Odin's Shadow (Sons Of Odin Book 1) (9th Century Viking Romance) (13 page)

She would be willing to put up with quite a lot to be the recipient of Alrik's smile again.

They walked back to the house hand in hand, stopping long enough to get his shirt from the woodpile, then entered through the kitchen door. Hrefna jumped, nearly dropping the spoon she was holding.

Hrefna gaped at them for several long seconds as her gaze focused on the disheveled state of Selia's hair, and the angry red mark—the size of Alrik's thumb—clearly visible on her collarbone. She looked up at her nephew and opened her mouth to scold him.

He flashed his beautiful smile at her, then bent to kiss Hrefna on the top of the head.

"I am starving." He walked past her toward the main room, pulling Selia by the hand behind him.

Selia glanced over her shoulder at the woman, who stared back at her, openmouthed and speechless.

Hrefna looked as surprised as if Selia had just stopped a bull from charging . . . and was now leading it around by the nose.

Chapter 16

Ulfrik and Olaf played some sort of board game as they waited for their supper. They sat facing each other with a painted wooden board balanced on their knees between them.

When Alrik and Selia entered the room they both looked up, and Ulfrik started, just as Hrefna had. Carved pieces of the game fell from the board and hit the floor. His eyes went to the mark on her shoulder, then he turned his gaze toward his brother.

Alrik ignored him, sitting with a satisfied thud, and Selia blushed and giggled as he pulled her into his lap. Ulfrik looked away, leaving Olaf to pick up the game pieces.

Ingrid was nowhere to be seen. Selia had to admit she was relieved the ill-tempered girl kept her distance.

Hrefna sat at the table, followed by two slave girls who carried in the food and ale. There was stew, bread, and cheese, and two types of roasted meat. Selia was so hungry, she felt as though she hadn't eaten in days.

Alrik let her climb down from his lap to sit next to him so she could eat her supper. He led the conversation almost completely, questioning Hrefna about the crops and the livestock, and any general news that had occurred in their absence. He listened to her answers, but he would stop occasionally and feed Selia a choice bit of food from his plate, flashing a devilish grin as she took each morsel from his fingers.

No one spoke of Ingrid.

Ulfrik was drinking heavily and not eating much. She tried to catch his eye but he wouldn't look at her, instead keeping his gaze on one of the slave girls. The slave's cropped hair was the color of honey, and her flawless skin reminded Selia of fresh cream. Under her shapeless smock was the outline of a voluptuous body, and Ulfrik seemed fascinated by her hips as she walked.

The girl appeared to be interested in him as well. She kept her hand on his cup just a moment longer than necessary as she filled it for him, and her eyes rested on him more than once before she realized her slip and lowered her gaze to the floor.

So Ulfrik did have someone who cared about him, someone who didn't mind that he had once been a slave. Although Hrefna had greeted him with a warm embrace, nevertheless Selia noticed an almost imperceptible difference in the way the woman treated the two brothers. Nothing like the pronounced coolness she had sensed from Gudrun, but still a difference. She was a bit surprised at how angry it made her.

Ulfrik was a good man. A much better man than Alrik was, truth be told. And yet due to the fate of his birth, he was forced to defer to his brother and live in the margins of his family, not quite fitting in.

Alrik and Olaf began setting up the board for another game as the slave girls cleared the table. Ulfrik excused himself, his plate barely touched. He walked with the deliberate gait of the very drunk as he followed the pretty slave into the kitchen.

Hrefna watched him for a moment before turning back to Selia. "Selia, my dear, your gown is beautiful. Did you make it yourself?"

"No," she admitted. "Gudrun made it, when we were in Bjorgvin."

"Oh, I should have recognized her handiwork. There never was a better seamstress, save possibly my sister."

She nodded, looking down at the tiny, perfect stitches on her sleeve. There was a grass stain on her elbow and she shifted her arm to hide it. "I—I can sew, Hrefna," she said, in case the woman thought Alrik had married a simpleton who was incapable of doing the most menial of household tasks. "I can spin and weave. And I can cook."

Hrefna's smile was kind. "Oh, my dear, I'm sure you can do all of those things. Myself, I'm a decent seamstress, but if I had my choice I would weave all day."

Selia brightened. "Me too."

The woman leaned in closer, picking up Selia's hand, and her smile deepened. "I knew you were a kindred spirit, child," she said as she rubbed the weaving callous on Selia's finger. Hrefna showed her the hard bump of skin on her own finger, and they both laughed.

"Would you like to look at my looms?" Hrefna asked. Selia followed her to where the three looms leaned against the wall of the house, each set up with a project in various stages of completion.

"We used to have a house full of women," Hrefna explained. "Now it's just me. And Ingrid too, of course, but she has no patience for weaving."

Selia nodded in understanding. How lonely Hrefna must be without the companionship of Alrik's first wife. She gave Hrefna a sympathetic smile, and Hrefna patted Selia's arm.

"What part of Ireland are you from, Selia?" she asked.

"Baile Átha Cliath.” At the woman’s blank look, Selia added, "Near Dubhlinn.”

Hrefna perked up. "Oh yes, my niece lives there. Alrik's sister."

"Dagrun?"

The woman raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Yes, did you meet her?"

"No. I only met Gudrun." She tried to keep her face neutral, but Hrefna chuckled anyway.

The woman motioned to the looms. "Are these the same as you used in Ireland?"

Selia ran her hand up the stout wooden post. "This is bigger, and has more . . ." she stopped, not knowing the Norse word, and held up one of the weights.

"Weights," Hrefna supplied.

Selia repeated the word and turned back to the loom, eager to try it. But suddenly she felt Hrefna's hand in her hair, and she jerked as the woman pulled out a small stick from her curls. Alrik had brushed the dirt from her gown the best he could, and picked out an assortment of twigs and leaves from her hair, but he had apparently missed one. Selia’s cheeks heated.

From the look on Hrefna’s face it was clear she knew how the stick had come to be in her hair. How wanton the woman must think her to lie with Alrik in the woods less than an hour after arriving home. But when she met Hrefna's gaze she saw amusement there. The woman attempted to suppress a laugh, but it burst out, loud enough to echo through the room.

Selia giggled.

The men looked up from their game to be let in on the joke. "Never mind," Hrefna said to them, as she led Selia into her bedroom.

"Now, my dear." Hrefna rummaged through one of the smaller chests in the room. "I'm going to re-dress your hair, if that's all right with you. You're a bit disheveled." She pulled out a comb.

Thank goodness Hrefna was able to find humor in the situation. Selia sat on the chair as the woman began combing through her hair, starting at the bottom and working her way up. Eventually she placed three more twigs on the table.

"Alrik seems quite smitten with you," Hrefna commented. "I don't think I've ever seen him smile as much as I have today."

"What is 'smitten?'"

"Hmm . . . it means he cares for you very much."

On the ship, she had heard other words the men had used to describe Alrik's feelings for her. Besotted. Infatuated. Derogatory whispers that Ulfrik had been hesitant to translate. But smitten . . . that sounded almost like
love.
A lovely warmth spread through Selia's body, and she smiled.

Then she heard Hrefna's startled gasp as the woman found the depression in her skull.

"What . . . what is this?" Hrefna choked out. By the look on her face it was obvious she suspected the worst.

"It is nothing. It happened when I was a tot. It does not hurt," Selia assured her.

"But how did it happen? How did you survive such a thing?"

Selia laughed, which seemed to surprise Hrefna. "My brother says our mother dropped me on my head."

The woman chuckled a bit too, probably in relief that her nephew wasn't responsible for the dent in his new wife's skull. "Well, what did your mother say about it?"

"Nothing. She died a long time ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry, my dear."

"It is all right. I do not remember her. It is a good thing my head is very hard."

Hrefna finished with Selia's hair and stood back to observe her work. The woman's own blazing red hair was twisted into numerous tiny braids at the temples, pulled into a partial knot at the crown of her head, with the remainder of her hair hanging down past her shoulders. Her fillet was wrapped around her forehead and attached beneath the thick locks.

Selia had admired Hrefna's intricate hairstyle from the moment she had set eyes on the woman, and she now patted her own head carefully, pleased that Hrefna had styled her hair the same.

"How does it look?" Selia fingered the elaborate braids.

"See for yourself." The woman again rifled through the chest. She pulled out a looking glass and handed it to her.

Selia gasped, nearly dropping it. The image was so perfect she found it disorienting, almost as if there were suddenly two of her. She stared into the glass and her gray eyes stared back at her, the reflection so clear she could count her eyelashes if she wanted to.

"What's wrong?" Hrefna asked.

"I have never had . . . this.”

“You’ve never had a looking glass? Why?"

Selia shook her head. "My father said it was better to be good, not to be beautiful." She didn’t know if Niall had an aversion to looking glasses in general, or if he had been trying to keep his daughter’s already compromised soul from being stricken with the sin of vanity as well.

"Humph," Hrefna grunted, as though she thought this line of reasoning rather foolish. "So you didn't even know what you looked like, until now?"

"Oh yes, I did. From the water. And from my brother Ainnileas. We look the same—everyone said so." She looked into the glass again, searching for differences in their features. The eyes and mouth were identical, as well as the shape of their faces. The only real difference she could see was Ainnileas’ bushier eyebrows and bigger nose.

She stared into what looked like her brother’s eyes.
I miss you.
It's hard to be without you, but you must not try to find me. I need to stay here.

Selia and Ainnileas had shared a bond that went much deeper than most siblings. Not that they could read each other's thoughts, but more as if they could share their feelings-strong emotions especially. Or pain. When Ainnileas had fallen out of a tree and broken his arm several years before, Selia felt the flash of his pain as if it had happened to her. She had left the house in a blind run, straight to where her brother was, nearly a mile away. She had no explanation for how she knew where to find him; she simply did.

Niall and Eithne had found the connection between the siblings disconcerting, to say the least. So the twins kept it to themselves as they got older. But it was still there, just under the surface. Selia missed her brother with an overwhelming intensity if she allowed herself to think about it, and she blinked back tears now as she lowered the looking glass into her lap.

"Oh, my dear child." Hrefna gave her a hug. "You miss your family, don't you?"

Selia nodded, sniffling into the older woman’s shoulder. Hrefna seemed very kind, and in a way she reminded Selia of Eithne. Or at least the good parts of Eithne, without all the scolding. Was this what it would feel like to have a mother? A real mother, not a servant who took care of you because it was her job to do so? She inhaled deeply, enjoying the warm scent of Hrefna's neck.

"Selia." The woman pulled back to look at her. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

Hrefna grunted. "Well, I will say that's older than I thought you were. I feared you were younger than Ingrid. You are very small." She sat next to Selia, patting her hand. "It's hard to have to leave your family no matter what age you are, I know. I married Olaf when I was fourteen. I cried for a long time when I had to move away."

Selia drew her eyebrows together. "But . . . you live here," she said, not understanding. It was rather odd for Alrik's maternal aunt and her husband to live here, with him. In a typical Irish family, the wife went with her husband upon their marriage. If they ended up living with relatives, it would be with his, not hers. The custom must be different here.

Hrefna hesitated, perhaps unsure how much of the family's secrets Selia was aware of. "After my sister and her husband died, Dagrun and the boys went to live with their grandfather, Geirr. But he was in poor health, and after a few years he could no longer care for them. Geirr married Dagrun off, but before he died he sent for us to see if we could take care of the boys. There was no one else who could do it," she finished.

Selia could easily understand how no one else
would
have done it. Certainly no one who was willing to risk the curse of Ragnarr
.
Yet Hrefna had felt sorry enough for her nephew and his half-brother that she agreed to raise them. And moved into the farmstead where her sister had been murdered to do so. If that didn't say something about the strength and compassion of this woman, nothing did.

"Do you have any children, Hrefna?" Selia asked.

"Yes. Olaf and I have a daughter, Kolgrima, and she has five children of her own. I don't see them as often as I'd like. But that is the way of women, isn't it?" There was a tinge of sadness in her voice as she pulled Selia to her feet. "You look lovely, my dear. Now, let's see what those men are up to."

Both glanced up from their game as the women entered the room. Alrik stared, holding a game piece in his hand, mid-move. A slow smile spread across his face at the sight of Selia’s proper Norse hairstyle.

"Come here," he said.

She walked over to him, blushing. Why did she suddenly feel so shy? Alrik reached for her wrist to pull her closer, but his movement caused the board to shift. A few of the pieces hit the floor.

"Am I actually going to get to finish a game tonight, or not?" Olaf protested.

Alrik was still looking at Selia. "Sit down here." He motioned to one of the benches built into the wall. "And watch me beat Olaf."

She made herself comfortable amongst the furs and pillows on the bench. Curious about the game they were playing, she asked a few hesitant questions. Alrik was in a fine mood, and he and Olaf patiently explained the rules of the game.