God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (19 page)

Brenna motioned for Olga to join them. When her friend sat across from her and Vali, Brenna said, “You worry for your family.”

“Prince Ivan will make the village men to fight for him. But he does not train them as you have our men, and even some women, here. I have two younger brothers. They were small when I went away, but they are young men now and will be made to fight. I fear the blades of my new friends letting my own blood.”

Vali listened, and he nodded, but he said, “Any man who fights for Ivan is an enemy. We cannot pick and choose, and I mean to see that he has no man left to stand between him and my axe. What he took will be repaid.”

Looking down at her hands in her lap, Olga nodded. “Yes. This is the way of things.”

Brenna turned to her husband. “What counsel do you seek?”

“I want to ride out now against Prince Ivan. I feel I will tear through my own skin if we wait more. I want to give him his own back. We can strike at night, a small force, with precision, and destroy everything he holds.”

“And that, to you, is justice? To sneak like thieves? I cannot believe that Vali Storm-Wolf would be satisfied in that way. I want to see the eyes of the men who took our son from us.”

“We cannot wait to fight both Toomas and Ivan. And Brenna, you cannot fight at all.”

During this conversation, Brenna had forgotten that she was weak. She had forgotten her injuries and her pain. She had, for these few moments, felt strong and energized. Vali’s truth hit her hard, and she remembered it all and felt suddenly woozy.

He pulled her close. “My love?”

“I’m all right.” She took a stiff breath and reclaimed her composure. “What does Leif say?”

Vali frowned in irritation, but he answered. “As you seem to. He believes we should mount a direct attack when the weather next breaks. He thinks the snow and cold will chill their plans as it does ours.”

“If we lose fighters against Ivan, we will be weaker against Toomas. He is already a greater force than we.”

“What are you saying?”

“It is as you say, Vali. We cannot fight Ivan and Toomas and hope to vanquish both. Perhaps when they are unallied, the risk is even greater, with two different enemies to fight. Do we not need the ships and the men they will bring before we face Toomas?”

“We cannot know when they will arrive.”

“I cannot speak for Snorri’s intent, but Åke will want to come early in the season. We sent great riches home, and he will want to see this land we hold. I think he will be ready to sail as soon as winter is done. And he will relish the chance to do battle.”

“Again I ask you, wife: what do you say?”

“I believe you are right. The fight should be brought to Ivan. But not to sneak in the night and destroy—we should do as we did here, with Vladimir. There is livestock we need, and there are villagers, like Olga’s family, who might be of use to us. We need only destroy the soldiers and the prince himself. Perhaps we can offer our jarls an even greater gift of two holdings.”

She turned to Olga. “Is there a way to get word to your family?”

“I see them only once or twice a year, at market. But yes, I can send word. I know how a messenger might move safely into the village.”

“Do the villagers love their prince?”

Olga’s smile was twisted and wry. “Only so much as they must show to keep their lives. Vladimir was kinder, and you’ve seen how he treated his subjects. And my family is not the only that has been broken by Ivan.”

“You think to have the villagers rise up as we attack.” Vali’s voice showed his clear comprehension—and his admiration, as well. He leaned back and looked off into space. Brenna knew he was visualizing her idea, seeing the resulting fight.

“Yes. We wait long enough for Olga’s message to get through and to know it has. Then we strike. He might be expecting us, but he will not expect his own people, whom he supposes will fight for him.”

“It’s good, Brenna. I’ll bring it to the others.” He leaned forward again and picked up her hands. “But you cannot fight. I’m sorry.”

“I understand.”

That was what she said. But she could fight. She would. Preparing the message and the plan to support it would take time. Getting the message out and receiving the confirmation would take days. She had time to get stronger. She had time to regain her power.

And she wanted to look those men in the eyes.

That was what she’d meant when she’d said she understood.

That she would fight. That their son would be avenged.

~oOo~

Brenna was abed for the night when Vali came up again. She had forced herself to stay upright throughout much of the rest of the day and had pushed Olga away when she tried to help her walk. Now, she was nearly shaking with pain and exhaustion, and she’d had to fight tears of relief when she’d lain down and allowed herself to rest, but it didn’t matter.

Her days of helplessness were over. She was a shieldmaiden, and she would be ready to fight.

Vali stripped to his skin and slid under the furs with her. He leaned on his elbow to kiss her forehead and brush his bearded cheek over her smooth one.

“They like your idea. We should have a plan and a message prepared tomorrow or the next day.”

She smiled. “That is good.”

“It is. Inaction was driving me mad. I swear on my axe, Brenna. Ivan will pay. Believe me.”

“I do.” She believed him, and she believed that she would be with him. She knew better than to say so, however. Vali would never agree that she should fight, he would not believe she was strong enough—and at this moment, he would be right.

But she would be strong enough. Even were the fight to be the very next day, she would make herself strong enough. If she died, it would be fighting against the man who’d taken her child.

“You are paler than you were, Brenna. Do you feel weak again?”

“No. Only tired.”

He kissed her cheek. “Then we’ll not talk. Let us sleep.”

She caught his shoulder before he could turn away. Since she’d been hurt, since their son had been born, Vali’s attention to her had been loving and gentle. But it had not been intimate. Even lying near her in bed at night, his body bare, he kept a distance between them. That made her loneliest of all.

“Vali, kiss me.”

He frowned. “Brenna, you still bleed. And your chest—Olga said—”

She cut him off with a huff. “I know what Olga said. I don’t mean for you to be inside me. But will you not kiss me? Do you not desire me any longer?”

The sound he made was strangled and strange, and Brenna didn’t immediately understand that it was a laugh.

“Yes, my love, I desire you. I desire you above all else. Even as my heart has been broken into splinters over these long days, I desire you. Seeing your fire when we spoke today had me hard and nearly breathless for you.” He took her hand and brought it under the furs, leading it down to his sex, which was hot and thick and rigid. “I am hard for you now. But I am not a beast. I will stay away until you are healed, until you are ready.”

She moved her hand over him until he groaned and stopped her.

“You treat me with such care that I feel alone. I’m afraid to show that I’m sad for our child, because you get angry and leave. I’m afraid to show that I’m tired, because you get angry and leave. I’m afraid to show discomfort, because you get angry and leave.”

“It’s true that anger rides me. It torments me. But I’m not angry with you, Brenna. Gods, no.”

“I know that. You’re angry about what happened, at the men who did it. You leave to keep that from me. I understand. But you leave, and I am alone, to be sad and hurt and tired. I’ve been alone enough in my life. I thought having love would mean an end to it.”

His bright blue eyes glowed with shock, and regret, and love. “Forgive me.”

She took her hand from him and brought it up to smooth over his beard. “Please kiss me.”

He did, covering her mouth, cupping her face in his hand, sliding his tongue past her lips for the first time since that bright morning when all was well. She traced the nick in the side of his tongue, and he grunted, as he always did. She lifted her arms, ignoring the pain it made in her chest, and caught his braid in both fists.

He broke away but didn’t go far. Looming over her, his breath harsh and shallow, his eyes vivid in the firelight, he said, “I love you.”

“And I you.” Finally feeling warm again in his love, Brenna dropped the gate in her mind that had held emotion back. “I wish I had been able to hold him.”

Vali flinched as if she’d hurt him. But he didn’t leave her. “He was so small, Brenna. He fit in my two hands. But he tried to stay. I saw him fight.”

His voice broke on the last word, and he dropped his head so that his forehead nearly touched her cheek. Brenna turned her head and pressed her lips to his temple.

Then she felt a warm, wet drop on her neck. A tear.

Nothing could have shown her his love more than that, or given her more strength: to expose his own sadness, his vulnerability, to her.

She knew then that they had both been injured.

And she knew that they would both be strong again. Together.

Leif swept a pointed finger over an arc of the wood chips that Orm had placed on the carved table. They had discerned that the table in the room where they took their leisure was etched with a rendering of western Estland itself and marked the physical features of the land and the locations of castles and villages. The market town, Mirkandi, formed the point from which the rest of the land radiated out: Toomas’s holding to the north, Ivan’s to the south, and what had been Vladimir’s holding to the west, along the greater part of the coast. Vladimir’s holding, now their own, was the largest of the three.

“Ivan keeps patrol of this area and holds watch points there, there, and there. The woods creep close to the castle wall there. He is vulnerable at the woods. But we only know that the villagers are with us, and how many they say can fight. We don’t know the quality of those fighters, or the extent to which they will follow our plan.”

Vali leaned forward and moved a few chips away from the larger mound that represented the raiders. He pushed them toward the woods. “Archers into the woods, then. Sten, Hans, Bjarke, and Georg. They cover the villagers, and lead them according to our plan if need be. We have no other need for archers, and the four of them are better useful with bow than blade.”

At the grumbled protests across the table, he looked up at the men in question. “I mean no slight by that, my friends. Your bows are mighty and swift.”

Leif studied the table, then broke the remaining mass of raider chips into three groups. He counted out the chips as he talked. “Each group takes down a watch point, then moves to the wall. The wall is high, but in poor repair and easily scaled if the guards are distracted. Vali, Orm, and I will lead two score directly to the gates. We ride in as if we are the full force. Astrid and Harald will lead two parties to breach the walls at either side. The villagers breach from the woods.” Leif took a step back and surveyed the table. “We’ll fall upon them from every direction.”

Orm drew a weathered hand over a long grey beard. “If the villagers come in the force they report, they will be like ants in a mound and will overrun the castle grounds. It will be chaos.” He smiled. “Brenna’s idea is good. To use his own subjects against him.”

Brenna should have been in this meeting. In the days since Vali had sought her counsel, she had been out of bed more and more, and the night before, he had helped her down to share the evening meal with the group. She was exhausted by the end of each day, but he could see that she was healing, regaining her strength.

But when he’d told her that they had received word back from Ivan’s subjects and asked her to join them in their planning, she had stunned him speechless by refusing. After her protests against being ‘locked away’ and disregarded, she had declined to join the raiders in the planning of an attack largely predicated on her own idea.

He supposed it was too painful for her to be involved in strategy for a battle she could not fight. He remembered lying helpless in Sven’s tent, and he understood her frustration: to be a warrior and cut off from the war—it ate into one’s head.

“A leader who treats his people like beasts might come to know their bite.”

Jaan had spoken those words, breaking into Vali’s thoughts, and the men, and the shieldmaiden, standing around the carved table gave him their full attention. He was young and brash, and he was a villager, a farmer. But over the months that Vali had known him, the young man had become skilled and fierce as most raiders. Vali thought that he would ask him to sail with them. He would leave a father and a sister behind, but that was what young men did: they left their homes and made their own.

“Tell us, Jaan. Will Ivan’s villagers bite him?”

Jaan noticed then that he had the eyes and ears of everyone, and he lost some of the cock in his posture. When he answered, he stammered until he recovered that confidence, and he spoke solely in his own language. “I—I—I have always lived in this place. My parents and their parents, and their parents before them, we have all lived here. Vladimir held this land for all my life. He was not a kind man. He plucked girls from the village to become servants in the castle, and those girls were known to…have more…duties…than a girl should have. Brutal duties. And he took the fruit of our toil and made himself rich with it, while every winter we all but starved. The weakest of us often did starve.”

He paused and swallowed, the force of it audible in the quiet room. “An invading horde of monsters from across the sea saved us. We know what happened near the coast. Many of us lost family to you on that day. We know how you treated those you held captive—much like Vladimir with his servant girls. We all know. And yet now you are our friends. Because we know you not to be monsters, but fierce and ruthless warriors. And we know you to be fair-minded outside of battle. And because life was difficult under Prince Vladimir, and now it is better.”

Again, he paused, but he looked around the table in such a way that Vali thought this pause was for effect. “Vladimir was a hard, unjust man. Ivan is worse. Will the villagers rise up against him if they know they are not alone? Yes. And they will bring all of his injustices back and bury him in them.”

~oOo~

Shortly after they had set their plan, Vali went up to tell Brenna that they went the next morning, while they had good weather, and also to see if she was well enough to come down and join the evening meal. The stairwell and corridor were quiet; Brenna had been on her own more these past days, as she needed less care. Even Olga had begun to focus again on her castle-wide duties.

Vali opened the door. Though he had been knocking before he entered since she’d been hurt, because he had never been sure what state he might find her in, this time, he did not.

He froze in the open doorway when he saw his wife, so grievously injured only two weeks before, standing in the middle of their bedchamber, holding her longsword as if to strike.

In the stunned freeze of the moment, Vali saw that she was soaked through with sweat, her sleeping shift nearly transparent and plastered to her body, her hair lank and stuck in swirls to her flushed face.

She was the first to move, dropping her sword to her side and standing straight. Her eyes held his, unblinking and defiant.

Mastering his shock, he stepped into the room and closed the door. “Brenna! What is this?”

He could see that she shook with fatigue and was breathless, but she behaved as if she were neither. Turning on her heel, she walked to the table and picked up her scabbard. She sheathed her sword and turned to face him again before she spoke a word.

“I mean to fight with you.”

“No.”

Her eyes flared wide at his simple word of refusal, and her brilliant right eye shone especially brightly, the many colors seeming to swirl. “You think to stop me with only that?”

He did. She was in no condition to fight, and he would not put her at risk again—or allow her to put herself there. Crossing the room, he reached out, intending to take her hands, but she stepped back and put a tall-backed chair between them. So he stopped, and they faced each other almost as combatants.

“Brenna, you are not strong enough yet to fight. Look at you—shaking and soaked through, and you were alone in this room. How do you think to fight an armored soldier?”

“I can fight, and I shall.” She crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant child.

Unable to fully comprehend that she would be so foolhardy, and that she would simply ignore reason when it was laid before her, Vali didn’t feel angry. He was too shocked for anger. “That is your argument? Simply that you will do this thing?”

“I don’t mean to argue with you at all. I am informing you.”

“And if we ride without you?” It was the only thing he could think to do, short of binding her to their bed. As he asked the question, he began to plan—he would speak with Leif, and they would leave in the dark before dawn.

“Then I shall follow.” She sighed heavily, and he saw the wince of pain she tried to hide. “Vali, there is no fight to be had between us. I join your party, or I ride alone, but I fight. This revenge is mine as much as yours. More.”

“Enough that you would risk yourself to seek it?”

“Battle is always a risk. And pain is always the price. You have no voice in my decision, husband. I am no longer a vessel for any soul but my own.”

“And you care not for my soul, what it would do to me to lose you?”

“I care as much for yours as you care for mine. We are warriors. Our life is risk. I was a shieldmaiden long before I knew you. While it is true that I am not as strong as I could be, you know the strength and fire that comes with a righteous fight. What this man took from us is great. I would not have him take from me the chance to answer it. I would not have you take it from me, either. I fight. With you or alone.”

He saw that she was right: there was no fight to be had between them. Certainly not one to be won. She had set her mind, and she was stubborn and resolute. He had only one choice: to protect her in her folly. To love the shieldmaiden she was and to see to it that she found her vengeance and lived to tell the story of it.

“You are not alone, Brenna mine. Never again. If you will not see reason, then I will stay by your side through your madness.”

He went around the chair and took the hands he’d reached for before. When he pulled—gently, knowing that no matter her fierce words, her body yet pained her—she came easily into his embrace, still cold and wet from her efforts. He tucked her head under his chin and held her.

“Please do not leave me,” he whispered.

“Or you me,” came her answer.

~oOo~

That night, Vali woke aroused and gasping. Brenna lay on her side next to him, her hand wrapped around his rigid shaft. He had not had her since she had been hurt, and his need was great. But Olga had told him to stay away until after her first normal blood, which would come some time after the birth blood had stopped. He knew that she still bled. Discreet though his wife was, it was impossible to live in a room together and not know.

It was one of his many great concerns about the next morning: that she would start it already bleeding. Brenna had given him a look of seething contempt when he had quietly mentioned it the evening before, and she had asked him if he believed she had never been in battle during her monthly time, insisting that this was no different. He believed that it was different, but he had let the matter drop.

There was a great deal he did not understand about the inner workings of a woman’s body, and he was content with that lack of understanding. His mother had been a healer, and he knew a few things about treating wounds, but she had always shooed him away when women came for help.

He had been but young, only ten years, when she had simply not come home one day. And then it had been only him and his vicious father.

Vali shook that memory away and stopped Brenna’s hand. “No, love. It’s too soon.”

She looked up and smiled, her fair hair falling loose over her face. “I don’t mean to take you into me. I would pleasure you this way, if you will let me.” To demonstrate her intent—as if he could have missed it—she shook his hand off and slid her loose fist up and over his tip and then back down, against his body, letting her fingers scratch lightly through the hair there and then and down to cup him.