by Ingrid Hahn
No matter. If not tonight, then the next. If not the next, then the next. He’d stop at nothing. He’d live every day for her. Work for her. Prove himself with whatever tests she demanded of him, day in and day out. If she never accepted him until he was broken with age in his last day drawing breath in the realm of men, he’d die complete.
Conversely, if he were not victorious, she wouldn’t have to suffer in the wake of his failure. Her hopes would not have been slaughtered. Whatever dreams she might have spun from his having told her of his plan would never have existed, so there would be nothing to tear away from her.
He had to win.
Had to.
He was breaking his vow. Whatever the consequences might be—he straightened and withdrew his sword—so be it.
Thorvald stormed out from the trees. The village dogs barked. A light summer breeze coming up from the fjord strengthened, rustling the trees and underbrush, like the breath from the gods issuing a subtle warning.
To continue or back down?
Didn’t matter. He kept marching forward. He’d made his choice.
At the door to the great hall, he stopped and drew a breath. This was it.
He pushed the doors open.
A few pairs of eyes glanced his way. Then a few more. Laughter ceased. Drinking cups went down. The musicians ceased playing their instruments.
The room went silent. At the far end, Erlendr sat upon his great carved chair, cup in hand.
Their eyes met. The jarl’s narrowed and the barest hint of a smile touched his lips. “You’ve returned. Again.”
“This time for good.”
Thorvald sauntered up the center of the hall, ignoring all around him. Time seemed to have slowed. The only thing he could see were the jarl’s eyes, frozen as the far northlands. Erlendr thought he had Thorvald under his control.
Not any longer.
Before him, Thorvald stopped.
The jarl didn’t move. “By being here now, your land is forfeit.”
The proclamation had no effect. None.
Once, the mere thought of risking his chance at reclaiming his land would have pushed him into agony. He’d thought it was the only thing that could ever matter to him. It’d been rightfully his. Still was.
His land had been lost to him since he was a boy. Too bad it had taken him so long to realize his error. He’d dreamed. He’d pictured himself with the dirt in his hands, sweaty and bone-tired after a long day planting hope into the ground. Always in those visions he’d been perfectly content. Not stupidly unaware of the risks and pitfalls of bringing food from the earth—so much could go wrong and so much did. But at peace because he knew what mattered was doing what he was meant to do.
The longing for contentment remained. Even now, in his battle-hungry state, it wasn’t merely the act of taking vengeance that would sate his blood.
But it was a good place to start.
“I’m here”—Thorvald raised his chin. He didn’t blink. Didn’t waver. Didn’t experience even a fraction of uncertainty in the deepest recesses of his being—“to fight you.”
Instantly, two heavyset men stepped forward. The jarl stopped them with a wave of his hand. “Wait a moment. I want to hear what he has to say.”
“I’ve done everything you ever asked and it’s brought me nothing but shame. I will take your command no longer.”
“If you’d stayed away, as you ought to have done, you wouldn’t have to violate your oath to me now.”
“You took advantage.”
“A vow to a man—”
“I’ll take my chances.” Thorvald’s jaw set in renewed determination.
“Nobody will ever trust you again. Your word will be worth nothing.” He spat on the ground. “Nothing.”
“My vow to you has made me do things I’d sworn never to do. By following you, I’ve betrayed myself and those most important to me in the world. So here and now I make a new vow—no man will ever again have the power over me that I foolishly handed to you.”
“You are a fool. At least you know that.”
“Shut up and draw your sword, Erlendr.”
The jarl raised his brows. “You’re forgetting something.”
Thorvald’s grip on his sword tightened. In the torchlight, the metal gleamed. He wouldn’t let the jarl have a chance to speak the words. “This ends and it ends tonight. Stand and fight me yourself. Send your men away.”
“If you want to fight, you can fight.”
It was not the response Thorvald had expected. No matter. He’d do what he had to do.
The jarl continued. “But before you fight me, you must first defeat my best warrior.”
Not so very long ago, the jarl’s best warrior had been Thorvald himself.
Something cool and calculating in the jarl’s eyes said Erlendr thought he’d already won. But none of the warriors were as strong or resilient as he was. Warriors paid from the silver Thorvald won on raids he’d led. All under the guise of that vow.
Never again. “I’ll fight anyone you’ll have me fight. I won’t stop until it’s done.”
The jarl stood. His voice dropped. “I don’t think you want to do this.”
Erlendr was too used to controlling Thorvald. He’d become blinded.
“I’ve rarely wanted anything so much in my life.”
“I remind you that you’re breaking your vow.”
“Save your breath. You can’t make me care.”
“No?” The jarl’s forehead wrinkled as his brows rose. “Then I suppose—”
Thorvald didn’t give the jarl time to finish his sentence. He tensed. “Fight me now, you son of a dog flea.”
The jarl still held one perfect piece that could end everything with nothing more than a few simple words. Privately, Thorvald could disavow his father.
What mattered to him and what would happen if others discovered his secret were two very different things. It could all be gone before Thorvald had the chance to begin. He would not be thwarted, not over this. Not when he was so close.
“Don’t you want to see what you’re fighting for?”
“I know what I’m fighting for.”
“The wife of my best warrior, no doubt.”
Thorvald’s blood was pounding in his ears. He couldn’t have heard the jarl correctly. He shook his head. “What?”
The jarl gestured to the side. Thorvald’s gaze followed. He looked past the guards to men seated closest to the jarl. He searched their faces to make sense of the jarl’s words. Hrolf. Karr. Agnarr. Ogvald. Fasti. Berg. All those he’d known most of his life.
Two were missing. Sigurd, who would be standing by Thorvald’s side right now were he alive. And Ozrik.
Thorvald glanced behind and around, searching for his living friend’s face. “Where have you got him?”
A few of the other men exchanged glances. Hrolf glowered.
The jarl remained impassive. “Who?”
“Your ‘best warrior.’”
Hrolf stood. The young man’s face had gone ruddy and he snarled from between clenched teeth. “Who do you think he means?”
Thorvald snorted, catching himself from laughing—but barely. “And just how did this come to pass?”
“By your own doing, of course,” the jarl spoke in a lazy drawl.
“My own doing?” Thorvald could have spat. He addressed Hrolf. He was young, but surely sense ruled his pride. “Don’t you see he’s deceiving you so he can control you?”
“It’s you who is deceiving yourself. We fought, you and I.” Hrolf stood puffed up like a proud squirrel chattering at a bear. “It was I who won.”
Thorvald glanced around at the other men. Surely there were more among the warriors who’d been there that night and seen for themselves that Thorvald had let the boy win to bolster his confid
ence. Ozrik had known. Odin’s eye, Alodie had known, and she hadn’t any training with the sword. Wasn’t there one among the men ready to tell the boy what had happened that evening?
The only things that met Thorvald were expressions ranging from blank to hostile. He turned, combing other faces. In the back of the room, the rat Ubbi smirked.
No, apparently there were none among them willing to tell Hrolf the truth. Thorvald ran his hand over his head. Probably for the same reason the truth hadn’t come from his own lips. But it hadn’t mattered until now.
He inhaled a measured breath. “I don’t want to fight you, Hrolf.”
A murmur rippled through the people gathered in the hall. Some suspicions Thorvald must have been confirming. Others he must have been letting down.
Didn’t matter. It wasn’t their fight.
The jarl grunted. “As I suspected.”
Thorvald looked to the young man, imploring him with his eyes. “He’s using you. He’s pitting us against each other.”
“He’s giving me what I’ve earned. What I deserve. You take all the glory for yourself.” Hrolf jeered. “Come.” He beckoned Thorvald forward by motioning with both hands and took a fighting stance. “I’m ready for you.”
Thorvald sheathed his steel and met the jarl’s stare. The man knew Thorvald well, it seemed. By bestowing honors upon Hrolf, Erlendr had made a brilliant play. He’d counted on Thorvald seeing his younger self mirrored in Hrolf and depended on Thorvald’s instinct to fight and destroy being unable to withstand this impediment.
When Hrolf spoke of what he’d earned and deserved, he was referring to recognition and status.
It was too much too soon for the boy. With his first finger and his thumb, Thorvald rubbed his eyes. He’d been there once. Young. Eager for glory. Eager to impress.
Unlike Hrolf, he’d carried the weight of his promise. He’d had to believe what he was doing was right. For if he hadn’t, it would have destroyed him.
As it was destroying him now.
The jarl would not be so lucky. Thorvald straightened, hardening his gaze. “I’m not going to fight the young one.”
Jeers erupted around them.
Thorvald ignored them. He turned and pushed through the men, knocking shoulders as he went.
Chapter Forty-Five
An Unwelcome Meeting
Alodie was heaping food upon a plate when her ears caught the ruckus happening in the main part of the great hall. She paused mid-scoop to glance over her shoulder and bent a little to peer around a wooden post. The last time the hall had fallen into such an uproar, Thorvald was the cause.
The bodies were too thick to see to the commotion and the chatter so loud she couldn’t have picked out his voice had she wanted to.
She ignored the slight sinking feeling in the center of her chest. She didn’t expect him to come. She didn’t even want him to come. Plans with Birna were in place, and that was good enough. What she required was a new life far from the jarl.
Far from him.
The disturbance among the men worked in her favor. With the rest of the women attending what happened in the hall, she had time to liberally douse Hrolf’s food with the herb Birna had given her. Alodie took one last look around. The group of women formed a wall with their backs to her.
Only she was separate.
The same way she had been since she’d been brought here. First, she’d been the foreign captive brought to marry the jarl. Now they were supposed to accept her as the jarl’s daughter. Soon to be Hrolf’s wife.
Hmph. Hrolf’s wife, indeed. The young one wasn’t even a man by the measure of his own people. What a ridiculous ploy. The jarl was plainly manipulating the poor young pup and Hrolf was too hungry for the approval of his elders to see it. And the reason the jarl was giving her to him? Simple. Because Thorvald wanted her.
True, Hrolf looked at her in an altogether unsubtle manner. Lust. Again, though, because Thorvald wanted her. If they married—and crows would lose their black before she ever went willingly to the arrangement—she and Hrolf would be absurd together.
Fully aware her agreement wasn’t required, she doused herbs on the thick mix of meat and vegetables she’d heaped on the plate, then poked at the lump to stir it around. Was it enough? She bit her lip. Birna had made no mention of how much was to be used, or if too much would cause unintended effects. If an extra dose made him spend a night in agony shitting his guts out, she would overcome her guilt in short order. Alodie didn’t want to kill him, though.
However…because she didn’t want him merely drowsy either, she dumped the rest of the dried leaves into the food for good measure. Then she crossed herself and said a quick prayer that she wasn’t sending him to his death.
“You.”
She jumped. “You” was what she answered to among the women and she glanced up to find one of them, Edda, hovering over her shoulder. Edda was aged a good ten or fifteen summers more than Alodie, small of stature, with light lines about her mouth, and hair beginning to show gray at the temples.
Alodie’s heart picked up a guilty beat and she stabbed at the food. “What?”
“That was your man in there just now. Stirring up trouble again. No better than an angry bee, he is.” Some of the other women giggled.
“My man?” Her mouth went arid. So it had been Thorvald. What did the man think he was doing now? Alodie scowled. “I have no man, I’ll thank you to remember.”
“Ohh.” Edda’s brows rose. “Look who’s so high.” She leaned in closer. “They say you’re no princess, but you’ll find that jarl’s daughter or not, you’ll need a man for protection.”
Alodie had mentally assigned Edda to the role of Cyneburga. Maybe there was one of their kind in every group. This woman was not so fine as Cyneburga, nor so graceful. In fact, she could be outright crass. But they were the same kind of person. Always nettling. Relentlessly sniffing out those they believed weaklings and cowing them constantly.
“I am not a princess, it’s true.” Having almost been the jarl’s wife, they’d kept their distance. Now that they saw her as his offspring, their opinion and treatment of her had shifted. What she couldn’t tell was whether any of them actually believed she was the jarl’s daughter or not. Best to make her position on the subject clear. “But neither am I the jarl’s daughter. That’s pure fabrication.”
“Are you calling him a liar?”
That manipulative, power-hungry, impotent worm who ruthlessly used people for his own gain? Calling him out as a liar hardly seemed worth the trouble.
Alodie hedged. “The jarl will have the best of Thorvald or die trying.”
“Ah, so Thorvald is your man, then?”
“I need no man.”
“Of course you do, you stupid hen.”
“Birna has none.” Alodie was missing Birna more and more. The calm quiet of the little cottage, the gentle motherly company, and the sensible conversation.
When Edda was absent, the others didn’t treat Alodie so badly. When she was around, however…
The woman laughed. “Couldn’t keep one, you mean. Had one, once. He stayed with her only five, maybe six, winters. Then he left her. What’s she worth if no man will stay by her? She’s just another stupid old hen like you.” The woman ran her light-blue gaze back over Alodie, reassessing her. “I can see why you’ve taken to her.”
“I don’t care about her past and her worth has nothing whatsoever to do with how men might or might not feel about her.”
“You’d better start caring about how men feel about you. You will need protection. Otherwise, they’ll just pass you around among them as they please.” Edda’s expression turned pointedly curious. “Or perhaps that’s what you’re after?”
Alodie’s cheeks could have blistered with heat. The heavy plate in her hands would have done nicely as something to shove in the o
ther woman’s face, but then there would be no more of Birna’s herb. “You’re needling me on purpose.”
The woman looked past her suddenly and her expression changed. She crossed her arms. “What do you think you’re doing coming back here?”
Alodie whirled. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed. A flame sparked to life inside of her. The same that always flared when she saw him, no matter how damned much she wanted to claw his bejeweled eyes right out of that beautiful head. She ignored it. “What, indeed?”
Thorvald stood tall, radiating simmering anger with every visible rise and fall of his chest. “Edda, whatever it is you’re saying, I’ll thank you to not say it.”
“You can’t be back here.” With a scowl, Edda doubled down. “Unless they’ve hacked off your prick and you’re one of us now.”
He remained steady. “What I have or haven’t got between my legs is no concern of yours.”
“Whatever you think you were, Thorvald Longsword, you’re none of it now.”
“There are hungry men you ought to see about feeding.” He waved the others away. The women cleared out. “You too, Edda.” She took an extra minute, but with a grunt, finally took the food she’d prepared and left with the rest of them.
Alodie watched them go. The sooner she took Hrolf his food, the better.
Thorvald gave the food a hungry look. “That looks good.”
Alodie clutched the plate. “’Tisn’t for you.”
“Does that mean you’re happy, then?” He challenged her with his gaze. “That you want this?”
“Now you’re just trying to rile me.”
He paced to the other side of the space, running his hand over his hair. “I’ve done everything wrong.”
“You have, indeed. Is that why you’re here?”
He turned. The impassioned appeal in his eyes could have made mighty oaks bend like flowers too long without water. “I needed to see you. I needed to know if it was true.”
She arched her brows at him. “That I’m being forced to marry young Hrolf? It is.”
“I can’t fight him.” He shook his head. “Mighty Thor, help me, but I can’t.”