A Heart of Fire (6 page)

Hadarr
went ashen. “Tell me she lives?” he said.

Valdrik
scoffed. “What means this? Are you concerned for our enemy? Methinks her blows
addled your wits, old man. But do not fear, I sent her over the bluff into the
fjord. No one knows ‘twas a woman who injured their Jarl.”

“Tell
me the woman still lives,” Hadarr demanded, regaining some of his color.

 
Valdrik paused, concerned. “Aye, I spared her,
as I said. I left her fate to the gods as she tumbled from the bluff, but I saw
her as we left, coming onto shore with the aid of one of their men."

“I
thought I was dreaming at first,” Hadarr mumbled.

Valdrik
laughed. “I know. She was quite fierce at first. I believe I may have broken
her wrist.”

“Nay."
Hadarr reached out to grasp Valdrik's shoulder. "I thought I was dreaming
to have laid eyes on the daughter I thought long dead.”

Valdrik
stiffened, shocked silent for a long moment. He tilted his head to the side.
“Your daughter?” he asked cautiously.

"Our
daughter
?" Surguilde repeated,
taking steps to come to sit at her husband's feet on the opposite side of the
bed as Valdrik.

Valdrik
turned to look between her and his Jarl. Surguilde covered her mouth as she
sank deeper onto the bed, her stare intensely fixated on her husband.

“Aye,
I am sure the shieldmaiden who attacked me was our Finna." He turned
sharply to Valdrik. "I promised you we would have words when you returned,
so hear them now. I am sure you will be most eager to fulfill my proposition.”

“Anything,
my Jarl.”

“Return
my Finna to me and you may marry my daughter and take my place as Jarl. You are
young and more capable of leading the people. I would give
anything
to get her back." He took a long swallow of ale
before he met Valdrik's stare again. "She is so important to me. I trust
only you to retrieve her.”

Valdrik
swallowed slowly, digesting his Jarl's request. To slip into the village of
Aldar and steal that vixen away in the night would be no simple task … but the
struggle would be well repaid when he returned. He had longed for a fixed place
here, one with Geera at his side. He could imagine no better woman to have as a
wife. One biddable and obedient. Aye, he would risk all to have this.

"If
my daughter is alive you must do this for us, Valdrik," Surguilde pleaded,
turning to him from her place on the bed.

Meeting
Surguilde's pleading stare, he could not deny either of them. “I shall do as
you wish, but are you certain you were not seeing a vision? Perhaps only
imagining—”

"Nay."
Hadarr shook his head. "I am most certain. She looked just like her
mother." He reached over to take Surguilde's hand.

"Then
'tis true what the seer said?" Surguilde said through tears. "I
doubted for so long."

"I
thought you were
certain
she was
dead," Valdrik said. He became more unsure of this by each passing moment.
"Aldar could have sired a daughter."

Hadarr
took a deep breath and shook his head. "She looked exactly like her
mother
. You saw her for yourself,
perhaps closer than I did. She looked like Surguilde, not me or my brother. We
never found Finna's body or that of her nurse. ‘Twas easier to tell others and
ourselves that our child was dead. We had always hoped they escaped. I feared
perhaps she had been taken, but after a time I thought if that were so, my
brother would surely have let me know. Even if only to torment me. I suppose
his humor came from knowing that we did not know, knowing we were plagued by
the thoughts of what may have happened to her." He met Valdrik's stare.
"I would give you everything I possess to have my daughter returned from
the clutches of Aldar."

Valdrik
sighed. "I shall not take everything you possess, Jarl. I only want your
daughter as my wife, and one day—long from now I hope—I wish to be your heir
and lead our people after you are gone. I wish to lead our people and seek my
own revenge against your brother."

Hadarr
reached out and clasped his hand on Valdrik's shoulder. He nodded once in
agreement. “You are a good man, Valdrik. Gods be with you. The raiders will not
have been back in their village long when you arrive. Be swift. Take them by
surprise." He paused. "You must do this with only a few men you
trust. No one here can know my daughter has slain our own. Ever.”

Chapter Four

"Worthless!"
Aldar shouted, whirling on the dais.

Finna
gasped as the ale horn flew from his fingers, through the air, and crashed into
the shield hung on the wooden wall behind her, barely missing her head. She
showed only the slightest flinch, covering by bowing her head in disgrace. Her
temper simmered underneath the well-fortified armor she had spent years
surrounding her heart in. That he dared berate her in front of the men he had
given her to lead tore at her pride in a horrific way.

“How
could you let a disaster of this magnitude happen?” Aldar raged, stalking
across the raised platform and back to his seat. “By all the gods, how? I never
should have allowed you, a
woman
, to
lead," he said with disdain and dropped into his throne-like chair.

Finna
clenched her fists, looking among the men surrounding the room. Their faces
were grim and their eyes hard on her. She still was not sure
why
she bore the brunt of this blame.
She had done everything he had taught her to do.

“Hadarr's
people have
never
done this before,”
she argued quietly, keeping both head and voice low. "We were as prepared
as could be."

His
fierce growl filled the room as he shot from his seat and threw his arms wide.
“Yet you should not have been seen. Where was your watch? Did you not send out
scouts before you bedded down for the night? How did they find you were even
there if you were so careful?"

Aldar's
cynical rage touched her, spiked into her heart. His words and distrust hurt
her more deeply than anything else did. Finna swallowed, thinking before she
spoke aught else to upset him further. “We think our watchers were killed
first, come upon from behind in the wood. As for being spotted, we did not have
to step foot on their side of the fjord for them to know we were coming. We
attack Hadarr's village the same time every year. With all respect, Father, how
could they
not
know we were coming?”

Aldar
cursed, spittle flying into his beard. He started down the dais steps, forward
across the hall. Finna took a hesitant step back, but the small measure was not
enough.

A
loud crack filled the room as the back of his hand snapped her face to the
side, and her breath hitched on a sharp wince. Wide-eyed, Finna snapped her
face back around. She watched him wearily as she raised her hand to her
throbbing cheek, minimally aware his strike had brought blood. Her heart
pounded.

What will he do
next?
she wondered.

She
waited for another strike, but he only snarled, and a moment that seemed a
thousand lifetimes passed before he turned his back on her.

Finna
relaxed only slightly as he furthered the distance between them, stalking up to
the dais, muttering of her uselessness. Aldar plopped himself into his seat and
flicked his wrist at her dismissively. Unsure to believe the gesture or not,
she narrowed her eyes, looking suspiciously around the room, between the men
gathered there to view her humiliation.

Aldar
took a new ale horn from a serving girl, his glaring stare never leaving Finna.
"Leave us men to discuss our plans for revenge," he said to her.

She
swallowed. Shaken and in a dream-like daze, she looked at her palm to find a streak
of blood smeared over the back of her fingers. The crimson stain had begun to
dry and crack on her skin already. Alarmed, she touched her face again and
found fresh blood at her mouth. She gingerly pulled her throbbing lip between
her teeth, tasting the tang of blood left from the cut the might of her
father's blow had dealt her.

"As
you wish," she said. She wiped her fingers against the leather leggings
she wore still, not having had the chance to clean herself since her return.
Finna glanced around the room once more. Some of the men smirked under their
full beards, yet others, like Grahund, remained quiet and solemn, deflecting
their stares in a show of respect only
she
recognized. That she was not alone returned her strength, at least some of it.

"
Go
," Aldar thundered at her.

Finna
flinched and took a quick step backward, her insides trembling in the wake of
his rage. She breathed a shaken sigh of relief as she turned and started across
the hall.

To
be relieved of his intense berating was akin to a millstone dropping from her
shoulders.

“Finna,”
Aldar called loudly, just as she reached for the door.

Finna
paused, her hand on the large, round, brass handle. She closed her eyes and
breathed deeply, then turned to face him again. She rooted herself there before
the threshold, unwilling to go any closer to him.

Aldar
leveled his intensely dark gaze on her. “As punishment, you will not lead again
until you can replenish my trust in your skill. Mayhap you are better suited to
a woman's duties after all.” Slowly, and with purpose, Adar began to chuckle,
some of the other men following suit.

Behind
thick lashes, Finna's eyes flared at his cruelty, and her stare burnt a hole
through her father sitting high on the dais with his polished crown atop his
head. Laurels danced around the gilded knotwork edge, a symbol of honor and
glory she was no longer sure her father deserved. Spiraling runes belonging to
their people also deeply embedded the gold band the laurels sprang up from.

Below
the plundered crown, his braided hair gave truth to his age, the bottom light
brown, the middle red, and the top already silver. His rounded gut also told of
his long-gone youth and too many years of drinking and not enough training. How
dare he castigate her when he could have done no better on the raid?

Her
teeth clamped tightly, but she wordlessly inclined her head to her sire once
more. Finna snarled at those laughing at her disgrace. She would remember who
had stood by her and who had not.

She
pulled the door open and backed from the room, turning sharply on her heel and
closed the door. She quickened her pace, more than ready to be done with the
longhouse for the eve. Father had never been this angry with her. He had never
struck her before.

Perhaps it would
be best if I avoid him for a sennight to cool our tempers.
Finna thought.

She
had expected punishment, and deserved repercussions for the lives lost, but she
had not expected her father to strip away his trust. On the journey home, she
had cursed herself a thousand times over for her lapse in judgment, though she
still was not certain what that was.

Finna
kicked a clump of dirt along the path, her boot tearing into the moist ground.
She should have doubled their watch, if anything. She had taken their previous
effortless raids for granted.

Just
then, high above, a fluttering caught her ear, and Finna looked upward as the
sound became heavier. Fang swooped down to light on her shoulder along the
path, craning his neck around to her face. Instantly, her mood shifted, if only
a little for the better. “Good eventide,” she greeted her pet. “I hope you have
fared better than I in your hunts.”

In
return, he nuzzled his beak to her lips for a kiss and then took flight. The
press of his talons leaving her shoulder left her more devoid than before her
pet had come to her. Fang swooped through the trees and into the wood. He gave
her solace in her cold world. She looked up, watching him glide away. Fang
would be gone until morning.

How
she wished she had wings to glide away on.

She
stopped before her dwelling just before Fang disappeared, and then she trodded
up the short steps, opened the door, and shut herself in. Finna blinked at the
darkness as she stalked to the small hearth and collapsed into a ladder-back
chair to begin a fire.

She
shivered as she formed the wood and reached below her to the basket she kept
straw in for such purposes. The evening had turned cooler than she would like,
and she wasn’t sure she had ever thawed from her brief swim in the fjord that
accursed Viking had forced her into. Her bones ached from the chill.

Finna
fumbled around in the dark to find what she needed and then struggled with her
fire-steel and flint. "Damn," she cursed as she struck the pieces
together. At last, a spark tossed off the steel and into the dry straw. An
orange glow began to fill the small space around her.

She
sighed long and hard, setting aside her tools to brace her hands on her knees,
bending to blow on the flame. In a few moments, light flooded her home, and
warmth spread to her fingers and then her arms. Finna laid wood over the straw
and then stretched out in her seat and began to pull at her braids. She was
sure she had looked completely ragged in the hall, her clothing bloody and her
braids fallen from place, her skin bruised and caked with dirt and blood.