Loki's Daughters Page 7

  "Steal their tools and bury them."

  "Scatter their flocks."

  "Forget the sheep. The dogs would just herd them back. Scatter the horses."

  Giggles.

  Silence.

  "Can no one think of anything else?" Arienh asked.

  "We might not lure them into our beds, but how about into the woods?" Selma said sweetly. "They are strangers here."

  Arienh nodded. "Get them lost. I like it. But we need more. We must convince them we're too much trouble. Enough to make them leave, but not enough to harm any of us. It will be hard."

  A rumbling chorus of assent echoed in the cavern.

  "But what if it doesn't work, Arienh?" Selma asked. "What if they just decide to kill us all?"

  That was what Arienh feared. "We have no other weapon. We have no power at all, except ourselves. But we are not cowards. We must either take the chance, or give in to them."

  "Aye," Mildread agreed. "'Tis better than more bloodshed. You are right, Arienh. Though I think you should have killed the dark one, perhaps it would have brought us more harm. Who can say? This might be a better plan."

  "Now," said Arienh, "I have something. And it will cost us nothing but a little time."

  "What?"

  For an answer, she merely grinned and motioned for the villagers to follow her out into the clear, dark night.

  From Weylin's cottage in the lower valley came the sounds of deep and rollicking voices singing.

  "They're drinking," she said. "Mead. Celebrating their triumph. Let them. It will keep them busy."

  "For what?"

  "Come and see. Selma and Mildread, bring three others. And buckets. Lots of buckets."

  ***

  Hidden among scrubby oaks, Arienh watched a silent figure, silhouetted by the bright half moon, glide across the shining sand to the distant surf's edge. Skirts billowed in the stiff wind as the figure bent down, filled a pail, then walked back the long trek to low dunes. Not a bird pipped as the bucket passed to another hushed figure, that turned and trudged just as quietly up the slope, following the tiny stream that flowed between two hills. Arienh reached out in silence for the bucket Mildread handed her, exchanging it for an empty one, then turned and climbed toward the ridge, and handed the bucket to Selma. The bucket passed over the crest, down the far slope. Another joined it, and another, until several full buckets rested in the shadows at the foot of the hill, within the valley. Silent women collected around them.

  Pairs of vigilant eyes watched. At the edge of the forest, Arienh waved a hand. A shadowy chain of women emerged and followed, creeping upon the provisions stacked beside Weylin's cottage.

  Small kegs came off the stack. Lids pried open. Half of their contents poured into empty buckets, full buckets poured into half-empty kegs, lids replaced. Shadowy women crept into the silent forest, their footsteps muffled by the soggy earth.

  ***

  Inside the cottage, Ronan reclined against a stack of woolen blankets, furs and pillows, watching his companions at the tables and benches and letting the sweet warmth of the mead curl downward all the way to his toes. The fever was gone, and his strength was returning rapidly. It was good to be back with his family and friends, good to see his mother relaxed into Gunnar's arms, good to see Gunnar active after his last bout of illness.

  "I know which one I want!" Tanni shouted, too loudly, and tossed back his head to drain the last drop of mead from his horn. "That little one with the golden curls."

  "I care not, so long as you stay away from the redhead," Egil retorted, chuckling.

  "Well, you can have her. Strangest eyes I've ever seen."

  "But big enough to be a woman, at least."

  "You'll both be lucky if they even look at you," said Olav solemnly. "The problem here is they're all Christians."

  "So?"

  "So Christians can't stand it until you become one of them. You know how it is when you try to trade with them. They've got to say their words over you first."

  "So let them say their words," Tanni answered with a shrug and laugh. "They say it really doesn't make a difference as long as they don't sprinkle their water on you. But if they sprinkle on you, you're doomed. You’ll never see Valhalla."

  Ronan's mother sat up to interrupt, but Gunnar eased her gently back to his side. She'd explained things often enough.

  Ronan had heard stories of the Christian faith all his life, and had considered it, so at least he understood it. But the new religion of the Christians made little sense to most Northmen, so they interpreted it the way that pleased them most.

  "Aye," said Ronan, and he stopped to gulp the remainder of his mead. "But that's just for trading. We're talking about taking wives. A few words won't appease them."

  Bjorn snorted. "Why bother to appease them? They’re just women."

  "In Frisia," said Olav, "my uncle must have converted six or seven times so he could trade. Got white robes each time. He swore it was the way to do it. Always got the best deals that way. But he died fighting the Danes, and found his way to Valhalla anyway, I'd swear by Thor's hammer."

  Ronan smiled and watched silently. Wynne just shook her head at the hopelessness of it all.

  Olav took another gulp of mead, draining his horn. "That's what we've got to do, take their white robes and everything. Then once we've got them, we can do whatever we want."

  Ronan suspected that was a little too simple. "Some of them might not fall for that."

  "Then pick another," said Bjorn. "There's plenty of them. One woman's pretty much like another."

  "You're forgetting, the women have something to say about it, too," Ronan objected.

  "Don't see why," Bjorn replied, lifting his horn to his lips. The pale scar that slashed into his reddish beard flexed with the movement. "Pick the one you want and take her, I say. It's all the same to me. I'll let you have them all."

  "Nay, there will be no taking of unwilling women here. We'll court them properly."

  "Let me speak, son," interrupted Wynne. It was not her usual way, but Ronan had watched his mother’s edginess for most of the evening. She had once been a Celtic woman taken against her will. He nodded to her.

  "These Celtic women are proud women," she said. "In times past, they fought alongside their men, and they have not forgotten. You will not subdue them easily, and if you do, they will make sure you regret it. Best to pretend they all have fathers ready to lop off your heads if you dishonor them."

  "Meaning, to court them, not just take them," Ronan said.

  Olav contemplated the bottom of his horn, tipping it to see if it was truly empty. "Aye, Wynne. I see what you mean. They could all be had, if we do it right, if we get past their rage. Until we persuade them we're worth having, there's not a one of them worth the chance."

  Olav's careful speculation of the future shone in his eyes. He was an intelligent, serious man, and Ronan prized that in him. Ronan nodded. "And once we have their trust, it will be easy enough to take over. All women need men to take care of them."

  "Did you see the redhead's sister?" said Tanni, as loud as if he shouted over the roar of the sea. "That's a beauty."

  "She's mine," Ronan replied quietly. Tanni had had so much to drink, he'd lost the point of the whole debate.

  "Aye, you and Egil, you'll get the feistiest of them. There's a tongue on both of them."

  Ronan laughed. More than they knew. "Aye, that one's not like any other, for whatever you say, Olav. Tanni, fetch us a few more casks."

  He laughed some more as he watched Tanni stagger through the sagging door. Good thing the bad weather had finally ceased, for Tanni didn't have enough sense left to get the door back in its jamb and properly shut. Ronan sighed and followed. He was not so weak he couldn't heft a couple of small kegs.

  Outside, in the dark shadow of the cottage, Tanni stumbled about, grumbling as his toes stubbed on unseen objects. Ronan reached out to steady his friend, but Tanni yelped, grabbed his arm, and fell, toppling Ronan with
him.

  !"What?" Ronan fell against the stack of kegs, which collapsed, sending little barrels tumbling and rolling over the soggy field. "Thor's beard! Who stacked these things? We're lucky we haven't lost the whole batch."

  Disgusted, Ronan gathered up the casks and stood them upright by the cottage. No point in restacking them until they had some light. He gave Tanni a boost to his feet and tromped back inside with his mead.

  Wynne rose from her place beside Gunnar to decant the mead. She had ceased fussing over his wound, and Ronan was glad, for with Gunnar's failing health, she had enough worries. Soon Gunnar would be gone, and they all knew it. Wynne would lose her second husband, and Ronan would miss him even more than his first father, whom he hardly remembered. It was Gunnar who had rescued him as a boy, and fostered him to manhood.

  Now, at last, Ronan had the chance to repay him, and Gunnar would have his dream fulfilled, a green land with valley and fields stretching out as far as a man could wish.

  Pensive, Ronan lifted his drinking horn to his lips in a toast to their new home. He tossed back his head to swallow a big gulp of the delicious mead.

  He choked as a foul brew snorted back into his nostrils.

  "Aaagh!" Egil stood suddenly, his hand flung to his mouth.

  Ronan darted for the doorway, jostled his way past his fellows, and dashed for the rain barrel to scoop water into his mouth.

  "Salt!"

  The rain barrel was also salted.

  He dashed for the stream, gulping water down his gagging throat, slapping water upward to rinse flaming nostrils.

  As he sat gasping on the stream bank with his men, Ronan slowly realized the other men suffered the same fate as he did.

  "How did that happen?" he asked.

  "On the crossing?" asked Egil, still hacking.

  "But you said it was not stormy. It would take some mighty waves to break over and flood the casks. Even that I could understand, but the water barrel, too?"

  It must have dawned on the rest of them at the same time it did Ronan, because nobody said a thing.

  It looked like a declaration of war to him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As the morning sun threw brilliant shafts of light on the village, Arienh and Birgit stuck their heads out the door and looked around. The village sounded perfectly ordinary, with the usual sounds of men and animals. It looked perfectly ordinary, too, except that not a woman was in sight.

  Unlike the other women who had fled and spent the night in the cavern, Arienh and Birgit had gone home, for they had intended from the beginning to put themselves on the front line of the confrontation. Someone had to do it.

  Arienh and Birgit set off down the path.

  "What do you suppose they'll do to us?" Birgit asked as they sauntered along.

  "Us? You didn't do anything, Birgit."

  "I am no more innocent than you, for I am just as guilty in my heart."

  "But you can truly say you did nothing."

  "You will say you did nothing, too, so what difference does it make?"

  "Perhaps they will not make the connection."

  Birgit tossed her a look of disgust.

  And here they came. Ronan and Egil, with the one woman she had seen. All smiling, as if nothing had happened.

  "Arienh, Birgit," called Ronan, halting directly in front of them. "We bring you our mother, Wynne." He nodded, his face lit with affection. "Mother, the child is Liam, Birgit's son."

  His mother. The woman who had embraced him was his mother, although she hardly looked old enough. Her long, very dark hair, lightly streaked with grey, was looped into a large knot of the Nordic style. She was not tall, even for a Celt, and had the slimness of a very young woman.

  Arienh nodded coolly to the woman, carefully keeping Ronan in view as she debated what to say to a woman who had spent her life with heathens. "Ah. You are a Celt, as he said."

  The woman smiled, and in her smile Arienh suddenly saw the resemblance to her son. Yet she saw nothing to connect her to the yellow-haired Viking who stood at her other side. Perhaps his profuse beard obscured the resemblance.

  "I am of the Cymry, though I have not been among them since I was a young girl." The woman proudly held out a goose egg. "My favorite goose has already laid her first egg here. I have brought it for you, to thank you for saving my son."

  Arienh quickly scanned Ronan's blue eyes, which crinkled at their corners in a secret laugh. Had he already forgotten last night? Why didn’t he say something? Do something? What kind of man was he that he let such a challenge as they had given go unanswered, and laugh instead?

  But even in the beginning he had tried to tease her, before he had sunk into the depths of his fever. Then, she had not minded, even knowing who and what he was. Now, he sought to beguile her even as he betrayed her kindness to him with his invasion. Well, he was a Viking. And he meant to possess her. He had even said as much.

  Never. The fight had just begun.

  "I did nothing," she said. "I did not expect him to live, and he brought himself in from the cold. I could not have done that."

  Again she flung a glare at Ronan, whose eyes still held laughter. What was he thinking? Did he mean to say nothing about the night before?

  "But I am still grateful, for he is my son. So please, take the egg. It will make a good meal for you."

  Arienh resisted the urge to reach out for the egg. She had not eaten a goose egg in a long time. Birgit gaped speculatively at the egg, and in Liam's eyes she saw what could only be defined as pure lust. She hoped the boy would learn to be less obvious when he reached the age to lust after women instead of food.

  "Perhaps you should keep the egg, in case there are no more."

  "Oh, she is a good layer, have no fear. There will be many a new gosling soon. We will soon have a new flock for you. Come, perhaps we can talk while the men repair your roof."

  "The roof? I did not ask-"

  "But nay, we did promise," Ronan replied.

  His eyes sparkled with hidden merriment. She hated that about him, hated the incredible blueness of his eyes that was brighter than the warmest day of summer.

  And he did what he pleased, took what he wanted, ignoring her objections. Arienh could only watch as Egil led men to swarm up ladders over the aging thatch. Bundles of osiers were passed up to yellow-haired men who wove them in place. Inside the cottage, Ronan poked upward with a pole to indicate holes.

  Arienh seethed. She didn't want him to be nice to her. It was all a ploy to gain their good will while taking the last of what was theirs.

  And not a word had been said about the mead, as if it had had no effect whatsoever. Well, let them pretend. She knew what she had seen last night. From the cover of underbrush, she had watched the Vikings rush for the stream and cleanse their assaulted mouths.

  That was just the beginning. She would make him regret coming to her valley. And this Wynne, this Celtic woman who was no Celt. All right, she would talk with her, even accept her egg. But she would tell her nothing of any importance.

  Wynne helped her lay cloths over the furnishings to protect them from the debris that dropped from the thatch as the men worked, while Birgit and Liam covered the loom and the spun wool that awaited weaving. Arienh worked in silence, determined not to converse unless she must. Yet she nearly burst with questions. This woman would be one who knew about these men, and she was a Celt. Why not ask her?

  She glanced at Birgit, who responded with a questioning look. Birgit would follow her lead. Arienh decided to probe cautiously. "Is your husband not with you, Wynne?"

  "Aye. Gunnar." The woman studied the thatch, looking wistful." He is not well. Although he does much better, these days, I cannot leave him for long."

  "Do you not fear the change in climate for him?"

  "It is not so different from the Green Isle. But he will not get well. And he longs for land of his own before he dies."

  "This is our land," Arienh objected.

  "But you are few and
there is enough to share. They thought at first they would go up into the hills where the Celts do not go, for that is land like many of them from the North know. But there is room here."

  Perhaps, then, if they could not persuade the Vikings to leave, they might be able to talk them into taking over the mountains instead. But Arienh decided save that argument for another time. "Father Hewil tells us that the Vikings take the old and weak out into the wilderness to die."

  A dark cloud of memory seemed to pass over Wynne’s face, and for a moment, the woman was silent. "It is done, sometimes. It is part of what they believe, that sometimes a life should end. Life and death are much the same to them. But I do not think Gunnar will go."

  Shudders ripped through Arienh as Birgit shifted her gaze down to the basket of wool at her feet. It must be true.

  It had been little more than a sennight since the Viking had offered her his dagger to kill him. But he had lived, when he had expected to die in freezing agony. Would that cause him to see things differently? Or would he still see Birgit as useless?

  And how could she know without risking Birgit’s life? She couldn’t take that chance.

  ***

  "Ready? He's coming."

  "Which one?" Selma asked.

  "How should I know?" retorted Elli. "It makes no difference, anyway. Go on, swing. Yell."

  Yell? Selma screeched as she swung out over the cavern's dark pit. Never mind that it really wasn't all that deep, and she had already been down in it earlier that same afternoon. It was just hanging out over the pit that made her heart leap into her throat.

  Elli gave her a shove.

  "Stop it, Elli." she cried out, and hooked her foot outward, perfectly serious in her intent to get back to safe footing.

  Elli just grinned and gave her another shove.

  "What's going on?"

  Oh, good. Tanni, the handsome one. Selma thought if she had to be rescued, she'd rather it be by him. He was more like a normal man, not so huge and frightening like the other ones.

  Then she recalled just what they meant to do to her rescuer.

  "Oh, help me!" Elli cried to the man, and Selma thought she was not at all convincing. "Selma is trying to rescue our lamb which has fallen into the pit. And now I am trying to rescue her, for she can't go down or up on the rope."