Sirens of the Northern Seas: A Viking Romance Collection

by Kathryn Le Veque

  It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing in the Northlands was. Tarr scanned his gaze across his farmstead—now Ulfrik’s—one last time before turning south. Despite the cold air, heat surged through his veins. His fate awaited.

  Chapter Two

  “Eyva Knutsdottir, where have you been?”

  Eyva closed the door behind her and stepped into the warmth of the hut. Though the snows had already begun to melt in the patches where the weak winter sun touched, her cheeks stung from the heat indoors.

  “I was at the smithy, just as you asked, Moðir,” Eyva replied. She pulled the ard from within the folds of her cloak and hefted the weighty blade of iron. Now that the snows were beginning to melt, they needed their ard in working condition so that they wouldn’t miss a moment of the short growing season. “Bothvar was able to repair it and says it should plow like new.”

  Eyva’s mother straightened from the caldron over which she stood and crossed her arms, a frown creasing her hard features.

  “It took you all day? Your father and brothers are nigh finished seeing to the animals!”

  Eyva kept her voice level and her face smooth. “Ja. Bothvar had several other tasks before he could get to our ard. And you know he takes his time to make sure he does the work well.”

  She concealed her lie with the truth of Bothvar’s slow but reliable work.

  Her mother looked at her through narrowed eyes for a long moment, clearly weighing Eyva’s words.

  “Come here, girl.”

  Eyva almost reflexively swallowed, but managed to stop herself just before she revealed the telltale sign of nervousness. As calmly as she could, she propped the ard in the corner and crossed the small hut to stand before her mother.

  Her mother’s eyes racked her with an assessing, narrowed gaze. Eyva forced herself not to flinch away. But when her mother’s eyes landed on her right ear, she froze, her stomach turning to stone and sinking to her feet.

  “What is this?” Her mother’s hand darted out and swiped along the back of Eyva’s ear. Her fingers came away red.

  “’Tis naught. I merely slipped on a patch of ice on the way home from the smithy,” Eyva said, though her voice sounded forced even to her.

  Her mother held her red-tipped fingers in front of Eyva’s face.

  “You were training again, weren’t you?” she snapped.

  “Nei, I was—”

  “Don’t you dare lie to me, girl!”

  Eyva opened her mouth to refute her mother’s accusation, but the realization of her defeat, of her failed attempt to hide the truth, killed the words of denial on her lips. She closed her mouth, resignation sitting like a boulder on her shoulders.

  Her mother’s blue eyes flashed in rage at Eyva’s surrender. “You have been told nigh a dozen times that you are not to train with that…woman. Now you will face the consequences of your disobedience.”

  The fire sparked within Eyva once more, but not in her own defense. Nei, she would not beg her mother and father to allow her to train with the warriors of Dalgaard yet again. But she would not allow her mother to badmouth Madrena.

  “Madrena is the greatest shieldmaiden in all the western Northlands, Moðir, and a skilled teacher as well. You should be proud that your daughter gets to train to be a shieldmaiden with the likes of her.”

  Angry color rose to her mother’s face at the bold retort, but instead of raising her hand and slapping Eyva for her insolence, she stomped around her and to the hut’s door. She yanked it open and stuck her head into the frosty twilight.

  “Knut! Come inside!”

  Eyva would have shrunken back at the realization that her mother meant to have her father give her a beating for her disobedience, but Madrena’s lessons had already begun to take hold. A warrior didn’t shrink from pain. Nei, she faced it calmly and bravely.

  “What are you bellowing about, woman?” snapped her father’s voice as he approached the hut. Her mother stepped aside and her father entered, red-cheeked from the cold and his exertions in the animal pens.

  Her mother crossed her arms once more and pinned Eyva with her hard, blue eyes.

  “Eyva has been training again. She has the blood on her ear to prove it.”

  The injury had been accidental, yet it had provided another opportunity for a lesson. Eyva hadn’t been holding her shield high enough and Madrena’s wooden practice sword had made contact with the side of her head just behind her ear.

  Despite being a small wound, blood had flowed briefly. Eyva had thought she’d wiped all the blood away from her scalp and neck, but apparently she’d missed a spot. She’d counted on her dark brown hair to hide the injury. ’Twas a small consolation, considering that other than concealing head wounds better than the pale blonde hair of so many other Northwomen, she considered her brown hair a curse.

  She held herself straight as her father’s gaze swept over her wearily.

  “And you wish me to beat the girl?” her father asked her mother.

  “Ja. If our orders and warning are not enough, then she can have the strap.”

  “In the morning, then. I am tired.”

  Her mother’s eyes flared in annoyance. “But she needs to be punished—now.”

  “Then you do it, woman!” her father barked. “I have been working in the cold since before the sun was up, and now that I am finally done, you wish me to ply my arm further?”

  Her parents fell into shouting at each other about how tired they both were. Eyva tried to block out the noise, since it was a familiar occurrence in this cursed hut, but her mother kept jabbing a finger toward her and flinging insults.

  Lazy.

  Unruly.

  Arrogant.

  But if Eyva was lazy, how did she manage to get all of her work at the farmstead done and still make time to train with Madrena?

  And ja, she was unruly, but only because her parents saw it as their task to break her spirit, both with endless labor and their refusal to let her become a shieldmaiden.

  Arrogant? Eyva didn’t hold herself above everyone—only her parents, whose bitterness at life threatened to poison everyone around them.

  Apparently her father’s ears remained unmoving under her mother’s railing, so she turned to Eyva.

  “Mayhap I shall take the strap to you, girl,” she said, closing the distance between them.

  Eyva remained motionless, her spine straight. She met her mother’s eyes unflinching. She could take the punishment, but it wouldn’t change her desire to be a shieldmaiden.

  Her mother rummaged in one of the wooden chests pushed against the hut’s wall. At last, she removed a thick leather belt her father had worn until the buckle had broken. She straightened and snapped the leather against her hand as she approached Eyva.

  Just as Eyva prepared to bend at the waist, her mother froze as the light of an idea came to her eyes. “Nei,” she said. “Give me your hands.”

  Eyva had been prepared for a few swats on the bottom. But her mother’s intent became clear now. Though she tried to steady her hands, they trembled slightly as she extended them, palm up, toward her mother.

  “If you try to grasp a sword and shield in the next sennight, you will be reminded of your shame,” her mother said, gripping the strap until her knuckles were white.

  “And what of my chores on the farm? You’d have me suffer through those as well?” Eyva bit out.

  Though she had two brothers, an older and a younger, who helped their father with the never-ending work on the farmstead, she normally labored alongside them. The winters had been too hard of late for her to indulge in the luxury of indoor work with her mother. Eyva didn’t mind, for she liked to push herself, to feel the fatigue in her body at the end of a long day.

  But she wanted more. She wanted to know how to defend herself. She wanted to earn honor in the eyes of the gods. She wanted to see new lands, new peoples, not be stuck on this farm, trudging between the fields and the animal pens, always caught in the same dismal cycle of days and nigh
ts, summers and winters, for the rest of her life.

  “Ja, you’ll suffer through your chores, too, for you are an insolent girl,” her mother said, her voice icy. The flash of her arm was the only warning Eyva had before the leather strap bit into her palms.

  Eyva inhaled sharply as pain exploded through her. She sank her teeth into her lip to prevent from crying out as the second lash fell. Blessedly, as her mother continued to rain blows on her outstretched palms, her hands began to go numb. But red welts were already rising on the skin. Everything she touched for the next sennight would bring fresh pain.

  At last, Eyva heard her father grunt through the ringing in her ears.

  “I still need her to mend the henhouse tomorrow,” he said crossly to her mother.

  She stilled with the strap halfway lifted for another lash. Eyva blinked back the tears that had welled unbidden in her eyes and stared defiantly back at her mother.

  Her mother’s face twisted into a sneer. “You are so obstinate that you do not even care about the pain, do you, girl?”

  “Nei,” Eyva ground out through clenched teeth. The dam of control was breaking within her, but she didn’t care. “For the beating you just gave me pales in comparison to the pain of living under this roof, being denied what I want more than anything!”

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “You ungrateful wretch!” She raised her hand, the leather still in her grasp, as if she would strike Eyva across the face with the strap.

  Eyva held her ground, her eyes burning into her mother’s, daring her to strike.

  “I suppose this is what you want, isn’t it, girl?” her mother asked as she slowly lowered her hand. She turned to where her father sat impassively at their wooden table.

  “Do something, Knut.”

  Her father shrugged. “I told you a daughter was no good on a farm,” he said. “Daughters are only good for one thing—marrying off.”

  Eyva blinked back fresh tears that sprung to her eyes. Her family had never made it a secret that she would be more useful had she been born a son. ’Twas just another reason why she needed to train to become a shieldmaiden—it was a way out of this nightmare. She had sworn to herself long ago never to turn into her mother, a bitter old farmer’s wife whose only purpose was to bear children, and then feed and clothe those children until they would be pushed from the nest.

  But a new, dark fear stabbed her belly as her mother considered her father’s words. “Then why don’t we rid ourselves of her?”

  Her father stroked his light brown beard in thought, but her mother went on.

  “She is past marrying age already. It would be one less mouth to feed.”

  “Ja, but also one less set of hands to work,” her father replied.

  “Mayhap we could bring her husband to live with us,” her mother suggested gently. “He’ll have to be strong. Someone from the village perhaps?”

  Her father tisked but continued to stroke his beard in thought. “Mayhap.”

  Dread descended on Eyva as she looked between her parents. They were serious. They would marry her off just to gain themselves a son-in-law whom they could put to work as well. And she would never escape this life.

  Before she could form a refusal, her mother’s eyes sparked. “The Jarl’s festival! There will be many stout lads gathered all together. It will be the perfect place to secure Eyva a husband.”

  Eyva’s father lifted a condescending eyebrow at his wife. “We are at least a two hours’ walk from where the games will be held. Do you think we can simply leave the farm unattended for the sennight of the festival to pick a husband for her?”

  Her mother tapped a finger over her lips. “Nei, I suppose not. The winner of the games, then. That has been done before, though it has been many years.”

  Her father nodded slowly. “The winner shall be her husband. And they shall both return to make this their home.” At last, his flat blue eyes shifted to Eyva, but instead of looking askance at her, he assessed her like a sow at the marketplace.

  “’Twill increase the merriment of the games, assuredly. The Jarl may even favor us with a token gift for the gesture of putting our daughter at stake.”

  “We can send her to Dalgaard for the opening ceremonies tomorrow,” her mother went on, clearly pleased with herself. “She will be presented as the bride prize—Knut’s daughter, virgin bride to the victor!”

  Eyva feared she would be sick. The hut seemed to tilt on its side, sending her whole life off-balance.

  “And if I refuse?” she managed to choke out through a tight throat.

  Her mother advanced. “Silly girl. You know very well that you have no say in the matter, no power. Under every law of the Northlands, you belong to us, and must do as we decide.”

  Perhaps this is what the thralls who worked on neighboring farmsteads felt like. Her family was too poor to have any slaves of their own, but she imagined she understood a sliver of the frustration and helplessness they must feel at being treated little better than the livestock they tended.

  “At first light, you’ll go to live with my sister in Dalgaard,” her mother went on, pleased with herself. “She will arrange for you to be presented to the Jarl as the prize for the festival games. And she will give me word when all is settled, so don’t bother disobeying.” The last was said sharply, shriveling any lean hope Eyva had of somehow avoiding this fate.

  Her father grunted by way of agreement. Eyva felt her heart, which had already hardened against them, turn to stone.

  “This will be the end of your shieldmaiden nonsense, girl,” her mother said. It wasn’t a warning, but rather a statement of fact. “You’ll take your proper place once and for all.”

  “Why have me wait until morning?” Eyva shot back. “Why not simply send me out into the night now?” She realized distantly that the tears had spilled over and were streaming unchecked down her cheeks.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” her mother snapped. “Now go call your brothers in for the evening meal.”

  Eyva lifted a trembling, red hand to her face, but her salty tears stung the fresh welts. She strode, back straight and rigid as a sword, past her parents and stepped out of the hut.

  She had to swallow several times to be able to shout her brothers’ names. They came trudging from the animal pens and walked past her and into the hut with barely a sideways glance. If they had looked closer, they would have seen the silent tears glistening in the weak moonlight, but they didn’t bother.

  Letting the cool night air soothe her enflamed hands, Eyva stepped several paces away from the hut. Even with the moon partly obscured by the clouds overhead, she could pick her way toward the trees just by the light reflecting off the lingering patches of snow.

  When at last she reached her favorite rowan tree, she sank down against its trunk, giving herself over to the tears.

  The bitter truth was, her mother was right—Eyva had no power over her fate. She had entertained the dangerous belief that she could become a shieldmaiden like Madrena, that she could control her future and live as she chose.

  But she had been deceiving herself. She would marry whomever won the festival games in Dalgaard, and then she would spend the rest of her life on this cursed farm, just as her parents said.

  For what else could she do? She couldn’t simply run away—the Northlands were too harsh and unforgiving for a girl on her own. And she wouldn’t be able to make her way on the little training she’d received from Madrena and the other warriors in Dalgaard. Though she’d longed all her life to be a shieldmaiden, she’d only begun practicing a few moons ago when Madrena returned from her journey to the east.

  The truth of her situation nigh choked her. Her parents had the law on their side. She would marry and become a farmer’s wife. It was time she let go of her silly dreams, for they only brought her pain when they inevitably didn’t come true. That realization was like a stab directly to her heart.

  Suddenly she heard a rustling in the woods beyond her. She froze. It could
just be an animal foraging for the first sprigs of greenery to poke through the thawing earth. But nei, she could feel the reverberation through the ground upon which she sat now—the reverberation of footfalls.

  Someone was approaching.

  Chapter Three

  A quake of fear went through Eyva, but just as quickly, a calm stole over her as she remembered all that Madrena had taught her. She wrapped her hand around the seax she kept strapped to the outside of her boot, clenching her teeth against the blazing pain in her palm. The short blade flashed in the moonlight as she scrambled to her feet.

  Just as a shadowy figure materialized from the trees in front of her, she stepped from the rowan. “Who goes there?” she barked as loudly as possible.

  The figure halted abruptly, but then eased forward out of the shadows.

  “I mean no harm,” a deep, soft voice said. “I am only passing through.”

  Eyva held her ground as the figure continued to slowly move toward her. At last, the man stepped into a moonbeam and Eyva realized that he’d only continued forward so that he would reveal himself to her. As moonlight settled on him, he came to a stop, raising his hands slowly.

  He was a younger man than she’d expected, given his deep voice. His face was smooth, adding to the impression that he was of an age with her, but then she took stock of his tall, broad frame and knew that a build like that took years of hard work to earn. Mayhap he was a few years older than she, then.

  The cloak on his shoulders was sturdy but not finely made. He carried a satchel across his body, but bore no other visible weapons. He held his hands aloft to try to convince her that he was no threat. But her eyes again scanned the breadth of his shoulders and decided to proceed with caution.