Ice Maiden

by Debra Lee Brown

  From the amused looks she received from her father’s men, she supposed they did.

  Rika had ne’er been inside a castle. She’d seen a few on her trips to the southern Shetlands with Lawmaker. But nothing in her experience prepared her for the size and opulence of Rollo’s hall.

  Grant seemed not at all surprised by the rich interior of the room. She noticed he was on his guard, however, watching every doorway and taking particular note of the collection of fine weapons—both Norse and Scot—displayed on the walls.

  It occurred to her this dower money was of little consequence to a man of Rollo’s wealth. Where had he made this fortune?

  “Who did ye say ye were?”

  The stern, high-pitched voice startled her. Rika whirled, her hand moving instinctively to the hilt of her dagger.

  “What, would ye slay me in my own hall?”

  Rika opened her mouth to speak but found no words. The woman standing before them was like no other she’d e’er seen. She was middle-aged—older, mayhap—with skin as white as the chalk cliffs of Fair Isle. Her hair glistened black as a raven’s wing and was done up in some fantastical arrangement. It did naught, however, to improve the sourness of her expression. Her gown was what most surprised Rika. ’Twas fashioned of a fine, shimmering fabric that bore not the slightest resemblance to the homespun to which Rika was accustomed.

  Grant cleared his throat ceremoniously. “Lady, may I present Ulrika, daughter of…” He shot Rika a quick glance, and she nodded. “Daughter of Rollo.”

  The woman blanched. “That canna be.”

  Rika stood tall and tipped her chin high, though the woman was so short it hardly made a difference. “I am who he says. Who, may I ask, are you?”

  The woman narrowed black eyes at her. “I am Catherine Leonard, mistress of all ye see here.”

  “Then you are…” Ottar’s words died on his lips as Catherine raked her gaze over him.

  “Rollo’s wife,” she snapped. “Who else would I be?” She trained her eyes on Rika’s mannish garments and her expression grew even more sour. “What d’ye mean dressing like this?”

  “I was…” Thor’s blood, would she allow this crone to treat her so ill? Rika tipped her chin so high she had to look down her nose at the woman. “It’s for riding.”

  Catherine snorted. “Ridiculous.”

  Grant inched closer to Rika and, to her surprise, slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Aye, ’twas a difficult journey and—”

  “Who might ye be?” Catherine said. “’Tis clear ye’re no one of them.” She flashed her eyes at Rika and the youths.

  “Nay, I’m a Scot. I’m also her…husband.”

  “Ye dinna say.” Catherine sized him up.

  “My name is Grant—George Grant. Laird of a clan to the southeast, near Inverness.”

  Catherine’s brows shot up. “Really? My husband will be pleased to make your acquaintance at the least, then.”

  Rika would stand no more of this base treatment. “Now see here, we’ve come all this—” Grant pinched her arm. “Ow! Why did you do—”

  “Aye, it is with your husband that I have business,” Grant said. He shot Rika a warning look.

  Fine. She’d let him handle the crone if that’s what he wished. But she’d take no more of this abuse. She’d suffered enough of it as a child under Rollo’s care and would suffer no more.

  “Well then,” Catherine said. “I will have someone show ye to a suitable chamber.” She glanced at Ottar, then at Leif and Erik, who had not dared utter a peep since their arrival. “As for the lads, they can sleep in the hall.”

  Rika supposed this was as good as any arrangement she might expect, and did not protest. Besides, Grant still had a death grip on her arm.

  “Our thanks,” Grant said. “Ye are most gracious.”

  Catherine shrugged. “I dinna have much choice, do I?” Her gaze slid to Rika again, and this time she glared back. “Ulrika, is it? Rollo will be surprised, indeed.”

  They waited nearly an hour in the hall, during which time a score of Catherine’s kinsmen—or servants, she knew not which—flurried about them setting up benches and tables in preparation for the evening meal.

  Rika sat alone on a stool by the enormous hearth, drumming her fingers on her leather-clad thighs. There had been no sign of her father, or of anyone who had shown them even the simplest hospitality. Her patience was nearly at an end.

  Grant sat at a nearby table in whispered conversation with Erik and Ottar and Leif. From what she could overhear, he seemed to be instructing them in how to behave in this strange and unwelcome place, and in what to do should all not go as planned.

  His face was swathed in the warm glow of the fire, his slate eyes sharp. A tremendous calm radiated from his confident demeanor. The youths looked up to him, respected his judgment. Ottar especially. She marveled at this change in him.

  In all of them.

  They were in Grant’s world now, and must rely on him to do as he promised and see them safe away with her dowry intact. What choice did she have but to trust him?

  Muffled laughter echoed off the high stone walls of the hall. Rika turned toward the arched entrance. Two women, younger and more delicate versions of Catherine, swept into the room. Her daughters, no doubt. Sisters. Each was robed in more of the same fine fabric that had made up Catherine’s gown, but in colors so vivid Rika sucked in a breath.

  Their beauty and elegance was not lost on Rika’s companions. Grant rose so abruptly he nearly upended the bench on which he sat.

  “Good evening,” he said, and smiled warmly at them. Ne’er had she seen such a smile grace his lips before.

  Rika was suddenly aware of her own torn and soiled clothes—men’s clothes—and how her dirty hair hung in dull, lifeless hanks about her shoulders. Absently she twisted the bronze bracelets circling her wrists.

  Ottar and Erik and Leif scrambled to Grant’s side, hastily adjusting their damp garments and raking hands through their disheveled hair.

  What, did they think these women princesses?

  They were pretty, she’d grant them that. Nay, they were more than that—they were beautiful. And the magnitude of that beauty shone in Grant’s eyes.

  Heat flushed her face. Without thinking, Rika shot to her feet. All eyes turned to her. The young women gasped, their bright eyes round as saucers.

  Rika felt the familiar sting of embarrassment under their scrutiny. She was a freak, she did not fit. Especially here, in this haven of beauty and finery. What of it? No more would she shrink under another’s scorn. That time was over. She strode to Grant’s side, elbowing Erik out of the way.

  “This is my…wife,” Grant said. “Your…sister.”

  Rika fisted her hands at her sides and scowled at the two of them. She was no sister to these peacocks. The women—maidens surely—eyed her, openmouthed, up and down. Up mostly, as Rika towered over them by nearly a foot.

  “Ye…ye are Ulrika,” one of them said—the elder of the two, Rika guessed.

  She would have thought her identity obvious. The servants had been yammering and casting her strange looks since her arrival. “Ja, I am she. Ulrika, daughter of Fritha—and Rollo.”

  Their eyes grew wider, if that were even possible.

  “And we are—”

  Rika silenced Ottar with a raised hand. “We have rested here with neither food nor drink for nearly an hour,” she said to the maidens. “Your mother mentioned that a chamber would be prepared.”

  Grant shot her a look of censure, but Rika ignored it.

  The other sister, the younger, finally found her tongue. “Oh, our pardon! Aye, your chamber is ready.” She gestured for Rika and Grant to follow. “Come, I will show ye the way.”

  The elder sister stayed behind. As Rika quit the room, she noticed that Leif and Erik and Ottar surrounded her like whelps to a fresh teat. Grant dogged their escort’s heels up a flight of stairs with equal interest.

  Rika’s face grew so hot she
thought surely her blood would boil. She must contain herself. Now was not the time to fall prey to feminine emotion. That was for the weak and the foolish.

  And she was no one’s fool.

  “Here it is,” the maiden said. She batted her lashes demurely at Grant as she gestured to an open door off the main corridor.

  Rika peeked into the finely appointed room. A smallish bed draped in plaids and furs was tucked into a corner near the hearth. She snorted and shot Grant a disgusted glance. But he was not looking at her. His eyes were for the maiden, and hers for him.

  Rika pushed between them into the chamber, teeth clenched, and fists balled at her side. Why this anger? What were these feelings welling inside her so wholly unbidden?

  Grant seemed not to notice her distress, and she was glad of it. “I’ll be with ye shortly,” he said, not looking at her. “If this kind lady will show me to the kitchen, I shall bring us back something to slake our thirst.”

  The maiden blushed prettily and, had she and Grant not departed a second later, Rika might have slapped the color right out of the woman’s delicate face.

  She slammed the heavy door behind them. “Little harlot.” What, did the vixen think to seduce him? Grant had plainly introduced Rika as his wife.

  And what about him? Husband, indeed. He was like all men. Something to slake our thirst. More like something to slake his lust.

  Rika whirled away from the closed door and her breath caught. “Thor’s blood!” Staring back at her from across the room was her own image. What on earth…

  Of course!

  It was a looking glass.

  She’d seen one once in the Shetlands, but never one so big. It was nearly as tall as she. She approached it cautiously with slitted eyes, on her guard as if the vision looking back at her would suddenly jump out. Moving closer, she frowned.

  Was it any wonder Grant preferred the blushing maid?

  She ran a hand along her sun-bronzed cheek, across wind-chapped lips that, to her, seemed over-full. Crouching, she took in the rest of her image. She forgot sometimes, particularly in Grant’s company, how tall she truly was. And her hair. It looked far worse than she had imagined in the hall. A rat’s nest came to mind.

  A small stool was positioned before the silvered glass. Rika collapsed onto it and absently pulled her dagger from its sheath. Before she even knew what she was about to do, her fist closed over a hank of hair.

  She gripped the dagger.

  What did it matter that she was not beautiful? When had she begun to care if Grant did or did not find her pleasing? Had he ever looked on her with the same longing she read in his eyes a moment ago?

  Once, perhaps, on their wedding night.

  A thin film of tears glassed her eyes, shimmering back at her from the looking glass. She tilted her face into the amber firelight and, out of the corner of her eye, caught the white reflection of Brodir’s handiwork.

  It was a formidable scar, indeed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she breathed.

  No man, least of all Grant, would ever want her. In truth, she’d be far better off were her countenance even more repugnant than the silvered glass proved it to be.

  Lawmaker always said she had courage.

  Did she?

  Her hand shook as she slid the flat of the icy metal blade along her cheek. Holding her hair away from her face, she rolled the dagger’s hilt ever so slightly.

  And sucked in a breath.

  Blood welled at her temple.

  “Sweet Jesus, Rika, what are ye doing?”

  Grant!

  She nearly jumped from the stool. A flagon of mead and two cups shattered on the floor at his feet, scattering into a thousand pieces. The dagger slipped from her hand and landed point first in the soft timbers.

  In a flash he was kneeling by her side. “What have ye done? Here, let me see that cut.”

  “Leave me alone.” She jerked away from him.

  “Are ye daft?”

  “Ja—to have wed you in the first place. Thank God it’s nearly over.”

  She caught his look of incredulity in the silvered glass before them. He tried to dab at her cut with a bit of cloth torn from his shirt.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Why the devil not? Ye did as much for me when I was injured.”

  She glanced at his bandaged shoulder. “Ha! Methinks you would have preferred one of Catherine’s pretty peacocks to act as surgeon.”

  “What?”

  She jerked out of his grasp and flew to the narrow window. This was not a conversation she had intended to have with him.

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  He grabbed her arm and wrenched her toward him. The whoreson was actually smiling.

  “You’re jealous,” he said.

  “I am not! What nonsense.”

  To think that seconds earlier she would have marked herself. For what? To prove she had the grit to abandon even the smallest chance Grant would favor her. She needed not that impetus. If he were the last man standing, she’d not want his favor.

  He grinned at her. “Aye, ye are. Just look at your face. ’Tis red as an autumn apple.”

  He tried to grab hold of her chin, and she slapped his hand away. “Stop it! Don’t touch me.” She glared at him and his grin widened. “Wh-what’s an apple?”

  “Ye are jealous.” He tried to brush her hair from her face. “Here, let me see to that cut.”

  “Nay!” She batted him away.

  “’Twill likely leave a scar.”

  “Ja, and why should I care? What’s another scar?”

  He grabbed her around the waist, and she struggled against him.

  “I told you to stop it! Leave me—”

  A roar echoed from the open door, and both of them froze. Rika’s heart beat a tattoo in her chest as her gaze raked over the vision in the doorway.

  Rollo. Her father.

  He was a formidable presence, yet smaller than she remembered him. But then the last time she’d seen him she’d been but two and ten.

  Catherine lurked behind him in the corridor, her face a mask of pure hate. The shattered flagon, Rika’s dagger, the blood welling along her cut—nothing escaped Rollo’s attention.

  “What did I tell ye,” Catherine said smugly. “Is it her or nay?”

  Rollo eyed Rika up and down, ignoring Grant completely. Grant’s hands slipped from her waist, and the two of them faced their host. Rika felt her knees quiver beneath her breeks.

  “Ja,” Rollo said. “It’s her all right.” He took in her disheveled and dirty appearance, then stepped toward her. His hand flew up, and Rika instinctively cringed.

  Grant’s arm went around her waist, as if to remind her that he was there and she was under his protection. She had to admit that, without him, her tenacity might have faltered.

  She pursed her lips, tipped her chin higher and met her father’s shrewd gaze.

  Slowly Rollo traced the line of her scar from ear to chin. He grazed the skin where she’d cut herself, and blood came away on his hand. “You’ve all but lost the look of your mother,” he said quietly.

  For the briefest moment, she thought she read something else in his eyes—something besides the scorn she was prepared for. Ja, there it was.

  Regret.

  “Methinks she favors ye in her countenance,” Grant said.

  Rollo snapped out of his trance and narrowed his blue eyes at the Scot. “Who the hell are you?”

  Rika held her breath. Grant’s arm tightened about her, buoying her confidence. “He is my husband,” she said simply.

  “What?” Rollo turned on Grant. “What trickery is this?”

  “’Tis the truth.” Grant stepped between them, pushing Rika behind him. Both men were matched evenly in height and build. “The lady is my wife. We were wed on Fair Isle nearly a fortnight ago.”

  Rollo narrowed his eyes, placing Grant under the same haughty s
crutiny Rika had suffered each day of her life in his care. “Grant—of Inverness, so my wife tells me.”

  Catherine’s eyes flashed a murderous sort of satisfaction.

  “East of Inverness, aye.” Grant held Rollo’s gaze and did not stand down. Rika was impressed.

  Her father was impressed, too. She could tell by the way he nodded almost imperceptibly as he looked Grant over. Nay, she did not think he was even aware he did it. “Why have you come?” Rollo said finally.

  “I’ve come for what’s mine.” Grant flashed her a quick look. “Her dowry.”

  Rika froze, each muscle taut as a fiddle string.

  Her father roared a string of curses, and still Grant held his ground. “You are not the man I chose for her. Where is Brodir?” He trained his eyes on her again.

  Her heart pounded so fiercely, surely it would burst from her chest. “He’s…I mean, I don’t exactly—”

  “It matters not,” Grant said. “I am her husband, and by rights her dowry is mine.”

  Rollo narrowed his eyes at him. “You’ll ne’er get it. Not while I live.”

  Oh, God. What now? She feared it would come to this were Lawmaker not with them. They’d come so far, paid so dearly. It must not end like this. Gunnar’s freedom, mayhap his very life, hung in the balance. She must do something, and quickly.

  “Fine,” Grant said.

  “What?” Rika’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

  Grant crossed his arms and shrugged at her. “That’s fine with me.”

  Rika stared at him, openmouthed. Catherine, on the other hand, puffed up like an exotic bird and gloated in the doorway.

  “It is?” Her father’s thick blond brows knit in confusion.

  “Aye,” Grant said. “No dowry, no marriage. Ye can have her back.” He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and thrust her into Rollo’s arms.

  “This is outrageous!” She pushed back from her father’s brawny wall of a chest and whirled on Grant. “What do you mean by it?”

  “Just what I said.” He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked a tawny brow at Rollo. “No dowry, no marriage. Take her—she’s yours.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ne’er had he heard words so foul uttered from so pretty a mouth. Once her wrath was spent, Rika didn’t speak to him for nearly two days. George smiled to himself, recalling the magnitude of her fury.