Maidensong (11 page)

 
“But why do I need to see it?”

 
“The extra tillable land is important to the whole settlement,” Bjorn said. “I thought skalds were inter
ested in the lives of the people, not just in entertaining
them.” When she gave a grudging nod, he continued. “
Anyway, it’s also important to me.”

 
“And why should that interest me in the least?” she snapped back at him, wishing she could drive his kiss from her mind.

 
“Because I wish you to know it whether it interests you or no,” he said, his dark eyes narrowing at her. Then he looked around and inhaled deeply. “
The land gives us all we need if we care for it. Rika, I
brought you here to show you the things that mean
something to me. How else can I persuade you that I
am not the ogre you think me?”

 
“
How indeed?” She glow
ered at him with her best frown, the one that’d sent
several would-be swains in far-flung settlements scurrying back to their local sweethearts. “I’ll never forget
that you are responsible for my father’s death
. You waste your time, Bjorn the Black.”

 
“It’s mine to waste,” he said with deceptive light
ness. “But when I kissed you last night, I did think you
were almost of a mind to forgive me for a bit.”

 
Heat surged into her cheeks. He had felt it then, that
brief flicker of a moment when her body had betrayed
her, opening to him, tumbling into him as gently as a
stream into the fjord, and she responded to his kiss. She burned with the shame of it.

 
“You spoke of a proper time for all things last
night,” she said grimly. “The time for us ended before
it began. When my father died.”

 
He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and spoke no
more as they continued to ascend the steep trail into
the thick forest. Soon Rika heard the resounding thwacks of axes on trunks and the rasping thrum of
the long two-man saws. Before she could see them, she
smelled the dying trees, perfuming the air with the
pungent aroma of the heart of pine.

 
They broke through the dense woods into a clearing,
where men and teams of horses strained to uproot the broad stumps left by the woodsmen. Sweat darkened
the chests of the horses as they bent to the will of their equally sweaty masters.

 
Bjorn slid off his horse and put a shoulder to one of
the more stubborn stumps. The thick muscles in his biceps bulged with effort, as he grunted beside the other workers.

 
“Get up, now!” he bellowed as the whole crew of
men and equines strained together. The long, snaking
roots finally released their hold on the earth and
wrenched free, pointing skyward in surrender
. A cheer went up from the gang of workers.

 
Bjorn vaulted up onto his horse’s glossy back with the sturdy grace of a born horseman and chirruped to
the gelding to walk on. He glanced sideways at Rika,
but she riveted her gaze away, determined not to let
him catch her paying any attention to him. She scanned the field instead.

 
“You said Ketil was here.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “I don’t see him anywhere.”

 
“He’ll be working with an ax someplace. He told me
this morning he likes to chop wood,” Bjorn said as he
looked for Ketil at the far end of the field. “He’s a
strong one, your brother. I asked Surt to watch out for
him, but he said Ketil seems to know his way around a blade with a handle.”

 
“That he does. Ketil will chop up a tree just for the
pleasure of stacking up cordwood.” It irritated her that
Ketil should be talking to Bjorn. It was one thing for her to spar with their captor. Especially since she had
no choice in the matter and the wit to be wary of him, but Ketil wouldn’t know a grass snake from an adder. Her gentle brother always accepted everyone at face
value. He’d be easy prey for someone like Bjorn, who
could turn anything Ketil might say to his own advantage.

 
“
There he is.” Bjorn
pointed at the young man in the distance, who was
flailing at a towering pine. He nudged his horse into a
trot and Rika followed.

 
When they were near enough, Rika cupped her mouth and cried out Ketil’s name.

 
He stopped chopping and looked around. His sweat
ing face broke into a wide grin when he saw Rika. He buried the ax head in the trunk he was working on and
lumbered toward her.

 
A brisk wind whipped across the open field and
caught the treetops, sending them swaying back and
forth. Ketil’s tree shuddered and cracked and, in a
sickening surrender, slowly started to come down.

 
“Run, Ketil. Run!” Rika screamed.

 
Ketil glanced over his shoulder, but instead of run
ning to the side to avoid the falling timber, he kept
running straight as a plumb line in the same direction the tree was toppling. Rika’s throat constricted as
panic rippled over her. Ketil would never clear the
treetop in time.

 
Bjorn dug his heels into the gelding’s flanks, bolting into a gallop. He closed the distance between him and
Ketil in only a few heartbeats. Rika watched, hand
clasped over her mouth, as Bjorn leaped from the back
of his mount and plowed into Ketil, shoving him aside
just as the giant trunk came crashing down.

 
Rika gasped as Ketil rolled to safety. But the jarl’s
brother disappeared under a solid avalanche of boughs
and needles.

 
Men swarmed over the fallen tree like bees around an upturned hive. Rika slid off her horse and ran to Ketil,
afraid to look lest she see Bjorn's crushed body under the pile of shattered timber. Tears coursed down her
cheeks.

 
Shock
, she told herself. Relief that Ketil was safe,
surely. The choking knot at the back of her throat
couldn’t be for Bjorn the Black, the man who’d en
slaved her and altered the course of her life forever.

 
Ketil’s friend Surt slithered in among the boughs of
the fallen pine. After a few moments, he crawled back
out from beneath the mess of limbs, rubbing a hand
across his grimy neck. “He still lives, but
...”

 
Rika didn’t wait to hear more. “Why are you just standing around?” Her voice held all the commanding
power of her art. “Cut him out. Surt, show the others where he is so they don’t damage Bjorn further.”

 
Rika took charge of the recovery, encouraging here,
railing at them there, until finally the last section of the
trunk pinning Bjorn to the spongy ground was lifted.

 
His eyes were half-closed and an egg-sized lump
swelled one temple. Bjorn’s arms and chest were
laced with countless small punctures and slashes. A
limb as thick as Rika’s wrist stood upright in the heavy
muscle of Bjorn’s thigh, quivering like the shaft of a gi
ant’s arrow.

 
Surt grasped the limb and started to pull it out.

 
“
No, wait!” a young man commanded. Rika recog
nized him as Jorand, the fellow with an easy
smile she’d met on Bjorn's dragonship. Now his face
was drawn with concern. “The limb is stopping the flo
w of blood. If you pull it out now, he’ll bleed to death be
fore we get him down the mountain.”

 
Jorand stripped the leather sweatband from his head
and cinched it around Bjorn’s thigh above the wound. “
I need some cloth.”

 
Rika picked at the hem of her soft new tunic. She
started it unraveling and then ripped a long section of
fabric from the garment.

 
Jorand nodded his thanks and motioned to Surt to
remove the limb. Black blood surged from the deep
wound, followed by a flow of bright red, proof that
Bjorn’s heart still pounded in his chest. Jorand packed
the wound with Rika’s cloth and bound it tightly.
Through it
all,
Bjorn never moved so much as an eye
lash.

 
As the men loaded Bjorn onto a waiting travois, a feeling of dread settled on Rika. In the short
time she’d been there, she’d learned from the serving
girl Evja that the Jarl of Sogna was not known for his
mercy. Thralls had no rights, even if they hadn’t done wrong. What might Gunnar Haraldsson do to the
thrall responsible for his brother’s death?

 
She pulled
Surt to the side.

 
“Take Ketil and hide him until. . .” She couldn’t fin
ish the thought. Her throat tightened at the possibility
that Bjorn might die. “Just hide him until I send word.”

 
Surt nodded and slipped away from the main body
of men with Ketil in tow as Rika and the others started back down the mountain. She trudged beside the travois, watching the color drain from Bjorn’s face with each step.

 
Runners fled ahead of them to announce the accident and make what preparations they could. By the time the travois pulled into the grassy area in front of
the longhouse, Astryd was ready and waiting, doctor
ing being the province of the lady of the house. Bjorn
was carried to his airless
little
room and Rika tried to
follow, but Astryd blocked her way.

 
“Stay out of here,” she ordered, her lip curling. “He
no longer needs your services, perhaps for good.”

 
“But I want to help,” Rika said.

 
The Lady of Sogna slapped her across the cheek with a stinging blow.

 
“
Thralls do not talk back to me. Do as you’re told or
it will be the whip for you next time,” Astryd said. “
Now fetch me some raw spirits. Then help Evja boil
water.”

 
Face burning, Rika ran to the brewing shed for the
alcohol Astryd needed. She delivered it to Bjorn’s
room but
still
wasn’t allowed inside the door. Then she
helped Evja scrub the large soapstone kettle at the cen
tral fire and hauled water from the stream to fill it.

 
Jorand came out of the room once. He glanced Rika’s way, a grim set to his lips, but he didn’t say a
word. He drew out a leather pail full of the boiling liq
uid, still refusing to meet her eyes, and disappeared back into Bjorn’s room.

 
Finally, Astryd’s bulging belly filled the doorway. “He asked for you,” she said with disdain.

 
Rika scurried past her. Bjorn was stretched out on
the bedding; his leg bandaged tightly, a red stain still seeping through the cloth. His eyes were completely
closed now, in what might have passed for natural
slumber except for his pallid complexion. His
chest rose and fell shallowly. The lump on the side of his head was turning a royal shade of purple with
yellowish undertones.

 
“Bjorn,” Rika whispered as she knelt by his bedside
and took one of his callused hands in her own. His hand
was cool and his fingers didn’t respond to her grip.

 
“
He’ll not answer you,” Astryd said. “He came round for a moment, but he’s slipped
away again. He may wake up. He may not. Only the
Norns
know.”

 
The
Norns,
the three weavers of all human lives had undoubtedly calculated the length of Bjorn’s skein and
decided his fate long ago. If he’d reached the end, and
the
Norns
were determined to snip him off, nothing
could stop it.

 
“I’ve done all I can for him.” Astryd shook her
head. “Pity that he should meet such a death. A war
rior like Bjorn should go out with glory, not shriveling
in his bed.”

 
Rika wanted to say that Bjorn had done something glorious. No one else of noble blood she’d ever met would’ve risked himself for the life of a thrall, but she
couldn’t voice the words. Astryd would not believe
saving Ketil from his own blunder was a heroic act,
and if the reason for Bjorn’s accident ever came to the
lady’s sharp ears, it would only endanger her brother.