Ice Maiden

by Debra Lee Brown

  “Ye’re certain?”

  She nodded. “Lawmaker said he would not be hard to find. His is the only family for leagues and leagues.”

  “It doesna surprise me. ’Tis a godforsaken place.” His face brightened. “Gellis Bay it is, then.”

  “You know the place?”

  “I know of it.”

  Thank God. He was the only one of them who did. Brodir had taken all of the charts of the mainland with him when he left. She had thought to rely on Lawmaker’s memory to guide them. Now she’d be forced to rely on Grant.

  “It lies just there—” he pointed to the rugged, mist-cloaked coastline “—due east of Dunnet Head.”

  She bit back a squeak, and her eyes widened involuntarily.

  “Ye know it? Dunnet Head?”

  “Nay, I do not.” She shook her head fervently and turned away from him. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Ye could have fooled me.”

  She risked a glance back at him, and caught him frowning, studying her. Not once since they’d sailed had she or Erik or Leif even mentioned Gunnar’s name. She had thought to tell Ottar of their plan once they were at sea, but now that Ingolf and Rasmus were aboard she dared not breathe a word of it.

  “Are ye still intent on this harebrained scheme of yours?”

  “Wh…what scheme?” For a moment she wondered if he’d read her thoughts. “Oh, collecting my dowry you mean?” She drew herself up and faced him. “I am most certainly intent on it.”

  He muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

  “And you shall help me. We’ve come all this way, and at no small cost.” Lawmaker’s death lay heavy on her conscience.

  “Aye, there’s that. All the same, ’tis a fool’s mission, and one that is not mine.”

  “You gave your word—husband.”

  Their eyes locked.

  He said nothing, and she feared with Lawmaker dead the Scot would abandon their bargain. In the short time he’d lived among them, Grant had shown them all he was a man of his word. A man of honor.

  But such virtues were bought and sold cheap on Fair Isle, and Rika had little experience with them since Brodir’s rise to power. She had thought to rely on Lawmaker’s strange bond with the Scot to ensure his compliance. But with her guardian dead, who knew what Grant intended?

  She was in a precarious situation, and she knew he knew it.

  “What d’ye intend for them?” Grant nodded toward their captives.

  Rasmus snored loudly, whistling as he sucked breath through his near toothless mouth. Ingolf was awake, she realized, and she wondered what, if anything he’d overheard of her conversation with Grant.

  “MacInnes shall keep them for us until we return from my father’s house.” She’d thought long and hard about what to do with them, and this seemed the only answer. She prayed Tom MacInnes was the friend Lawmaker had made him out to be.

  Grant shrugged. “’Tis of no import to me what ye do with them. I was merely curious.”

  Ingolf twisted his head around and grinned at them. “More cowardice than curiosity if you ask me.”

  Rika started toward him.

  Grant grabbed her arm. “Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”

  “Not trussed up like a goose he’s not.” She wrested herself free and approached Ingolf, her hand resting comfortingly on the hilt of her sheathed dagger. Just in case.

  Grant followed.

  “I would speak to him alone,” she said, and shot one of her well-practiced jaded looks over her shoulder.

  “Suit yourself.” Grant pulled up a keg out of earshot—a dozen paces from where Ingolf and Rasmus lay bound—settled atop it, and stared across the gray water toward land.

  Rika knelt before the henchman, taking care not to get too close. “As I said, you’ll remain with Tom MacInnes until we return for you.”

  “Who’s we? You and the Scot?” Ingolf smirked in Grant’s direction. “You’re a fool, woman. Surely you don’t think he means to keep his word?”

  Rika stopped breathing. “What do you mean?” Her hand twitched on the dagger’s hilt.

  “Think you I’m a dolt like this one?” Ingolf kicked at his companion’s feet. Rasmus snorted a few times but did not wake. “Husband or no, the man will ne’er stay with you now that he’s on his own turf.”

  She was tempted to slit his throat, but stilled her hand.

  “If you return at all, ’twill be alone, with but your snot-nosed dogs.” He meant Ottar, and Erik and Leif.

  Surly whoreson. “When I return, it will be with—”She bit her tongue a second before saying Gunnar’s name.

  “Who?” Ingolf narrowed his eyes. He might have already guessed her plans for the silver, but the questioning look on his face told her that he had not. Ingolf lunged against his bonds.

  Rika fell backward as the ship lurched.

  “I’ll enjoy watching Brodir punish you, you bitch—after he’s had a bit of sport.” His eyes raked over her, and her stomach did a slow roll. “Perhaps he’d allow me a go. Why not? You’re damaged goods now.”

  “Shut your mouth before I shut it for ye.” Grant stepped over her and poised the tip of Lawmaker’s sword at Ingolf’s throat.

  Rika scrambled to her feet, pleased by Grant’s intervention.

  “Ho! What’s this?” Erik jogged toward them from the stern, Ottar and Leif in his wake.

  “’Tis naught,” Grant said, and sheathed his weapon.

  “This one needs a lesson in manners, is all.” He cast her a stony look, then retreated to his perch on the keg.

  “Look!” Ottar stopped short and pointed southwest off the starboard bow. “The mainland! There, peeking out from the mist.”

  They all looked. Even Ingolf twisted his head around in an attempt to see. Rika drew a sobering breath. Salt and sea and something else.

  “Scotland,” Grant said. “I can smell it on the wind.”

  Chapter Eleven

  He was home.

  Thank Christ.

  George and the youths worked the oars while Rika stood on the prow and guided them into a tiny, sheltered bay. The fog was thick and deadly chill. He rowed faster, harder, putting his back into it, working to stave off frostbite and still his chattering teeth.

  He caught a glimpse of the desolate shoreline as the mist swirled and eddied about them, thinning for the barest moment only to swallow them up again.

  ’Twas impossible to make out landmarks. While he’d ne’er journeyed this far north before, he was good with maps and remembered well the shape of the coastline from the charts he’d seen on the Wick-bound frigate.

  George had directed them to put in as close to his recollection of where Gellis Bay lay as they could manage, given the fact that none of them could see a bloody thing.

  “Hold!” Rika called from the prow. Through the mist he saw her peer ahead into the whiteness, a hand raised in caution.

  The byrthing scraped bottom and lurched to a stop.

  “Ja, this will do.” She turned and bade them disembark.

  Ottar was the first ashore. He kicked at the sea-tumbled rocks peppering the beach and screwed his face into a frown. “This is it?”

  George vaulted over the top rail into the shallows. “Aye, lad, this is it.” On shaking legs he waded ashore then dropped to his knees. He dug his hands into the sand, relishing the feel of it between his fingers.

  Scotland.

  Near enough, at any rate.

  Who knew what king held these distant lands? They’d best be bloody well careful. The fog, mayhap, was a blessing after all.

  Erik tossed him the end of a thick-braided rope. He and Ottar secured it around a jagged boulder halfway up the beach. “That should hold her,” he said, and the youth nodded.

  “What about them?” Leif nodded at the two bound henchmen.

  George waved him ashore. “Come, we shall decide who’s to stay behind and watch them. I dinna trust them on their own.”

  “Since
when do you give the orders?” Rika’s head popped up from the center of the cargo.

  “Since we landed in my country—wife.”

  Even at twenty paces, he could see her sour expression.

  He waited on the beach for her, wondering why in hell he didn’t just bolt. He had Lawmaker’s fine weapon, but neither mount nor coin. Soaked to the skin and bone cold, it seemed not the best of ideas at this point.

  Rika appeared at the byrthing’s prow, and George squinted through the fog to make certain he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

  Aye, he was seeing it, all right. She had donned men’s clothes—breeks, boots, and a belted tunic from which hung her brother’s sheathed sword. Her hair was swept back off her face and refashioned into two severe-looking braids. But for the lack of hauberk and helm, she looked much the same as she had the day he first laid eyes on her.

  He caught himself smiling, and that troubled him.

  A minute later she stood beside him on the rocky beach. “What are you staring at?”

  “Your…attire.”

  “This is a foreign place. We know not who or what we’ll encounter. It seemed…prudent. Besides, it’s drier than my gown.”

  He could not argue with her logic, but said nothing.

  “What now?” Ottar said. His face was flushed ripe as cherries from the cold.

  George realized that the icy temperatures would do them all in should they not find shelter, and soon. Three days in an open ship in the dead of winter—they were lucky to have made it this far. He realized they were all looking at him, Rika too, as if he knew something they did not.

  George shrugged. “Why ask me? We’re here on her account.” He arched a brow at Rika and waited to see what she would do.

  She drew herself up and fixed that annoyingly authoritative expression on her face—the one that made him want to slap her, or kiss her, he was never certain which. “We shall…” She hesitated, peering into the fog up the beach, then down. “We shall find MacInnes.”

  “Just like that,” he said.

  “Ja.” She tipped her chin at him, but he read an uncertainty in her eyes that belied her confident exterior. Nay, ’twas more than that.

  ’Twas fear.

  “Lead the way, then.” He swept an arm inland and waited for her to take the lead.

  The three youths watched, disheartened by their lack of a better plan.

  George felt rather satisfied, smug even. The woman had no idea what to do. She’d not thought this far ahead. As he strode up the beach in her wake and watched her study the elusive bits of cliff and rock peeking out of the fog, he realized just how defenseless she was.

  Damn her.

  “All right,” he snapped. She stopped and turned, arching a brow at him in question. “Stay here, the lot o’ ye. I’ll scale the cliff and see what’s on top.”

  The youths muttered their agreement.

  “You will not,” Rika said. “Think you I’m that big a fool?”

  “What, d’ye think I’d leave ye here in this—”

  “In a second.”

  The thought had crossed his mind, in fact.

  “I will go with you,” she said.

  “Fine.” He turned to the youths. “Go back to the ship and wait for us there. Mind ye keep a watchful eye on the other two. We willna be long.”

  Ottar protested, but Rika waved him off.

  “Come on,” Leif said to him. “I’m not at ease leaving Ingolf and Rasmus so long on their own. Someone should go back.”

  Ottar frowned, resigned, and followed Erik and Leif back to the byrthing.

  “Shall we?” George said, and nodded toward the cliff.

  Rika strode off ahead of him.

  An hour later they were still wandering on the moor above the beach, no wiser about their location than they’d been when first they landed. There was not a soul in sight—nor was there any evidence of habitation. Neither sheep, nor croft. Not so much as a wagon track or a hoofprint. The only sounds they heard were the wind and the sea, and the occasional cawing of a tern.

  George noted a marked change in Rika’s behavior since leaving the ship. She was wary, almost fearful, and had stuck uncharacteristically close to him on their reconnaissance, venturing no farther than a few paces from his side.

  There was something about this last bit he liked.

  A frigid wind gusted through them and his teeth began to chatter. His hands and feet were ice. He looked at Rika and realized she, too, was shivering. “Here,” he said, and opened his cloak to her. A second later she was clinging to him.

  He reminded himself that she was far out of her element here. The landscape was not so unlike Fair Isle’s, but this was a foreign land, and she, a woman alone.

  How could he leave her?

  How could he not?

  ’Twas madness. He was, what, a two-day ride from Wick? Barely a sennight’s walk. As he held Rika in his arms, warming in her embrace, he thought of Anne Sinclair.

  His bride.

  Och, what did it matter? He was already a fortnight late for the wedding. What was another sennight?

  “Come on,” he said, and took her hand. “Let’s go back to the ship. When this damnable fog lifts, we’ll find this MacInnes and go from there.”

  She looked up at him, her face ruddy from the icy wind, her eyes vitreous. “Truly? You will keep your word?”

  He met her gaze, but didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said finally. “Let’s go.”

  They could hear Erik’s shouts long before they reached the cliff’s edge. Tiny alarms went off in George’s head.

  “Something’s happened!” Rika scrambled down the rocky slope and took off at a run.

  George sprinted ahead, drawing his sword as he ran.

  “Rika! Grant!” Leif’s shrill voice carried through the mist. “Here! We’re he—”

  George collided with the youth and nearly lost his footing. “Bloody Hell! What—”

  “Ingolf and…and Rasmus,” Leif said, trying to catch his breath.

  Rika skidded to a stop on the flat, slick rock beside them. “Where are they? Where?”

  George spun right then left, brandishing Gunnlogi, peering into the whiteness.

  “Gone,” Leif said. “Long gone.”

  “Oh God, we must find them!” Rika started forward, and George grabbed her arm. “Let go of me!”

  “It’s m-my fault.”

  “Ottar!” Rika stiffened in George’s grip as Ottar staggered out of the mist, grasping his bloodied thigh. Erik was right behind him. Both youths collapsed at their feet, gasping for air.

  Panic shone in Rika’s eyes as she took in the blood dripping from their wounds and weapons.

  “It’s…it’s nothing,” Ottar said. “A flesh wound.”

  “Here, let me see.” Rika knelt before him. Ottar grimaced as she tore away the fabric of his breeks and inspected the wound.

  Leif sheathed his weapon, and Erik followed suit.

  “Are ye hurt?” George spared a quick glance at both lads. They seemed fit enough if a bit bloodied.

  “Fine,” Leif said. “Just scratches really.”

  “Me, as well.” Erik scrambled to his feet.

  “What happened?” George lowered his sword and watched as Rika finished bandaging Ottar’s wound with a strip of cloth torn from her tunic. “Tell me.”

  Ottar looked up at him. “Erik and…and Leif were on the beach, scavenging a bit of driftwood for a—a fire. I—was supposed to be watching I-Ingolf, but…” The lad gritted his teeth and looked away. George recognized too well the pain of self-reproach in his eyes.

  “He…drifted off,” Erik said. “And…”

  Ottar waved Rika away and struggled to his feet, swearing when she tried to help him.

  “We were close by, thank God, when they slipped their bonds.” George read fear in Leif’s tight expression. “Ottar wounded Rasmus, but we couldn’t overcome them, even three against two.” All three youths looked away, shamed
.

  George’s heart went out to them. Christ, they were barely men. Against seasoned killers the likes of Ingolf and Rasmus they’d stood not a chance, and were probably lucky to be alive.

  ’Twas his fault, not the youths’.

  He cursed himself twice—once for leaving them alone, and again for not having killed Brodir’s men when he’d had the chance. He clapped a firm hand on Ottar’s shoulder. “It might have happened to any of us, lad. God knows we’ve had damned little sleep these last days.”

  Ottar shrugged his hand away.

  “You’ll be fine,” Rika said. “A bit sore, perhaps. As for Ingolf and Rasmus…we must go after them, find them.”

  Surely she wasn’t serious?

  “Ja,” Leif said. “They can’t have gotten far.”

  “Hang on.” George sheathed his weapon as he considered their options, and following two murderers into the mist in a strange land was not one of them. “The fog’s too thick. We’ll ne’er find them. Besides, ’tis of no great import now. We’ve other problems to deal wi—”

  “You don’t understand!” Rika spun toward him, her face white with alarm. Never had he seen her so distressed.

  Regardless, his decision was made. “It matters not. So they’re gone. No harm done. We’ll get your coin, and ye shall return home.”

  “Nay, nay.” Her eyes glassed, and she bit her lip so hard it raised a droplet of blood.

  There was more here than met the eye. If anything, she should be glad to be rid of them. “What d’ye fear? Retribution?”

  She strode off toward the cliff, but kept changing direction. ’Twas plain she had no idea what to do next.

  George caught her up. “Dinna fash. As long as I’m with ye, I’ll see ye come to no harm.”

  As soon as the words left his lips, he wondered why he’d said them. He was daft—gone soft in the head over this whole affair. If he were smart, he’d leave them now and get on with his life.

  Rika stopped short as a spray of rocks tumbled onto the beach from the cliff just above them. George glanced up, and froze dead in his tracks.

  “Thor’s blood,” she breathed.

  A good-sized man dressed in breacon and boots and a fur-lined cloak stood on the rocky promontory above them, mist swirling around his bonneted head. A broadsword swung from his beefy hand.