Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1 (18 page)

“Nei, I don’t think he
would go that far,” Madrena said. “To harm one’s kin is a grave violation of
the laws of both mortals and gods. Yet he is clearly more interested in Eirik’s
health than he should be. We have to go in for a council meeting.” The last was
said to Alaric, who nodded.

“I heard,” he said.

“You’ll have to stay
here with Eirik and tend to him.” Madrena turned to Laurel.

“But I…I don’t know
how…”

Madrena took her by the
shoulders and pinned her with her pale gray eyes. “You dragged him to safety
earlier, and you ran into the village to warn us all of an attack. You can do
this also.”

Though the thought of
having Eirik’s life in her hands terrified her, Madrena’s new confidence in her
buoyed her somewhat.

“Just keep the wounds
clean and dry. Try to get him to drink some water. I’ll see if I can get some
herbs from the village healer, though she’ll likely be stretched far too thin
as it is.”

Laurel nodded numbly.
Once Alaric and Madrena filed out of the cottage, however, her ears rang with
the silence and her heart hitched.

She turned her
attention to Eirik, who still lay limply on the large wooden table they had so
often eaten on. His normally bronzed skin looked sickly and pale in the
cottage’s dim interior. She dipped a wooden cup into the cauldron of hot water
and brought it to his side. Raising his head with one hand, she tried to pour
some of the liquid into his mouth. But the water just dribbled around his lips.

An uneasy feeling swept
over her. The hand holding up Eirik’s head felt warm. She set him down gently
and placed a hand over his forehead. The skin was unnaturally hot. Fever had
already set in.

“The attackers were
indeed Jarl Thorsten’s men.”

A ripple of unease went
through those gathering in the longhouse at Gunvald’s words.

Grimar’s father held up
his hand for silence. “We will, of course, not let this attack go unanswered.”

While some families
huddled together, muffling their cries, several warriors sent up a rumble of
furious agreement.

“Though we lost many
brave warriors, Jarl Thorsten’s men suffered for their cowardly night attack.
They have been beaten back, and two of their longships are now ours.”

The words satisfied the
soot- and blood-covered fighters but did little to comfort those who’d lost
loved ones or their homes. Grimar drummed his fingers impatiently on the back
of the Jarl’s large chair. He stood at his father’s side as a show of support
both to the Jarl and to the frightened villagers. Gunvald had assured him that
his presence, along with Eirik’s absence, would go a long way in securing
Grimar’s place as a leader in the villagers’ minds.

It was all Grimar could
do not to roll his eyes at the solemn tone his father took, or at the weeping
women and children. His people were growing soft. Those who’d died were already
dining in Valhalla with Odin. These emotional displays were an embarrassment.

Just then the bitch
Madrena stepped forward. Her eyes flickered to Grimar for a moment, the light
of defiance shining in them.

“I think you should
know who was responsible for alerting the village of the attack, Jarl.”

Grimar jerked in
surprise at Madrena’s boldness. What game was she playing, drawing attention to
herself in a council meeting?

Gunvald waved her on.

“It was Laurel, the
utlending thrall in Eirik’s keeping.” Again
,
the bitch’s eyes flicked to Grimar to watch his reaction.

It was all Grimar could
do not to curse aloud. His fingers dug into the wood of the back of the Jarl’s
chair, his knuckles turning white.

A shocked murmur
rippled through the crowd. Even his father, normally so cool and composed, sat
forward in his chair with a start.

“While we all slept,
she ran from Eirik’s cottage to sound the alarm,” Alaric, the bitch’s twin,
said, stepping to her side.

Gunvald cleared his
throat, likely to buy himself time to formulate a response. “And where is the
girl now?”

“She is tending to your
nephew, who received a very minor wound in the attack,” Alaric said, his eyes
just as sharp as his sister’s.

His father cleared his
throat again. But before he could speak, he had to bang his fist against the
arm of his chair several times to quiet the villagers. Even from the dais,
Grimar could clearly make out their murmurs.

They were actually
praising
the thrall! Some whispered that she was more Northlander than utlending, while
others openly commended her bravery.

“Then she is finally
behaving as any thrall should,” his father said loudly. “For from the beginning
she ought to have seen to her master’s needs and looked after the village’s
interests.”

Their Jarl’s less than
subtle attempt to remind them of a thrall’s proper role quieted some of the
villagers. Yet even still others continued to whisper praise for the girl.

“Go,” Gunvald said
authoritatively even as his control over the council meeting slipped. “See to
your kin and your homes. Before the first frost of fall, we will exact revenge
on Jarl Thorsten!”

An angry cheer rose at
his father’s last words, but there was little energy left for celebrating their
impending attack. The weary, overwhelmed villagers filed out of the longhouse
and into the bright sunlight.

They needed less subtle
maneuvering and more clear-cut action, Grimar thought with disdain as he
watched them shuffle like sheep from the longhouse. His eyes fell on the back
of his father’s gray-white head
,
and he had to
repress a sneer.

Once the longhouse was
empty, Gunvald stood and motioned for Grimar to follow him into his attached
private chambers.

“I warned you that the
thrall girl was getting too comfortable here!” Grimar snapped as soon as the
thick wooden door closed behind him.

Gunvald rounded on him.
“Did you have something to do with this attack? Because if you did, by the
gods, son or nei—”

“Nei, of course not,”
Grimar replied quickly. This was to be his village to rule over, so to outward
appearances
,
it wouldn’t make sense for him to
have a hand in the attack. “But it is telling, father, that your mind would
jump to such a conclusion.”

Grimar narrowed his
gaze on his father. Gunvald’s face remained still, yet apprehension flickered
in his pale eyes.

“I know what lust for
power can lead men to do,” Gunvald said carefully. “As do you.”

“And look what it has
gotten you—the Jarlship, just as you wished. Now
I
want it.” He took a
step toward his father.

Gunvald’s hand twitched
toward his belt, where his seax hung. “Is that a threat?”

“Nei, father. Not all
of us will resort to killing kin for the Jarlship,” Grimar said casually.

Gunvald’s pale blue
eyes widened. “I told you never to speak of that out loud.
Never
.” His
lips trembled as he spoke, but Grimar wasn’t sure if it was from rage or fear.

Grimar gestured around
the small chamber. “No one is here to hear the story of how you stabbed your
own brother in the back for the Jarlship, father.”

This time, Gunvald
actually drew his seax and leveled it at Grimar. Grimar only grinned.

“Finally, you
act
,”
he said. “I was wondering what it would take to get you to
do
something
rather than just plot and plan.”

“Do not toy with me,
boy,” his father said lowly, re-sheathing his seax. “You’d not be in the
position you are today without me, and you damned well won’t hold the Jarlship
without my help.”

Grimar dropped the grin
from his face, yet he smiled inwardly. He’d made his move. He’d subtly
challenged his father, threatening him with the knowledge that he had been the
one to kill Arud the Steady—and it had worked. Grimar now knew that he could
hold the information over his father, and that Gunvald would be forced to fear
and respect him.

“Regarding the girl,”
Grimar said calmly, taking a seat in one of the chamber’s large wooden chairs.
“We should have acted already. Eirik has clearly grown attached to her, but now
apparently so has the rest of the village.”

Gunvald hesitated, his
eyes wary on Grimar. Finally, he sat across from him. “We must proceed as
planned. It will undercut my authority to do aught else other than sell the
girl at the market in a few sennights’ time.”

Grimar almost shouted
that he cared little about undercutting his father’s authority, for soon enough
he would be Jarl. He bit back the exclamation, however. If he had learned
anything from his father, it was that one must always have plans of one’s own,
plans that would remain secret.

“And what of Eirik?”
Grimar said instead, clenching his teeth against his temper. “How can you be
sure that taking the girl away from him will encourage him to return his
attention to raiding in the west? What if the girl is the last thread
preventing him from challenging you?”

Gunvald shook his head,
but his brow wrinkled deeply. “He’ll forget her soon enough. Once she is gone,
he’ll grow restless and wish to return to the quest for new lands.”

Grimar snorted. “You
haven’t seen them together. You should heed my words more carefully.”

Gunvald exhaled and let
his gaze scan the thatched ceiling in thought. After a long pause, he finally
spoke. “If what you say of his growing attachment to the girl is true, then
taking her away from him will be a blow. It will weaken him, not strengthen his
drive for the Jarlship.”

Grimar ran his tongue
over his teeth in thought. “Mayhap,” he relented. Though his father’s conniving
ways usually bored him, he had to give Gunvald credit for his skill. “But why
must we ignore the obvious solution? Eirik is my competition, not the girl.”

Gunvald looked around
nervously despite the fact that they were alone. “I’ve told you already. It
would be more than coincidence if both Arud and Eirik met with accidents. You’d
draw suspicion onto both of us. Heed me, Grimar,” he said, leaning forward. “I
know what it is to rule in the shadow of a dead man. You won’t find the
comparisons between you and the tragic hero Eirik would become in death very
favorable.”

Grimar cursed. His own
father thought Eirik would make a better Jarl than he. Yet Gunvald made a good
point that if Eirik were to die now, suspicion would fall on Grimar—which was
why Grimar had been careful in the plan he’d put in motion a sennight ago.
Grimar leapt to his feet and began pacing the length of the small chamber. He
was tired of waiting—he wanted to act.

“We are so close, my
son,” Gunvald said quietly from his chair. “We only have to wait a few more
sennights before the thrall girl is out of our hair. In the meantime, you must
capitalize on the fact that Eirik isn’t here to help rebuild the village. You
must work day and night rethatching rooves, building funeral pyres for the
dead—whatever it takes to place you in the hearts of the villagers. Show
yourself to be a leader.”

“And who knows,” Grimar
said, suppressing an inward smile. “Mayhap Eirik’s wounds are worse than we
know.”

Laurel mopped Eirik’s
brow with a cool cloth, but his skin still raged with fever.

The burning had come on
quickly and ran hot. For a while, Eirik had thrashed in delirium. He’d shouted
at ghosts and flailed violently. It had taken all three of them to hold him
down to prevent himself from re-opening his wounds. But now he lay still and
quiet, which was so much worse.

Laurel shuddered as she
turned her attention to his bare shoulder. She dabbed the cloth as gently as
she could around the red, angry gash in his flesh. After it was clear that the
wounds had festered, Alaric had held his seax over the kitchen fire, then
pressed the glowing-hot blade into Eirik’s shoulder and leg wounds. But the wounds
festered again. Each of the last three mornings, they’d had to scrape away the
pus and fiery scabs and re-cauterize the wounds.

Bright light flooded
the hut and Laurel squinted toward the door. Madrena stepped inside, her face
grim.

“Any change?”

“Nei,” Laurel replied
in Madrena’s language. “The fever still racks him.”

Madrena’s head dropped
for a moment
,
and she whispered something
Laurel didn’t understand.

“Sit, Madrena,” Laurel
said. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

Laurel began to rise to
her feet next to Eirik’s large bed. They’d managed to move him that first day
from the table to the bed, but now she feared he would never again rise from
the large
,
down-filled mattress.

“Nei,” Madrena said,
quickly crossing the hut to place a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. “Don’t bother
over me. I’ll see to myself. Besides, you need rest and sustenance more than
I.”

Laurel sank back down
next to the bed, the cloth once again finding Eirik’s fevered skin. She wasn’t
sure that she’d slept more than a few hours in the last four nights. Time
passed eerily alongside the sickbed. It didn’t help that they only had a few
hours of half-darkness each night. And she would have forgotten to eat
completely if Alaric and Madrena didn’t alternate pressing food on her.

Madrena stood over the
bed, her hand still resting on Laurel’s shoulder. Laurel looked up to find her
gazing at Eirik, her nigh-colorless eyes shimmering in the light of the kitchen
fire.

“I didn’t think it
would come to this,” she whispered, “but it is time.”

Madrena drew the seax
that hung at the belt around her hips.

“What are you doing?”
Laurel choked out, struggling to put herself between Eirik and Madrena’s drawn
blade.

“What goes on?” The
cottage door opened once more, blinding Laurel with the brightness outside. She
barely comprehended Alaric’s question for her eyes were fixed on the blade in
Madrena’s hand.

“’Tis time that he had
this,” Madrena said over her shoulder to Alaric.

To Laurel’s horror,
Alaric lowered his head and nodded solemnly.

“What in the name of
God are you doing?” Laurel shrieked, her lack of understanding turning to
hysteria. She doubted she could stop either one of them, let alone both of
them, yet she wouldn’t let any harm befall Eirik.

Madrena flipped the
seax in her hand so that she held the blade between her fingers. She extended
the hilt toward Eirik and lifted his uninjured arm with one hand. Then she
wrapped his limp fingers around the seax’s hilt and gently set his hand down so
that the blade rested in his loose grasp.

Laurel looked between
the two Viking warrior twins in utter confusion. “I…I don’t understand.”

“When a warrior dies in
battle, if he fought well and honorably, he goes to Valhalla,” Madrena began,
her voice pinched.

Laurel nodded. “Eirik
told me something of that.”

“There is another place
the dead can go,” Madrena went on. “If a warrior is not killed in battle, or
dies a less worthy death, he will go to Helheimr, home of the goddess Hel.”

Laurel gasped and
clutched her throat. “You mean if Eirik…
i
f he
dies…he will endure eternal damnation? Just because he wasn’t on the
battlefield?”

Alaric approached the
bed and looked down at his friend. “From what Eirik told me of your religion,
Hel’s home is not the same as your underworld inferno. Helheimr is the resting
place for the old and the sick. It is not damnation—but the glories of Valhalla
will never be his.”

“Then why did you put a
seax in his hand?” Laurel asked. Though she’d learned much from Eirik over the
last several sennights, so much of the Northmen’s ways were still mysterious
and confusing to her.

Madrena grinned
faintly, though her eyes were tight with unspoken sadness. “Sometimes you can
trick the Valkyries into thinking that a death occurred in battle. When—if—they
come down to this hut, they’ll see the blade in his hand and take him to
Valhalla where he belongs.”

Alaric turned to
Madrena. “I brought a sheep. We’d best make a sacrifice to Eir.”

“Eir?” Laurel said,
already struggling against the limits of her understanding.

“The goddess of
healing. If there is aught left that can be done, Eir will see to it. If not,
the seax will guide the Valkyries to him.”

As the words sank in,
Laurel realized that both Madrena and Alaric thought Eirik was close to
death—close enough to make a sacrifice to the goddess of healing, close enough
that he needed the seax in his hand, and close enough that they thought the
Valkyries might come down at any moment.

Laurel felt her heart
crack open as a whoosh of air left her lungs.
Nay!
she screamed inside.
Nay,
he cannot die!
She dropped the useless damp cloth and clasped her hands
before her on the bed. Her knees ached against the stone floor of the hut, but
she didn’t care.

She prayed as tears
began streaming down her cheeks. Her mind flitted back to her first memory of
Eirik. His nasal helm had obscured most of his face, but when he’d stepped
between her and Grimar and halted Grimar’s raised fist, his bright blue eyes
had locked on her. She shivered at the memory. She’d never seen a man so
powerful, so captivating, before.

Yet he was also kind
and gentle even when he could have used brute force against her. The memories
of his compassion toward her on the Drakkar, how he saved her from both the
ocean’s cold grip and Grimar’s, and that first, soft kiss surged through her.
And heat flooded her to remember his barely restrained passion at the lake and
in this very bed only four nights ago.

She’d never imagined
she would be enthralled by a Viking warrior. Yet even more shocking, she’d
grown to care for him. She had resisted her own feelings for too long. And now
that she finally accepted that her heart had been captivated by the man lying
unconscious before her, it was too late.

Madrena gave her
shoulder a little squeeze of reassurance, but Laurel was lost in her thoughts
and prayers. She was barely aware of Madrena and Alaric quietly exiting the
cottage a moment later. Laurel didn’t understand the Vikings’ practice of
sacrifice, and as a Christian, she was expected to shun it as heathenry and
pagan barbarism. Yet on her knees next to Eirik, she was too humbled to judge
their method of prayer. They all cared for him, and they would all fight for
him in their own ways.

Laurel lost herself to
her prayers as the tears continued to stream down her cheeks.