The Warlord's Wife (23 page)

“I have been blessed with twin sons three months past, Valto.”

“Ah, that would explain your”—rudely, he stared at her chest—“fine form.” His smile broadened, revealing his crooked, yellowing teeth.

“Will you sit and take refreshment?” Lida asked.

“Aye, gratitude, sister.” They stepped up to the head table, Valto rubbing shoulders with her, Hök hovering close behind.

“And are we expecting the jarl to join us?” Valto arched his brow and smiled in a manner suggesting he already knew the answer.

“Nay,” she answered. “Jarl Magnus is presently away serving the king. Forgive me,” Lida said, turning toward Hök. “I failed to make proper introductions. This is the jarl’s brother, Hök Tuisku.

“Hök, this is my . . . this
was
my brother-in-law, Valto Lyyski,” she said.

Valto ignored the introduction. “And hello, little flower. This must be Katia.” The hair on Lida’s arms stood up, her body on full alert. Alarm bells rang out in her head.

Lida pulled her daughter into her side.”Katia, this is your father’s half brother, your uncle.”

Valto squinted at her daughter, leaning over to capture her chin, but Katia stepped behind Hök and Lika growled at him. He straightened up and said, “Father will be well pleased with the way she turned out. She carries a striking resemblance to Urho.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lida said. “Is that why you are here?”

“Aye. Father’s dying wish is to right past wrongs. I have come to give your husband this.” An emaciated servant scurried up the dais steps and handed Valto a scroll. “I told you I would fix things and return you to where you belong.” He leaned closer and whispered, “You should have waited for me.”

Lida pushed down the rising bile in her throat. “Katia, please go above stairs and check on your brothers for me.” Lida waited, watching her daughter and Lika disappear up the stairs. When they were out of sight, she snatched the scroll Valto held in his hand.

“That is for your magistrate, Lida. Women are not permitted.” Valto reached to take it back, but Hök stepped out in front of Lida, blocking him.

She quickly scanned the scroll. It was an order from the bishop of Turku instructing Magnus to return the property of Chief Rein Lyyski’s: his granddaughter, Katia Lyyski. The bishop of Turku had signed the writ and added the seal of the overseer of Finland. Lida crumpled the document, about to tear it apart.

Axel stilled her hand. “Friherrinna, these orders are for me.”

“Axel, this is a lie. Chief Lyyski never claimed Katia. In fact, he disowned her when he disowned me. This warrant is a fraud, and I will not let you be fooled by this trickery.” She stepped around him and addressed Valto. “What is the meaning of this? You and your family rejected her. She is Magnus’s daughter now. You cannot simply change your mind after so long.”

“Aye, but we can and we have,” Valto said. “The chief mourns his eldest son still and would have his grandchild by his side before he leaves this world for the next.”

“When my husband returns, he will decide when Katia will visit her grandfather. Until Jarl Magnus returns, I must inform you, Valto, that you are no longer welcome to reside under this roof.”

“Tsk, tsk, Lida.” Valto wagged his finger lazily at her, not angry, but mocking. He stepped closer. “I have risen far above my father. Allow me to enlighten you. Your husband, as the jarl of Norrland, is subject to his excellency the bishop of Turku. And the bishop appointed me his emissary, assuring me protection within the jarl’s fortified walls.”

“You are the bishop’s emissary?” Her tone simmered with restrained rage. “You are not even Christian.”

Leering at her, Valto replied, “Such slander, my dear sister. Lylasku converted. I brokered peace by reforming my heathen tribe and converting all to the holy sacrament, including my father. As a sign of goodwill, the bishop has assigned me this honored title.”

“Hakon,” she said, summoning him. “Would you escort our guests from Lylasku to the barracks? I’m sure you can see to their comfort there. They will be departing at first light.” Lida turned, preparing to take her leave, her head swimming in confusion.

“Friherrinna,” Axel said loudly for all to hear. “By order of his excellency, Katia Lyyski will be departing with the Lylasku envoy.”

Lida whipped around and stared at the four men before her. Hakon, Axel, Casper, and Arrtu all stood shoulder to shoulder with hard expressions of contempt on their faces. Arne and Riku, who stood to the side, were shifting their eyes, appearing lost as to what was happening.

She summoned all her conviction and said, “My daughter is not going anywhere, orders from the bishop or naught—”

“She is not your daughter, Lida!” Valto shouted, his anger erupting, stomping his foot like a child throwing a tantrum. “She belongs to her father’s house, as the church law clearly states. She has no protection here. She will be returned to the people you stole her from when you ran away from Lylasku in search of a new husband.” Valto took a step toward her.

Hök moved quicker and blocked his way. “Take one more step,” he said in a low, growling challenge. Hakon and Axel shifted their attention to Hök and began to move in on him. Instantly battle lines were drawn, sides taken, Lida and Hök outnumbered.
What in heavens was happening?

“Axel, Hakon,” Lida said, biting out their names. “My husband has claimed Katia. You were present when he introduced her to the king as his daughter.”

“He introduced her as
your
daughter,” Hakon replied, not turning his threatening gaze away from Hök.

“As Tronscar’s appointed magistrate,” Axel said, “and by order of the Holy Roman Empire, I must uphold the law and return the girl to her rightful father. Her grandfather, the chief of Lylasku.” Axel continued to glare at Hök.

“Well . . . that is a shame for you, Axel.” Scrambling for words or for what to do, Lida tried to hold Axel’s attention, fearing it was only seconds before a brawl broke out. “For your misjudgment, you shall be replaced as magistrate the moment the jarl returns.” She reigned in her shrill pitch. “Axel, I beg you to think carefully. A magistrate is to follow the law, yes, but also to weigh it with sound judgment and shrewdness. You do not know this man. The safer course is to send word to the jarl. Send the fastest ship and the jarl will be here in less than a week,” she said. Her voice was calm, but nerves continued to fill her lungs with ice.

“A sennight!” Valto sputtered. “It will take over a sennight to locate Jarl Magnus and a fortnight or more for him to return. That is, if he is interested in returning to deal with your bastard child. The order from the bishop is clear. If the jarl wishes, he may take it up with the bishop. Until then, the girl is mine.” Valto smiled sadistically at Lida.

“Go above stairs,” Hök said under his breath. He gently nudged Lida to the side.

“Nay, not without you,” she whispered. “I must see to my sons,” Lida said louder, to the group of men. “I will return shortly and we will continue this discussion,” she said, as boldly as she could manage, then quickly retreated up the stairs. Her trembling increased with every step.

Hök grabbed her by both arms and steadied her.

“Shh, you did well,” he whispered. “These walls have eyes. Catch your breath. Control your mind.” He sounded like her mother. “Be not the wounded animal in flight. The wolves will smell your fear.”

She closed her eyes and let Hök’s mighty hands transform into Magnus’s. They moved quickly down the corridor, stopping outside the nurse’s chambers.

“Breathe, Lida.”

“How can you be so calm?” she blurted out in a rush of conflicting emotions. “There are half a dozen men below that want to harm my daughter. Who want to harm you, from the look of it. How can I be calm? What is happening? You saw the way Valto looked at Katia!”

She blinked repeatedly, attempting to push back the tide of tears. She looked out of the expensive Byzantium glass window at the end of the long corridor. Her husband had constructed an impenetrable, luxurious fortress, but how could it protect her children if the enemy walked through the front door and slept under the same roof?

Leaning against the stone wall with his arms crossed and hands tucked under them just as her husband did, Hök said calmly, “’Tis naught about Katia. She is the bait. ’Tis you they want.” Her brother-in-law looked her straight in the eye. “They want you out of this house and they will not stop until you and yours are dead or gone.”

Lida shook her head. She did not want to hear it, but her instincts had brought her to the exact conclusion. “Why? What have I ever done? My God, what do I do?” With her back pressing into the wall, she sank to the floor. Hök picked her up under the arms and raised her back up.

“What we do is not fall apart.” He waited for her to look at him before he continued. “You did well. You did not let them see your fear, but rather they felt your scorn. That was good.” He began pacing in short steps in front of her. “We need to evaluate whom we may still trust.

“From the Morgdor to the hill people, everyone knows that if you need use of a woman or coin you go see a woman in Bolinas,” he continued. “’Tis Klara, Lida. Did you think she would slip quietly into the role of loving grandmother after being shown to the gates? I admire you for not having a black heart, but you need to become a little more pessimistic.” He smiled sympathetically to soften the censure.

“Klara moved to Bolinas to be with her grandchildren. She—”

“Has been lining the pockets of every cutthroat she’s come across since the last time you saw her. I am too late to warn Magnus,” he said. “We do not have much time before Klara’s spies come up those steps, looking for us.”

“’Tis Katia and me they want, not you. Go. Find Magnus. I beg you. Bring him back to me.”

“Lovely, brave Lida, look at me.”

“What?” she snapped impatiently.

“We need to know who we can trust. Make your list and make it short—with facts and proof, not smiles and false words.”

Faces flashed through Lida’s head, every look, every sly smile . . . She trusted no one. “Ylva,” she said finally. “She loves my boys and was cast out by Klara and treated unkindly. She is happy here. I trust her. Tero—”

“Is with Magnus. Only list those that are here.”

She rubbed her temple. “The guards, Riku and Arne. Did you see the looks of confusion on their faces? Did you see anyone else?” He shook his head. “I have no reason not to trust Brita, Rakel, and Ragna. Tero helped me select them. They are sweet and gentle—”

“Tero is trusted. He swore a blood oath to Magnus for saving his life. He is a wise man, but he can make mistakes. Unless he is here to explain why those women are trusted, we trust no one,” her brother-in-law said.

He was right. She had come to that conclusion deep within, but she’d wanted him to tell her differently.

“What do we do?” She pushed back the useless tears that ran down her cheeks.

“We avoid a direct conflict, at least for now,” Hök said. “We wait for Magnus. He is the only one who can rescind the orders from the magistrate and unite his men. Most of the people in Tronscar see me as little more than a half-breed bastard. No one will respect my authority. And you are only a powerless woman to them.” He smiled in apology, but the words were true. He looked at her for a few seconds, hesitant about what he wanted to say next. “Have you ever seen a dog missing its bone? A good dog that loves his bone.”

“Hök, not now. This is serious.”

“Aye, ’tis, but answer me.”

“I am not a bone, and neither is Katia . . .”

“Ah, but you are. Remember the lengths to which he went to seek out his father’s remains, and the care he took in returning his wife to her family? You are more important to him than anything he has held before. He will not let you go. Magnus will burn the entire Ostrobothnia down if he must, but he will succeed. This is harsh council, Lida, but it will focus the direction in which he goes first.” He smirked in a sad sort of way. “He always wins, you know. You and Katia go to Finland, and I will take his sons . . . to a place he will know to find them,” he said.

“What?!” All the air left her lungs, left the hall, left the cursed iron castle.

He said more quietly, “Katia will be taken away. We do not have the power to stop them. None of us are safe here without Magnus, and you know that to be true. Your sons have enemies that reside below stairs. What will prevent them from coming up here? How long do you think we can last before they poison the water or food? You must go with Katia. As for your sons, think of Moses’ basket.”

“Nay,” she wept.

Hök nodded. “Have faith in your Christian tale. The Prince of Egypt’s true mother placed him in a basket and push him down the Nile, to keep him safe from the slaughter. She sent a protector to watch over him. Send your babes north, Lida, to the land of their forefathers. I will protect them. On my life, I will protect them.”

The one person she truly did trust was Hök, but here he was telling her to let Katia and herself be taken by Valto, and have her babes sent into the wilderness.

“Nay, I can’t, they need me. They are too young . . . Nay!” She crumbled again to the floor because she knew he was right.

“Klara’s agents are trying to destroy Magnus’s house.” Hök sat on the floor beside her. “They will succeed if we do not stay ahead of them.”

“There must be another way,” she whispered, wiping her tears away, trying to refocus.

“I cannot fight them all.”

Lida wept harder. She knew he was right. She knew it was the only way, but still . . . “Magnus will think me heartless, Hök. I would never . . . I cannot choose between my children. I cannot let Katia go with that monster and I cannot let our sons stay here unprotected.” She tried to breathe, to stop crying, but she could not.

“You are the furthest thing from heartless, Lida. Magnus has known this from the start. We will do what we must to protect all of your children.” Hök pulled her into a tight embrace.

***

That evening in the nursery, Lida kissed and fed her babes as she wept silently. Clutching both her sons to her chest, Lida inhaled deeply, taking in their sweet scent. Across the chamber, Hök and Ylva packed provisions. The bitter irony was that Tronscar was now the most dangerous place in the world for its precious heirs.

Her infants were a part of her, extensions to her arms. It would be easier to sever her limbs than to release one of her sons. Her breasts throbbed with the thought of letting them go, even just for an hour, a day.

“’Tis time, Lida. We must go while these few hours of darkness conceal us,” her brother-in-law whispered.

“Just a little while longer.” She pulled both sleeping bundles a little closer.

“We must be across the river before they are discovered missing, so our scent will be lost from the trackers. This is our only chance, Lida.” Hök crouched down before her, trying to force her to look at him. She kissed both babes, nodded her head, and turned her face away from them and into the pillow. She could not look at them as he took them away.

Hök touched her shoulder. “They will be safe and returned to your arms in a fortnight. Hold your faith in Magnus as I do, sister.”

“How will he know how to reach you, to tell you to bring my sons back to me once it is safe?”

“If he knows his sons are with me, he knows where to find them. I have placed a few small markings and symbols for him to find in his chamber. He will be the only one to see them and he will know. You keep strong for Katia. Keep safe and hold on.” Her brother-in-law disappeared through the secret passageway built into the wall of Magnus’s chamber.

The tunnel led out to the secondary stables. As they had made their plan, Hök had explained that only three stonemasons, Magnus, and himself knew of the tunnel’s existence. The people of Tronscar were under the impression that the stonemasons who had been brought from Crete were to chisel hearths. Upon the completion of the secret passageways, the masons were paid handsomely and returned home. Her husband’s secret planning did not bring Lida comfort. He had foreseen treachery, and that knowledge left her with an ominous feeling for the events yet to come.

Adorned in their very best silk gowns and dripping in jewels and gold, Katia and Lida waited at the bottom of the stairs before anyone could be sent above stairs to fetch them. Brita and Rakel waited outside of the children’s chambers and assured Lida that they would keep the household away from the nursery for as long as possible. Food and water would be fetched and used as if Ylva were caring for the babes behind the closed doors. If it was discovered that the babes were missing, Lida had instructed them to say that Ylva had stolen them and had once spoken of going to Lapphyttan to start a new life.

That was the plan anyway. Whether Brita, Ragna, and Rakel were loyal enough to comply would remain to be seen. At least by then, Hök, Ylva, and the twins would be safely hidden in the mountains.

Valto, that yellow-toothed rodent, approached them with open arms, smiling from ear to ear. “Lida, radiant as ever. My lovely niece, you have your mother’s hair.” He touched Katia’s braids. Lika snarled.

Bitterly swallowing her hatred, Lida said softy, “The dog does not like anyone touching my daughter, Valto. Be forewarned—she bites.”

“You risk your child with that?” Valto turned his nose up at the dog.

“Lika only bites bad people,” Katia said, bravely glaring at her uncle. Lida had not explained the entire situation to her daughter because she had not wanted to frighten her. But Katia was sadly wise beyond her years, and had quickly understood that her uncle was a person Lika was bound to bite.

“Hakon, have the ravens and ships been dispatched?” Lida asked sharply.

“We have only just—” The steward started to make his pathetic attempt at an excuse.

“Send them now. The sooner word reaches my husband, the sooner this will all be resolved.” Lida turned and focused on Valto. “I prayed long and hard last night and have come to conclude that I do wish to have words with Chief Rein and your mother. I am most anxious to speak with them, in fact. Retributions, I believe, will taste very sweet indeed.” She spoke haughtily, hoping to give a false impression as to why she had so abruptly changed her mind.

“Magistrate,” she said, turning to Axel, “as friherrinna of Norrland, I intend to take my children to visit our neighbors across the Gulf of Bothnia. When the jarl returns, advise him as to where he may retrieve his family.”

“You intend to take your sons, Friherrinna?” Axel glanced over to Hakon. Clearly neither one had anticipated this reaction. “I cannot permit them to leave. The jarl instructed—”

“That
all
his children were to remain in residence,” Lida said, raising her chin up higher. “Aye, I am aware. Since you are sending one of his children to Finland, why not send them all? My sons are packed and prepared for travel. Their nurses will bring them down as soon as the wagons are to be loaded.”

“Nay, Friherrinna.” Axel stood before her with his arms crossed. “The heirs shall not be permitted to leave Tronscar.”

Lida pretended to appear upset and flustered. She spoke in whispers to Ragna—all part of the performance.

“Where is the half-breed?” Hakon asked, and all eyes turned to Lida once more.

“He departed,” Lida stated plainly. “He had come to ask to borrow my horse.”

“Seal the gates. I want him found,” Axel commanded his men.