by Alexa Aston
The girl’s cottage had been a death trap awaiting only the smallest catalyst to set it ablaze. ’Twas a miracle she had not burned to death long before.
“Elrik!”
He turned toward the one who called his name, then jumped further from the burning cottage as a burst of new sparks showered him. Betek, his captain, a man from his home of Breda and the only one he had ever called ‘friend’, sauntered toward him from the direction of the village.
“Betek. Is it done, then?”
His friend grinned, though the mirth did not reach his eyes. “Aye. Our men gather by the stream on the far side of the village to make camp. We will feast well this night and for some days to come. This place boasted many chickens, and Sindmar prepares to roast one of the cows. Ricger and Ivo gathered bread and cheese. There is also much honey and dried fruit and, I am happy to say, apples and carrots for Hugo.”
Elrik batted at yet another stray spark that floated too nigh his already singed beard. “You feed that horse better than yourself.”
Betek shrugged. “What think you? The stallion is a new purchase. I must win his trust.” He eyed the minor damage done to Elrik’s clothing by the fire. “You got too close again.”
“Aye, the thatch. ’Twas an inferno waiting to flash. I held the torch instead of throwing it.”
His friend chuckled, but the sound lacked true cheer.
He looked hard at Betek. Drying blood, too much of it, splattered across the other man’s face. ’Twas smeared through his whiskers and over his upper torso. A bloody handprint splayed across the fabric of his braises below his knee.
He well knew he looked no better. “Is any of that yours?”
Betek snorted. “Nay. These people worked the soil and raised animals, with not a single skilled fighter—or rebel—among them.” His gaze turned somber. “’Twas too easy.”
Elrik crossed his arms over his chest. They had discussed this before.
“Where is the challenge, Elrik? We are warriors. We came to fight, not slaughter.”
“We are highly paid to slaughter.”
Betek spread his hands in a placating gesture. “Think not I complain about the coin. I have gained more gold in the months since we came to this accursed land than I dreamed. But I am a warrior. It sits not well with me to separate the heads of babes from their bodies while their fathers beg for mercy and their mothers scream in terror before I slit their throats. There is honor in besting a soldier of similar skill, but I find none in skewering a cowering oxherd who knows naught of a sword but to flee it.”
Struck by the truth of Betek’s words, Elrik stared at him. He also now had coin aplenty, but what could redeem his dark and tattered spirit? He silently cursed the decision to accept the last two contracts, with one more still to come. He had been aware it meant the very death-dealing to which Betek objected, but the proffered pay exceeded what he had earned in months of fighting other men’s battles. It might not be enough to buy back his soul, but ’twould supply the means to quit the path of blood and choose another. Within him grew a foreboding, abetted by nightmares of his own death, that did he not, he would not live long enough to enjoy his wealth.
Aye, he wished as strongly as Betek for an end in his life to the killing of innocents. He wanted peace, wanted to build instead of destroy, but feared in his heart it might already be too late. “My last kill was a boy-child,” he said, “too young to know what I was about to do.” Abhorrence of the action suffused his tone. “Methinks his face will haunt me until my death.”
“In this cottage?”
“Nay.” He met Betek’s gaze. “Do you remember what we spoke of, some weeks ago while in the forest in Eastsæxe?”
A hint of a true grin touched his friend’s lips. “You mean that time you went after that Norman femalewhat was her name? Ysabeau? And got yourself bested by her woodsman husband?”
“He was much more than a woodsman, I chose not to fight him, and he was not her husband.”
“It matters not, does it? You lost her, and methinks that a good thing. But aye, I remember our words together that night.”
“Did you mean what you said?”
“Aye—” But he drew the word out.
“Why not do it now?”
Betek went still. He looked away and then peered at Elrik from the corners of his eyes. “Why now?”
“Come.”
His friend trailed him to the place where he left the young female. As in the cottage she waited, still and hushed as the summer morn.
That idea disquieted. She had waited for him earlier, though he understood not how he knew. Why? Why had she not fled before he came, and why had she not run from this spot while he made ash of her home?
She stood when he approached.
He stopped between her and Betek, though he wished not to explore too closely his motivations in protecting her, even from his friend. “I found her in the cottage.”
Betek’s eyes narrowed. The look he gave the girl took her in from buttercream hair to dainty bare feet. “What do you do, Elrik? Why is she not dead?”
“I want to do what we talked about. Now. Both of us…and her.”
His friend opened his mouth and then closed it without speaking. He ran a palm slowly down his face and then gave a little snort. “Elrik, our discussion… I thought our words mere fancy, the imaginings of two tired soldiers wishing they had homes to go to for the night.” He pulled off his helmet, scratched his sweaty head and stretched his arms back as if easing aching shoulders. “I took them not literally.”
“I did.” Elrik jerked his head toward the female. “This girl appeals to me as no other. I speak not merely of the wish to mate, though that is part of it. She has courage and she—” He paused, unwilling to speak of her strange reaction to his arrival or how it affected him. “I know not yet fully why, but I intend to take her from this place. Come with us.”
“Why?”
“’Tis time, and I wish it. That is enough.”
“’Tis madness.” For a moment, they eyed each other. “You truly mean to do it, to leave this life and start over?”
Elrik glanced at the girl. Her gaze flicked back and forth between them, but if she felt fear, she refused to show it. Not once since he came upon her had she uttered a sound. Likely she understood not his tongue. Or was she mute? It mattered not. She would accompany him, or die.
In his years of fighting, he had picked up enough of the Saxon language to get along. “Your name?”
“Yrsa.”
He arched his brows, then spoke again, this time in the language of the Northmen, one he knew well. “You are Norse, not Saxon.”
She answered in the same tongue. “My mother was.”
“Your father?”
She hesitated. “A man of the Scots.”
“I am Elrik of Breda.”
Betek stirred. “Elrik?”
Switching back to Dutch but never taking his gaze from the girl, he said, “It may be madness as you say, my friend, and impulsively foolish, but in this, you do not command me. I have made my decision. I go west, into the mountains. She comes with me. I would that you also accompany us.”
“’Tis not that easy. As captain of the company—”
“Give the command to Merulf. He is capable and wants it. Our obligation to our present liege lord ends with the destruction of the next village. After, we have naught but to claim our purses.” He met his friend’s look. “Or is yours not yet full enough you would seek another new contract?”
He meant no derision, simply wished to know.
“Nay, my friend. I have enough. But I meant it when I said I knew not our speech together was in earnest. We must consider, and carefully, where we would go or what there may be to do for men such as we, except more service to yet another lord. We have no land of our own and we have not skills for other work. I must think on this.”
“I have already thought and listened much to the words of others. ’Tis my intent to make for Toresbi
, nigh the coast of the Iras Sea.” He laid a hand on Betek’s shoulder. “The others will eat, drink and sleep. Go, do what you must.”
“What of the female?”
“There is a small nunnery two leagues north of here.”
“The one we were ordered to leave untouched?”
“Aye. I will take her there now and leave her in their care until this business is finished. They will be glad enough of the coin I will give them to shelter her. I will meet you in the morn at the next village.”
“Well and good.” Betek grinned. “After our task is complete, we shall share a feast to celebrate either our farewells, or our new path together. I go to take my rest.”
Chapter Two
Knees protesting the unaccustomed activity, Yrsa knelt with the nuns as they offered their prayers of early morn. Despite the addition to her single garment of a woolen habit—the elderly abbess nigh swooned when she showed up wearing naught but her ragged cyrtle—she shivered as the others droned in a language she assumed was Latin. It had rained almost without ceasing for two days. The wet chill permeated the stone of walls and floors and suffused the air, but the abbess allowed the braziers lit only at night.
The quiet chanting continued. Since her arrival a week earlier, she had not deemed it necessary to explain she did not share the nuns’ faith. They, in their turn, accepted her silence as that of one untaught. Though kind enough, none spoke to her but the older sister assigned to watch and guide her. She had no wish to offend them, and thus offered her own prayers to Thor and Freya when they assigned her to work in the cloister garden. ’Twas always preferable to worship among the green, growing foliage and under the warmth of the life-giving sun rather than inside the cold, barren walls of the nunnery. The old building felt more like a dungeon than a safe haven.
But, oh, where was the warrior, Elrik? He would come for her, he said, in four days time. What stayed his return? Had he changed his mind, decided he wanted her not with him, after all? She knew little of men, but understood they could be odd in their thoughts about such things. Had not her own father promised to return for her mother? Yet the last time he left, never had módir seen him again. ’Twas truth, módir later learned he died and said she truly believed he would otherwise have come, but who knew? A man in Ottham abandoned his wife not six months after they wed. He left her to bear and raise their child alone. Had not her own betrothed left the village rather than stand up to Bercthun? Why should she expect better of a soldier?
Last eve in the deep of night, alone in the wet garden while the nuns slept, she celebrated the holy time of Feast of Lithasblót but without the required alms for the poor. Nor had she proper Fylfot loaves to offer as sacrifice, only the small loaf served with the supper meal. Though tendered with thanksgiving and pure heart for Urdr’s generous harvest, mayhap the Norn had not accepted that meager oblation. Did she thus prevent Elrik’s return?
Nay!
She opened her eyes to glance hastily around, fearing she had forgotten the need for silence and cried the word allowed.
The nuns chanted on, undisturbed.
Nay, Urdr and Freya were not harsh, as sometimes Odín and Thor behaved, nor cruel and tricky like Loki. They knew her circumstances. They would not penalize her for that which she could not control by withholding from her the promised destiny. Elrik would come, but did he not, she would hold to patience, as módir taught and wait another week. Only then would she leave and go in search of him. The vision did not preclude unforeseen chance preventing him from returning for her as he intended.
The thought he might have died while fighting in the last village his liege lord tasked him to destroy occurred but once. She immediately rejected it. The dream was too clear. It left no room for such a gross misinterpretation, though in truth, the same reasoning also meant he would not abandon her. ’Twas time to put aside witless fears and trust Freya.
The previous late night worship, compounded by worry, caught up with her at the midday meal. She had difficulty staying awake through the simple repast of bread and water.
As it drew to a close, an agitated young novitiate hurried into the refectory and offered a courtesy to the abbess. “Mother, the mercenaries have returned.” Her gaze sought Yrsa. “They are here for her.”
Yrsa’s pulse leapt. He came.
She bit her lip to control a foolish grin as warmth flooded her body, banishing the lethargy. Anywhere else, she would jump to her feet and run to meet him. Respect for the nuns kept her in her seat, but her toes tapped a silent, relieved refrain.
“Have no fear, Mitri,” the abbess said after chewing the last bite of her loaf. “They will not harm you. Return to the gate and lead them to my office. I will bring our guest.” When Mitri left, she slowly rose and smiled at Yrsa. “Come, child. I believe your stay with us is over.”
At the door, Yrsa turned to throw an encompassing smile at the seated nuns. Each smiled shyly and silently back.
She followed the abbess who waited until Yrsa walked beside her and then said softly so no other would hear, “Methinks you are relieved.”
Yrsa blushed, for the woman spoke true. Elrik’s clear gray gaze and his powerful warrior’s form lingered uppermost in her memory. She could not wait to see him again.
Elrik ignored the frightened female child who scurried out after she brought him to the workroom of the abbess. Why did they call him to the orderly space instead of sending Yrsa out to where he waited with Betek? Not a man of strong religious belief, he disliked the dark halls of the nunnery. They made him as uncomfortable as a serf invited to dine at the table of a lord. Even the simple, unadorned cloisters through which the girl child led him felt constricting, though they opened to the rain-misted garden.
The door opened and the abbess stepped inside. He barely acknowledged her before his gaze swept eagerly to the fair countenance of the woman he wanted so badly he had trouble sleeping. Plagued with lustful thoughts of Yrsa the entire time of their parting, he simply wanted to see her again, to prove she was no dream and he could truly take her from this place and begin the planned new life. For three extra days his company had waited, two of those in relentless rain, for the late arrival of their liege lord and the pay he owed them. The delay in getting back to her set him on edge. Betek, of course, teased him about her until he snapped and snarled and threatened to pummel his so-called friend into the wet earth.
How did this one female so easily upset the accustomed balance of his days? He had yet to hold a conversation with her, and he certainly did not know her. He had been with women more beautiful than she, and he took those lusty ones he desired and who desired him—or his coin—and went on his way. But he had only to envision Yrsa, a constant but sweet torment in his thoughts, to willingly toss every previous notion about women and their place in his life to the winds. That kind of disturbance made a man edgy.
From across the office, she watched him with shining gray eyes.
He spoke directly to her. “You are ready?”
“I am.”
He went to curl a hand around her small wrist and then nodded to the abbess. “My thanks, Mother.”
The abbess acknowledged his gratitude with watchful eyes, but her smile was kind. “I will pray daily for you both. Go with God, children.”
He hurried Yrsa down the cloister to the exit, nigh dragging her. He glanced at her and saw she grinned.
“Why do you smile?”
“You like this place no better than I.”
He frowned. “Did they mistreat you?”
“Nay. ’Tis a place of peace, but it also seems, well, a place where one might wake to discover one could never leave even if one wished.”
Her words exactly described his own discomfort. “Aye. Hurry, then.”
He lengthened his stride. She laughed and started to run to keep up. The heavy outer gate stood open. So anxious was he to depart, he pushed Yrsa through ahead of him, shoving her into Betek’s arms.
His friend grinned. “Why the
rush?”
“Shut up, and get the horses ready.”
“Horses?” Amazement colored Yrsa’s exclamation. “You have horses?”
They had four of the beasts, the two warhorses that belonged to him and Betek, plus two packhorses, both burdened with supplies. Those he had purchased the day before.
“What does that one carry?” She pointed to the animal. “The outline of the covered supplies is most oddly shaped.”
In a hurry, and considering the question irrelevant, he ignored her.
A brief shower sent them hasting to where the animals waited beside the nunnery wall beneath the leafy shelter of a maple.
She turned on him a wide, limpid gaze. “I cannot ride.”
“It matters not. You will ride with me. Should you need to learn, I will teach you.”
“And if I do not wish to learn?”
“That also matters not. If I deem you must, you will.”
For a moment, her small jaw clenched, but she said naught.
He turned away, hiding his grin. She liked taking orders no better than any other female.
“Your horses,” she said, “have they names?”
Elrik rummaged in one of the supply packs and pulled out a large, oiled cloak, which he threw over his shoulder. “The brown courser is mine. He is Derk. The black is Hugo.” He dragged out several more items and turned to stuff them into her hands. “You will have need of these. Put them on.”
Her expression lit, erasing the earlier pique as she admired the new pair of supple leather boots and woolen leggings in one hand and the linen cyrtle, woolen syrce, headrail and mantle in the other.
She draped the items over her arm. “You are generous, Elrik of Breda, but am I your slave?”
Taken aback by the question, he snapped his gaze to hers. “Nay.”
“Then if I ask you to turn your back, you will?”
Betek’s laughter rang out. “She is not going to make it easy for either of us, Elrik.”
He growled beneath his breath, but he also presented his back.