Loki's Daughters (5 page)

His heart raced. His body jerked. His eyes popped open.

Startled, the Celtic girl, her golden hair dried into coiling ropes, raised her head and frowned with an odd interest. Perhaps she thought him ready to depart the world at last.

With a shudder, he drew the girl tightly against him, for his skin was warm but the chill still ached deep within his bones. He shook away the dream that mixed with pain and cold and his confused medley of wants and hopes and fears.

She had grown so beautiful. The moment he saw her, he knew he'd found her again, and in the sudden shock had forgotten they were mortal enemies. To have dreamed so long, to end like this.

He did not want to die. He wanted to live. He wanted to hold her in his arms forever. Never mind that she did not remember him. If only the gods would favor him with more than these few moments of pity and comfort she gave him.

"You are in pain?" she asked, her hand seeking his forehead.

She did not fool him with her tenderness, for he knew the hatred her kind had for his. She only sought to shield her family from danger. Yet he would take what she gave.

"It is not so bad," he said. "I did not want to sleep."

"Your dreams trouble you."

"'Tis Hel that calls me."

"Hell is where all heathens go."

"Hel," he said, knowing she misunderstood him. "'Tis Loki's daughter, and she opens the Afterworld to me."

"I thought Vikings went to Valhalla when they died."

He smiled at her, drinking in the night-darkened beauty of her eyes, as if somehow he might take the memory of them with him into death. "If the Valkyries choose them. But they do not choose a man who has been bested by a small Celtic girl. So 'tis Hel who calls me. But I will not go. I will stay with you."

Ignoring the wrenching pain, he rose onto his elbow and leaned over her. Her dark green eyes widened with fear and her body constricted, but he didn't care. His palm cupped her cheek, and his lips descended to capture hers as he trapped her with his body. At her startled gasp, he parted her lips and invaded, exploring, memorizing, savoring. He drew her snugly against him, touching from chest to thigh. Her squirming ceased. Perhaps she accepted his advances only out of fear, but if he must die, he wanted the taste of her on his lips when he went.

"Stop it," she whispered, pushing against him, and she threw a wild glance at her sister's bed.

He knew what she was thinking. It was not the kiss that disturbed her, as much as that her sister might see it. And he would cherish that as much as the kiss.

"You are mine," he whispered.

"Never."

"You belong to me. Never forget that, my Arienh."

"Then I have only to wait until tomorrow."

"Aye, if it is so. But if not, then you are mine. I will not let you go."

Agony re-gathered, swamping him, rolling over him in great, dark, twisting swells. He fought, a drowning man against a violent sea of pain and oblivion, feeling his life force slip from him as surely as if he slid beneath the waves. He fell flat against the wool pallet, still gripping her tightly, lest she escape him before Hel's clutch pulled him down to the Afterworld. With the easing of the tearing pain, his eyes closed and an unexpected contentment engulfed him.

CHAPTER THREE

"Well? Is he dead?"

"Nay. Unless dead men smile."

"What would he have to smile about, Arienh?"

Arienh caught the sharp edge of Birgit's taunt like a lash across the face. She doubted Birgit had slept any more of the night than she had, and her sister's keen ears had surely heard all that had occurred between her and the Viking. "Perhaps he is merely happy to know he is alive."

She disengaged from the Viking's arm and rose off the narrow pallet, stiff from remaining so still for so long. Although he had maintained his fierce hold on her throughout the night, he now lacked the strength to stop her.

He followed her with his eyes as if she deserted him, with a gaze that rippled a shiver on her arms. Turning away and grumbling to herself, she tackled the dried tangles of her hair with her bone comb. Never before had she lain down at night with her hair in such disarray, and now she paid the penalty.

Her gaze landed guiltily on the wooden tablet she used to keep track of passing time. In all the time since she had been appointed keeper of the stones, she had never failed to record a day, but the Viking had so distracted her from her obligation that she had forgotten it. But if she did not make a mark for every day, she could easily lose count, for she could not go to the stone circle very often. From the time the circle had been built by men now long forgotten, no keeper had ever failed his duty, and she did not mean to be the first. She picked up the slab and scraped a mark on it with the point of her knife.

The Viking still stared, as if his eyes held her in an eternal grip. Her heart tripped twice as his gaze roamed over her like a dangerous caress. She turned away, looked back, glanced down again at her tablet, until she could no longer bear his silence.

"I wonder where your friends are, Viking. Will they come looking for you?"

Despite his weakness, a sort of triumph gleamed in his eyes, as if by his very will he had forced her to speak. "They will not know where to look. And when the tide is high in the estuary, they will sail back to the Green Isle."

"Without you? Why?"

"That is what I told them to do. We did not come to raid."

"Why, then?"

"I told you, I came to see you, Arienh."

"You lie."

The Viking smiled.

Arienh tied her knife to her waist cord, then tossed her shawl over her shoulders, grumbling to herself that it was still damp. "I shall see for myself where the others are, and this time, soon enough to raise the alarm."

"Tell them to come for me, then."

As if he thought she might. "You said they would be gone."

"When the tide is high."

"I will not go near them. You will have to do without them, unless you plan to join them on your own."

"No one need fear that," he replied ruefully.

 
She felt a featherlike tug at her skirt. Liam pressed close to her side. She smiled at the boy.

"Will you come with me this morning, Liam?" she asked, but looked to Birgit for the answer.

"Aye. Please? Can I go?" The boy already bounced in his eagerness.

Birgit's pale green eyes held an odd, un-interpretable message as they often did, but her sharp nod was decisive. Liam could go.

Arienh opened the door and breathed relief when she saw no horde of marauders descending the slopes beyond the field. The sky was clear and bright, patched with bulbous clouds that spelled another coming storm. New rivulets cut through the fields, and filled the swollen stream with muddy brown energy, surging toward the equally distended river.

As she had expected, the river had cut a new course through the valley. Debris littered the sodden earth, interspersed with shallow standing water, glistening in the bright sun. They had survived this time, but a flood was easily as dangerous as a Viking raid, and could mean the end of Celts in this valley.

With Liam to risk, she resisted the impulse to get closer to the Vikings for a look, so she walked down the valley where the river poured between two low mounts to join the estuary. From there, she could see the great sandy banks and salt marshes that flanked the bigger river as it met the sea.

Liam bounced about like an energetic puppy, alternately speeding away from her and returning to hold her hand. Winter had cramped the boy immeasurably. Sometimes she forgot the extent of his frenetic vigor, for inside the cottage he was always quiet and kept himself useful. It was good for him to get out.

"Who is that man, Aunt?" the boy asked during one of those quieter moments when he walked beside her.

"I don't know. I did not ask his name."

"He is a Viking, isn't he?"

"Aye."

"Vikings are bad."

Arienh said nothing, feeling her throat tighten once again with the muddled mix of rage and tenderness, wishing him both dead and living. How could she explain the welling up of hatred from the very core of her being, or the way it inexplicably tangled with compassion? It was like being hot and cold, all at once.

"Is he bad, Aunt?"

"I don't know, Liam. Right now, he is hurt too badly to be any trouble."

"But will he kill us when he gets better?"

"I don't think so. He may be kinder than most of his sort."

"Is he going to die?"

"Perhaps not. It is hard to tell."

The early spring air was cold, brisk, and fresh, almost stinging as she breathed it in. Already water birds were settling into the marsh. For a while, she stood with Liam on a small hummock where they could be concealed, yet still watch the birds search for nesting places.

Beyond the marsh, still soaked from the storm, the ash trees stood like black skeletons against the crisp sky. Between flat, silty shores ran the turbulent river, and on it sailed a Viking longship with its blood red sail and swan's head prow.

"Is that his ship, Aunt?" The boy's eyes shone with the brightness that revealed his Viking kinship.

"Shh. Aye, I think it must be. Sit down behind the rushes so they will not see you."

Tension stiffened the boy's body, betraying his urge to run out onto the sand, to wave and shout to the strangers that passed in the graceful ship. Arienh watched him struggle to contain himself, and sit behind the brush as she demanded. The night before, she had noticed his fascination with the Viking and had thought it born of fear. Now she saw it was also something else.

His own kind. Liam knew he was different.

When the ship had sailed farther downstream, Arienh took Liam's hand and climbed the low hill that looked out over the Irish Sea. They watched as the ship put out to sea, going west.

"Where are they going?"

"To the Green Isle," she said, pointing. "If you look closely, you can see it, far away over the water."

"It doesn't look green to me. Why do they call it the Green Isle?"

"Because most times it looks green, from the sea. But it is winter still. Perhaps nothing is green there in winter."

"It should be the Grey Isle. Why are they leaving him, Aunt?"

"He told them not to look for him if he didn't come back."

"They shouldn't leave him. Will they come back for him?"

"Perhaps."

"Is he like my father, Aunt?"

She studied the boy's bright blue eyes, so full of hungry curiosity. Viking eyes. "Nay."

"That's good. I like him."

Arienh wished she had better answers for the boy. She wished he did not know the horrible truth of his origins. But their village was tiny, too small to keep from him what everyone else knew. Liam was her delight, and Birgit's life itself, but they could not give him what he most needed. And what he needed most was a good father, not a wretch of a raping, marauding Viking.