The Viking Prince

by Sarah Woodbury

  Cait bent forward with a frown. “I would have said that aged account books and papers aren’t a very exciting find, but the very fact that they’re hidden implies they’re important.”

  Conall picked up one of the books and opened it to somewhere in the middle. “These aren’t account books, Cait.” His hand actually trembled as he set down the first book and picked up another. “They’re ancient texts.”

  Cait looked over his shoulder and wrinkled her nose. “I knew I should have paid closer attention when you tried to teach me Latin.”

  Conall looked at Godfrid. “Could Rikard read it?”

  “Yes. His uncle was a priest, and besides, he needed to be able to read it in order to communicate with traders and suppliers from other countries. Arno and Thorfin read Latin too.” Godfrid poked his nose between them, scanning the writing. “It’s the four gospels. Look at those illustrations!”

  Some years ago, Godfrid had been pleased to restore the Book of Kells to the men of Brega as a peace offering. Had he known how quickly they would break the peace again—and kill his father—he might have kept it. Then again, he’d made a promise to Gareth’s abbess friend, and that wasn’t something he would ever violate.

  “Could these have been what the thieves wanted?” Cait asked. “Books?”

  “They are worth their weight in gold to the right buyer.” Conall gently put the one he held back in the trunk and picked up a paper scroll. Once he unrolled it, he held it at arm’s length before he could begin reading. Like most men Conall’s age, it seemed his eyes were going. But then a moment later, his skin paled under his freckles.

  “I may have found what we’re looking for.” Conall moved so Godfrid could look over his shoulder at what was written on the paper.

  Godfrid scanned the Latin. “It can’t—it can’t mean what it says.”

  Conall looked up at him. “It’s a contract for your brother’s death.”

  Cait gasped. “Ordered by whom?”

  “Ottar’s seal is at the bottom,” Godfrid said, “and I recognize the hand of his skald, Sturla.”

  Godfrid could sense the hatred Ottar felt for Brodar radiating from the document. It wasn’t just that they were rivals for the throne. Brodar had an air about him, an authority, that couldn’t be bought or traded for. For all that Ottar had grown up as the son of the King of Man, he didn’t have that innate confidence, and he hated the feeling of inferiority.

  Not that he was alone in that. Most men hated to feel inferior. More than that, they feared it, and to Godfrid’s mind, it was fear more than anything else that made Ottar a bad king. Too afraid to move forward or back, he did nothing. Certainly he didn’t have the muinin, the confidence, to confront either Brodar or Godfrid directly.

  The secrecy surrounding the document, however, was self-evident. If Brodar died of unnatural causes, his followers would be very suspicious, and who was to say that the uneasy peace in Dublin wouldn’t devolve into civil war. The same fear tied Brodar’s hands as well, since outright hostilities—or outright murder, as the case might be—would bring down upon Dublin the wrath of King Diarmait, despite his assurances of neutrality. Godfrid believed his people could withstand any attack from Leinster, but once a battle was engaged, nobody could predict the outcome with certainty.

  Conall began rolling up the paper with rapid movements. “Where is your brother now?”

  “At his manor five miles southwest of Dublin. His wife just gave birth to his first son after four daughters.”

  Conall tucked the scroll inside his jacket. “The fact that the scroll is here rather than out in the world gives me hope that we have a little time. I will ride immediately to warn him.”

  “No, Conall.” Cait put out a hand to her brother. “Neither you nor Godfrid can leave Dublin. We can’t give Ottar any indication in word or deed that we know about this. It should be me who goes.”

  “I am not sending you into the countryside on your own, and you should know better than to ask,” Conall shot back.

  “Someone needs to watch Godfrid’s back,” Cait said. “If Ottar has called for Brodar’s death, an order for Godfrid’s might not be far behind.”

  Godfrid put a hand on her shoulder. “My men can protect me. Besides which, I am inclined to think that if I had a price on my head, I would know it.”

  Conall grunted. “Maybe. At the very least, this explains why Ottar assigned you to this investigation. He wanted to give you something to do, to distract you, so you wouldn’t be paying attention to what he was up to. Perhaps that’s why I’m here too. Maybe he manipulated me instead of the other way around.”

  “All the more reason to hurry before he begins to wonder what happened to the death warrant,” Godfrid said. “What should I tell Ottar or Holm when they ask where you’ve gone?”

  “Tell them I am pursuing a new lead, as Gareth might say. If pressed, say that you feel uncomfortable disclosing any information that might incriminate innocent parties. We have the upper hand now. We have to be smart about how to proceed.”

  Godfrid ground his teeth, frustrated with his inability to be in two places at once.

  But Cait shook her head again. “If you must say something, tell Ottar we have reason to believe the culprit was Irish, and that we have tracked him out of the city. That should please him.”

  Godfrid felt a little better too. “We got lucky and caught a break—”

  He broke off as footsteps sounded above them, followed by Jon’s voice as he lied with admirable aplomb. “Pardon me, my lord, I must have been mistaken. I could have sworn they were here, but since they’re not, I couldn’t tell you where they’ve gone.”

  “Isn’t it your job to watch over your master?”

  Godfrid put a finger to his lips, recognizing the voice that replied. The Danes didn’t have music in their blood like the Welsh, but when Sturla’s deep voice bellowed out the sagas in the hall at night, he could make grown men weep.

  “I am tasked with guarding the warehouse today, my lord. As always, Prince Godfrid does as he pleases.”

  Sturla scoffed, but he couldn’t argue in the face of Jon’s relentless politeness. “Young Finn came to see me earlier today and asked that I look over a trading agreement. Do you know where it might be?”

  “I apologize, my lord. I don’t know anything about that.”

  Godfrid made a mental note to increase Jon’s pay. This degree of loyalty and intelligence couldn’t be replaced and needed to be rewarded.

  Sturla’s grumble of disapproval was audible. “Have you seen Finn about?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t know where Finn is either. Perhaps Rikard’s partner, Arno, could be of service? He would know far more about what you’re asking than I.”

  Sturla grumbled something again, and then his boots paced away across the floor. The bang of the front door closing with more force than was strictly necessary reverberated all the way down into the vault.

  A few moments after that, a knock came on the trapdoor. “He’s gone, my lord. If you wish, you can come out.”

  Godfrid looked at his friends. “At this moment, we are one step ahead of Ottar, but if we are to stay that way, we need to behave as if everything is normal.”

  Cait sent him an admiring smile. “Turn Ottar’s plan on its head, you mean?”

  Godfrid looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “We guessed that one reason Ottar assigned you to the investigation was to keep you occupied over here while he was busy conniving over there.” She gave a saucy laugh. “Now we will do the same to him.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Day One

  Caitriona

  “You have insulted me for the last time!” Godfrid’s face was red as he bellowed the words into Conall’s face.

  “They’re only insults if they’re not true.” Conall laughed snidely before turning on his heel and stalking away up the street.

  Godfrid watched Conall go, even making an obscene gesture at his retr
eating back, and then he reentered Rikard’s warehouse. The argument had taken place on the front stoop and had been short but vicious. The two men had every expectation that news of it would spread rapidly around Dublin.

  Now, Godfrid took a moment to rest the back of his head against the wall. “How did we do?”

  “Well enough.” Cait poked her head into the street and looked left and right before pulling back inside. “Plenty of people saw that. I confess that at times your hostility towards each other makes me uncomfortable, but I can see also why you two enjoy it so much.”

  “You’re not alone. It makes everyone uncomfortable. That’s why we do it.” Godfrid straightened from his position against the wall and held out his arm to her. “After a year of it, nobody has any doubt that we hate each other.”

  “Thus, when you’re seen in public, everyone leaves you alone, just like Holm and his men did.” Cait took his arm. “It’s very clever.”

  Godfrid made a face. “Maybe too clever.”

  “Why is that?”

  They exited the building and started up the street. “I’m now escorting you in full view of all of Dublin. Everyone knows Conall isn’t going to like that.”

  Cait laughed and tossed her hair, well aware of the furtive looks they were already garnering. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  Godfrid grinned. “And you have just assured that it will be the first thing someone tells him when he gets back.”

  Cait sniffed, still play-acting. “He believes he has the right to tell me what to do.”

  “Most brothers would say the same.” Godfrid spoke lightly too, but another glance at his face showed a furrow of concern between his brows.

  Cait let out a sigh. “Conall hasn’t told you everything yet, by the way, and before this goes any further, I think I should.”

  She could sense a stiffening in his shoulders. “What do you mean?”

  “These messages that passed through Ottar’s hands included the latest word from Denmark.”

  She was right about the stiffening, which became more pronounced. “Denmark wouldn’t interfere in Dublin on Ottar’s behalf.”

  Cait raised her eyebrows. “You say that with certainty, but can you really be so sure? Everyone assumes the Danish king won’t interfere because he never has. That isn’t to say one of the current pretenders to the throne wouldn’t use Dublin as a base of power if Ottar convinced him of its advantages. The Welsh kings of Gwynedd have done it more than once. Why not Danish ones, whose blood ties, if anything, are stronger?”

  Just as in Dublin, the throne of Denmark was currently under dispute by two men, Knut Magnussen and Sven Ericson. As in Ireland, among the Danes, while a king’s son was a natural candidate for the throne, his right to rule was by no means a given. He had to be elected, chosen by his peers over other worthy rivals. That was why—more than victory in battle over Ottar, though, of course, a crown could be achieved that way too—the greatest concern for Godfrid’s brother was to win the support of the leading men of Dublin.

  “Which of the two claimants are we talking about?” Godfrid asked.

  “Knut.”

  Godfrid scoffed. “Ottar is a fool if he thinks that idiot will save him from my brother and me. After Knut helps Ottar throw off the yoke of Leinster, what’s to keep him from continuing as the King of Dublin, especially if there is wealth to be made here and Sven is in the ascendancy there?”

  Cait made a noncommittal motion with her head. “Conall and I suspect that the bargain Ottar seeks ensures that he will keep control of Dublin once Knut achieves his goals in Denmark. Ottar is already a client king to Leinster, but I imagine he thinks it would be better to serve Denmark.”

  “It is farther away, I’ll say that about it.” Godfrid rubbed his chin. “Perhaps when King Diarmait learns what Ottar is plotting with Denmark, he might care a little more about which side gains the upper hand in Dublin?”

  “You don’t want that. Really you don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “He, himself, might invade.”

  “He doesn’t have the strength, and he knows it, not against our fighting men.”

  Cait stopped and put a hand on Godfrid’s arm. It was more than a year since her husband died, making Cait well out of the mourning period, but it was still odd to find herself with a man who was not her husband or brother. “I don’t want to argue with you, but the Irish perspective is different. You Danes have only ever had a foothold in Ireland. If we Irish had ever managed to unite against you, you wouldn’t have lasted as long as you have. Our constant infighting is the reason you survive.”

  “The high king would not like to hear you say that,” Godfrid said dryly, starting to walk again, more jauntily than before. “And I don’t see the animosity and fighting among Irish clans stopping any time soon.”

  Before Cait had traveled to Dublin, Conall had laid out for her the current relationship between Brodar and Ottar and the stakes in their underlying tug of war. Becoming King of Dublin took wealth and men. Ottar and Torcall had initially shared the kingship because their factions had been evenly apportioned. With Torcall’s death, some of Torcall’s men had gone over to Ottar’s side, preferring a man they knew to an untested one like Brodar, on top of being paid to defect, which is where Rikard came in.

  Recently, Brodar had been working with Rikard to use his wealth and influence on his fellow merchants to encourage them to stand up to Ottar and come back to Brodar’s side. While the simplest action Brodar could have taken would have been to assassinate Ottar, Brodar hadn’t done it because he knew it would start his rule on shaky ground. To Cait’s mind, to have done so would have been expedient and very Irish. Somehow, though they would deny it strenuously, the mighty Danes, who’d lived for seafaring and battle and confrontation, had become money-counters, fighting over coins.

  Of course, her people had always thought with brawn instead of brain, which was why they remained constantly at each other’s throats. It took only a few taunts and insults for an Irishman from Connaught to rip apart one from Leinster. As she’d said to Godfrid, that tendency to fight amongst themselves was what had allowed the Danes to gain a foothold in Ireland in the first place. It was why Ireland desperately needed a strong high king at all times.

  For now, Dublin was back under Irish control, but that wasn’t to say her people had learned their lesson. They were just as argumentative as they’d been hundreds of years earlier when the Danes had pitted one clan against another in order to carve out Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford for themselves. Cait didn’t think her people were any better prepared for the next invasion, especially if the invader was more disciplined or numerous than the Danes.

  While Cait was relieved Godfrid hadn’t taken offense at anything she’d said, she couldn’t explain his cheerful mood. “What is making you so happy all of a sudden?”

  “It is a sunny day, I have a beautiful and intelligent woman at my side, and I have just learned that Ottar is conspiring with Knut of Denmark.”

  “And that makes you happy?” Cait had to do a skipping step to align her gait with Godfrid’s. When she had been Niall’s wife, she would spend two hours a day at most at her loom and the rest on her appearance, whereas in Dublin, she’d spent three solid weeks working in the darkness of Rikard’s warehouse. She herself wasn’t displeased to be outside, walking beside such a handsome and intelligent man, and she straightened her shoulders a little more.

  He slowed his headlong motion to accommodate her shorter legs. “I can see now why Ottar needed to use Rikard as a go-between. If any of his allies knew of his plans, he might have fewer allies.” He paused. “Do you have proof of what you’ve told me?”

  Cait shook her head. “The messenger from Denmark refused to put anything in writing. That was a week ago, and Rikard and I were getting along well enough by then that I was hidden behind a curtain when he met with him.”

  “Which begs the question yet again why he didn’t hide you behind a curt
ain last night.”

  Cait shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Or even better, why didn’t he come to me?” Godfrid’s despair slowed his steps even more.

  “As we told you earlier, Rikard was afraid he had a traitor in his midst, who would then discover your alliance and reveal it to Ottar.”

  “There’s irony in that he could engineer a meeting between Ottar and an emissary from Denmark, but he couldn’t figure out a way to communicate with me.”

  Cait made a rueful face. “And with Rikard dead, it’s my word against Ottar’s.”

  Godfrid tsked under his breath. “I’m sorry to say, the word of an Irish slave turned princess is unlikely to inspire confidence.”

  Cait wasn’t offended by Godfrid’s comment. It was the reason she hadn’t done more about what she knew other than tell Conall. “I’m not a princess.”

  Godfrid drew in a breath as another thought occurred to him. “Could it be that Ottar was at the warehouse last night? Could he have ordered the warehouse ransacked?”

  Cait shook her head. “Even if that were the case, why not let me witness the conversation as before?”

  “We will find out.” Godfrid patted her hand as it lay in the crook of his elbow and changed the subject. “Our walk together is not going unnoticed.”

  The streets of Dublin were busy with people, many on the way to the market or the fields, but others were simply loitering on their front stoops or talking casually with their neighbors. Cait felt their eyes on her as she walked by. “I’m getting the sense that you don’t often walk with a woman.”

  “Not often, no.”

  “I’m still dressed as a slave.”

  Godfrid laughed. “Nobody is looking at your clothing, believe me.” Then his eyes narrowed. “But we must correct that oversight immediately. Your overdress helps, but if I know the women of Dublin, every nuance of your existence is about to be examined in terrifying detail.” He stopped then and there in the middle of the street, unhooked the cloak he wore around his shoulders, and swung it around her body.