Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (17 page)

Brenna smiled and took another, more confident sip. “It’s good. Thank you.”

This, at least, Olga still had: The power to make others well. A boy to care for. Friends who sought her comfort.

She survived because she was yet needed, and that was enough. It let sleep dance over her mind at night, in the interludes between despair and ill dreams.

~oOo~

Later, she left Brenna resting and went out to the hall, where Vali was seated in a massive, fur-covered chair like a throne, listening to people air their concerns, pleas, and grievances. She sat along the side of the room, beyond the notice of the others, and watched.

He seemed lonely, sitting alone, an empty chair at his side, where Brenna would have sat if she hadn’t swooned earlier. Nearby, but not quite with him, stood Orm, the only of his friends still in Karlsa. The few other friends he had left—Bjarke, Harald, and Astrid, who was not of Karlsa—had stayed behind in Geitland to assist Leif. All other of his friends had been killed.

His friends among Olga’s last people, Hans and Georg, had stayed in Geitland, too. Jaan was here, but he was young and not of these people and so did not offer advice to Vali. Only friendship and loyalty. He was elsewhere, but Olga knew he wouldn’t be far.

Vali sat before his clansmen and women and seemed alone and unhappy.

Olga was glad to see it. She thought that if he were too comfortable on that fur-covered throne, he would cease to be the man she knew. The man she trusted. And she had little trust left in her.

There was an interesting fairness in the way he did things, a fairness that his people appeared to expect. He didn’t make pronouncements. Instead, he offered his opinion—often glancing at Orm before he did so, and not infrequently glancing at the curtain through which his wife lay in their private quarters—and the people before him agreed, or spoke another opinion. And then there was discussion before a thing was decided.

This was not the way of things in Olga’s world, where princes had made dicta and the people had bowed under their weight.

If she had never heard of Åke, perhaps she might have been moved by this balance. But she had heard of Åke. She had suffered because of him, and she knew that power in this world was no different from power anywhere. It twisted and warped and wrung the good away.

The taste of Olga’s thoughts was now always bitter and cold.

~oOo~

When the business was done, the people in the hall didn’t leave. They simply made themselves comfortable, and slave women brought food and drink. Vali left his lonely throne and came directly to Olga. She hadn’t realized that he had noticed her.

“How fares she?”

“She is better. She had some rich tea and kept it, and now she’s sleeping. This time of sickness will pass, Vali. As it did before.”

He sat at her side, and Olga could stop craning her neck to see the giant’s face. Worry creased it deeply. “What if what happened…what if she’s yet hurt inside? What if this babe hurts her?”

That was a possibility. The early birth of their son and the trauma that had brought it on might have made scars where Olga couldn’t see. But she didn’t need to say that to Vali; he already knew, as did Brenna. She smiled and laid her hand over his. “Your seer said there would be many children, and that this one would be strong. Put your faith in that, and in Brenna’s own great strength.”

He smiled and gave her a grateful nod.

It didn’t matter what Olga believed. Vali and Brenna believed in gods and in otherworldly knowing, and that faith gave them ease now.

Not until her own spirit had been broken had Olga begun to understand the power of such belief. For her, there was only the one world, and it had gone end over end. She could not be eased by promises. She had no faith to hold her while her world spun out of balance.

A slave girl came with a jug and cups, and Vali nodded. She filled a cup and handed it to him, then offered one to Olga. When Olga smiled and shook her head, the girl dipped her own head in a shy bow and receded from them, out of Vali’s notice as soon as he had taken his cup.

Olga watched her go, feeling sad—and disappointed, too. She had thought her friend, who had freed her and had made Prince Vladimir’s subjects his equals, better than to keep slaves, and it grated at her whenever she saw him or Brenna think so little of those they kept in bondage.

Vali took a draught from the horn cup and then cocked his head at Olga, his long braid swinging over his shoulder. “You frown, my friend.”

“Brenna was a slave. She bears the scars of shackles. Why do you keep others enslaved?”

Now he frowned. “It is different for Holmfrid than it was for Brenna.”

“You know her name.”

“Of course I know her name. She serves me.”

“How is it different for her? Brenna served, too.”

Olga could see that she was causing Vali irritation, and she could see him struggle and succeed to master it. He answered calmly. “Holmfrid was born into her life.”

“We are all born into our life.”

Now his irritation showed, and his voice honed to a sharp edge. “And hers is the life of a slave. Her father and mother are slaves. Their parents were slaves. Those who are slaves here are born into it, or they have been vanquished in battle. That is, as you say, the way of things.”

Vanquished in battle or dragged from their plundered homes. To Vali’s people, there seemed to be no difference. Olga shook her head. “There is no way of things. There are only people—being good, or being bad.”

If her refutation of her own way of thinking surprised him, he didn’t make it known. “And I am bad because I do things as they have always been done?”

“You are not good because of it.” It was a baldly bold statement to make to a powerful man, but Olga was speaking to her friend, not to the Jarl of Karlsa.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise at her frankness, however, and then he frowned more deeply than before. “Those in thrall here are not ill-treated. That was the case in Snorri’s time, and it will be in mine. Their work is no more taxing than any other’s. They have food and comfort, family and friends.”

“But they don’t choose. They are not free.”

“And were you? Whatever you were called, were you free, under a prince who took all you made as toll and let you starve?”

“I was free when I was in the castle. With you and Brenna and—” she stopped before she uttered that other name, and she dropped her head.

He set his cupped his hand over her cheek and lifted her head so that their eyes met again. His expression had softened. “And you are now. Always will you be.” With a sigh that had the lilt of indulgence, he added, “It is not so easy a thing to free so many people. Slaves have value to their masters, in silver and gold. And I am no prince, who simply decides and decrees. But I will speak with Brenna and Orm. Perhaps there is a way to change our ways.”

Vali kissed her cheek and stood. Taking his leave with a nod, he headed through the woven curtain and back to his wife.

Olga thought that perhaps the Jarl of Karlsa might resist the warp of power after all.

Astrid moved her attacker and sat back, smiling smugly. Leif leaned on his elbows and studied the board. She had left a path open for his king to advance toward safety, and she wouldn’t have done so without a plan.

“Usch!” Astrid grumbled. “Every move you quibble at all day.”

That was a gross exaggeration. He took minutes, not hours, to move. But Astrid rarely paused between the end of his move and the end of her own.

Leif looked up at his opponent and smirked. “Hnefatafl is a game of strategy, my friend. It is not a race.”

She rolled her eyes. “You play like a jarl, not a warrior.”

Still studying the board, he ignored that gibe and discovered the likely intent of her next move. It was a good one, well obscured, but he blocked it with one of his lesser pieces, capturing one of her men and creating another line of defense for his king in the process. Before he lifted his hand away from the board, he glanced up and saw her scowling at it.

“Jarls are jarls because they win,” he chuckled.

“You are not so close to victory yet,” she rejoined and captured a piece he had exposed. She had blocked his king on three sides, and she leaned in with a brash smirk. “Too much thinking makes you slow.”

Before he could respond, Harald and Bjarke came into the hall. They had been out riding along the coast, looking for signs that Calder and the raiding ships had returned.

Weeks had passed since Vali and Brenna had left Geitland. The summer had ended, and the ships were not yet back. Last summer, a late raid had meant dark schemes from Åke and his eldest son, but Leif had heard no such plans for this raid—though it was true he had not been in the inner circle as it had been planned.

Still, any stratagems in play were moot now, with Åke dead, and if they did not return soon, the weather would become too treacherous to sail at all—and they could not know what awaited them upon their arrival home.

Leif had Vali’s two hundred warriors still in Geitland, waiting to break the last of Åke’s men. The sides would likely be well matched, but Leif had used these weeks to prepare for a battle Calder would not see coming. They were well fortified and well armed, well rested and well trained. They were prepared for a pitched battle, but Leif did not expect one.

He had also used these weeks to smooth the worries of the Geitland people about the death of Åke and his own transition to the role of jarl. He was well liked and respected among his people, but he had also turned on their jarl, and many of their own had been killed in that fighting.

It was his fortune that Åke had bestowed most of his favor on his warriors and had had little regard for common freemen. Those most loyal to the dead jarl were off raiding; it had not been much for Leif to show the common people that he would give them heed Åke had not.

Convincing those who had been in Estland with him, who had been left behind, left for dead—that had been the greater challenge.

Astrid, his own clanswoman, had spat at his feet when she’d first seen him after Vali’s force had overtaken Åke’s, even though Leif had fought with them. Harald and Bjarke were Vali’s clansmen, and they would happily have seen Leif killed.

They were all three his chief advisors now. Harald and Bjarke would, he knew, be leaving for Karlsa with the rest of Vali’s warriors as soon as Calder had been defeated, but in the matter of that coming battle, Leif had brought them to his inner circle. He and Astrid knew Calder well. Harald and Bjarke still had vengeance to deal. As did Astrid, who had been left for dead in Estland because she had stood up to Åke and fought to protect her friends.

Leif had won them by bringing them close. Or, more apt, he was winning them.

Astrid had spat at his feet again when he’d first asked if she would sit and speak with him. Feeling he deserved her scorn, even if his intent had been good, he’d not been offended—or dissuaded. With the specter looming of a fight with Calder and his brothers, she had seen the need to be part of the planning, and she’d begrudgingly agreed to listen and to speak. The same reasoning had brought Harald and Bjarke into his hall, though they both remained quick to argue with him, often for the sole sake of the argument.

He thought it good to have advisors who didn’t quite trust him. If he gained their agreement, then he knew his plan was good. People who feared a leader could not be counted on to give good advice. It was a truth that Åke had forgotten. Leif meant to remember it always.

Harald and Bjarke came to the table where Leif and Astrid had been playing their game, and the slave girl Vifrid emerged from the shadows with mead for all. While she poured, Leif raised his eyebrows at Bjarke, the senior of the two, urging him to speak.

“There is word of the ships approaching. These still winds do them no service, but even at the oar, tomorrow or the next day will have them ashore.”

“At last!” Astrid huffed. “My axe grows dull with waiting.”

Bjarke grinned. “Then whet it, shieldmaiden. You will spill the blood of the traitors soon.”

Leif saw his move on the board and swept his king free, ending the game. Astrid made a sound of angry surprise, and Harald and Bjarke laughed.

“Patience and forethought, my friend,” Leif said, setting his king on the table before him. “There is victory in wisdom.”

With another angry grunt, Astrid swung her arm and knocked the pieces to the floor.

~oOo~

When Calder’s ships approached, Leif stood just back from the pier, with Astrid, Bjarke, and Harald behind him. Arrayed to either side were more than two hundred warriors, archers at the front line. Behind the archers, several rows of warriors held shield and blade at the ready.

At the moment that the ships were close enough that those ashore could discern the figure of Calder standing at the prow of the lead vessel, when they were too close to change course and flee, Astrid began to beat her axe against her shield. The others picked up her tempo, and within the space of a few heartbeats, the air trembled with the thunder of looming war.

Leif called, “ARCHERS!” and his bowmen raised their weapons.

“NOCK!” he shouted, and each archer pulled an arrow from his quiver and set it.

Leif believed he saw Calder’s expression change, saw his surprise, his shock, as he comprehended the implications of the vista before him. He turned and shouted a command.

“DRAW!” Leif yelled. Under the thunder of the beaten shields, the creak of dozens of gut-strung bows pulled back at once resounded. Knowing their targets, they all aimed.

“LOOSE!”

Dozens of arrows released into the sky, following the same great arc, and landing in the ships, well before most of the raiders aboard had hidden themselves under the shelter of their shields. Leif heard the screams and splashes of men felled by that rain of death.

“ALL HOLD!” Leif called, and the archers waited, their hands at their quivers.

Two of the ships shifted toward the open shore, away from the piers, and men began to jump into the water before they could run on the bottom. Around him, Leif could feel the tense anticipation of his warriors, but he didn’t release them.

Calder stayed at the prow of his ship, and Leif kept most of his focus on that one man. For that, he saw Calder’s archers stand in his ship and draw while the others were still swimming and slogging to the shore.

“SHIELDS UP!” he called, and the drumming went silent. An oaken ceiling blotted the sun just before arrows pelted down.

In the following silence, Leif shouted “ARCHERS AT WILL! WARRIORS CHARGE!” The day exploded in riotous noise as his warriors whooped and rushed toward the shore, and Calder’s splashed up. Archers from earth and water sent arrows into the air.

And still Calder stood in his ship. By now he was close enough that Leif could see his old friend staring at him.

Too late, he heard the light shriek of an arrow, and then the sun disappeared as a shield nearly flew before his head. The arrow struck wood, and at his side, Astrid muttered, “Are you entranced? You keep me from the fight.”

“Go. But see to it that Åke’s sons survive. And I want Calder myself.”

The shieldmaiden gave him a skeptical look, but she agreed with a tip of her head and charged down the berm, her warrior’s cry cutting through the chaos.

Leif walked forward, using his sword and shield only to block the few blows that came his way. He would let his warriors have the kills; he wanted only one. The fight was lopsided, and as he stepped onto the pier, he wondered if this feeling he had, of sad dissatisfaction, were anything like what Calder had felt as he’d carried out his father’s command to sack the castle. To raid their own people, their friends and their clansmen.

“Leif,” Calder called down as his ship settled at the pier, the only of the three to do so. Still aboard with him were archers and rowers, but neither of his brothers. They must have each taken command of a vessel.

“Calder.” He sheathed his sword; Calder had not yet drawn his, and the pier was a short distance from the fighting, so he wasn’t in immediate danger. His shield he kept at the ready, a guard against the few archers still aboard with Calder.

But then Calder gestured with his hand, a sign of release, and the rest of the men in the ship jumped out and into the fray.

He came down from the prow. “My father?”

Leif looked back at the piked skull at the end of the pier. Brenna had wanted Åke’s head on a pike to greet Calder on his return. But the raiders had been weeks away, and animals and the elements had had their way in the meanwhile. Scant shreds of flesh were left on the bone.

“If he was worthy of Valhalla, he is there,” he said, turning back to Åke’s son.

“You think he was not?”

“I think it is for the gods to judge.”

“His death?”

Leif shook his head. “Craven. Shielding himself behind a shackled slave.”

Calder’s mouth twisted into an ugly shadow of a grin. “You mean the God’s-Eye. Hardly a mere slave. Was it you?”

“No. It was Vali Storm-Wolf.”

A cocked eyebrow. “You told my father you killed him.”

“I lied.”

Calder grabbed a shield from the wale of the ship and leapt onto the pier, and the two men faced each other, no greater distance between them than the joined lengths of their swords, had they been drawn.

“Lies and sneak attacks. Not like you, my friend.” With a nod past Leif’s shoulder, to the battle behind him, Calder said, “Yet your ambush has been successful.”

Rather than take his eyes from Calder and look, Leif merely nodded. He could tell by the sound alone that the fight was coming to its end already, and such a fast conclusion could mean one thing only.

“Do you yield?” he asked, and Calder laughed and drew his sword. Leif drew his as well.