Page 30 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)
“I don’t like it.” Thorfinn added his voice to the mounting tension. “Common wisdom says attack first.”
Erik’s gaze darted to Ilsa, obvious and accusing. “Is this change from our usual strategy because of a certain woman?”
The men stirred, the air thick with unspoken complaints. Bjorn braced both fists in the sand, their doubts cutting him.
“It does not, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand if it were. Rurik changed our laws, because of land and a certain woman.”
Three laws had guided them from their days in Birka, yet that was changing.
They were on murky ground with new trials cracking their bond.
Years he’d never wavered. This all changed the day he set foot in Vellefold.
Training new fighters, planning defenses, treading awkwardly with the man he once called Father .
It was all more than he’d bargained for.
He should’ve told them of his plan not to attack as soon as the seed was planted in his mind. Now, he was paying the price.
Eyeing the table, he took a deep breath. “Look through that door, brothers, and tell me what you see?”
Thorfinn angled his body for a better view. “Women cooking. Gossiping. Children laughing and eating. Too many to count. A few sleepy babes on bear pelts with Iduna and Lady Ilsa.”
“A body count,” he said. “Look deeper. What else do you see?”
“Many old ones who are decent with bow and arrow but not fast movers. Eleven or twelve of them use walking sticks.” Thorvald went on, “I see Bodolf, a good fighter and a good man. Jarl Egil, Odell, and half a dozen strong fighting men worthy of the swords they carry.”
Bjorn’s gaze shot to Erik. “What do you see?”
“Fifteen boys on the verge of manhood, about the same age as the Whelp when we left Birka.”
“And you, Gunnar?”
Gunnar twisted his ivory thumb ring. “I see Vikings. People who want revenge.”
Bjorn pushed off the table.
“You know what else I see?” Erik’s black eyes narrowed.
“I see a mission that needs finishing, a woman who’s turned your head, and people who hope that you’ll stay and lead them.
” When Bjorn opened his mouth, Erik held up a silencing hand.
“I know what you’re getting at. Many here would be lambs ripe for slaughter if we march on Aseral tomorrow. ”
Bjorn nodded decisively. “Exactly.”
Grudging agreement circled the table. Sparing the most lives meant staying longer in Vellefold—possibly all winter.
“Consider each child. Then, ask yourself, how many will become orphans if we attack tomorrow?” Bjorn finished with a quiet, “We know what happens to fatherless boys.”
Half the hall would die. And that was a safe wager, even with the element of surprise, should they raid Aseral tomorrow. Erik picked up a smooth stone, his hard mouth softening.
“If we prepare for an attack here…” He set the stone in the heart of the settlement. “It could lessen the losses.”
Tension began to unwind itself from Bjorn’s back. Erik’s acceptance was the boon he needed. The other men pressed around the sand map.
“With felled trees blocking the mountain pass, the enemy will most likely attack here.” Thorfinn drew an X in the harbor.
“Men stuck in ships.” Thorvald’s grin was wolfish. “I like it.”
“And should the enemy set fire to the logs blocking them, the smoke will warn us.” Gunnar nodded as though this approach was growing on him. “Erik and I will start at sunrise as you ordered.”
Discussion flowed easily between the men. Ideas for countering an attack from the fjord, and what to do should the enemy burn their way through the mountain pass. Only one problem badgered them.
“What are you going to do about Ilsa’s farmstead?” Erik asked.
Thorvald was pouring ale into his drinking horn. “You can’t let that go.” He gulped one drink, then two. “We need to know who she hides.”
“She could be hiding fighters,” Thorfinn suggested.
“For Aseral?” Bjorn shook his head. “She’s fought too hard to save Vellefold. Why hide the enemy she wants to defeat?”
Bjorn rubbed his jaw, perplexed. Ilsa was full of secrets. She killed her husband . A fact he still kept to himself.
Gunnar folded his arms, supremely confident. “The footprints are a riddle, but who they belong to is not.”
“Women are stolen or they leave,” Erik said evenly. “They don’t vanish like changelings.”
Bjorn froze. “Are you saying the footprints belong to the vanished thralls?”
“It makes the most sense.” Erik poured ale for himself.
“But you need to confirm it.” Thorvald swallowed ale. “You being the lady’s friend and all.”
A sound idea. He should be the one to ask her.
Bjorn stared at the sand map, his vision hazing.
Ilsa is hiding women? She’d never done anything so bold…
or dangerous. Admiration blossomed for the reserved girl he once knew.
A different creature was taking her place.
A valiant woman, resolute, and unafraid.
A woman of land and sea. Pieces of information began to assemble in his mind.
Her long morning hunts. Iduna lamenting their near-empty root cellar. Ilsa gone for hours midday. And her servant, Ardith, who came and went without a word.
He studied the map where Ilsa’s farmstead was. Were they hiding thralls there?
How could he have missed it?
He ground his molars. Lust, of course. It clouded a man’s mind.
Erik’s rough-grained voice reached him. “If Ilsa’s hiding runaway thralls, you’ll have bigger problems on your hands.”
“Because that means she is a lawbreaker.” Bjorn scrubbed his jaw as boulder-sized trouble was dumped on his back. “And Vellefold’s people will expect me to pass judgment.”
His brothers’ faces were grave.
None of them were comfortable with this latest news.
They liked Ilsa. Her willingness to work as hard as any man on the practice field had won their respect.
But he was hersir to a sickly jarl. Any charge leveled at Ilsa would cause a rift in threadbare Vellefold because the settlement loved their widowed hird .
This could tear the people apart.
A people who needed to be united more than ever.
The hall was alive with laughter and conversation.
A boy was playing a goat bone flute, the music a sweet thread in the night.
Bellies were full. Everyone was fattening themselves for winter with no fear of food being scarce.
Ilsa had made sure of that. She’d healed their sicknesses and healed their battered hearts.
How often had he witnessed her green skirts swaying from one longhouse to another as she delivered a poultice for a wound or herbs for a tincture?
They sought Ilsa to nurse their hurts and him for might and leadership. The matselja , Helge, had teased him that he could use all the sand he wanted when he was jarl. Vellefold’s folk spoke openly of him as their next leader, yet he and Jarl Egil had barely traded words.
Each passing day, Justice was strangely mute.
Tonight, she turned his eyes to happy children in the feast hall.
Those innocents had never harmed him. Nor had they cast him out.
It was their dead fathers and grandfathers who’d rowed Egil’s ship and saw him left behind on Birka’s shore.
A few of those older fighting men were among the aged ones in the hall.
Two served Odell. None had begged forgiveness—it wasn’t the Viking way—yet all assumed his grace was freely given.
He placed his hand on his midsection and rubbed. The iron coil of rejection still festered.
He would not stay.
“What are you going to do about Ilsa?” Erik asked.
His childhood friend was at the heart of every mystery. Her and her secrets…
At last, he answered, “I’ll question her. Tonight.”
Erik checked the hall, taking two steps backward. “Better move fast, my friend. The lady is gone.”