Saved by the Viking Warrior

by Michelle Styles

  He closed his eyes for a long heartbeat.

  ‘My husband died from a wound that went putrid.’ She kept her gaze on the walls of the hut. Her nails made half-moons in her palms as she felt moisture gather in the back of her eyes. ‘He should have gone to a healer straight away, but he was eager to get home. By the time the monks and I had a chance to look at the wound, it was too late. The poison had spread. They tried to burn it out, but failed.’

  He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘How would you have felt if he had died elsewhere?’

  She spun around and looked into his face. His mouth was pinched and his lips were more blue than red. ‘Do you have a choice?’

  He closed his eyes and his pallor increased. Sweat now cascaded down his face and his arms began to shake.

  Cwenneth clamped her lips together and waited, silently praying that he would see sense and stop being stubborn. Men.

  He bowed his head. ‘I give in. Tomorrow morning we go. My pack and saddle will need to be brought in. Myrkr stabled. I’ve no wish for some thief to take them while we are messing with my back.’

  ‘Remain here.’ Without waiting for him to reply, she walked out of the door. Myrkr bared his teeth at her. Normally, she’d have backed away and not even tried. But that wasn’t an option. She advanced forward and gripped his bridle.

  She tugged, but the horse remained still and unmoving. He gave a low whinny and shook his head, determined to wait for his master.

  ‘Move it,’ she growled and shoved her shoulder against the horse. ‘You have to so I can save his life. Do this for Thrand.’

  To her astonishment, Myrkr allowed her to lead him to the small lean-to she’d spied at the side of the hut. There was a manger with the remains of some oats in the bottom. ‘You see—food.’

  While the horse ate, she rapidly undid the saddle and removed Thrand’s gear. ‘I’ll return later. Let you know how it went. Give you some more food.’

  The horse lowered his head and pawed the ground twice as if he understood. She pressed her hands to her head. Talking to horses and expecting them to understand—she must be losing her mind. But her nerves eased slightly to think she was not alone.

  She staggered back into the hut and dropped the pack down with a thump. ‘Myrkr is safely stabled and your pack is here. Your saddle can wait.’

  In her absence, Thrand had started the fire. The flames highlighted the increasing pool of blood on his shirt.

  Cwenneth clenched her fists. God save her from self-sufficient men. She put down the pack with a loud and satisfying thump.

  ‘Be careful with that. If it was too heavy you should have said.’

  ‘What is in there? The takings from your latest raid?’ she bit out.

  ‘Enough gold to provide for Sven’s child as well as healing herbs and a little food.’ He sank down to the ground. ‘I think I might have overdone it after all.’

  ‘What healing herbs do you have?’ Cwenneth’s mouth went dry. ‘My late husband always used to have a few supplies, just in case there was no monastery available. Hopefully you use the same herbs.’

  He motioned towards his pack. ‘There are some. Valerian root, knit bone and a few others. No poppy seeds. Those who have served in Constantinople swear by it, but it gives me strange dreams. And I do have silk for sewing up. Linen stitches do not hold as well. And there is some ale for washing the wound. Or drinking. I don’t have any linen for bandages. My shirt will have to do.’

  The tension in her shoulders relaxed slightly. She would have preferred wine or something stronger, but ale would do. She simply had to hope that he would either keep still or pass out once she started sewing. ‘Valerian is good. It will help you to sleep if it is mixed with alcohol.’

  ‘Afterwards. I’ll drink it afterwards.’ His eyes burned fiercely into her soul.

  ‘Can you hold yourself steady?’

  ‘I’ve withstood worse.’ He raised his chin, and his blue gaze pierced hers. ‘Our healers are not known for their gentleness. When I can, I go to a monastery as the monks are better at healing than our so-called healers. They are as apt to murmur a spell as to sew you up.’

  ‘Interesting, since you have sacked monasteries.’

  ‘I’ve never made war against the monks. There is no sport in killing an unarmed man.’

  Her eye bulged. ‘And you fight for the sport?’

  ‘That and other things.’ His eyes blazed. ‘It is what I am good at. The only thing I am good at...in case you hadn’t heard.’

  Cwenneth concentrated on the hollow at the base of Thrand’s throat. Narfi had made it clear that he had spread rumours about Thrand, but Thrand was also a seasoned Norse warrior with all the horror it entailed. He was her brother’s enemy, but there was more to him than just being a warrior. He could have easily turned her over to Narfi for gold, but he hadn’t. He had made sure that they put miles between them and any pursuer. And he valued his friends. He was keeping his promise to Sven. ‘I had heard.’

  ‘Good.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Whenever you are ready...’

  Cwenneth bent her head and concentrated on threading the bone needle. ‘I’m ready now.’

  ‘Get on with it.’ Thrand lay down on the pallet on his front, exposing his back.

  ‘Please let the curse be gone. My life depends on him,’ she murmured as she started cleaning the blood from his scarred back.

  * * *

  Cwenneth sat back on her heels and examined her handiwork. Once she had started sewing, the rhythm had begun to flow and her stitches had become neat, pulling the flesh together. The wound wasn’t as deep or complicated as she had first feared.

  The main problem had been its length. Thrand would bear the scar for the rest of his life. Another one to add to the series of silver and purple lines that criss-crossed his back. Unable to find any rags, she sacrificed the bottom third of her gown to make a satisfactory bandage. His shirt was far too bloodied for any purpose but feeding the fire. She had enough for two changes of the bandage before she would have to start finding more cloth.

  That was a problem for another day. Right now, it was about making sure the blood stopped.

  She reached over and gave the coals a stir. The fire blazed brightly for an instant, consuming the last of his shirt before subsiding into a pile of coals.

  ‘Thrand,’ she said softly, ignoring the tighter and tighter knot which had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’ve finished. But I’m cursed, you see.’

  Silently, she prayed that Thrand would answer. He lay so still that she had to wonder if he even lived. She wished she had her mother’s mirror to check his breath. She pushed at his shoulder and turned him onto his side.

  Thrand gave a soft groan and then started to splutter. ‘I don’t believe in curses.’

  Cwenneth brushed away an errant tear from her cheek. He lived and now all she had to do was to keep him alive.

  She went to the fire and retrieved the potion of valerian root and ale she had made. ‘Drink this.’

  His eyes were unfocused. He grabbed her hand. ‘Is it over? Have we won? Tell me that.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve won,’ she confirmed softly and prayed that she spoke true. This time she would defeat the infection or die in the attempt.

  Chapter Seven

  The world about him rose rugged and unspoilt, tall snow-covered peaks and dark rich soil, lit with a flat, unnatural light. A hard land, but a good one. Thrand knew without being told where it was. Iceland, the new colony where Sven had once joked that a man could be free to live his life as he saw fit.

  Thrand had visited it several years before when he had signed on to a trading vessel for a season. He had arrived to discover the man he sought had died two months before. Thrand had silently marked the name off as one less he had to kill and had lef
t. But this was the first time he had dreamt of the place.

  He knew he was dreaming by the light and the lack of breeze. But he also knew he wanted to remain there. He knew he could remain if he wanted to.

  Thrand bent down, running the soil through his fingers, like he had seen his father do a thousand times. A simple action to determine if planting time was near, but one he’d never done as an adult. The earth felt good in his hand, a living thing rather than the cold, hard, lifeless touch of steel.

  The longing to have a place of his own struck him deep in his soul. Once he had thought he’d spend his life planting and harvesting, rather than earning his keep by his sword arm, as his mother had longed for him.

  He looked back towards the longhouse with its gabled roof. It reminded him of his boyhood home, but it was set back on a hill, not too near the water. To the right sat a pen filled with horses. Their different-coloured manes shone in the light. One pawed the ground as if to say, come, train me, if you are man enough.

  He gave a crooked smile. As a boy, he had thought he’d spend his time training horses for a living. His father had laughed and told him to pay more attention to his fighting skills. His gentle mother, though, had smiled and quietly encouraged him.

  Thrand’s heart ached. He missed his mother’s sweet smile and the way her long fingers were always busy with something, from spinning to weaving and even shelling peas. She had never sat still and she had always taken time to help others in their hour of need. For many years it had hurt too much to remember, especially the cruel way her laughter had been silenced. But here, the memories made him long for something else. Here he had hope.

  A woman came out of the house with two children clinging to her skirts. Her face was turned from him, shadowed. She held out her hand, beckoning him in, welcoming him. He started to go towards her and ask her name and if those children could be his. He wanted to know who else was there. Somehow, he knew if he went further, he’d be part of a family again.

  ‘Thrand, Thrand, wake up.’ A hard hand shook his shoulder. He fought against it, wanted to stay and see if he could have a family again, if he could find peace at last. ‘Thrand! I know you can hear me. Give me a sign. One little sign.’

  He fought against the voice, fought to remain in his dream land, but the woman and her children had vanished, leaving him all alone on a windswept plain. He was at a crossroads. A great part of him longed to rejoin the woman, but the clear voice kept calling him, making it impossible for him to go farther.

  ‘Thrand, wake up! Make some sign! Show me that you live. You have to live!’

  The dream had vanished as if it had never been. Leaves and straw poked through his cloak, and his nose itched. But most of all he was aware of the woman beside him.

  He opened one eye and saw Cwen crouched down beside him, a worried frown between her perfectly arched eyebrows. Her slender hand hovered above his shoulder. The flickering light of the fire highlighted her cheekbones.

  He would have almost considered her a goddess or one of those angels that the Christians believed in. But she wrinkled her nose and sneezed. And he knew she was real. Angels or goddesses did not sneeze.

  Cwen had called him back from the dream land. He swallowed hard, remembering how Sven had spoken about a journey to an empty country before he died. How he looked forward to starting a home there with his wife and child. To having a life beyond war.

  ‘Cwen?’ he whispered between cracked lips. His entire body was drenched in cold, clammy sweat and his arms felt as weak as a newborn babe’s. ‘You stayed. I thought you might go. Escape back to Lingwold.’

  ‘Where would I go? I gave you my word.’ She put a hand on his forehead. ‘Your temperature has broken. It is a good sign. I think you will live to fight Hagal after all.’

  Her blue eyes sparkled in the firelight. Had she been crying? He dismissed the idea as impossible. No one cried for him...not since his mother died.

  His mother had spent most of the year before her death weeping over him and his imagined failures, as his father raged and predicted dire things. Until in the end, he had figured that he might as well be as bad as they both seemed to think. He started to take pleasure in goading his father and getting a reaction. His dalliance with Ingrid had driven his father wild and that had been part of the fun.

  To his eternal shame, he had proved worse than either parent had ever imagined. His actions had led directly to their deaths. He had tried to change and to become the sort of man who would was worthy of his parents. But still he failed; he had not been able to take his revenge. So far, Hagal had always slipped away.

  ‘It will take more than a little wound like that to kill me,’ he said to distract his mind from the past and his failure.

  Instead of Cwenneth answering him, her eyes turned unbearably sad and her bottom lip trembled. Something inside Thrand broke. He had meant to give her a compliment and he had made a mess of it.

  ‘Cwen, what is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing is wrong.’ A single tear trembled in the corner of her eye.

  He started to lift his hand to cup her face, taste her lips and kiss the shadows from her eyes. Then he remembered what she had said about her husband and his death. His hand fell back.

  He’d been foolish. She wasn’t weeping for him. She was weeping for her dead husband. It should have made him feel better, but the thought was like a hot knife in his stomach.

  In that instant he hated the man and that his widow should weep for him so long after his death. If he died, no one would weep. No one would ever weep. He wanted it that way, didn’t he?

  ‘Then why are you crying?’

  She hastily scrubbed her reddened eyes. ‘Smoke from the fire.’

  He nodded, allowing her lie. ‘I told you—you are stuck with me for a while yet. I have had worse wounds and have lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘Are you suffering any pain? I can get you some more valerian.’

  Only around his heart. His hand fell back to the makeshift bed, rather than bringing her head down to his lips.

  ‘I heal quickly. The wound isn’t deep.’ His mouth tasted foul and his body ached with new pains with each breath he took. His life was supposed to be very different, but protesting about it would not change his destiny.

  It bothered him that he wanted her to feel something for him. When had a woman ever felt something for him? Like Ingrid, they had all wanted something from him.

  It was fine. It was the way he wanted things. His life held no room for the gentler aspects of life—a woman’s loving touch or a family. The longing from his dream was the product of a fevered mind. The thought failed to ease his pain.

  ‘I need to change your bandage. Your thrashing about has loosened it.’ Her hands pushed him down. ‘Lie still. On your side. Allow me to work.’

  His fingers picked at the linen bandage. The cloth was far finer than his shirt. ‘Where did you put my shirt?’

  ‘I have had to burn your shirt as it was blood-soaked beyond what a simple wash could do. We should never have ridden as far as we did. Are you always this reckless?’

  ‘What did you use?’ He clenched his fist and tried to think of the garments in his satchel. The most likely cloth was Sven’s last gift to his former mistress—a fine linen shift. It annoyed him that he was bothered. ‘What did you use?’

  ‘A bit of my undergown. It is strong linen and clean. I had no idea where the clothes in your satchel had been.’

  He forced his body to remain still as her cool hands worked. She had sacrificed part of her undergown for him. She had not taken Sven’s token to his former mistress, the woman who had borne him a child. Sven had insisted that his woman must have it, with practically his last breath. It made him feel worse—beholden to Cwen, rather than angry with her. ‘I will replace it when we get to Jorvik.’

  ‘The
wound has stayed shut. I used the remaining blister ointment on top of the stitches.’

  ‘It helps with healing,’ Thrand confirmed.

  ‘As long as it keeps infection at bay...’ She didn’t pause in her ministrations but continued to tighten the bandage.

  Her fingers brushed his skin, causing an agony of a different sort. Thrand practised breathing steadily.

  Impersonal. She probably would have done it for anyone. He had to stop hoping that she harboured some feeling for him. Or that he could have a future which was very different from his past.

  The dream had been simply valerian-induced with no hidden meaning.

  He tried to get up. To his shame, he seemed to have no more strength than a kitten. A wave of tiredness washed over him. He collapsed back down on to the pallet, rather than resisting it as he would have done normally. He rubbed his hand across his jaw. He sported some bristles but not many and not too long. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘The entire night, most of a day and all evening.’

  The clouds from his mind vanished and his muscles were suddenly on high alert. ‘Entire day and night? Why did you let me sleep that long? Has the fire been on all this time?’

  ‘I gave you valerian root mixed with the ale. The infection... You had to be kept warm.’

  ‘We need to travel. We’ve stayed here far too long.’ He redoubled his efforts to stand, but her hands pushed him back down.

  ‘You need to sleep.’ Her voice soothed him. ‘Who travels during the night? Drink some more valerian and ale and take the pain away.’

  He shook his head. The scar under his eye itched. The first time it had happened, Ingrid had just told him to sleep in her arms and then two armed men had burst into the barn. His instinct never played him false. They had tarried far too long here as it was.

  ‘No, we go.’ He heaved himself up from the pallet and his back screamed in agony. ‘Now, before morning.’

  ‘No one has passed by. I heard some jangling of a cow bell last evening, but there was nothing more. No one knows we are here. Whoever used this in the past is long gone.’