Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife

‘Vikar says you are to eat. He will not have you starving.’ The guard leered before throwing a fur at her feet. ‘And he does not want you to be cold. You should sleep; soon you will not get much rest.’

‘How very generous of him.’

She examined the guard from where she sat. The man resembled an over-fed ox. Vikar had chosen well. She would have to trust Loki that another less obvious way to escape would appear.

The guard made another bow and slammed the door shut. Sela waited for the sound of the lock clicking into place. But there was only one click. Then the sound of heavy footsteps retreating, going out of the room.

There was only one click. Had Vikar forgotten to tell the guard?

She pressed her hand against her head and tried to think of how to open the door. Her heart pounded in her ears. Loki had heard her prayer, and given her a sign. Freedom beckoned, if she was careful.

It was easy, her father had often boasted. She simply had to…And her mind went blank.

Sela went over to the door, and attempted to turn the handle. It didn’t budge. She tried the other way. Nothing. Sela held up the little rush light, trying to find the secret way, but the wood looked smooth. It had no wish to deliver up its secrets. She beat against the handle with her fists, but it remained stubbornly shut.

‘Father! You created a trap for your own daughter!’

She kicked the bottom of the door and it swung open. Sela gave a strangled laugh. The answer so easy that it was in front of her. She wiped her hands against her trousers and peered out into the darkened chamber.

No guard stood there, waiting. Her brow wrinkled. Vikar must be losing his touch. Or perhaps he thought her incapable of escape. Whatever it was, it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was breaking out of the hall, rejoining Kjartan and getting as far away from Vikar as possible.

Vikar, arrogant in his superiority, had miscalculated. His own man had failed him.

She would be free. They would not soon recapture her.

She started towards the entrance to the chamber as the sounds of feasting swirled around her, then stopped.

Her escape would only work if it was not quickly discovered. She retraced her steps and arranged the armour and fur to look as though she slept. She then held up the sputtering remains of the rush light. Not perfect, but it was the best she could do. If the guard checked tonight, it would be late, probably after the feasting.

Voices rumbled outside her father’s chambers and Sela quickly doused the light, pulling the door to her former prison shut. She flattened her body against the wall, ready to run, if they entered the room.

Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she thought they must hear. Just when she thought she could no longer bear it and would have to act, the footsteps moved on and the voices receded. Sela relaxed against the wall. Waited. Risked a breath.

Staying here was asking to be recaptured. She might as well try to march through the centre of the feast and announce her plan to the entire hall. She had to move. She had to find a way. Kjartan was counting on her.

She eased the door back and looked out. The passage was silent. Beyond it, she could see the flickering light of the hall’s fire and hear the laughter as a skald started his tale. Sela clenched her fists. Vikar had wasted no time in making himself at home. These men were making free with the stores she had worked so hard to build up.

Cautiously she made her way along the passage, keeping to the shadows. She peeped out into the great hall. Vikar sat at the high table, with his back towards her. Over-confident in his finery and hearty laugh, but breathtakingly handsome. She stood watching the way his long fingers held the goblet.

A sudden burst of laughter at a poor joke about her father by the skald brought her to her senses. She should have expected it, but it still bothered her.

She fingered the knife and took a step forward. He deserved to suffer.

Her toe hit something—a little wooden horse. Rapidly she bent down and picked it up. Kjartan’s favourite, the one he took everywhere with him.

Tears pricked her eyes and she used the back of her sleeve to wipe them away. Kjartan would be lost without his horse. He must have cried when her father led him to safety. Sela straightened. There were more important things than exacting her revenge. And this horse would be her talisman.

She had loathed that tunnel ever since her brother had lured her there as a child. Her nurse had rescued her, shaken and dishevelled, after what seemed like hours in the company of bats and spiders’ webs. But there was no hope for it. She did not dare risk the kitchens or going through the main hall.

She would have to brave it and hope the bats had gone. Even the thought of the creatures in her hair turned her stomach. After the tunnels, the woods and then the long way around to the hut. It was safer and was bound to be the route her father had taken with Kjartan. She might even reach them before the fording place, if she hurried.

A sudden burst of applause as the skald reached the high point in his recitation of the saga about the Lindisfarne raid forcibly reminded her that she could not simply stay here, pressed up against a wall for ever. Her muscles tensed as she prepared to run to the next group of shadows. Vikar called something out to the skald and the place erupted in laughter. Coarse rough laughter from men who had filled their bellies with meat and ale. At the sound, she darted. Made it.

She kept to the shadows and reached the tunnel’s entrance without being challenged. The outlines of the trapdoor were clear for anyone who knew where to look. She would make it through. The way was clear. There were not hidden twists or turns. She simply had to keep going until the end.

‘Concubine?’ she whispered before raising Kjartan’s horse over her head in triumphant. ‘I choose another path.’

The trap door creaked slightly as she lifted it. She descended a few steps, pulled it firmly shut and allowed the blackness to envelop her.

‘Vikar,’ Ivar said in an undertone as the skald began another song. ‘The food has been delivered to your prisoner.’

Vikar drained his horn of ale, wiped his hand across his face and lifted his gaze to the shadows. ‘I know.’

‘But how can you know? The guard has just returned. He was waylaid in the kitchens. There is a lusty serving maid who caught his eye.’

The shadows shimmered and parted as a figure moved stealthily along the wall. Vikar permitted a smile to cross his face. He knew his former wife well, even after all these years. It pleased him that she had been so accommodating, so willing to take the opportunity and so foolish not to see that the way had been made clear for her. And she would be his, on his terms in the end. ‘The mouse has taken the bait, as I predicted she would.’

‘You are taking an awful risk, Vikar.’

Vikar raised an eyebrow. ‘It is a risk, yes, but it is the fastest way of discovering where our host for this feast is hidden.’

‘Someone else should go.’

‘No.’ Vikar banged his fist on the table and the skald stopped speaking, looking at him in amazement.

Vikar winced, remembering Bose the Dark’s reputation. The skald probably thought the tale had invoked his displeasure. He gestured for the man to continue with his saga.

Once the skald’s words flowed again, Vikar continued. ‘We have been over this, Ivar. This is my quest, my duty. You are to remain here and direct any defence that is needed. I know what my former father-in-law is like. I and I alone will bring him back for the surrender. Then, none in the Sorting will whisper and plot.’

‘I will do as you ask.’

Vikar knocked his horn with Ivar, before he drained the remainder. ‘Take care of the men until I return.’

‘May Odin and Thor speed your journey.’

The grey light, which a few steps ago had seemed only a cruel twist of the tunnel, grew brighter. Sela heaved a sigh of relief. She was nearly through the tunnel without incident. Her earlier fears seemed foolish now, but still she would be pleased when she made it through to the woods, when she no longer had to worry.

She reached the exit and gulped the fresh pine-scented air, a welcome relief after the close stale air of the passageway. She had lost count of the number of spiders’ webs she’d had to brush through, a sure sign that her father and Kjartan had gone a different way.

But they would be in the hut. They had to be. Sela clenched her fists, refused to give way to panic. They had agreed.

She dashed across the few open yards and made it to the screen of trees. There she waited to see if the alarm would be raised, but, except for the lone bark of one of the elkhounds, the yard was silent. She thought she saw the shadow of a man, but it vanished so quickly that she decided it was a trick of the light.

Her knees gave and she sank into the soft moss under the silver birch. A jay scolded her slightly and then flew off lazily into the hazy sky.

She listened to the sound of her heart beating and fingered Kjartan’s wooden horse.

Safety of a sort. After her breath had returned, she’d be away. And would not return except to free her people from Vikar. First her son, then her people. Somehow. Some way. She would prevail.

‘This is not the end, Vikar. This is only the beginning. I will regain everything. Everything!’

Sela raised her fist in the air and shook it towards the hall. Useless bravado she knew, but the little gesture of defiance made her feel better.

Her hair fell forward and she pushed it back behind her ears, pressed her fingertips into her eyes, concentrated on remembering the landmarks and their correct order.

In many ways, escaping from the hall was the easy part. Now she had to find her son. The thing she wanted most in the world was to scoop up Kjartan, hold him tight and never let him go.

She took a deep breath and plunged into the wood, picking her way along the faint track and keeping her eyes peeled for the faint signs her father had left to show the way—a cut in the bark here, a pile of stones there. To keep her spirits up, she hummed one of Kjartan’s favourite songs, a great rollicking one about a brave warrior.

Twice she lost her way and the track vanished into a pond or off a cliff, and she had to retrace her steps, going ever deeper into the woods. She kept one hand clasped around the dagger at all times.

A noise caused the hairs on the back of Sela’s neck to prickle. She stiffened and tightened her grasp of the hilt.

An animal? Bear? Wolf, or worse—one of the berserkers who had lost their minds and become more bear than human?

She half-turned, caught a flash of dark blue cloth. The energy drained from her body. So close and yet she had achieved nothing. She could throw herself down on the soft moss and weep.

‘You have had your amusement,’ she said, carefully enunciating her words so there could be no mistaking them. She put her hands on her hips and stared at the place she was certain he had concealed himself. ‘I wonder that you let me get this far. When did you plan to let me know that my attempt was pitiful?’

‘Your escape showed faint glimmers of ingenuity, Sela, I will give you that, but they have faded. Will you never learn about concealment?’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.