Loki's Daughters Read online

  Lie with me and keep me warm, he said with words, yet she knew he could not speak of what he really needed. What man could? Not even Trevor, dying in her arms, had been able to ask of her what she had understood he needed most. Why should a Viking be any different?

  Aye, he was going to die. She saw it in his eyes, saw the brutal pain he could not quite disguise behind his brash humor and laughing blue eyes. Comfort me, his eyes said. Care about me, care that I will soon be gone. Be my lost love for me, just for a little while, let me believe I have my love again.

  He's a Viking.

  He's a man. Just a man.

  "He will be gone by morning," she finally replied. "Where's the harm? He can do nothing to me without doing worse to himself."

  The man laughed, a short, clipped sound. "It would be a good way to die, but I will not hurt you."

  He was teasing. How could he be teasing? He was dying.

  What did it hurt her to give him comfort? He was not so beloved of her that she would grieve his passing. Perhaps only a little. Because she was at fault.

  Nay, the fault was his, whether or not he meant her harm.

  And he did not, she could see now. But he had come to her for help, having nothing left to lose. She should hate him. Rage, rage should be engulfing her, rage for the father and brother slain by his kind, fury for the brother stolen away and enslaved, for the torture Birgit had endured. But she saw only agony, and the loneliness he struggled so valiantly to hide.

  She could no more abandon him than she could a dying child. She would hold him close to her until he died, just as she had done her brother. It no longer mattered if he was marauder or simply adventurer. He was simply a man in pain, dying.

  She ceased her struggling and lay next to him, surprised that he already seemed warmer than she. Beneath the heavy wool blanket, she laid a hand atop his chest, which he wrapped in his own. A broad, strong hand that could easily crush her bones.

  "You should sleep," she said at last.

  "Nay," he said with his sweet smile. "I do not want to sleep. I do not want to lose any of what is left. Talk to me, my little Celt."

  "Talk about what?"

  "Tell me of your family."

  "I have none. Only Birgit and Liam. All others are dead, or stolen, taken as slaves." She did not want to talk about them. Most times, she did her best to forget.

  "Birgit is your sister. And the boy? Liam? Her son?"

  "Aye."

  "Where is his father?"

  "No one knows. No one cares. Do not talk of it."

  "A Northman, then?"

  Arienh shook her head in warning and touched a finger to his lips. "No more," she said.

  Despite his struggle, the Viking's eyes soon drooped closed and he slept, his good arm locked around her. Arienh lay still, resolving above all not to wake him. Now and then he stirred and moaned, but he did not wake. It would not be long now, she knew. Regret tugged at her.

  Arienh also drowsed, yet she could not sleep, for that wild pounding in her heart would not quite be soothed. She wondered if his grip would still be so firm when the time came that she would have trouble dislodging herself.

  And just what would she do in the morning with a dead Viking in her home?

  ***

  He could not open his eyes. His body felt as if it floated, then as if he rose from it and looked down where it lay beside the girl whose golden hair sprung loose like newly sheared fleece.

  He was within himself once again, and still his eyes would not open. Pain pounded like Thor's hammer inside his head. The throbbing agony of his wound would not cease, and his body preserved the memory of the chilling rain, bone deep, almost as if he still lay in it. The warmth of the fire, the scratchy woolen blanket, even the heat from the girl beside him could not chase away the chill. He did not want to sleep, not when so little time was left, but his eyes would not open.

  He stood at the prow of his longship. As his ship raced forth out of the churning sea, Hel waited on the promontory before him, one crooked, craggy finger beckoning. Her face, half black, half blue, leered with a toothless grin. Her table beyond, within the cavern that was the Afterworld, boasted bones, split and marrowless, upon its platters, while her minions, no more than skin over bones themselves, scrapped over them.

  Beyond the headland, his mother. Her voice silenced by the screaming wind, she held forth her bronze Celtic cross for him to take. He reached out to her futilely, but Hel drew him nearer, compelling him into her skeletal arms.

  Nay.

  The girl with fleece-like golden hair called to him, her green eyes beckoning. As his ship plunged out of the sea, he reached for her. From nowhere came the silver flash of the blade, and searing pain. Pain. She turned away.

  And Hel's clawlike hands grasped his arms, tugging him downward, down.

  Nay.

  His heart raced. His body jerked. His eyes popped open.

  Startled, the Celtic girl, her golden hair dried into coiling ropes, raised her head and frowned with an odd interest. Perhaps she thought him ready to depart the world at last.

  With a shudder, he drew the girl tightly against him, for his skin was warm but the chill still ached deep within his bones. He shook away the dream that mixed with pain and cold and his confused medley of wants and hopes and fears.

  She had grown so beautiful. The moment he saw her, he knew he'd found her again, and in the sudden shock had forgotten they were mortal enemies. To have dreamed so long, to end like this.

  He did not want to die. He wanted to live. He wanted to hold her in his arms forever. Never mind that she did not remember him. If only the gods would favor him with more than these few moments of pity and comfort she gave him.

  "You are in pain?" she asked, her hand seeking his forehead.

  She did not fool him with her tenderness, for he knew the hatred her kind had for his. She only sought to shield her family from danger. Yet he would take what she gave.

  "It is not so bad," he said. "I did not want to sleep."

  "Your dreams trouble you."

  "'Tis Hel that calls me."

  "Hell is where all heathens go."

  "Hel," he said, knowing she misunderstood him. "'Tis Loki's daughter, and she opens the Afterworld to me."

  "I thought Vikings went to Valhalla when they died."

  He smiled at her, drinking in the night-darkened beauty of her eyes, as if somehow he might take the memory of them with him into death. "If the Valkyries choose them. But they do not choose a man who has been bested by a small Celtic girl. So 'tis Hel who calls me. But I will not go. I will stay with you."

  Ignoring the wrenching pain, he rose onto his elbow and leaned over her. Her dark green eyes widened with fear and her body constricted, but he didn't care. His palm cupped her cheek, and his lips descended to capture hers as he trapped her with his body. At her startled gasp, he parted her lips and invaded, exploring, memorizing, savoring. He drew her snugly against him, touching from chest to thigh. Her squirming ceased. Perhaps she accepted his advances only out of fear, but if he must die, he wanted the taste of her on his lips when he went.

  "Stop it," she whispered, pushing against him, and she threw a wild glance at her sister's bed.

  He knew what she was thinking. It was not the kiss that disturbed her, as much as that her sister might see it. And he would cherish that as much as the kiss.

  "You are mine," he whispered.

  "Never."

  "You belong to me. Never forget that, my Arienh."

  "Then I have only to wait until tomorrow."

  "Aye, if it is so. But if not, then you are mine. I will not let you go."

  Agony re-gathered, swamping him, rolling over him in great, dark, twisting swells. He fought, a drowning man against a violent sea of pain and oblivion, feeling his life force slip from him as surely as if he slid beneath the waves. He fell flat against the wool pallet, still gripping her tightly, lest she escape him before Hel's clutch pulled him down to the Afterworld. W
ith the easing of the tearing pain, his eyes closed and an unexpected contentment engulfed him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Well? Is he dead?"

  "Nay. Unless dead men smile."

  "What would he have to smile about, Arienh?"

  Arienh caught the sharp edge of Birgit's taunt like a lash across the face. She doubted Birgit had slept any more of the night than she had, and her sister's keen ears had surely heard all that had occurred between her and the Viking. "Perhaps he is merely happy to know he is alive."

  She disengaged from the Viking's arm and rose off the narrow pallet, stiff from remaining so still for so long. Although he had maintained his fierce hold on her throughout the night, he now lacked the strength to stop her.

  He followed her with his eyes as if she deserted him, with a gaze that rippled a shiver on her arms. Turning away and grumbling to herself, she tackled the dried tangles of her hair with her bone comb. Never before had she lain down at night with her hair in such disarray, and now she paid the penalty.

  Her gaze landed guiltily on the wooden tablet she used to keep track of passing time. In all the time since she had been appointed keeper of the stones, she had never failed to record a day, but the Viking had so distracted her from her obligation that she had forgotten it. But if she did not make a mark for every day, she could easily lose count, for she could not go to the stone circle very often. From the time the circle had been built by men now long forgotten, no keeper had ever failed his duty, and she did not mean to be the first. She picked up the slab and scraped a mark on it with the point of her knife.

  The Viking still stared, as if his eyes held her in an eternal grip. Her heart tripped twice as his gaze roamed over her like a dangerous caress. She turned away, looked back, glanced down again at her tablet, until she could no longer bear his silence.

  "I wonder where your friends are, Viking. Will they come looking for you?"

  Despite his weakness, a sort of triumph gleamed in his eyes, as if by his very will he had forced her to speak. "They will not know where to look. And when the tide is high in the estuary, they will sail back to the Green Isle."

  "Without you? Why?"

  "That is what I told them to do. We did not come to raid."

  "Why, then?"

  "I told you, I came to see you, Arienh."

  "You lie."

  The Viking smiled.

  Arienh tied her knife to her waist cord, then tossed her shawl over her shoulders, grumbling to herself that it was still damp. "I shall see for myself where the others are, and this time, soon enough to raise the alarm."

  "Tell them to come for me, then."

  As if he thought she might. "You said they would be gone."

  "When the tide is high."

  "I will not go near them. You will have to do without them, unless you plan to join them on your own."

  "No one need fear that," he replied ruefully.

  She felt a featherlike tug at her skirt. Liam pressed close to her side. She smiled at the boy.

  "Will you come with me this morning, Liam?" she asked, but looked to Birgit for the answer.

  "Aye. Please? Can I go?" The boy already bounced in his eagerness.

  Birgit's pale green eyes held an odd, un-interpretable message as they often did, but her sharp nod was decisive. Liam could go.

  Arienh opened the door and breathed relief when she saw no horde of marauders descending the slopes beyond the field. The sky was clear and bright, patched with bulbous clouds that spelled another coming storm. New rivulets cut through the fields, and filled the swollen stream with muddy brown energy, surging toward the equally distended river.

  As she had expected, the river had cut a new course through the valley. Debris littered the sodden earth, interspersed with shallow standing water, glistening in the bright sun. They had survived this time, but a flood was easily as dangerous as a Viking raid, and could mean the end of Celts in this valley.

  With Liam to risk, she resisted the impulse to get closer to the Vikings for a look, so she walked down the valley where the river poured between two low mounts to join the estuary. From there, she could see the great sandy banks and salt marshes that flanked the bigger river as it met the sea.

  Liam bounced about like an energetic puppy, alternately speeding away from her and returning to hold her hand. Winter had cramped the boy immeasurably. Sometimes she forgot the extent of his frenetic vigor, for inside the cottage he was always quiet and kept himself useful. It was good for him to get out.

  "Who is that man, Aunt?" the boy asked during one of those quieter moments when he walked beside her.

  "I don't know. I did not ask his name."

  "He is a Viking, isn't he?"

  "Aye."

  "Vikings are bad."

  Arienh said nothing, feeling her throat tighten once again with the muddled mix of rage and tenderness, wishing him both dead and living. How could she explain the welling up of hatred from the very core of her being, or the way it inexplicably tangled with compassion? It was like being hot and cold, all at once.

  "Is he bad, Aunt?"

  "I don't know, Liam. Right now, he is hurt too badly to be any trouble."

  "But will he kill us when he gets better?"

  "I don't think so. He may be kinder than most of his sort."

  "Is he going to die?"

  "Perhaps not. It is hard to tell."

  The early spring air was cold, brisk, and fresh, almost stinging as she breathed it in. Already water birds were settling into the marsh. For a while, she stood with Liam on a small hummock where they could be concealed, yet still watch the birds search for nesting places.

  Beyond the marsh, still soaked from the storm, the ash trees stood like black skeletons against the crisp sky. Between flat, silty shores ran the turbulent river, and on it sailed a Viking longship with its blood red sail and swan's head prow.

  "Is that his ship, Aunt?" The boy's eyes shone with the brightness that revealed his Viking kinship.

  "Shh. Aye, I think it must be. Sit down behind the rushes so they will not see you."

  Tension stiffened the boy's body, betraying his urge to run out onto the sand, to wave and shout to the strangers that passed in the graceful ship. Arienh watched him struggle to contain himself, and sit behind the brush as she demanded. The night before, she had noticed his fascination with the Viking and had thought it born of fear. Now she saw it was also something else.

  His own kind. Liam knew he was different.

  When the ship had sailed farther downstream, Arienh took Liam's hand and climbed the low hill that looked out over the Irish Sea. They watched as the ship put out to sea, going west.

  "Where are they going?"

  "To the Green Isle," she said, pointing. "If you look closely, you can see it, far away over the water."

  "It doesn't look green to me. Why do they call it the Green Isle?"

  "Because most times it looks green, from the sea. But it is winter still. Perhaps nothing is green there in winter."

  "It should be the Grey Isle. Why are they leaving him, Aunt?"

  "He told them not to look for him if he didn't come back."

  "They shouldn't leave him. Will they come back for him?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Is he like my father, Aunt?"

  She studied the boy's bright blue eyes, so full of hungry curiosity. Viking eyes. "Nay."

  "That's good. I like him."

  Arienh wished she had better answers for the boy. She wished he did not know the horrible truth of his origins. But their village was tiny, too small to keep from him what everyone else knew. Liam was her delight, and Birgit's life itself, but they could not give him what he most needed. And what he needed most was a good father, not a wretch of a raping, marauding Viking.

  As they returned along the path by the churning brown waters, Arienh saw Mildread bending over in the field beyond Arienh's stone cottage, her brown braids nearly touching the ground. Mildread straightened, holding the
Viking's sword, retrieved from the spot where the man had dropped it the night before. With a hand gripped on the hilt, she awaited them.

  "The Viking," said Mildread, almost impatiently. The furrow in the middle of her brow echoed the concern in her voice. "Where is he? Did you not say you killed him?"

  "He is not dead, but I think he soon will be," Arienh replied. Mildread was not going to like this. "He found his way to the cottage last night."

  "You let him in?"

  "Nay. He did that himself. I had naught to say about it. But he is very weak now."

  "Not so weak as he ought to be." Mildread's brown eyes darkened with accusation. "And you have left him with Birgit."

  "Aye. I do not think he can harm her."

  "Why did you not finish him?"

  "He is weak. But he could still be dangerous when he holds a knife in his hand. He is best appeased for now. It was not right to let a man die in the cold rain, Mildread."

  "They are animals, not men."

  "But we are not animals. Give me the sword. We must hide it in case he should recover and try to take it back."

  "We should throw it in the river."

  "Then we would not have it for our own protection later. Nay, let us hide it in the thatch at the eave by the sheepfold."

  Mildread's skeptical brown eyes narrowed, but with a glower, she handed the weapon to Arienh as they walked to the cottage.

  "You will regret it when he kills you," Mildread grumbled.

  "The ladder, Liam," Arienh said, ignoring the impossibility of Mildread's warning, and she watched the boy fetch and raise the wooden ladder to the stone wall. Arienh climbed the ladder and wove the sword into the thatch near the eave. She leaned back to survey the thatch, and, satisfied, climbed down.

  "I do not think he meant to kill anyone, Mildread." She stepped off the ladder. "He did chase me, but he never did unsheathe his sword. He only meant to stop me from raising the alarm, I think."

  Liam tugged on Mildread's skirt. "I saw the ship, Aunt Mildread. It sailed away and left him."

  Dark anger lurked in Mildread's brown eyes, the hatred all Celts harbored toward Vikings. "I do not like this, Arienh. Father Hewil would tell you to kill him. I have heard he is coming. If he tells you to kill the Viking, you must."