companions into the town square. Five hard years of civil war and a long, underfed winter overflowing with death and destruction had not quenched the townspeople’s hunger for slaughter.
Hök turned his shoulder into the crowd, pushing his way to the center of the square.
“Make way for
the king’s men,” Kaj bellowed over the throngs of people. Kaj was the loudest officer under Hök’s command but not many villagers seemed to take notice, as they were too engrossed watching the last body being hauled off the temporary platforms constructed to accommodate the daily executions.
Sitting high above the crowd was Sverre Sigurdsson, the new king of Norway, along with his chief agent in securing the throne, Jarl Birger Brosa of Sweden, and Brosa’s wife, Bridget Haraldsdotter. They were a handsome and dangerously ambitious group. Hök wasn’t sure who in fact was more deadly. The young, power-hungry usurper Sverre, or the dangerously shrewd Jarl Brosa, whom Hök’s father had once called the most conniving man in Sweden, or Bridget, who at the prim age of twenty-five was already on her third husband, her first two murdered husbands having been rival Kings of Sweden.
On this fine day, with his powerful friends by his side, the new King of Norway held trials for anyone who had taken part in the hundred different plots to keep him off the throne. He knew that the Norwegian Lendmann party in the south had begun plotting against him on the first day of his reign, and he was determined to shore up support and stamp out rivals.
It was all a bit boring and predictable, Hök thought. New rival kings sprang up every day with a claim to the throne, and then royal cousins would go to war to slaughter one another, and then the cousins of the warring royal cousins would be dragged in to pick sides, and so on. Hök’s father had only gotten involved because the now-fallen rival King Magnus was a cousin of Tronscar’s enemies, the bloodthirsty Kievan Rus court . . . it felt like watching a dog chasing its own tail sometimes.
Hök couldn’t wait to get out of this country and get back home. A summer of sailing and fishing with his twin brother would clear his head and set him straight once more.
The new King Sverre was rough in his look and would need some guidance in polishing his kingly dress. Lady Bridget was a dark-haired, handsome woman, yet her husband continued to collect mistresses. It was clear the match between Bridget and Brosa was a political one, each half of the couple being equally greedy for more power. Though she had been the Queen of Sweden for only a year before her husband was slain, Bridget had always impressed Hök with her composure and grace. Now, as she displayed full support for her new husband’s cause, it surprised Hök that such a finely bred woman could oversee such carnage.
She raised her hand into the air and a hush came over the crowd.
“Bring forward the next prisoner,” Bridget announced. Evidently even queens had a taste for vengeance. Hök liked her all the more for it—it made her human and relatable.
The iron gates of the prison squeaked open and a woman with hair the color of deep copper emerged. The wind picked up, floating the long crimson strands up into the bright sky, creating a red-gold halo over the prisoner—none other than Lady Sovia.
Hök’s chest contracted.
Her gown was simple, yet still fathoms finer than that of any other woman in Bergen. The emerald green silk was tailored to fit her form and highlight the inequitable abundance of color that she possessed, as if she drained the color out of every woman around her. She carried her narrow, delicate chin high, as he remembered from when he’d last seen her. Her crimson mouth was so wide that it should have appeared out of scale to her face, but somehow it only added to her rare beauty, and her large emerald green eyes sparkled brighter than any cursed pirate treasure. Her hair tumbled down her back in silken waves, stabbing him with the memory of what it felt like to bury his fingers in that mane.
She glided toward the platform with purposeful steps, showing no emotion, no fear or hesitation. She did not accept the offered arm to help her climb the stairs.
“Sovia Losnadotter of Toraslotte, you stand accused of deceit, extortion, treason, and fornication. What say you?” the Archbishop of Bergen asked.
“I am not guilty,” she said, staring directly at Bridget.
“We have sworn witnesses to your crimes,” the archbishop said.
“Then let them come forward and bear witness. I have committed no wrongdoing against this monarch.” As the words left Sovia’s mouth, Bridget slapped her across the face.
“Liar,” Bridget said, her voice steady but her hand visibly shaking. Her rage seemed to be contained behind a thin veil that was moments away from unraveling.
“Offer proof before God, my Lady Bridget. Swear before these men of God and all these good people. What is your proof?” Sovia challenged boldly.
Bridget slapped her other cheek. “Your harlot tongue is all the proof that is required for these holy men to read your heart. You are a whore and a debaucher.”
Sovia did not cower. She clearly did not have a humble or remorseful bone in her body. “If indeed my actions render me guilty of a public punishment, then I expect that every man be equally tried and subjected to equal judgment.”
Onlookers started to yell insults—her lack of modesty had inflamed the already bloodthirsty crowd into a single-minded mob. To them, she represented the nobles who had stolen power and wealth from the northern shores of Norway, starving their people and hoarding the wealth and power in the southern districts.
Lady Bridget pulled a jeweled dagger out of a concealed fold of her skirt and without hesitation, cut away laces on the back of Sovia’s gown. The bodice fell open and the enraged woman tore the gown off, tossing it into the crowd. The accused now stood in a billowing linen shift, the wind creating a cloud of fabric.
Lady Bridget stood behind Sovia and collected her red mane into a thick tail, struggling against the wind. She coiled the hair in her fist, yanking Sovia’s head back, exposing her delicate throat. The remembrance of the taste of that throat assaulted Hök as Bridget’s dagger pressed at the back of Sovia’s head, under the base of the tail. The crowd cheered on.
“Let all whores know from this day on, that this is the least of the penance she will pay for her wickedness,” Lady Bridget shouted.
Hök flexed his fingers over the hilt of his sword.
“Your harlot hair has been the ruin of many a man.” Lady Bridget sliced her knife up, shearing the hair from Sovia’s head. A trickle of blood crept down the blade and onto Bridget’s hand.
Sovia’s face held an expression of mild annoyance, as if nothing the enraged woman or crowd shouted had an effect on her.
Hök stared at his boots. He had been raised to abhor violence done to any woman or weaker vessel. Wrongdoer or not, there were other ways to punish the guilty.
Would the new King of Norway be so reckless as to allow the execution of the widely supported and loved granddaughter of King Sigurd, slaughtered over the charge of loose conduct, without proof of conspiracy or collusions? Sweden’s war with the Rus forces, which had come to fight for the fallen king, had just ended. Norway’s civil war had ended but days ago. This action could set off a new Norwegian conflict, dividing the people’s support for the newly crowned king and uniting feuding factions under the single purpose of avenging this woman who had royal blood. The Lendmann party would make a martyr out of Sovia.
Hök pushed through the crowd to come before the king’s dais. He had served at sea for five long years, volunteering for the missions no other man would take. King Sverre owed Hök and the Norrland fleet a few favors. And though Sovia deserved no such favors from him, his conscience would not allow him to stand by and witness a woman murdered.
Lady Bridget tossed the long brand into the horde, and Jarl Brosa sunk down a little more in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with his wife’s actions, but apparently not enough to stop her.
“Behold the consequences of depravity and wantonness,” the archbishop said, standing next to the trembling Lady Bridget, her uncontrollable rage now on ugly display for all to see. “The wages sin pays are everlasting damnation both in this life and the hereafter.”
The ravenous mob quieted back down, awaiting the final judgment that was next
to come down on Sovia’s head.
“Hypocrites, all of you!” Sovia spoke in an even tone. “Shame be upon your heads before the almighty God whom you claim to serve.” She raised her finger and pointed to the king and his men. “How many of you fine crusading warriors have remained chaste while serving across the sea on foreign lands? How many fornicators and adulterers stand among your ranks and stand next to you upon your stage? How many of you fine men were virgins on their wedding night? All of you?” she shouted. Lady Bridget stepped back, startled by Sovia’s sudden eruption of mad laughter.
Sovia directed her attention to the crowd. “You stand in judgment of me. Well I stand in judgment of you! Who will stand in judgment of a man’s fallen virtue? Will you call every man you greet whore from this day forward?”
“Shut up! You are the daughter of a traitor and a whore,” Lady Bridget screeched. Fearless, Sovia ignored her, staring out at the crowd.
No man or woman could deny Lady Sovia’s magnificence. Shearing away her lustrous hair had only intensified the rare beauty of her facial features.
“Come one and all. Line up for your hair to be cut. If this is the price to be paid for my sins, then I will have much company.” Unrepentant, she thrust her arms wide open in a welcoming gesture. There was no shame, but only wrathful indignation on her face.
“Cut out her tongue!” Lady Bridget stomped her foot. “Do it now!”
Chapter 4
Sovia’s power was mesmerizing as a winter squall at sea, beautiful to watch yet hazardous for a man to turn his back on.
“Come, archbishop, you may be next,” Sovia said. “It was you I saw forcing yourself on the king’s young squire last Saint Francis day, was it not? And you, magistrate, did you not promise to release me from my shackles if I promised you a certain service?” The crowd flooded with cackling laughter and heckling jeers. “Or will you claim that on a saint’s day your holy vows were suspended?”