Surprise, he could understand, but not this objection. She had always known her duty. Known her destiny. His voice hardened. ‘This is the best way, Aslíf. The only way. And the course I have settled on.’
‘What about Sigurd? He’s older than me and still unmarried. He’ll succeed you as king. A union through him would be stronger.’
Sviggar shook his head. ‘Harald has no daughter to marry, nor is there any other woman suitable from his closest kin. The union must last. It must be strong if it is to be at all. It has to be between our children.’
‘Are you forcing me to do this, then?’
He stroked her hair. ‘You know I’ve always wanted a good marriage for you, one worthy of your character and your blood, and which accords with your own wishes. No king can guarantee his daughter a husband she will love, but in my heart I made a promise to myself that your husband should be acceptable to you.’
In her eyes he saw a torrent of words. ‘And if I wanted another?’ was all she murmured.
‘Is there another?’
She looked away. Her shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh. ‘No.’
It was as he thought, then. He supposed it was no small thing for a woman to be confronted with her destiny at last.
‘And what if Harald betrays his oath?’ she said suddenly. ‘I’d be cut off from all that I love and bound to your enemy. And still there would be bloodshed.’
‘We will invite them to these halls for the wedding feast. Then we shall see whether they may be trusted.’
‘Tell me you’re not using me as bait for some trap!’
‘Of course not. My hands are above the table. I deal with them in good faith.’
‘Do you swear it?’
‘I swear it. Let my life be forfeit if I lie.’ Sometimes even a king had to bend the truth for the sake of his kingdom.
‘I want to believe you, but—’
‘Look at me, child. I wouldn’t ask this if I thought there were any other way. Will you not do it for me? For your people?’
He could see her conscience turning like a weather-vane in a storm, but there was only one way this must fall.
‘I would like to think on this,’ she said finally. ‘Or are you forcing me to agree to this now?’ Her dark blue eyes fixed him with an accusing look.
‘I will give you time,’ he growled. ‘Time to reflect on your love for me as your father. And your allegiance to me as your king.’
‘How long?’
‘Two days. Then I must have your answer.’
That night, Lilla hurried through the darkness, her hood pulled low over her face. Her father had retired early again, complaining of his chest. Any other day, she would have been worried about him. Instead, she felt almost relieved. No one else would miss her.
Besides, the burden he’d laid on her made her anxious enough. Did she truly have the power to stop this war? Had he really just put that in her hands?
Ahead, light was seeping through the boardings of Erlan’s dwelling. It wasn’t much of a place, but it had a cosiness to it that reassured her. She muttered a prayer to Freyja as she approached the door, steadied her hand and knocked.
Muffled voices. Footsteps. The door opened and her heart sank as Kai’s face appeared around it.
‘Look who’s here! If it ain’t the grand shieldmaid of Niflagard!’
‘Idiot,’ Erlan’s voice called.
She flickered a smile. ‘I need to see your master.’
The door snapped open and light spilled out over her.
‘Lady Lilla.’ Erlan looked her up and down. ‘Is something the matter?’
There was an awkwardness between them all and it was her fault. ‘My new mare,’ she said, ‘it’s her leg. I think it’s swollen after all.’
‘Oh, is that all? You don’t want this fella,’ said Kai. ‘You should ask old—’
‘I need Erlan to see it,’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘You’ve seen it before,’ she explained. ‘You’ll be able to tell whether it’s any worse.’
The others exchanged glances. ‘Fine,’ Erlan nodded. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Now... Please.’ Gods, did she have to be so obvious?
‘Very well.’ He pushed past Kai. ‘Let’s take a look.’
Relief washed through her as she led him away. She heard Kai chuckle as the door closed but she didn’t care. Too much was boiling inside her. It had to come out.
Erlan knew something was wrong. But when she didn’t say a word as she led him to the king’s stables, he started to wonder whether there really was a problem with her horse.
He was soon dispelled of that notion. When they reached her mare’s stall, she turned and fell against his chest.
‘What is it?’ He’d never seen her like this.
‘Something terrible.’
‘What? Tell me!’
‘It’s my father!’
‘Your father? Is he sick again?’
‘No,’ she moaned, her face buried in his tunic. ‘He wants me to marry Ringast.’ The words were so smothered he wasn’t sure he’d heard them right.
‘The Wartooth’s son?’
She looked up at him. In the half-light, he could see tears streaming down her face. ‘He wants to seal an alliance with King Harald. To secure a peace that will stop this war.’
‘You and Ringast?’ He couldn’t get past that thought. She nodded, her eyes bowed with despair. ‘Is he fixed on this?’
‘He says it’s the only way.’
‘The only way that he’ll pursue,’ he returned. ‘Did he give you a choice?’
‘He said he wants my consent.’
‘Did you give it?’
‘Not yet. He gave me two days.’
‘And will you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.’ She covered her face. ‘I could stop it. I could stop it all. All that bloodshed. But—’
‘But what?’
Her eyes seemed to grow wider. ‘But there’s you,’ she whispered.
Her face was full of anguish, yet still so beautiful. He’d known this feeling before, had tried to quash it, to bury it deep down, where it was safe and unseen. But now it rose again, even stronger than before. Suddenly he wanted her. Not her beauty or her body, but her. All of her, all that she was. To be all she needed, all she ever wanted, wretched as he was. The fear that she would be taken away was suddenly unbearable.
Without thinking, he lifted her up and kissed her fiercely. She responded. He tasted the salt of her tears on his lips. They came apart. His forehead touched hers.
‘I can’t marry him. I just can’t,’ she murmured. ‘Yet I must. My father will never accept my refusal. Too much is at stake.’
‘What’s at stake is your freedom. If you agree, there’s no going back.’
‘But isn’t it my duty? I love my father. I know he wants to do the best by me—’
‘All your father cares about is his kingdom. And he’ll sacrifice anything to preserve it. Even you.’
‘No. He’s thinking of his people.’
‘What do you want? What?’
She shook her head, seeming confused, unable to answer. ‘Too many things... If I can save my people—’
‘Lilla, you’re too good for them. Can’t you see that?’ He took her face in his hands and put his lips to hers again, his kisses urgent, almost angry. As he did so, a mad thought rushed into his mind. He broke off suddenly. ‘What if you ran away? If you left this place?’
‘What? How?’
‘With me! We could go far from here. Start a new life. Together.’
‘Where would we go? I know nothing but this place. This is my home.’
‘Don’t you understand? The choice isn’t between here and somewhere else. If you do your father’s bidding, you’ve already lost this place. Dannerborg will be your home.’
The thought seemed to strike her like an arrow. ‘Then where?’
For a second, his own home of Vendlagard lurched forward in his mind.
That seemed the maddest idea of all – to return with this beautiful daughter of a king, to make peace with his father’s lie, to take up his inheritance, to live and die in the land of his blood.
But she would still be there. The ghost of Inga’s memory would haunt every shadow in that place. And so, for the thousandth time, he told himself that there was no going back.
Lilla’s upturned face still implored him. ‘Erlan – where?’
‘Anywhere,’ he growled. ‘If it means keeping you safe. Anywhere away from here.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘We leave Sveäland behind. We wander until we find a place to settle.’
‘My father would send riders after us.’
‘You don’t think we could outrun a few karls? We’d be gone well before we were missed. We could ride for the Throat, take a boat and sail across the East Sea to Estland. Or down the rivers into Garðaríki and beyond.’
He could see in her eyes her imagination working, roaming far beyond the horizons she knew. But then her eyelids slowly fell. ‘It’s a betrayal of my father. Of everything I hold dear.’
‘It’s he that’s betrayed you. He’s using you to save his own vanity. Throwing you like a piece of meat to his enemies.’ He knew as soon as the words were out that he’d spoken too harshly. She pushed herself free from him and turned away.
‘He has not betrayed me. He asks a hard thing but he’s right. It’s no more than my duty. You don’t seem to understand what has always been true. This is my destiny.’
‘Fine,’ he snarled. ‘Then take the road to your destiny. If that’s what you want, why did you come to me tonight?’
‘I don’t know... I just had to.’
They stood wordless, looking at each other, the musk of horseflesh and straw in their nostrils. He listened to the sounds of the darkness – the animals’ breath, a shuffled hoof, distant laughter on the night breeze. What was he trying to talk her into? Why did he care? And yet, he couldn’t stop himself.
‘Lilla, don’t you understand? You’re freer than any destiny your birth has laid on you.’
‘I can’t run from my duty so easily. Not like you.’ Her eyes hardened. He saw she had meant to wound him, and she had. ‘You want to reduce me to a fugitive, hunted by those who have been nothing but loyal to me. My name would become a byword for shame.’ She scoffed. ‘Maybe that’s why you carry that name-that-is-no-name! Erlan... What does it mean but that you want to hide? And you want me to become another wandering stranger like you? Maybe there’s another kingdom somewhere and another king, who sits lamenting the daughter he lost to your dark eyes and that sad smile!’ Her words bit like Fenrir’s fangs.
‘Well, what do you want me to suggest? You came to me tonight, remember?’
She turned away again and ran her palm down the length of her mare’s neck. But he wasn’t going to let her escape that easily. He turned her back to him. ‘If you want Ringast, take him. If he’ll have you. If you want to live among your enemies, go to them. Truly, I hope for your sake it will save your people. Because you’ll have nothing else.’ He grunted. ‘Somehow I doubt you’ll have even that much.’
Her face suddenly crumpled in misery. ‘I don’t know what to do. It’s too much.’
‘I’m offering you a way out. Don’t you see?’
She looked up at him. Fresh tears rose and rolled down her cheeks, leaving silver trails in the moonlight. ‘What do you want from me?’ she whispered.
‘I want to help you.’ Soon as he said it, he saw the disappointment in her eyes. ‘Listen – if you make that choice – that’s it. You’ll be bound to Ringast for ever. Is that what you want?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Is that what you want, Lilla?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I want you.’
The words caught him by surprise. The last woman who had said them he had failed. Failed so horribly it made his mind spin to think of it. He felt suddenly frantic, like he was about to lose everything all over again – but this time, he couldn’t. He mustn’t. Whatever it cost.
He bent his face to hers, fastened his mouth on hers. Her body tensed, almost unwilling, but this was the only answer he had for her that made any sense. And after a few seconds, the resistance ebbed out of her. Her fingers curled into his hair, pulling him lower, backing away into the shadows, stopping only when her shoulders bumped against the wall, knocking the planking.
The horses whickered. His hands were caressing her, moving behind and down over her, feeling her body under the soft wool of her dress, sculpted and firm. He felt a sudden rush of desire and immediately pulled away.
‘Do you want this as well?’
Her face was in shadow. But he could see the faint light from the night sky glinting off her eyes, which were solemn and shining. ‘Yes... Yes I do.’
His fingers went to the brooches fastening her outer dress and pinched open the pins. The cloth slipped free and crumpled to the ground. She seized his belt and pulled him closer, unabashed by his hardness pushing against her. He felt her fingers, shy and exploring, trace the shape of him. ‘Show me what to do,’ she murmured.
So he did, abandoning himself to his desires and to hers, seeing only her before him, closing his mind to the world as it was, as it had to be, as if war and blood and oaths and honour meant nothing at all.
When it was over, she was the first to speak. ‘I didn’t look for this, my love. But it’s come to me.’ She looked different. Defiant. Resolved. ‘If we go together, I’ll come.’
‘Then we leave tomorrow night.’ He pushed a stray curl away from her eye. ‘Here’s what we’ll do.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When Erlan returned home, Kai was sitting at the bench facing the door, hands resting calmly on the table. There was a cup of ale by his hand, untouched.
Erlan nodded a greeting and let the drape fall but found he couldn’t meet Kai’s eye.
‘What was all that about?’
‘Nothing.’ Erlan moved past him, sat down on his bed and began pulling off his shoes.
Kai pulled his legs out of the bench and swung to face him. ‘Well, it was nothing about her horse, that’s for damned sure.’
Erlan threw his shoes to the foot of his bed.
‘Oh, come on, master. I can see it there on your face. Something’s up.’
‘Nothing’s up that wasn’t already up,’ Erlan returned irritably. ‘I’m turning in. We can speak in the morning.’
‘Oh Hel,’ Kai grinned. ‘Now I know something’s wrong for sure. What did she say?’
‘You really think I’m going to tell you? If she’d wanted you to hear she would have come in here and said it. Anyhow,’ he added, ‘it was nothing important.’
‘Now it’s “nothing important”, is it?’ He chuckled. ‘Gods, she must have had something to say to come all the way out here in the dead of night.’
‘You’re a nosy little tick sometimes, you know that?’
‘It’s been mentioned once or twice.’
‘Look, I’d tell you if I could. But I know you. You’d be blabbing it all over Uppland before the sun was up.’
‘Hohoooa! Now we’re getting somewhere.’ Kai licked his long lips greedily. ‘Excuse my indiscretion, master, but it don’t take a seidman to know something’s going on between you two. And now you come in here all shifty.’
Erlan cursed, realizing he should have been ready for this. Kai was like a dog after a hare when there was a scrap of gossip to be had. Maybe half the truth would throw him off the scent. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. She just said she can’t tell anyone else.’
‘Tell ’em what?’
‘This goes no further.’
‘Of course.’
‘I mean it.’
‘So I see.’ Kai chuckled.
‘Sviggar plans to use her as leverage against the Wartooth. He’s determined to keep the peace at any price.’
‘How?’
‘How do you think? By marrying her, of course. What else do
kings do with their daughters?’
‘Can’t say I’ve made the acquaintance of many kings. Nor their daughters, for that matter.’
‘Well, he’s given her two days to accept.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or he’ll force her to it, I suppose.’
‘Not much of a choice then, is it?’
‘No. Not much.’ Erlan pulled his tunic over his head and lay back on his bed.
‘So what did she think you were going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted to tell someone... You know, unburden herself.’
Kai burst out laughing. ‘Oh, aye! That’s a good one! Unburden herself on Erlan Aurvandil – that renowned sympathetic ear.’
Erlan was growing tired of this. He needed to shut it down. ‘Look, I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.’
‘I saw that.’
‘Saw what?’
‘You sly dog! You’re lying.’
‘What?’
‘What? What?’ Kai mimicked. ‘I knew it. There is something going on between you.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘Am I out of my mind? Hel, that’s the king’s daughter! You’re juggling fire there, master, or my name ain’t Kai Askarsson.’
Erlan sat up, annoyed now. ‘I’ll tell you what this is, Kai. This is your over-active imagination seeing stories that aren’t there. You’ve been singing too many bloody songs. What would Lilla want with a man like me?’
It was a fair question, and one he hadn’t found a solid answer to yet. But Kai wasn’t listening. The merriment had suddenly gone out of his eyes and he was scratching at his brow. ‘Wait a second. What are you going to do if the Wartooth says yes?’
‘This conversation is over.’ Erlan rolled to face the wall.
‘By the bloody hanged, it is,’ Kai exclaimed. Even so, there were some moments of silence. Erlan could almost hear Kai’s brain rumbling like a grindstone. ‘Hang on.’ Some thought appeared to have stuck. ‘Surely you’re not that crazy? You can’t be. You’re not going to run away with her?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Gods, but you have lost your mind!’
‘No one is running anywhere.’
A Sacred Storm Page 16