Erinsong (29 page)

“Perhaps, I’ll be waiting
here,” she said, not ready
to meet her
rival.

His look of relief made her stomach churn
uneasily.

“
Ja,
that might be best.”

She could be mistaken, but
she thought Jorand
looked a little pale
himself. She settled herself on a
stump
and waved him away. He squared his shoulders and strode toward the
open doorway with the heavy tread of a condemned man.

Serves him right,
she thought crossly.
The
very least
the man might expect is a wee
bit of discomfort.

Then she heard the excited
sound of a woman’s
voice and her heart
sank to her toes. Solveig was happy
to see
him. Was he holding her in his arms? Kissing
her now? At least she was spared the indignity of
hav
ing to watch Jorand’s homecoming, but
she wasn’t
sure her own vivid imagination
wasn’t worse than fact.

For the first time in
weeks, Brenna thought of her mother. Faced with unspeakable loss,
Una had with
drawn from the world. Now
Brenna understood and was tempted to follow her mother into that
dark place. But she couldn’t deny her heart. Even though the pain
was heavy as a millstone on her chest, she
still loved Jorand. She was angry and hurt and
deter
mined that she wouldn’t continue to
be a wife to him, but she couldn’t dismiss her feelings for him,
either.

Strange that he seemed able
to flick off what he felt for her, as if his emotions were nothing
more than the
buzz of a pestering
fly.

No more sounds came from
the dark interior and Brenna slumped down, seeing in her mind’s eye
a
tangle of arms and legs, Jorand’s strong
body joined
to this other woman. Would he
do the same heart-
stopping things to her
that he’d done to Brenna? She
doubled over
and was promptly sick behind the neatly stacked
woodpile.

Brenna wiped her mouth on a
corner of her cloak
and stood up shakily.
If not for her vow to find Sinead’s child and the need to recover
the Codex to do it, she’d run screaming out of Dublin so fast,
Jorand would never be able to catch her.

Her ears pricked to a new
sound coming from the
house.

Voices.
Jorand’s low and even, the woman’s louder and increasing
strident. This growling and caterwauling certainly didn’t sound
like lovemaking, unless the
Norse truly
were different. Brenna strained to under
stand. She caught the meaning of only one word in
ten, but it was enough to convince her of one
thing.

Solveig was not taking Jorand’s news
gracefully.

She jumped when she heard
the unmistakable
crash of crockery against
the wattle-and-daub walls.

When a small keg of ale
sailed through the open door and landed with a splintering thud on
the
gravel path, she allowed herself a
small smile.

If they had met under different
circumstances, she thought perhaps she would have liked
Solveig.

Eventually the angry voices ceased and Brenna
stood, breathless, wondering what to do next. Iron-gray clouds had
been boiling overhead since they tied up at the Dublin wharf. When
the sky began to weep large drops, she gave up and skittered to the
open doorway. No matter what scene she might be stumbling upon in
the longhouse, she wasn’t fool enough to stand about in the rain,
catching her death.

There were no windows in the house, the only
light coming from the smoky central fire and the hazy ambient
daylight fighting to make its way through the smoke hole in the
high spine of the roof. It took a moment for Brenna’s eyes to
adjust, and even so, she dared not look much farther than her next
step.

Underfoot, the floor was
not the packed earth she expected but solid planks instead, a neat
display of joinery that was swept meticulously clean. Each side of
the long, narrow house was lined with a low bench, just the right
height for seating or, Brenna no
ticed the
pile of furs in one spot, bedding. A standing
loom leaned against the wall near the open doorway to take
advantage of the additional light. A swath of cloth with wide
stripes hung suspended between the
solid
top beam and the dangling loom stones, a work in progress. The
garish colors didn’t strike her fancy,
but
the fabric was even and smooth. The lady of the
house was a skillful weaver.

Brenna took a deep breath
and stepped farther into
the longhouse.
All the small hairs on her body stood
at
attention, as though she had ventured into a she-wolf’s lair. On
the other side of the small fire, she
made
out a hazy form, no, two figures.

The truth will set ye
free,
Father Michael had often
admonished her. She collapsed on the nearest
bench
and forced herself to look at her
truth.

Jorand was seated, a woman
beside him. One of his arms was around her while she leaned into
his chest. Brenna saw the other woman’s shoulders
shudder and realized Solveig was
weeping.

How could she not?

Brian Ui Niall had told
Brenna that frequently a
buck he was
stalking would turn and look him in the
eye just before he loosed an arrow. Some mysterious
inner warning told his quarry it was being
hunted. Jo
rand must have possessed the
same elusive sense, for
he raised his head
and looked directly at Brenna.

His face had a hunted
expression, a mixture of
panic and
resignation in the set of his mouth and the furrow on his brow.
Regret. Sorrow. Hopelessness.
She read
them all in his deep-set blue eyes. If hell had
a gallery, her husband could have posed for a work
entitled
Lost Soul.

Brenna realized suddenly
that Jorand had two first
wives. When he’d
married them, as far as he knew, each was his one and only. If he’d
shared himself with Solveig with the same abandon he’d given
Brenna, his heart must be torn in two.

It was so unfair. None of
them had looked for this
unsolvable
conundrum. How could this have happened to the three of them? She
even spared a moment to pity the woman in her husband’s
arms.

As if Solveig also sensed
an intruder’s presence,
she raised her
head and looked toward Brenna. The
Norse
woman’s eyes glinted at her in the dimness with a predatory
flash.

After that
scathing look, Brenna decided to keep
her sympathy to herself. And resolved to only eat
from the same trencher as Jorand for as long as she bided in
Solveig’s house.

A hard steel core fashioned
itself around Brenna’s
spine. Somehow, she
would find a way to quit this ill-
omened
longhouse and leave Jorand to sort out his domestic entanglements
on his own. She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t plead.

But if in the end, he didn’t choose her,
Brenna knew her heart would never recover.

***

Jorand expected this would
be difficult, but he was
wrong.

It was impossible.

“Look at her, cowering and
sniveling. I’ll not have
an Irish slut
sullying my house.” Solveig pulled away from him.

“My hands built this place. Seems to me it’s
my house.” He kept his voice even, but it was an effort. Solveig
hadn’t asked for any of this, he reminded himself, but she wasn’t
making it any easier, either. “Brenna will stay here. She has no
place else to go. And you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when
you speak to her.”

“Why should I?” Solveig stood and glared at
the tiny Irish woman. “It’s plain she doesn’t understand what I’m
saying. Perhaps you can make yourself useful, Irish. My pisspot
needs emptying, and I think maybe it’s one job you’re qualified to
do.” When Brenna’s expression didn’t change from one of wary
puzzlement, Solveig turned to smirk at him. “You see?”

Brenna rose to her feet and stared back at
Solveig. The way her smooth brows knit together told Jorand that
even though she did not understand the exact words, she knew she’d
been insulted. Brenna’s gray eyes flashed a warning. She might be
over-matched for height and weight, but if matters progressed to a
brawl, his silver would be on Brenna.

Jorand had been in battle numerous times and
sometimes the only prudent course of action was swift retreat, in
order to regroup and fight again on a more advantageous day. This
looked to be one of those times, but he didn’t dare leave the two
of them alone. From the expressions of hatred on both women’s
faces, he feared he might go from husband of two to grieving
widower all around in short order.

“Hello the house!” a familiar voice called
from the yard.

“Armaugh,” Jorand said. He strode to the door
and bid the priest come in, clutching Armaugh’s spindly arm with
the fervor of a drowning man latching on to a life rope. “I was
hoping you were still with us.”

“
Ja.”
Father Armaugh shed his cloak and gave it a
shake, sending droplets of water hissing into the fire. He
continued in fluid Norse with only a hint of an accent. “I came to
Dublin in bonds, but now I stay a bond servant to Christ. A few
have converted to the true Faith, so they have. We’ve a small
church here now, just outside the walls.”

“Thorkill allows it?”

“As you know, I did him a
service, teaching you and Kolgrim the fair tongue. Thorkill is a
hard man, but he has a sense of justice. He’s not stopped
any
from converting. He cares not what
other allegiances
his men take so long as
they honor their oath to him
first.”
Armaugh lifted his narrow shoulders in a self-
deprecating shrug. The gesture made him look like an earnest
young crane bobbing for minnows in the shallows. “In truth, I’ve
had more success with women than men. And speaking of that, I was
told
you brought an Irish girl here with
you.”

Jorand made the introductions. If Armaugh was
shocked to learn Brenna was Jorand’s second wife, his sharp
features didn’t show it.

“The peace of Christ be
with ye, lass,” he intoned
in Gaelic, his
bony finger making the sign of the cross
in the air before her.

Brenna dropped to her knees.

“Bless me, Father, for I
have sinned,” she recited,
clearly
relieved to see the little priest and hear her own
language. “It has been so long since I’ve been
shriven.
Is there somewhere ye might hear
me confession?”

“Aye, come with me, my
child. Ye’ll have the com
fort of the
confessional.” The priest extended a hand
to her and helped her rise. She pulled her hood up
against the rain, and followed Armaugh to the
door.

When she turned at the last
to cast Jorand a backward glance, one corner of her mouth curled
up in a
sad half-smile. Jorand knew it was
a farewell. She’d
not be coming back to
his house. Not willingly.

“Typical Irish,” Solveig
muttered, as she watched
her rival
leave.

The last traces of Brenna’s
heather-fresh scent dis
sipated in the
airless stuffiness of the longhouse. Jorand tried to focus his
attention on Solveig, resisting
the urge
to chase his fleeing Irish wife.

“My father always says he
kills more Irishmen
from behind than he
does face to face.” Solveig closed
the
door, as if she’d read his thoughts and decided to make it more
difficult for him to follow Brenna.
“They’re sorry fighters. All the Irish know how to do
is run away.”

Jorand knew Brenna wasn’t running from the
fight. She was running from him.

“You’ve shamed me, you
know,” Solveig went on, her stubborn chin jutted upward. “By
rights, I should
have had a say in
this.”

“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you,” he said
truthfully.

“Bah! I’m no mewling
Christian to be shocked by your needs. I’m my father’s daughter and
I know
what men are. There was no reason
for you to skulk
around behind my back.
Honestly, husband, if you wanted a second wife, why did you not
come tell me? You should have waited till you got home and we’d
choose one together. One we could both live with.”

“That’s not how it
happened,” he said with frus
tration. “I
told you. I was injured and didn’t remem
ber anything.”

Solveig’s smile stretched
unpleasantly across her
usually pretty
face. “Did Irish believe that? If she did,
she’s even more insipid than she looks.”