A Viking Heir to Bind Them
Auteur
Michelle Styles
Lezers
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Hoofdstukken
16
Chapter One
‘Did I hear that right? This man says Fork-Beard’s sister has business with me?’ Tylir Tjorson turned away from the messenger and towards one of his oldest friends, Grim the Stargazer. ‘Does Helm the Fork-Beard have a sister?’
‘Half-sister.’ Stargazer touched his finger to his nose. ‘She arrived two days ago. Bedraggled from a storm at sea with a child clinging to her skirts. Caused no end of uproar.’
Tylir did not bother to ask where Stargazer obtained his information, but he believed its accuracy. The man’s ability to absorb gossip along with the general lie of the land had several times saved not only his own life but more importantly the lives of the men Tylir commanded when they campaigned in Alba. ‘Indeed.’
Stargazer delicately dusted his fingertips. ‘I thought the information might be useful.’
‘Your intelligence on the matter is much appreciated.’
‘I do my best.’ Stargazer lowered his voice. ‘You must have met her when you were still in the North Country. Dark red hair. Hazel eyes. Slender like a reed.’ He paused and his cheeks reddened slightly. ‘Or so they say.’
Tylir kept his face blank. Stargazer knew Tylir had forbidden anyone from visiting Fork-Beard’s lands after the General Assembly issued their misadventure verdict about the brawl which had claimed lives on both sides, including one of his most promising warriors, but Tylir suspected Stargazer went there anyway.
The deadly brawl had happened three days after Tylir’s wife’s funeral. Fork-Beard swore he had nothing to do with her demise at the hot pool but unlike the General Assembly, Tylir did not believe his lies about not having seen Tylir’s wife in weeks. Despite several people’s testimony about his plans to work in that area, Fork-Beard swore that his plans were a coincidence and anyway he had been delayed by a sheep pen collapsing and by the time he’d finished, Ingebord’s body had been discovered. The explanation was far too rehearsed in Tylir’s opinion.
‘Two days ago? Anything else I should know about from Fork-Beard’s steading?’
‘The sister’s name is Melkorka Helmsdottar... And the child resembles you.’ Stargazer shrugged and then hastily examined the ground. ‘Or so the whisper goes.’
‘And the mother?’
‘You mean is Fork-Beard’s half-sister the mother?’ Stargazer scratched his neck. ‘So they say. Why else would she have the child with her? The journey from the North Country is perilous even at this time of year.’
‘Why indeed?’
Tylir frowned. He had no recollection of this Melkorka Helmsdottar. He preferred bedding a certain type of woman—raven wing’s hair, soft curves and a pleasing manner, never a redhead or someone as thin as a reed. And if the woman’s personality was anything like her half-brother’s, she would be arrogant beyond the point of obnoxious. He gazed out at the whitecapped wavelets on the sea loch and tried to puzzle the mystery out.
Any visit from this Lady Melkorka would bring trouble and discord. He knew that in his bones as surely as if he’d seen several ravens flying at midnight.
‘What does your master want?’ he asked, turning to the messenger. ‘What does Helm Helmsson the Fork-Beard require from me?’
The man lifted his chin. ‘Does Melkorka Helmsdottar have permission to travel here unmolested? And leave when she wishes?’
Barely restraining his temper at the direct insult, Tylir glanced left and right to the men ranged behind him. ‘Have my men threatened her? Ever? Have they threatened anyone from Helm the Fork-Beard’s steading since the last General Assembly?’
‘Helm considers his half-sister’s business could be completed at the next General Assembly.’ Fork-Beard’s messenger puffed out his chest. ‘But Melkorka Helmsdottar wishes to put the business before you sooner, and in private. I am here to facilitate that request. It is why the question is being asked. Will you give safe passage and vouch for your men to do the same?’
Tylir rubbed a hand along his chin. Helm’s explanation for Tylir’s wife’s death was that it must have been an accident. The same excuse given for the brawl—just a misunderstanding and his men did not make obscene gestures during the funeral. Tylir’s men simply misinterpreted the hand signals.
‘Tell Melkorka Helmsdottar that she may travel here without delay. We discuss the matter in private. Safe passage. I give my word on that. I have never knowingly harmed a woman and do not intend to start with Helm the Fork-Beard’s sister.’
The man’s tongue flicked out like a snake’s. ‘In that case, my master informs you that his half-sister will not expect any ceremony. Discretion will be best for all parties, according to Lady Melkorka.’
Tylir fingered the hilt of his sword. What game was Fork-Beard playing now? He sensed the treacherous undercurrents in the messenger’s statements. Why wouldn’t the woman expect any ceremony? In his experience, women lived for the mundane ceremonies which made up their lives. His late wife certainly had. Everything a ritual until he had trouble breathing. This unknown with a child intrigued. Anyone who tried to play a game with him would lose and lose badly.
‘I will take the advice under consideration. Tell your master, the woman comes alone.’ Tylir nodded pointedly towards the man’s boat. ‘Now go in peace while you still can.’
The man bowed low. ‘It will be as you request, Tylir the Sunbear Berserker.’
Melkorka Helmsdottar hated the way her stomach roiled. She should never have come to this place, not like this and not with this little girl clinging to her hand. Not on her own, without any of her half-brother’s men, except for the man who’d rowed them across the sea loch. And he’d refused to leave the boat, claiming a direct order from her half-brother to ensure discretion. Melkorka wished she’d never used the word in her argument with Helm. He seemed to have taken the idea to extremes.
More than anything she wished she had not given her solemn promise to Katla’s dying mother. She knew what it was like to be foisted on an indifferent father and his family and she didn’t want that for the little girl she’d grown very fond of.
‘Promises must be kept, even when it is hard.’ She whispered her mother’s old saying and tried to keep from showing any nerves. Mel knew the child was nervous enough for them both.
The faint smell of rotten eggs tainted the air and she strained to hear any looms clacking or the sound of wool being carded inside the formidable longhouse.
The men working in the fields surrounding the farm simply regarded them with curiosity before returning to their task.
‘Aunty Mel?’ Katla asked, her forehead puckering. ‘Can we go? Now. Uncle Helm said that if no one opened the door, not to go in as the monster would be waiting to eat me up. I don’t want to die. And the boys agreed.’
Mel tightened her jaw and cursed her half-brother and her two nephews, aged eight and ten years, for putting ideas in Katla’s four-year-old head. Monsters indeed! If she asked Helm about it, he’d claim that it was a joke and wonder aloud why the child remained such a frightened rabbit.
‘We shall soon see the great berserker warrior, Tylir Tjorson the Sunbear. Do you remember the stories I told you about him?’ Mel concentrated on keeping her voice light. She’d embellished the snippets she’d heard, but they had kept Katla entertained on the long sea voyage when the waves crashed over the prow and all they could see was the dove-grey sea meeting the ash-grey sky. ‘You liked those stories, didn’t you?’
‘The ones about Sunbear who saved an army and the kittens? They were exciting! I didn’t think he could possibly be real. Do you think he still has Freya’s kitten? Could I meet it? I don’t like dogs much, but I do like cats.’
‘It was a long time ago. The kitten will be grown now.’ Mel tucked a strand of dark red hair behind her ear and tried not to think about the other stories she’d heard about Tylir’s ferocity in battle and his ruthlessness with the men under his command, or the secret Katla’s mother revealed right before her death—instead of the gentle elderly jarl Katla revered, the famed berserker was Katla’s actual father.
‘Won’t that be a good treat to meet him?’ she continued when Katla’s face became even more uncertain. ‘Finally, to be here like your mor instructed me you should be. She would be proud of you in that gown she embroidered. She wanted you to meet him.’
Katla’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears. ‘I don’t want to meet him. I want my mor.’
Mel patted the girl’s hand. ‘You will make a new home in Islond. We both will.’
‘Why can’t I stay with you for always?’
‘You are with me now,’ Mel replied.
Katla scrunched her face and appeared close to a full-blown wailing, something she’d done frequently back in the North Country. The last thing Mel required. She had no wish for Tylir to refuse the girl on grounds of difficulty. Or much worse, to decide that Katla needed to be schooled in the proper way to behave. Mel’s father had kept her mother a Gallic slave on a separate small farm some ways away from his main hall. Mel’s peaceful childhood came to an end when her mother died after a short illness, and she was sent to live in the main house. Her back still bore the scars from Helm’s mother’s heavy belt.
A good first impression could make all the difference in how Katla was treated. Silently she prayed to any god who might be listening but particularly to Sif, the goddess of family, that she’d made the right decision in bringing the child here.
‘Uncle Helm said...’ Katla whispered.
Mel squeezed Katla’s hand. ‘My half-brother and his boys love to tease. Remember I told you on the boat—pay him no more attention than you pay to the cawing crows.’
The little girl bit her lip and gave an uncertain nod. ‘Will you go away as well?’
‘Once I get my own farm, you must visit. Anytime.’
‘To talk and sing songs all day?’ Katla appeared hopeful. ‘Like we did on the boat?’
‘Yes, like that.’
She gave Katla a hug, breathed in, savouring her fresh little-child scent. Katla with her blond hair carefully tied in bunches, a clean gown and pinafore and her big blue eyes, was a sight to soften any man’s heart. Mel did not want the little girl to suffer the pain of rejection.
She clearly remembered how it felt after her own mother died and she arrived at her father’s estate, dirty faced and with a torn apron. A bad first impression and she’d never really recovered from that.
That child will never be pretty, therefore she must be made to be useful, her father’s wife had proclaimed with a curled lip.
Young as she was, Mel understood the woman meant to banish her to the back of the weaving hut or be given menial tasks in the kitchen, so she shouted out to her father that her mother’s final wish was for her daughter to become a healer. Not strictly true as her mother had simply wished someone could have healed her bone-racking cough. But the slight ruse worked, and she was allowed to concentrate on learning to heal people with herbs, tonics and ointments.
Mel wrenched her mind away and smiled down at Katla. ‘Be good, sweetling. Be good for Aunty Mel. Let me do the talking. Do your late mother proud.’
Katla sniffed loudly, brushed a single tear away from her cheek with the back of her hand and promised she would be.
Mel whispered a prayer to any god before she raised her hand to knock.
Before her knuckles connected with the wood, the door swung open, revealing a giant of a man with a distinctive puckered scar running down the left side of his face and fearsome dark blue eyes. Tylir Tjorson the Sunbear. As great and as terrible as the rumours said he would be. Yet she could see the ruined handsomeness of his features—like a god come to earth was how her late friend had described him.
Katla retreated a step before burying her face in Mel’s skirts.
Mel tilted her chin upwards and tried to begin, but no sound emerged from her throat. Her long-practised speech vanished from her mind like ripples on a storm-tossed sea.
‘May I assist you, Melkorka Helmsdottar?’ The deep voice rumbled over her. ‘You have taken considerable time in deciding whether to knock or not.’
Mel blinked several times. ‘You are Sunbear the Berserker?’
‘I prefer Tylir Tjorson, jarl of these lands. My fighting days lay across a sea and several moons ago.’ A faint smile touched his full lips, but his eyes lost none of their glacial blue. ‘Your brother’s messenger emphasised your wish for privacy and desire to speak only to me.’
‘Kind of him,’ she said and wondered what other instructions the messenger had imparted. She had merely told her half-brother that she wanted to explain the situation to the jarl Sunbear first before shouting it in the General Assembly.
‘You have something to tell me, I believe. Something important from the North which cannot wait until the next General Assembly meeting.’ His lips turned up in a sardonic smile, the sort which said he knew he was a powerful warrior and she an ill-favoured widow and that she had no business staring at him like he was some sort of tempting morsel.
Mel swallowed hard. ‘Yes, I do. That is... I thought it best for the matter to be dealt with swiftly. Privacy is good for all sakes but mostly for the child’s welfare.’
‘Well then, woman, say your piece. Then you can be on your way as if we have never met. Better for all concerned.’
Mel straightened her spine and glared at the imperious warrior. Be on her way as if she was some sort of servant. She understood the implication. He had decided that she was unimportant and thus did not merit even a pretence of hospitality.
She wondered if her brother’s message had indicated that sort of behaviour was acceptable, or if he decided the fact on his own. Had to be the message. No one would be that intentionally rude. If she mentioned the lack of hospitality and inquired if it was because of the message when she returned, her sister-in-law would argue that it was her own fault, and she should be aware of her precarious position in society. Despite her change in circumstances after inheriting her late husband’s estate after their young son died, in the eyes of her half-brother and his family she remained the despised daughter of a Gallic slave girl.
‘That man shouts, Aunty Mel,’ Katla said in a loud whisper. ‘I want something to drink. Please. You promised when we arrived, the women would come out and give us something to drink. Like they always do.’
Mel patted Katla’s hand. The promise had seemed straightforward back at her brother’s. ‘Soon, sweetling.’
‘Why does that little girl stare at me like I have grown two heads?’ he asked, lifting a brow. The stubborn set of his jaw echoed Katla’s. If Mel had doubted her friend’s tale about Katla’s parentage, she knew the truth from the mirrored expressions. ‘State your business and go. I’m sure we both have things we’d rather be doing—you and your little friend, including finding her a drink.’
‘My little friend expected the traditional welcome which does include a thirst-quenching drink when a stranger comes in peace as did I, but obviously we were mistaken.’ She quirked her brow upwards and prayed her hands would not tremble and betray her nerves. ‘My brother’s message did inform you I came in peace, didn’t it?’
His eyes flickered over Katla. ‘You are hardly likely to bring a child with you if you do not come in peace. The message emphasised the need for privacy. I have given you privacy. Do you seek to question my hospitality at the General Assembly?’
‘No one wishes that!’ She tried to peer behind him, wondering where the women were. She’d feel better if she could meet anyone who would be looking after Katla. ‘Katla and I are unused to Islond customs as we have lately come from Viken. I was merely trying to explain why a four-year-old child might expect a drink and that she was not being rude.’
‘I regret I am out of practice.’ A faint rose hue coloured his cheeks, making him appear much younger and less forbidding. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘If you and the little girl care for refreshment, it can be arranged after our business is completed.’ Each word appeared to be chipped from ice. ‘Will that suffice for the niceties, my lady?’
‘I am thirsty, Aunty Mel, but...he frightens me. Can we go now?’ Katla hid her face in her skirts, clearly overawed by the giant confronting them.
‘This should not take long.’ She put a hand on Katla’s shoulder. Though she hated to admit it, deep in her heart, she hoped he’d deny the girl. Katla deserved to grow up in a place where she’d be loved, but the law of the land decreed a child legally belonged to her father. She had to give the man a chance, even though she guessed he didn’t deserve one. ‘Once I am finished, Katla, the jarl will surely get you something to drink.’
He made an elaborate bow. ‘As you wish, my lady. I know better than to argue with one such as you over customs.’
‘Are you mocking me?’ she asked.
He made a pointed cough. ‘Polite custom and I are strangers, my lady. That is all. I meant no disrespect to you or your child. All I wish to do is live in peace with my neighbours. I’ve seen enough war.’ Although his words held a faint note of warmth, his eyes were as cold as ever. ‘I’m perplexed about what your business with me might be. I do not believe we have ever met. I left Viken and the North behind four years ago. Your brother and I have little in common. Does that serve for an explanation?’
Katla started to speak, but gently squeezing Katla’s shoulder to warn her to keep silent, Mel reached into her pouch and extracted the arm bracelet. The intricately worked gold-and-silver piece gleamed in the early-morning sun.
‘Do you recognise this piece?’
He took it from her, regarding it as if it might bite him. Something flashed in his eyes but was quickly masked, so quickly Mel wondered if it had been a trick of the morning light. Hard lines settled on his face. ‘Where do you get this? How did one such as you acquire it?’
‘From the woman to whom it was given to nearly four years ago, along with the instructions whispered from her deathbed, instructions I now seek to carry out,’ she said, taking great care with the words. Ever since Katla’s mother whispered the truth to her, she’d half hoped he’d deny ownership of the bracelet. It would make life far simpler in many ways. Mel had at first wondered if her friend was hallucinating when she insisted on the bracelet and Katla being taken to him. ‘She told me that you had given it to her, and she felt it was time for it to be used for good, rather than being stored in an iron-bound trunk.’
He watched the arm ring as if it might bite him. ‘For good?’
‘She asked me to beg your forgiveness for not doing so earlier, but she had been under the impression you were dead.’ A polite lie. Katla’s mother had her own reasons for marrying the wealthy jarl who commanded a large estate.
A myriad of emotions crossed his face before settling into a harsh frown. ‘Estrid is dead?’
‘Alas, yes. Estrid died last spring during the epidemic which swept our village.’
He lifted a brow. ‘Have you travelled all the way here to inform me of her death? What we shared, we shared a long time ago, my lady Melkorka, but it vanished like the summer mist confronting the hot sun. You have done your duty. You may depart now. In peace and privacy. But I thank you for return of the arm ring.’
He was dismissing her without even listening. Mel counted to five slowly and clung on to her temper.
‘What you shared, produced a child.’ Mel gently pushed Katla forward. ‘A girl, this girl—Katla.’
His eyes blazed with cold fury. ‘A child, my child? Estrid hid my child?’
‘Her last words: “Take Katla to her true father, Tylir Tjorson the Sunbear, after my husband departs this earth. Show Tylir this bracelet. Ask him to forgive me. I believe some good for Katla will come of it.” I had no reason to doubt a deathbed request.’
He gave a noncommittal grunt.
‘You have identified the bracelet as belonging to you.’ She hated how her heart clenched and how she had to force the words from her throat. ‘Do you claim the child as your own? Or must she look elsewhere for survival?’
His eyes showed less warmth than a midwinter’s day. ‘It is custom in the North to send any children to their real father as soon as they are weaned. Why didn’t she send word as soon as the child was weaned?’
‘You would have to ask her mother that, but...’ Mel allowed her voice to trail off.
His mouth took on a sardonic twist. ‘Dying, she remembers I live and wishes to send the child to me, provided her husband has also died. How convenient for all concerned.’
‘Not necessarily convenient for me.’ Mel crossed her arms and glared. ‘Once my question is answered, we can proceed.’
His eyes slowly roamed from the top of her couverchef over her nearly nonexistent curves to the tips of her sturdy boots. She was aware that a strand of hair had escaped from her couverchef and rapidly pushed it back. He gave a nod before hunkering down so that he was at eye level with Katla. ‘Let me have a closer look at the child. Then we shall see what can be done.’
After peeping at him, Katla buried her face deeper into Mel’s skirts. Mel put a hand on Katla’s shoulder and tried to prise her away from the fabric. ‘Look your father in the eye, Katla. Let him see your prettiest smiles like we practiced on the boat.’
‘Not my father,’ came Katla’s muffled reply before she stamped her foot. ‘My real father is back in Viken.’
‘The child disputes your words. She has a father. Left them destitute, did he? Is that why you brought her here?’
‘She is yet to come to terms with her loss. Why would I lie about something like this?’
He gave a half nod and rose, his face as unreadable as ever. ‘I’ve given up wondering about what goes on in women’s minds.’
Katla tightened her grip on Mel’s gown. Mel’s jaw clenched. She’d done this poorly. She should have gone on her own without Katla, but last night it all seemed simple. He would have to see the girl to make the determination, and she didn’t want one of her nephews to start pinching Katla’s arm again.
‘Her mother married before she gave birth to Katla. Everyone assumed Katla was his. He died two weeks after Estrid.’ Mel forced her voice to remain low and steady. ‘He gave Katla many gifts before he died. Katla is far from destitute if that is what you are worried about. If you refuse to acknowledge her...’
His face became fierce in a precise imitation of Katla’s expression. ‘Never have I turned away from my responsibility. Why should I begin today?’
The back of Mel’s neck eased, but her heart panged slightly. He was going to claim her, even if he had failed to say the exact words, the words Viken custom required. She supposed the precise formulation didn’t matter because they were in Islond, not Viken. ‘You appear very certain of your responsibility.’
His mouth became a thin white line. ‘She has the look of my sister, and in a certain light of my mother. That tight pursed smile when she considered me unhospitable was my mother brought to life. I will not deny the arm bracelet or the parentage. I cannot.’
Mel hated how her heart fell to the top of her boots. She realised then that she expected him to deny it and to leave her with Katla and the plans for the two of them she’d worked out on the boat. ‘I see.’
‘I hope you do.’
‘Katla, do be good now and greet your new father with a smile.’ At the arched brow from Tylir, she swallowed hard. ‘I mean your real father. Go on. Best smile.’
‘My new father?’ Katla asked, peeking up from Mel’s skirts. Her cheeks and Mel’s gown were stained with fresh tear marks. Mel’s heart sank. ‘He can’t be.’
‘Tylir Tjorson has claimed you.’
A fresh tear slipped from the corner of Katla’s eye. ‘Oh, no, not him. Don’t leave me with him, Aunty Mel. Please. He is a frost giant, I’m sure of it. Frost giants eat little girls. The boys...your nephews...told me.’
Mel winced, hating her nephews’ teasing had made Katla terrified of Tylir. First impressions were important and now, she had an uphill task in getting the girl to accept her new home. When she returned to Helm’s farm, her nephews would get a piece of her mind about unnecessarily frightening a little girl. ‘Katla, mind your manners.’
Tylir’s face could have been carved from ice. ‘You had best come in, the both of you. We will speak there. This business will take longer than I first imagined. I will see about that drink the little girl wanted.’
Mel gritted her teeth. She hated that Helm may have been right—she should have stayed well away from this place and this man. Katla should have had a safe place to grow up. No one would have known. She paused. She would have known. She kept her promises.
‘Her name is Katla. She is not a dog or an inanimate object. She is your daughter.’
‘Surely the custom in the North is for the father to give the child a name.’
With a curl of his lip when he pronounced father, he turned on his heel and strode back into the longhouse with a pronounced limp in his left leg.
Mel swallowed hard. Without truly acknowledging it to herself, she had gambled on Tylir denying the girl or at least declaring that he did not want to be burdened with her. Her dream of making a new home in Islond with Katla tasted like three-day-old ash in her mouth. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until the tears ceased to come. But crying never helped. Instead, she concentrated on making her voice sound cheery. ‘Come, Katla, your father has invited us in. He is going to find us something to drink. Isn’t that lovely?’
The words sound false to her ears.
‘My name will always be Katla Gormsdottar.’ Her face suddenly brightened. ‘Let’s run away, Aunty Mel. You and I together. This one won’t mind.’
‘I will explain slowly. We are not going to run anywhere.’ Mel knelt so that her face was level with Katla’s. ‘The man you thought was your father died, but your real father is here and alive. He claimed you as his daughter. You will be living with him in this wonderful longhouse with all these green fields rather than in Viken, which had that horrible mud with nothing growing and everyone getting sick.’
Katla gave a briefest of nods. ‘But that Sunbear man won’t be my really real father. Ever.’
Mel forced her lips into a hopeful smile and tried for a light voice, even though internally she wanted to weep and then weep some more. ‘I will always think of you as Katla, no matter what. When you think of me, I shall be thinking of you.’
Katla scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and her smile bordered on bravery. ‘Truly?’
‘When we meet, we can speak of our old life in the North if you wish. I promise, but now you must meet your new life with your chin held high.’
She stood and gestured towards the hall.
‘But,’ Katla whispered, hanging back, ‘the boys were right—he looks like a frost giant.’
‘Tylir Tjorson is no frost giant. Stop pretending.’ She searched her mind for what she knew of the former legendary berserker. She wished she could promise he wouldn’t alter the child’s name. ‘Remember the stories I told you. He is a brave warrior by all accounts. And he has built this magnificent longhouse for his family...for you.’
Katla put her hand in Mel’s. ‘You won’t leave me, will you? You need somewhere to live as well. You could stay here with me. Maybe you could marry...’
‘I will make sure you are safe.’ Not the same thing, but it was the best Mel could offer. She silently prayed to her mother’s God that everything would work out for Katla. As for her situation, one marriage had been enough for her. She knew her growing fame as a healer as well as being the mother of her husband’s only child were all that had saved her from being abandoned by her cruel husband. And she’d lost both in the epidemic which had swept through the village.
‘Promise?’
Tylir appeared in the doorway. His face was harsh planes and sharp angles. He nodded towards where some of his men gathered in a field and were frankly gawping at them. ‘Melkorka Helmsdottar, I’ve no intention of discussing my intimate business where all can hear.’
Mel curled her hand tighter around Katla’s and straightened her shoulders. She was going to find a way to make it easier for Katla...somehow. ‘We must follow your father’s request.’
