Page 28 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)

Chapter

Fifteen

I ron hinges whined when the rope maker opened her withered door.

“Ilsa. Bjorn. Come in.” Valgerd’s head poked out. She was checking the cliffs. “Snow is coming. I feel it in my bones.”

Ilsa ducked into the longhouse chased by an icy gust. Heavy clouds were tumbling across Black Fjord. Night encroached, darker than usual. Bjorn stayed on the road, his mantle blowing wide like black wings.

“Are you not joining us?” Valgerd’s work-thick fingers brushed grey hair out of her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and sweat dampened her hairline. The rope maker had been working.

“No. I’m merely escorting a friend.” His voice rumbled kindly, but his eyes were chilled.

The older woman cackled. “Because we have so many wild animals roaming our settlement.”

“Protecting others. It’s what I do best,” he said, playing along with her jibe. He looked long at Ilsa and gave her a nod worthy of royalty. “I’ll see you at the feast hall.”

“Until then,” Valgerd sung cheerfully.

They followed his departure. His long, commanding strides ate the frost-coated ground. Torchlight crowned his blond hair with molten gold. Ilsa’s mouth curled with resentment. The Forgotten Son should have a dragon carved on his leather vest, not a wolf.

“From behind, the son looks like the father once did,” Valgerd mused. “He was born to lead. Not serve.”

“Because his shoulders fill a mantle nicely?” she asked in a snit.

“No. I say it because he is saving us.” Valgerd shut the door behind her. “Someone is churlish this eve.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not, but these are the times we live in.” Valgerd motioned to an empty table. “Go ahead. Put the basket over there.”

She did, willing the topic of Vellefold’s returned son to be over. But, no. Valgerd adjusted her grey wolf pelt and chattered on, singing praises for the settlement’s favorite topic—Bjorn,

“Teaching orphaned boys to fight on one hand, rebuilding our settlement on the other. These are worthy qualities.”

“There is that.” Relieved of her burden, Ilsa dusted off her hands.

Upon turning around, Valgerd’s eyes were twinkling.

“You’re not the only woman to notice Egil’s son. The settlement is abuzz with talk about him and the other Forgotten Sons,” the old woman said.

Ilsa ran her hand through dangling ribbons of bark. “Let them talk.” She meandered through the hanging strips. Touching here. Touching there. The skeins brushed her head and shoulders, hanging from braided leather strung back and forth across the longhouse.

“You don’t care one bit?”

“No.”

Valgerd followed her. “He has proven himself honorable. I would say the same of the men who serve him. I cannot help but wonder if there is one or two women in our midst who can tether their hearts.”

Such hope in her voice. Valgerd would learn. There was no arguing the wealth of goodwill Bjorn and the Forgotten Sons spread. But no woman of Vellefold would capture Bjorn’s heart, such were the weeds of anger still planted there. She would not waste another thought on him.

Ilsa stopped and rubbed supple fibers between thumb and forefinger.

“These are drying nicely.”

“They are ready.” Valgerd was at her shoulder.

This was part of the rope maker’s yearly ritual.

In spring, when the sap rose, Valgerd and Kell peeled bark from Linden trees, bundled them, and cured them in seawater all summer.

Come Mabon feast, she rinsed cloth-thin bark, ripped them to a width of two fingers, and left them to dry.

Usually outside. But the raids forced a late start.

To hasten the drying, she hung the strips inside her longhouse.

From this bounty, Valgerd would make two long and sturdy ropes. Ropes she’d never sell.

“You should’ve invited Bjorn to sup with me, lady,” Ardith called from the heart of the longhouse.

Ilsa followed the sound and found her servant scraping a spoon through a bowl. Ardith waggled her brows and held a spoonful of meaty broth under her nose.

“ Mmmmmmm . Rabbit stew. He would like it.”

“You are terrible,” she chided, taking a seat at the table.

Ardith took her bite, and a bashful face with a lightly freckled nose poked through the bark behind her.

“Hello, lady.”

“Elswith!” Ilsa’s heart seized. On reflex, she checked behind her. “What are you doing here?”

“Rest easy, Ilsa.” She has come to twine rope with me.” Valgerd gathered russet skirts and settled herself on the bench.

Ire born of fear raced in her veins. How could they be so careless?

“She can’t be here,” she whisper-hissed. “If anyone sees her?—”

“No one will. She’s been hiding in my chamber these past two nights. Ardith sneaked her into my longhouse while everyone was on the practice field.” Valgerd patted her hand. “Even you missed her presence here.”

“But, you invited Bjorn into your home. He would’ve seen her.”

Elswith stepped forward, hugging a fur pelt. “He would not, lady. I would’ve stayed in the other chamber.”

She rubbed her forehead. The Forgotten Sons were diligent about the watch—except when they were all on the practice field. If there was a time to sneak Elswith into Valgerd’s home, morning practice would be it.

“This is not good.” To Ardith, “You will take her back.”

“Ilsa. Look at my hands.” Valgerd rested tanned, leathery hands on the table. The knobby joints were swollen, and a few of them had turned red. “You asked for two ropes that stretch from the harbor to the back of the jarl’s hall. For ropes that long, I need Elswith’s help.”

Valgerd’s plea was sound, but these were not safe times.

A runaway thrall, here? In plain sight? It was madness!

“I rip the bark. Elswith twines them.” Ardith’s smile was impudent. “We make a good pair.”

Blood boiling, she slapped the table. “Do not be brash with me. This invites trouble, and you know it.”

Ardith’s mouth pinched white. “I am a free woman, lady. I made this decision because we need to sail by the first snow.”

“With my ship!”

“The ship you vowed would take me and my sister home. Yet, here we sit, a year later.”

“Be patient. I will fulfill my vow, but this—” she flung her arm wide at Elswith “—bringing her here, is foolish.”

Valgerd shushed them. “Keep your voices down. Or all of Vellefold will know what we’re about.”

Ardith growled and knocked her bowl aside into a soapstone lamp. The spoon clattered and lamp oil spilled on the table.

Elswith was quick to right the dishes and wipe the oily puddle with her apron hem. “We should’ve told you, lady.”

Wind howled outside, the first cries of winter.

Biting frost visited the settlement every night.

The time of snow and ice would be upon them, a season she once loved.

Bitter cold and unkind seas threatened her plans.

The pressure was immense. Ilsa looked from Valgerd’s furrowed brow to Ardith’s sullen pout.

“I know you mean well. Both of you.”

Elswith sat on the bench and smoothed hair brushing the tops of her shoulders, hair too short for a braid.

She’d been growing it since that fateful Mabon feast eve.

The Angle was a beauty. Velvet skin, bright hazel eyes, a face sculpted by the gods.

She was gentle sweetness to Ardith’s surly nature.

And the dear young woman was the first to start them on this path.

It was only fitting she bind the ropes that would take her and seventeen other thralls to freedom.

Smoke hung thickly around the table. A heady blaze dried the Linden strips, the inferno crackling behind Ardith. If they weren’t careful, the fire would burn the longhouse and their well-laid plans down on their heads.

A glowering Ardith was the first to break the silence. “Your ship won’t fare well on stormy seas. We don’t have much time.”

Valgerd touched her arm. “Ilsa. Frost has already come. Snow will soon follow. We must get the women out of here, or we wait another winter.”

Ilsa shut her eyes. Darkness swirled. Halfdan’s violent lust had started this. She would finish it.

Saving Elswith and Ardith from Halfdan had begun as a bid to save two friends. In time, more thralls came to her, begging for help, all of them with stories painfully similar to Elswith’s—women forced into a life they didn’t want, subject to the whims of men.

Free or thrall, women shared common ills.

A choice separated her from other Vikings; a heart softened by the suffering of others did too.

She would see Ardith, her sister, Elswith, and the other thralls set free, but she couldn’t walk them down to the harbor and sail away.

She’d gained power in Vellefold, but not enough to be that bold.

The thralls would escape down the Black Cliffs at an inlet near the Maiden’s Veil. It was their best hope.

They’d planned to tie two ropes to a rock at the top of the cliff. Wind one rope around a woman’s waist as she scaled the cliff’s face. The other rope would guide and steady her down to her ship, which would wait in the waters below.

Their first attempt used one rope. Elswith had slipped, and the rope tore through Ilsa’s hands as she’d struggled to save her.

That was the first time her hands paid a price. Rowing hard to hunt down Bjorn had been the other.

Men… The gods… They demanded payment in flesh and blood.

“Only Kell, Ardith, and I know that Elswith is here,” Valgerd said. “She stays hidden in my chamber when Jorund and Steinar are inside.”

“Your grandsons will figure this out. They are young and their tongues unguarded. They might say something to the Forgotten Son,” she said.

Valgerd sighed, a bone-deep weariness. “We are all worried, Ilsa. But you most of all. Everything is in place. Food supplies. The basket to haul the ropes to the cliff. We are close.”

“And that makes me nervous.”

“It doesn’t have to be this hard, lady,” Ardith said just above a whisper. “We could ask Bjorn to help us.”

She laughed in disbelief. “To help thralls escape?”

“Lady, please consider it. Iduna talks of him. The jarls’ true son,” Elswith said in a rush. “She says he is a good man.”

“He is a warrior fighting by order of his jarl.”

“And he was once your dearest friend,” Valgerd put in gently. “He might help us.”

“Or he’d enslave Elswith and the others.

” When they were slow to react, she leaned forward, aghast at their innocence.

“Think about what you ask! You want me to tell Bjorn that I’ve harbored nearly twenty runaway thralls.

You’re a fool if you think he or his father have a tender heart for women. Because they don’t.”

Shadows deepened Ardith’s eyes. She too leaned forward. “If you told him why, he could be swayed for justice, lady.”

“Or have me whipped, then banished with only the clothes on my back.” Ilsa’s chest squeezed painfully. She’d broken hallowed laws. As the leader, she’d bear the worst punishment if they were caught.

Elswith’s eyes glistened. Valgerd hugged her pelt tighter about her frame.

Survival’s harsh threads had bonded them, yet they were ready to be done.

The tension, the waiting. Deception, for however good the cause, exacted a price.

Looking at the women seated with her, Ilsa was surprised at Ardith’s suggestion.

Brave of her. This willingness to trust a man.

Proof Bjorn’s influence was growing in Vellefold.

She, not Ardith, had spent most days locked in practice combat with him.

He made sport of her. To goad her and make her battle ready.

He might’ve fooled Ardith—which was no small feat—but not her.

As long as his plans for Vellefold’s defense went smoothly, Bjorn didn’t care about the woes of women. He lived in his world of men and war.

Protecting the runaway thralls was her solemn vow.

“Bjorn and his men are not our sole obstacle. Do you think my mother would smile and bid you safe journey?” she asked quietly. “No. Once our secret was known, she would go to the jarl, who would appease the wife of his best ivory hunter.” To Elswith, “And you would be enslaved again.”

“But the jarl is weak.” Valgerd touched her arm in appeal. “You could persuade Bjorn to help us. Old Egil is desperate. He would let the women go if he thought it pleased his son.”

“A plea for thralls drags Bjorn deeper into the troubles of a place he does not want to be.” Her gaze was sharp, one woman to the next. “We cannot trust him.”

Ardith’s thumbnail worried a spot on the table. They were tense, backed into an unseen corner. Winter’s icy bite was the warning they needed—act now or try and survive another season of ice and snow. Providing food for all the women for one winter had been rough. But another winter?

“We follow your lead, lady.” Ardith’s brow furrowed with lines no young woman should have.

“But you know as well as I do, that even if Valgerd and Elswith braid ropes with fleet fingers, even if the women safely scale the Black Cliffs like mountain goats, you cannot stop winter.” Ardith was pained, asking, “What if I can’t return with your dragon ship until spring? ”

Ilsa swallowed hard. “Then, Longsword’s men winter here.”

Three pairs of eyes bored into her. It had been this way for some time, a test of one trial after another.

The deceptions. The questions. Where would eighteen thralls hide?

How would they escape? What would they eat?

How would they keep warm? She’d managed for one winter.

She couldn’t manage it a second winter. They all knew it.

Her root cellar was lean, and prey was scarce in cold season hunts.

If only the gods had let the women escape in spring as first planned. None would’ve missed her dragon ship.

The table creaked. Ardith was shifting on her seat. “Lady, what will you do when Bjorn sees your vessel is gone?”