Viking Sword: A Fall of Yellow Fire: The Stranded One (Viking Brothers Saga Book 1) (39 page)

With a suddenness that took away her breath, the battle below ceased. The two combatants stood staring at each other. Then both dropped their swords, started to laugh and grabbed each other. They pounded each other on the back. The second warrior, the one who had spoken with the leader, threw off his helm and leapt to the ground to walk, grinning, to where Brandr was now talking in high excitement with the leader. That he was also kin to Brandr was clear to see in his barley-hued, wavy locks, but unlike the other two, he was clean-shaven. He was immediately enveloped in a powerful hug. The back pounding continued.

“Behold,” Sindre said. “A meeting of brothers.”

Anger, rich and freeing, flowed through and over her like a flood. “That half-witted, high-handed, thoughtless, …
músa!
Since they failed to kill him, I will!”

She sensed Sindre’s astonishment at her words, but she did not stop to explain. Release from terror gave wings to her feet as she sped down the slope toward the man whose crazed action had nigh stopped her heart. Screaming every Saxon curse she had ever heard the men of Yriclea utter, she leapt upon Brandr as he turned, dimly aware of the astonishment on the faces of the other two. He staggered, caught himself and her, and promptly began to defend himself from the blows she rained upon him. Tears dripped down her cheeks, but she did not care.

Then, in the blink of an eye, her blows turned to kisses. She covered his beloved face with them, his name falling again and again from her lips.

He laughed as he caught her hands between their bodies. He pulled her close, wrapped one arm around her waist and with the other hand, held fast her face. The kiss he lavished was like no other, filled with battle lust, heat, and power. She thought he might devour her, but sought only to draw more of him, his inner self into her very soul. She demanded. He gave, and then gave more.

“Brandr!”

The word, bellowed loudly enough to split the nearby tree trunks, came from the leader.

Brandr did not release her, not for a long, long moment. Slowly, oh so leisurely, his hard mouth released the possession of its hold.

His breath was a lot shorter than when he had finished the fight.

So, it seemed, was hers. She panted like terrified hare. She opened her eyes and found his intense blue gaze, slitted in a heavy, sensual heat, taking in every sentiment that must be showing on her face.

She felt exposed, but it did not matter. He was hers, and she was his. All was as it should be.

He grinned, a predatory, proprietorial token of masculine triumph. The azure fire scorched her face. He swung her around to face the two men who looked so like him. “Nicolaus. Hakon. Meet Lissa of Yriclea, the woman who will be my wife!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was nigh Mithnætti, that same night. The feasting and celebrations for the ‘lost ones’, now found, were over. Except for his brothers and the guards, the members of their party were ranged around them, fast asleep.

A silver-decorated horn of bjórr in his hand, Brandr stared into the flames of the fire, his glower increasing with every word Nicolaus spoke.

“This is foolishness, Bjarki! I do not say Lissa is not a beautiful and desirable woman, but even I cannot understand why you wish to take her to wife. Father will likely become as berserkr when he hears.” He shook his head. “We believed you and Sindre feasting in the halls of Odinn. With this news, Father will think it better if you were.”

He did not answer, for Nicolaus said naught he had not expected to hear. He had just finished recounting the tale of all that had happened since the botched raid on Yriclea thirty days past. He glanced at Lissa’s recumbent form beneath his hand. Her breathing was slow and even, the firelight glinting off the rich gold of her hair. He was thankful she slept, for though she could not yet understand their words, she was clever and might well discern his brothers’ dismay, and guess its source.

Meeting Nicolaus and Hakon on patrol for King Guthrum was a stroke of luck, though Nicolaus admitted he had lingered in the western part of the land, searching for sign of him or Sindre. They brought the very welcome news that the nasty wound in Karl’s thigh healed well. The Saxon’s axe had cleaved muscle, but had broken no bones and severed none of the mysterious inner pathways that allowed free movement of the limb to continue. Already, his brother trained to bring the leg back to fighting trim.

He swallowed a sigh, dragging his thoughts back to the objections they voiced. He had known how his brothers would react to his declaration, but the degree of their resistence was unexpected, and he wondered what lay behind it.

Hakon, lazing cross-legged across the fire from him, agreed with Nicolaus. “Father grows worse, brother. He may kill you, this time. His madness is why I am here, though ‘it is bad luck to give too much favor to the feelings of one’s fellow man’.”

He felt the lines of his face tighten. Hakon, among all his brothers, was the one upon whom his father’s wrath fell most oft, for Hakon was a man with a scholarly bent. He frequented quoted the wise men among their people and was devoted to becoming a skáld. He and Turold had become instant friends, instinctively recognizing within each other a similar temperament, and a shared love of all things skáldic.

Hakon was a powerful warrior, and could hold his own even with Sindre, but their father had little use for him. Skálds were revered, but in the eyes of Óttarr Grimarson, they were weaklings, and unfit to be numbered among his sons.

He and Karl had done their best to shield their younger siblings, to support them, especially as children, but Hakon seemed to need it least. It was as if the more their irascible father harangued him, the stronger and more determined he grew…and the wiser. If Hakon had finally fled his wrath, the old man had indeed become dangerous.

“It is impossible, Bjarki,” Hakon continued, but with no heat in his voice. “It would be best if you declare her a free woman and take her as concubine. Acknowledge her children. It is a position of honor, despite the law.” He paused. “You know Father and Mother have great plans for you.”

His temper flashed. “And how oft have I told you, Gríss, I do not share in those plans!”

Nicolaus humphed. “He will dispossess you, and Mother may forget she is Danski and turn upon you as if she were the shieldmaiden she still wishes to be.”

“Já, Snurre. I know it.”

He met Hakon’s look, and saw there a keen and familiar understanding. As always, it eased his heart. “Yet she is mine, and I will have her. The love I bear her runs deep, and holding her is worth any cost. If we must make our way alone, and with naught but the work of our hands, it will be no less than how many others must live.”

“Nei, you will never be so alone,” Nicolaus said. He picked up a knife-sized branch from the ground beside him and threw it into the fire, sending sparks flying. “You know well we will never allow it.”

And that was truth. Even if they did not fathom his decision, his brothers would stand behind him. It was how they had grown up, supporting and protecting each other. There had been other brothers, but none but they had survived, and they walked as one.

“There is more you should know, Bjarki.” Hakon’s ice blue gaze, so like Sindre’s, flickered over to Nicolaus, who tensed and shifted his weight. “Two days after you left Ljotness to sail for Yriclea, Father visited Abi Bergthorson to begin negotiations for the hand of his daughter…for you.”

“He did
what?”
Brandr only just managed to keep his wrathful response to a low roar as he lunged to his feet. His hand went to the hilt of Frækn. The curse he spit was virulent. “What was his thought? He knows I must be present for betrothal negotiations to be legal. To do otherwise is to give offense.” He frowned. “And the jarl’s response to the insult?”

He sank back down as Nicolaus shrugged. “By all accounts, the old one did not see it as offense. When it was done, they heartily congratulated themselves and then drank themselves into a stupor. It would seem the two of them had previously spoken of it in private, and both agreed it was a good match. Father fully expected you to return from the raid with great riches and many slaves, enough to reward the jarl in an appropriate manner to erase any possible slight.” He grimaced, then leaned back and raised his arms to lock his fingers together behind his head. “When Karl returned with news of the failed raid, and you and Sindre both missing…well, the women took the children into hiding and the men sought to stay out of his way. He cursed you, Bjarki, and went about for two full days screeching he hoped you ended up in Hel. He has not spoken your name since.”

His rubbed the back of his head with his palms and fell silent—a shared quiet that lasted through Brandr’s final swallow of bjórr.

Brandr stirred. “I have gold, a fortune’s worth. It belonged to the thegn of Yriclea. We believe it was the reason for the raid of the warband that routed our warriors. Sindre carries it in a belt pouch around his waist. None but we two and Lissa know of it. Had she not told us where to find it, we would have left the village with naught but our lives.”

“Ah, an explanation at last,” Nicolaus said. He pulled his sax from its sheath and cast it, point down, into the dirt. Over, and over he pitched it. Each time, the point sank deep in the ground.

Brandr’s brows twitched. “For what?”

Hakon grinned. “For how our uncle could have gotten so fat in so short a time.”

Brandr chuckled.

The silence stretched again.

“Withhold some of the gold,” Hakon said. “You understand I speak as one who sees differently than others, otherwise, I would not make this suggestion.”

Brandr raised his hand in negation. “I have already discussed it with Sindre. We will hold naught back from Father.”

“You will receive none of it, then,” Nicolaus said, this time tossing the sax in the air to catch it as it dropped.

“So be it! I will live my life with the knowledge he cannot fault me in this matter.” He shifted, impatient with the course of their talk. “Let us speak of more pleasant things.”

“Já,” Nicolaus declared. He pinched his lips together and abruptly threw the sax with enough force to bury it halfway to the hilt in a rotting log at the edge of the camp. “And the first of those is our uncle! What is this that has happened with Sindre and this woman, Siv? A very comely female she is too, and possessed of curves it would take
both
arms to fill. Had he not so obviously laid claim to her, I might.”

Brandr snorted. “Ha! As if you, Snurre, will ever be satisfied with but one female. Each time we meet, you are with a different woman.” He leered at his brother. “Could it be you grow weary of
smorrebrod
and now desire to find a wife and settle?”

Nicolaus got to his feet and prowled over to recover his knife, then returned to drop back into his place. His delicate shudder was yet powerfully expressive. “Nei! You know me better than that. I am the fourth son. It is not so important I marry, and I have no intent to do so.”

“It is strange, though,” Hakon said. “Sindre left Ljotness a lonely man and returns with a female and child in tow, to whom he appears unreasonably attached. It is unlike him.”

“What is not normal is this mildness of manner he now displays.” Nicolaus’ eyes glittered as he opened them wide. “Had I not seen for myself how agreeable he has become, I would argue it impossible. Why, a cow is less placid than he. He has become an old man before his time!”

“Make not the mistake of saying such to his face, brother,” Brandr said. “You would find him still willing to take off your head with Frithr.”

The laughter they shared was accented with deep affection.

Brandr leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. “Tell me of Signe.”

Hakon’s tales of their baby sister’s exploits in the longhouse kept them all in quiet laughter until weariness, abetted by the stout liquor, took hold. Nicolaus threw himself across the ground and stretched out. He snored first, then Hakon’s words died into the night.

Brandr slid into his customary place beside Lissa and took her in his arms. She snuffled, whispered his name and sighed. His eyes closed as his mind took the fragrance of her soft hair into sleep.

∞∞§∞∞

Lissa, her eye on Brandr, picked up Sindre’s húdfat and handed it to one of Nicolaus’ men. Her love stood beside his brother’s warhorse, stroking the beast’s neck after giving it an inspection worthy of a Saxon stablemaster. He and Nicolaus grinned at each other.

Turold came to stand beside her.

She nodded toward them. “What do they say?”

Turold smiled, and bent close to her ear as he translated. “Brandr says, ‘This horse is one of the finest I have seen.’“

Brandr held the bridle, petting the horse’s soft nose.

“Nicolaus agrees,” Turold continued. “He says he bought the beast from the king’s own stables. Now Brandr says, ‘I will yet have a stable full of these, you will see.’ And Nicolaus answers, ‘Já, and Guthrum would happily purchase more. He is richer than any man I know, and sees the wisdom of adopting the practice of the Saxon kings in employing the use of horses for mounted patrols and messengers. Sometimes, speed is critical, and horses provide it.’“

Turold chuckled. “Now he says he will order one of his men to walk, so Brandr may practice his riding.”

She sighed. “I will have to exert more effort to quickly learn their language.” She grinned up at the scop. “I do not wish to miss what they might say about me.”

He chuckled and flicked her nose with a fond fingertip. “I doubt aught they say of you, fair maid, would be aught but complimentary.” His eyes lit as he listened further. “Now Nicolaus is saying that although he patrols, his orders are such he may interpret them as he pleases, to go east or west. He chooses to escort us home to Ljotness.”

“Oh, I am glad! That will please Brandr. One thing more, and then I will cease to plague you with questions. What meaning have the names he calls them?”

“Snurre and Gríss, you mean?”