Daughter of Fire and Ice (3 page)

I said nothing, fighting the dizziness as I struggled to stand.

‘Here,’ said Svanson, and threw a length of rope. ‘Bind her hands in front of her so she can run behind my horse.’

I risked opening my eyes for a brief moment and saw a dark-haired, dark-eyed man, probably a slave, judging from his clothing. He was standing quietly, eyes cast down, his chest heaving. He’d been forced to run already, tied by a length of rope to Svanson’s saddle. How would I keep up, feeling so weak and sick?

My wrists were untied and the blood rushed painfully back into my stiff, numb hands. But they were bound again, this time in front of me. I didn’t try to escape. They were two strong men, and I could barely stand on my feet. Through all my fear and despair, I felt a sense of destiny. If this was meant to happen, there was little I could do. If it wasn’t, then the gods would show me a way to escape.

Svanson slid down from his horse and checked the rope was tied tightly enough. I could smell the wine on his breath, and I knew he’d been drinking.

‘You fool,’ he said, grasping my hair and pulling it, so that I gasped. ‘Did you really think you could hide from me?’

At his touch, something charged and vital ran through me. I knew at once it was the power of a vision. And at last the images that had been eluding me came into bright, sharp focus behind my eyes. For a moment everything disappeared.

Svanson lying on a dusty road, with anger in his eyes. His anger changes to fear. Clasped hands reach out and stab him with a small but evil-looking knife. Stab him repeatedly. I can’t see who the hands belong to. But I can see the blood. So much blood. Pouring from the wounds in his chest. I hear him screaming, screaming out in pain and fear. And then blood runs from his mouth, and he lies still, eyes staring sightlessly into the distance.

I was back in the present again and I could no longer hold my nausea at bay. Heaving painfully, my stomach turned itself inside out. Svanson flung me from him and I fell to my knees. I vomited again and then coughed weakly.

‘You’re lying, you evil wench,’ I heard Svanson hiss. I looked up, forcing my eyes to focus on him. He looked terrified. I’d spoken my vision aloud. Svanson was gripping his hands into fists, and I wondered for a moment if he would strike me. But he didn’t and I could smell his fear. He was more afraid of me, now, than I was of him.

I was taken aback at the depth of the horror I could feel flooding out of him. It is not the Viking way to fear death greatly. Our lives are predestined from the moment we are born. A man can go into battle armed only with a club, and if it’s not his day to die, he won’t. Or he can arm himself with plates of iron and take a sword of great name and lineage, and still fall, if the gods will it so. Death in combat is glorious. It’s rewarded by a place in Valhalla, as one of Odin’s chosen warriors. And yet Svanson stood here shaking with terror at the very thought that his time was near.

He was no warrior, I realized. He’d grown up spoilt and indulged, feasting and drinking in his father’s hall. A life of privilege and ease. He had no acts of valour to his name that I knew of. Only bullying those less fortunate than himself. I despised him from the bottom of my heart.

I noticed that the slave was staring at me too, his dark eyes wide. I couldn’t read his expression and the sun was behind him, hiding his aura from me. I met his eyes and felt sure he was trying to tell me something. But Svanson drew my attention back.

‘I know what you’re up to,’ Svanson said angrily, his fear fading. ‘You are lying, in the hope that I’ll take fright at your foolish words and let you go. Well, it won’t work. You’re coming with me.’

I remained silent, and cast my eyes down. My head was throbbing with pain and the low sun was like a knife in my eyes. Svanson snatched up the rope that bound my wrists and made it fast to his saddle. He took care not to touch me again. He thrust his hand into his pouch, withdrew some coins and let them clink in his hand.

‘I don’t know whether I should thank you or curse you for bringing her to me,’ he said to the man who had captured me. But he tossed the coins to him anyway.

‘She had this with her,’ the man said, and he held up my bag. ‘It’s full of seeds and suchlike. Do you want it?’

Svanson nodded. ‘Yes, give that to me. But go ahead of me now and take that medicine chest to the ship. Stow it carefully in case she has poisons in there.’

The two men rode off. Svanson put my bag into his saddlebag, mounted his horse and kicked it forward. The ropes on my wrist yanked me after it. I staggered, regained my balance, and began to walk shakily. I was light-headed from the blow to my head. The slave walked beside me. He hadn’t spoken. As we fell into step together behind Svanson’s horse, I felt his eyes on me again. I looked up and met his gaze. There was neither fear nor servility in it. His look was open and slightly puzzled, yet oddly familiar. I looked again. Did I know him? His face was dirty and badly bruised and it was hard to see his features clearly. What I noticed most, now that it was visible to me, was the glow of the deep blue aura around his head and shoulders. It was a peaceful colour, but shot through with the dark brown of anguish. He was a peaceful man, deeply distressed, I thought.

There was no time to wonder about it. Svanson urged his horse forwards into a trot and we were forced to run. My legs were shaking and my breath coming in painful gasps, and still the pull of the rope was relentless. Svanson dragged us on beyond endurance, beyond mercy, laughing as he kicked his horse faster and faster. I thought over and over again that I couldn’t take another step. But the alternative was to fall in the stones and dirt of the road and be dragged along. So I kept finding more reserves of strength deep within me, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Once I missed my footing and fell, the hard ground knocking the breath painfully from my body, tearing my tunic, grazing my skin. But the slave beside me managed to grasp my arm and heave me back onto my feet.

‘Thank you,’ I croaked, my voice hoarse. He had no breath spare to reply.

We kept moving, sometimes at a walk, more often at a run. At last I could smell the sea in the air, and I thought we must be close to our destination. The path reached a cliff top and curved to the left to follow it. Svanson paused. We bent over, gasping, dragging the air noisily down into our overworked lungs. There was a dizzying drop at our feet where the cliffs fell away to the water below. But this wasn’t the open sea. There were steep cliffs across the water from us too. This was a fjord that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. Though there was a stiff breeze here on the cliff top, there was barely a wave on the water so far below our feet.

‘I could throw you both over here and be done with it,’ said Svanson. He gave a crack of laughter at the thought. I felt the hairs rise on the nape of my neck. ‘But I need you in the new land,’ he continued. ‘So I think I’ll spare you for now. But any disobedience, any disloyalty, and that will be your fate. Do you understand?’

His voice was a cruel sneer. The slave beside me, who had been so silent and so contained throughout our long journey, suddenly fell to his knees and groaned aloud. I was surprised. From what little I’d seen of him, I hadn’t thought he’d show such weakness.

‘You’re my new master now,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I beg you to cast me over the cliff if that’s your will.’

I saw Svanson look down into the man’s face and read the bleak despair that was written there. He smiled unpleasantly. I looked from one to the other of them, aware that there was a tension between them that went far deeper than master and slave.

‘Afraid?’ Svanson taunted softly. ‘You should be. To your sister, I was more merciful than I will be to you. This is nothing to how hard you will be driven when we reach Iceland,’ he promised. ‘So you’d better accustom yourself.’ He looked gloatingly at his slave, enjoying his misery, then he turned and glanced out at the fjord.

In the few seconds that his back was turned, the slave reached a hand down to his ankle and pulled his legging up a little. I wondered what he could be doing; how he had the energy to do anything other than simply breathe. He withdrew his hand, clutching something in it. I couldn’t see what, but I was suddenly afraid. Svanson hadn’t seen the movement.

Svanson was still smirking to himself, obviously enjoying the memory of whatever had happened earlier. I wondered that he had the leisure to sit around taunting us like this. Didn’t he know he had an army marching towards him as he spoke?

Svanson quite suddenly wheeled his horse round, riding it between us, forcing the slave to the other side of his horse, nearest the cliff edge. He doubled back and rode on. Once more I had to force my stiff, weary legs to run. But at least I was on the inside. The slave was running between the horse and the cliff edge. Svanson kept laughing and pushing him right out to the edge as he rode. Any moment, I thought. Any moment now, and he will stumble and fall.

Suddenly the slave gave a cry and leapt from the very brink of the cliff onto the horse. He clung on to Svanson’s leg, half on, half off the horse, and in his hand, I could see a wicked-looking iron knife. Suddenly everything became horribly clear. I knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Svanson gave a furious yell and wrestled with the slave, at the same time pushing his horse into a canter along the cliff path, moving away from the edge, trying to shake the man off. I was dragged along at great speed. The slave reached down and cut the girth beneath the saddle. Svanson kicked out at him, catching him in the mouth. The horse shied, jerking me off my feet. I fell, hitting the ground hard with one shoulder. This time, the slave was not beside me to help pull me up. The ground was tearing at me, ripping my clothing and bruising my body. I’d never felt such pain. I tried to cry out, but my voice was only a parched whisper. The grass was whipping my face and I could no longer see what was happening. Then, abruptly, the dragging stopped and I was still.

I looked up and saw that saddle, rider, and slave had all fallen to the ground. Svanson was winded, gulping ineffectually at the air like a fish on land. He had a sword hanging in a scabbard at his side, but before he could recover himself and draw it, the slave was on him. Stabbing at his chest with his knife.

I screamed. As I did so, I understood that the screams in the vision had been mine, not Svanson’s. I couldn’t stop myself. It was an appalling sight. Blood spurted and flowed over the slave’s hands as he knelt astride the chieftain. He lifted the knife once more, and dealt him a death blow. I cried out once more, and then there was silence.

Both the slave and I were panting and the sound of it was loud in the still air. Small sounds were magnified in the sudden quiet. In the distance I could hear the sea stirring against the rocks far below and the faint cry of gulls. The horse was standing a few paces away and I could hear him tearing up mouthfuls of grass, apparently undisturbed by the violence. The slave was kneeling on the grass looking at me. There on the ground between us lay Svanson’s blood-soaked body.

‘You murdered him,’ I whispered, shocked. I pushed myself painfully into a sitting position. I was used to the sight of blood, but my business was healing not fighting and I had never seen violent death before.

‘He killed my sister,’ the slave croaked. His voice was as raw as mine after our forced march. ‘He took us both from our master in place of tribute today. And when my sister couldn’t run behind the horse, he murdered her.’ He shuddered and passed a shaking hand over his face. ‘In cold blood. Right in front of me. I was tied by the wrists, there was nothing I could do but watch her die.’ His voice broke. ‘Her and her unborn child,’ he added, shakily. Tears of grief leaked from his eyes, and I looked away while he wiped them.

I sat silent, appalled. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I tried to say at last, my voice hoarse. ‘His men killed my father too, I think. I saw him fall.’

The man gave me a sympathetic look. Then he simply knelt there on the grass staring at the body of Svanson, ghastly in death. I sat frozen, unable to move.

‘This was a fair fight,’ the slave said at last. ‘He was on horseback and armed, and I was bound.’ He was speaking more to himself than me. I sensed he was trying to come to terms with what he’d done. The colours of guilt rather than satisfaction were lighting his aura.

He shuffled towards me on his knees, the bloody knife held out in front of him. I flinched away, terrified, suddenly afraid he might attack me too.

‘I swear I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘I want to cut your bonds.’

My instinct was to thrust him away, but I forced myself to sit still and allowed him to cut the ropes that bound my wrists, his hands slick with Svanson’s blood. The knife sawed through the rope, and my hands were free. My torn wrists throbbed painfully. They were smeared with blood, and I had no idea whether it was mine or Svanson’s.

‘Here,’ said the dark-eyed slave, holding out the knife to me. ‘Will you free me now?’ he asked.

I hesitated only for a moment, then cut at his bonds until they fell away and he too was free. I heard his sharp intake of breath at the mixture of pain and relief the sudden freedom gave. The slave rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered a little. He wiped his brow on his sleeve, inadvertently smearing his face with Svanson’s blood.

‘I’ve never killed a man before,’ he said. He coughed, and I wondered if he would be sick, as I had been earlier, but he seemed to recover himself. He wiped his hands on the grass and tried to clean his knife. I looked into the slave’s bruised and bloody face as he knelt beside me. It still had that edge of familiarity, but the memory eluded me.

‘What do we do now?’ I asked. I felt quite lost in the enormity of what had happened.

‘There’s no “we”,’ he replied, getting to his feet. ‘Svanson kidnapped you, but now you are free to return home. I’ll have to flee. They would put me to death for far less than this.’ He indicated Svanson’s body with a sweep of his hand, and then paused and met my eyes again, his own wondering.