The Norse King’s Daughter (27 page)

“That is ridiculous,” Ormsson scoffed. “No wonder your females behave so badly when you give them free rein.”

“I see no husband here to Princess Drifa. She has been on the shelf long enough.” Bjorn licked his lips, staring at her like she was a choice boar steak.

“That is not for you to say.” Her father eyed the three men as if they were manure under his boot.

“Leastways, Drifa is betrothed.”

Oh nay, not that again!

“That is the first we have heard of this.” Ormsson appeared set back by this knot in his plans. “Methinks there is no betrothal. Name the man, if there is one.”

Her father beamed as he announced, “Sidroc Guntersson.”

Now it was those on the other side of the table who gasped.

“You risk war with us,” Ormsson said, “over a split-tail.”

Drifa didn’t know if he referred to Runa or her. Either way, it was an insult.

“If that is what it takes.” Her father stood to his full height, which was intimidating even to other tall Norsemen. He was a majestic figure with his clean, flowing white hair and still sturdy body.

Ormsson, on the other hand, was of the same age, but his dissolute lifestyle showed on his lined face and unkempt body. There was naught of Sidroc in him that she could see, thank the gods.

Just then a
hersir
walked up to Rafn and whispered something in his ear. With a smile, Rafn stood next to his king and father-by-marriage. “ ’Twould seem there are more visitors coming to Stoneheim.” With a dramatic pause for effect, he said. “A longship was spotted at the curve of the fjord that leads into the North Sea. ’Tis Sidroc Guntersson.”

“Well, I guess this disagreement will be settled, after all,” her father said, gloating at his adversaries.

Drifa was filled with joy that Sidroc had finally come, but then Rafn, his expression dire, leaned closer to her and said, for her ears only, “He has two women with him.”

Chapter Twenty-six

There’s nothing like a good fight to raise a man’s sap . . .

F
inally, finally, finally Sidroc arrived at Stoneheim. Much longer and he would have pulled out every hair in his head, and his nose and ear hairs, too.

“Never, never, never travel with women,” he advised Finn, who stood beside him, gloomy as usual.

“I have given up women,” Finn said dolefully.

Under any other circumstances Sidroc would have fallen over with laughter, but he had been listening to Finn’s moaning and mooning over Isobel for too long. “You need a tun of good Stoneheim ale and a woman or two to restore your spirits,” he said. “Look. Over there. Is that Drifa and, oh my gods! That little girl. Her braids are reddish brown, just like my hair, and did she—yea, she did—she stuck out her tongue at the little boyling scooting behind her.” For some reason, that impish act struck him as admirable.

The closer they got, the better he could see. The little one even had his gray-green eyes. Not much of Astrid’s blonde fairness or frail frame that he could see in her.

He raised his eyes to Drifa, and noted immediately that tears were overflowing and running down her cheeks. Was she that happy to see him? He admitted to being happy himself, and certain parts of his deprived body were happier than others.

Ianthe and Isobel came up to stand beside him at the railing. Finn immediately shuffled away, like a whipped puppy. He’d been rebuffed too many times.

“Oh, this is lovely,” Isobel said.

Huh? There was nothing of beauty that he could see in the hodgepodge castle up on the hill. Thanks to Drifa’s builder sister, Breanne, additions had been put on to the building over the years in a manner to make the whole appear lopsided. Of course there were Drifa’s flowers to add their charm, if flowers on a Viking fortress could be called charming.

“I did not think I would like it here in the North, but this is nice,” Ianthe continued.

“You will enjoy my home near Winchester even more,” Isobel assured her. “I cannot wait to show it to you, and Jorvik as well, of course.”

They had learned that Isobel was the daughter of an English earl, stolen when she was scarce thirteen. Sold in the slave marts of Hedeby, she’d lived in the Arab lands for more than ten years. How she would be accepted among her class was unclear, but ’twas not promising, in Sidroc’s opinion. A woman was judged harshly in such circumstances. Women forced into sex slavery were deemed harlots. The best that they could hope for was a nunnery.

In any case, once they’d disembarked here at Stoneheim, after a rest of a day or two, Finn would be taking the women to Britain on the other longship.

What Sidroc would be doing remained to be seen.

He glanced landward again and recoiled at what he saw. Walking, nay, swaggering down the hill from the keep, were his father and two brothers.

A blood-boiling, nigh-berserk rage overtook him, and the longboat had scarce butted against the plank wharf when he jumped off and stalked toward his family, if they could be called that. Luckily Drifa had gone off with Runa. He did not want his daughter to witness what was to come.

“What in bloody hell are you doing here?” he demanded of his father.

“Greetings to you, too, my son. Taking care of family business, which you have neglected to do,” his father replied, casting him a scornful scrutiny.

“You stay away from my daughter, old man. You failed in killing her once. Do not think I will allow you near her again.”

His father waved a hand dismissively. “You misunderstood me when the girl was born. You always did overreact to the least little thing.” He looked to Svein and Bjorn on either side of him for affirmation. Both of the halfbrains nodded.

“I am here to demand payment from King Thorvald for my suffering,” his father said. “After all, the girl is my granddaughter, and they stole her from me.”

Sidroc let out a hoot of humorless laughter. “Go home, Ormsson,” he said finally, refusing to show the respect of the name Father.

“You don’t give me orders, whelp. I brought you into the world. I can send you out of it.”

A melee broke out then, with his father, two brothers, and more than a dozen Vikstead men on one side, and an equal number on the other side with Sidroc, including Finn, King Thorvald, Rafn, Ivar, and a dozen others.

For an hour and more they fought, with others joining in. It was a silent battle, except for the grunts and growls of soldiers at giving and receiving sword wounds, the clang of steel upon steel, the whistle of arrows, the slap of leather, and the occasional death scream.

In the end, before they scurried off like rats in a sinking ship, his father lost an ear to him, Svein appeared to have sustained a possibly mortal gash in his belly, and two Vikstead warriors were dead. Panting heavily, but smiling at the pleasure of a good fight, Thorvald was assessing their casualties. None dead, but quite a few injuries, some serious.

“Shall we make pursuit?” Rafn asked the king.

He paused to consider, then said, “Nay, let the scoundrels go. They are not worth the effort. Me, I could use a horn or five of ale. What say you?” The latter was spoken not just to Rafn but all the men still standing, some dripping sword dew, and not just from their swords.

“To the hall!” a chorus rang out. “A feast! A feast!”

Sidroc limped over to Finn, the limp being from his prior self-inflicted accident in Mylonas’s Praetorion chamber, not a new one today, though it hurt like hell from all this activity. He felt something wet on his face and realized he had a cut on his forehead, but it did not appear to be deep.

Finn was sitting on the ground against a boulder, holding a blood-soaked rag to his face.

“Are you injured, my friend?”

“A broken nose. Can you believe it? After all these years of safeguarding my good looks, I am now ruined by a disfigured nose.”

Sidroc smiled.

“You have blood on your teeth,” Finn observed with distaste.

Sidroc licked his lips and realized that he must have bitten his tongue during the fight. That sometimes happened. Back to Finn, though. “Some women like the looks of a broken nose. They say it makes a man more masculine.”

“If Isobel did not want me when I was perfect, she will not want me when I am not.”

Only Finn would describe himself as perfect. “Desist with the Isobel nonsense. She will not have you, Finn, and that is that.”

“I do not notice Drifa hanging on you with adoration, either. Methinks we are both out of woman-luck.”

Sidroc glanced around. Finn was right. Drifa was nowhere to be seen. Nor was his daughter. Which was a good thing, though. ’Twas not proper for women to see the gore of battle.

Heading toward the castle, he saw Drifa’s sister Vana speaking to her husband, Rafn. “Have you seen Drifa?” he asked.

“Bloody maggot arse hole!” Vana snarled, shocking both him and her husband before stomping off.

He looked to Rafn, who was grinning. “Ne’er mind my wife. Betimes she speaks her mind in an earthy way. Comes from living in a fortress with so many fighting men.”

“Why is she angry with me?”

“She is angry on Drifa’s behalf. Do not expect any less from Drifa.”

“Huh?”

“Are you really so daft?

“Speak plainly, you smirking cur.”

“Didst really see naught wrong with sailing into Stoneheim, not to seek your ladylove, but to bring with you not one but two beautiful women?”

Ladylove?
He tilted his head to the side. “She’s jealous?”

“Do dragons piss?”

He pondered the idea for a long moment and decided he liked it. As he was walking away, Rafn called to his back, “Oh, I should warn you. King Thorvald is planning a wedding.”

He glanced back over his shoulder to see that Rafn was still grinning.

“Whose?”

“Yours.”

First came the sweet, then the bitter . . .

Drifa was sitting on a bench in the back garden with his daughter. They were waiting for him.

He’d washed his face and changed his bloody tunic, not wanting to shock or repulse the child. He stood frozen, taking in the sight.

The child cocked her head to the side, listening to words Drifa spoke to her softly. He thought he heard the little girl say, “But Mother . . .”

My daughter calls Drifa Mother
, he mused. For some reason, that did not bother him as much as it might have at one time.

He was filled with so much joy, and fear, and anger. Emotions shot around his head and in his heart, confusing him. He had not expected to feel so much.

At a prodding from Drifa, the little girl rose and started to walk toward him, hesitantly. She wore a bright green
gunna
with a pale green, open-sided apron over it. Her reddish-brown braids hung midway down her back. When she smiled tentatively at him, he saw she had two missing front teeth. She seemed rather tall for four and a half years, but he knew little about children in general and nothing about girls.

As she drew closer, he dropped down to his haunches to put himself at her level. The pain in his thigh caused him to teeter for a moment, which prompted a giggle from his daughter.

“Are you my father?” she asked.

“I am,” he answered without hesitation, his heart thundering with such a strong feeling of possession.
Mine
, he kept thinking.
Mine.

“Where you been? Dint you want me?”

“Oh, sweetling, I have always wanted you.”

“Mother says you were lost.”

He chuckled. Lost. As good a word as any, he supposed. “I guess you could say that, but I’m not lost anymore.”

“Did you bring me a present?”

He laughed, having been forewarned long ago by Drifa that it would be the first thing Runa asked.

“Let me think. I might have brought one present. Or . . . hmmm, could it be five presents?”

Runa’s eyes, mirror images of his own gray-green ones, went wide as she silently marked the numbers on the fingers of one hand: one, two, three, four, five. “I love presents.”

“I guessed that was the case.” He smiled at her.

“You have red on your teeth,” she pointed out.

He’d thought his mouth had stopped bleeding, but mayhap not. He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “I bit my tongue today.”

She nodded knowingly. “I bit my tongue one time when I was skipping too fast. Can you skip?”

“I do not know. I haven’t done it since I was a boyling.”

“I could show you how.”

Wonderful! A Viking warrior skipping.
“That would be . . . delightful.”

“My mother doesn’t like to skip because it makes her bosoms jiggle.”

He was sure Drifa would appreciate Runa having shared that. He thought about telling Runa that he liked jiggling bosoms, but decided it would not be appropriate. He would have to do that a lot from now on, question whether something was appropriate or not.

“Can I give you a hug?” Runa asked suddenly.

He could swear his heart grew thricefold. “You never have to ask. Hugs are always welcome.”

She launched herself at him then, almost knocking him over. With her little arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and her face pressed against his throat, she was choking him, but he could not care when she was giving him such delicious, wet kisses.

He returned her embrace, inhaling her little-girl fragrance of soft skin and the honey she must have eaten recently. Standing with her still in his arms, he turned to see Ianthe approaching.

“Oh, Sidroc, she is adorable,” she said, placing a hand on his arm and smiling up at his daughter, who was enjoying the height. He knew that Ianthe was barren, and seeing his little dearling must evoke pain in her. He reached out and drew her closer for a quick kiss on the top of her head.

He thought he heard a gasp, but when he turned to take Runa and Ianthe with him over to the bench, he saw that it was empty. He’d forgotten in the excitement of meeting his daughter for the first time that Drifa had been there, in the background.

But now Drifa was gone.

Some swearwords survive the test of time . . .

For hours, Runa led Sidroc around like a puppy on a leash. First he had to see the new kittens in the stable. Then her bedchamber, where she showed him her collection of colored stones. Then the pond, where there was a bullfrog that she described as huuuuuggggge!

Another hour or more was spent with him showing her the presents. A set of carved wooden farm animals. A miniature longship. A Greek girl’s gown with butterflies embroidered along the edges. A small box of marzipan candies. And a rope of colored stones, recommended by Ianthe; it could be wrapped around the neck as jewelry, or used as a belt. Runa was wearing it now across her forehead, tied in back, with tails hanging down past her neck.