by Sandra Lake
“Mama, it is so pretty and soft. You look like a princess.”
Nodding, Lida swallowed hard. She stroked Katia’s hair, trying to reassure her that all was well, that her mama’s heart was not at this moment ripped out of her chest and sinking to the bottom of a cold, black sea. Ha! Cold, black sea—sounds like the perfect description of the jarl of Norrland’s heart.
“Friherrinna, your refreshment.” Mikko appeared and offered a chalice of wine.
“Gratitude, Mikko, but I am no longer thirsty.” She turned to her daughter. “Katia, would you care for some milk?” Her daughter nodded. In a daze, she returned her attention to the steward. “I believe my mother sent some goat’s milk.”
“Right away, Friherrinna.”
To keep her eyes from watering, she blinked rapidly. “Many thanks, Mikko.”
“You said you were hungry,” the jarl said from over her shoulder.
“I have lost my appetite.” Her eyes did not leave the last spot she had seen her cloak on the surface of the water. She pictured it slipping below, sliding in the current to the bottom of the murky seafloor. Would she one day share the same fate as her cloak? Would her child?
***
Magnus had not struck Lida for her defiance, though most husbands would have. The old cloak was nowhere near suitable for a jarl’s wife, dirty and matted at the fringes. It was unacceptable that she would wear another man’s pathetic offering while he offered her a far superior one. “It does not change my love for your father.” His wife betrayed him with a dead man.
He studied his wife and the child, distracted by Katia. The girl beamed as bright as the sun, her crown of golden hair glowing. She fidgeted back and forth in a strangely entertaining sort of way, as if her young life bubbled over with excitement. Magnus observed her with growing amusement. He was starting to believe having her aboard was not overly troublesome. Unlike her mother, Katia was well-mannered, did not make much noise, and smiled easily for all. He would ask Tero what he thought a small girl-child would desire. To start, he would have the furrier prepare a third white cloak for the child to match her mother’s.
In contrast to his forefathers, Magnus would not shamefully horde his coin, as his great grandfather Fibyter was remembered to have done. His family had fled from him because of the filth he forced them to reside in, the thin fabric he provided them with for clothing, and the generally unacceptable way in which he kept them. No, Magnus was a man who learned from his forbears’ mistakes.
Magnus’s sons and grandsons would remember him with reverence. His fortress was pristine, built for security and ruled with a strict standard of order and cleanliness. Aspects of the design of his fortress had come from the Germans and Romans. Stone and steel cost more and took longer to build, but the result was worth the added price. His stronghold would stand the test of time. Acquiring a worthy female to birth his bloodline had been the right decision, even if she held mysterious sentiment over a poorly crafted garment.
The girl-child approved of the superior cloak, wrapping herself in the bottom corner, petting the silk lining. At least one of them had some sense.
“Tero. Fix the child’s hair with Byzantine silk ribbons and place the white wildcat collar around her shoulders. Use the gold cloak pin from Darien, the one with the sapphire.”
His reliable servants moved swiftly, and in seconds the little girl was transformed from a street peddler child to a child worthy of being his daughter, a daughter of Norrland.
His wife gazed out over the rippling currents behind his fleet, further insulting him by withholding her attention.
Magnus cleared his throat loudly. “Tero has a bowl of stew for the child. You may take her to rest below. Mikko will see to anything you should need for the night.”
“Very well. Come, Katia,” his wife said.
“Thank you for my ribbons and collar, Jarl Magnus. They are the prettiest presents I ever got given,” the girl-child said in a small, keen voice.
Magnus was rooted in place, staring at the little girl. She was smiling at him, her arm stretched out, her mother tugging at her hand. He realized he was grinning and immediately stopped, reminding himself that jarls do not grin, especially at little girls. Jarls have no use for little girls.
With the last of his ships safe at anchor for the night, Magnus descended into his ship’s hold. To his annoyance, he found his wife and her child coiled together as one. A wife’s role was to warm his bed. He had need of her, now, and a child sleeping next to her did not suit him. She had arranged a second pallet of furs a short reach from where she slept.
After they reached Tronscar, these arrangements would change. He would lay with her two . . . no, three times a day, until she was with child or until he had satisfied his aching thirst.
By blood and thunder, she incensed him. “It does not change my love for your father.” He should have cut the foul cloak into a thousand pieces for insulting him with her traitorous loyalty to her dead man.
When he had joined with her below deck earlier, she had complied, did as she should, and then she went further, giving him more. He had lost himself inside her when he’d looked at her, tasted her . . . and that brought him back to the frustration of the sleeping arrangements.
The child was in his rightful place.
He untangled the girl from his wife’s arms and carried her over to the arranged pallet. She stirred, wiggling her nose and swatting at her hair.
He held his breath, unable to move, filled with the dumb fear of what he would do or say if the child should wake and speak to him, questioning why he had removed her from her mother. Bloody tooth. Vanquished by a tiny child.
He gently lowered Katia to the soft bed and raised the fur up to her chin. She nuzzled deeper into the bedding and resettled.
Relieved, he exhaled and lay down next to his wife. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he stared over at the child, confirming that he had not woken her.
Do you teach little girls the sword or fisticuffs? More unanswered questions to frustrate him. The burning need to mate with his wife wrestled against the unease of the possibility of waking the child. His mental battle of wills raged on through the night.
Chapter 8
As the last light of the sun burst into a thousand shades of orange and red over the water, Aleksi, the jarl’s second-in-command, called out that he’d spotted the evening fires of Farbjorn. The fleet of Norrland ships altered course to head west toward the Swedish coastline. Tero explained to Lida that they would port farther up the fjord and begin the daylong journey inland to Tronscar the following day.
The distant rolling hills held lush emerald cedar forests, fringing the shoreline with yellowing elder trees. Comforted by the fact that that the countryside appeared similar to her homeland, Lida did not ask questions about Tronscar or what to expect from her new life. She knew the basics. The jarl wanted heirs from her, nothing more. No partnership in parenting. She had foolishly fantasized about a doting father for their children. But a loveless marriage would be the price she would pay for her foolish dreams and selfish desire for a family.
At first light, Lida and her daughter were placed in a large, covered wagon pulled by four mighty horses along the long forest road to Tronscar. Under the floorboards, chests of gold and jewels were stored, payment for the weapons and shipments of raw steel that the Norrlanders had delivered over the summer. It was unsettling her all the more to see that the rumors were true—the jarl was a wealthy and powerful warlord.
If he was so highly connected and rich, why was he not wed to a noblewoman, highborn, someone far more important than her? she wondered. Was it that she was as disposable as her cloak?
The black pit of worry began to return. What danger had she plunged her daughter into?
The day had turned gray, with heavy rain clouds threatening overhead. She wished they would open up and drench them all. Dre
adful times called for dreadful weather.
Mounted on his prized destrier with Tero at his side, Magnus personally guarded his wife’s wagon. “What do you do with them?” he asked Tero.
“I beg your pardon, master. Do with whom?”
“Women, specifically little ones. I have never taken note of them before.”
“You are referring to Katia?”
Magnus grunted. Obviously. No other miniature females around.
“Little girls are not much bother when they are small. ’Tis when they reach a maturing age that they cause their parents problems.”
“Problems?” Magnus knew this would be all too likely, with Katia’s already smart smiles and entertaining mannerisms. There was always a price to pay with anything that brought enjoyment. Odin’s toes! Did he just think of the child as enjoyable? Well, he did not mean it. She was just another small trophy to add to his collection of crowns and jewels.
“They break their parents’ hearts when they wed and leave home,” Tero said. “It happens every time, I am afraid. Mothers weep over it for months and fathers usually go off on long hunting trips to fill the void.”
Magnus scoffed, “What rot! Kings and jarls worry over making the correct alliances in wedding their daughters”—he waved his hand—“dowry issues. Sullen brides were not what I was asking about. What do you do with them when they are small, like she is?”
“You do not do anything with them. They follow their mothers, learn how to sew and manage a household. Perhaps learn an art, music or dance.”
“What of swords, battle tactics, chess?” He mumbled the question because he realized how ridiculous it sounded as it was coming out of his mouth.
“I suppose . . .” Tero paused, looking far off into the distance. “The north is a dangerous realm. Learning defense would be sensible. Shield maidens are a proud tradition of Norrland.”
“That is what I thought,” he said without too much enthusiasm. If he did not stand guard, Tero would get the impression that he was eager to train the girl, which he was not.
“To answer your first question, master—they enjoy playing make believe. They like to be told stories, that sort of thing.”
“Make believe?”
“Aye, they pretend to be a princess and you are the evil villain who steals them away, and then they are rescued by their prince. Katia has a fine collection of wood carvings from her grandfather. We create stories with them when you take your lady off to have a private . . . word. I am usually the mother horse and she my misbehaving colt.”
“Mother horse? You shall correct her next time by calling it a mare.” Magnus took in a deep breath in order to avoid the chuckle he felt rising up in his chest. He would like to see Tero playing horses. “‘Break their parents’ hearts.’ Are you going soft in the head? I would think it hard enough to get rid of a grown daughter, especially if her mother stays attached to her. If she grows to be as beautiful as her mother, the situation may prove difficult due to unwanted attention from the south. But we shall strategize about that when the time comes.”
Tero glanced at him sideways and smirked. “Aye, master.”
As he had taken meals with and slept next to the pair of females, Magnus beheld that they decorated his ship and his armaments with beauty and grace. He would treat them fairly and keep them in good health.
Suddenly, Aleksi blasted the horn, sending his men the signal for battle formation. The moment the wagon entered the narrow gorge at Jokk, the Morgdor attacked, coming at them from all sides.
Savage cries, blaring horns, and the cracking of stone and steel sent Lida into a heart-racing panic. She placed her sleeping daughter on the wooden floorboards and covered her with a thick fur. The canvas echoed like a drum. She crawled to the front of the wagon and pulled back the oilskin, peeking out. It wasn’t rain making the noise, as she she had been expecting, but rather falling stones kicked loose by men descending the mountain like attacking spiders.
Barbarian savages swarmed in on foot, dressed in animal masks and skins, their faces painted for war, charging the Norrland warriors. Spears and arrows flew through the air.
Lida scrambled to the rear of the wagon, peeking out of a small crack between the wooden boards. A few yards away, the jarl’s mighty warhorse trampled a man as the jarl himself slashed and cut down another. His white cloak was pushed behind his shoulders so that his bare arms moved freely, lacerating bodies and blocking counterblows. His powerful arm muscles flexed as he raised his sword high over his head. Bringing it down, he severed the head of a man with an elk horn helmet.
Lida gasped and scurried back inside to Katia. She pulled her child into her arms and covered over them both with the fur.
The fight waning, Magnus pulled back the canvas of the wagon, but his wife and her child were nowhere to be seen. He leapt inside and tore back the fur, finding his wife clutching her child, her face turned away.
“Are you injured?” Magnus made a quick examination. Why was she weeping?
“You’re not dead!” his wife gasped.
“You are injured? The child?” Magnus’s concern mounted; her child had not moved.
“Sleeping. What is happening?”
“Morgdor are like insects—their numbers are great, but their steel is weak. Tronscar is impenetrable.”
“Oh,” she said, still quivering.
He grabbed the back of her neck, jerking her forward. He plundered her mouth, biting and sucking at her lips, plunging his tongue into her. He groaned. She should not be allowed to taste this good. He pulled away, leaving her lips red, her eyes holding an unmistakable wantonness. A surge rose up in his loins, his bloodlust pulsing through his veins, infecting him with the desire to toss up her shirt and ravish her hard and fast. He needed to make her scream her release in his ear, cleansing away her fears of death and rewarding her with the taste of shared pleasures.
He glanced down with concern for the sleeping child, and his lust drained out of him.
Effectively distracted, he moved to dig through a chest of jewels. “We will be in Tronscar within the hour. You will wear this when you are presented to my people.” He tossed Lida a gold necklace that held a dozen emeralds. “And this.” He handed her his mother’s ring with the Knut mark, the mark of his father, and the wristband of gold with his own engraved symbol of the bear claw.
He did not await her words of gratitude. His men needed to reposition and move the convoy forward. Once they were behind his stone walls and secure iron gates, he would allow himself to indulge in the soft, succulent curves of his queen.
***
Klara rolled off of Hakon and onto her back, propping her head up on the mountain of silk pillows that the jarl had brought with him last autumn. What rare precious treasures would be among his cargo this annum?
Her fat bedmate was gasping for breath beside her. He turned toward her, preparing to mount her. She shoved him off.
“I’m not finished,” Hakon said.
“I am,” she said, and stroked her hand across the mink fur bed covering. She shimmied her shoulder, savoring the final midday romp in her master’s bed, since it would be the last for a while, perhaps until next spring.
Hakon stroked his hand up her thigh, pitifully trying to get her to change her mind.
She slapped his hand away. “Go. Make use of a slag in the kitchen.”
“You’re a cold woman, Klara,” he said as he tugged on his trousers.
“Yet you still come back for more each time,” she sneered mockingly, peeling herself up off the bed and straightening her skirt. She tucked her breasts back into place and tightened the leather laces of her form-flattering bodice. She stroked her hands down her sides, satisfied that she was as desirably equipped as any sow in the jarl’s household. She still had what it took to get what she wanted from any man . . . with the exception of that arrogant whelp Magnus.
He, like his father, had only a taste for pampered southern girls—weak-wristed, pale, sickly sows with unspoiled bloodlines or some other equally useless trait.
Hakon sulked toward the door.
“That’s a nice perfumed oil you are wearing, Hakon. But must you bathe in it before scratching at my skirts?”
“’Twas the oil you nipped from the master’s supply. You said you preferred it.”
Klara sauntered toward the useless man, who held the highest position in Tronscar, all thanks to her, of course. She patted his cheek. “You know I love you, you old dog.” She kissed his mouth. Keeping him in line was easier than blowing her nose.
“Sometimes I wish you loved me less, Klara.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in, pressing his erect member into her belly. “I fear that love is going to get me hanged one of these days.”
She squirmed in his arms, tormenting him all the more. “Poor Hakon. Not man enough to handle it? By the way, don’t bother the slags cleaning the main hall.” She shoved him out the door and into the corridor of the master’s private floor. “And make sure Ylva places the Moroccan scented oil lamps on all the tables this eve. I expect Magnus before dark. That is, if he makes it here at all.”
Hakon tilted his head down like a whipped dog and stepped back toward her. “What do you mean, if he makes it?”
She smiled at him. The idiot had no head for preplanning. Klara had to do his job most of the time, on top of overseeing all the useless thralls in Tronscar. She put her hands on her hips and decided to enlighten the fool.
“Why not make use of the opportunity to lighten the load of foreign chattel he tries to bring home? Mikko’s last report was that he would not be returning without a new southern sow,” she said while picking her nails clean. “I told the chief he could keep whatever he could carry, as long as he left no females alive.”
“You take great risk, spewing your intent to the Morgdor. What if the jarl captures them and they talk?”