A Flame Put Out (10 page)

The woman nodded, not taking her eyes from the ship. “I know, child.”

What could she say that would be of any comfort? There was nothing. Olaf was gone, his body lost to the sea. Selia leaned close to put her arms around Alrik’s aunt. “Come inside. Olaf would not want you to suffer like this.”

Hrefna sighed but didn’t make a move to rise. “I’ve been with Olaf since I was fourteen.”

“Yes.” Selia didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m not sure how to live now. What will I do without him? What use am I?”

“You are of use to me. You are of use to Alrik, and Ingrid, and Geirr. We all need you.”

Hrefna gave her a feeble smile. “I’m glad you came back to Alrik, child,” she murmured after a moment. “He wouldn’t survive this without you.”

Selia averted her gaze. “I wish I could help him,” she whispered. “I do not know what to do. He does not answer when I speak to him. He is—lost.” Olaf had been like a father to Alrik. The man had understood him. He had accepted him. Now Olaf was gone, Ulfrik was gone, and maybe Ketill as well. Alrik was all alone.

“Yes. He is. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be found. Just be patient.”

“Alrik said he stayed at Ketill’s last night. He said he asked Ketill to be his right hand man but he refused. The men are turning on him, I think.”

Hrefna pursed her lips in thought. “Ketill is angry. They all are, the loss is too fresh. But Alrik is right. Without a right-hand to side with him and speak for him when he’s not there, the men will continue to fragment.”

Selia’s stomach knotted. What happened when a war band fragmented? Would the curse of Ragnarr rear its ugly head once again?

“Did Alrik say anything about Ingrid?” Hrefna asked.

Ingrid was staying at Ketill’s to help care for her cousin Bolli. But Selia knew Alrik would not have inquired about Ingrid’s wellbeing. He barely noticed her existence. So why would Hrefna ask her this now? “No,” she replied, studying the woman.

Hrefna hesitated, then whispered, “Ingrid is with child. Ainnileas is the father.”

A nauseating sense of shifting overwhelmed Selia, as though the earth had given way beneath her. The rushing sound of her blood pounded in her ears.
No
. No, it couldn’t be. The girl was lying.

“Ingrid denied being with child,” Selia managed to choke out. She could barely breathe.

Hrefna shook her head. “Sometimes, early on, there is a little blood. And since Ingrid is barely more than a child herself, how would she know? I finally guessed myself.”

“No!” Selia cried. Alrik had already asserted he would never allow his daughter to marry Ainnileas. So, in the reasoning of the Finngalls, the only appropriate way to save face would be to kill him. A vision of the gold lion’s head in their bedchamber arose in her mind, the trophy the Hersir had collected from the man who had disrespected him. The crushing weight on her chest intensified.

She stood, clenching her fists at her sides. “We have to do something, Hrefna. Alrik will kill him!” She did a desperate calculation in her head. Was Ingrid too far along to take the draught of poison that would expel the child from her womb? She would mix the concoction herself, and force it down the girl’s throat if she had to. Anything to save Ainnileas from Alrik’s sword.

Hrefna grabbed her wrist to pull her back down. “Hush, child. Lower your voice. I’ve already thought of a solution. That is why Ingrid is with Bolli.”

Later that afternoon there was a knock at the door. Alrik was still in the bedchamber and Hrefna had gone to the barn for a moment, so Selia was alone at the loom while Geirr slept on the bench next to her. She hurried to the door so the knocking wouldn’t wake him.

Ketill stood at the door, his appearance awful, as unkempt as she had ever seen him. Hair uncombed, clothes dirty, face haggard and gray; the man looked as though he had aged much since she had seen him last.

Odin had cast his shadow over Ketill’s family just as it had Alrik’s. Selia opened the door for him. “Alrik is asleep,” she whispered. “And Hrefna is in the barn.”

“That’s just as well.” He stepped inside. “It’s you I want to speak with.”

“Me?” Selia swallowed. What could Ketill want with her?

He looked around the room. “Are we alone? No thralls?”

She nodded.

“Do you know about Ingrid?”

“Yes.”

“Alrik will kill your brother, you know that.”

Geirr began to fuss in his sleep and Selia went to him. Her hand was shaking as she rubbed the babe’s back. “I know,” she whispered. Was that what Ketill had come all the way to tell her?

He watched her intently. “I’ve half a mind to let him do it. You and your brother have been nothing but trouble. You especially—I have never seen Ulfrik in such a state as he’s in over you.”

Ketill wasn’t going to help them. “Just go away, then,” Selia hissed. “Why are you here—to see me suffer?”

“I loved your mother,” Ketill said after a moment. “I would have married her. I would have freed her and made her my wife. But she always refused. She said she could never marry a Vikinger after what we had done to her. So I kept her in thrall to me instead. I’m not proud of that.”

Selia continued to rub Geirr’s back but held her thoughts to herself. Of course her mother had turned down Ketill’s offer of marriage. It would be impossible for the woman to clench her spite with both hands if she had allowed herself any modicum of happiness.

Ketill regarded her sternly. “Whatever I do now I do for Grainne and for Ingrid. Not for you, and not for your brother. Do you understand?”

She gave him a sharp look. “So you will let Bolli marry Ingrid?”

“Yes. The girl is my blood and I will not see her shamed. Bolli will claim the babe as his. I will speak to Alrik and settle the matter. If he wants me for his right-hand man, he will give Ingrid to my son.”

Selia’s body sagged in relief as her tears spilled over. “Thank you, Ketill.”

He held his hand up to silence her. “No, do not thank me. Understand the gift of your brother’s life is only for Grainne. Not for you. From this moment forth I wash my hands of your troublesome family. My debt to your mother has been paid.”

Chapter 10

The seasons shifted again and the darkness of winter descended over the farmstead. Eithne’s stories of a Finngall land of ice and endless night finally rang true. A brief appearance of the sun, little more than a frosty twilight. A tease of morning that never arrived. The near-constant darkness was unsettling, and Selia craved the return of summer.

Surprisingly, Alrik had agreed to the marriage of Bolli and Ingrid without an argument, and so Hrefna had begun the preparations for a quick wedding. Winter was the wrong season for a marriage, but it could not be helped in this case. Ingrid’s child would be born in the spring. A winter wedding was necessary to avoid a bastard birth.

Bolli was still unable to sit a horse. But to be brought to the Hersir’s farmstead in a sleigh, like a woman, would have been unthinkable. To be carried through the snow and into the house, a further emasculation. So Hrefna decreed the family would travel to Ketill’s house for the wedding to take place there.

And so in the icy darkness of a midwinter morning, the thralls loaded Ingrid’s substantial dowry onto a sleigh. They added food and supplies for the wedding feast until the sleigh groaned under the weight. Once the packing was complete, Selia and Hrefna climbed into the sleigh.

Two male thralls sat up front to guide the horses, with Keir between them. Ostensibly, she was being brought along to help Ketill’s thralls prepare and serve the food. But since Selia was heavy with child, she knew Hrefna felt it didn’t hurt to have another knowledgeable female along in case the babe decided to come at Ketill’s farmstead.

The woods were bitterly cold, enough to draw the moisture from Selia’s eyes and nose, and make each breath a painful choke that burned her lungs. She was dressed in her warmest gown as well as a heavy wool and fur overcoat that Hrefna had made for her, with her blue cloak over all. Her legs were encased in thick wool stockings, her boots were stuffed with straw, and she had a fur muff for her hands. Selia felt like a tick about to burst, but even with all the layers she was still freezing.

Once she had settled in the sleigh, Alrik tucked several large furs around her, grumbling all the while about Selia’s willful nature and innate stubbornness. She did her best to ignore him. Hrefna had warned that her nephew’s foul moods increased during the winter darkness, and the amount of ale he drank only exacerbated his short temper.

Alrik had wanted her to stay home for the sake of the babe, but Selia had argued and pleaded with him until he had finally given in. She had not been away from the farmstead in ages. She had almost two full moons remaining until the babe was born, and faced a long, monotonous winter at home. It was unfair to force her to stay behind at the farmstead with Geirr and the thralls while everyone traveled on an exciting journey. Why should Alrik and Hrefna enjoy themselves at Ingrid’s wedding while Selia was penned in by the walls of the longhouse, listening to the wolves howl in the darkness outside?

She shivered as Alrik tucked the furs around her. “You are an obstinate woman, Selia,” he groused. “Too pig-headed for your own good. If you weren’t carrying my child I would put you over my knee.”

She smiled at him through her chattering teeth. If she wasn’t carrying his child he wouldn’t be trying to force her to stay home and miss the wedding. “I will be fine, Alrik. You will see.”

Hrefna waved him away with an impatient hand. “Enough. Stop fussing like a mother hen,” she said, which only made Alrik’s expression darken. “You’re going to be late to your own daughter’s wedding.”

Hrefna had been adrift since the death of Olaf. A woman who needed to be needed, without the sense of purpose she obtained as Olaf’s wife, she was lost. Although Selia had done her best to step in as the mistress of the house, it was obvious she couldn’t fill the hole vacated by such a strong woman as Hrefna. Only when her nephew had agreed to the marriage of Bolli and Ingrid had she begun to show some interest in life again. The planning of a wedding was just too tempting to resist.

Selia was certain Hrefna’s wellbeing was the real reason Alrik had agreed to the marriage. He wanted Ketill as his right-hand man, to be sure, but he wanted his aunt’s happiness even more.

Alrik mounted his horse, glaring down at Hrefna and Selia. He’d flung a heavy overcoat on under his cloak as well, made of black wool and leather with fur trim, and wore a fur hat that extended over his ears. He sat tall and proud on his magnificent stallion, his lips and cheeks as red as his cloak from the cold. He looked the part of the Hersir again—handsome and virile, a man in command. She met his blue eyes and couldn’t suppress a grin.

As his horse danced in the snow and snorted out a stream of frosty breath, Alrik pursed his lips at Selia. “Only a fool smiles when it is this cold,” he informed her. “It will be a long journey. We’ll see if you’re still smiling when we get there.”

The trip to Ketill’s would have normally been an easy one by horse, but the weather and the heavily-laden sleigh added to their traveling time. Even through the furs, the bitter wind bit at Selia’s face and froze the tears it drew from her eyes. The sun made its brief appearance and she was able to at least enjoy the scenery for a while. The watery dawn rose over the blanket of white, cold and austere. The branches of the black trees overhead creaked in the wind as the traveling party picked their way through snowdrifts in search of high ground.

A wolf howled in the distance, causing the hackles to rise on Selia’s neck. She shuddered and Hrefna patted her thigh reassuringly under the furs. “Not long now, child.”

As the sun began to set, they crested a hill and Selia finally saw Ketill’s house below. She had been to his farmstead only once before, when they returned from Ireland, but had never been inside the dwelling. The farmstead consisted of a small longhouse, about the size of Ulfrik’s, with a few dilapidated outbuildings behind it. It didn’t look overly welcoming, but nevertheless was shelter from the cold.

Alrik dismounted, then helped Hrefna and Selia from the sleigh. He left the unpacking to the thralls and escorted the women to the door, just as it was thrown open by a female slave carrying a slop bucket. The woman stopped in surprise. Her eyes lingered on Selia for a moment before she lowered her gaze to the ground.

“They have arrived,” the slave called within. She stepped aside and held the door open, and they entered Ketill’s house.

Alrik ducked through the doorway, but even fully inside the longhouse, he could barely stand up straight. The rafters were just above his head. Arranged much as Ulfrik’s house had been, it boasted one narrow room with benches on both sides and a large hearth in the middle. At the far end of the room was the smaller cooking hearth, near which was set up a loom and a table.

A crowd of people already congregated inside; Ketill, Skagi, Bolli, Ingrid, and even Bjorn the blacksmith. There were two thralls in addition to the woman who had just gone outside, both males. They looked similar enough to be father and son.

With the three thralls the traveling party had brought along with them, there would be more than a dozen people packed into this modest dwelling. None of the outbuildings on the farmstead looked to be slave quarters, so apparently Ketill’s thralls slept in the main house. Selia politely refrained from counting the benches to see if there would be enough room for everyone to sleep.

“Hersir.” Ketill approached Alrik. “I’m glad to see you made it safely through the snow.” He clasped Alrik’s arm, then bent to kiss Hrefna on the cheek. To Selia he gave only a closed-lipped smile. “I’m surprised you let her make the trip,” he said to Alrik over her head.

Alrik frowned. “Yes. Let’s hope my son isn’t born in a snowbank.”

Selia turned to the hearth, where Bolli reclined on a bench and Ingrid sat next to him. They were whispering about something. Selia pulled her hands from her fur muff to warm them at the fire. Ingrid scowled at her, but Selia ignored the hateful girl and instead focused her attention on Bolli. It was his willingness to marry his cousin that had in all likelihood saved Ainnileas’ life, after all.

“Bolli,” she began, “Alrik told me you are able to walk again.”

The boy faced her, wincing a bit. “Yes,” he nodded. I’ve been using a cane. It is a little easier.”

She smiled. “I am so happy you are all right.”

Ingrid’s scowl deepened. “Just because he can walk doesn’t mean he can fight,” she snapped. “Or are you too stupid to know that?”

Selia refused to be baited. The girl was angry, and with good reason. She carried the child of a man she loved but couldn’t wed, and was being prodded into a marriage she didn’t want as a result. And it couldn’t help matters that Ingrid was reminded of Ainnileas every time she looked at Selia.

Ingrid was wearing a new gown, cut a bit loose so her condition wasn’t obvious. But her breasts were fuller, her lips were fuller, and the color was high in her cheeks. She wouldn’t be able to hide her belly for much longer, and she was too far along to be able to marry an unsuspecting man and trick him into thinking the babe was his. Bolli was her only option. The girl should stop her ranting and be grateful she had someone who was willing to marry her at all.

The child in Selia’s belly kicked, hard, and she had to sit down on one of the benches to catch her breath. Selia grew suddenly hot, and she pulled off the cloak and overcoat and fanned herself with her hand.

Ingrid snorted. “You’ve gotten very fat. I suppose we’ll need to lock the pantry or we’ll have nothing left.”

Selia gritted her teeth. There was only so much she could take. She opened her mouth to respond just as Hrefna came over. “My dear.” The woman embraced Ingrid. “You look lovely. Is that a new gown?”

Selia chimed in. “Yes, Ingrid, it does look new. Have your other gowns grown too small already?”

“Bitch,” Ingrid mouthed at Selia around her aunt’s head. Selia merely bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile.

Hrefna took Ingrid’s hand and led her behind the curtain that had been erected along the far side of the longhouse. The girl needed to finish her wedding preparations. Selia settled in more comfortably next to Bolli. He was a handsome boy who must have favored his mother more than he did Ketill. He had wavy brown hair and blue-gray eyes, and only the faintest trace of a moustache. He looked very young, and very nervous.

How must Bolli be feeling about this marriage? Eydis, Ingrid’s mother, had been Ketill’s half-sister, the product of their father’s second marriage after Ketill’s mother had died. Although Ingrid and Bolli weren’t quite full cousins, they nevertheless had the blood of a common grandfather flowing through their veins. They were as close as brother and sister. The prospect of joining as husband and wife could not be appealing for either of them.

“Bolli.” She met the boy’s gaze directly. “Thank you.”

Bolli flushed, looking a bit uncomfortable. “It’s all right. I do care for her.”

Before Selia could say any more, the sound of a drum filled the room. One of the thralls, the younger male, sat on a bench across the hearth and held the drum in his crossed legs. His hands moved expertly as his head nodded in time. The beat grew louder, quickening Selia’s pulse.

The slave made eye contact with Bolli and smiled. Bolli sat up, grunting with the effort, and shook his head at him. “No, Hakon,” he said. He seemed annoyed, and a little embarrassed. The interaction reminded Selia of how Ainnileas always began a tune on his whistle and then expected her to sing.

The behavior of Ketill’s slaves had struck her as very relaxed and informal, nothing like the demeanor of Alrik’s slaves. The Hersir’s thralls did their best to stay in the shadows and not be noticed. They looked terrified whenever he spoke directly to them. But these three slaves of Ketill’s appeared almost as though they were part of his family. And until very recently, this little family had included a fourth slave.
Grainne
.

Hakon shrugged and looked over at Bjorn, as the beat of his hands on the drum intensified. Bjorn was tapping his toes as he stood in conversation with Alrik and Ketill. The blacksmith hesitated for a moment, then Ketill laughed and pushed him forward. Bjorn finally nodded at the boy with a smile.

Bjorn and the slave boy began to sing at the same time. Bjorn’s deep voice and the thrall’s higher tone complemented each other’s beautifully. They followed each other note for note, the only difference in the pitch. Selia sat spellbound as she listened. She had never heard anything quite like it.

The song told the story of an eager bridegroom and a shy young bride, and the ridiculous lengths the bridegroom had to take to finally coax the bride into the wedding bed. The words to the song were quite bawdy, and Selia blushed as she met Alrik’s gaze across the room. His eyes twinkled at her as he laughed and stomped his foot to the song. She hadn’t seen him look this relaxed and happy in quite some time, and her heart contracted in her chest as she watched him. Maybe he would be all right, after all.

The drumming came faster as they neared the end of the song. The slave was flushed with exertion as he drummed and sang. He was a handsome lad, thrall or not, with wheat colored hair cropped close to his head, and a pleasing bone structure. He was slight of build, with slim, elegant hands and no facial hair, but nevertheless appeared to be a bit older than Bolli.

The song ended with a whoop. The Finngalls clapped and stomped, calling for more. The thrall laughed as he launched into another song, with a less intense beat. Selia again turned to finish her conversation with Bolli.

But she stopped as she saw the boy’s pale face. There was an indescribable expression on his features, a mixture of anger, sorrow, and . . . shame. Why was he so upset? Had the words of the song embarrassed him? No, his troubled appearance seemed more to do with the slave boy than the song itself.

She observed him covertly. The emotion on Bolli’s face, coupled with the strange interaction between him and the thrall when the boy started to drum, almost seemed as though the two were lovers. Selia had heard of such things, of course, but only in the way of village boys slinging insults at each other.

When newly-wed and traveling on the dragonship, it had become apparent that children were not the only ones who exchanged these types of insults. One night when the men were drinking heavily, the slurs had gone too far. One man had drawn his weapon on another, and Alrik was forced to intervene.

Ulfrik had been hesitant to translate these ugly terms when she’d asked for an explanation. Apparently, to the Finngalls, there was no greater dishonor than for a man to serve in the female role when lust existed between two men.