by Tami Dee
And she had betrayed him. She had betrayed them all.
Even now his mother pleaded Kat's case to him, insisting that something was not right about the events that the slaves had described. And his sisters wept as he made his preparations to hunt her down.
Leif's face twisted in anger. There was no mistaking the fact that his father's head had taken a blow, nor that his knife and brooch were missing.
Stolen.
Slaves and villagers alike were, at this moment, being interrogated. Questioned as to which one had accepted Kat's stolen bribe and assisted her to escape. His clan resented the distrust, but they understood that she could not have successfully escaped on her own.
Thus far nothing had turned up, but it would.
Leif strode over to Cavan and nodded to Patrekr.
"That is enough. Cut him down and treat his wounds."
Patrekr did as instructed, his relief to be done with the unpleasant business obvious.
Cavan stood before Leif, staring expressionless at the frost-bitten ground.
"Do you have any idea where she might have gone?" Leif said grimly.
He hated the fact that he had had to punish Cavan because of Kat. Although the thought of her silken flesh torn and bleeding made Leif sick to his stomach, he realized it was no more than she deserved.
"The women heard her speak of finding an infant," Cavan told him. "She asked questions about Iceland and how far away it was. At the time Jarl Leif, I admit I did not pay much attention to her ramblings." He briefly met his eyes before continuing his apology. "If I had, perhaps your father would not have suffered such an indignity, being clubbed by a woman."
"You could not have known, Cavan," Leif assured him. "You must not blame yourself."
Back in the great hall, Leif mulled over what Cavan had said. Leif knew that Dagmar had commissioned Kat to save the infant. Kat must have reached the same conclusion regarding the location of the infant as he had.
Iceland.
The bold, foolish little wench. She would surely perish if she somehow tried to make her way across the Atlantic. If it were any other woman, he would not credit her to try such a thing. But it was Kat and he knew that she would not think twice about attempting it.
The question was who would transport her? Would she make reach Iceland or perish in the sea?
Leif shoveled a spoonful of soup into his mouth and tried to convince himself that the only reason he worried about her crossing was because he wanted to be the one to slay her.
You must protect her from her enemies Leif. Cherish her as I have.
Leif pushed Dagmar's words from his mind as he pushed away his bowl. He had protected her. He had cherished her in his own way.
And look how she repaid him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kat huddled against the mast of the longship. Her arms ached from being jerked around so much and her wrists were covered with open sores where the leather straps that had bound them had dug into her flesh.
A lanky youth of about sixteen was charged with bringing her food and her hands had been unbound after they made sail. Apparently no one was worried that she might try to escape, now that they were in the middle of the ocean.
The young, unsmiling guard didn't leave her side as she cared for her personal needs, but Kat didn't care. There was no room for modesty in her current circumstance.
Night fell with alarming suddenness. The anchor was dropped and the air that snaked around the deck was sharp and bitterly cold. Wrapping her arms tightly around her knees, she buried her head in the folds of her skirts, trying desperately to get warm enough to fall asleep.
When she heard two hushed but angry voices moving towards her through the darkness she held her breath.
They were arguing, and to her horror, they stopped right in front of her.
"Leave," one of them told her young guard, who scurried off as they continued their dispute.
"Nay, Abbe," one said, his voice firm and sure. "You are neither her protector nor my friend. Since our childhood you have cheated and schemed to best me, and you do it still."
"Ballungr, you misjudge me sorely." Abbe's voice took on a wounded tone.
"And my true friends have told me of your treachery," the man called Ballungr continued as if his companion had not spoken. "It is rough seduction and not protection that took you to my lodge while I was away."
Kat's heart thundered in her breast as they continued with accusations and denials. But as afraid as she was, she could not help but look with longing at Abbe's fur mantle. The moon was bright and as yet there was no fog in the air. She had no trouble distinguishing that it was made up of several different animal skins, wide enough to go completely around his broad shoulders, clasped at his thick neck with a silver brooch, and long enough to reach his knees.
Their voices raised a notch and Kat tensed.
"Who has told you these lies?" Abbe's voice was no longer confident. Kat stopped breathing when her eye caught sight of the metal gleam of a knife blade from within the folds of the coveted fur cloak of Abbe.
Ballungr must have seen the flash as well. He pulled a wicked looking knife from somewhere on his person, and before Abbe or Kat, knew what was happening, he silently plunged the blade into his enemy's stomach and twisted his wrist, jerking the blade upward in a smooth motion.
Surprise, and then shock, registered on the mortally wounded Abbe's face, just before he slipped to the deck in a lifeless heap to lie, eyes open and empty, at Kat's feet. She put her fist in her mouth to keep from crying out as his limp hand landed on her knees.
Kat waited, breath bated, for Ballungr to kill her also when somewhere from behind him a voice called out and, giving her dismissive look, he stalked away, leaving his victim at her feet.
With a shudder of revolution, Kat picked up the lifeless hand between her thumb and forefinger and slung it away from her lap onto the deck.
She stared into the man's vacant eyes then looked again at his mantle. A shiver slipped through her that had nothing to do with the frigid night air.
Kat cast a quick glance around the deck. Seeing no one in the immediate area and not knowing where Ballungr had gone or if he would return, she pulled herself to her knees and started to fumble with the brooch that secured Abbe's cloak. Her fingers were clumsy with cold and fright but she wasn't about to let a perfectly good fur go to waste on a dead man. The thought brought her up short. What have I become?
But the answer to that was easy.
She was now what she had always been. A survivor.
When, at last, she got the brooch unclasped, it slipped out of her numb fingers and onto the deck with loud clank. Her head jerked up and she scanned the deck, hoping that no one else heard the noise.
All was quiet.
He had landed on his back, the cloak was underneath him. Planting her back against the mast and using her feet, Kat pushed at his arm and shoulder with all the strength she could muster until her leg muscles screamed their protest. And yet, for all her effort, he only lolled from side to side.
"You weigh a ton, dude," Kat muttered to herself. "Now give me your danged coat."
She went back to heaving but still she couldn't budge him. Tears stung her eyes. She was so cold!
When she heard the sound of quick footsteps coming toward her, Kat scampered back to her pole, pulling her knees into her chest. It was Ballungr. His glance took in the open fur mantle and discarded brooch lying next to the body and then to her with a surprising glimmer of what could have been respect.
Without saying a word, he heaved the dead man up from the deck and tossed him over his shoulder as, ever resourceful, Kat grabbed the hem of the fur and jerked it towards her. Ballungr swayed briefly as his burden shifted with her action, then he calmly carried his victim to the side of the ship and eased the body into the choppy sea before disappearing into the darkness from which he had come, leaving Kat to quickly cover herself in fur.
Warmth seeped into her body, b
ut her thoughts remained chilled.
Leif must be livid.
Kat had no doubts that Cavan and the other slaves would make good his taunts to blame her for striking down Nabboddr and running away.
She only wished she hadn't been plotting her escape at the time of her kidnapping.
How could she even hope that Leif would rush to her rescue when she had planned to deceive him and steal from him in the first place?
It was ironic really, that for all her worry that she would never be able to make it to Iceland, she sat here, now, a prisoner on a vessel heading straight to her destination. And now that she was here, she wished with all her heart that she were not.
She would give anything to be tucked away in Leif's alcove, to hold him in her arms throughout the long, cold nights. To laugh with Jora, or Hallfrior, Sefa, and Yrsa again. To talk to his father about memories so far back that he was the only one that recalled them.
She hadn't gotten as close to Leif's brothers. She had never even seen Ofeig and now he was away on a mission with Leif. Davyn she had seen only from afar, but considering that he made his fortune in slave trading, she had no wish to get too close to him.
Balmung she had, of course, spoken to, he being her very reluctant hero. But he was much too busy taking care of Leif's responsibilities in his absence, something he had gotten quite good at the last year that Leif had disappeared for, for her to get to know him well. It still amazed Kat that a week in her time equaled a year here.
She wondered if that was the rule or simply a fluke.
Sorrow gripped her.
Would she ever get home?
Not likely.
Leif still wore the pendant she needed around his neck, and even if he chased her to Iceland as Cavan predicted, the chances of him lying helpless in her arms so she could take it from him were pretty much zip.
Oh God, how could she even think of stealing from him at a time like this? Would the treachery ever end? No. How could it? If Leif did give chase, it would be for the sole purpose of killing her, just as Cavan said. He would be filled with disgust and hate if he succeeded in finding her.
She realized hopelessly that there wasn't even the remotest chance that he would see her, take off the pendant, press it into her palm and wish her a safe journey home.
Yeah, right.
No, the only way she could hope to make it out of this barbaric time alive was if she somehow got the pendant from Leif. Which meant he had to guess where she was and follow her.
Fear and exhaustion kept her mind wandering.
She wished she could warn Leif about Cavan. She knew that Leif trusted him completely.
Why had Cavan turned against his master anyway? From what she had seen he and the rest of the slaves were treated well.
She sighed.
Fat, cold drops of rain started to fall, compounding her misery. The heavy fur she wore would keep her dry for a while, but soon the relentless rain would seep through.
There was a good chance she would die of exposure before they ever reached Iceland.
In which case, Katla's baby would be on his own. Leif would miss his opportunity to kill her, and Scipio, well, she had no idea what Scipio wanted with her. It was clear that Cavan had informed him of her being in Leif's fortress. Katla wondered if Cavan was the only spy who had infiltrated Leif's clan. Her questions regarding Scipio were answered much sooner than she expected, when a barrel-shaped warrior stooped over her and growled for her to get up. As she struggled to do so, the longship heaved sharply and Kat toppled into the mast, hitting her head.
The giant, whom she had heard called Haera, grabbed her by the nape of her neck and hauled her to her feet. Half dragged, half carried she was hauled across the slippery deck when her knees buckled and she landed in a painful clump on the deck. Raindrops pelted her back and plastered her hair to her scalp.
Haera forced her head up until she met Scipio's eyes.
"Stand," Scipio commanded.
Her temper got the better of her and she snapped. "Give me a minute to set my broken legs and I'll get right on that."
She watched in satisfaction as surprise flickered over his strong features. Apparently her ancestress had not been quite as outspoken as she.
There was menace in the way he approached her, but she refused to cower under his harsh scrutiny. He stopped in front of her and reached down. Kat gasped as he grabbed a fistful of wet hair and pulled her to her feet.
He sure wasn't looking at her like a long lost lover, she thought, a touch of hysteria building within her, and for the first time Kat wondered what had happened between him and Katla when he learned of her deceit.
After all, she reasoned to herself, Scipio had believed he was following Rollo's orders when he had orchestrated the attack upon Leif's ship the morning of the wedding. He must have been shocked, and perhaps bitter, that the woman he loved had betrayed his trust and caused trouble between himself and his jarl. However, now would probably not be a good time to question Scipio about the events after the attack on Leif.
Maybe tomorrow, she decided, as he leaned close to her, bitterness etched into his rugged features, if she lived that long.
"So all this time you succeed in making everyone believe you were dead," he hissed into her ear. "Where did you hide my child Katla? Where were you hiding before Leif found you?"
His breath smelled strongly of mead and there was madness in his eyes.
Katla was afraid. Very afraid.
Should she try to convince him that she was not the woman he thought? Or would trying to reason with him push him over the edge of his sanity?
If she pretended to be his Katla, what would he do to her? Why was he so insistent that he find their child? Whereas Kat once feared that it was Leif and his clan from which she would need to protect Katla's child, she was now certain that it was the child's own father that was his biggest threat.
Well, at least she couldn't do anything to endanger the infant. After all, she couldn't tell the location of a child when she didn't know it herself.
That was good, right?
"Answer me!" he roared giving her head a vicious shake.
"I don't have a child." That, at least, was the truth.
"Liar! I know you birthed a child. Who is the midwife and where did she hide him?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him.
Slap!
She really should have seen that coming, she thought as lights exploded behind her eyes.
A gurgle of laughter escaped her thinking about the time when, a lifetime ago, she had been afraid of Benny and his cohorts. They were small fries compared to these men. What she wouldn't do to go home, she had always been a firm believer that the evil you knew was better that the one you didn't, and this time travel experience proved it.
Scipio stepped back and considered her from behind hooded lids.
She gave him a belligerent look. He nodded to somewhere behind her and she was grasped by her arms. Her hands were jerked behind her and a thin leather strap was wound around her already sore wrists. Straps exactly like the ones she struggled to loosen from Leif's wrists the day she found him.
Leif.
Her heart ached for him. If only there was some way of telling him the truth about her disappearance, of explaining that she hadn't ran away, despite the fact that she planned to, but that she had been taken against her will.
By a mad man, who apparently hated her as much as Leif surely did by now.
She swallowed the despair in her throat and wondered if things could get any worse.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When Scipio turned and walked away, Kat didn't delude herself that he was finished with her. His men went about their duties. All that was, except one. To her amazement, Ballenger, without saying a word, cut her bindings with an expert flick of his wrist, then turned and walked away.
The storm stopped as suddenly as it had started and daylight was beginning to replace the dark. Kat shook ou
t the wet fur and laid it over a taut rope to dry out then settled herself against the mast, hoping she would be forgotten about.
She wasn't sure how many days had passed before she heard the call that land had been sighted.
Iceland.
The home of her ancestors.
The place where she would most likely find Katla's infant.
Kat clenched her jaw in determination. She had no choices left to her. Her life hadn't belonged to her since the night she had hung suspended from that deteriorating beam, reaching for her tote.
It was time she stop fighting Amma's instructions, stop telling herself that she couldn't do it, that it was too hard.
Her Amma must have thought she had what it took to accomplished this mission, for hadn't she told her as much, just before she died?
She loved Leif, but he would never believe that she hadn't betrayed him. There was nothing she could do about that now so she might as well let him go, figuratively speaking of course. He would always remain in her heart, but as of this moment, she would think of him as little as possible.
Besides, she thought bitterly, if he really loved her, really knew her enough to love her, he would see that she would never harm his father to accomplish her goals. He would know that, regardless what Cavan or the other slaves told him.
As for herself, she had to move on. Trudging through the water to shore, she looked up at the raw beauty now surrounding her. A lush birch forest lay immediately ahead of them, to her left she saw miles of bare mountains, their snow capped peeks reaching high into the startling clear blue sky. There would be lava plains thorough the island, formed by the active volcanoes that the island was known for. The land of fire and ice, and here she was, seeing it with her own eyes a thousand years in the past.