by Terry Spear
“He will see his childhood sweetheart.” Brina couldn’t help feeling irritated about it, when she had no business doing so. “Wynne told me so.”
Brina couldn’t help worrying about her da too, and she felt sure that Gunnolf would be the one to save him and get rid of Seamus. Maybe Gunnolf could take charge until her da was better, and they could contact her cousin. He could return and take over, and Gunnolf could go back home to his MacNeill family. What if instead, he decided to stay with Inga, and then fight Brina’s family on his own people’s behalf?
She saw the way Lady Akira treated him just as fondly as she did her firstborn son. And everyone else genuinely liked Gunnolf: slaps on the back, tankards raised to him wherever he went. Even early this morning before everyone was awake, she’d learned James and some of his men had ridden out with Gunnolf to the border as a sign of true friendship. So she really wasn’t certain how this would go.
“I worry about Hallfred’s wife, Inga,” Brina said.
“You think she will want to wed Gunnolf now, and he will help to rule their people?”
“’Tis a possibility, do you no’ think?”
“Anything is possible. That you will even find a man here that you will fall in love with among those of the MacNeill clan.”
Brina sighed. “Are you interested in anyone here?”
“I havena had the chance to meet with anyone but Gunnolf and James.” Lynette glanced over her shoulder and smiled at the men who were supposed to be practicing swordsmanship but instead were watching them, smiling, eager to maybe even court one of the women, or both. “Lady Akira has been like a mother hen to both of us and keeping the men at bay, though she didna stop you from kissing Gunnolf last night.”
“How do you know that?”
Lynette smiled at her. “Everyone knows that.”
Brina couldn’t believe the whole of the clan had seen, or at least the word had spread about the deed. “Will you stay here if I return home?”
Lynette’s eyes widened.
“I mean, if someone goes home to put an end to Seamus’s rule.”
“You worry about your da.”
“Aye.”
Lynette readied another arrow and shot at the burlap figure of a man, striking him in the head. “He wouldna acknowledge that I am your sister.”
“Before, aye,” Brina said. “If you were to return—“
“Nay, I willna return. I am home here. Welcome. Loved.”
Brina took a deep breath. “You know that I love you as a sister. I always have.”
“Aye. But I would have a difficult time returning with you, no matter how your da has changed. If he ever were to change. He isna my da, but I understand your need to return home.” Lynette gave her a warm hug. “No matter where we live, we will always be sisters. Aye?”
“Aye.” The knowledge they were sisters and would be separated didn’t appeal.
“Come, you are still trying to beat me and so far I am doing better. Put that fearsome Viking out of your thoughts and concentrate!”
On the second day of Gunnolf’s journey, three men rode out to meet him way before he even reached the first shieling. They wore patchy lamb fleece cloaks over light-colored wool tunics, highly decorated penannular broaches holding them in place. Swathing bands, or spjarrar, wrapped around their trouser legs, protecting them from the cold and dense brush. One of the men was blond-haired, the other two brown-haired. All looked prepared to fight, their hair braided in part on the sides, the blond holding his sword in hand.
“Ver heill ok sæll!” Gunnolf called out in his native tongue, greeting them with be healthy and happy. “I am Gunnolf, brother of Hallfred, son of Gustavson!”
His words had the men stopping in place as if they were seeing a man who should be dead, who looked similarly to his older brother, Gunnolf suspected. “I survived and lived to see my kin sail away and leave me behind. My brother Hallfred had been rescued, so not all had been lost.”
They still didn’t move from their spot of dormant grass and grilled him about his family. Then finally, the darker-haired, older man of the three said, “Come, Gunnolf, son of Gustavson. Inga will know you when we do not.”
“Fair enough.” Gunnolf rode toward them and they flanked him while they galloped to the center of their village, men and women, farmers alike, watching the stranger in their midst.
Then he saw Inga riding through the village, shield and sword readied as if she were going to fight him, her blond braids flying, her green eyes narrowed like a cat’s.
“Inga,” he said, “’tis me, Gunnolf. I have only now learned my kin live in this glen.”
“And your brother is dead.” She wielded her shield with an attempt to knock him off his horse, but instead, he moved out of her path, and grabbed her arm, yanking hard until she fell to the ground with a thump.
Gunnolf hadn’t expected this and didn’t want to fight her. He swore everyone was holding their breaths, anxious to see how this would play out between them. They wouldn’t interfere unless a champion stepped forth to stop Gunnolf. He hadn’t wanted to earn her ire. He’d only wanted to see his people and give her his condolences for his brother’s death.
These people were not his own. They must have been from a different village and followed his brother here. Gunnolf didn’t know any of them, all except for wild and beautiful Inga.
He leapt off his horse, shield in hand, just in case she attacked him again. Which she did. She still made the same mistakes with him as she did in their youth. Yet even so, she managed to knock him back a few paces with her brutal attacks, striking sword against sword or slashing at his targe, even striking his targe with hers.
The men and women cheered her on. Not because she was a woman, but because she was one of them, their ruler, and he was unknown to them, even if his brother had once been their leader.
She was hard to beat, slashing at his sword with all her might, proving to her people, and to him, she had what it took to lead her people. Maybe her anger had something to do with his not dying and not sending word. Or maybe that she had to wed his brother and wasn’t allowed to wed him.
Except for filling out more, she was the same Inga, challenging him, passionate, in charge.
He wondered if he looked any different to her, other than his height and the whiskers he now wore. In battle, he was as fiercely determined to win and not lose his life as any of the men or women would be, but he always held back in practice fighting with her, and it seemed to make her more aggressive, maybe even angrier. She didn’t want to him to hold back because she was a woman. But he had no intention of fighting her as if she had the strength of a full-grown man.
Unable to keep from comparing her to Brina, he realized the two women were as different as night and day. Brina was a fighter too, but only in a defensive way. Not as a warrior. He preferred a woman who would be his wife having babies and keeping his bed warm, and not challenging him to a fight every time he looked sideways at her. Brina’s hair was nearly raven in color, whereas Inga’s was pale blond. Both had blue eyes, Inga’s icy when she looked at him; Brina’s like the sky, wide and expressive.
He realized the interest he’d had in Inga all those years ago had something to do with the way she had aggressively pursued him. And maybe something to do with the thrill of it all, knowing if they got caught, his brother or their fathers might have had him beaten or killed.
There was something to be said about living dangerously and the pleasure that wrought, which brought him back to thinking about Brina and how worried she was that he’d be all right. Had she seen a vision of his brother’s wife trying to kill him?
He finally knocked Inga down and when she tensed to jump up from where she lay, he pinned her down with his body. He was unwilling to fight her further, no matter how determined she was. So her next action surprised him. It shouldn’t have.
She released her shield and sword and grabbed him around the neck and kissed him as if claiming him for her own. Her ki
sses bordered on barbarism, as if she was still angry and fighting with him, making him yield.
He pulled away and offered his hand to her, but she got up on her own and said to her people, “This is Gunnolf, Hallfred’s brother. He will be my husband and lead us to victory against those who killed his brother!”
“She tried to kill him and then she kissed him!” Brina paced across the chamber where Lady Akira and several other ladies were sewing gowns.
“Who? Gunnolf? You saw this in a vision?” Lady Akira looked up from her embroidery work, her eyes wide with shock.
“Aye.” Brina was completely disheartened. That the wild woman tried to kill him, one of her own kind, was bad enough, but the kissing part was worse.
“Dinna upset yourself over it.” Wynne dismissed her concerns completely. “It doesna mean he has any interest in the woman.”
“Did he kiss her back?” Lynette seemed to be the only one there who understood Brina’s concern and was helping her to focus on what she’d seen.
“I couldna tell, but he was on top of her.” Brina stopped pacing only long enough to glance at the women whose jaws all hung agape. “He had knocked her down and then pinned her to the ground.”
Gasps followed.
Brina ground her teeth. “Then she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him.”
“Where were his hands? Was he embracing her back?” Lynette asked.
Though Brina had thought Lady Akira would ask them to change the subject, she seemed just as interested in learning how Gunnolf had reacted.
“I dinna know. I was climbing the stairs and ran into a man, which caused me to lose the vision instantly. I tried to think of what had happened, to see more of the vision, but it was gone.”
“You canna force a vision,” Wynne scolded her.
“Dinna you think I know that?” Brina lowered her eyes. She was so angry at both the woman and Gunnolf, she couldn’t think straight. “Sorry, Grandmother.”
“’Tis all right, child. If she is his brother’s widow, she is most likely angry with him and the world for her loss.” Wynne watched Brina, appearing to want to soothe her fears.
“I believe she wants more than that.” Brina stalked over to the window and peered out of the tower in the direction Gunnolf had gone.
“She wouldna want to wed him, would she?” Lynette asked, her eyes wide with surprise. “Her own husband’s brother?”
“She isna like us. She wields a sword and shield meant to kill a man. She may very well wish it. Even our people will marry a widow to take care of a sister by marriage and her bairns.”
“But she tried to kill him, you said,” Lynette reminded her.
Brina wheeled on her in anger. “Gunnolf is a Viking! Mayhap that is what he likes in a woman.”
Lady Akira smiled, but Brina didn’t think it was funny at all.
“Then next time you see him, loose an arrow at him. But do try to miss or the idea of marriage may no longer be possible,” Lynette said.
Brina groaned, grabbed up her sewing, and sat down next to Lynette again. “I could never fight that kind of a woman for his affections.”
Lynette smiled at her.
“If I wanted to,” Brina quickly said.
“You dinna need to fight any woman for his affections,” Wynne said. “Be yourself. I am to understand that during the dancing, he kissed you in the shadows by the stables. Who says he would not prefer a nice Highland lass who just kisses him back instead of fighting him for the honor?”
Brina opened her mouth, her skin burning with mortification, then closed her mouth, not knowing what to say to that. If anyone had not seen them kissing, the word had to have spread to every soul by now.
Gunnolf had only been with his brother’s widow a day when he realized he didn’t want to stay any longer. He would leave on the morrow. The young girl who had fascinated him when he was five and ten winters and she the same age only born in the summer, was a warrior, a leader of her people, and completely bitter toward the Highlanders. Not that he didn’t understand the situation, but she didn’t like learning that he’d lived with some of them and been friends and called them family. He would never feel any differently about her, and he could never view all Highlanders in the same manner as she did.
“I still cannot believe what Hallfred had said about you. That he saw you dead. You must have passed out and he thought you were dead,” Inga said, eating mutton beside Gunnolf at a long table, several others seated at more tables in the long house.
“He knew damn well that I was not dead.”
Inga frowned at him. “You must have been badly injured. How would you know?”
“When Hallfred and my gazes met, he told another of our clansmen I was dead. I was breathing, alive, feeling half dead, ja, unable to speak, but I was not in Valhalla, and he knew it. He did not like that you and I had feelings for each other back then. Mayhap still would have, had I returned with those who had lived.”
Inga growled her displeasure. “Too bad he did not die back then. So what are you going to do?” She speared a piece of cheese with her knifr, a small, single-edged knife, plain and not ornately decorated like the longer ones his people used as weapons. “We will never be at peace with the Auchinleck Clan.”
“What if I were to manage to oust Seamus who rules there now and when Robard no longer can rule, I step in to take his place? Then I could make peace with you. Even before that, really, as a bargaining tool. I will not aid him unless he agrees to peace between your people and his.”
Inga’s eyes rounded and she didn’t speak for a second. “My people?” She scowled. “You are no longer one of us?” She shook her head. “You would never be able to lay siege to the castle and take over. With us at your side? There are too few of us.”
“Nay. I rescued the chief’s daughter and escorted her to see her kin at the MacNeill castle. He believes I might be able to unseat Seamus so that when Robard is well, he may take his place as chief again. In the meantime, I would rule.”
“A Norseman? Do not delude yourself.”
“Robard knew of my loyal support to James and his clan. He seems to believe I would be a good choice to aid him.”
Inga stiffened her back. “This child of his that you rescued. How old is she?”
Gunnolf knew before he said anything, Inga was going to be angry that Brina was not a wee bairn. “Full grown. Her da promised her to Seamus in marriage, but Seamus betrayed him. Now Robard does not wish her to marry him.”
Inga scowled again. “He wants you to marry her? Think you this Robard would honor his commitment to you? You go in, kill this Seamus, restore power to the chief, and he has you murdered.”
Gunnolf hated to agree that Inga could be right. He didn’t know Robard, only that he was ruthless, and even his daughter had said the man was untrustworthy. But what if Gunnolf married Brina? Wouldn’t her father honor his word then? For her sake?
Maybe not. Maybe Robard would still conveniently eliminate Gunnolf so that he could rule and then give Brina to some other man, who was a true Highlander and loyal to him and elected by their clan.
“Did you kiss her?” Inga suddenly asked, her voice raised shrilly.
Gunnolf didn’t believe his business with the lass was any of Inga’s concern, but he knew if he said no, she’d know he had lied. And if he said yes, who knew how the shield maiden would react.
“I am considering marrying her.” Gunnolf watched as Inga’s face turned red with anger.
“You would marry one of them over one of us?” she screeched. “They killed your brother!”
She didn’t mean just that he would marry one of the Highlanders over one of their own people. If he had said he preferred another woman living in Inga’s village, he knew Inga would be just as incensed. She had it in mind he would marry her, no one else.
“Go!” she shouted at him.
He inclined his head and rose from the table. “The best thing I can do for our people is to en
d this war between us, in any way that I can.”
“By marrying that daughter of his? Brina? Take care, Gunnolf. You may have survived the battle when you were five and ten and all these years living here and fighting the Highlanders’ battles, but all it takes is one person’s treachery that could be your undoing when you think them a friend.”
“Thank you for your advice.” Gunnolf headed out of the longhouse, though he noted Inga speaking to one of the men, who watched Gunnolf go. He didn’t like the dark expression on either Inga’s or the man’s face.
Did she think to have Gunnolf murdered so that he couldn’t wed Brina and try to end the war between the Norsemen and the Highland clan when Robard’s people had killed her husband? Did she still want revenge?
He wouldn’t put it past her. She might have had it in mind that Robard could be the enemy, saying one thing, but meaning another, but Inga could very well be the same way.
He realized then as he mounted Beast and left the village, that he trusted only the MacNeill clan and Brina, despite having just met her. She only worried about his well-being and about her father’s. She didn’t seem to have any hidden plan.
He still wanted to give Inga’s people a chance to live in peace. He didn’t know if he would be able to manage ousting Seamus, or if Brina’s father would actually reward him or attempt to kill him once he returned Robard to power. The more he thought about it, the more he believed it was the only way to possibly reconcile things between Inga, her people, and Robard and his, then return Brina to her home, if that’s what she wished.
Gunnolf thought about how he usually was doing some task for James or his brothers, saving someone or another, but he had never actually made plans to take care of a situation that James or his kin, in most cases, had not asked him to do.
The bigger question was whether Gunnolf could settle down with Brina. Would she be happy with him, the Norseman that he was? Would he be happy with her?
All he had to do was think of the way she had reacted to the wolf pup, risking her freedom and even endangering herself for the life of the pup should Seamus have gotten hold of her. She had worried about him during their journey, and then when he was off to see his kinsmen, something no other woman had done. He smiled fondly, thinking back to the way Ian had taken to her, the boy shy around strangers. Yet there the lad had been holding her hand as they’d entered the great hall, and she was speaking to him while he was smiling up at her. Gunnolf could envision her walking with their own son like that, when he’d never given it much thought before. He thought about Lady Eilis and the way her gown tented over her expanding belly and considered what it would be like to know Brina was carrying his bairn.