Loving the Norseman: Book 1: Rydar & Grier (The Hansen Series - Rydar & Grier and Eryndal & Andrew)

by Kris Tualla

He looked splendid. Alive. Strong. His light brown hair blew in the wind and his green eyes glowed in the morning sun. The lopsided grin and crooked tooth only made him more beautiful.

  “What happened to your hands?” she asked.

  Rydar lifted his palms, bound in strips of torn linen. “I do no’ have the word.”

  She unwrapped one hand. “Blisters. And they must pain you something awful.” She pointed a finger at him. “I have a salve. Stay here.”

  He spread his arms toward the endless water, still grinning. “Where else I go?”

  Grier staggered to her cabin and returned with a small crock. By the time she did so, Rydar had unwrapped his other hand. She scooped a dollop with her fingers and rubbed it gently into his raw skin.

  “Ach!” he grunted.

  “Stings a bit. I ken. But it will help the healing and keep infection away.”

  Rydar sniffed his palm. “Smells like my bed?”

  She nodded, still working the salve into the broken blisters. “It has oil of lavender. And beeswax.”

  “You put here?” He touched her shoulder where the sword sliced her.

  Grier smiled a little. He had a good memory. “Aye.”

  Holding his hands like she was she could feel his pulse. She leaned a little closer and her ministrations slowed; she massaged his hands for longer than was necessary to work the salve into his skin.

  “Give me the linen,” she whispered. He did so, and she carefully re-wrapped the bandages. Only then did she allow her eyes to meet his. “Does that feel better?”

  He watched her intently. The grin was gone. “Aye.”

  “You’re changed,” Grier said.

  A series of indefinable expressions flicked across his handsome face. “How?”

  “I do no’ ken. But ye are.”

  Rydar shrugged. “Might be storm. It tried, but did no’ take me this time.”

  “Might be.” Grier could not stop staring at him.

  He leaned close and murmured in her ear, “Or might be you heal me in night, too.”

  Grier believed her cheeks were literally set on fire. Snuffing the flames with cool fingers, she glanced around for unwelcome ears. “Rydar!” she snapped.

  “What?” he teased. The grin was back.

  “Ye’re impossible!” Grier whirled away from him and lurched toward the front cabin—and breakfast—as gracefully as the rolling deck and her stiff, sore legs would allow.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  July 26, 1354

  Rydar climbed the mast and looked hard, squinting at the east horizon. A fog bank billowed beneath the morning sun signaling land. His heart began to drum a victory beat against his ribs, harder and faster by the moment. He threw his head back and howled like a wolf sighting a dozen full moons.

  “Do you see it?” Lars called up to him.

  “Yes! I see it! I see Norway!” Rydar choked on the last word, an unexpected surge of emotion stealing his ability to talk.

  “How far?” Lars shouted.

  Rydar waved down at him. He couldn’t speak past the strangling lump in his throat. He despaired of ever seeing his homeland again and now he was almost there. Almost back where he belonged.

  He hugged the mast with both arms and stared at the apparition as Gavin aimed the boat toward the bank of mountains rising slowly from the sea.

  For you, Arne. I could not have made it here without you. Rydar crossed himself and said a quick, silent prayer for his friend’s soul.

  They made landfall on the southernmost tip of Norway in mid-afternoon. Rydar consulted his map and estimated that they were about fifty or sixty miles from Arendal. He showed Gavin, Kristofer and Lars.

  Gavin leaned close to the map. “All we need to do is sail with the land on our left until we get there!”

  “We will be there by tomorrow morning!” Jubilant, Rydar almost slapped Lars’ injured arm before he caught himself. He slapped Kristofer’s shoulder instead. “How long will you boys stay before you set sail for Áslo?”

  He was met with blank looks.

  “Áslo?” Lars’ glance bounced around the group. “Are we going to Áslo?”

  “Didn’t Lady Margoh make arrangements with you?” Rydar demanded.

  “Lady Margoh? No…” Gavin said, his brow wrinkling. He turned to Kristofer. “Did she?”

  Before Kristofer could answer, Rydar slammed his hand on the table, causing it to creak and wobble in protest. “That bitch!”

  Three pair of startled eyes leaned away from him. Rydar glared at the retreating fishermen. “I’m not angry with you! I’m angry with her!”

  “Why?” Kristofer ventured.

  Rydar paced the confines of the cabin. “She asked for passage to Norway. She said she has family in Áslo. I said I was only going to Arendal. She said she would hire you. To take her there.” His tone was as clipped as his sentences.

  “Hire?” Gavin stepped forward. “She will pay us?”

  Rydar stopped and considered the young man. “That’s what she told me. That’s why I agreed to bring her along.”

  “Paying us is a good thing, isn’t it?” Lars posited.

  “It is, if she will still agree to it,” Rydar growled.

  “Where is Áslo?” Kristofer asked. Four heads crowded over the map.

  “It’s almost a hundred and fifty miles…” Gavin looked at the other two. “If we agree to it, how much should we ask her for?”

  Lars looked at Rydar. “How much is fair, Sir Hansen?”

  Rydar scratched his head, then his beard. He might as well get what he could for the boys; his loyalty lay with them.

  “In Scotland a laborer makes a penny a day. But you have to sail overnight, so you should get tippence a day. Each.” Rydar grabbed a burnt stick from inside the fire pot and made six hash marks on his table top. “And it will take you at least three days to sail that distance.” Rydar made two more sets of six marks. “How many is that?”

  “Eighteen,” Lars answered. The other two boys blinked at him, surprised. Lars grinned and shrugged the shoulder of his uninjured arm.

  Rydar bit back his smile. “That’s right. But I wouldn’t do it for less than twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-five? We’ll be rich!” Kristofer snickered.

  “We could fish on the way!” Gavin suggested. “And sell our catch when we get there!”

  “We’ll be richer!” Kristofer hopped up and down. “Let’s do it!”

  “Are we agreed?” Gavin asked Lars.

  Lars faced the floor. “It’s not up to me. I’ll be of no use to you.”

  Kristofer looped one arm lightly around his younger brother’s neck. “But you’re part of this, nonetheless. What do you say?”

  Lars grinned sheepishly and nodded. “Then we’re agreed.”

  “Good.” Rydar moved to the door. “Lars, I’ll let Lady Grier know we are nearly to Arendal so she might take the threads out of your arm today. And then I’ll inform Lady Margoh that her travel arrangements are completed.”

  When Rydar asked her, Grier was happy to remove the stitches from Lars’ arm. As she did, she gave the young fisherman explicit instructions for the weeks remaining with his splint. He thanked her and Rydar over and again for all of their respective help.

  Margoh, on the other hand, was livid.

  “How dare you take it upon yourself to hire those boys?” she ranted. “And twenty-five pence? That’s usury!”

  Rydar stooped crookedly in her cabin. He shrugged. “You may do as you wish, Margoh. I only sought to ease your way by securing your passage, since it slipped your mind to do so.”

  Margoh’s mouth flapped impotently for a moment. “I—it was my intent to—to book passage when—we reached Arendal,” she stammered.

  “Fine. You are still free to do so.”

  Rydar turned and opened her cabin door. The wooden clog she lobbed at him clunked against the portal just inches from his head.

  July 27, 1354

  Arendal, Norway

>   Rydar recognized Arendal the moment he saw the town again. Tucked about a mile from the open water on an inside passage, the low spit of land was crowded with merchant shops and fishing boats. It appeared much the same as it had the day he watched it fade from sight amidst his mother’s muffled sobs and his father’s silent fury. His gaze traveled west and up. There was Hansen Hall, its ancient stone walls nestled atop a bluff against the hill’s steep side.

  “At least it’s still there,” he whispered. His emotions roared as he stared at his childhood home.

  They tethered their little boat at the pier and the boys began to unload Grier’s belongings. Rydar had only one bag and he carried it strapped across his shoulder. He climbed down the rope ladder and then assisted Grier’s descent. She faced him expectantly.

  “What now?” she asked.

  What now, indeed. Rydar had plotted the next days with care, praying that his ambitious plans proceeded as he hoped. So much was dependent on the success of his anticipated string of events. He pressed down his anxiety, trusting it didn’t show.

  “First, lodging,” he said.

  Her brow quirked. “Lodging? Are you not going to your home?”

  “No’ first. I must barber and bath.”

  “Oh! Ye want to look respectable when you appear from the dead, aye?”

  Rydar gave her an enigmatic smile. “Aye. Is most like that.” He lifted one of her satchels and took her arm. “We go?”

  She looked up at him, surprised. “I’m going with you?”

  “Aye. I am only one you know here.”

  “What about Margoh?”

  “Margoh no’ come with us. She goes to Áslo.” He grinned at the thought.

  Confusion pinched her features. “Where is that?”

  “One hundred and fifty miles away from Arendal.”

  Her mouth burst open. “How?”

  “Boy fishermen take her. She pays them.” Rydar shrugged and tugged Grier’s arm. “Does no’ matter.”

  Grier refused to be moved. “But I thought you asked her to come to Norway with you!”

  An incredulous laugh burst from him. “No! She ask me.”

  “But she said…” Grier’s expression transformed from flustered to furious. “That bitch!”

  Rydar nodded. “I say same!”

  Grier glared up at Rydar from under lowered copper brows. “Do you expect me to come to your home with you?”

  There was one piece of his plan. “I hope aye,” he confessed. Before she could argue with him, he added, “Can you barber?”

  “Barber?” That clearly took her by surprise. “Aye.”

  “Good.” He tugged her arm again. “We go.”

  ***

  Grier scraped the blade over Rydar’s soapy chin and then wiped it on a towel. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand—and not risk the man’s life—while the morning’s surprising events played through her mind.

  Rydar never asked Margoh to come with him to Norway.

  Margoh was not here with Rydar, but she was.

  Rydar wanted her to come to his home with him.

  She wasn’t left alone to fend for herself in this land where she couldn’t understand anything that was said to her.

  Yet.

  And now they had two rooms at an inn. She was in his room. Shirtless, he wore only braies and hose while Grier stood between his long, warm thighs, held his chin, and shaved every hair from his sculpted cheeks and strong jaw. Rydar’s eyes were fixed on hers, their green pools drowning her.

  “Ye can no’ keep staring at me like that, and ye wish me not to cut you!” she scolded.

  With a slight wink, he lowered his gaze. She finished and handed Rydar a wet towel. He wiped his face clear of soap and examined his reflection in the mirror she held in front of him.

  “Very good, Grier. What you think?” He grabbed his now shoulder-length locks. “Cut my hair?”

  I think you’re perfect just as you are. I think you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.

  “It seems the men in the town wear their hair long,” she said instead.

  “What you like?” he pressed. “Long or short?”

  “It’s perfect,” she breathed.

  Rydar nodded, his gaze and smile slowly yielding. He seemed to be pondering something far away. “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Aye.”

  While Grier put away the barbering things, Rydar pulled the tunic she made from his satchel and slipped it over his head. The last time he wore it was at Logan’s wedding. A stab of homesickness twisted through her.

  He raised his brows at her. “Good?”

  “Perfect,” she said again.

  They ate downstairs at the inn and Rydar ordered their best meats and their best wine. He was unusually quiet and Grier wondered what thoughts bound his tongue.

  But she kent she’d be a puddle of parritch if she faced such uncertainty as he. If she found herself returning to Durness after leaving on bad terms. If she couldn’t know who of her family still lived—if anyone—following such widespread devastation as the Black Death.

  After finishing the meal and the wine, Rydar stood and offered his hand. “I have a thing to talk with you,” he said quietly. “We go to your room. For… alone.”

  Grier’s knees quivered like the parritch she truly was. He was so withdrawn as they ate that whatever ‘thing’ he wanted to discuss must be bad. And he had just spoilt her with food and drink of the best quality to ease her mood in preparation. She realized that she had rejoiced in her situation far too quickly.

  Rydar led her to her room without speaking while Grier tried to think of what she might do when he turned her out. She had money. She could pay for lodging, maybe with a family. She would ask for help with the language. Perhaps an assistant might be found who had English; then she could begin to practice healing while she learnt Norse. Certainly Rydar would help her in the search. He owed her that much.

  When they reached her room, Rydar opened the door. He followed her inside and shut the door decisively. He gestured toward a chair and Grier sat, but only because her shaking legs refused to support her any longer. She prayed that her expensive dinner would stay put and not spill all over the floor.

  Rydar stood in the center of the room, his hands gripped behind his back. He stared hard at Grier for several long, silent eternities. His face was flushed and his jaw muscles rippled under his newly shaven skin. When he spoke, his words came out in a rush.

  “Marry me, Grier.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Grier’s eyes widened in shock and her surging pulse dulled her hearing. “What!”

  “Marry me,” he repeated.

  She was not at all prepared for his words. “Why?”

  Rydar grimaced. His fists swung out from his back, clenched. “I ken we are… same.”

  Grier sucked a breath through her teeth. She held it a moment, then let it out slowly. She kent she had to be honest with him, no matter how strongly she felt about the man. Though it might kill her, it was only right.

  “You may think me daft, Rydar. And I would no’ blame ye at all, considering where we are. But”—she swallowed a bit of the meal that climbed up the back of her throat—“I’ll no’ marry without love.”

  “I be sae good husband, Grier,” he offered.

  This was unbearably hard. Her one love stood before her and offered her heart’s deepest desire. Grier longed to simply say yes and make the best of what might follow. Perhaps she should. Her chest tightened with unshed tears.

  His pale green eyes searched hers. “Might be in time you start to love me?”

  Grier frowned her confusion. “Love you?”

  Rydar cleared his throat. “Is so hard?”

  Grier stood, needing to make her point very, very clear. “No, Rydar! I spoke of you.”

  “Me?” Rydar’s palm smacked his chest.

  “Aye.” Grier stepped closer. “I’ll no’ marry a man who does no’ love me as I am.”


  Rydar fell back a pace, visibly shocked. Then he started to laugh. Hard.

  “It’s no’ funny!” Grier cried.

  “No! No is no’!” Rydar waved his hands. “I’m sorry, Grier! I’ve no’ done this afore and I make a mess!”

  With effort worthy of Robert the Bruce, Grier held together the scraps of her tattered emotions. “Un-mess it then, man! And quickly!” she demanded.

  Rydar stopped laughing and rested his hands on his hips. He stared silently at the wood-grained floor, visibly gathering his composure. Then he faced Grier once again. His green eyes flamed.

  “Grier MacInnes, I love ye with all my heart.”

  She disbelieved her ears. “What?”

  Rydar stepped closer. “I love you.”

  “Aye?”

  “Aye.”

  “Ye do?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh… Aright, then,” she said shakily. She was soupy parritch again. Was the chair close behind her?

  Rydar reached for her hands. “You marry me, and now ye ken?”

  Stunned, Grier met his gaze. “Do you no’ care how I feel about you?” she blurted.

  “You do no’ love me now. Later you do, aye?”

  “Rydar Hansen, you are a whappin fool.”

  Rydar bristled. “And what means that?”

  Grier laid a hand against his flushed cheek. “I asked you to take me with you, did I no’?”

  “Aye…”

  “And do you believe that I would leave everything I ever kent for anything other than love?” Grier asked.

  Understanding pulled all color from Rydar’s face, then splashed it with joyous red. “You ask, and you love me?”

  Grier nodded, her voice strangled.

  “But I ask you!” Rydar exclaimed. “I ask you why!”

  Grier’s face heated with embarrassment. “Aye, you did.”

  “Why you did no’ tell me?”

  “I believed you loved Margoh.”

  “Margoh!” His face twisted. “Why?”

  She spread her hands wide. “She said you asked her to sail with you.”

  Rydar scowled. “No…”

  “And you spent so much time with her…”