By their lights, Grid and Rinda had every right to kill the renegade pair. But they hadn't. They'd decided to leave them to the mercy of chance. Whoever—or whatever—found them, would get to deal with them. To Brit this seemed more than reasonable, given the circumstances.
It was less reasonable of the women to carry Brit off. After all, she'd done nothing but come to the aid of one of them. They might have been a little grateful and let her head back to Asta's place in peace.
But no. Their "leader" wished to speak with her. And their job was to make that happen. What Brit wanted counted for nothing with them.
From overhead came the cry of a hunting bird. Brit glanced up to see a hawk soaring in the clear blue, and she thought of that other hawk in Drakveden Fjord the day this big adventure had begun.
She thought of Eric's face that first time she'd seen him in person, of the worry in his eyes as he'd looked down at her—injured, fading fast, on the rocky, cold ground. Now she was the one worrying. For him. Because Eric was going to blame himself when he found out she was missing.
Their disagreement back at the longhouse seemed of no importance now. So what if he thought they were getting married? It didn't matter, let him think it. What mattered was that Eric Greyfell was the kind of man who took his responsibilities seriously. He would consider it his duty to keep her safe and he would torture himself for failing in his duty.
He was an exasperating man. But still, she didn't want him torturing himself.
He would come after her, of course—at least, he would if he could figure out where to look. She was doing what she could to help him with that, though she doubted her little attempt to lead him along would work. But it seemed only right to at least give it a try.
She was thinking of it as the "Hansel and Gretel" technique. Instead of a trail of bread crumbs or pebbles to show the way, she was dropping peanut M&Ms. So far she'd dropped three. One in the clearing just as they were leaving. One about twenty minutes later. And one several minutes after that.
Okay, it was kind of pitiful if she gave it too much thought. What were three little M&Ms in an hour's worth of traveling? Not a lot. But hey, she was doing the best she could with what she had.
And as of now, her hands were empty.
For the first time since Grid backhanded her for talking, she dared to speak. "Ahem. Sorry, but I really have to have a moment in the bushes."
Neither Grid nor Rinda responded. The horses labored upward on the trail. Perhaps five minutes passed. Brit was debating how soon she dared to ask again, when Grid pulled to a stop. "Right there." Grid pointed at a clump of bushes beside the trail. "Relieve yourself. Make no sudden movements. We will be watching."
Terrific. Should she ask to have her hands untied? Uh-uh. If they did free her hands for the moment, they would only tie them again before she got back on the horse. And then they would be too likely to spot her trick.
Brit went into the bushes. It was quite the fun adventure, getting her pants down with her hands tied and the wool gloves making her fingers all fat and awkward. Lots of wiggling and squirming involved.
Which actually worked out fine. All the jerking around provided cover for that split second after she had her pants back up and zipped, when she shoved both hands in her jacket pocket and got what she needed.
Two minutes later she was back on the horse. She waited several minutes more before she let the next M&M roll from her fisted hand.
* * *
Twenty minutes after her break in the bushes, they reached the crest of the hill they'd been climbing. Below them the land fell away sharply into a deep tree-shrouded ravine. They started down, moving west, then switching back, going east, following the zigs and zags of the trail as it took them to the bottom.
At the bottom, they crossed a swift-running stream and started climbing again. At the top of that hill, they went down in a series of switchbacks, the same as before.
And so on, for hours.
Finally, in late afternoon, they descended another hill and began moving east along the narrow strip of relatively flat land at the bottom. They were deep in the trees. Brit hunched into her jacket and shivered and let go of another M&M. After that she had only one left.
It was perhaps ten minutes later—by then she was tired enough she hardly glanced at her watch anymore—that another woman, dressed much like Rinda and Grid but with skin the color of richest mahogany, materialized from the bushes at the side of the trail. The woman stood, hands on hips, dark eyes flashing, squarely in their path.
"Greetings, sisters."
Grid reined in and saluted, the tips of her fingers to the center of her forehead. "Freyja guide your sword arm, Fulla guard your hearth."
"You have her," said the woman on the trail.
"We do."
"Come, then. Ragnild awaits."
The warrior on the trail turned and vanished into the trees. Grid—and Rinda and Brit—followed. Brit let go of the final piece of candy, right there, a few yards after they turned into the trees.
They all three had to duck low to the horses to keep from being unseated by the thick, low-hanging branches. They rode for five minutes or so, Grid and Brit with cheeks to the necks of their mounts, Rinda with her head pressed against Brit's side.
At last, the trees opened up into a clearing: the camp of the kvina soldars.
Brit saw teepee-style tents arranged in a circle, smoke spiraling up through the tops of them. In addition to whatever fires burned within, there were open fires, rimmed by rocks, before the tents. Beyond the tent circle, hobbled horses nibbled the short grass. Warrior women of various ages moved in and out of the tents. Some of the women were black, some were of Asian descent, some Middle Eastern. There were dogs. And there were children, two of whom—at first glance, anyway—appeared to be little boys. In the center of the circle, someone had pounded in a tree trunk about a foot in diameter and around seven feet tall.
Grid dismounted.
"Get down," said Rinda from behind her.
Stiffly—after all that time riding bareback with bound hands—Brit slid to the ground. Rinda dismounted last. The dark-skinned woman who had found them on the trail led the horses off.
"This way," said Grid.
Brit fell in step behind her. Rinda took up the rear. Grid led them across the central area between the tents, to one slightly larger tent on the eastern side of the circle. As they passed, the children stopped their play to stare. The other women either ignored the newcomers or paused to salute, fingers to forehead, as Grid had done on the trail.
At the tent, they ducked inside.
A woman waited beyond the central fire, on the far side of the tent. She wore a white leather robe over her clothing. The robe was decorated with red runic-looking symbols. She sat cross-legged on a pallet of furs. Her hair was auburn, loose and full around her handsome face. Brit would have guessed her to be about forty.
"Unbind her," the woman in the robe commanded.
Grid turned to Brit, a knife in her hand. One clean swipe and the leather thongs fell away. Brit slid off her gloves, stuck them in a pocket and rubbed her tender, leather-abraded wrists.
The woman in the robe saluted Grid and Rinda. "Thank you. You may leave her here with me."
"But—" Rinda began.
The woman on the pallet cut her off with a slow shake of her head. "Discipline, my daughter. The first cornerstone of a life of power."
Rinda said nothing more. She followed Grid out.
"Do you thirst?" asked the auburn-haired woman. "Do you have need to relieve yourself?"
Brit was not at her best by then. Her thighs ached and her shoulder throbbed and she hadn't a clue where she was or what was going to happen next. Also, if she'd thought the Mystic villagers lived primitively, well, hel-lo. The kvina soldars had them beat by a mile. "Do I get to talk now?"
The handsome woman frowned. "You are angry?"
"Uh, yeah. You could say that. There I was, walking in the woods, minding
my own business. And I come upon what is about to be a rape. I step in, stop the rape—and get kidnapped for my trouble." She touched her cheek. "Plus, Grid backhanded me for asking questions about what, exactly, was happening. And no, I don't have to relieve myself and we stopped to drink at a spring not far back down the trail."
The woman gestured at her pallet, which was big enough for more than one. "Please. Will you sit? I apologize for the … zealousness of my women. I requested that they bring you to me. They only did what I asked of them."
"So you're saying you're the one to blame?"
The woman smiled, the fine lines around her eyes etching deeper. "Yes. I am Ragnild, leader of this camp. And I am to blame for everything. Now. Will you sit?"
Brit blew out a breath. "I suppose." She circled the low fire and dropped to the furs with a tiny groan. She really wasn't used to riding without a saddle. Everything was going to be way sore by tomorrow. But back to business. "Okay, Ragnild. What is going on?"
The woman put up a hand. "Please. Be still now. Look me squarely in the eye."
Brit stifled a second groan—one that had nothing to do with her physical discomfort. She wanted answers, damn it. And she deserved them.
But something in the leader calmed her. Made her willing to just sit there—for a moment, anyway—and stare straight into Ragnild's hazel eyes.
"Yes," said Ragnild, after a long, strangely peaceful span of time. "It is as my dreams have foretold. You will be a great queen, the first in our nation's history to rule with her king."
* * *
Chapter Seven
« ^ »
Brit opened her mouth to argue—but decided against it. What Ragnild predicted would happen or it wouldn't. And the future wasn't the issue right now.
Now she had questions. Lots of them. "Rinda called me her cousin…"
"Because you are. As I am her mother."
"But how are we related?"
"Your mother had a brother named Brian. Have you been told of him?"
Brit made a face. "More than I wanted to know, to be honest." Her mother had finally told Liv, only weeks ago, why she had left their father, why she had split their family in two—baby triplet daughters to Ingrid, sons to Osrik. Brian Freyasdahl, a real piece of work, as it turned out, had been at the center of the problem. She frowned. "You're saying that my rotten uncle Brian was Rinda's father?"
Ragnild sighed.
Brit understood. "You're the one, aren't you? The one who killed him, the one who cut off his head and his—"
Ragnild waved a hand. "It was long ago."
"But then … he must have raped you, right?"
"He did. And for that I did what any kvina soldar will do to a man who dares to take what it is a woman's sacred choice to give. A few months later I realized that I would have his child."
She thought of Rinda, with her bold attitude and her naughty smile. "That makes your daughter illegitimate."
Ragnild nodded. "Fitz," she said softly, with distaste. In Gullandria, a bastard child was called a fitz and was considered the lowest of the low. "Among us, among the warrior women, there is no judgment on the child for being born outside of a marriage. No kvina soldar can marry and remain with us, anyway. Sometimes, for whatever reason—the dishonor of rape, the lusts of the flesh, the true call of love—we find ourselves with child. When that happens, should we choose to have the child, we love that child and bring her or him up strong and capable and proud, as much as we can." She smoothed the soft white leather of her robe. "With girl children, it usually works well, since they most often choose to stay with us. The life of the boys is more difficult. They are sent away at the age of eight and they suffer at the cruelty of the outside world."
Brit was thinking of her brother-in-law, the king's warrior, Hauk Wyborn. Her father had recently legitimized Hauk, but before that Hauk's last name had been Fitz Wyborn. "My brother-in-law's mother was a kvina soldar."
Ragnild smiled softly. "Valda Booth. I knew her. She was a great warrior."
And really, there were more important things to be talking about than the plight of the fitz in Gullandrian society and what a dirty rat her creepy long-dead uncle had been. "What do you know of my brother, Valbrand?"
If the abrupt change of subject bothered Ragnild, she didn't show it. "They say he died at sea."
"Do you believe that?"
"Shouldn't I believe it?"
"I don't. I think someone tried to kill him. And I know in my heart that that someone failed."
"The heart is often wiser than the mind."
"So you're saying you think I'm right?"
"I am saying that you must do … what you must do."
"You know, you're like a lot of people in Gullandria. Big dreams of what the future will be, not very helpful in the here and now."
Ragnild chuckled. "I fear you speak the truth."
Brit sent her cousin's mother a sideways look. "What about the Dark Raider? Heard any stories about him showing up in the Vildelund lately?"
Ragnild nodded. "Rumor has it he rides among us again—that he rescued an old man from thieves, that he dealt with a group of renegades who were terrorizing one of the nearby Mystic communities."
Okay, great. Ragnild had heard the same stories as Sif. A confirmation. But nothing new. "Another question."
"Ask."
"When am I allowed to go back to the village where I came from?"
"Will tomorrow be acceptable? You'll stay with us tonight, share a meal, get to know your cousin a little. Rinda and Grid will take you back in the morning."
"So … this is it, then? You had me abducted so you could look in my eyes and reassure yourself that your dreams will come true?"
Ragnild laughed full out. It was a strong, rich sound. "I fear you have it exactly right—to look in the eyes of our future queen, to forge, you might say, the beginnings of a bond between us, for the sake of the future of my women. And to meet my daughter's blood cousin. I find I am well satisfied, on all counts."
Brit grumbled, "Rinda took my SIG 220, you know. I'm really fond of that gun."
"I'll have it returned to you immediately."
"Good. But getting my pistol back isn't the only problem. There are people who have to be seriously freaked by now, worrying about me."
"You'll return to them tomorrow, none the worse for wear."
* * *
Brit got a tour of the village and a lesson in the practice of the dragon dials.
The dragon dials was an exercise system developed in the seventeenth century by the kvina soldars. It was a specific sequence of slow, controlled movements that the warrior women believed promoted strength, calmness, discipline and mental clarity.
After the exercise session, Brit shared a meal in Ragnild's tent with the camp leader, Rinda, Grid and several other women. They had reindeer stew. Brit found it tasty, if a little tough. After the meal, Rinda invited Brit to the hot springs not far from camp.
Brit went gratefully, looking forward to soothing the aches and pains from a long day on the trail. Rinda brought a fresh dressing along for Brit's shoulder wound and changed it for her once they'd had a long soak.
Really, Brit was feeling pretty good about everything as she and Rinda strolled back to camp. Tomorrow she'd return to Asta's place.
And the day after tomorrow, she was heading out again. For Drakveden Fjord. It was time to have a look at what was left of the Skyhawk, to see if she could find a clue as to who had sabotaged her plane.
They heard the commotion as they came out of the trees and into the clearing where the circle of tents stood. Something was going on in the center of the circle.
Rinda grinned. "Looks to me like they've caught a man."
Brit walked faster—and stopped dead when she saw.
They certainly had caught a man. And that man was Eric. He was tied to the big stake in the center of the circle. The children of the camp darted around him, taunting him, and now and then striking him with stones a
nd sticks.
Brit took off at a run. "Hey, stop that!" She hit the center of the circle yelling, making shooing motions with her hands. "Cut that out, you little brats. Go on, go on. Get away from him!"
The children backed off, though a couple made grotesque faces and stuck out their tongues.
Brit turned to Eric. "Are you all right?"
"Most assuredly," he replied. His expression was subdued. She couldn't read his eyes. "Especially now that my champion is here."
She grunted. "Oh, yeah, right."
About then, Ragnild emerged from her tent. "There you are. We've been awaiting you. This man has said your name in hopes that you might claim him."
"This man is … my friend. He's only here to rescue me. Untie him. Now."
Ragnild was shaking her head. "I regret that I can't do that—at least, not yet."
"Why the hell not?"
"This man strode boldly into the center of our camp. No man is allowed such a liberty. And he can't even plead ignorance. I know him. He is the son of the grand counselor, born of Mystic stock. He knows our ways."
Brit turned to Eric. A trickle of blood slid down his neck where some cruel child had struck him. "What is she talking about?"
Instead of an answer, she got one lifted sable eyebrow.
Argh. What was up with him? He could help her out a little here. She faced her aunt again. "I'm afraid I'm confused. Why is he tied up? What did he do?"
Ragnild was frowning. "I have explained that. He belongs to no woman here, yet he dared to walk boldly among us. Such behavior cannot be allowed."
Rinda stepped forward. She was grinning that naughty grin of hers. "You have to claim him." She tipped her head to the side and looked Eric up and down. "Hmm." She licked her split lip. "Perhaps I shall claim him—that is, cousin, should you reject him first."
"What is this? Claim him? How do I do that?"
"You say, 'I will claim this man.'"
"Okay. And then?"
"Then we untie him. You take him to your tent—Grid and I shall be pleased to have you borrow ours."
The Marriage Medallion Page 7