Hearts Aflame (2 page)

Kristen answered him truthfully, for what it was worth. “There is nothing wrong with you, Dirk. You have a very fine body and are pleasing to look upon. Your father has a rich farmstead, and you are his heir. A woman would be pleased to have you for husband.”

She didn’t add that Tyra would make a pact with the gods to have him and this was why Kristen wouldn’t consider him. Tyra had been in love with this man for the last five years, but he didn’t know that. And Kristen had sworn never to tell her friend’s secret to anyone, least of all to Dirk.

“You are simply not for me, Dirk Gerhardsen,” she finished firmly.

“Why?”

“You do not make my heart beat faster.”

He stared incredulously at her, demanding, “What has that to do with marriage?”

Everything
, she told herself. To him, she said, “I am sorry, Dirk. I do not want you for my husband. I have already told you so.”

“Is it true you will marry Sheldon?”

She could lie and use that excuse to get out of this predicament, but she didn’t like lying just to make things easy. “Sheldon is like a brother to me. I have considered him, since my parents would like me to wed him, but I will reject his suit, too.”
And he will be delighted
, she added to herself,
for he thinks of me as a sister, too, and feels just as uncomfortable with the thought of a marriage between us as I do
.

“You will have to choose someone, Kristen. Every man along the fjord has asked for you at one time or another. You should have been wed long ago.”

This was not a pleasant subject for Kristen, since she knew her situation better than anyone, and there was not a single man along the river that she wanted to marry. She wanted a love like her parents had, but knew that eventually she would have to settle for less than that. She had been postponing it for several years now by rejecting all suits, and her parents had let her because they loved her. But she could not continue to do so indefinitely.

She became angry with Dirk for reminding her of her plight, which had been ever present in her mind for the last year. “Whom I choose will not concern you, Dirk, for it will not be you. Turn your mind to finding another, and please do not bother me again.”

“I could take you, Kristen, and force you to wed me,” he warned her softly. “Because you have turned down so many offers, your father could well give you to me after I ruin you for another. It has been done before this way.”

It was a possibility. Of course her father would beat him near to death first. But if Dirk still lived after that, she just might be given to him to wed. The fact that she would no longer be a maiden would have to be considered.

Kristen scowled at him. “If my father did not kill you, then I would. Do not be a fool, Dirk. I would never forgive such a foul trick.”

“But you would be mine.”

“I tell you I would kill you!”

“I think not,” he said with too much confidence for her liking. “I think the risk would be worth it.”

His eyes were on her breasts as he said this. Kristen stiffened. She should never have stood here talking to him. She should have leaped on Torden and ridden straight away instead of grabbing her dagger to face him.

“Then try it now, curse your eyes, and I will kill you beforehand!” Kristen hissed.

Dirk eyed her weapon again and saw her raise it in just such a way that it would surely find a mark before he could get it away from her. If only she weren’t nearly as tall as he was, and had the strength to go with the height…

His own anger rose again, but it was directed now at her mother for being crazy enough to teach her daughter
a warrior’s skill. He growled low. “You will not always have that toy in your hand, Kristen.”

Her chin rose a notch. “You are a fool to warn me. Now I will be sure never to be caught alone again by you.”

He seethed at that. “Then be sure you lock your door while you sleep, too, for somehow, one day soon, I will manage to have you.”

Kristen didn’t deign to answer that threat, but stooped to pick up the clothes at her feet and toss them over her shoulder. Without taking her eyes from Dirk, she reached behind her for Torden’s reins and backed away with her horse. When she was several feet away, she gripped Torden’s silky white mane and leaped onto his back, setting him to heel instantly.

Behind her she could hear Dirk’s angry curses, but she gave no thought to that, worrying now only about wiggling into her clothes without slowing the steed, before she reached the Haardrad settlement and someone saw her. She would never be able to explain, and the truth would find her with severe restrictions placed on her freedom, and Dirk Gerhardsen in a heap of trouble.

If it weren’t for those restrictions she would confess what had happened, but she valued her freedom too much. Her father worried about her enough as it was. Her mother didn’t, for Brenna had taught her well to protect herself all those many summers when her father had sailed to trade his goods, taking her brothers with him. Brenna had taught Kristen in secret all that she had learned from her own father: the skill and cunning necessary to wield a weapon against a mightier foe, the cunning because even though Kristen was nearly half a foot taller than her mother, and her strength was greater than that of most women, she still lacked the strength of a man.

Kristen was proud of her ability to protect herself, but
this was the first time she had ever had need to test that ability. She could not openly wear weapons the way a man did, for her father would be furious if he knew what her mother had taught her. She did not want to wear weapons anyway, for she was just as proud of her femininity.

Kristen was loved and cherished and protected by her family. Besides her brother Selig, who was two years older than she, there was Eric, who had seen sixteen winters now, and Thorall, who had seen fourteen, and they were both nearly as big as their formidable father already. She also had her cousin Athol, who was only a few months older than Selig, and dozens of other second and third cousins from her father’s side of the family who would fight to the death at even the slightest insult to her. No, she was well protected and did not need to prove herself as her mother had felt the need to do when she was Kristen’s age.

Until today. If only she were sailing with Selig and his friends next week to the market towns in the East, then she wouldn’t have to worry about Dirk again—at least, not until she returned at the end of the summer. By then he could well have found himself a wife and lost the inclination to bother her again.

Alas, she had already asked to go on this trading voyage and had been refused. She was too old now to sail with so many young men, even if it
was
one of her father’s ships, with Selig in charge. If Garrick wasn’t going, then she wasn’t going and that was that. Even her teasing hint that she might meet another merchant prince like him in Birka or Hedeby and bring home a husband, had not swayed him. If he couldn’t be there to look after her as he had done the three times he had let Kristen and her mother sail with him, then, by Odin, she was staying home.

Garrick had not sailed these last eight years, prefer
ring to spend the warm summer months with Brenna, letting his friend Perrin command his ship, or Selig, now that he was old enough. Kristen’s parents would ride north, alone, and not return until summer waned. They hunted together, explored, and loved, and Kristen dreamed of a relationship like theirs for herself. But where was there a man like Garrick, who could be gentle with those he loved, but oh so dangerous and threatening to those he did not, who could make her heart beat faster the way Brenna’s did when she simply looked at Garrick?

Kristen sighed and rode for home. There wasn’t such a man, not here. Oh, there were a few gentle men, but not many, though there were many who could be and were quite dangerous. The northlands raised a hardy lot of men, fine specimens of men, but no one she had met had stirred her young heart yet. If only she could sail east with Selig. Somewhere surely there was a man fated for her, mayhap a merchant or sailor like her father—a Dane, perhaps, or a Swede, or even a Norseman from the South. They all traded in the great market towns of the East. She only had to find him.

Chapter Two

K
risten waited in the closed-off cooking area for her mother to come downstairs. Selig would be sailing in the morning at what in other parts of the world would be called the dawn, but since the sun only set for a few hours each night in the summer this far north, it could not be called dawn here.

Including Selig, there would be a crew of thirty-four men. A few of them were cousins, but mostly they were friends, younger sons and even older ones, all lovers of the sea. The cargo well would be full of the furs each man had to trade, and other items of value that had been made over the dark winter months. There were fifty-five furs that Kristen’s own family had gathered this winter, including two of the prized white polar bear skins that brought such a high price in the East.

It would be a profitable voyage for everyone, and Kristen had to try at least once more to be included. Selig had said he wouldn’t mind, but of course he found it difficult to refuse her anything. Since her father had said no three times again this last week, her mother now was her only chance to change his mind.

The servants were preparing the evening meal. Foreigners all, they had been captured on Viking raids to the southern lands and to the East. Those who served the Haardrad family were all bought, though, for Garrick had not raided since he was a youth, nor had Selig since he began sailing in his father’s stead. It was a subject that sometimes caused arguments between Kristen’s par
ents, for her mother had been just such a slave, captured by Garrick’s father and given to Garrick back in the year 851. Of course, Brenna, with her fierce pride, had never acknowledged that Garrick had owned her, and some of the tales they told of each other were of bitter struggle that was tempered by the love they now shared.

Kristen couldn’t imagine her parents at odds with each other as they once were. Oh, there were still occasional fights between them, and Garrick would ride north to cool off sometimes. But when he returned, her parents would lock themselves in their chamber for hours, and when they finally came out, neither could recall what they had fought about. All of their arguments, big and small, ended in their chamber, which was a source of amusement and teasing for the rest of the family.

Bored with waiting, Kristen was pestering Aileen for some of the sweet nuts the cook was adding to the bread she was making. Kristen cajoled her in Aileen’s Gaelic tongue, which usually worked to soften the woman. From the servants, who had come from so many different lands, Kristen had learned a variety of languages, and could speak each one like a native. Hers was an active mind, always eager to learn new things.

“Leave Aileen alone, love, before your father’s favorite nut bread becomes plain old flat bread.”

Guiltily Kristen swallowed the last of the nuts she was chewing before turning to face her mother with a grin. “I thought you would never come down. What did you whisper to Father to make him carry you upstairs like that?”

Brenna blushed prettily and with an arm about her daughter’s waist, steered her into the hall, which was empty with all the men down at the fjord loading the cargo on the ship. “Must you say things like that in front of the servants?”

“Say it? They all saw him pick you up and—”

“Never mind.” Brenna grinned. “And I did not whisper anything to him.”

Kristen was disappointed, having hoped to hear a deliciously wicked confession from her mother, who was always so outspoken on all subjects. Seeing her disappointment, Brenna laughed.

“I did not have to whisper anything to him, love. I simply nuzzled his neck. Garrick has a very sensitive spot on his neck, you see.”

“That could make him so lusty?”

“Very lusty.”

“Then you provoked him. Shame on you, Mother!” Kristen teased.

“Shame on me? When I have just spent a very pleasant hour with your father in the middle of the day, and with him so eager to get down to the landing? Sometimes a woman has to take matters into her own hands when her husband is so busy.”

Kristen made a sound that came out very much like a giggle. “And did he mind it, your taking him away from the fun of seeing the ship loaded?”

“What do you think?”

Kristen smiled, knowing very well he wouldn’t have minded at all.

Her mother did not act like other mothers, nor did she look like other mothers. Besides the raven hair from her Celtic heritage, and her warm gray eyes, she looked much too young to have full-grown children. Although she was nearly two score years, she looked much younger than that.

Brenna Haardrad was a very beautiful woman and Kristen was most fortunate to have inherited her mother’s features, though her height, tawny-blond hair, and aqua eyes she had solely from her father. She could at least thank God she wasn’t as tall as her father and
brothers. Brenna had often done so, although here in the North, Kristen’s unusual height was not the problem it might have been elsewhere, for the Norsemen were either as tall as or taller than she. In Brenna’s own land, though, it would be a definite disadvantage, for Kristen would be as tall as some men, but taller than most.

“Surely you were not waiting on me just to ask me impertinent questions,” Brenna said now.

Kristen looked down at her feet. “I was hoping you might have a few words with Father now that he is in such a good mood, and ask him—”

“If you can sail with your brother?” Brenna finished for her, shaking her head. “Why is this voyage so important to you, Kristen?”

“I want to find a husband.” There, she had said what she couldn’t say earnestly to her father.

“And you do not think you can find one here at home?”

Kristen gazed into the gentle gray eyes. “There is no one I love here, Mother—not the way you love Father.”

“And you have considered everyone you know?”