They ate in silence for a while, but Audra felt compelled to discuss Fingal. “He is doing his best to goad you.”
Smiling, he put a reassuring hand on her knee, filling her with warmth. “I know. I lost my temper. Don’t worry. I don’t intend to kill him.”
The reed-thin abbot suddenly appeared at his side like a hovering wraith. “Lord Sigmar, a word. In my office, if you please.”
Sigmar rose from the bench. “My Second will accompany me,” he said.
The abbot’s already furrowed brow wrinkled further but he turned on his heel and left as silently as he’d arrived.
They found him in a box-like room, stacked with yellowed parchments from floor to ceiling. The three stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space, but Audra didn’t mind the closeness. Sigmar’s strength was her strength.
“I am not altogether comfortable with your presence,” the abbot whined. “Sherborne Abbey is the final resting place of two Wessex kings, the older brothers of King Alfred the Great. What is your mission?”
Sigmar cast his eyes around the cramped space. “You are obviously a man of great learning,” he said softly. “King Canute is a devout Christian who will do everything in his power to advance England’s monastic tradition. He will be as great a king as Alfred, and our mission is to impress that on Prince Eadwig.”
The abbot’s rheumy eyes brightened. “I have heard as much from my friend in Tavistock. I have spent my life continuing the great work begun here by our sainted founder, Abbot Wulfsige.”
Audra remained silent. The fussy cleric had obviously not seen through Sigmar’s thinly veiled explanation, and she suspected he wouldn’t appreciate a woman’s thoughts. She admired Sigmar’s careful handling of the old man’s feelings.
They were about to take their leave when the abbot cleared his throat. “One more thing,” he murmured. “The boat. We weren’t told how many to expect. You are twelve.”
They waited, nervousness gnawing at Audra’s innards.
“Our boat will accommodate six, at the most.”
*
During Canute’s lengthy diatribe on the numerology of twelve, Sigmar hadn’t paid any mind to the superstitions attached to the number. Now, inexplicably, an icy premonition crept across his nape that the mission to assassinate Eadwig was doomed. It didn’t make sense; he wasn’t a man ruled by such notions and he hoped the dread wasn’t evident on his face, though Audra had probably sensed it. She seemed to be always aware of his feelings.
He made a quick decision. “Very well. Your guide will take us all to the coast, and six of us will go from there to Exeter. Can you provide shelter for the six who must remain in Lyme?”
The abbot nodded. “We have a small dwelling there.”
Another plan began to form. “We’ll need a half dozen monastic robes to use as disguises in Exeter.”
For a moment Sigmar feared the old cleric might balk, but he consented.
“We’ll depart at dawn,” he said.
“Go with God, my son,” Elfmaer intoned, signing a cross in the air. He glanced nervously at Audra. “Er, my children,” he muttered, his lips a thin line.
“He’s not happy at the notion of a woman wearing a monk’s habit,” Audra whispered as they made their way back to the Refectory.
His belly lurched. “You’ll be staying in Lyme,” he stated flatly.
She stopped abruptly and made him face her. “No.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Why is it more dangerous now than before?”
He was afraid confiding his fears would make him appear weak. “With only six.”
She locked eyes with him. He saw only love in the brown depths. “We will choose wisely, but I am a vital part of the plan. You cannot leave me behind. Where you go, I go.” She touched her fingertips to his chest where she knew the tattoo lay. “Sigmar and Audra. Inseparable.”
Boiling Salt
The abbot appointed Brother Phillion to lead them to the abbey’s salterns at the mouth of the river Lym, where they arrived well before noon. Sigmar was reluctant to embark on the sea journey until later in the afternoon. He wanted the sun to be setting when they sailed up the Exe.
The elderly monks laboring under the hot sun at the salt pans quickly obeyed their guide’s terse instructions regarding the care of the horses.
“He’s evidently their superior,” Sigmar muttered to Dagmar.
“Or they are simply glad to get away from boiling the salt,” Dagmar replied.
Sigmar wrinkled his nose. “Stinks of burning metal.”
Brother Phillion reappeared, ushering them towards the salterns. “The pans are made of lead which melts easily if the salt brine builds up. That’s why you see my brothers chipping off the crust that’s formed.”
Sweat poured off two ancient monks who looked about ready to collapse with exhaustion. They were hacking away with small picks at the salt that had dried hard on pans perched on knee-high brick walls between which blazed a hearty fire.
“Must be an easier way,” Sigmar mused aloud.
“No, no,” Phillion replied, as if speaking to a child. “It’s been done this way since Roman times.”
Audra joined them. “I’ve never seen this method of salt production,” she said. “In Kievan Rus they mined it.”
Phillion looked down his nose at her as if he didn’t believe she had ever set foot in Kievan Rus.
By now The Dodeka had clustered around to watch the process. “It’s a miracle their robes don’t go up in flames,” Gertruda declared, earning a scowl from Phillion.
“They are laboring for the Lord,” the monk asserted pompously. “He protects them.”
Fingal snorted derisively, but Vasha elbowed him hard in the ribs and he said no more.
The monks who’d taken care of the horses returned. They picked up oaken buckets and headed off into the shallow waves.
Phillion beckoned the company to the beach. “Here is our boat,” he said with great pride, gesturing to a dilapidated craft hauled up on shore. “We don’t use it very often.”
“No surprise,” Fingal exclaimed. “Not seaworthy.”
Sigmar had not selected Audra’s father as one of the six and felt certain that by nightfall the man would have alienated every monk with whom the group left behind would be lodged.
“I can assure you it is,” Phillion protested. “Solid oak timbers waterproofed with animal hair and pitch.”
Something the two monks in the water were doing caught his eye and evidently didn’t meet with his approval. He strutted off in their direction.
Sigmar motioned the company away from the salt pans. They gathered in a circle, feet sinking in the white sand.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of the monks,” Audra said, “but in Kievan Rus the salt is mined by condemned prisoners.”
Everyone looked back to the pans. “Same thing here,” her father replied. “Seriously, that boat won’t carry six of us.”
“It will have to,” Sigmar retorted. “We’ll stick close to shore, and you need not be worried. You’re staying here.”
Fingal glowered.
Audra cringed.
“Dagmar, Audra, Gertruda, Vasha, and Svein will accompany me to Exeter,” Sigmar announced.
“Not a mariner among you,” Fingal sneered. “You’ll all drown.”
*
Audra glanced back at the decrepit boat, then at the firm set of Sigmar’s jaw, her emotions in knots. This was going to be difficult. “My father is right,” she murmured, perturbed by her husband’s scowl. However, if the mission was to have a chance of success, she had to speak. “Fingal Andreassen is the only one among us with the skill to get that boat safely to Exeter.”
Several of the others nodded enthusiastically, including her father. She itched to wipe the smugness off his face.
Sigmar glared at her. “Very well,” he growled. “Andreassen will take Vasha’s place. We leave in an hour.” He strode away towards the boa
t before Vasha had a chance to protest.
Audra thought her father might at least mutter a word of appreciation, but he seemed more interested in smoothing Vasha’s ruffled feathers. She was reluctant to go after Sigmar. She had challenged his authority in front of the others. Some Viking Kaptajns would pass sentence of death for such insubordination.
“Leave him,” Gertruda muttered in her ear. “He’ll come to see you were right.”
“I hope so,” she replied sadly. “I’d have preferred to take Vasha over Svein, but I wasn’t going to argue.”
Gertruda shook her head. “Your father wanted Vasha safe.”
Her comrade walked away before Audra could ask what she meant. She glanced over at her father. He gave her a mock salute, pecked a kiss on Vasha’s cheek and plodded off through the sand towards the boat.
Whales
Brother Phillion eyed Sigmar as if he were a lunatic when asked about tides and the landmarks to watch for on the voyage, but one of the elderly monks readily volunteered the necessary information.
The old boat was hauled into the water and the monastic robes stowed under one of the three splintered rowing benches. It was fortuitous Sigmar had requested they be wrapped in an oilskin in Sherborne. Fingal bluntly declared two of the four oars useless and tossed them into the embers beneath the lead pans. The sail was nowhere to be found. However, he mumbled grudgingly that the craft was steerable.
The six got into the boat and those remaining behind shoved them off.
Dagmar and Svein rowed, Fingal manned the tiller.
The plan was to take advantage of the incoming tide which would help carry them up the Exe. The monk had advised that sandbanks in the river were a hazard at low tide. Compared with the treacherous waters Audra’s father had navigated before, Sigmar supposed the heavy swells of the Narrow Sea weren’t a challenge, though the set of the man’s jaw betrayed the occasional uncertainty. “Perhaps going by land would have been a better idea,” he admitted to Audra, hoping the usual seasickness churning in his gut wasn’t written on his face.
“No,” she replied, putting her hand atop his. “By sea is the best plan, and don’t worry. I know many a Viking who suffers from seasickness.”
As usual she’d sensed his discomfort. He regretted his earlier stubbornness. “You were right about bringing your father,” he conceded. “I couldn’t have steered in this swell.”
She nodded, pointing to the approaching headland. “Red sandstone cliffs,” she shouted into the sea spray. “Mouth of the Exe.”
*
Audra expected her father to turn the boat into shore, but instead it veered alarmingly out to sea. She gripped the rough wooden side with one hand and clung to Sigmar’s gambeson with the other.
The reason for the sudden manoeuvre soon became clear. They were in the midst of hundreds of breaching pilot whales, all headed for the mouth of the Exe.
“They’ll strand on the beach,” her father yelled hoarsely. “Seen it before.”
The water around them churned black as far as the eye could see. The oars were useless. The sea creatures tossed the flimsy craft like a cork.
“Hold on to me,” Sigmar urged her. “The boat isn’t built to withstand this kind of—”
Suddenly she was catapulted deep into icy cold water, surrounded by sleek black bodies and an eerie silence, except for the echo of bubbles.
She flailed around, hoping to see some of the others in the water. There was no one. They must still be in the boat.
If she could get to the surface she’d see Sigmar, but the whales were a solid seething mass above her. No sky, no sea even.
In blind panic she lashed out at the animals with clenched fists, shoving, pushing. She had to have air or her lungs would burst. When it seemed hopeless, an opening appeared and she broke the surface, spluttering, choking, coughing, her hair a sopping curtain over her face.
Treading water with numbed legs, she searched without success for any sign of life. The whales pushed her inexorably toward the shore. Fear froze her blood. She was alone. There was no boat. No one had survived to help her.
Her only hope lay with the whales. Close to exhaustion, her heart breaking, she clamped her arms around a slick body and allowed it to bear her away.
*
Sigmar surfaced quickly after the boat broke apart, desperate to catch sight of Audra. Whales still swam by, but not as many as before. A few yards away heads bobbed above the water.
Svein and Dagmar.
Both saluted to indicate they were safe, and they too scanned the sea.
Another head popped up. Relieved Gertruda had survived, he forced down the panic rising in his throat. Audra had yet to reappear.
And where was Fingal?
Svein, Dagmar and Gertruda swam to each other and clung together in the swell. He made his way towards them.
Suddenly Gertruda pointed. “There,” she coughed.
Hope soared in Sigmar’s heart, but his spirits plummeted when he saw Fingal, draped across a piece of wood, face in the water.
“He can’t swim,” Gertruda shouted.
What kind of a Viking didn’t know how to swim? But then he shook his head, aware most of the men he’d sailed with from Denmark couldn’t swim.
He raised his eyes heavenward, praying to whatever gods were listening. Surely he wasn’t expected to save Fingal and lose Audra?
“Head for the shore,” he yelled hoarsely. “I’ll see if he still lives.”
He struck out toward his enemy, his lungs on fire, frustrated that he didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
When he feared his limbs might not carry him further he grasped hold of the floating wood and yanked on Fingal’s hair, certain his nemesis must have drowned.
Audra’s father was pale as death, but he peeled open one eye. “Fyking whales,” he growled, heaving up sea water.
Beached
Audra blinked open her eyes, then quickly closed them against the blinding light warming her face. Was she in one of the halls of Valhalla? Or in the White Christ’s Heaven, a place she’d never thought to find a welcome.
Every bone in her body ached. Then she remembered. Sigmar was gone, lost forever beneath the waves. She sobbed, digging her fingers into—sand?
Far off voices penetrated the fog. A sickening stench she couldn’t name hung in the air. She turned her head slowly and opened her eyes. A whale lay inches away, grinning eerily. She raised her head, discovering she was on a beach strewn with dead and dying whales as far as the eye could see. She flattened herself against the hot sand when she caught sight of men making their way through the carcasses, sharing their loud amazement at the incredible scene they beheld. Their manner of speech told her they were Anglo-Saxons—Eadwig’s people.
Her battered limbs were unlikely to carry her far, and where would she go?
If she still had her dagger, mayhap slitting her own throat might deliver her quickly to Sigmar’s side. He alone had brought light into her dark life. Without him…
She choked on salty tears.
Or she could feign death; it stalked her anyway.
She recognised the moment they saw her. Chatter ceased, and suddenly she was squinting up into the grinning, bearded faces of four burly men.
Shaking violently, she turned onto her side and retched into the sand, Sigmar’s name pounding over and over in her brain.
*
Fingal swayed on unsteady legs in the shifting sand of the dunes. “I thank you for my life, Sigmar Alvarsen,” he coughed. “Now we must find my daughter’s body.”
Sitting cross-legged on the sand, his lungs still heaving, Sigmar shook his head, struggling to hold onto what his heart told him was true. “She isn’t dead, Fingal.”
“I too want to believe so,” Fingal replied wearily. “She’s all that’s left of my family.”
Sigmar looked up at Audra’s father, tempted to punch him in the nose. “You expect me to believe you care about her?” he spat.
Fin
gal sank down on the sand beside him. “Grief does strange things to a man, Sigmar. I knew as soon as I set eyes on you in Canute’s langhus that you were the one for my daughter, but hatred stood in my way.
“What happened in Jomsborg all those years ago wasn’t your fault, or even mine, and certainly not Audra’s.”
A burning desire to be free of the past constricted Sigmar’s raw throat. “It was my father’s doing.”
“Ja,” Fingal replied. “But I think he later regretted his outburst over the fyking sheep.”
Sigmar was surprised. “You do recall what started the massacre.”
“Of course. Every brutal moment of what happened is engraved on my heart, but most of all I remember how powerless I was to alter the course of those terrible events. The irony is your father’s complaint over the sheep was justified.”
Sigmar studied Audra’s father. He’d never considered the feud from Fingal’s point of view. The man had lost all his sons. Audra was the only child he had left. Sigmar had to trust in the belief she was still alive lest he go mad. He came to his feet, beckoned the other three survivors, and offered Fingal his hand. “We must find her.”
*
Jostled like a sack of grain over a burly shoulder covered in chain mail for what seemed like an eternity, Audra was certain her ribs were shattered. In her delirium she thought to express her regret to her captor for retching down the back of his uniform, but he apparently hadn’t noticed. Judging by the acrid stink that clung to him, one more—
She lost her train of thought when she was dropped to the hard earth. The impact drove the last remaining breath from her body. She struggled to come up on all fours in an effort to dispel the dizziness, vaguely aware of men gathered around her.
“A Viking bitch,” crowed a whining voice she somehow recognised.
Sneering laughter greeted the declaration. She itched to retort that she saw nothing amusing in the situation, but then reality penetrated the fog.
Sirens of the Northern Seas: A Viking Romance Collection Page 16