Page 6 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)
“With all that fighting and training, when will you have time to put a babe in your new wife’s belly?” Bjorn asked.
Rurik’s smile was cocky. “My seed has already taken root.”
“ You? A father? ”
“Safira told me tonight.” Wonder melted Rurik’s arrogance. “You’re the first I’ve told.”
Bjorn clapped his friend’s shoulder and held fast. “Land, a wife, and now a child. Pride will make your head swell. There will be no living with you.”
They passed through the lintel into the noisy feast. Both threaded their way through the crowd along the shield-covered wall.
A hundred wooden discs hung in a straight line, each one blue with three yellow wolves encircling iron shield bosses polished to a shine.
The same design was etched on Rurik’s silver arm ring.
Across the hall, Thorvald, Gunner, and Thorfinn played a drinking game.
Erik whittled ivory on a bench behind them.
Rurik waved to Safira, her raven-haired head lifting from a conversation with a farmer’s wife.
Amber eyes sparked with blatant lust for her husband before she kissed her fingertips and held them up.
Rurik flushed with pleasure, his nod quick as he pushed aside a loosely woven leather curtain, the entrance to Longsword’s inner sanctum.
Few trod here. Almost none set foot in the jarl’s chambers in the back.
Bjorn passed through, the leather barrier flapping behind him.
He was called to report the spies among them.
Best he concentrated on what he’d tell the jarl about that.
“If you are ready for a wife, I can talk to Longsword.” Rurik’s voice expanded in the empty passage. “Lady Brynhild of Fecamp needs a husband.”
“She wants a dog to do her bidding, not a husband.”
“But she is wealthy and beautiful. Paid her scatt to the jarl—” Rurik’s knuckles rapped a white-washed wall “—with this.”
Scatt . The Viking tax. Mellow lamps cast a sheen on the limestone smeared hallway. Clean white walls, a sign of prosperity when most Vikings lived with smoke-stained timber. One step behind Rurik, he dragged a finger over the grainy texture.
“She’s also the biggest pain in his ass.”
Rurik’s laugh was purely male. “Which is why she needs a husband.” He stopped before the map room door. “Your strong hand could make the difference.”
They traded grins of understanding, and Bjorn shook his head. “I prefer to wait for a beautiful woman to crawl into my bed with a proposition.”
Rurik pushed the latch, laughing at the reminder of how he met his wife. The door swung wide, and Aegean-hued eyes met them. Cool. Commanding. All friendliness gone.
Ilsa of Vellefold.
Bjorn froze in the doorway.
He checked the jarl, an ox hide map on the back wall, and a massive oak table nearly as long as it was wide. This was Longsword’s map room, but something was terribly wrong.
Rurik walked in, murmuring terse greetings. Bjorn grit his teeth and stepped inside.
“Jarl.” He shut the door and gave a brusque, “Lady.”
“Bjorn.” Ilsa was calm and the turn of her lips…victorious.
Two iron-banded barrels lined the wall, tall enough to reach closed shutters.
A bronze scale wobbled on one as if rezla , the weighing for trade, was newly done.
A bargain struck. Air was thick with intrigue.
It was the way of rulers, and one reason he preferred a warrior’s simple path.
He’d come to give his report of women and spies and found the one woman he didn’t want to see.
Arms crossed, he kept his back to the wall, instinct for an animal of war.
Ilsa’s weather-beaten hand motioned to the bench. “Please, have a seat.”
She had some gall playing the gracious host.
“Whatever you have to say, I’ll hear it standing.”
Rurik took a place beside him. “The same goes for me.”
The jarl hooked both thumbs in his belt. “So be it. We’ll finish this business as we are.”
Bjorn planted both feet wide. His short time serving the chieftain taught him two things: Will Longsword excelled at being a Viking overlord in what was once Christian-held land.
That made him brutally decisive. The other: the jarl, son of renowned warrior Rollo, hungered to make a greater name than his father’s.
What couldn’t be done with brawn, Longsword did with brains. Or manipulation.
“I’ve called you both here because of a new alliance,” Longsword began. “One that richly benefits Rouen and Vellefold. As you know, I am building…”
The jarl’s tidy speech faded. Bjorn wasn’t listening.
His eyes narrowed on Ilsa giving rapt attention to the chieftain.
Was she arranging her sister’s marriage to Longsword?
Her own? He tried to swallow that thought, but it stuck in his throat.
A strategic marriage with a woman of Vellefold made sense.
The jarl received a steady stream of offers.
Wealthy Franks, powerful Saxons, Frisians now and again, even a Basque prince traveled far to dangle not one but two of his daughters to be taken at once.
Longsword didn’t take the bait. He was single-minded about one thing—expanding his power.
No foreign woman, he’d said, fit his plans.
But, Ilsa was Viking.
She smiled at Longsword, the friendly kind the high born shared, at ease with their place in life and an eye to keeping it.
If she found Rouen’s leader appealing, she hid her lust well.
Longsword drew the attentions of the fair sex, as much for his position as his warrior’s stature.
He was the same age as Bjorn and Rurik, yet older.
Wiser. His head was shaved, save the heavy gold braid that ran from the center of his head to his back.
Big as his famed father, Longsword walked with authority, a man born to a position he’d more than earned.
What had Ilsa said about Bjorn’s gait? He walked like a hunter. Her kohl-rimmed stare left the jarl and reached across the room. At him.
A shudder skimmed his back. In her eyes was a message.
Who is the hunter now?
Longsword finished his speech about Rouen’s trade and gave the lady a nod.
Hand splayed on her skirt, Ilsa was full of authority.
“What all this means is, Bjorn, you and the Forgotten Sons will journey with me to Vellefold. We leave tomorrow at sunrise.”
“What?” Rurik and Bjorn snapped in unison.
“You will fight for us and train my people in the art of war.” She eyed Bjorn, her thin smile a rebuke. “I don’t need a husband or a dog to do my bidding. Just a man who takes the orders I give.”
The jarl laughed into his balled fist. “I forgot to mention the lady is Jarl Egil’s hird .”
Bjorn gritted his teeth. At least she’s not marrying Longsword . There was no time to figure out why that mattered. He had bigger problems. As hird , Ilsa held a lofty position on Jarl Egil’s council. She would give orders. He would have to take them.
Her mildly amused stare washed him head to boot. Power was in her hands, and she wasn’t afraid to use it. He’d made a terrible mistake tonight, allowing anger to get the best of him. It wouldn’t happen again.
“How long does this arrangement last?” he asked.
A ghost of a pulse ticked on Ilsa’s temple. “You will be free to leave once the enemy has been defeated or until Jul feast. Whichever comes first.”
“ Jul ? The seas will be impassable by then!” Rurik’s voice hit the rafters. “We’ll be stuck in Vellefold all winter.”
“Not you,” the jarl said sharply. “You will stay behind to train housekarls, as we discussed.”
Rurik pinned the jarl with a hard look. “The Sons work best as one.”
Rurik and the Forgotten Sons had sworn an oath to the powerful chieftain, but they weren’t above questioning him, a trait he grudgingly respected, if it was done privately. But the jarl’s iron-stillness was a sign his mind was set. None could change it.
“Then, the Sons had better vanquish Vellefold’s enemy and do it quickly.”
Bjorn’s back hit the wall. He could be in Vellefold until Jul ?
The feast marked the beginning and end of all things, the darkest night in the northlands. Only hope could follow.
Ilsa was self-assured, the up tilt of her chin a proclamation. For what? She needed fighters. Longsword’s hall was littered with them. Young, ready Vikings streamed daily into Rouen, seeking to align themselves with the powerful jarl. Yet, the lady was content to leave with only five warriors?
The Forgotten Sons were good…but not that good.
He was trying to read Ilsa when truth dawned. Her bargain with the jarl, the Forgotten Sons defending Vellefold and training untried warriors—these weren’t the true reasons she’d flown across the seas.
He was.
His gaze went to the scale on the barrel. Walking toward it, Ilsa’s perfumed skin invaded his senses. She reached out and tapped the scale.
It wobbled innocently as she announced, “I bought you.”
“Bought me?” His voice was dangerously soft.
“That is what I said.”
Longsword and Rurik ceased their heated discussion, their mouths open with unfinished words.
The jarl let out a long-suffering sigh. “A blunt way of putting it, lady.” To Bjorn, “Obviously, you’re a free man. She owns your service in battle, not you.”
A fine prickle skittered across his back. No. Ilsa owned him and it was the strangest fetter, him, falling to the huntress netting her prey.
“We gave our var to you,” Rurik said, stabbing a finger at Longsword. “To fight for Rouen. Not wage war in another land.”
The jarl leaned over the table, bracing closed fists on smooth oak. His tone was anger barely leashed. “You’ve known from the beginning my orders will be obeyed. The short time you’ve served me, you’ve honored them all, save one.”
“Marry a Viking woman,” Rurik said without remorse.
“And everyone knows how that test of loyalty turned out.” The jarl paused, his smile a show of teeth. “Don’t try my patience over this.”