Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (13 page)

The men conversed a moment longer and drank a final toast from the ornamented horns
— all except Hakon, who brooded nearby. Ailinn twisted the fur robe beneath her fingers, then rose to her knees and gripped hold of the bed’s carved end post when the three moved toward the door.

Had they forgotten her? Her nails
stabbed the wood. She fixed her gaze on the brothers where they stood waiting while Skallagrim drew open the door. The grievous truth crushed down upon her as the men began to depart. The silver warrior had not come for her.

Ailinn
’s heart plummeted, despair overtaking her. She watched, disconsolate, as the golden lord passed through the door and the white Dane stepped to the portal.

He hesitated upon the threshold and looked back. Their gazes met and held across the room
. He then turned and was gone, taking with him his shining presence and her last ray of hope. Ailinn thought her heart would crack.

She sank
onto the furs, fighting back her welling tears, tasting sharply of her aloneness. The pull at her ankle cuff and the clank of chains roused her from her gloom. She found Skallagrim shackling her to his bed. A chill passed through her. She was truly forsaken — cursed and condemned — to the hands of this brutish man and his murderous kin.

Later, Ailinn lay awake upon the furs while Thora snored on her pallet and Skallagrim tossed in his sleep. Hakon no longer occupied the hall.

Through the opening beneath the eaves, she silently viewed the stars — silvery points of light illuminating a world plunged to darkness.

Ailinn
’s thoughts drifted to the white Dane. How could she have been so wrong? Yet, he protected her. But then he left her.

A single tear cascaded over her cheek, followed by another and another. Truly,
God
had
abandoned her. There would be no escape from Thora, or Hakon, or the inscrutable Skallagrim.

She
could not think on the days that yet lay before her — however many, however few. She no longer possessed her own life. She was t
he chieftain’s slave. By all that she could garner, he had already set the seal upon her fate.

Bereft of hope, Ailinn loo
ked to the stars in the heavens and braced herself for the coming dawn.

»«

Lyting lingered a time with Rurik, a short distance from Thora’s
hús
.

It had taken a supreme force of will to compel his feet to move and leave the maid within. Such pain cleaved her eyes, imploring that he not abandon her there. Her look lanced straight through his heart and lodged in his soul.

Despite Skallagrim and Hakon, he vowed to win her free and shelter her beneath his protection. When he sailed from Byzantium, ‘twould be with the maid of Eire.

“
Do you come now,
broðir
?” Rurik asked for a second time.

Lyting dragged his attention from the direction of the
hús
and found Rurik regarding him with an inquisitive gaze. “
Nei
, I keep watch tonight.”

“
I thought Audun and Magnus — ” Rurik halted midsentence, comprehension breaking in his eyes.

He pressed his lips to a thoughtful line. Reaching inside his tunic, he took hold of the leather pouch and drew it forth, then slipped the strap over his head. Rurik gave
over the bag with its valued contents to Lyting.

“
It gladdens me to know that matters are in such capable hands.” Esteem reflected in his eyes.
“Gott kvöld, broðir
. Good night. I will see you on the morrow.”

Rurik smiled and departed, heading back along the walk toward the lodgings where his family awaited.

Lyting placed the thong and pouch around his neck, then stepped to the familiar passageway. On impulse he looked up to the starry heavens and thought of the autumn-fire maid. Then, enfolding himself in his great mantle and covering his bright hair, he melted into the shadows and took up his vigil.

»«

In the chill of early morning, while the skies yet slumbered overhead, Ailinn hastened to keep pace with Skallagrim along the dark and timbered streets.

She knew this moment would come. Dreaded it. And now its yoke was upon her.

For three days passing she and Thora had prepared provisions for a journey — barrels of salt fish, hard-baked bread, tubs of cheese and berries. They worked long, filling skins with water and casks with ale. Skallagrim brought forth furs, seal hides, and walrus ivory from storage. He sorted, counted, and bundled. Together, he and Hakon removed the goods and foodstuffs from the hall. The time of waiting was at an end.

Ailinn braced herself as the future rushed into the present, and Skallagrim led her to her fate.

The day yawned awake and the skies paled as Ailinn and the chieftain emerged from the last cluster of houses and reached the harbor. Crossing the wharf, they continued on.

A crisp breeze played over Ailinn as she looked up. Her gaze drew to the end of the pier, then turned cold. Directly ahead waited the great serpent ship that had borne her here. The monster-headed prow gleamed with the morning
’s light, its grin frozen in time by the wood-carver’s art.

Ailinn
’s stomach wrenched to think she must board the ship once more. Where now? she wondered. To what desolate, unconsecrated corner of the world would it deliver her?

She kept close to Skallagrim as they wended their way amid the activity on the dock. Men moved in a continuous flow, to and from the ship, onloading barrels and crates.

Aboard, a clutch of crewmen raised the mast, then slotted and secured it in place. Several dispersed to attach the rigging. Ailinn’s steps faltered, for there, fitting a mast line to the bow, stood the Dane with star-bright hair.

Ailinn forgot to breathe, surprise overtaking her and something akin to joy.

She watched as he wiped his brow and moved to affix two more lines to the side of the ship. He looked different. More handsome, if possible, less barbarous. His mane of hair had been trimmed to shoulder length.

Heat climbed her cheeks as he raised his eyes to hers. She
blamed it on the warming rays of the sun but could not explain the explosion of fire within.

Skallagrim prodded her forward, across a narrow, ridged plank and onto the vessel. Conducting her toward the bow, he chained her to the empty shield rack that ran along the outside rail and left her there.

Ailinn waited. Time and again, her attention strayed to the white Dane. She guarded her interest, fearing the chieftain’s unpredictable response. Yet impulse warred with wisdom, and try though she did, she could not wholly keep her eyes from the silver warrior.

With the spar set and sail lashed in place, the men lowered the piece, bracing it above the decking on three upright supports, spaced down the center of the ship. With that complete, the chieftain relocated Ailinn to the mast, where he chained her as he had on the previous voyage.

Ailinn shifted to find a comfortable position, the boards hard beneath her, the irons weighing heavily upon her leg. She glanced out over the water, then to the gulls reeling and screaming above. Finally she returned her gaze townward and drew it along the shoreline and dock.

Ailinn stilled as she beheld a group of slavewomen there, being herded toward the ship.

She rose, buttressing herself against the mast as she recognized some among them to be maids of Eire, seized in the raid on Clonmel. She bit her lip and studied each one. At the site of Hakon to the rear of the group, her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a cry. With him he brought Deira and Rhiannon.

An eternity passed before her stepcousins finally boarded, but at last
they came within arm’s length, and crying out, the three clung to one another with fierce joy. Hakon growled to quiet the women as he shackled them together at the mast.

Ailinn wiped her tears, then gave Rhiannon
’s arm another squeeze and took Deira’s face between her palms.

“
Merciful God, I thought never to see you again.” She swept a searching glance over the other captives and returned her gaze. “Do you know what has become of Lia?”

Pain weighed Deira
’s brow, and the light died in her eyes. Ailinn knew with surety, Lia had been sold. An aching sadness clutched at her heart.

“
Was it Arabs who made her purchase?”

“
Ní hea
. ‘Twas a great Norse devil,” Rhiannon stated with contempt for their kind. “By now he has taken her far from this place.”

Ailinn swallowed the lump that rose in her throat and said a brief prayer for gentle Lia.

While the sun still climbed the early morning skies, Skallagrim ordered for the mooring lines to be cast off and the oars set to the water.

The ship glided from the dock
— an imposing sight with its high, sweeping lines and the bright-colored shields, now hung along the sides from prow to stern.

As the vessel slid across the harbor, Ailinn looked to the white Dane where he plied his strength to a long, oaken oar. Of a sudden he directed his attention past the crew and ship and
back to the quayside. A brilliant smile broke over his face — a startling slash of white across sun-deepened features. Ailinn’s heart leaped in its place.

Giv
ing herself a firm mental shake, she followed his gaze to the wharf. There, a man and woman waved in farewell. Ailinn looked again. ‘Twas the golden lord and the Frankish lady. They stood intimately close, their sides pressed together, each holding a dark-haired babe.

The lord trailed off his wave and lowered his hand to the lady
’s hip. The gesture left no doubt in Ailinn’s mind. ‘Twas the golden lord who was wed to the lady of Francia, not his brother.

But what of the second Frankish woman? She scanned the wharf and piers but did not s
ee her. Ailinn puzzled that. Surely if she was the white Dane’s wife, she would wish to see him away. Ailinn’s brow fluttered upward. Mayhap the other lady was not bound to him, either.

She surveyed the wharf a final time, then caught herself. Why should it matter? she admonished
herself. He was a Norseman. For whatever reason God ordained that their lives should continue to cross, and regardless that he seemed preferable to any of his kind, she must never forget the blood that flowed in his veins.

As the dragonship slipped through the palisaded gates, Skallagrim
ordered that the great, square sail be hoisted and unfurled to the wind. Ailinn tasted the exhilaration that swept through the men, her own mounting as they coursed the wide waterway. She gave herself to the moment — the steady swell and dip of the ship; the stiff, moist breeze buffeting her cheeks and tossing her hair in a fiery dance; the creak of wood and snap of sail; the faint saltiness to the air. Above, sea-swallows followed in their wake, and along the river, beech trees leafed to a pale green, gracing their passage.

Time slipped past unmarked until hours later they gained upon the mouth of the river. A tremor passed through Ailinn as she viewed the vast sea that lay ahead. Beyond its watery domain awaited her unnamed fate.

She took a swallow against the dread that weighted her soul. Ignoring her earlier thoughts, she looked to the silver warrior. He met her gaze at once as though sensing her need. She found strength there and solace. The distance between them diminished, crystal blue eyes encompassing the golden-brown depths of her own.

As their gazes
coupled and held fast, the
Wind Raven
passed out of the River Schlei and into the deep-blue waters of the Baltic.

PART II

“
In fire, gold is tested.”

The granite cliffs of Gotland rose from the sea. Like ancient guardians, they confronted the
Wind Raven
with high, harsh brows and demanded whether it be friend or foe.

Undaunted, the
Wind Raven
continued on, its supple frame bending and flexing as it rode the rhythms of the sea. Rounding the island’s southeastern coast, the vessel skirted the shoals and followed the cliffs northward.

Lyting moved to trim the sail and gain the wind
’s best advantage, feeling very much at ease upon the waters. He spotted colonies of black guillemots and snowy white gannets nesting high in the crannied walls. The gulls that had followed them since Oland, watching for the ship to drop bait lines, now left their company to reel and dive noisily at the shallows, seeking a more bounteous supper.

Lyting smiled, enjoying this time. Enjoying it, despite the concerns that preyed heavily upon his mind.

He glanced to where the women huddled at the mast. The auburn-haired maid shared her mantle with another, a frail-looking girl with haunted eyes. Another young woman, raven-locked, crowded in close beside them.

The three obviously knew one another. Hakon claimed the two and apparently intended to take them the full distance to
Miklagárd.

Lyting stroked the new growth of his beard. He
best approach Skallagrim about garbing the women more suitably for the voyage East lest they grow sickly. Retaining one’s body heat upon the open waters was ever a problem, and already, the one girl looked to be unwell.

He regretted he could not aid the other women as well, but the
Wind Raven’s
crew would disperse once they landed, most heading north with their slaves to the trade center at Birka on Sverige’s mainland. He prayed for God’s mercy upon the captives. He could do no more.

Lyting drew into his cloak as the breeze
’s cool fingers slipped through the weave of his tunic. He would welcome a warm meal and a dry bed this evening. Skallagrim had pushed them hard in the past days, foregoing the customary landfall at night and making the crossing in less than a week. They had eaten their meals cold and navigated the waters in the dark, gauging the depths with weighted lines and following the coast of Sverige, ever to the left,
larboard
, side.

Twice, he had spared the
Wind Raven
from running aground due to the helmsman’s misdirections. This gained him a measure of Skallagrim’s respect. Lyting hoped ‘twould prove beneficial, though he held no wish to repeat such near disasters to improve his standing with the chieftain.

As the day advanced, the longship continued north, skimming the coastal waters
until at last it reached the lagoon-harbor of Bogeviken.

»«

Ailinn steeled herself. After days and nights upon the cold sea, she wondered whether she had been brought, at last, to the doorstep of her fate. It cut at her heart, but in the coming hour ‘twas likely she would be separated from her stepcousins forevermore.

To her astonishment, the great dragonship slowed and seemingly glided onto shore. Many of the Norsemen leapt from the vessel
’s sides and into the shallows where they muscled and guided the ship onto the sands. Others, from on shore, abandoned their labors and hastened forth to assist their efforts,

Once they stabilized the ship with timbers and braced a boarding plank in place, the men swarmed back onboard and applied themselves to securing the vessel. The deck became a blur of
activity as the oars were taken aboard, the gear stored, and the lines coiled and stowed.

Ailinn lost sight of the white Dane. He had been occupied with the rigging before he moved off toward the stern. Rhiannon distracted her with a complaint, and when she looked back, he was gone.

The chieftain’s voice boomed suddenly nearby. Ailinn found him gesturing for the women to be removed and for the sail and mast to be dismantled. Aiding Deira to her feet, she again quested for the white Dane. Again, she could not find him. Would their paths part now also? The thought stabbed at her.

His presence should be of no consequence, her mind argued, reminding for a repeated time that he was a Norseman, the same as the rest. Not at all the same, her heart whispered back and refused to listen further.

The women shambled over the deck in their fetters, the lot of them bound one to another, before and behind, by a length of chain running through the loops attached to their ankle irons. Hakon stepped along the line, prodding those who faltered or slowed.

Deira shrank behind Ailinn as they passed Hakon. Rhiannon, who followed Deira, gave her Norse master a
bold look, one which held neither fear nor provocation. ‘Twas as though Rhiannon measured him behind her sharp eyes, discerning how best to gain some advantage.

Hakon
’s gaze slid to Ailinn, chilling the blood in her veins. She stiffened and directed her attention toward the plank. When her turn came, she climbed up without delay and cautioned Deira to follow with care.

Ailinn halted, her
heart quickening. Below, two men aided the women’s descent. One of them she recognized not at all, an inhabitant of this place, perchance. But the other was the silver warrior.

Her blood began to flo
w again. The knots that had constricted her insides now loosened and slipped free only to reach up and tangle themselves about her heart.

She began to make her descent, her footing less sure. As she approached midpoint on the plank, the warrior came forward and opened his hand to her.
Ailinn drew a thin shred of breath as she laid her own in his. Their palms joined, flesh on flesh. At once the heat of that contact spread along her arm and flooded her whole being.

She started to pull back, but his grip held her firm and he
drew her down the remaining length of the plank. Releasing her, he attended to Deira, guiding her by the elbow and minding that her footing did not slip. Ailinn watched, reflexively closing her fingers over her palm, trapping in the warmth and memory of his touch.

Rhiannon slowed, her gaze fixed on the white Dane. She ignored the other man
’s offer of assistance as her eyes slipped over the handsome warrior, and she turned to his aid.

Provoked by her stepcousin
’s guile, Ailinn strayed a glance over the cove. She found no bustling town there, only a quiet settlement sprinkled around the harbor. Here and there, enormous slabs of stone loomed, shaped like axheads set on their blades and covered with carvings. Monuments of some nature, guarding the inlet.

What
place is this? She frowned with frustration. One should know where Destiny abandoned them to finish their days.

Ailinn returned her gaze to find that the women had finished disembarking and that the white Dane had vanished once more. She located him on deck a moment later, where he labored
among the others, lowering the ship’s stout mast.

Skallagrim
’s robust voice severed her attention. He tarried atop the plank, calling back a final charge, then descended, followed by Hakon. Ailinn’s breath stilled as the chieftain trudged toward her, signaling for the slaves to be untrammeled and split apart. She clasped Deira’s hand and Rhiannon’s as well, her fears realized.

As the chain slipped from her ankle iron, Skallagrim grasped Ailinn by the arm and pulled her from the line. She twisted to see her stepcousins for a final time. To her relief, she saw Hakon take hold of each one and follow behind.

Ailinn thanked the Almighty for this small time of grace, knowing full well ‘twould eventually reach its end. Her spirit dipped at that thought, but as she dropped her gaze to the ground, another man joined them. Her eyes widened as she recognized the booted feet. Ailinn looked up to find the silver warrior walking beside her.

Saints forgive her but she nearly smiled. She bit her lip, lest
she do so still, and swiftly glanced away. Still, her heart swelled, an expansive feeling that she could not restrain. ‘Twas as though a candle flamed to life within, warming her and glowing bright against the gloom of fate.

»«

The six progressed around the harbor’s edge, coming at last to a small holding. It boasted a sizable longhouse, domestic and work buildings, and a modest shipyard, presently engulfed in noise and activity.

A smile touched Lyting
’s lips, for there, men shaped the shell of a new ship, building from the keel upward, using naught but hand and eye to guide them. He eyed the ship’s sweeping lines, recalling the happier moments of his youth. To his mind, the finest passion and achievement of his people, the very essence of the Norsemen’s spirit, lay in that of the clinker-built ship.

Just then two men came away from their work, hailing the chieftain and Hakon with visible recognition. One was a younger version of the other, both having reddish-blond hair and thin, high-bridged noses projecting straight off the brow. Lyting quickly found himself entangled in introductions. The older man identified himself as Olaf, the master shipwright and owner of the holding, and the other, as his eldest son, Rig.

Lyting waited, silent but heedful, as the chieftain spoke with the shipwright while Rig and Hakon renewed an apparent friendship.

Rig sharpened his interest over the captives, and his smile increased. Lyting wondered how far Rig
’s friendship extended with Hakon, for he appraised the women as though he expected to be offered his choice of them.

“
Komið.
Come,” Olaf bid them. “Gytha brews the finest beer on Gotland. What say you, we open a fresh cask?”

As they
approached the great
hús
, two children spilled from the door and into the yard, laughing and squealing — a boy of about six years, chased by a mere breath of a girl, no more than four.

“
Eirik! Dalla!” A handsome woman, round with child, emerged from the
hús
, calling after the children. She caught her steps at the sight of the men and came forth at once to greet them.

The keys of authority she wore at her waist proclaimed her to be Olaf
’s wife. She wore the customary attire of a Norsewoman, yet she looked to be of different lineage. Saxon, Lyting thought, or mayhap Breton.

“
Gytha!” Olaf beckoned heartily. “Skallagrim and Hakon return to us. They bring with them a lord of Normandy.”

Lyting began to correct the shipwright, for he held no lands or titles. But as he met Gytha
’s clear gray eyes, he found them plumbing the depths of him. Her gaze moved to the Irish beauty beside him, then back again and held him.

Lyting felt a sudden surge of accountability.
Did she think the maid to be his? That ‘twas he who had enslaved her and now pleasured himself on her, sating his days and nights?

“
Velkomin
to Gotland.” She only smiled softly. “You must be tired and thirsty from your voyage.
Komið.
The beer is fresh-brewed.”

She turned and clapped her hands
at the children, instructing them to bring cups from the
hús
, and then led the men and their captives to the brewing shed.

Skallagrim began to speak to Olaf of wintering the
Wind Raven
, though the shipwright appeared more absorbed at the moment with the backview of his wife as she disappeared into the small building.

“
You brought the
Wind Raven
ashore at Sven’s
naust
?”
Gott.
Good,” Olaf said distractedly. “All the easier to store her up.”

“
Take your eyes from your wife’s skirts,” Skallagrim chided. ‘Twas not what I said, though, indeed, the
drakkar
is secured near Sven’s boat shed. She’s opened up a seam along the
larboard
side of her bow. Lyting has also found something amiss with the rudder that will require your attention.”

Before Lyting could respond, Olaf broke away from the others.

“Gytha! Leave it be!” he cried as she struggled to shift a hip-high cask through the portal of the building. He hastened to put a halt to her efforts, then heaved the barrel, himself, just outside the door. “I’ll not have you harming yourself. There are men here aplenty to do the heavy work.”

Gytha began to open her mouth as though to disavow any would assist her, but Olaf stayed her.
“You are my wife, Gytha. You need but ask. They will all honor you.”

Eirik and Dalla returned with boisterous good cheer and stacks of wooden cups. Olaf grinned down at his children, both
images of their mother — the boy full of questions, and the girl a mischievous elfin child whose large, smiling eyes silently paired Lyting with the autumn-fire maid.

Obviously content with his portion in life, Olaf pried open the lid to the cask and set it aside. Gytha attended to the beer, ladling the cups full with the children
’s aid and presenting them to the men. She next saw to the captives with equal care, netting Lyting’s curiosity.