Lord of Hawkfell Island (Viking Era 2)

“Aye, you smell like overripe boar!” Kron made to throw a bucket of water on him, but Rorik held up his hand.

“Let me find my beautiful wife first, then I’ll be back.”

“Poor little girl,” Sculla said, shaking his big head mournfully, “soon she’ll not be able to walk if Rorik has his way.”

“Ha, he will have his way until she is so large with child he dare not continue.”

Rorik didn’t laugh, though he did smile at the thought of Mirana’s belly filled with his child. It warmed him and he called out her name again and again. He went to the fields, but she wasn’t there. He went to the cow byre, then to the small houses his warriors had built just beyond the fields.

He couldn’t find her. He stood next to the palisade walls, breathing in the soft sweet air, looking over his island. Suddenly, he felt something cold and dark twisting deep within him, and it scared him witless.

He immediately raised the alarm. He set guards on the longboats immediately, not knowing why he felt it so important, just doing it.

Mirana was shivering. Her hair was still damp, tangled around her head and down her back. She wore only a wet shift, all that he’d allowed her when he’d taken her from the bathing hut several hours before.

He looked at her now, rocking back and forth on his heels. There was such rage in his eyes that she had to look away from him.

“ ’Tis your fault,” he said. “I vowed I would avenge my Asta if you returned. Aye, I prayed for your return, mistress, prayed you wouldn’t die, prayed that I would be the one to kill you and avenge my Asta.”

“But why would you want to hurt me, Gurd? I did nothing to Asta. I loved her as I would a dear sister.”

“You let her eat your food, you murdering sly bitch!” He jumped to his feet and she thought he would kill her then, but he didn’t, just kicked her ribs, sending her sprawling onto her back, her chest heaving with the pain.

“Why did you let her touch your food? You knew—I saw it in your eyes and I see it now—you wanted her to eat it. You knew she would die.”

It was clear to her then, all very clear and very frightening. “You poisoned my food.”

Gurd stared down at her, his hands fisted at his sides. “Aye, I did, but you didn’t die, you let my Asta die instead, and you did it apurpose, and I swore I would make you pay for that. The gods sent you back to me so I could make you pay.”

“You tried to poison me again but the taste was awful and thus I ate only a few bites. Sira was blamed for it.”

“Aye, poor little Sira, a beautiful girl who didn’t deserve your cruelty or Rorik’s. Such lovely hair she had. I couldn’t bear it when he whipped her. I wanted to strike him when he offered to let me whip her, too, believing I would want to hit her and force her to her knees for Asta’s death. I left then, for her cries smote me, and that was your fault, too, for you convinced everyone that she was guilty.”

She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t done anything save lie in her bed and vomit until her face was blue, her throat so raw with pain that she couldn’t talk, her belly so knotted with agony that she’d wanted to die more times than she could count. She said instead, “Why did you want to kill me? What did I ever do to you, Gurd?”

He came down next to her on his haunches. She didn’t move, remained on her back, her arms covering her ribs as best she could. He raised his hand, then slowly lowered it as he said, “You dared to keep me from Entti. You made her change, made her sneer at us, made her refuse us, made her refuse me. I wanted her and I’d had her before you came, before you made yourself the mistress and gave your insolent orders and stuck your proud nose in the air, treating all of us like we were thralls.

“Aye, I wanted Entti, and I’d had her before you came and Asta knew and it pleased me that she knew, her anger and jealousy pleased me, but I had to show Asta that I was a man and that she couldn’t have the ordering of me, ever. Always Asta laughed and I knew she laughed at me, even though she swore it was only her nature to laugh, to jest, that she loved me. But she changed and she taunted me and I knew it well. I needed Entti to prove to her that I was her master and she would never have a say in what I did.”

“But that’s madness,” Mirana said, then instantly regretted the words, for he was on her, straddling her, leaning over her so close that she could smell the rage on his breath, see the wildness in his eyes, and he was locking his hands around her throat now, and she knew then that she would die. She’d come home, all right. Home to die.

Suddenly he leapt off her, panting hard, backing away from her as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her, the feel of her. She sat up, rubbing her hands over her throat. The thick rope around her left wrist had rubbed it raw, but she no longer noticed the grinding pain of it, nor the pain in her ribs.

“No,” he said, more to himself than to her. “No, you’re not to die here, not like this. It must appear an accident so that none will suspect me.”

“Asta loved you!”

“Aye, she did, and you killed her.”

She could only stare at him.

“You killed Asta and you forbade Entti to come to me.”

“Please Gurd, listen to me. It is Entti who refused to be the whore any longer. If you had taken Entti, it would have been rape, do you understand me? If you had forced her, she would have killed you herself. It is true, I swear it to you.”

He was shaking his head even as he yelled, “Nay, ’tis a lie! Entti was mad for me! She begged me to take her, told me again and again that I was a better man than all the others on Hawkfell Island. But then you refused to let her to come to me. Then you killed my Asta.”

Now it was her turn to yell and she did, so frustrated and afraid that she couldn’t help herself. “But why would I want Asta to die? There is no sense in that! I loved her as a sister!”