Page 3 of Princess of Elm (Warriors of the Fianna #4)
Dyflin, éire
F rigid waters broke upon the bow, sending a thousand icy pinpricks against her face in a tempestuous spray of foamy brine.
The taste of salt permeated the air so fully that she could breathe it in with every leap the longship took over the frothing waves.
This was the way life was meant to be lived: crashing headlong through whatever waves the stormy sea demanded.
Astrid’s eyes shut, her face upturned against the onslaught of the voyage as she stood behind the prow of her brother’s longship.
Their father had made a far longer journey, first to Laithlinn and then, years later, to éire.
He left his own kingdom a warrior, but he died in this new land a king.
From her youth, Astrid dreamed of visiting the land of her father, of living in a place filled with her own people.
She felt her brother’s approach, the sound of his steps echoing off the oaken planks.
“You choose the strangest days to come out with us,” Sitric remarked. Even though he took up the mantle of kingship over the harbor town at Dyflin after fighting hard for it, Astrid always thought him too kind a soul for the position.
“It’s colder than this in the lands of our ancestors.” She opened her eyes, taking in the tall figure of her brother. With his long, golden hair and thick beard, he clearly took after their father. “It’s good practice.”
“Astrid.”
She hated the sympathy in his voice almost as much as she hated being separated from the rest of their kin. “I simply don’t understand why we can’t return. Leave all this nonsense with Brian and Laigin and all the hundreds of other kings behind our oars.”
“The nonsense would follow us.” He leaned against the prow, his gaze straying to the seething waters beyond.
“The petty squabbles between kings drove Father away from his people. We would be trading one spider’s web for another, and in leaving we would destroy the kingdom he spent his life building. ”
Her hands squeezed into fists, bringing back some of the feeling stolen by the cold. No matter how many times she broached this conversation, her brother threw platitudes and excuses at her. But she would not bend so easily.
“Then let me go alone,” she tried, already knowing that Sitric would argue. “Stay here and uphold our family’s future while I seek out its past.”
“You know I cannot.” His ice-blue eyes, the same color as the roiling winter sea, flashed to her. “I am responsible for your safety, a duty I cannot adequately perform whilst in a different kingdom.”
“Do you never long to see it?” she pressed, growing desperate. “Do you never dream of seeing your true home?”
Sitric turned to her fully, his face too serious. Her brother rarely felt the weight of his responsibilities. Like their father, he was a man much given to joy and laughter.
“Dyflin is our home, Astrid, no matter how stubbornly you fight it. It is our birthright and it is where we belong.”
Astrid’s blood boiled despite the bite of the winter air in the harbor. Grinding her jaw to keep from shouting at her brother —for that would only make matters worse—she fought for calm with every word.
“I will never feel at home while we crawl like worms before a foreign king. His men will return, and they’ll try to foist another heifer on you.”
“I’m going to tell Cara you said that,” Sitric grinned.
Astrid shoved him gently, as they’d done since childhood when teasing one another. “She’ll never believe you,” Astrid shot back. “And you can’t use her to avoid the problem at hand.”
He sighed, gazing once more over the waters. “I want to marry for alliance as much as I want to witness Ragnarok, but I cannot delay much longer.”
“Then why do we not act against Brian sooner rather than later?” she demanded. “So he won one battle. Why let him win the war?”
“We need time and resources to rebuild,” Sitric replied with enviable calm. “We lost many men. It will be years before we can gather an even greater force and try again. We must bide our time and defend our legacy as best we can while we wait for another opportunity.”
“What of mercenaries?” Astrid tried. “We have gold enough from trade.”
“I will not empty our coffers for a war that we will lose. Even with mercenaries, we are not prepared to battle with Brian. Not yet.”
She opened her mouth to argue further, but Sitric held up a hand.
“I applaud your cleverness and courage, but I tire of repeating this argument over and over with you.” He took her hands in his, no doubt to soften the blow.
He’d always been too kind for his own good, too worried over the feelings of others to follow his own ambitions.
“Dyflin is your home, dear sister. And it’s time to make the best of it. ”
What more could she say? Instead of pressing her brother, Astrid watched the sails hold taut against the strong winds. When she was young, she’d been so afraid they would buckle in the whipping wind, but Sitric always reminded her that they were made to hold the wind. They were strong.
Just like she needed to be.
When they returned to the shore from the rowers’ practice, Sitric walked beside Astrid on the journey back to their fortress.
“Perhaps you, too, should consider a marriage,” her bold brother suggested, as though that wasn’t the stupidest solution she’d ever heard. “Take a husband, have some children. Perhaps then you would feel you had a home.”
“If I traveled north, perhaps I might,” Astrid replied with great strength of will. “But I have no use for a husband from this land. My children will learn the ways of our ancestors, not a random blending of the two cultures.”
Sitric chuckled deep and low.
“What do you find funny about that?” Astrid demanded in outrage.
“You yourself are a random blending of the two cultures, are you not? How quickly you forget your grandsire was one of those squabbling kings you so loathe.”
What could she say to such a jab? Sitric was correct, that their mother had been sired by a king of éire on an Ostman slave woman.
Strained silence descended on the long walk through the center of the bustling market town, at least on Astrid’s part. Sitric made conversation with his men, the team that had been rowing the longship across the harbor to keep their víking skills sharp.
They passed house after house on the trek up the winding hillside, many built in the style of her people, but just as many built in the native style of éire.
It didn’t bother her that the two peoples coexisted in Dyflin.
No, Astrid understood the necessity to grasp at something approximating peace in the settlement.
The inequities bothered her. Freydis, her childhood friend, married a Gael and now dressed and spoke as one of them, her babes fluent only in the native tongue.
Finn, one of Brian’s Fianna warriors who stayed with them during the marriage negotiations, may know the traditions and language of his Ostman father, but his skills and behaviors placed him squarely in the camp of the Gaels.
All the men Sitric had suggested for her betrothals came from éire, which was well and good for someone who wanted to blend into this new land.
From everything she observed, to do so was to sign the death warrant of Ostman heritage, to agree to abandon the very culture she grasped toward so desperately.
She couldn’t avoid her brother’s betrothals forever, but Astrid would be damned if he thought she would ever marry a Gael.