Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (13 page)

Leif had only thought of Olga. “I don’t want you near Åke or any of the men who came today.”

“Your clansmen.”

Yes, his clansmen. He couldn’t claim her as his own, and his clansmen were rough with women subordinate to them. In their world, the people who served them were slaves. It had taken weeks to curb the ways of the raiders who’d stayed last summer. And now Åke and Calder were here, in charge. They would ignore the coarse whims of their men.

Leif had already spoken with the raiders who had called this castle home, and they would do what they could to deflect that kind of trouble. But they were outnumbered—by many times.

“Send as many away as you can, then, and Olga, please—stay back from Åke and his sons, and from me especially.”

Her beautiful, bottomless dark eyes studied him before she nodded. “I will try. This is goodbye for us?”

“It is.
Ma armastan sind
.”

Her eyes brimmed, but the tears didn’t fall. “And I love you.
Igavesti
.”

“Yes. Forever,” he nodded. And then he kissed her again. A kiss to last a lifetime.

~oOo~

Åke sat down, and from his seat on Calder’s other side, Leif could feel the jarl’s anger, like a wave of heat rolling down the table.

Brenna had just announced her intention to stay in Estland with Vali. No—she had been smarter than that. She had asked to be allowed to stay. She had not turned her back on their jarl; she had not broken her oath.

That he had granted her wish almost without resistance told Leif more than he had learned since the ships had landed. He had held out a slim hope before, but now he didn’t believe at all that Åke would actually allow her to stay. Agreeing so quickly to her request had simply made him time. There was something in play.

When Åke turned an angry eye on him, who had only hours before deflected and evaded a question about Vali and Brenna’s plans, Leif felt sure that Åke meant the two legends to die, and soon.

Leif had to prevent that. At any cost. Not only because Vali and Brenna were his friends, but because they were greater than themselves. The loss of them would be a blow to their people, a shock to their faith.

And because Åke had to be stopped. Leif had been sorting through the questions and inconsistencies he’d accumulated, and he thought he understood why there were no settlers. Åke had no intention of moving into Estland. He never had. The raid that had brought them here the year before had not even been about plunder.

Åke and Calder had allied with Snorri for last summer’s raid so that Snorri’s
Úlfheðinn berserker, Vali Storm-Wolf, and many of his strongest warriors, would not be at his back when
Åke turned on him. He had gambled wisely that Vali would stay behind when Calder tried to claim the land in his father’s name alone.

But he had not expected Leif and Brenna to stay behind as well.

Even without them, he had vanquished Snorri. And he’d arrived here, geared for battle, not to settle a claim but to trounce the last of Snorri’s men. Leif was sure of it.

An alliance made with such malice aforethought—that was not the act of a complicated but valiant man. It was the act of a coward. Deceit and lies, petty jealousies and cold cruelty: these made up the jarl—the man—Åke had become.

Leif owed him nothing. The man he had sworn his life and sword to was gone.

But that knowledge gave him no ease. It changed nothing. Here Åke was, in their castle, with shiploads of loyal raiders, warriors who had not had this time to know another, better way. Leif’s people were hopelessly outnumbered. There was no possible victory for them. Not here.

He couldn’t talk to Vali. His friend’s personal hostility toward Åke was too great. He would seek to fight headlong, and that would only get them killed all the faster—and likely take innocents with them.

No. They had a peace with Toomas. If Leif could get Åke to sail again quickly, the village would be safe. Olga and her brothers would be safe.

He had to find a way to keep Vali and Brenna alive as well.

~oOo~

After the meal,
Åke and his sons moved to chairs near the fire, clustered as if for privacy. Uninvited, Leif sat where he was and left his mind to its work of solving the many puzzles this night had set forth.

Then Calder dropped his hand on Leif’s shoulder. “Come and sit with us, brother. We would drink more of this sweet Estland mead with you and know how you yourself fared this winter. You have been missed.”

Leif smiled up at his friend. Still his friend. A lifetime at each other’s sides. Countless small oaths made and secrets kept, in the way of boys. Calder had been shaped by his father, but he was not his father. He would know reason. He would see beyond the betrayal Åke perceived.

But Calder had been party to these machinations. Perhaps his father had shaped him more than Leif had thought.

Taking his cup, Leif stood and followed his oldest friend to the cluster of heavy chairs where Åke and Eivind sat.

Before he was settled into the chair that was left, the jarl said, his voice low, “She dies. Tonight.”

“Who?” Leif knew, but he asked nonetheless.

“The whore who calls herself Odin’s own. The God’s-Eye.”

Brenna had never called herself any such thing. She loathed the name that had been forced upon her.

“And that smug bastard, too. I care not how it’s done. I want it done tonight. We’ll leave his naked body on the wall when we leave and lash hers to the prow of my ship. When they’re dead, we’ll take any who’ll swear to me and kill the rest. We leave before the dawn.”

Leif’s heart hammered against his ribs. His mind worked furiously, and he picked a simple, neutral observation to give him time to think. “The ships need to be provisioned anew before we sail.”

“Viger is seeing to that as we speak,” Calder answered, and Leif realized that he hadn’t seen his clansman in quite some time. Then Calder smirked and punched Leif’s arm affectionately. “Unless you mean that dark little wench that had your eye last summer. I see her roaming around here. Would you bring her as your pet? Or have you had you fill of her? I might have a poke before we go, if you’re done with her. Little bit of a thing like that, I imagine she’s tight, unless you’ve torn her wide by now.”

Calder knew well Leif’s tendencies with women and had often japed at him for it. Perhaps because he’d been untried before he was wed, Leif had never been one to rut at the least urge. Since Toril’s death, he had favored a few women, but those few, he had favored particularly and treated gently. Otherwise, he had dealt with his needs with his own hand.

So his friend’s laughing remark now, so crude, had the dark ring of hostility.

For a moment, all of Leif’s will went to his hands and forced them not to become fists. He would kill Calder with those hands, in full sight of his father and brother, if he made a move toward Olga. Whatever that meant for the future.

But Åke slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. “There is no time for rutting. I want justice, and I want to be quit of this place. We already have anything that was ever of value here. Calder—you take the whore. Leif—you end her wolf.”

As he made to stand, Leif threw out his hand to block him. “Hold!”

The jarl and his sons gave Leif their full, suspicious attention.

Thinking fast, trying to keep his mind ahead of his words, he said, “What does killing her do? It makes her a martyr. Unless you kill her in combat, or by the judgment of a thing, the stories will say that a coward ended the God’s-Eye. And such a dark death might call Odin’s attention as well.”

Åke’s eyes narrowed, but he let Leif continue. “Why not instead make her your thrall again? Enslave her. Show that her oath to you cannot be broken.”

Until those words were in the air, Leif would not have believed he could have made such a suggestion. With that one sentence, he knew that he had lost his friends. Brenna would despise him. Vali would kill him with the same fire he himself had just felt toward Calder. They would see only the betrayal on the surface and not the good intent underneath. But he was trying to save their lives, and the lives of their whole family here.

That was what they had made together in this place: a family. And Leif was losing it. Another family. Another love.

At least this time, he was giving it up so that he might save it.

“Bring her home in bonds. It’s a good idea, Father,” Eivind said. “That is a lasting justice. A victory. She is Odin’s gift to you. I believe the Allfather would see justice in such a correction.”

Åke pulled on his beard, and then he turned to Leif and smiled. “You are my son like any other, Leif Olavsson. Your father was my good friend and advisor, and I am glad to have you at my side now. I have missed you.” He held out his arm, and Leif clasped it.

Leif was sick. Sick at heart, sick to his stomach. But he could see no other way.

Before Åke let him go, he said, “Make it so. Calder, take her alive. Leif, the Storm-Wolf dies. And we shall see who will yet stand against me.”

He rose and left, gold chains jingling. Olga was right; he was no better than Vladimir or Ivan.

Leif looked across the hall, where Vali sat at the table, alone. Their eyes met, just briefly, before Leif had to look away.

Gods, what he was about to be part of.

~oOo~

A short time later, he put out the torches in a side corridor off the top of the east staircase and waited in the shadows for Vali to come up to the room he shared with Brenna.

Brenna, Leif knew, was not in that room. Calder had already subdued her and put her out of the way. He now sported a bruised cheek, but he had overtaken her, while she was in her sleeping shift, caught unawares. Coward’s work indeed.

What Leif planned was little better. When Vali came up the stairs, Leif stepped forward.

Surprised, Vali asked, “Is there trouble?” and reached for an axe that was not hanging from his hip.

“Yes, my friend. There is.” Leif swung his own axe, poll side forward, and hit Vali on the side of the head. He’d hit hard and true, and his friend crumpled to the floor, his great size and heavy weight nearly shaking the castle itself.

Months before, it had taken four strong men to carry this one man up stairs like these, on the opposite side of the castle. Leif had been one of them. Now, alone, in the dark, he grabbed his sleeping friend’s arms and pulled him down the corridor. He had to find a place to shelter him so that he would live through this night.

Blood flowed freely from the wound Leif had made in Vali’s head. He hoped he had not killed him after all.

~oOo~

It was he who started the bloodbath, albeit unintentionally.

He managed to get Vali down the back stairs and to the stable in the cover of the dark, while Åke spoke in the hall, making his claims and conditions. He bound his friend and left him in a far stall, hopefully out of danger.

But coming out of the stable, he was surprised by Knut, one of Åke’s own men.

Unsure where Knut would stand on this matter, but sure that he was a threat to him in any case, Leif drew his sword. Knut blinked, equally surprised, and drew his own.

“Åke means to tear this all down, Leif. All we’ve built. We must stand against him.”

Knut was yet a friend, then. Vali would need as many as could be saved. And Leif saw his true chance to save Vali—and possibly also Knut, if he were careful.