Viking

by Fabio

  Reyna mulled over this startling bit of information, then laughed incredulously. "Bah! The man lied before when he made a pact—why should I believe him now?"

  Alain scowled in exasperation. "You still have no idea how your betrayal has caused Wolfgard to lose face with his people, do you?"

  She bit her lip and did not comment.

  "Then let me repeat that the man despises you now, Reyna, Some of his warriors have defected to Viktor's camp, as you know. For all of these disgraces, he blames you much more than Viktor, directing his rage toward the woman he feels is plotting his downfall. Now he is willing to go to almost any length to rid himself of you and keep the respect of his warriors—even if this means living in peace with your husband once you are gone."

  Reyna frowned deeply. "I must think these matters over carefully."

  "Think quickly, my sister. And bear in mind Wolfgard's alternative if you do not depart Vanaheim." Alain paused for a moment. "Your stepfather swears to me that if you do not flee before the child is born, if you deliver to Viktor a son, he will not rest until all of you are slain."

  Feeling panic encroaching, Reyna again touched her stomach. "Oh, what will I do? What will I do? "

  "If you value the life of your child, you will sail with me for Loire tomorrow."

  Watching Alain turn and walk away, Reyna felt enmeshed in turmoil All her life she had wanted to return to Loire. Ragar was there, and Alain was willing to bear her and the child back.

  The obstacle was Viktor, and his misguided insistence that they remain on Vanaheim, that their destiny lay here. Why could he not see that he was embracing a fool's dream? And endangering the lives of his wife and child?

  Reyna bucked up her spine in grim determination. She would simply have to convince Viktor to leave Vanaheim. It was the only way. But first she needed to speak with Wolfgard and assess his motives for herself. Was he truly centering all his rage on her now? Would he spare Viktor if she left? Would he slay her entire family—including her innocent, helpless babe—if she remained?

  Had Alain told her the full truth? Verily, she loved her brother, but something about his demeanor—particularly his hostile attitude toward her husband—she could not completely trust.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  On her way back to the village, Reyna encountered her husband's blood brother Svein.

  "Good afternoon, milady," he greeted her. "Did you have a pleasant walk?"

  She smiled back at him. She liked and respected Svein, with whom she had become friends over the past months. The two of them had even shared a few games of chess on some cold winter afternoons when Viktor had been busy with other duties.

  "Yea—the day is quite lovely."

  He fell into step beside her. "And having your brother here—learning he survived—has been a true blessing, has it not, milady? Even though he appears to despise our jarl."

  She frowned. "So you, too, have noticed that?"

  'The lad's hostility is blatant."

  She paused, touching his arm. "Svein, I have a great favor to ask of you."

  He bowed from the waist. "I am your servant, milady, as you know."

  Reyna took a deep breath, then blurted, 'Tonight, I want you to help me steal inside the camp of my stepfather so I may speak with him."

  Svein's features went ashen. "Have you gone mad, milady? Such a foolish mission will only mean death for you and your child!"

  Yet Reyna shook her head. "I am not afraid, and I know how to infiltrate the village undetected."

  "But why would you risk this?"

  She ground her jaw. "Because I must judge for myself the motives in my stepfather's blackened heart."

  "Explain that, pray."

  "My brother Alain has already been to see Wolfgard. He tells me my stepfather has no intention of honoring the pact he made with my husband, and that if I deliver my child on Vanaheim, Wolfgard intends to slay us all."

  Svein gazed at her with mingled doubt and horror. 'That is terrible, milady. But does not Viktor believe that the coming of the child will bring peace to Vanaheim?"

  "Yea, but I feel he is wrong to trust Wolfgard's word. That is why I must go see my stepfather—to discern the truth for myself."

  Svein shook his head ominously. "Milady, I cannot support you in this. 'Tis too risky for you and the child. And if our jarl discovered what we were about ... I would not doubt King Viktor would resort to violence toward me in this instance, for exposing you to such peril,"

  Reyna gripped his arm, her worried gaze beseeching his. "Svein, do you value the life of your blood brother and jarl?"

  "Yea—of course, milady."

  'Then you must help me. And neither of us must ever tell Viktor." She drew herself up with pride. "You must accompany me tonight ... or I swear I will go alone."

  Svein cursed softly. "Milady, I could tell our jarl of your plans," he warned. "Verily, he would order you confined to ensure your safety."

  'Tell him, then," she retorted with an angry gesture, "if you do not value his life!"

  Svein considered this for a long moment, then sighed. "There is no dissuading you?"

  "Not with my husband's life—and that of our child— hanging in the balance."

  Svein nodded morosely. "You have defeated me, then, milady. But I must insist we go under heavier guard. There are several among our warriors—particularly Ottar and his brother, Tyre—whom I can trust, whose discretion will be absolute."

  "Very well. Gather a guard. We cross the fjord ere midnight."

  "We meet again, old man."

  That night, Wolfgard came awake to see his stepdaughter hovering over him, malice blazing in her eyes and her dagger pressed to his throat.

  "You!" he bellowed, jerking slightly, then freezing as the girl's knife nicked him. His cagey gaze darted around the room, moving from Reyna to her three kinsmen, who loomed in the archway with broadswords drawn. Realizing escape was impossible, he demanded, "What are you doing here?

  "I come to look into your evil heart, old man."

  "And you speak with all the respect of your six-toed brother," Wolfgard snarled.

  She smiled. "Alain told me of his visit and the pact you made."

  "I should have killed him, as I should slay you for turning traitor," Wolfgard hissed.

  Reyna chuckled. "You speak boldly for a man with a knife at his throat."

  Wolfgard eyed her with contempt. "You have gone soft, stepdaughter, your belly bulging with my enemy's seed. Were it. not for the presence of your kinsmen, I could easily overpower you now and carve out your perfidious heart."

  Reyna was actually shocked by the depth of malice in Wolfgard's words, the raw hatred burning in his eyes. "So Alain spoke the truth. Now you assign all the blame to me for your loss of face with Viktor."

  Wolfgard virtually spit his next words. "Yea, you are the weakling who let him tame you, who spread her legs with the ease of a Hedeby whore!"

  Reyna gasped at this diatribe, while Svein surged forward angrily, pointing his sword at Wolfgard. "If you value your life, old man, you will mind how you address milady."

  "Bah!" Wolfgard scoffed. To Reyna, he sneered, "Kill me, stepdaughter, if you have the courage to do it."

  "I have it, old man!" she retorted. "But first I will give you one final chance to save yourself. I will know if you intend to honor your pact with my brother. If I leave Vanaheim before the child is born, will you allow my husband to live here in peace?"

  Wolfgard hesitated for a long moment,

  "Answer, old man, or die!"

  "Yea, stepdaughter," Wolfgard retorted bitterly, "if you leave Vanaheim, if you cleanse my soul of this terrible disgrace, then I will stop doing war with your husband. But if you remain and have Viktor's brat, I will not rest until all of you are dead."

  Reyna tightened the pressure of her knife. "Speak ye the truth?"

  "Yea."

  "Swear it by Odin!"

  "I so avow," he sneered.

  "I have my answer, then/'
Reyna flashed her hated stepfather a cruel smile. "And now I will slit your throat, old man, to stay you from harming my family."

  Reyna was pleased to note fear flashing into Wolfgard's gray eyes and his haggard cheek muscles twitching in distress. But before she could slice her dagger across his throat, Svein rushed over to restrain her wrist.

  "Stay yourself, milady."

  She swung her vengeful gaze on him. "Nay. I will kill this whoreson now, so he may never harm us!"

  "You will not," Svein reiterated. "You offered Wolfgard his life in exchange for the truth, and you will not dishonor your own word."

  "Tell me not of honor when we are dealing with a whoreson who has none!"

  " Tis no excuse for our behaving like animals" Svein argued obdurately. "Verily, one lesson I have learned from our jarl is that we do not slay defenseless men."

  "Wolfgard is not defenseless! He is a villainous jackal."

  "You will release him, my lady," Svein repeated.

  The two continued to confront each other, this time in murderous silence, while Wolfgard observed them, wild-eyed. At last Svein pulled Reyna's hand away from Wolfgard's throat and snatched the dagger from her fingers. Wolfgard reared up in bed, then froze in horror as he watched Svein raise his broadsword high over his head. But the warrior merely used the flat side of his weapon to knock Wolfgard unconscious. With a groan, the enemy chieftain slumped in his bed.

  Reyna turned on Svein. "Let me slay him!"

  "Nay!"

  Clutching her wrist in steely fingers, he pulled her from the room.

  Back at Viktor's village, Reyna and Svein parted company with Ottar and Tyre, and Svein escorted Reyna home. The two were riding toward the longhouse when Viktor suddenly loomed before them on the path. The horses reacted in fear, neighing and stamping the ground; Reyna and Svein quickly reined in their mounts.

  Viktor stared incredulously from Svein to his wife. "Reyna! Where have you been? I awoke to find you gone, and I have been searching everywhere for you."

  "I was restless, my husband, and wanted to go for a ride. You were sleeping peacefully, so I started out alone for the stables." She nodded to Svein. "I met your kinsman along the path. When Svein could not stay me from my plan, he insisted on coming along to provide escort."

  Viktor continued to regard them both in mystification. "The two of you went riding in the middle of the night, when Wolfgard could attack again at any moment? Have you both lost your minds?"

  "We were in no danger," Reyna retorted.

  "No danger?" he raved. "You, milady, have no business whatsoever being on a horse this close to your delivery!"

  4IWe rode slowly," she argued.

  "That is beside the point." Viktor leveled his glare on Svein. "As for you, my kinsman, I will speak to you tomorrow about your utter lack of judgment in letting my wife talk you into this middle-of-the-night folly."

  "Yea, jarl," responded Svein humbly. "I am sorry we gave you a fright. But please know my goal was only to protect milady."

  Viktor grunted a response. Moving between the horses, he gently pulled Reyna down off the saddle and into his arms. 'Take milady's mount to the stable," he ordered Svein. "I will carry my wife back to the longhouse."

  "Yea, jarl."

  Viktor started off with Reyna in his arms.

  She squirmed. "Put me down. I am not a child!"

  "You are behaving like one!"

  "And if you stumble in the darkness, you could harm the babe."

  That remark stopped Viktor in his tracks. Carefully, he set Reyna on her feet. "And what if your horse had stumbled in the darkness?"

  "Mayhap the horse has more sense than you at times, my husband."

  He shook a finger at her. "You are one to talk of sense, riding around in the moonlight when you are likely to have my baby at any moment. Not to mention drafting Svein into this Lunacy—"

  "Verily, cease," she cut in, losing patience. "You have scolded me enough,"

  To her surprise, he grinned. "My God, what a handful you are."

  "Handful?" she repeated, bemused.

  "You must be close to term, for you are behaving like a madwoman." He scratched his jaw. "As a matter of fact, I seem to recall my mother in Futuregard telling me that, a day or two before she delivered me, she grew restless and full of energy, polishing all the marble in our villa. My father had a fit when he caught her."

  "My dementia is explained, then."

  He sighed and wrapped a protective arm around her waist. "Darling, you really do scare me sometimes—and I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

  Beneath the eaves of the longhouse, she turned to touch his arm, pulling him to a stop. "If that is so, if you fear for my safety, then take me away from here."

  He sighed in keen disappointment. "Reyna, must we go over this again?"

  She nodded, her expression deeply troubled. "I happen to know that your dream of peace is doomed, my husband. I happen to know that when I deliver your son, Wolfgard plans to break the pact and kill us all."

  "How can you know these things?" His features suddenly taut with suspicion, he reached out to grasp her arms. "Don't tell me you went to see him? By God, if you did—"

  "Alain went to see him!" Reyna interrupted fiercely, realizing once again that she could not tell her husband of her own reckless mission tonight. "Wolfgard told Alain that if you win the pact, he will slaughter us all anyway." She stared at her husband in entreaty. "Pray, take us away from Vanaheim. Let us all go to live in Loire, with Alain and Ragar. 'Tis the only way our child will be safe."

  Viktor shook his head. "Reyna, this is just your fear talking, fear inspired by your brother. I know he hates Vikings— despises me, in fact—but I thought we had moved beyond allowing bitterness to rule our lives."

  "I am not bitter! I only want my child to live!"

  Viktor stared earnestly into her eyes. "If you do, then you will place our love above the fear your brother inspires. You will believe in my vision of peace for Vanaheim and for our child. Reyna, I truly saw it—you and me together with our son, and all of the people of Vanaheim bowing in tribute, brought to peace at last by his birth."

  'That is a fool's dream!" she cried. "Wolfgard will never honor the pact!"

  "I believe he will, and that you must stop allowing your brother to drive us asunder—"

  "And what of you? You are putting your desire for peace above the lives of your wife and child."

  "That is not true," he replied fiercely. "I swear to you, the dream will soon become reality. I swear to you, I saw it all in Futuregard."

  Rage and frustration burst in Reyna. "A blight on you and all your babble about Futuregard. You do not care about me or the child, and I do not believe any of it anymore."

  "What are you saying?"

  She faced him with unflinching determination. "I am saying I will go with Alain to Loire anyway,"

  "You will not," Viktor stated, his visage equally obdurate.

  "You are forbidding me?"

  "Yes. I am forbidding you."

  As he stood glaring at her, relentless, she gazed at him as if he were a stranger, bitter tears welling in her eyes. After all they had shared, Viktor was still determined to dominate her! Her heart ached with anguish.

  "What of sharing?" she cried. "What of making decisions together? You promised me—"

  "I promised that once you became more reasonable, we would decide things together But, Reyna, you are still being totally stubborn and obstinate—"

  "According to you! Mayhap I think you are the one being stubborn and obstinate!"

  He clutched her arm. "No more arguing. It's freezing cold out here. Let's get you into bed."

  She shook off his touch. "Rot in Hel!"

  But Viktor just hauled his rebellious wife up into his arms and carried her inside.

  Later, with her husband asleep beside her, his arms wrapped protectively around her, Reyna found slumber elusive. Ever since he had forbidden her to leave Vanaheim, the defiant
warrior woman in her had risen up. She realized now that she could not live with a man who was determined to rule her life so implacably, to give her own feelings no heed. Granted, Viktor was a much better man than Wolfgard, but her husband was still trying to subjugate her, just as Wolfgard had repressed her own mother.

  It broke Reyna's heart that in the final analysis, Viktor placed his doomed desire for peace above what was best for their family and unborn child. She could not stay with a man who would not put his wife and child first. At least if she went to Loire, her baby would be safe—and so would Viktor. Hopefully, he would join her and the child there in due course, once he realized she was right.

  Her painful decision made, she knew she must inform Alain. It took Reyna a long time to extricate herself from Viktor's embrace, carefully prying away first his fingers, then his hands, then his forearms. Finally she left his bed and lumbered through the house to her brother's chamber.

  Gently, she shook him, and when he jerked awake, she whispered, "I will sail with you before the dawn. Yea?"

  "Yea, my sister," he replied, smiling sleepily. "You have made the only choice."

  Through Reyna knew in her heart that Alain was right, when she tiptoed back into the bedchamber and lay down beside her husband, she shook with silent sobs for hours before falling into a fitful slumber.

  Wolfgard sat in bed, glowering at the female thrall who was dabbing at the oozing gash atop his head. At the doorway, Egil stood watching them with a scowl.

  "My lord, I must bandage this," the woman fretted. "But First, mayhap you need a stitch or two to bind the wound."

  As she probed the cut more carefully, Wolfgard bellowed a curse and cruelly backhanded her. "Begone, wench—you only increase my misery!"

  Her hand on her bruised cheek and her eyes wild with fear, the slave stumbled from the room..

  Egil stepped forward. "Shall I summon another woman to attend you, jarl?"

  "Nay. Females be damned, the lot of them!" Wolfgard lurched out of bed, then groaned at the pain and dizziness that came in the wake of his sudden movement. To think my cursed stepdaughter invaded my very home!"

  "We must retaliate once you are recovered—"

  "We will retaliate now!" Wolfgard roared, grabbing his leggings.