Loki's Daughters (12 page)

Now, at last, Ronan had the chance to repay him, and Gunnar would have his dream fulfilled, a green land with valley and fields stretching out as far as a man could wish.

Pensive, Ronan lifted his drinking horn to his lips in a toast to their new home. He tossed back his head to swallow a big gulp of the delicious mead.

He choked as a foul brew snorted back into his nostrils.

"Aaagh!" Egil stood suddenly, his hand flung to his mouth.

Ronan darted for the doorway, jostled his way past his fellows, and dashed for the rain barrel to scoop water into his mouth.

"Salt!"

The rain barrel was also salted.

He dashed for the stream, gulping water down his gagging throat, slapping water upward to rinse flaming nostrils.

As he sat gasping on the stream bank with his men, Ronan slowly realized the other men suffered the same fate as he did.

"How did that happen?" he asked.

"On the crossing?" asked Egil, still hacking.

"But you said it was not stormy. It would take some mighty waves to break over and flood the casks. Even that I could understand, but the water barrel, too?"

It must have dawned on the rest of them at the same time it did Ronan, because nobody said a thing.

It looked like a declaration of war to him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As the morning sun threw brilliant shafts of light on the village, Arienh and Birgit stuck their heads out the door and looked around. The village sounded perfectly ordinary, with the usual sounds of men and animals. It looked perfectly ordinary, too, except that not a woman was in sight.

Unlike the other women who had fled and spent the night in the cavern, Arienh and Birgit had gone home, for they had intended from the beginning to put themselves on the front line of the confrontation. Someone had to do it.

Arienh and Birgit set off down the path.

"What do you suppose they'll do to us?" Birgit asked as they sauntered along.

"Us? You didn't do anything, Birgit."

"I am no more innocent than you, for I am just as guilty in my heart."

"But you can truly say you did nothing."

"You will say you did nothing, too, so what difference does it make?"

"Perhaps they will not make the connection."

Birgit tossed her a look of disgust.

And here they came. Ronan and Egil, with the one woman she had seen. All smiling, as if nothing had happened.

"Arienh, Birgit," called Ronan, halting directly in front of them. "We bring you our mother, Wynne." He nodded, his face lit with affection. "Mother, the child is Liam, Birgit's son."

His mother. The woman who had embraced him was his mother, although she hardly looked old enough. Her long, very dark hair, lightly streaked with grey, was looped into a large knot of the Nordic style. She was not tall, even for a Celt, and had the slimness of a very young woman.

Arienh nodded coolly to the woman, carefully keeping Ronan in view as she debated what to say to a woman who had spent her life with heathens. "Ah. You are a Celt, as he said."

The woman smiled, and in her smile Arienh suddenly saw the resemblance to her son. Yet she saw nothing to connect her to the yellow-haired Viking who stood at her other side. Perhaps his profuse beard obscured the resemblance.

"I am of the Cymry, though I have not been among them since I was a young girl." The woman proudly held out a goose egg. "My favorite goose has already laid her first egg here. I have brought it for you, to thank you for saving my son."

Arienh quickly scanned Ronan's blue eyes, which crinkled at their corners in a secret laugh. Had he already forgotten last night? Why didn’t he say something? Do something? What kind of man was he that he let such a challenge as they had given go unanswered, and laugh instead?

But even in the beginning he had tried to tease her, before he had sunk into the depths of his fever. Then, she had not minded, even knowing who and what he was. Now, he sought to beguile her even as he betrayed her kindness to him with his invasion. Well, he was a Viking. And he meant to possess her. He had even said as much.

Never. The fight had just begun.

"I did nothing," she said. "I did not expect him to live, and he brought himself in from the cold. I could not have done that."

Again she flung a glare at Ronan, whose eyes still held laughter. What was he thinking? Did he mean to say nothing about the night before?

"But I am still grateful, for he is my son. So please, take the egg. It will make a good meal for you."

Arienh resisted the urge to reach out for the egg. She had not eaten a goose egg in a long time. Birgit gaped speculatively at the egg, and in Liam's eyes she saw what could only be defined as pure lust. She hoped the boy would learn to be less obvious when he reached the age to lust after women instead of food.

"Perhaps you should keep the egg, in case there are no more."

"Oh, she is a good layer, have no fear. There will be many a new gosling soon. We will soon have a new flock for you. Come, perhaps we can talk while the men repair your roof."

"The roof? I did not ask-"

"But nay, we did promise," Ronan replied.

His eyes sparkled with hidden merriment. She hated that about him, hated the incredible blueness of his eyes that was brighter than the warmest day of summer.

And he did what he pleased, took what he wanted, ignoring her objections. Arienh could only watch as Egil led men to swarm up ladders over the aging thatch. Bundles of osiers were passed up to yellow-haired men who wove them in place. Inside the cottage, Ronan poked upward with a pole to indicate holes.

Arienh seethed. She didn't want him to be nice to her. It was all a ploy to gain their good will while taking the last of what was theirs.

And not a word had been said about the mead, as if it had had no effect whatsoever. Well, let them pretend. She knew what she had seen last night. From the cover of underbrush, she had watched the Vikings rush for the stream and cleanse their assaulted mouths.

That was just the beginning. She would make him regret coming to her valley. And this Wynne, this Celtic woman who was no Celt. All right, she would talk with her, even accept her egg. But she would tell her nothing of any importance.

Wynne helped her lay cloths over the furnishings to protect them from the debris that dropped from the thatch as the men worked, while Birgit and Liam covered the loom and the spun wool that awaited weaving. Arienh worked in silence, determined not to converse unless she must. Yet she nearly burst with questions. This woman would be one who knew about these men, and she was a Celt. Why not ask her?

She glanced at Birgit, who responded with a questioning look. Birgit would follow her lead. Arienh decided to probe cautiously. "Is your husband not with you, Wynne?"

"Aye. Gunnar." The woman studied the thatch, looking wistful." He is not well. Although he does much better, these days, I cannot leave him for long."

"Do you not fear the change in climate for him?"

"It is not so different from the Green Isle. But he will not get well. And he longs for land of his own before he dies."

"This is our land," Arienh objected.

"But you are few and there is enough to share. They thought at first they would go up into the hills where the Celts do not go, for that is land like many of them from the North know. But there is room here."

Perhaps, then, if they could not persuade the Vikings to leave, they might be able to talk them into taking over the mountains instead. But Arienh decided save that argument for another time. "Father Hewil tells us that the Vikings take the old and weak out into the wilderness to die."

A dark cloud of memory seemed to pass over Wynne’s face, and for a moment, the woman was silent. "It is done, sometimes. It is part of what they believe, that sometimes a life should end. Life and death are much the same to them. But I do not think Gunnar will go."

Shudders ripped through Arienh as Birgit shifted her gaze down to the basket of wool at her feet. It must be true.

It had been little more than a sennight since the Viking had offered her his dagger to kill him. But he had lived, when he had expected to die in freezing agony. Would that cause him to see things differently? Or would he still see Birgit as useless?

And how could she know without risking Birgit’s life? She couldn’t take that chance.

***

"Ready? He's coming."

"Which one?" Selma asked.

"How should I know?" retorted Elli. "It makes no difference, anyway. Go on, swing. Yell."

Yell? Selma screeched as she swung out over the cavern's dark pit. Never mind that it really wasn't all that deep, and she had already been down in it earlier that same afternoon. It was just hanging out over the pit that made her heart leap into her throat.

Elli gave her a shove.

"Stop it, Elli." she cried out, and hooked her foot outward, perfectly serious in her intent to get back to safe footing.

Elli just grinned and gave her another shove.

"What's going on?"

Oh, good. Tanni, the handsome one. Selma thought if she had to be rescued, she'd rather it be by him. He was more like a normal man, not so huge and frightening like the other ones.

Then she recalled just what they meant to do to her rescuer.

"Oh, help me!" Elli cried to the man, and Selma thought she was not at all convincing. "Selma is trying to rescue our lamb which has fallen into the pit. And now I am trying to rescue her, for she can't go down or up on the rope."

From the darkness of the pit, the little lamb bleated as if he knew the plot.

Tanni reached out his hand and grabbed Selma's wrist to pull her and the dangling rope closer. With a swift scoop, he had both rope and Selma in his arms, and pulled her to safety. Selma sighed genuine relief as she rested her head against the rugged chest. A gentle hand rubbed affectionately across her back. She didn't mind his rumbling chuckle. Perhaps he did think her silly. He wouldn't for long.

"Thank you," she whispered, as if a whisper was all she could manage. "I don't know how we will get the little fellow out."

Tanni held the reed torch over the rim of the pit. "It is a long way down. He must be injured."

The lamb bleated pitifully.

"Perhaps," Selma told him. "But we cannot afford to lose him, as we have no rams now. We must rescue him."

Tanni's warm grin almost strutted across his face. "Well, I will get him for you."

Selma felt her own flirtatious smile fade from her face. Suddenly she didn't want to do this. But she had promised. They were depending on her.

With cocky pride, the man swung out on the rope and descended into the darkness. She held her breath as she shone the torch over the edge and watched the leather rope play between his muscular legs until he reached the rock beneath.

"The torch," he called, and Selma tossed it down to him.

His hands skimmed over the lamb, which bleated and rubbed
 
against him. "He is not hurt. How could he have fallen so far?"