‘Only Bara and the queen.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘I am. Only...’
‘What?’
‘There’s something else you should know.’
‘Go on.’
‘Bara is blackmailing Saldas.’
Erlan swore.
‘She says they’ve come to an understanding—’
‘An understanding? With Saldas? You might as well put your hand in a wolf’s mouth and have an understanding the fucker won’t bite it off. Can Bara keep this to herself?’
‘I wouldn’t bet my head on it.’
‘It’ll be my head if it gets out.’ He swore again. The whole sordid business could come to light any moment. Even if Saldas paid off Bara for a while, he was certain the queen would use this against him sooner or later. ‘Not just mine, either. You don’t think Saldas is going to sit back and let Bara put the squeeze on her for as long as it suits her?’
Kai gave a terse shake of his head. ‘I know.’
‘She’s in it up to her neck.’
‘If she stays here she is.’
‘You won’t want to hear this, little brother, but Bara doomed herself the second she opened her mouth.’
‘So what are you going to do about it then?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t stay here.’
‘What about Nairka? What about your lands and title? Gods, you’re the king’s bloody favourite! You can’t just walk away from all that.’
‘It’s worth dust if Sviggar finds this out. Or worse, I stay and live under the threat of Saldas exposing me.’
‘Why not go to the king yourself?’ Kai blurted. ‘Tell him what happened. Tell him it wasn’t your fault. Beg his forgiveness. You know he thinks you can do no wrong.’
‘There’s doing no wrong, and there’s screwing the man’s wife.’
‘It was her that screwed you!’
‘I doubt Sviggar would appreciate the distinction.’
The irony that Sviggar was only days away from naming him foster-son stuck like jagged metal in his gut. For some reason, his mind flew back to that storm-racked night on the Juten Belt, when Inga’s body was hardly cold. A night of terror when he’d been stripped to nothing. No name. No kin. No land. Nothing but his sword and the thinnest of threads still binding him to life. Never in his wildest visions could he have imagined the favour and fortune he had won at Sviggar’s court. But it was all a lie. Another lie. And once again everything was turning to ashes in his fingers.
Kai was contemplating the bottom of his cup. ‘Then I guess you must go.’
It was odd hearing Kai say it. Kai who never admitted defeat, who always saw a way out. But right now, he looked as downcast as a dog who’d lost its bone. ‘You should stay here,’ Erlan said, laying his hand on Kai’s forearm. ‘You’ll be fully trained soon. A house-karl to the king of Sveäland. Isn’t that what you want?’
Kai’s eyes snapped up. ‘You are kidding? There ain’t a king in all the Nine Worlds I’d follow over you.’
‘You’re actually serious, aren’t you?’ Erlan laughed. ‘I always said you were a mad bastard.’
Kai grinned. ‘That’s ’cause I am.’
‘It’s settled then.’
‘Not quite. You’re forgetting one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Bara... Saldas will kill her if she stays here.’
Erlan chewed it over a while. Then shook his head. ‘She can’t know we’re leaving. No one can. Anyway, we need to get far away from here, and fast. She’d only slow us up.’
‘I have to warn her at least.’
‘If you warn her, this could all blow up. Listen, I know how you feel about her. If you’d rather—’
‘No! No. I’m with you. Whatever happens, I’m with you.’
‘All right then,’ Erlan nodded. ‘So just make her understand that Saldas can’t be trusted. After that, she can decide her own fate. Stay or go.’
‘Where do you think she could go? She’s a thrall, for Frigg’s sake! She’s bound to this place, mind and body. If she ran from here, she wouldn’t last a day.’
‘Someone would give her shelter. A girl like that won’t struggle to find a protector.’
‘Piss on that! I’ll be her protector.’
‘I told you. She’s not coming—’
‘We can’t just leave her here! Who knows what that crazy bitch will do to her?’
‘She should have thought of that before she opened her mouth.’
‘Well, it’s open now, so she doesn’t have a choice! But we still do, don’t we? We could help her.’
Erlan could see the resolution in Kai’s eyes. He raked his scalp, his mind boiling with frustration. The boy had a point. And something in his own stupid stone heart wasn’t entirely deaf to his pleading. There were any number of ways this could all unravel – probably would unravel. Bara was a walking liability, after all.
Then again, he did owe his friend this much. ‘All right. She can come. But you are responsible for keeping her trap shut. And if there’s any trouble with her, I’ll drop the pair of you.’
Kai whooped. ‘Thank you, thank you, master! Hohoa! Back on the road again, eh? Just like old times!’ He bashed his cup against Erlan’s, then slung the contents down his throat.
‘Aye, and such merry times they were too,’ said Erlan drily. ‘Now shut up and listen. We have to be away from here before the Summer Throng.’
‘That’s seven days from now. So what’s the plan?’
Erlan refilled Kai’s cup. ‘That’s what we’re going to figure out, my mad little friend.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lilla was tired, hungry and exhilarated.
It had been an exhausting day. But a beautiful one. The kind of day that the heat rippled off the hard-packed yard in waves, when the sun felt like an old friend and everyone under it a brother or a sister.
Everyone, that is, apart from Sletti who had yet to emerge from his sulk at her usurping of his keys. But the other folk of Dannerborg had taken to her far better than she could have hoped.
Of course, she still wished away the herds of warriors, loitering in their tents around the hall – a reminder that her homeland was not yet completely safe. But she had at least banished all but the highest born of them from inside Dannerborg’s palisade. That Ringast had not gainsaid her orders had surprised her. And she had to admit she quite enjoyed the authority she now wielded as his wife. She meant to use it wisely. Still, she was under no illusions. She knew the respect the hall-folk granted her was merely an extension of the respect they held for their lord. After all, what was she to them but an outlander? Or worse, blood-kin of their natural enemies?
Anyhow, their obedience was welcome since there was lots to do. The reaping-time was fast approaching and all the gear necessary for gathering it in needed preparation. Now was the time to sweep the threshing floors, clear the barns, fix broken cartwheels and axles, sharpen scythes and hand-sickles, wax draught harnesses, repair yolks and pitch-forks. And although there was far too much to do, in truth, the more she learned of how things stood at Dannerborg, the more she thought the harvest could not come soon enough. With so many extra mouths to feed, the grain supplies had long been running low. So low that – as she had told Ringast several times – she reckoned it a matter of days, not weeks, before they would be exhausted. That was to say nothing of the supplies they should be putting aside for the coming winter. But even a bumper harvest would not stave off the inevitable if these men of war continued to infest Dannerborg like a plague of roaches.
She told Ringast as much again when he rode into the hall-yard that evening.
His answer was the same as always. ‘No one leaves. Not yet.’
‘If they don’t leave soon, the rest of us will starve come winter.’ She pointed at some children playing in the hay beside the stable. ‘Those younglings need food. Not this pack of idle wolves that you insist on keeping like pets.’
�
��I suggest you lower your voice, my sweet. These wolves are wont to bite.’
‘I don’t care if they do hear me! I want them gone.’
‘Not until we have word from my father.’
‘Always the same answer. Can’t you decide for yourself?’
He shook his head. ‘Look, I didn’t come home for an argument. Why don’t you take a ride with me?’
‘A ride? Where?’
‘There’s something I want to show you.’
Not long afterwards they were mounted and riding west, towards where the land rose into a belt of woodland. She hadn’t yet had time to explore the surroundings of her new home and had no idea what lay beyond it. But she followed him contentedly enough, enjoying the warmth of the evening, her curiosity to know where he was taking her growing all the while.
They didn’t speak but the silence between them held no shadows. She had learned that her husband was a man given to thinking at least as much as he spoke. Though it didn’t make him dour or brooding. She left him to his thoughts. Instead she let the woods speak to her, and the flaming evening sky above them, and the pigeons and the wood-sparrows and the jays and the jackdaws, all roosting in the trees. The air was steeped with that ineffable scent of high summer. The smell of ripening, of readiness, of the summit of the year, beyond which would begin the long descent to winter.
Approaching the edge of the belt, she could see the blaze of the setting sun through the last of the trees. Then, suddenly, they broke through into the open country beyond.
Ringast pulled up. She reined in beside him, staring. Because spread before her was a sight that stole her breath.
She found herself looking out over a long, shallow valley that fell away to the horizon. It spanned perhaps a quarter of a league side to side and was divided down its length into the narrow, rectangle strip-fields common to those parts. But altogether the valley shimmered like a lake of liquid gold spilling from the cauldron of the falling sun. Acres and acres of barley fields stretching almost as far as the eye could see. A glorious sight, and Lilla’s heart swelled to see it.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she murmured.
‘Aye. Isn’t it?’ He jumped off his horse and waded into the crop. Lilla dismounted and followed him.
‘See how they’re starting to drop?’ He ran his hands through the fat ears of barley. ‘Another week and they’ll be ready.’
‘The sooner the better.’
‘You can’t rush these things,’ he answered. ‘A plant ripens in its own time.’ He was smiling – an innocent, almost boyish grin. ‘You see, though, don’t you? This valley alone could feed a thousand households. Or an army,’ he added.
‘An army that will soon be dispersed,’ she returned, half-wondering whether he was deliberately goading her for his own amusement.
He laughed. ‘I know you’re worried, my love. But you’ll just have to be patient.’
‘Patient! Nothing good can come from waiting a day longer.’
‘You really think I would betray the oath I swore your father?’
‘I don’t know.’ She peered at him, trying to see behind the stonewall of his eyes. ‘Perhaps not. At least not yet... Though you are stubborn. I know that for a certainty.’
He laughed. ‘Well, that much I cannot deny.’
She smiled back at him, despite herself.
He stood slightly downhill of her. The barley crop rose around him, nearly up to his chest. He looked like a man perfectly content. A man where he should be, untroubled, unhurried, in spite of the things which might be but were not yet. In spite of the weight of his responsibilities as lord of this land. She suddenly thought how different his expression was from Erlan’s dark aspect. The sun was behind him, garlanding his head with gold. She noticed for the first time that his sandy hair had a reddish hue to it. ‘My mother used to say that many a husband starts his married life stubborn. It’s a wife’s job to bring him to heel.’
He laughed again. ‘Do you think you’re up to the task?’
‘Undoubtedly.’ She grinned.
He chuckled. But then his smile faded. His face became serious. ‘Do you find me hard?’
‘Sometimes. A little.’
‘Hmm... Well, if I am, it’s because I’ve had to be.’ He looked away down the golden valley. ‘I’ve done things I’m not proud of.’
‘Who has not?’ she said. ‘But you need not dwell on them.’
He turned to her and his face softened. ‘You have a forgiving heart. That’s a rare blessing for a husband.’
Did she?
She thought of Saldas, of what she had done. Felt a creeping disquiet at what she had threatened to do. Could her heart ever forgive her?
Ringast was watching her, perhaps trying to guess at her thoughts. ‘You’re still angry with me, aren’t you? You think I want to keep these men here because of some unreasonable thirst for war... Because I long to see your father fall.’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
He mulled over her question, figuring how best to answer. ‘Once the wheel of war is turning, it’s hard to break it. Often, when a man stands in its path, it breaks him instead.’ He plucked a barley ear and rolled it between his palms, examining the grains before flinging them away. ‘Sometimes I think honour is no better than a ravenous beast, swallowing up as many lives as Hel herself. Yet we willingly make ourselves slaves to it, binding ourselves to it heart and soul.’ He brushed off his palms. ‘When you know me better, you’ll believe I care what happens to my people, just as you do... And I mean to make sure what happens to them is good.’
She did believe him. Believed that he could do it, too. If the gods weren’t set against him. She looked out over the shimmering fields, feeling the barley-whiskers brush against her knuckles.
‘Do you think you could be happy here?’ There was a trace of hesitation in his voice.
She turned. ‘Here?’
‘With me.’
A sigh swelled in her chest. She thought of that other road – that road shrouded in shadow, the road she might have walked. But she had turned from it, had chosen this one. She looked around her – at the trees and the horses and the swaying corn and the heavy, dust-flecked air. Looked at the solid man before her, closed her fingers around the solid ears of corn. These things were real. Not some impossible dream, not some hollow promise that asked her to forsake all reason and turn her heart inside out.
‘Maybe,’ she replied at last. ‘Yes. I believe I could.’
So long as I can learn how to forget.
He came towards her suddenly, the hem of his tunic rustling through the crop, his face at once wild and tender. Even in the short time they had known each other, she had come to recognize that look in her husband’s eyes, that sudden flare of longing.
And for a second, she wanted him, too.
Maybe that was why, when they lay together this time, she found inside herself something new. Not love exactly, nor even pleasure much. Something else. Something nourishing, something good – like the grain was good, and the sunlight and the gentle wind.
Perhaps she could come to love this man after all.
Yet afterwards, when they had ridden home and dusk had fallen, and they had supped and retired to their bed, the last thing she saw in the darkness before she drifted into sleep was Erlan’s face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Come on, come on! Anyone would think you’d never made a fire before,’ Saldas snapped.
‘Sorry, my lady.’ The girl’s ruddy cheeks coloured redder.
The price of discretion: enduring a thrall so dim she’d hardly notice if her hair was on fire. Well, she wouldn’t have to suffer such irritations much longer.
From horseback, Saldas had watched the thrall-girl’s fumbling efforts at arranging rocks to frame a small fire, then lay the wood and kindling, and after an age, get the firesteel sparks to catch.
‘Good,’ she said, the flames at last crackling to life. ‘Now help me down.’
The servant scurried over and saw her safely to the ground. Nearby her children were squabbling. ‘Take them downstream a little... ugh, what’s your name again?’
‘Glamvor, my lady.’
‘Glamvor. Take them as far as that inlet. They can paddle, but not above their knees.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘I shall call when I wish to leave.’
‘Very good, my lady.’ And off this Glamvor scuttled, scooping up Svein and Katla with her. Saldas waited until they were a little distance away before she opened her pouch, carefully extracted the contents and unfolded its covering.
The heart had a good weight to it. It glistened, even in the drab light. The huntsman had done well. It can’t have been an easy kill. A wolf never was. But this one must have been well on in years, perhaps even a pack-leader.
All to the good. The more blood the wolf had tasted, the better.
She took out the flat stone that had been weighing down her robes since the halls and laid the heart upon it. Then, unsheathing her knife, she cut the meat into three portions and lay them in readiness on the cloth to one side. Then she placed the stone inside the ring of rocks near the heart of the fire to soak up its heat.
That done, she waited.
The others would be here soon.
Downstream, her children were splashing in the shallows, their laughter tinkling across the surface of the water. She went to the river’s edge, scooped up a handful of water and let it cool her lips, her eyes shifting about her.
Along the far bank a row of oaks rose straight and tall. Beneath them, the water flowed past smooth as a mirror until the mossy rocks below the ford shattered its surface into a thousand shivers. At the foot of the oaks, thick roots spilled thirstily into the water, writhing over each other like serpents.
She wiped her lips, listening to the water rush over the smooth-worn rocks. A sound with no beginning. Nor any end... Outside of time, far beyond the span of her life. Beyond even the span of her imagination—
She snorted. The water might have the whole of time to work its will on these rocks. As for her, she had to work a little faster.
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