Lord of Fire and Ice (13 page)

Otto seemed to consider this for a moment. “I don’t suppose your brothers told you, but I possess far more wealth than I’m wearing. I’ve a couple caches of silver secreted about, each of them big as a head of cabbage. I will not be able to spend it all in the years left to me. That’s why I’m looking for a young wife.”

The hair on Brandr’s neck bristled. Did Katla want a pile of silver so badly she’d take Otto Sturlson to her bed?

If coin was all Katla was interested in, Brandr was certain his share of the chest of silver his friends had sailed on to Jondal with would weigh out to be more than Sturlson’s worth. Brandr was a wealthy man too.

Unfortunately, he wore iron around his neck instead of gold, so he was unable to claim his share of the wealth at the moment. Her words echoed in his ear.

Brandr
Ulfson
is
my
thrall. Nothing more.

“Since you brought up the matter of the wealth you wear, I have to admit it seems a bit excessive,” Katla said between dainty bites of pork and barley bread. “More than most men might dare.”

“
Ja
, I ring my neck with gold to tempt some young fellow to try to take it from me.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

Sturlson shrugged. “I’m an old man, Katla. You think I do not know it? I don’t want to end my days wallowing in my own piss. Why should I wait for a straw death?”

The prospect of dying in bed of extreme age or disease was an end any man worth the name would shrink from. Inviting a fight was an ingenious way to avoid it.

Otto Sturlson’s cleverness ticked up a notch in Brandr’s estimation.

“Has anyone ever tried to take your gold?” Katla asked.

“
Ja
, but so far, I have kept my head and my wealth.” He fingered one of the gold chains at his throat. “It does me good to know I still deserve them.”

She laughed lightly at his wit.

“Of course, a beautiful young wife can be the death of an old man too.” Otto leaned toward Katla with a leer. “That kind of a straw death I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Even though Brandr knew he was nothing to Katla but a means to scratch an itch, he narrowly resisted offering to help Sturlson avoid dying in bed.

He knew Katla wouldn’t appreciate it. Thralls should be seen but not heard.

Malvar Bloodaxe sniffed the wind that was blowing clear and briny from the narrow sea. The voices of the Old Ones muttered in lugubrious whispers, but he pushed them to a small corner of his mind.

The time wasn’t quite right yet.

He would have one chance, one cast of the die to make his plan work. If he lost patience and threw too soon, he might wreck all.

He climbed to the top of the grassy howe and faced East. From Orkney, it wasn’t so far a sail to his ultimate goal. With half-closed eyes, he fancied he could see the broad, gaping entrance to Hardanger Fjord. Like a whore with her legs wide spread, the rich land beckoned him to come and claim it.

A flash of the vision he’d had last night seared his mind once more. He could smell the blood and smoke of carnage, hear the screams of the dying.

The Old Ones whimpered softly, their sighs half-covered by the waving sibilance of the tall grass. It had been so long since freshly spilled blood had nourished the earth, since fire had darkened the sky, since death had ridden on the water with the cold breath of
Hel
in its sails.

The
world
has
become
too
civilized
, Malvar thought with a curl of his lip. The ancient spirits were starving for lack of a proper sacrifice.

“Soon,” he promised the whisperers.

At least the Old Ones there on Orkney had been given a taste of fresh blood, albeit in droplets instead of the rivers of gore they craved. They’d been praised in daily shrieks of pain, but Malvar knew it was never enough for them. They were like a ram in rut who can’t find a ewe. An empty belly with no meal in sight. A barren womb.

The Old Ones’ need was never completely filled.

But Malvar’s work was about to bring forth fruit. Ulf Skallagrimsson was near to cracking. Malvar had enjoyed toying with him. The
jarl
’s resistance to pain was impressive but not perfect. Ulf wailed like a woman when properly motivated.

Now it was time to raise the stakes.

This morning Malvar would threaten to take his manhood. A man will say anything to save that bit of skin. Malvar had avoided resorting to it, because the real trick would be in assuring himself that what Ulf said to save his balls was true.

Each day he hoped for a message from Gormson. He desperately needed that staging area on Tysnes to launch his campaign of cleansing death into the fjord.

If his ally couldn’t marry into that sweet, sheltered cove, then by the ancient powers, he’d damn well better find another way to claim it.

Otto Sturlson stayed on for another two days. Unlike Gormson, he expressed little interest in the running of Katla’s steading. He didn’t even ask about the extent of her holding, much less demand a thorough tour.

He seemed more intent on Katla herself.

When he saw she wasn’t about to abandon her duties to entertain him exclusively, he made himself marginally useful by directing the work of a group of men who were laboring to remove stones from an arable field. It seemed the ground sprouted a fresh crop each spring, and had to be cleared before Katla would risk the sharp edge of her plow. Otto showed the men how to stake out the field in sections and work methodically together instead of each trying to cull his own little portion. They finished the work in record time.

But when Sturlson took his leave, Katla refused to give him an answer to his suit. Her brothers had promised her a choice from three possible husbands, and she wasn’t about to shorten the process. Otto thanked her for considering him in a flowery, poetic speech and declared he’d wait at the nearest mead house for her decision.

During the time Otto Sturlson was in residence, Brandr once again slept on the outside of her threshold without being asked. Katla hadn’t sensed Otto was likely to force himself on her, but it pleased her that Brandr set himself to guard her, in any case.

What didn’t please her was how distant he seemed. Brandr was smiling and affable as always with everyone else. He joked with the men, and while they’d normally ignore a thrall, the workers on her farm seemed to forget Brandr wore the iron collar. Katla had smiled when he tugged the braids of the little goose girl till she colored with delighted embarrassment. Brandr was helpful and well-spoken with the women, thoroughly ignoring the longing looks that followed him as he moved about his chores.

Discretion was all well and good, but she’d have thought the man might spare her at least one secret smile or telling glance over the past few days.

On the night Otto Sturlson took his leave, Katla retired to her chamber early and dressed in her finest night shift. It had a row of cording at the neck shot through with silver thread. She brushed out her braids and let her dark hair fall in shining waves past her waist.

Brandr should like that.

Her insides frisked about like a spring lamb in anticipation. Any moment he’d come, and then she’d fall into that delicious dream with him again. That place where everything else faded away and only the beating of their hearts marked the passage of time.

She settled into her bed to wait for him to slip out of the main room and join her. Brandr was being cautious, waiting for a time when he wouldn’t be missed.

Finn ought to appreciate the man’s newly developed sense of propriety.

The singing and laughing after night meal died away as the household settled for sleep. No one touched her door latch. Her lamp guttered and went out. The moon appeared in the smoke hole overhead, and still Brandr didn’t come.

Her chest ached.

She closed her eyes and tried to find sleep, but that warm blanket of forgetfulness fled from her.

Finally, she climbed from her bed and padded to the door. She opened it a pinch and saw Brandr’s form across the threshold as always.

But he wasn’t asleep either. He raised himself on his elbow and glared up at her through the crack in the door.

She opened the door farther and motioned for him to come in.

His face set like granite, he rose to do her bidding.

Once the door was latched behind him, he crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want, princess?”

“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “Someone will hear you.”

“You actually care if someone does? I’m impressed.” His hard glare said otherwise.

“Of course I do. I’m being courted, after all. Finn has me thinking I should behave a bit more primly about having you in my chamber by night.”

He merely looked at her, making no move to come to her as she’d hoped. She fished about for a reason to have called him in other than the dull ache between her legs.

“You had plenty to say about Albrikt Gormson,” she said, “so let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“Don’t you have an opinion about Otto Sturlson?”

“I wasn’t aware the opinion of a thrall was of much value to you,” he said stonily.

“Let us pretend that it is.” She crossed her arms over her chest in an echo of his posture.

He shrugged. “The man can talk the stars from the sky and can evidently still handle a blade. I’d fight by his side in a pinch.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean about his qualities as a possible husband for me.”

“How would I know about that? I never visited the bath house when he was there. I can’t tell you a thing about the length of his cock.”

Her jaw dropped. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I was wondering the same thing about you.”

“Me?”

“
Ja
, why are you doing this? You play at being available to wed. Yet you call me in here hoping I’ll rut you.”

He took a step toward her, and her heart rate hitched up several notches. That was exactly what she’d hoped.

“Isn’t that why you came?” she asked.

He cast his eyes down. “I came because you commanded. I’m your thrall. Your property. Your…thing.”

“Every time we’ve been alone, all you’ve tried to do is bed me,” she said.

This time when he raised his gaze to her, he looked at her with the hard eyes of a stranger.

“Why are you acting now as if it’s not something you want?” she asked.

“Because I’ve realized something about you, princess,” Brandr said through clenched teeth. “You don’t give a damn about anyone.”

“That’s not true.” Everything she did was for the good of her people. Her whole life was dedicated to the well-being of others.

And she cared about Brandr, even though her heart condemned her as a weak-willed, light-skirt for it. She’d accepted him as her thrall to wreak vengeance for Osvald.

She didn’t feel the least vengeful now.

Fast as thought, he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her. He fisted a handful of her hair and forced her to look up at him.

“Then tell me you need me, Katla. Tell me it means something to you when I join my body to yours.”

She needed him like she needed her next breath. The admission danced on her tongue, but she held back. If he knew she needed him, he’d have the power to hurt her.

Instead, she’d let her body speak for her. She pressed herself against his hard length and raised herself on tiptoe to kiss him. His lips twitched under her mouth, but he didn’t respond.

“Kiss me, Brandr.”

His tongue dove between her teeth almost before the words passed her lips. His kiss seared her with its heat, with the promise of unbridled passion. She was taken by surprise at the suddenness and intensity of the longing he woke in her.

Then just as suddenly, he stopped kissing her and stepped back, arms at his sides.

She frowned at him in puzzlement. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, princess. You ordered me to kiss you, and I have done so.”

“And that’s all?”

“If you wanted a different sort of kiss, or a longer one, you should have told me.”

His eyes were so cold they froze her heart. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

“A thrall has no wants but his owner’s wishes,” he said icily. “I kissed you because you told me to. But be warned. If you order me to bed you, be very specific about your preferences.”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Why are you being so hateful all of a sudden?”

“What do you care if I am? A thrall is of no consequence,” he said with a snarl in his tone. “You may do what you wish with your own, and no one may gainsay you. Least of all, the thrall himself.”

Alarm bells jangled in her mind. His words sounded familiar.

Because they were hers.

“If I were in this chamber as a free man, I’d bear you to bed and lavish every finger-width of your skin with a lover’s touch.”

For the first time since he entered her room, she saw hunger on his features. But the longing was quickly replaced by a hard mask of disdain.

“But since you always make sure I know who’s the slave and who’s the master, I’ll wait for your direction.”

Somehow he’d overheard her conversation with Finn. She hadn’t meant those things. Not really. She just wanted to quiet her brother’s needling.

“So tell me what you want, mistress.” He took a step closer. “What would you have me do? Bend you over and rut you like a whore?”

She slapped him.

Cold fury burned in his eyes. If he weren’t her thrall and sworn to obey her, she’d fear him.

“Get out.”

“As you will, mistress.” He gave her the shallowest of bows. “As you will.”

“Katla!”

She looked up from the rows of peas she was planting to see Einar and another fellow carrying a litter down the sheep track from the upper pasture. A body lay on the evergreen boughs that formed part of the litter. She held a hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare and squinted to try to make out who they were carting down the steep slope.

Haukon’s red hair blazed against the green pine. Katla lifted her skirt and ran.

Brandr came from out of nowhere to fall into step beside her. They hadn’t had a private moment since she threw him out of her chamber, and their public interaction had been limited to orders and curt nods. She was surprised to see him now.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he loped beside her.

“It’s Haukon,” she said between gasping breaths. “He must be hurt.”

When they drew near the conveyance, Katla ordered Einar and the other man to stop. The lad was conscious but white lipped with pain. Haukon cradled one arm, but even so, it was bent at an odd angle.

The bones of his forearm were obviously broken.

“How did this happen?” Katla knelt beside him and fingered the injured limb. His skin was swollen and hot under her touch. Haukon bit his lower lip, but otherwise he fought not to show his agony.

“The idiot was trying to teach me what he’d learned about swordplay,” Einar said. “He thought he’d show me how to attack from above. He leaped down from the top of a boulder and missed me.”

“You moved,” Haukon said through clenched teeth. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“Why should I let you fall on me?” Einar asked.

“We’ve been at peace on Tysnes for years. What were you doing playing at fighting in the first place?” Katla’s stomach balled in knots. Haukon could lose the use of his arm over this foolishness. If the injury went bad, she might even have to amputate. “Who put such notions into your head?”

“I did,” Brandr said. “Haukon asked me to teach him what I knew about handling a blade.” He put a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “You were doing well and showed promise.”

Quivering with rage, Katla turned on Brandr. If he wanted to hurt her, he should stick to insulting her in her bedchamber, not filling her little brother’s head with nonsense. “Why did you do this?”

“The lad wanted to defend what’s his,” Brandr said. “That’s a man’s right.”

“Ulfson didn’t tell me to leap from a boulder,” Haukon said, shooting a quick glare at his brother. “That was Einar’s idea.”

“Take him to the bath house,” Katla said, and she turned back down the hillside to fetch her medicinal supplies. As lady of the house, it was her place to doctor her people, to nurse them through sickness and ease suffering when she could. She knew she’d have to hurt her brother badly to reset the bones.

Her chest ached. When their mother died, a wet nurse was found for Haukon, but eight-year-old Katla did everything else for him. She soothed him when his teeth came in and taught him to take his first stumbling steps. His little fingers had curled so tightly around hers.

She’d have fought off a wolf pack for him.

The thought of what she might have to do to save him now made her want to retch.

She hurried to the bath house with her pouch of medicines and herbs. When she pushed open the door, she saw Haukon lying insensible on one of the wooden benches. Einar and Brandr stood over him.

“What happened?” She scurried to them. A leather strap was tied firmly to Haukon’s wrist, biting into his flesh.

“I reset the bones,” Brandr said. “He fainted while I pulled the ends into position, but he’ll come around. He didn’t cry out once. You’d have been proud.” He bent and untied the strap around Haukon’s wrist. “You’ll need to bind the arm to keep it still till the bones knit.”

“I know what I need to do,” she said in a clipped tone. Then she cocked her head at him. “How did you know?”

“
Ja
, Ulfson, doctoring is the province of women,” Einar chimed in. “Or priests of Odin.”

“We had an Egyptian physician attached to the Varangian Guard. He needed extra hands sometimes after a fierce battle.” Brandr shrugged. “I helped when I could. I watched and learned.”

Katla nodded. Haukon was starting to stir, and the worst of his treatment was done. She didn’t have to torture her brother after all. She flicked a glance at Brandr. “Thank you.”

He nodded gruffly and knelt beside her brother. He held him still while Katla started to bind up his arm. “If you have anything in that medicine pouch for pain, I suspect he’d be grateful. Bone pain is the worst sort, they say.”

Katla’s chest constricted. Being so near to Brandr made her ache afresh over the cruel things they’d said to each other in her chamber. And over the way she’d slapped him for it.

He’s wrong. Pains of the heart are far worse.

***

“Katla, you have to make a decision,” Finn said over his bowl of porridge a week later. “Gormson has sent me three messengers, all demanding to know your answer.”

She looked up from the bowls she was filling. Heads nodding and still yawning, a row of children huddled near the central meal fire against the early morning chill. Their parents were already hard at work. Katla enjoyed seeing to the morning meal for the youngest members of her household.

Haukon sprawled on the end of the bench, drawing out his own breakfast with a second bowl of porridge. The broken arm certainly hadn’t damaged his appetite.

Brandr sat in the shadows, eating in sullen silence.

“I can’t give Gormson an answer yet. You know that,” she said as she ladled a generous dollop of honey onto each portion. “I haven’t met my third suitor yet.”

She distributed the bowls, ruffling the children’s tousled heads, trying to tamp down the surge of longing their round-cheeked faces roused in her chest. The desire for a child of her own was fast becoming a guilty ache that couldn’t be assuaged. The children fell to their meal like starving puppies.

“Einar ran into Otto Sturlson at the mead house last night.” Finn scraped his bone spoon around the soapstone bowl to eke out the last dregs of his breakfast. “Otto is anxious to know your choice as well, though he’s being less insistent than Albrikt.”

“Same answer.” Katla held up three fingers. “Two is not three.”

Brandr finished his bowl of boiled oats and honey and stomped out of the longhouse to begin the long list of chores she’d already assigned him. Katla tried not to watch him go, but the corner of her eye always seemed to find him.

She thought working together to heal Haukon might have eased matters between them, but it hadn’t. They still hadn’t spoken to each other privately since that night in her bedchamber when she’d slapped him. It had been a serious insult—some couples had divorced over such treatment—enough to thoroughly distance him from her.

Once during the past week, he’d stumbled upon her in the bath house while she was birching herself. She was dripping with sweat, and she’d applied the birch branches hard enough to raise little red weals on her thighs. She hadn’t meant to. Frustration made her strike harder as she slapped her legs with the birch switches.

Brandr stood and looked at her for the space of several heartbeats, the tendons in his neck strained and tight. But then he backed out the door without a word.

Katla had no idea what to do. One didn’t apologize to a thrall.

And yet when she woke in the night, she wished he’d slip into her chamber unannounced as he used to do. She hugged her pillow and longed for his solid presence in the bed with her. For his warmth.

For his touch.

“But surely you must have an idea which of them you prefer,” Finn was saying.

Katla wiped down the low bench and handed the big kettle with the remnants of the porridge to Inga. “I haven’t given the matter any thought.”

“You must.” Finn handed his bowl to Inga as well.

“Not until I meet the third man.”

“About that…” Finn stood and pressed his mouth into a tight line. Something seemed ready to burst out of him, but he changed his mind at the last moment and swallowed the words back. “I need to see how that bull calf is doing this morning. Walk with me, sister.”

Katla followed her brother into the sunshine and strolled beside him on the path leading to the big stone barn.

“What’s wrong, Finn?”

“I didn’t want to say this before anyone else, but…we can’t find a third suitor for you.”

Katla laughed.

Finn didn’t.

Her eyes flared with surprise. “You’re serious?”

Finn spread his hands before him. “You’re not the most amiable person, you know. And your reputation for…strong-mindedness has spread throughout the islands. No one wants to marry a storm cloud, Katla. Not even if she comes with a fair holding.”

“Well, this is a stroke of luck. I didn’t want to marry again, in any case,” Katla said, tight-lipped. It stung to be rejected so roundly, but she couldn’t let Finn see that it hurt her.

The thwack of an ax biting into pine split the air. Brandr was chopping wood again. He’d already laid by enough to keep them all warm for the next two winters, but he finished his other work so quickly, she had to keep wood splitting on the list to keep him busy.

“But not having a third suitor is no cause for concern. You can still marry. There are two good men who’ll have you, and that’s more choice than most women get,” Finn said. “All you need do is choose.”

“I need do nothing.” She picked up her pace as Brandr and the woodpile came into view. Pity they had to pass him by on their way to the barn. “I agreed to pick from three suitors, not two.”

“But Katla—”

“No, Finn. You and I struck a bargain. I intend to hold you to it.” She stomped by Brandr without a sidelong glance. “And there’s an end.”

“All right,” her brother called after her. “Brandr Ulfson is your third choice.”

She whirled around. “You’re not serious.” If he thought to force her hand by offering Brandr, when he must know a thrall wouldn’t be considered, Finn was sadly mistaken.

“I am,” Finn said with stubbornness. “You must choose between Albrikt Gormson, Otto Sturlson, or Brandr the Thrall.”

Brandr stopped chopping in mid-swing and turned toward them. He’d removed his tunic for work. Sweat ran down his bare chest in runnels, accentuating the smooth mounds of muscles beneath his taut skin.

“But he’s a slave,” Katla said. “He can’t marry.”

“Actually, princess, I can.” Brandr leaned on the ax handle, his expression as carefully bland as if they were discussing the weather. “You’d simply have to order me to marry you.”

If she’d been a cat, her back would have been arched, and she’d be spitting mad. Order him to marry her, indeed.

“There, you see. Problem solved,” her brother said. “Unlike the other men we’ve tried to interest, he can’t say no.”

“Finn!” Katla scurried back to him and whispered furiously, “Brandr Ulfson is not a valid choice. I cannot marry him, and you know it. You’re still giving me only two choices.”

She was the lady of the house. It would destroy her standing to wed a thrall. Not to mention the embarrassment of having to order him to do it.

“If memory serves, all you required was that none of your prospective suitors be fools,” Finn said. “You agreed to choose from three men in exchange for the son of Ulf as your thrall. You were there, Ulfson. Isn’t that right?”

“I wasn’t at my best that night, but that’s how I remember it,” Brandr supplied unhelpfully.

“Then take him back,” Katla said. “I don’t want him any longer.”

Finn shook his head. “You’ve made your play. Ulfson is yours. And now I’ve given you your pick from three men. A bargain’s a bargain, sister,” he said with a wide smile. “I intend to hold you to it. I expect your decision by nightfall. Both Gormson and Sturlson are on their way here.”

“You didn’t give me any warning, Finn,” she complained. She longed to smack the smug grin from her brother’s face, but she’d suffered so from self-recrimination over the last time she slapped someone, she laced her fingers together before her to keep them still. “And just when did you plan on telling me this?”

“At the last possible moment. The time has come, sister. You’ll have your choice, and then we’ll have a wedding.” He folded his arms across his chest, clearly satisfied with his own cleverness. “And there’s an end!”

Katla made a low growl in the back of her throat and turned to stride away from them.

Finn chuckled and then cast a chagrined glance at Brandr. “Sorry about that, Ulfson.”

“Don’t be.” Brandr joined his laughter. “It was worth it just to see her hackles rise.”

When their laughter ran its course, Brandr spoke to Finn in a low tone. “If she chooses me, I want you to know I’m not without means. I’m still a
jarl
’s son, despite this collar. I’ll see you receive a fair marriage settlement.”

Finn clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t fret. She won’t choose you. And she won’t shackle herself to that old man either. I just needed a bit of leverage to get her to commit to Albrikt Gormson. He’s the one who’s offering the most. He’s our choice. Has been all along. We needed to give Katla a nudge toward him so he’ll be hers too.”

***

All day, Katla’s insides were wound tighter than a spool of new yarn. When she made her bargain with Finn, she hadn’t really thought the matter through. At the time, finding a way to keep her vow to avenge Osvald seemed the most important matter.

In truth, she hadn’t thought of her late husband in days.

Her plan to humble Brandr Ulfson was a failure on all counts. He didn’t seem at all troubled by the labor she set him to. Wearing the iron collar didn’t chafe his spirit as much as she’d hoped. He seemed to ignore the fact that he was her property most of the time. Even though she’d shamed him by slapping him, she suffered more pangs over the incident than he seemed to.

The more she thought about it, the more wrong it seemed to hold Brandr to account for the misdeeds of his father. Osvald and Ulf were both dead. Perhaps they’d already resolved their differences in
Hel
’s cold hall.

But she was still trapped by her bargain, and now she’d have to make a choice. After she finished her chores, she hiked into the woods to be alone to think. Katla climbed through the thick pine forest to the highest point on her property and settled herself beside the stack of unused signal firewood. Clouds threatened rain, but Katla was unconcerned. A light misting would cool her off after the exertion of the climb.