Norse Jewel (Entangled Scandalous) (12 page)

“Only if I can bring my ax and hammer, but for some reason that is frowned upon here.” Sven laughed at his own jest and tipped his head at a far table. “Wives cry foul when their men are gravely wounded. ‘Tis supposed to be a test without weapons.”

Hakan raised his hand in greeting to the flock of matrons. “And I’d rather face Sven’s war ax than run into those hens and their unwed daughters.”

Sven groaned between bared teeth, giving something of a smile as he waved greetings. “’Tis the wife of Lord Anund, no less. Come all the way from Aland.”

Helena batted Sven’s arm. “Why not go talk with her? She may be the mother of your future bride.”

“You’ve never seen Lord Anund’s daughter.” Sven’s false smile slipped as he eyed Helena. “I have.”

“When did you see her? The maid’s never left Aland.” Hakan spoke over Helena’s head. “She’s just come of age. ‘Tis her first time in Uppsala.”

Sven shrugged and his meaty fist waved vaguely. “I can’t place the time.”

Just then, Emund entered the ring and faced another young Norseman. Their chests were bare and glistened with a sheen of sweat as they circled. Emund rose on the balls of his feet, his boots looking as if they barely touched ground. Men yelled advice and cheered.

Sven and Hakan bantered over her head. Both strove for her attention, trying to outdo the other with a witty comment or explanation of a wrestling move. Emund won easily, pumping his fist in the air in victory.

“Are you enjoying this?” Hakan leaned close.

“Aye, the people of Svea are hearty in all they do.” His nearness brushed a wave of pleasure down her arm.

“Not so different from life in your fair country?” He leaned his arms on the table’s edge.

Her fair country…the mention of home made her think of Olga’s story of loss and the uncertainty of her own parents. Did they survive? Here she sat in a great hall, feasting, and the notion that she thrived and they might not nagged at her. Helena couldn’t let herself be content to wait seven years. She touched his arm.

“Would you reconsider my freedom?”

Hakan stiffened under her hand.

“That again. You’ve much time—”

Someone yelled the chieftain’s name. “Hakan Lange. Champion of the Glima. Ready to be bested?”

The cavernous longhouse thundered with his name. “Hakan! Hakan! Hakan!”

Fists pounded the tables until he rose from the bench and waved to the crowd. Emund stood awkwardly in the middle of the tables as the rest of the room exploded with applause.

“Young Emund is about to learn a hard lesson.” Sven crossed his arms and a deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. “This’ll be quick.”

Hakan moved around the tables and entered the arena, giving a wolfish smile to Emund. He was stripped to his waist, wearing black trousers and black boots. Felling trees had made him taut and sinuous. The men traded banter as they circled each other, their stares fierce.

The two grappled, shoulder to shoulder. Their feet pressed the dirt floor. Both levered their weight and size against the other. Hakan was too much for Emund. He braced on one leg and slid the other foot behind Emund’s ankle, tripping him.

Emund’s back slammed the dirt. Air huffed out of him. He raised a flat palm in the air, the sign he yielded the match. Tables exploded with applause and cries for more. Hakan threw his head back and loosed a victory shout.

“Hakan wins again.” Sven stood up to cheer his friend.

Hakan waved off the demands for a rematch as he picked up his jerkin. Helena watched him hone in on her and smile, and then he disappeared into the crowd. Beside her, Sven grumbled the names she dreaded most.

“Astrid. Gorm.”

He motioned at the entrance. Crowds parted as they did for women of her ilk: those rare, beautiful creatures perfect in every way.

Helena’s heart sank.

Tall, with hair so blond ‘twas almost white, her crown of glory flowed thickly to her waist. Astrid’s features were slender and refined, as if she were carved from birth by the most caring artisan. The noblewoman near floated across the room, heading their way.

As she rose from the bench, Helena forced a tense nod to the approaching lady. But there’d be no kind greeting in return. Astrid split Helena in two with her chilly eyes. A tall man, handsome and older, followed. Silver threaded his red hair, shorn close to his nape in the Norman style.

Hakan returned from the arena and set his hand on the small of Helena’s back.

“You’re welcome to sit here. We’re leaving.”

“So soon? I would’ve thought you’d stay until sunrise, telling stories of old glory and plunder.” Astrid’s perfect eyebrow arched.

“What I do is not your concern.”

“’Tis unusual for a chieftain to have a thrall seated next to him, and one so richly garbed.” Astrid’s bright blue eyes took in the finery, resting on the red stone, then moved higher. “And a scarred one. People talk.”

The woman’s cruelty stung, but Helena tipped her chin high. Driven by a bedeviling urge to strike back, Helena wanted to make this Norsewoman believe the gossip, to rub her face in it. But how? Beside her, Hakan’s voice rose over the din.

“Worry about the company you keep these days, Astrid.”

“How goes the farming?” Gorm asked, but to Helena’s ears ‘twas a taunt.

“The farmstead flourishes,” Helena said, entering the fray of words. “I’d invite you to see for yourself, but something tells me you’re not welcome. Ever.”

Gorm’s silver-grey eyes rounded at her outburst, but then he tipped his head at her in barest salute. The corners of his well-formed mouth turned up in a small smile.

“Where did you find her?” he asked Hakan, as his slight leer slid over her.

Hakan tensed beside her.

“’Tis my fault we leave early.” Helena slipped an arm around Hakan’s waist and leaned in like a cat.

Astrid’s perfect lips puckered, creating tiny lines around her mouth.

Sighing, Helena traced one finger across Hakan’s powerful arm. Her languorous, solitary finger stroked the valley between tense muscles, and her voice dropped suggestively.

“We really must be going.” She gave Astrid a sly glance as if sharing a secret, one woman to another. “I’m sure you understand.”

‘Twas worth it to see the ice queen’s mouth gape. Astrid recovered her grace, but her eyes narrowed to testy slits. Helena held her head high, her hand clasped in Hakan’s as he led her through the smoky hall. Once past the open portal, neither let go.

…

“How many mistakes does your God allow one man to make?”

Startled, Helena glanced across the longhouse. Every inch a Norse chieftain at leisure, Hakan sprawled in his great chair before the fire pit. He leaned his head against his fist, looking mesmerized by the fire’s embers.

“His forgiveness cannot be numbered.” She bent over the chest and returned the neatly folded blue tunic. Leather hinges creaked in the silence as she shut the lid.

Helena walked with care toward Hakan. He shifted and linked his hands loosely in his lap, stretching his legs before him. The Norseman had brooded on the quiet ride back to the longhouse, and his odd question made no sense.

“Do you regret your long voyages from home?” She leaned against the table’s edge, bracing her arms behind her. “I mean, when there were troubles. Is that why you ask? You seek forgiveness?”

Hakan faced her, and the look in his eyes glinted with danger. His smile alarmed her. The territorial wolf was back.

“You think I have guilt over Astrid.”

Her feet shifted underneath her. “I’m not sure what troubles you.”

The wolf prowled, though he sat in a great chair. His uneasiness made her skin tight and her heart race. Hakan was a handsome man, very appealing to all of the fairer sex tonight, with his black jerkin stretched across broad shoulders. He had shaved for the Glima festival, and his blonde hair, lighter from summer, loosened from the leather tie.

“Many thoughts trouble me tonight, but Astrid’s not one of them.” In the dim light of the longhouse, his white teeth gleamed against his tanned face.

“Does your head ail you?” She clasped her hands together, comfortable with the role of nurturing thrall.

“Nay, but ‘twould please me if you sat close to me and played your harp.”

“Music would be pleasant.” Skittish and studying him under the veil of her lashes, Helena retrieved her harp.

She sat cross-legged on a pelt near his chair. ‘Twas easy to strum a soothing song and lose herself in the delicate notes her fingers plucked. But when the last note faded, the restless wolf stirred on his throne, unpacified.

“Why did you play that game with Astrid? Letting her think more goes on between us?”

Ice-blue eyes pinned her, yet, ‘twas his voice, dangerous and soft, that did things to her.

“I…I don’t know.” Her own voice faltered as warmth flushed her skin.

Glowing embers molded his face with dim light. Hakan leaned forward, resting both elbows on his knees. His sinewy hand plucked the harp from her, placing it on the ground.

“Why?” Hakan’s fingertips tilted her chin.

Tingling flares struck Helena all over…like sprays of orange metal shooting from a smithy’s hammer strike. The air, her dress, all hung heavy on her frame. If he didn’t touch her so, she could think better.

“I…I didn’t like how she treated you.”

“You know you played with fire. My control hangs by a thread.” Hakan brushed the hair from her face and whispered, “You are so beautiful. How did I find such a treasure in all my travels?” The corners of his lips curved up. “Someone to help with my Frankish.”

He caressed her cheek, her forehead, tracing her eyebrows, even the tendrils surrounding her face. She shivered, mute under those fingertips that made a slow trail over her lips, her scar.

“And we always speak Norse, you and I, never Frankish.” He smiled at that.

“Because you wish not to leave this farm.”
And you’ll never let me go—no matter if I serve seven years or not.

She flinched at that truth, but Hakan must have misread her.

“This scar does nothing to lessen your beauty.” He spoke with fierce protectiveness. “If I could take back the pain you’ve suffered and put it on myself…”

Such thoughtfulness…she would not correct him. Hakan’s fingers played over her hair, her face, floating over her skin with the barest touch. Growing bold, Helena put her hands on his boots, the fur soft to her skin.

“Come to me, Helena. Come to me as a willing woman, not a thrall.”

Hakan’s words doused her as if with cold water. She pulled away, remembering Olga’s words earlier that day:
Soon he tired of me.
Helena squeezed her eyes shut a second. The longing in his eyes overpowered her as her mind tangled with powerful yearnings.

“I feel hard pressed to stop,” she whispered. “But what of when this passes? Will you tire of me?”

“I make no promises but that I will take care of you.”

She licked her lips, sorely tempted to sit in his lap and toss home and freedom aside. This connection between them wove like taut threads, cinching tighter each day. The tension would make her snap, yielding easily to him. But Hakan’s next words filled her with heaviness. With a slight shrug, he spoke in the same even tones as when he had asked if she could swim that night off Jutland’s shore.

“You live in bondage to me, but I treat you better than many Norsemen treat their wives. I’ll never speak marriage vows again. What I offer is the best I can give.” Then, as if knowing his words stung her, Hakan cosseted her hair.

Her hands rested on his boots. ‘Twould be so easy to give in and let the mysteries of this attraction unravel between them.

“I would take care of you,” he whispered in a hoarse voice.

His eyes darkened with promise if she yielded to the temptation of pleasure. But Olga’s story played on her mind. What was meant to influence Helena to relent instead filled her with resolve. Though she sat at Hakan’s feet, her back went stiff and hard as any shield he used.

“I am grateful you’ve never forced yourself on me…that you give me many freedoms. But, my lord, you do not give me the freedom I crave most.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I decline your offer and will take care of myself.”

A mere hands-breath away, his pained eyes fixed on her. Hakan jerked out of the chair, leaving the longhouse in rapid strides, the magic of the moment lost.

Chapter Thirteen

Lord Hakan possessed a great treasure that he failed to share with her.

With heavy heart and rag in hand, Helena slammed the heavy green glass smoother on fine linen stretched across the whalebone board. Tendrils stuck to her cheeks and forehead from the heated glass as she pressed out wrinkles with all her might.
How could he?

She should have given herself to him.

She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

She would tell him today, if he would stay long enough for them to speak.

Tonight he would stay. The king was to visit, or so the king’s man said who tarried in the yard, waiting for Hakan.

Since the Glima, Lord Hakan had buried himself in hunting: bear, deer, moose. He dragged one carcass after another to the farmstead. Then, he had gone upriver, trapping with Sven. Gone three days, he had just returned and unsaddled Agnar in the barn.

Her curious gaze strayed to the king’s message.

Stick-like marks were scratched in neat rows, but ‘twas no matter. She couldn’t read in any language, and the rare ability awed her. Hakan knew this, yet he failed to share that treasure with her. She set the smoother atop orange embers and fed her curiosity. She picked up the wooden slat, and the pad of one finger traced the indented lines.

“What are you doing?” Hakan called, striding through the longhouse.

She jumped and held out the wooden slat. “The king’s man brought this.”

“I saw him.” Hakan scowled and took the king’s message.

He went to his great chair near the hearth and read the message. Did the message bear glad tidings? She couldn’t tell, for he bent over the hearth and scraped a layer of wax into the embers. He held the board over the mild flames until the wax began to soften. With the tip of a sharp-edged stick, Hakan etched his own message to the king. Helena hovered close, examining his calloused hand as it moved the stick swiftly over soft wax.

“You read and write.” She folded her hands into her apron.

He glanced up from the board. “I do.”

“And you never told me.”
And never offered to teach me.

“I did not.”

He focused on the board, and she could have been little more than a bothersome gnat. His head was bent to the task, while the stick moved with quick precision. She leaned in closer.

“I wonder if—”

“You’ll have to wait.”

He tossed the stick into the fire and went to the lintel, beckoning the king’s man and calling loudly for Gamle and Olga. Dismissed, Helena leaned against the table’s edge and rested the heels of her palms there. At a loss, she watched his broad back fill the doorway.

Hakan passed the wooden board to the king’s man. Olga came from the root cellar, wiping her hands on her apron. She scurried across the yard with Gamle when she saw Hakan’s face. Hakan issued clipped commands too quick and low for Helena to understand. She stared at the earthen floor and drummed her fingertips. Why such urgency?

“Aye,” Olga said, her head bobbing in deference. “A feast. This eve.”

Filling the doorway, Hakan turned to Helena. “Make the longhouse ready. King Olof dines here tonight.”

Helena grabbed the tunic, her peace offering, from the whalebone stretcher. “I’ve been working on this for you.”

His eyes, icy and distant, scanned the garment. “’Twill do.”

Hakan left for the sauna while Helena prepared for the king’s visit. She stretched the best white linen cloths across the table and cleaned and polished Rhenish glassware. She unrolled thick beeswax candles from cloths hidden in chests.

Then, she was left with the tunic to finish. The linen came from young flax thrice boiled. The bolt of cloth from which she made this tunic was a soft, clean white, not the usual oat-colored linen, and felt like silk.

Blue, yellow, and bright red threads had been stitched into the fabric in the same style as the symbols on Hakan’s armband. Small, tiny seams, her best work, made the cloth appear to be knit together by air.

Now, laboring over the seams to flatten them, perspiration beaded on her forehead. The strength of her arms, her heart, went into perfecting this garment. And now he would greet a king in it. What more could he want?

…

“What more could she want?” Hakan tossed a cup of water onto the pile of sizzling river rocks.

“What?” Eyes shut, Sven reclined on a bench in a stupor from the heat.

“Helena. What more could she want from me?”

“Not this again. How many times must we go over this?” Sven rubbed large fingers through his unkempt hair.

“She greets me as if nothing happened. As if she didn’t spurn me. I come back from hunting to find she’s sewn a tunic fit for a king. I never asked her to make it for me, yet, she smiles as if…” He let his words trail and wiped sweat from his face.

“Aye, ‘as if’ what?” Sven asked.

“Nothing,” Hakan grumbled, and poured more water on the pile of stones where steam hissed and curled.

“As I said in the forest,” Sven said, cracking his knuckles. “You should bed the maid and be done with it.”

Hakan wiped a rag across his nape and shoulders, removing the forest’s grime.

“When will you cease to think of women as vessels to meet your needs?”

“Because they are,” he snorted, and his eyes were narrow slits. “Give her something she wants, then. Mayhap she’ll run to your arms.”

“That’s the problem. What does she want? She lacks for nothing and asks for nothing.”

Except for her freedom—the one thing I’ll not give.

“Then count yourself lucky.” Sven spoke through a yawn, “Every woman wants something. Garments. Jewels. A fine steed.”

“Nay, she wants only to return to Frankia. I already promised her she could return in seven years.”

“There you have it. Promise her what she wants but don’t yield when the time comes.”

“You would have me lie to her.”

Sven scratched his chest. “Remember, my own mother was a thrall. My father promised her safe return to her Saarmi people, if she served him for a time.” Sven managed a lazy half-grin. “Obviously she stayed.”

“Unlike your father, I won’t marry.”

“Then try promising to set her free sooner than seven years. Make an agreement, one so difficult to achieve, she’ll have hope and not vex you with pleas for freedom.” Sven wiped dripping sweat from his face. “The maid will fall into your bed soon. I see the way you look at each other.” Sven grabbed a folded linen and wiped it across his face. “I’m glad you’re not tied up in knots anymore over the king’s teachings…honor with women and thralls. Women need to serve their purpose in this world.”

Knots? His shoulders and back were full of them. Hakan watched Sven discard the used cloth, dropping it to the ground. He would never use Helena in that manner. Yet, his mind churned with the question: What could he promise her?

…

“You must go.” King Olof’s grey eyes bore into Hakan. “You’re the only one I trust.”

Aromas of roast pork and warm oat bread filled the longhouse—a fine spread that was hardly touched. Helena cradled an earthen pitcher, cool from the root cellar on her hip. Yet, none gave her the nod to fill their drinking horns. The air thickened with hushed words of a furtive mission.

King Olof was every bit the imposing leader this evening. A penannular ring, the size of a man’s hand, clasped his red cape about his shoulders. His silver-white hair shined, tied at the nape of his neck. Several men awaited his pleasure outside the longhouse, their jests and laughter muffled noises beyond the closed door.

Inside, Hakan and Sven listened as the king outlined his request.

“I need you to go after these men,” said King Olof, his smooth voice edged with desperation.

Hakan speared his meat with the tip of a small knife.

“I’ve served you many years. But what you ask…”

The king set his hands on the table. “You need to set things right in our kingdom, for Erik’s future. Jakob rebels against me, despite everything I do.” Olof’s pained eyes pierced Hakan. “I should have made you my son.”

“Olof…” Hakan winced at the king’s admission.

The strong warrior leader of Hakan’s youth crumbled before him, and the discomfort of that nettled him. Was it the tremors of an old man with numbered days? Or the tremors of his kingdom, his home, full of peace all his life?

“He rebels against everything.” The king studied his trencher of food. “And Gorm has spread his evil influence. I sent my most loyal guards to investigate what you reported…berserkers serving Gorm.” His hoary brows snapped together. “They didn’t return.”

Sven splayed meaty hands on white linen. “Mayhap they face delays.”

The king eyed Sven. “Their broken, bloodied weapons were delivered to me.”

Hakan set his knife on the trencher, unable to eat.

The king’s eyes bored into Hakan. “You see the import of what I’m saying? Gorm’s behind this…behind an uprising in Gotland. If the chieftains of northern Gotland take their rebellion south to Paviken…many will die.”

Paviken was the only trading post on the island of Gotland, a rich, thriving outpost for traders of every stripe. Should word travel of unrest in Svea, the region would be laid bare for any man of ambition. Hakan spread his hands open before the king.

“You would have me travel to northern Gotland, a wild, open land that I know little about, and hunt down rebellious chieftains and their berserkers in forests they know well?”

“Aye.”

“This could take a long time, a
very
long time. This fall…the meeting of the Althing…Erik….” He sighed. Too much hung in the balance: loyalty to his fatherly sovereign and safeguarding Svea’s peace pitted against his own peace and the bone-deep need to be the father his son needed. “You have other chieftains who would welcome this battle.”

Olof searched Hakan’s face. “If I weren’t so troubled, I wouldn’t come to you.” The king rubbed his lined forehead. “I wish there was something I could do to sway the assembly, but…”

“The Althing is for all men, justice tampered with by none.” Hakan finished the king’s words. “And yet, this same justice wrongly binds you.”

Hakan sat in silence as the play of trust and mute appeal spread across Olof’s face. ‘Twould be easy to gather his most trusted, able warriors. They grew restless from their respite and eager for the prizes of battle. None had yet to give their loyalty to other chieftains, or so he had heard.

The uneasy notion of Hakan the Tall as farmer was not believed by even his own men.

Plunder from the northern Gotland chieftains would lure them from their summer rest. Yet, Hakan had grown used to the lightness on his back. His eyes flickered on
Solace
’s gleaming iron length on the far wall.

“There is this.” Olof tossed an arm ring on the table.

The shiny silver band swirled and rotated in fast circles before it stopped. Sven and Hakan examined the ring. Dried blood cracked the surface, but the style, the design, was unmistakable.

Gorm.

Hakan and Sven nodded recognition. The Dane’s serpentine mark was clear on the armband.

Then, Olof pulled something else from the pouch at his waist. Gripping it in his closed hand, he stared hard at Hakan. “With Gorm’s armband and my men’s bloodied weapons, there were these.”

The king placed the items on the table with a reverent touch.

He set a plain trefoil brooch, save one modest blue stone in the middle. ‘Twas one half of a pair of silver brooches. Hakan instantly recognized the favored pieces his mother had worn on her shoulders, gathering the cloth at her shoulders in summer’s warmth.

Where was the other brooch?

The king’s age-spotted hand laid an amulet of Thor’s hammer. Two notches scored the top of the hammer. Blood rushed in Hakan’s ears. His chest hammered with a heart ready to burst. Beside him, Sven growled like a bear.

“What’s this?”

Hakan’s stomach clenched in knots as he touched his mother’s favored brooch and the amulet his father had worn faithfully every day to honor Thor. Both pieces had been missing since their deaths. Helena stood on the far wall facing him, her dark eyes huge orbs in her head.

The king’s voice came low. “Gorm grows careless. Or bold in his treachery. He’s no longer a rebellious youth spreading disorder in Svea. He’s a dangerous man.”

Hakan picked up his father’s amulet and traced the iron edge.

“The truth is finally known.”

“Aye.” The king cocked his head to the side. “I fear he may be in league with the Danes.”

Hakan stared at his sovereign as the very truth of what he had witnessed as a boy came back to him. Olof’s coin-colored eyes wavered.

“And you think the unrest is the work of the Danes?” Hakan asked.

“Possibly,” Olof answered and raised a placating hand. “I know I said the Danes were too busy devouring the Saxons to care about Svea, but you were right. Gorm’s in league with someone. Who, I’m not sure.”

“And Gorm’s in Gotland now?” Sven spoke up after a long silence.

The king nodded. “I believe so. He disappeared during the mid-summer festival. That’s when I sent the second man to find him, and days later, these were delivered to me.” Olof gestured to the jewelry on the table.

“I’ll do it,” Hakan said with firm promise.

“I thought you’d agree.” The king rose, leaving his fare untouched.

He strode to the door with a stronger gait, as if placing this burden at Hakan’s feet gave relief. Olof placed an aged hand on the heavy door and looked at Hakan.

“I was wrong to withhold the truth, but as king, I had my reasons.” His sage voice carried across the quiet longhouse. “May you find it in your heart to forgive me.”

As quickly as he came, the king left.

“Ale?” Helena stepped out of the shadows, hefting the pitcher.

Her soft smile was a welcome balm, but both men declined. Sven, his brows thundering, rose from the bench and turned to Hakan.

“I go to Uppsala to alert the men. When do you want to leave?”

“Tomorrow. With the morning tides.”

To his own ears, his voice was hollow and empty. He pushed away the food and stared at the waning summer sky through the open shutter. Helena cleared the dishes and quietly washed them. Hakan removed
Solace
from the wall and took his whetstone from a chest.