by Julia Byrne
Then all at once she thought she knew, and defeat almost doubled her over. Darkness seemed to drop between her and the rest of the world, leaving only one harsh sliver of light, and within that glaring flame burned a single word.
Ransom.
Aye, she thought, closing her eyes as unbearable pressure built inside her. Hadn’t she’d thought of this before, on Rorik’s ship? How much more likely was that explanation now? He’d been exiled from his home; he’d need money to start again. It was perfectly logical. No one would think anything of his decision; ransom was a business.
Oh, God, she couldn’t think about it now. Couldn’t ask him if it was so. An affirmation would crush her completely. And yet if she didn’t speak, if she didn’t break the grip of the talons buried in heart, she would break, screaming, crying, beating at him with her fists. Or worse, begging him to keep her.
‘Did Thorolf tell you about Ingerd?’ she got out on a ragged sigh. ‘About Thorkill?’
‘Aye.’ He looked around, frowning. ‘And about your suspicions, but unless Gunhild or Othar have developed a talent for being in two places at once, ’tis more than likely that Ingerd slipped fetching water.’
She shook her head, clutching this new argument to her like a shield. ‘Ingerd never fetched water. She was too old to carry heavy pails across the meadow.’
‘Then she went for a walk and missed her step.’
She frowned at him. ‘Ingerd was in no condition to go walking. Why are you ignoring this? Go and see Thorkill and—’
‘Damn it! To what point?’ he yelled suddenly.
‘Because your father was an honourable man,’ she yelled back, and the heat of anger was momentarily fiercer than the pain. ‘He wouldn’t have told Ingerd such a tale if that was all there was to it.’
‘Oh, you knew him so well, did you? After a day’s acquaintance?’
‘I certainly knew enough of him to want to know more. If you won’t see Thorkill, I’ll find someone who knows where he lives, and go there myself.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, but more quietly.
‘Is it not more ridiculous to ignore what happened to Ingerd? I can’t, Rorik. I…’ She faltered; her voice breaking. It wasn’t only Ingerd’s death that tore at her so. Her emotions were balanced on a knife-edge, terror that Rorik no longer wanted her warring with pain and love and rage that he couldn’t see it, couldn’t see what she was fighting for.
‘Yvaine—’ He took a step towards her, hesitated, then sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving a couple of feet between them. As if she was a pile of flints that could explode in his face at any moment, she thought furiously.
‘What does it matter if Ingerd didn’t relate the whole story? What she did say was the truth.’
‘Surely it matters that she was killed.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘Aye. I have to find out, Rorik. I feel so…guilty. If I’d taken more notice of her warnings, she might still be alive.’
‘You mustn’t think that,’ he said at once, and gave a bitter laugh. ‘You weren’t to know the mess my father was to leave behind.’
The echo of pain in his voice momentarily steadied her. He’d lost everything, she reminded herself, her heart aching for him. She reached out, unthinking, and touched his hand. ‘Rorik, your father wouldn’t have betrayed you. I know it.’
He shot off the bed as though launched from a catapult. ‘That remains to be seen,’ he growled, reaching for the door. ‘But ’tis clear I’m not going to get any peace until we do see it. If you’re determined to question Thorkill, you’d better get undressed and get under the covers. ’Tis a long trip. You’ll need your sleep.’
‘Well, my thanks for your gracious indulgence,’ she cried. ‘Holy Saints! ’Tis for you I’m doing—’
But she couldn’t go on, couldn’t speak the lie. It was for Rorik she was doing this, aye, but it was for herself as well, and if she failed she didn’t know how she would bear it.
‘Yvaine…’ He halted, surprise in his eyes, and she realised tears were spilling over her lashes. He put out a hand, touched her cheek…
‘Leave me alone,’ she cried fiercely, pushing at his hand before scrambling across the bed out of reach. She swiped her hand across her cheek, brushing away the tears. ‘I don’t want kindness. After we’ve seen Thorkill you can take me back to England and be rid of me. I’ll be glad to go. Glad, I tell you! And I hope—’
‘All right!’ he roared ‘You don’t have to make yourself clearer. Gods! Anyone would think I’d been about to rape you.’
He flung the door open, then turned back to grab his belt. ‘You didn’t object to my touch last night,’ he bit out. ‘But that was before you found out I was the son of a slave.’
‘You fool!’ Yvaine bounced to her feet, all but sizzling at this injustice. ‘If you were the King’s son you’d still be a thick-headed barbarian who wouldn’t know what was right in front of your eyes if it bit you.’
‘I hadn’t got around to biting,’ he purred with a smile that could have cut glass. ‘But don’t worry. From now on you can consider yourself free of me. I won’t bother you again.’
The door slammed behind him with enough force to shake the entire house.
They left at dawn in one of the small faerings—and in a silence broken only by the passage of oars through water. Even that ceased abruptly when the sun was high above them and Rorik stopped rowing so they could eat a simple meal.
Unbearably conscious of the hurtful words they’d flung at each other last night, Yvaine glanced about them. They were now deep into the mountain range. The fjord had gradually narrowed until sheer cliffs rose on either side, spearing towards the heavens. Beyond each bend another snow-capped pinnacle had loomed above them until she felt surrounded, overwhelmed by the stark, terrible beauty of the mountains.
Despite the warmth of the sun, she shivered as she gazed up at the towering peaks. How insignificant were their human desires and foibles, she mused, compared to these creations of time beyond the memory of man.
A distant rumbling made her start, and she glanced at Rorik in nervous enquiry.
‘Avalanche,’ he said briefly, and handed her a chunk of bread and some goat’s cheese.
It was the first word spoken between them since the previous night. He’d eventually returned to their bedchamber. She had heard his low-voiced conversation with Thorolf in the entrance hall, then he’d slipped quietly into the room to wait out the hours before morning.
Yvaine had lain awake also, too afraid to close her eyes in case she slept past dawn and he left without her. The fact that he’d agreed to go at all had puzzled her once she’d calmed down. She’d spent the remainder of the night torn between hope that Rorik might change his mind about taking her to England, and the heart-wrenching suspicion that he was only delaying the journey to ease her guilt over Ingerd.
The frozen silence in which they’d spent the morning had threatened to bury hope beneath an avalanche of despair as crushing as anything the mountains could produce.
And yet the long hours had given her time to think, to question. If Rorik wouldn’t use a woman for revenge, would he also not use a woman for financial gain? Other men would, aye, without thought, conscience, or even a flicker of awareness of the lady’s feelings in the matter, but Rorik was not like other men.
Oh, was she foolish to think so? Despite all that had passed between them, she still didn’t know him, was achingly aware that part of him remained closed to her. Was she foolish to wonder if his determination to return her to England sprang merely from his innate sense of honour—which might mean that he cared for her? He hadn’t touched her in any way; seemed scarcely able to look at her. What sort of woman held on to hope in the face of the stony wall he’d erected between them?
One who loved, she thought, closing her eyes briefly. One who still cherished hope, because the alternative was simply too painful to contemplate. No matter what it cost her, she woul
d do anything to keep him with her a while longer. To restore the terrifyingly fragile link between them.
‘Is it dangerous, the avalanche?’ she ventured.
Rorik shook his head. ‘Too far away.’ He leaned forward to take up the oars again, his eyes holding hers, guarded, yet searching.
Unwilling to let him see too deeply, Yvaine glanced away. ‘I think this must be the land the skald told me about,’ she said, indicating the mountains. ‘The land of the Frost Giants.’
‘The Frost Giants live in one of the three worlds of myth.’
She looked back at him as the boat began to move forward again. ‘Three worlds?’
‘Aye.’ He sent her that wary, probing look again. ‘We Vikings have a legend about a world tree, Yggdrasil’s Ash. It holds up the sky, and beneath its branches lies Asgarth, home of the Gods. Beneath that again are the roots, each covering the three worlds of myth. Midgarth, the world of men; the world of the Frost Giants, who are the mortal enemies of the Gods; and Hel, the world of the dead.’
‘We Christians believe in Hell, also.’
‘You mean your priests threaten people with everlasting punishment so they remain under the rule of the Church. Our Hel is merely a place for the dead.’
‘I’ve never thought of it quite like that,’ Yvaine murmured. She remembered the fat, greedy priest at Selsey, thundering out promises of eternal damnation if anyone disobeyed Ceawlin no matter what cruelties he inflicted upon them. ‘Some priests take advantage of the ignorant and simple, I suppose, but there are others who are good. It seems very far away now.’
He frowned. ‘Then you’re not afraid for your immortal soul, Yvaine? You’ve been unable to hear the Mass or confess. In England you’d be considered my mistress, not my wife. Do you think your God will forgive you a sin you couldn’t help?’
‘I wasn’t that helpless,’ she murmured, but the harsh note in his voice intrigued her. She opened her mouth to ask how he knew so much about Christianity.
‘Well, don’t worry,’ he muttered before she could speak. ‘No one in England need know of our marriage unless you tell of it.’ He gave such a violent pull on the oars the little faering almost flew out of the water. ‘Odin knows what your priests would do with you. Probably lock you away for the rest of your life. Hel!’
‘Yours or mine?’ she asked whimsically, and dragged a reluctant laugh out of him.
And suddenly it was all right again. The grim look disappeared from Rorik’s eyes, and when he started to tell her of other legends, the constraint between them eased. By the time he moored the boat to a jutting rock, where a barely discernible path meandered up the mountainside, Yvaine discovered that the tiny bud of hope was again blooming, fragile but persistent, in her heart.
‘Stay close,’ he said taking her hand as they started upwards, and even that small contact warmed her.
The climb, too, lifted her spirits. She was stiff from sitting in the boat for so long and the stony path, though precipitous, was easy enough to follow. Every so often Rorik would lift her over the roughest patches. Yvaine started counting the number of seconds that passed before he released her, then wondered if she was fooling herself that they seemed to be increasing.
So absorbed was she in these intriguing calculations that she didn’t notice Rorik had stopped walking until she bumped into him. He steadied her, but kept his gaze on the path behind them.
‘What is it?’ she asked, immediately forgetting sums and glancing back. After Rorik’s tales of myths and monsters, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Frost Giant or two, but the empty silence of the mountains surrounded them, as if they were the only people alive in the world.
‘I thought I heard something,’ he said. ‘Another boat.’
‘Thorkill?’
‘No. His boat was already there, tied under an overhang.’ He listened a moment. ‘’Twas probably nought. Sound carries in the mountains.’
But before they walked on, his gaze swept the rugged terrain as though examining every leaf and twig, and Yvaine felt a chill brush the back of her neck. As far as she knew, only Thorolf and Anna were aware of Thorkill’s existence, but what if someone had heard her and Rorik arguing last night? They hadn’t exactly been talking in whispers.
Worse, what if Gunhild had overheard enough of Ingerd’s warning to make her suspicious? She’d been close enough by the time Ingerd had noticed her and fallen silent. Without hearing all, conscious of her own secrets, might not Gunhild have set a watch on them?
‘Rorik—’
‘Aye,’ he said as if his thoughts had been racing along similar lines. ‘We’re being followed. Quick! Up here.’
He virtually propelled her up the next section of rocky slope by the sheer force of his body. Heart pounding, Yvaine scrambled over a jutting ledge and found herself on a plateau overlooking the fjord. She had a dizzying view of the drop below them before Rorik pulled her across to the far side and shoved her behind him.
He’d barely done so when a man leapt on to the rocky shelf from the path they’d climbed. He was armed with spear and axe, and in his eyes she saw a cold, emotionless purpose that stopped her heart. Without a word, he drew the axe from its loop on his belt, hefted it, then levelled the spear and spread his legs in a stance that looked terrifyingly efficient.
Rorik’s hand had gone to his sword-hilt as soon as the man appeared, but now he let it fall to his side as he, too, widened his stance. ‘Move back out of reach and get down,’ he said, not taking his eyes from his opponent.
Too terrified even to tremble, Yvaine forced herself to move, thinking he needed room to manoeuvre—although with his sword still in its scabbard, how was he going to deflect a thrown spear? Dear God, what if the man threw both weapons at once? The distance between them was so short, she doubted Rorik would have time to dodge in either direction.
No, she thought, grasping at reason, their attacker wouldn’t do that. He’d save the axe for close combat in case Rorik was merely wounded. Oh, Mother of God—
The prayer winked out of her mind as a death’s-head grin spread over the man’s face. Taking a short backswing, he launched the spear straight at Rorik’s heart.
Yvaine didn’t even have time to scream. In a blur of movement so fast she would have missed it if she’d blinked, Rorik dodged to the side, caught the weapon as it flashed past, swung his arm in a backward arc and returned the weapon with a force that buried it deep in its owner’s chest.
The man dropped the axe in his hand, his eyes widening in stunned disbelief as he stared down at the spear piercing his chest. His lips parted; he lifted a hand towards the weapon. His fingers never reached their goal. He staggered and dropped to the ground, choking.
Yvaine got shakily to her feet, hardly daring to believe it was over. So dazed was she by the rapid shift from danger to safety that when a voice spoke behind them she didn’t even flinch.
‘In all my life I have seen but one man perform that feat. Your father taught you well, son of Egil Strongarm.’
Rorik turned. ‘Thorkill,’ he acknowledged. His gaze went to the sword in the older man’s hand. ‘Were you intending to use that?’
‘If yonder assassin had succeeded in killing you, aye.’ Thorkill jerked his head sideways. ‘The vermin still lives. You might discover his reason for an attack that was clearly intended to come from behind.’
‘I don’t need to ask.’ But after a quick glance at Yvaine, Rorik walked over to look down into rapidly glazing eyes. ‘Gunhild sent you, didn’t she?’
The man stared up at him. ‘I was…to silence Thorkill. Or kill you…and the girl…if you got there first.’ His teeth bared in a hideous travesty of his earlier grin. ‘The old woman was easy…’ A rattle replaced the rest, and there was silence.
Rorik stood for a moment, his mouth set hard, then with a gesture that spoke louder than any words, he shoved the body to the edge of the plateau with his foot. One kick and it dropped like a stone to disappear beneath the dark waters of
the fjord.
Thorkill nodded in satisfaction. ‘A fitting end for a hired killer.’
Yvaine finally unlocked her frozen muscles enough to turn. As she did so, Rorik came to her side and put his arm around her. ‘Are you all right, sweeting?’
She nodded; the only response she could manage, and he drew her closer.
‘This lady is my wife, Yvaine,’ he said to Thorkill. ‘We come with news of Egil’s death, and with questions.’
Thorkill glanced at the abandoned axe. ‘Questions with a high price, it would seem. But come. You’re both welcome to my home. It lies beyond the next bend.’
They started up the path, Yvaine grateful for the supporting arm Rorik kept about her waist. She felt numb, as though she was surrounded by a veil of silence. Rorik glanced down at her a couple of times as he and Thorkill talked across her, and gradually, warmed by his concern and the heat of his body, the feeling lessened and she could hear again.
‘I’m saddened to learn of Egil’s death, Rorik. And that trouble has come upon you because of it. Egil hoped you wouldn’t need the stone.’
‘Stone?’
‘Ah. You don’t know it all.’
‘I know enough,’ Rorik said grimly. ‘’Tis Yvaine who would come. But since we’re here, I might as well know what else Gunhild was at such pains to prevent me hearing.’
‘First we’ll eat,’ said Thorkill, and indicated a turf and stone hut ahead of them.
The shieling nestled snugly against the mountainside, sheltered by a craggy overhang. Rorik had to duck his head as they entered, but the interior was roomy; a smaller version of the hall at Einervik.
As Yvaine sank on to one of the fur-covered benches in front of the firepit, Thorkill gestured to an ale jug on a nearby shelf. ‘Pour your lady a drink, Rorik. She looks like she needs one.’ He took up a ladle to stir the fragrant contents of a cauldron hanging over the fire. ‘Tell me, how does your Sea Dragon sail these days? Egil sent word that you were trying a longer steering-oar.’
Yvaine leaned back against the wall, listening with only half an ear to Rorik’s reply. Her senses might have returned to something like normal, but she was glad to let the conversation flow over her, to study their host while he and Rorik swapped seafaring stories. Thorkill reminded her of Egil, she thought idly, except that he still enjoyed robust health. His skin was weathered and lined, his hands gnarled, but his stature was straight and his white hair and beard were still thick. His clear blue eyes twinkled often, and she marvelled that a man so friendly and hospitable had once looted and killed at will.