Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (31 page)

“To another, perhaps.” Again, Leif made to walk away.

“Twelve!”

Now, Leif smiled broadly at Olga and opened his own pouch. “Done.”

He paid the trader and took the jewel. Immediately, he put it around her neck so that the emerald tear lay just at the swell of her breasts. Oh, it was beautiful. Olga lifted it so that the sun shone through it. How could something so marvelous be hers?

“It suits you,” Leif said and kissed her.

While they lingered in that embrace, a man laughed nearby—the loud, ready laugh of someone who knew how to enjoy life.

She knew that laugh.

She heard it again, and she shoved back from Leif as hard as she could and whirled around in search of its source.

“Olga?” Leif’s voice beside her was laced with confusion and concern. She waved him off and listened hard. She scanned the chaotic scene of the market.

The laugh had come from her left. With no heed for Leif, she hurried that direction, staring hard at the people she passed, especially the traders. She came to the gangway to the traders’ ship and looked up.

Standing on that strange ship, one black boot on the wale, dressed in black breeches and a laced white shirt—garb much more plain than most of the men who had come from that ship—was the man whose laugh she knew so well.

Leif thundered up behind her. “Olga! What is wrong?!”

At her name, the man on the ship turned quickly and stared down the gangway, directly at her.

“Olya?”

Tears filled her eyes “Mika. Mika!”

As she stepped onto the gangway, Leif grabbed her arm. “Olga! Hold!”

She yanked away without thinking. “That is my brother! That is Mihkel!”

~oOo~

She couldn’t stop touching him. Years it had been since she’d last seen him, and she’d long thought him dead. Lost to her. Yet here he sat, in the great hall, in her home, holding her child, his nephew, in his arms.

She patted his arm, his face, his leg. She leaned on him. It was as though he might wisp into a dream if she lost physical connection with him. Here, sitting at her older brother’s side, Olga felt fully, unreservedly, that
her
world, her life, had finally regained its balance. Her past was no longer lost to her, and the future opened wide before her, and in the present, she had bounty beyond reckoning.

On the gangway, Mihkel had met her and lifted her from her feet, and they’d embraced until there was no breath between them. Since then, she had held on.

He was different from the way she’d remembered him. Older, of course, but older even than the years themselves. His brow was creased, and the corners of his eyes, too, and there was a hint of salt in his dark hair, which he kept shorter now than he ever had. He wore a short beard, and it, too, had salt sprinkles. His skin had a bronze sheen. All of it, she guessed, was from long hours on the sea, in the sun.

Leif had been quiet since their reunion on the gangway, but Olga assumed it was because his limited knowledge of her language had become stale with little use, and she was speaking with her brother in that tongue they shared. She, too, had become a little stale, as had Mihkel.

“You make a fine, strong child, sister. I am glad that you could after all.” She had been newly widowed the last time she’d seen her brother. He knew about the loss of her first son and the reason for it.

“He is a marvel, yes. I am blessed.”

Mihkel gave her a curious look, and Olga realized that she had used a word not of their language to convey a concept not of their ken. The idea of ‘blessing’ was of this world, not of the world they’d been born in. She could see in his look that he’d understood her; he’d only been surprised by her usage. “Do you have news of our brothers? Our father?”

She cast a glance at Leif. With him sitting right there, she did not know how she would tell them of the deaths. Even with Leif away, she wasn’t sure how to say it so that Mihkel would not look on her husband as his enemy.

Leif interpreted her glance as discomfort with his presence. He stood. In his own language he said, “I will leave you to be reconnected.” Coming around the table, he held his hands out for Magni. “I will put him to bed for a rest.”

When Leif was away, and they were, more or less, in privacy in the hall, Mihkel turned to her with a smirk. “I think he liked me better last night, when I was only captain of a ship bringing wares for sale into his town.”

Her husband was acting jealous, and she didn’t understand it, but it was a question for later. “He is surprised only. As am I.” She clutched his shirt. “Still I cannot believe my own sight! How are you here? And captain of that great ship!”

Mihkel laughed. “Not so great. Good and sturdy. She is my second ship. The first was lost to pirates—who are not so different from the people of this place. Taking from others to make themselves rich. I am surprised to find you among them, Olya.”

“I am happy. Leif is a good man, a good jarl. And a good husband and father. Our love is deep. This is where I belong. But the story that brought me here is long and twisty.”

Her brother refilled his cup with mead. “And I have time. I want hear your story, and I will tell you mine. But first, I want news of the rest of us. Have you word of our family?”

Olga took a breath and prepared to tell her brother her story. Though she would hold back the worst parts, still she hoped that Leif was right about her skill at bringing those at odds together, and she would say all she needed to say in a way that would keep her husband and her long-lost brother from acrimony.

~oOo~

A while later, Vifrid came out to summon her for Magni’s feeding. Mihkel, who’d grown quieter and quieter as she’d spoken, took his leave, with the explanation—or excuse—that he had work on his ship. Promising her that they would talk more, he embraced her and then left, and Olga went back to her son.

Leif sat holding Magni, bouncing him lightly on his shoulder while the boy fussed and yanked on his father’s hair.

Olga loosened her shift and took her son. As she settled him to feed, she asked, “Are you angry?”

Leif’s eyes flashed. “No. Of course I’m not angry. I’m happy that your brother has been returned to you. I saw great joy in you today, and I would never wish you less.”

She heard something low in his tone, though. Something sad, or at least reserved. “Then what is it?”

He went to her and lifted the new emerald pendant in his fingers. “I would not have him come between us.”

“How could he?”

“Does he know all that has happened since you were last together?”

Olga understood. She’d had the same fear as she’d talked with Mihkel. But she hadn’t realized that Leif would see it, too. “He does. We talked at length about it. He is sad to know of the loss of our family. But Leif, my love, I do not blame you now, and I didn’t give you blame in my telling. I held back what I could. I think he is disappointed in me, for becoming part of a world of raiders, but he is not angry with you.”

At that, Leif smiled wryly. “He does not like us here?”

“I think he likes your coin very well. But he doesn’t make much distinction between raiders and pirates.”

“I suppose we are not so different, to a man with spoils to protect. I would say that traders are no different, then, either. We are all looking to take as much of what another holds as we can get.”

Olga thought of the raiders ransacking the coastal village. Killing the young, old, and infirm as readily as the strong and able. Raping the women. Burning and looting and whooping through town with smiles on their faces. Leif had been among them, though he had not been like the others.

Those who were now her dearest friends, and her greatest love, had raided that little village and made her a slave. Those were her people now, and she was happy here. She had come to accept, but not to understand, the way of raiding. She had come to see more than the monsters with painted faces, and she knew that this world was full of all kinds of people, most of whom were farmers and craftsmen and merchants, like any other place.

But she had not forgotten the fear she’d felt as she’d cowered in a corner with young Johanna, or the horror of the pen they’d kept the women and girls in. She remembered what it was like to be raided, and as painful as the memory was, she wanted never to lose it.

She thought Leif was wrong in thinking that traders, who gained the agreement of the buyer, who offered something in exchange for coin, were anything like raiders or pirates—or princes, for that matter—who took what they wanted by force.

Now was not the time to say any such thing. So she smiled up at her husband and said what was most important. “I love you. We are one. I am glad to have my brother here for a while and know that he is well, but he is not my life. You are. We came into each other’s lives in horror and have lived through even worse, and we are together. Mihkel cannot divide us. Nothing can.”

After a few days, Mihkel’s crew packed up what was left of their wares, and what they’d acquired from the people of Geitland, and prepared to set off for their next port. Leif stood on the pier, a few strides from the gangway, and gave Olga a moment of privacy to bid her brother farewell.

The two men had been guarded with each other, but civil enough. Leif certainly didn’t begrudge Olga this happy chance to be reunited with the last surviving member of her blood family, and Mihkel was clearly devoted to his sister. Yet Mihkel’s presence made him uncomfortable in ways he was still grappling to understand.

His evident contempt for Leif and his people was one of those ways, to be sure. Even before he had known their family connection, from the night of their first meeting, Leif had sensed Mihkel’s distaste for mooring in Geitland. In that meeting, he had inferred that it had been the captain’s second, Antonis, who had argued to come into this part of the world.

Perhaps it was that distaste that had so unsettled Leif when he’d learned who Mihkel was. He didn’t want that feeling leaching into Olga’s consciousness again. She was
his
now, and this was her world now, and she had become comfortable here. He didn’t want her brother changing the way she saw her home.

Yes, he was jealous.

He also thought Mihkel a hypocrite. Olga had argued that traders were different from raiders and pirates because people gave their coin of their free will and were given something in exchange. But that was her naïveté—and her brother—shaping her sight. Leif knew what traders such as Mihkel and the men on his ship did to get their barrels full of spices and their chests full of jewels.

There was blood on her brother’s hands, too. Leif didn’t judge. It was, as Olga would once have said, the way of things: strength took from weakness; weakness died out. Strength prevailed and made the world stronger for it.

Mihkel was strong. And so was Leif.

He didn’t judge, but neither would he be judged.

Leif watched brother and sister embrace, Olga clinging to her brother, and he wished the man away from his pier. Finally, Mihkel pushed her gently back, said something to which she nodded, kissed her forehead, and stepped away.

His ship was laded and crewed. It waited only for its captain. Mihkel stepped at last onto the gangway; then he turned and met Leif’s eyes. Leif stared back, and for a moment, nothing changed. Two men speaking volumes without a word.

With a brisk nod to Leif, without another look at his sister, Mihkel turned and trotted up the gangway.

When the captain was aboard, Leif joined his wife and pulled her into his arms. She held him tightly, quietly, and they stood there until the ship was well away.

~oOo~

Two days later, Geitland had a visitor Leif was much happier to see. Brenna came over land, by cart, and was in the hall before anyone realized that the great God’s-Eye had returned to the place of her abasement—and of her triumph.

Leif and Olga sat in their seats at the head of the hall, in the midst of their weekly hearing of people’s complaints and requests. As Leif had predicted, his clanspeople warmed quickly to his wife, and he had noticed that they already turned first to her when they had particular kinds of problems or requests. From him, they wanted justice. From Olga, they wanted compassion. He thought it a good balance.

It made him grow hard to watch her counsel people in need. She yet always looked to him as she offered a solution, prepared to defer should he object, but he couldn’t imagine a circumstance in which he might. He trusted her heart and her mind completely.

When she felt insufficiently knowledgeable to offer counsel, she directed the petition to him. And then, when they were alone, she would pepper him with questions so that she would understand.

Next year, when the great raid with Vali would finally happen, Leif would feel that he left the jarldom in very capable hands.

As Olga talked with a woman whose husband had strayed, there was a small commotion at the back of the hall. Leif turned his attention there and saw Brenna walking toward him, Solveig in her arms and two shieldmaidens he did not know at her back. As the crowd separated and made room for her to advance, he was surprised to see her in a hangerock. Brenna preferred more manly clothing, especially, he’d assume, for traveling.

Then she stood at the foot of the raised platform on which sat his chair and Olga’s, and Leif saw why. She was with child. She set Solveig down at her side, and the little girl kept her feet.

Four months had passed since Vali had sailed with Leif and Olga away from Karlsa. The raiders had been gone nearly two of those and were due to return soon, if the raid had gone well and the weather was fair. Leif thought he understood Brenna’s visit as eagerness to be reunited with her husband, though he was surprised she would have taken a long overland journey in her condition.

Olga leapt from her chair and into Brenna’s arms, and the two women held each other in the tight embrace of sisterhood. Brenna was substantially taller than Leif’s small wife, and she laid her cheek on Olga’s head. Her eyes met Leif’s and they both smiled.

He stepped down, too, and took his turn in Brenna’s arms. “It is good to see you, my friend. We expect the ships any day now.”

She leaned back and looked up at him. “Good. I have another need as well.” She picked her daughter back up.

“Anything. Come, let’s speak in private.” He announced the end of the petitions and called for food and mead for the people, then took Brenna’s hand and Olga’s and led them both into the private quarters.

When they were seated and Olga had called Vifrid to take Solveig off with Magni and made sure Brenna also had food and drink and had been made comfortable, Leif asked, “What can we do?”

Brenna took a sip of goat’s milk before she answered. “Karlsa is in a state. We lost so many of our strong workers in the plague, and the rest are gone on this raid. The raid is crucial, you know I know that, but meanwhile, we starve. There aren’t enough people to work the fields and make a good yield, and our stores are dwindled to nothing. I can’t imagine that even the raid will bring us enough to restore us. And even if it does, gold itself cannot fill our bellies.”

Leif leaned in and took her hand. “What can we do?”

“If you might spare some store of grains and hardy foods, I would bring them home with me. And…I don’t know if this is a fool’s wish, but my chest, from my time with Åke, is still here, buried near my little hut in the woods. Unless in all this time it was found and stolen. It’s gold and silver, and if it’s there, I would offer it to you in payment for the food.”

It was Vali who had killed Åke, so all of the old jarl’s holdings had been rightfully his to claim—Geitland and Karlsa both. Karlsa was far north, a small holding isolated by distance and climate, with a small town as its seat. Geitland was a holding four times the size, with a thriving town that served as a substantial center of commerce.

Vali had not wanted a jarldom at all, but, on Brenna’s urging, he had finally agreed to claim Karlsa, his home. He had offered Geitland—the richer claim by far—to Leif.

At Brenna’s request and offer, Leif shook his head. “You will not. I don’t know if the chest is still there, but if it is, you will take it home with you, on the cart with the grains and supplies we will give you. Always you have only to ask, Brenna. I have this jarldom because of you and Vali. It is I who owe you.”

Relief glittered in her eyes. “Thank you. This might save us.”

~oOo~

Brenna’s tiny winter hut had not weathered her years away from it very well, but her chest was exactly where she’d buried it. Leif had taken her out with two strong youths to unearth it, and her mood lightened considerably upon finding it undisturbed. Years of her spoils from her raids as a shieldmaiden had accumulated. Leif thought that such a wealth would have to be real aid for her people.

She wanted to wait for Vali, but, not knowing precisely when the raiders would return, and with her people in need, she decided she could not. Olga fussed about her traveling again so long over land in her condition, but there were not enough men left even in Geitland who could manage a karve, and the distance between their towns was too much for a smaller vessel. The big skeids had taken nearly all of their men of the sea.

The day before she was set to travel again, while her cart was being loaded for a morning departure, Brenna was saved from that arduous journey when a watcher on the pier saw the skeids approaching, flying Geitland’s black-and-white sails.

People from all over the town came to the pier to welcome the raiders back. Leif was flanked by Olga, carrying Magni in the sling, and Brenna, with Solveig on her hip.

Leif saw it when Vali realized that his wife and child were there. His friend leapt from the ship the moment it came along the pier, and he ran toward his wife and daughter—stopping short when he saw her state. He fell to his knees and kissed her belly before he’d even embraced her or Solveig. Then he stood and enfolded wife and daughter in his arms.

Leif kept his gaze on them for a moment, his heart warm, then turned and watched the men unloading the ships. Four men heaved an enormous chest onto the pier. There were new slaves, too—ten or so. He knew he’d hear from his wife about that.

And the bounty kept coming.

Astrid came up to him with a grin unlike Leif had ever seen on her face before. In her hands she hefted a shield that seemed to be made of pure gold.

Gold was a terrible choice for a shield—it was soft and heavy and would provide virtually no resistance at all to a blow—and even the silliest warrior would know better than to carry one, so that shield could only have been ceremonial.

He embraced Astrid in hearty greeting, then cocked an eyebrow at her, asking for an explanation.

“We had to go deep into the country to find spoils worth taking, but when we did—a king paid us most of this in ransom to send us away.”

“A king wealthy enough to make a useless shield in gold?”

“No longer is he so wealthy,” Vali smirked at his side. “It was a good raid, my friend. There is little left to raid in the south, but we found what was left. And next year, we go west!”

~oOo~

With the raiders back, Brenna and Solveig could return with Vali and the other men and go by sea. Leif gifted them the karve that had more than once conveyed them back and forth between their towns.

The spoils from this raid, and the food stores Leif had given them, would go far to bringing Karlsa back to its strength. Leif hoped so. Vali needed to build his skeids if he wanted to be an equal partner the next year.

Vali took his wife and child and retired early from the hall, while the other returning raiders were still deep in their celebration. Leif took his friends’ leaving as a cue, and pulled Olga back into their quarters as well.

Vifrid had care of Magni, who was already sleeping, in the new swinging cradle that Leif had made for him. Leif relieved her of her duty, and he and Olga undressed.