‘You deserve more than I can give you.’

It was a warning Kadlin wouldn’t heed. ‘You don’t decide what I deserve any more than our fathers decide who I marry. I am in charge of myself.’

Gunnar’s lips had hardened into a determined line, but deep in his eyes lurked the longing of the boy he had been.

It nearly broke her heart, so she softened her voice. ‘I’ve dreamt of the night you would come back to me for a long time. Come …’ She tugged him gently. ‘Lie down with me.’

She had more than dreamt of it. Gunnar was the only man she had ever thought to spend her life with. He was the one for her—the only one—so it seemed entirely natural that this night had finally come.

Author Note

I’ve always had a soft spot for wounded heroes. Gunnar holds a particularly special place in my heart because his emotional wounds, stemming from his childhood, are almost as severe as his physical wounds. He is not the perfect hero, but he is a very real hero. He’s a perfect example of how love can touch us all and help us strive to become something better than we were. While I don’t envy Kadlin the task put before her, her (almost) unwavering faith in the power of love is the one glimmer of hope that Gunnar needs to become that person.

I am a firm believer that each and every one of us is deserving of love and its power to heal. I hope you enjoy reading about Gunnar and Kadlin and their journey to discover this as much as I enjoyed writing their story.

One Night with the Viking

Harper St. George

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HARPER ST GEORGE was raised in rural Alabama and along the tranquil coast of northwest Florida. It was this setting, filled with stories of the old days, that instilled in her a love of history, romance and adventure. At high school she discovered the romance novel, which combined all those elements into one perfect package. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two young children.

Visit her website: harperstgeorge.com.

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For Joseph

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

She was the only woman he had ever loved.

The realisation washed over him in a single instant, a tingling chill that started at his fingertips and worked its way up his arms and on to the rest of his body. If he’d seen her even once in the past few years, he might have recognised that love sooner. Or if he had allowed himself to even dream that such a sentiment was possible, he would have attributed it to her. But he’d tried to make himself forget her. It was easier to pretend she didn’t exist. If he didn’t think about being with her, he wouldn’t long for her. If he didn’t remember how it felt to hold her, he wouldn’t have to face the reality that she wasn’t meant to be his. That he would never hold her again and his hands wouldn’t ache from the emptiness.

Only Gunnar had never really stopped imagining her face. Every woman he’d ever touched had become her in the black of night.

From his hidden niche in the forest, he watched Kadlin follow the path from her home to the stream, her cheeks pink with the cold and her long-limbed stride graceful and swaying. She leapt a snowdrift and her younger brothers followed suit, both of them squealing and laughing as one of them tripped and fell into the icy snow bank. Her mongrel barked and joined the fray, bouncing in merriment. Gunnar found himself smiling as he quickly stepped back to hide behind a tree when she turned abruptly to join in their laughter. The precious sound of it reached him where he hid in the forest and dislodged the weight he carried in his chest. It had been years since he’d heard her laugh. He’d forgotten how good it felt to hear it.

The sound brought back memories of their childhood frolics through this very forest. He stood for a moment with his eyes closed as he let the images come to him: Kadlin pelting him with a snowball, Kadlin lying in wait for him on a low-hanging branch as he looked for her and then tackling him to the ground, Kadlin boxing his ears when he’d called her a girl. But then their happy voices began to fade, so he followed to keep them within sight.

If not for the presence of her younger brothers, he would have approached her at the stream. But he remembered the last time he’d visited her and the harsh words her father had said to him, so he kept his distance. There would be time to visit her later that night when everyone slept. He’d made that trip often enough in the past and knew just how to gain entry without being seen. He kept his place in the seclusion of the forest and watched them.

Twin braids hung down to her waist. He’d been fascinated with her hair for as long he could remember. It was a rare silvery blonde he’d never seen on another. As a child, he’d sneak into her bedchamber on the nights he’d been too bruised and dispirited to find solace in his own bed, unravel her long braids and let the waterfall of silk cascade over him. And he could vividly recall her startling clear blue eyes watching him as he did it. The acceptance he saw reflected there was the only refuge he’d known. Rejected by his father, who was a bitter and spiteful man, and then by his mother when she had abandoned her bastard child to marry, he’d never known tenderness and approval, except from Kadlin.

He’d been a fool to not recognise the depths of his feelings for her back then. But he’d also been a child and what did children know of love? He only knew that he had gone to her when his own life had become unbearable and she had offered him comfort. He didn’t quite understand what had compelled him to push her away. Perhaps it was because she had been meant for his half-brother and he didn’t want to face the inevitable pain that would follow when she chose Eirik over him. But he recognised now that she filled some place in him that had been empty without her and his life would be infinitely better with her in it.

It was unfortunate that his life was taking him across the sea in mere days. Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he recognised that going away was the best thing for her. She deserved someone as honourable and good as she was. Someone who would be able to do more than take from her. Someone who could return a modicum of all that she had to give a man. He wasn’t that man and he knew that he could never aspire to be. He was darkness to her light. He would only take from her. But he would see her tonight, talk to her one last time, hold her in his arms. It would have to be enough to keep him for the rest of his life.

* * *

Kadlin awoke to the disturbing knowledge that she was not alone in her bedchamber. She lay perfectly still, listening for some sound that would betray the intruder, but she failed to hear anything past the pounding of her heart. The fire had reduced to only a smoulder, so she blinked, urging her eyes to adjust to the absence of light. There was a heaviness in the room, a presence that wasn’t her own. She was certain that it wasn’t a trick of her imagination. The presence prickled her skin and sucked out the air in the small chamber.

Where was her dog? The realisation that her faithful companion had abandoned her set off a cold flare of terror and her heart froze in her chest. If someone had been able to take Freyja, then—

‘It’s only me, Kadlin. Don’t be afraid.’

Gunnar! She would have known his voice anywhere. The deep cadence was followed by a spark of orange as the fire flamed back to life. Its warmth caressed his beloved features, making his wolfish amber eyes appear to glow at her from across the small distance. The flickering flames highlighted the deep red of his hair and drew her attention to the angular planes of his face as they played hide-and-seek with the light. He was the fire god come to life.

But he was Gunnar, decidedly flesh-and-blood male. Her heart resumed its pounding, but for an entirely different reason. She’d not laid eyes on him in well over two years; he’d been gone, fighting across the sea. Even before that, her knowledge of him had become sparse and relegated to stolen glimpses and awkward meals when their fathers met. They had still been children the last time he had made the long trek, alone through the forest, from his home to her bed.

Now, he had the broad shoulders of a seasoned warrior, made even wider by the fur cloak draped across them. She could barely tear her gaze from their solid strength, but he prodded the fire and she noticed how large and strong his hands had become. Much different than the hands that had held her so many years ago. A trembling began somewhere deep within her.

‘I didn’t know if I would see you again.’ Her words came out a bit breathless so she forced herself to take a deep breath as she sat up in bed. She wanted to touch him, to reassure herself that he was really there and this wasn’t some dream, to know the feel of his shoulders beneath her hands so she could compare it to her dreams. She wanted to reach out and hold on to him before he left and she never saw him again. To shake him for taking himself away from her.

But it had been so long since they’d enjoyed the easy camaraderie of their youth and he seemed so fierce and remote from the boy she had known. ‘You returned with Eirik in the autumn.’ They could have had the whole winter to know each other again. She didn’t give voice to the words, but the accusation hung silently in the air between them. ‘Why have you stayed away?’ A shadow moved in the corner behind him and she realised that her dog had been given a large hank of dried meat to chew. Gunnar had come prepared, it seemed.

He took a deep breath and seemed to come to some decision, because when his gaze lit on hers, he looked at her so directly that she was left speechless. There was no jesting there, no artifice, or even a veneer of civility. There was just a restless energy that he seemed determined to harness so that it focused completely on her. When he finally spoke, his voice was textured with longing. ‘You were betrothed to my brother. If I saw you again, I knew that I would have challenged him for you.’

He finally released her from the captivity of his stare, his intense gaze flicking over her tousled hair and down to her breasts, making warmth bloom in her chest. He dropped one last piece of wood on the fire and rose to his full height so that he seemed to take up most of the space in the room.

Her skin prickled from the intensity of his attention. She’d imagined this very scenario many times over the years, awakening to him in her room, but the reality of his presence was nearly overwhelming. His acknowledgement of his desire for her, coupled with the intensity of his stare, set her body to life in a way she’d been unable to imagine. Heat prickled her skin, so that every part of her was aware of him. When he took a step in her direction, her belly fluttered in anticipation. To rein herself in, she offered a challenge to his words. ‘You would have allowed your brother to marry me? Knowing that you wanted me for yourself?’

There was no mistaking that heated look in his eyes. She’d seen it enough in other men who had come to ask her father for her hand, though she’d never once welcomed it. But from him, it was like the light of the spring sun warming her skin after a particularly brutal winter. He was the only one she had ever imagined herself marrying.

‘I believed that he was your choice.’ He came to a stop at the edge of the bed next to her.

She rose to her knees before him, leaving her blanket to pool on the bed, and fought her desire to touch him. Apparently he had harboured some affection for her all of these years, but she found it difficult to believe, when he could have had any woman he wanted. Or perhaps she was afraid to believe it, afraid that even knowing that, it would change nothing. That he still wouldn’t be hers. ‘You must know that Eirik never owned my heart. He is a dear friend, but...not in the way that I would require for marriage.’

‘I passed the winter away from home, in places that would make you shudder with revulsion.’ He shook his head. ‘With horrible people...because I didn’t want to return to my father’s home and see you as Eirik’s wife. Every night I imagined you in his arms and it was torture. When I returned home to find that you hadn’t married him, I came to you as soon as I could.’ He paused, his lips curving in an attractive smile. It lit his eyes, giving her a glimpse of the boy she had loved. His strong hand reached out to catch the end of one of her braids and curl it around his finger. They both watched as the light caught it and turned the blonde strands to silver. ‘Leave it to you to thwart the wishes of not one but two jarls, your father and mine.’

Her lips curved in a slight smile at his jest, but she was reluctant to get away from the confrontation. ‘He was not the man I wanted.’ His breath hitched, but he didn’t shift his attention from the strand of hair he caressed. ‘Why have you ignored me all these years, Gunnar?’ she whispered.

‘Nay, Kadlin, you were never ignored. There was never a moment when I wasn’t aware of you. Any time you were near, I felt it even without seeing you. My body knew you were there and I couldn’t help but hear you, smell you.’ He brought the strand of hair to his lips and closed his eyes as he breathed in her scent. ‘I could never forget the way you smelled and the way it felt to sleep with my face buried in your hair when we were children.’

‘But you’ve stayed away. Why?’

He groaned and pulled back only enough to look at her. ‘The boy you knew died a long time ago, Kadlin. I am not what you need.’

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. This man, this warrior standing before her, so forbidding and brutal, was not the boy she remembered. But he was no less attractive for the change that his harsh life had wrought. To the contrary, he carried an edge that somehow served to make him desirable with that mystical allure taken on by all things forbidden. Despite that, he still seemed so familiar to her. Unable to avoid touching him any longer, she let her palms rest on the backs of his hands. Did he feel the magic that happened when their flesh touched, the invisible flame that sparked between them?

Her hands moved restlessly up and down the length of his forearms, unable to stay still when the urge to touch him was so powerful. They were as solid as iron beneath her palms. Taking in the broad expanse of his chest, she suspected that all of him would feel that way. A jolt of unexpected excitement moved from her fingertips to her belly. ‘I don’t care, Gunnar. You are what I want.’ Truer words had never passed her lips. In the few minutes he had been there, she felt like a part of her had come back to itself. There was no more aching where her heart had been. He was meant for her and she knew it now more than she had ever known it before. Only now, she knew that deep in his heart he felt the same way.

His eyes glowed with a sudden fierceness that might have frightened her only moments earlier. ‘You should be careful of the things you say to me.’

‘Why?’ she challenged.

He grinned, but it was wicked and full of all of the dark things that she very much wanted to experience with him. A wolf’s grin. His fingers loosened their grasp on her hair so that his hands could settle gently at her hips, clenching the light fabric of her nightdress in a show of restraint that caused a strange pulse to begin between her thighs. ‘Because I’ve spent every moment in this chamber trying to convince myself that I came only to bid you goodbye.’

‘You didn’t truly think that I would let you go so easily?’ Her body warming beneath his touch, she allowed her hands to finally settle on the solid expanse of his chest. He was so hard and strong. Her fingertips tingled as she touched him, tracing over the dips and planes. But that wasn’t enough, so she let them delve beneath the edges of the fur cloak to be closer to his heat. His words had started a throbbing deep within her and it begged to be closer to him.

He shook his head at her teasing words and gave her a heavy-lidded stare. ‘You don’t understand what you do to me, innocent.’

She might have uttered those same words to him. He made all thoughts of censure and convention flee her mind. In fact, he made her gladly throw them away if it meant that he could be hers. With her palm over the restless pounding of his heart, she leaned towards him. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he didn’t pull away when her lips touched his. Kadlin closed her eyes and let her tongue stroke his bottom lip, tasting the mead that he had drank, before slipping inside the silken heat to find his. When his tongue, both soft and rough, stroked against her own, it caused an ache in her that wanted more from him. Her fingers worked up his chest to delve into the hair resting at his nape and pull him close. Finally succumbing, he groaned, his fingers curling tight around her hips as he pulled her flush against him.

The kiss quickly escalated from delicate exploration to ravenous need, until he finally drew back and took a deep breath. Kadlin tried to stifle her smile, but she couldn’t because she was so happy to have finally kissed him as she had dreamed about for years. It was even better than her dreams. Clearly discomfited and aroused, he was the most singularly attractive man she had ever seen. His allure came from the wildness that he exuded, the untamed quality that defied explanation. Only, she had seen deep inside to the heart of the man within that wild creature and he wanted her.

‘I understand, Gunnar. You do the same to me.’

The heated look he gave her threatened to make her go up in flames. His hands tightened almost involuntarily on her even more as he held her hips against his, allowing her to clearly feel the extent of his hard desire for her as it pressed firmly into her belly. ‘You deserve more than I can give you.’

It was a warning she wouldn’t heed. ‘You don’t get to decide what I deserve any more than our fathers decide who I marry. I am in charge of myself.’ His lips had hardened into a determined line, but deep in his eyes lurked the longing of the boy he had been. It nearly broke her heart, so she softened her voice. ‘I’ve dreamt of the night you would come back to me for a long time. Come...’ she tugged him gently ‘...lie down with me.’ She had more than dreamt of it. Gunnar was the only man she had ever thought to spend her life with. He was the one for her, the only one, so it seemed entirely natural that this night had finally come.

Letting him go, she moved back to her place on the bed, her fingers slowly going to the ties of her nightdress. His eyes hungrily followed her every move and his breathing became faster. Her belly fluttered as his gaze licked over her skin. She released the string so that the fabric fell down her shoulders, revealing the tops of her breasts.

He glanced to the door, but when his gaze came back to her, it was hot and fierce. She trembled with excitement when he reached up and untied the thong holding the fur cloak in place across his broad shoulders, so that it fell to the floor.

‘I’ve only ever wanted you,’ she encouraged him. ‘Come claim what is yours.’

Chapter Two

Kadlin closed her eyes as she turned over in bed and fought the waves of nausea that rolled through her. She pressed her forehead against her arm and waited for it to pass. It had been the same every morning for the past week. Wake up to let Freyja out and then stumble back to bed, too dizzy to stand upright and fight the nausea that threatened to make her empty the contents of her stomach. Even before the nausea and vertigo, her breasts had been very sore. She had tried to attribute the strange soreness to her monthly ague, only the bleeding had never started, and now, she couldn’t deny it any longer.

It was time to admit that she was with Gunnar’s child.

The acknowledgement made her flop on to her back and stare at the ceiling. Her hand went to her belly, hoping to find some evidence of their child. It was a ritual she had repeated nightly in her chamber from the first moment she had even begun to suspect. So far, it seemed as flat as it had ever been. But that was all right, because today she could finally admit the truth to herself. Today made seven straight mornings of nausea.

When she’d invited him into her bed, she’d only thought that she’d been risking her heart, not a child. How naïve she had been. A laugh shook loose from deep in her belly and escaped past her lips as she threw her head back. Freyja scratched at the door to get in, startled by her mistress’, voice, but she ignored her. Her sweet maid, Edda, was a fool. Kadlin didn’t know the specifics behind the girl’s service to her family, but she had long suspected that Edda’s father had grown impatient with the young woman’s promiscuity and sent her away to toil under the watchful eye of Kadlin’s mother. His plan had met with little success, because the girl left a string of admirers in her wake. Thinking that Edda must be knowledgeable in the ways of men and women and child-making, some time ago Kadlin had asked her if it was possible to avoid motherhood while still enjoying a man. Even then, Kadlin’s thoughts had been of Gunnar. She’d been so certain that if she could seduce him, then he would admit his heart belonged to her. Edda had assured her that a virgin couldn’t get with child her first time with a man. That terrible logic had seemed so profound and true at the time. Now it just seemed horribly stupid and irresponsible.

She should have never listened to her. Kadlin frowned as she recalled exactly what had happened that night and realised that perhaps she was being unfair, perhaps it wasn’t entirely Edda’s fault. She had pulled Gunnar down for more kisses and had touched him until he had hardened again beneath her palm. It had been her own whispered pleas that had coaxed him to take her again...and then yet again. Perhaps it had been the second or third time with Gunnar that had done the trick and not the first.

Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t care. He wasn’t here and he would never be here. She had been so sure that once they had lain together, he would admit his love for her.

Pressing her palms to her forehead to ward off the tears that threatened, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and tried to stop the painful memory of how their night had ended. Yet it refused to be stopped and brought with it a fresh wave of pain, jagged along its edges so that it tore at her anew. She’d dozed and awakened to find him dressing, his back to her as he pulled up his trousers. Still floating in the lingering aura of bliss, she had asked him to stay.

‘I never made you any promises.’ Those words still made her wince. When he’d turned, his eyes had been flat and cold, as though he was looking at a stranger. She hadn’t thought that promises had been necessary. Deep in the marrow of her bones, she knew that Gunnar was meant to be her husband and she was meant to bear his children. It was a truth as obvious to her as her own name. There was no doubt that he felt it, too, so she hadn’t even expected him to attempt to deny it.

‘We were meant for each other.’ Her words only amused him. His lips tipped up in that infuriating smile he had perfected long ago.

‘I’m not meant for you. I’m leaving, Kadlin, and I won’t be back. Go on with your life and marry a man who wants you.’

What happened afterward remained a blur. She was sure that she had protested, had argued that he didn’t mean those words, but nothing had chipped away at the wall he had so quickly erected between them. In mere moments, he had left her life as quickly as he had returned to it.

Her face flamed with the memory and a pain-filled groan escaped her chest. She was the fool. She had been too confident that his love for her was as true as her love for him. He’d given her no reason to put her faith in him, but she’d done it anyway. And now he was gone and she would have his child. Her eyes fell closed and she imagined snuggling the babe to her breast while Gunnar looked on, his eyes bright with love and tenderness for them. She would give anything to have him there. To be his wife. To tell him the joyous news of their child and watch him smile as he drew her into his arms. There was no one else she wanted as husband and father to her children. No one. Gunnar had always been the one to fill that role in her fantasies.

Soon, she would have to tell her parents. She didn’t want to dwell on the look of disappointment sure to cross her father’s face. But she didn’t have to tell him yet, so she vowed to simply enjoy the knowledge that Gunnar’s child slept in her womb beneath her heart. Later, she would decide what to do.

* * *

But later came much sooner than she expected. Kadlin was scarcely able to savour the pregnancy for three weeks before a decision was made for her.

‘Hush, little one, Mother comes.’ Her baby brother fussed and sucked at his fist as Kadlin swayed and bounced, trying to find a rhythm that would soothe him until their mother could free herself from the children that ran around her. Kadlin smiled as she watched her four little sisters, the youngest one only three years old, chase their mother across the field. They were like beautiful miniatures of the woman as they ran in descending order of size. What had been a berry-picking excursion had quickly become a game of chase the mouse. Just last year her two brothers would have joined in the fun, but they considered themselves too old for such nonsense now, though they watched closely from their place guarding the baskets.

Kadlin laughed from the shade of the birch and cuddled the baby close, her thoughts on her own child. Though she was still happy, she was no closer to determining a solution. It would be later in the summer before a boat left so that she could send word to Gunnar, but even as she thought it, she realised it wasn’t something that she could do. He had left her and made it clear that he wouldn’t return. He wouldn’t care about a child and she was too prideful to risk yet another rejection. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget the hardness in his eyes that night.

‘You are beautiful with a child in your arms, Kadlin.’

The unwelcome voice made her gasp as she turned around to face the one who’d intruded on her privacy. A man with a blade-straight nose and vivid blue eyes approached. Since many of the men were across the sea, the jarl had thought it prudent to send out a contingent of men to help keep order on his lands. Her father had appointed Baldr to lead those men and he must have compensated him well to make him stay instead of seeking out his fortune like the others. Baldr frequently sought her out, making her wonder if he and her father had ever discussed her hand as part of their arrangement. Though he was handsome, there was a cruelty in his face that made her unconsciously hold her breath every time she spoke to him.

‘Hello, Baldr. I wasn’t aware you had returned.’

‘Just late last night. I looked for you this morning, but didn’t find you. Were you ill?’

Kadlin swallowed and spoke the lies that were coming too readily to her lips. Everyone noted her morning absences. ‘I’ve been unwell, but as you can see, I’m feeling much better.’

He nodded and smiled a smile that was a bit too knowing. When his gaze swept over her torso, lingering on the extra fullness of her breasts, she adjusted the infant to hide them. ‘Aye, that’s what your pretty maid said.’

Her heart sank. Nay, Edda, not him. Edda was the only one who had begun to suspect that she was with child. Kadlin had caught the maid sneaking glances at her waistline more than once in the weeks since her morning sickness had begun. No one else had even bothered to question her chastity, but the girl had every reason to suspect. That very morning, she had come in late with Kadlin’s washing water, knowing that Kadlin would still be abed. Edda had looked dishevelled and flushed, making Kadlin wonder if she’d just come from a lover.

She took a step backwards and couldn’t stop her eyes from cutting as harsh as her words. ‘Do you think bedding my servant will make you more appealing to me, Baldr?’

He laughed, a short hissing of breath that barely escaped his chest, and took slow steps towards her. He stopped just before her and reached to touch her hand, a lock of glossy, dark hair falling across his forehead. ‘Men bed her because her beauty is second only to yours. But you must know that they also do it because they know it’s as close as they’ll get to bedding you.’ His fingertips trailed from her hand to the expanse of flesh exposed above the bodice of her gown.

She jerked away, causing his smile to widen. ‘But that isn’t really true any more, is it? Someone bedded you and now his seed has taken root.’

‘You’re depraved.’

‘I want you as my wife, Kadlin, even with that bastard in you. I’ll accept it as my own. That’s more than you’ll get from anyone else. More than you’ve got from the bastard’s own father.’

Those words cut a little too close to the truth. ‘Leave my sight!’ The infant startled at her harsh words and then began to cry. She held him tighter to her chest, but didn’t take her eyes from the man before her. ‘I will never want you, Baldr. Never!’

He glanced behind her to the others who had surely noted her outburst. ‘It matters not what you want, Kadlin. If it’s the jarl’s wish, you’ll accept me into your life.’ His lustful gaze raked her body before settling on hers again. ‘And into your bed.’ With that promise, he turned on his heel and left.

Fingers shaking with a mixture of anger and fear, she handed the baby over to her mother only moments later. She was out of time. Her father would know before nightfall and she had no idea what to do. The worst of it was that she couldn’t even dispute what Baldr had said. Gunnar wouldn’t acknowledge their child. He didn’t want them.

Ignoring her mother’s questions, she ran all the way back to the longhouse and shut herself inside her chamber where she gave in to the despair that had threatened her all along. And waited for the summons she was certain would come from her father.

* * *

It came later that night.

‘What have you done?’

It was the second time her father had asked that question, but she still had no answer for him. She stood just inside the door of her parents’ chamber; it was closed tight behind her to keep the conversation as confidential as possible in such close quarters. The only sounds were the sighs of the baby sleeping peacefully on the bed and her mother’s soft sobs from her chair beside her father. Seeing the tears on her mother’s cheeks made her throat ache with her own unshed tears.

‘What man did this to you?’

She risked another glance at the face she held so dear, only it wasn’t the kind face of the father she cherished. His cheeks were aflame with his fury, and his greying, golden hair was dishevelled, as if he’d raked through it with his hands countless times. Everyone said that he indulged her, that he favoured her too much, and perhaps they were right because she’d never seen him so angry.

‘Leif, calm yourself. Can’t you see that she’s afraid?’ Her mother’s soft voice broke the tension and she held out her hand to Kadlin, but Kadlin couldn’t make her feet move her forward to accept it.

The jarl cursed under his breath and raked a hand through his hair. When he looked up at Kadlin, the anger had receded a fraction, replaced with concern. ‘Were you forced?’

Kadlin shook her head and found her voice. ‘Nay, Father, I was not forced.’

‘So it’s true.’ He sighed as if he’d been hoping that the information he’d been given was wrong. ‘Seduced, then?’

Again she shook her head, nay.

The anger returned. ‘Give me his name.’

‘What will a name do? He’s gone, across the sea with everyone else.’

‘Oh, Kadlin.’ Her mother brought a hand up to cover her lips as she processed those words before continuing. ‘Why? If there is someone you favoured you could have come to us and we could have arranged a marriage before he left.’

Addressing her mother, she spoke evenly. ‘Because you would not have arranged a marriage for us so easily. And because I wasn’t even certain of him myself. I hadn’t seen him in years.’

The jarl shook his head. ‘I have brought countless men before you and you’ve eschewed them all. All of them! Even Eirik. And you ask me what will a name do? I want to know this paragon of masculinity who stole your good sense and virginity when not one of the men I brought before you even turned your head. A name, Kadlin.’

She drew herself up to her full height and took a deep breath. It wasn’t as if her father could kill him now, and besides, he was gone, never to return. She would never see him again, never touch him, never laugh with him. The ache in her throat threatened to choke off her words when she spoke. ‘It was Gunnar. Gunnar is the father of my child.’

Her parents sat in a stunned silence that was only broken when her mother broke down into sobs again. Her father was unnaturally still before he finally spoke. ‘You gave yourself to a bastard?’

‘He is acknowledged, Father. It’s not as if he’s without a family. Besides, he cannot be blamed for the manner in which he was conceived. I want to marry him.’ Nay, that wasn’t right. Not any more. When would she learn to think of him as part of her past? ‘I wanted to marry him. I don’t know why this comes as such a surprise. As a child, I spoke often of marrying him. But it’s been years since I’ve seen him and I needed to see him again to be sure.’

But her father shook his head. ‘Kadlin...he is not for you. Aye, his father has acknowledged him and raised him, but he has no future. No lands, no place in the world except to swing a blade and count his treasure.’

‘Aye, Father, that’s right. He has treasure from his excursions. He leads his own ship. He has the means to support me and a family. Why was he such a bad choice?’ Not that it mattered now with him long gone, but she couldn’t stop the unreasonable well of anger that rose within her. If her father had sanctioned her choice all along, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps they could have married years ago.

‘Why was he such a bad choice? Tell me this, Daughter. Where would you live with him? Does he have a home? A hall to keep you warm in the winter, a place to keep your children protected as they grow? He is not that type of man, Kadlin. He’s transient. He lives on only what his father’s good conscience has provided for him and when that ends he will pass his winters in hovels or whatever place he has managed to come by through pillaging, where he will live in constant fear of being killed. And one day he will be killed and what do you suppose would become of you? You would be passed to the next man in line, or perhaps taken as a triumph of his murderer, and you would live with him until he, too, is killed and so on and so forth until you, too, are gone. By then your children will have been scattered to the whims of life. Is this how you envision your future?’

Kadlin shook her head to deny the harsh future he described. ‘Nay, you are wrong.’

‘Am I? Then let us go back to the essential question. Has he offered you marriage?’

She swallowed past the ache in her throat and forced the word out. ‘Nay.’

‘He beds a woman like you, a prize that every bachelor wants, and doesn’t even have to speak of marriage to do it?’

‘Stop it, Father!’ She held her hand up to ward off his words. ‘None of this matters now. I loved him and he left me! Does that make you happy? There will be no marriage. I gave myself to him and he didn’t want me.’ Her voice broke on that last word and tears spilled down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around her middle in some attempt to hold herself together, as the pain threatened to rip her apart. Her mother’s arms joined her own and she turned into the woman’s embrace, seeking some nameless solace from the pain of the gaping wound in her heart.

‘You’ll marry Baldr.’

‘No—’

Her father shook his head. ‘Don’t attempt to sway me, Kadlin. He’s offered and I see no other choice. Your child needs a father, a name.’

‘Please, Father.’ Pulling away from her mother, she ran and fell to her knees before him, bringing his hand to her cheek. ‘Please, not him. I don’t like him.’

He smiled wryly and brushed his fingers across her cheekbone, the anger momentarily gone from his eyes. ‘You don’t like any of them, Kadlin. But you must accept that your child needs a father. Do you want him to be a bastard like Gunnar? You’ve seen how difficult his life is. Do you want your son to have the same life? Always at a disadvantage because of the accident of his conception?’

She closed her eyes against the pain of his words, more tears escaping down her cheeks. ‘You know I don’t.’

‘Then marry Baldr. He has promised to care for you and the child.’

‘Nay, Father. He is a cruel man. He frightens me.’

The anger completely left him then to be replaced by something that was even worse. Pity. He cupped her face with both hands and placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘I would do anything to spare you from this pain. If he were here now, I would kill Gunnar myself for leaving you to face this alone. It only proves that I was right about him.’ Taking a deep breath, he ploughed ahead. ‘You will be married now. You have no choice.’

She trembled as a deep, wrenching sob struggled to find purchase in her throat. Her father’s words hinted at a truth she had tried so hard to deny. Gunnar must have known that a child was possible. He must have known that she loved him. He must have known how his leaving would destroy her. But she had to make a choice for her child now. ‘I’ll marry Dagan, but not Baldr.’ Dagan was a childhood friend she had known almost as long as Gunnar. He was kind and good, a fine warrior who planned to leave for the Saxon lands before winter. Though the thought of marrying anyone except Gunnar tore out her heart, if she would marry anyone else it would be Dagan. He would understand that she needed time before...before she could truly be a wife to him. The very thought of it caused another tear to leak down her cheek.

‘Dagan?’ Her father looked pensive and then nodded. ‘He’s from a strong family. He will agree to this?’

‘Aye,’ she whispered. Dagan had hinted at the idea of marriage before and she had turned him down gently.

Her father nodded. ‘Before the next moon you will be married.’

Chapter Three

Two years later

Gunnar squinted into the grey dawn and tried to make out the figure he was sure he had seen just over the ridge. It had been a quick movement, but too large for a small animal. Though the signs of spring were all around—the frost losing its grip on the earth, the small white flowers peeking out of the dead foliage on the forest floor—it was too early in the season for the larger animals to be out. It must have been a Saxon. The smell of their unwashed bodies wafted across the distance.

It was time for battle. Absently, his fingers reached into his tunic to stroke the lock of silvery-blonde hair he kept tied on a leather thong around his neck. It had become a habit before battle, one that he couldn’t break, even though he had determined to stop thinking of her. More than once, he’d found himself doing it and resolved to cast the lock into the nearest fire, but he never could bring himself to do it. As paltry as it was, the memento was his only link to Kadlin—the only link he would ever have. Stroking it never failed to make him remember how good it had felt to become a part of her that night, to claim her and make her his. Or how her scent, like sunshine mixed with wildflowers, had stayed on his skin for days afterward; and how in summer, when the afternoon sun shone through the clouds after a rain, it reminded him of her scent and would never fail to arouse him.

One night would never be enough with her, nor would a lifetime. He could touch her every day for the rest of his life and it would never be enough. She was the only light able to penetrate the coldness inside him. He’d willingly warm himself for an eternity in her light.

He wanted her. By the gods, he wanted her with him more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. Her absence left a gaping wound inside that no one could see and it festered worse every day. But she wasn’t meant to be his.

Leaving her after taking her body, after hearing the sweet words she’d whispered in his ear, had been the hardest thing that he’d ever done. He’d lain with many women, but he’d never experienced the overwhelming wave of possessiveness that had overcome him when he’d risen to dress and looked down at her. With his seed glistening on the tender flesh of her inner thighs, he’d felt as if he’d branded her, marked her as his in a primal ritual as old as man. It had taken every ounce of will he possessed to walk away.

He’d only been able to do it because he’d convinced himself that leaving was best for her. She deserved a life where she would be surrounded by those she loved. She was meant to be a jarl’s wife, not the wife of an unwanted bastard. Not the wife of someone incapable of loving and protecting her as she deserved. It was only that memory of how he had failed in the past that had given him strength to ignore the darkness within him that urged him to take her away with him, to leave her to her peaceful life without him.

When his ship had set sail, he’d known that he was entering some of the darkest days of his life. The years away from her had been black; he had no reason to believe that the ones ahead of him would be any better.

The soft crunch of dry twigs alerted Gunnar to his friend’s presence behind him just before Magnus spoke. ‘What do you see?’

Gunnar opened his eyes and tried to shake thoughts of Kadlin away. If he wanted to live, he couldn’t afford distractions. That was the very reason he needed to get rid of that bloody lock of hair; it was a distraction. Nodding to the small break in the trees, he spoke softly. ‘I saw a Saxon. Just there.’ They were both silent, waiting for another movement. After a few minutes, they were rewarded as the figure of a man darted across the opening.

Magnus grumbled in disgust. ‘They should come fight us like men instead of hiding in the trees.’

‘They already tried that and realised they couldn’t win,’ Gunnar muttered as he scanned the treeline, looking for more. Earlier in the week, he and his men had come across a ragtag group of Saxon men. There had been a fight, and when it had become apparent that his men were the stronger warriors, the Saxons had scattered. His men had found some of them, but the rest had escaped and had regrouped and followed them. He didn’t like their cowardice in hiding and his blood pumped furiously at the thought of crushing them. ‘They won’t approach. They’re waiting. We’ll have to root them out.’

Magnus nodded his agreement. ‘There are at least two score. If they met with others, there could be more.’

‘I’ll take some men and ride in behind them. Drive them out into the open.’

‘Why not wait them out? We can handle them.’

Gunnar shook his head, the need to fight outweighing his patience. ‘Nay, we’ll fight them now.’ He turned to go back to camp. They needed to strike fast.

‘Wait, brother,’ Magnus said as he put a hand on his arm. ‘Let us wait. We don’t know how many men are hiding. We don’t need to fight now.’ He paused and when Gunnar seemed unmoved by his logic, he added, ‘It could be suicide.’

‘I know,’ Gunnar replied and kept walking the path back to camp. It could be suicide, but not in the way Magnus suspected. He’d never risk the lives of his men. He intended to go alone, to figure out what they were dealing with before leading his men in. He’d gained a reputation for recklessness, but every chance he’d ever taken had paid off. It was why the men under his command had quadrupled in size. They wanted the treasures and accolades those fighting beneath his command had accumulated over the years.

The truth was that he no longer cared if he lived or died. He could have stopped fighting. Eirik had offered him numerous opportunities to take over command posts. He could have become a jarl in this new land in his own right by now, commanding the battle from afar at times. And while that idea had originally held some allure, it had come too late. He’d learned that Kadlin was married to someone else now.

The night he had come face to face with her husband was the night he realised that some part of him had still held out hope. It wasn’t until that moment that he knew he had lost her for ever. And nothing seemed to matter any more. That shouldn’t matter. She’d already been lost to him, but the thought of her touching another was like a knife blade taken to his already shredded heart.

Though he tried to stop it, the memory of that night came back sharp and crisp. The meeting had happened during the first snowstorm of his first winter here. New arrivals from home had only recently joined them so the hall was crowded. Somehow, through the din of multiple conversations and revelry happening around him, her name came to him.

Kadlin.

It took his eyes only moments to identify the one who had spoken it. A man on the other side of the fire had been regaling anyone who would listen about the beauty of his new wife. Gunnar’s heart had stopped for one endless moment when the newcomer described her long blonde hair. Before he’d even realised what he was doing, Gunnar had found himself standing in front of the fool who had only smiled up at him.

‘You have married, Kadlin, eldest child of Jarl Leif?’

The fool had barely managed to offer an acknowledgement before slumping to the floor, knocked cold by Gunnar’s fist. He’d wanted the man to stand and fight him. Blood had pumped through his body, urging him to kill the man for daring to lay any claim to her, but he turned and left the hall instead.

The vision of her with someone else only made the pain in his chest so great that it escaped in a cry of rage that echoed in the sudden silence of the hall. No one was brave enough to approach him. Even Magnus and Eirik only hung back, waiting to see if any of the man’s friends were foolish enough to chase him. Not one of them did. Though he was looking for a fight, he couldn’t blame them. He must have looked like a madman. He was a madman.

Any flickering hope he’d carried within him that he might one day claim her had died out that night. He’d been a fool to let it persist as long as it had. There was nothing left of him. Death was the only cure for the excruciating pain. He’d let out one last bellow of rage and then hung his head as the snow fell around him, collecting on his hair and shoulders. His father had been right. A warrior is all that he was ever meant to be. So a warrior he would be. From that moment onward, his entire life became the fight and nothing else mattered. He had pushed Kadlin from his mind as much as he could and waited for death to claim him.

It hadn’t helped that he knew losing her had been his own fault, somehow. Gritting his teeth to stifle the cry of rage that the memory brought with it, he rammed his left fist into the base of a fir tree and watched the bark splinter beneath the impact. He cradled the hand against his chest and threw his head back to take a deep breath as he savoured the momentary numbness before the pain exploded in his hand. The tree was a poor substitute for the crunch of bone a Saxon nose would have provided—he knew he should have waited for the upcoming battle to vent his anger—but the pressure in his chest had been too great to carry into a fight. There was an aching relief to be found as the pain shifted from his chest to his hand. Blowing out through the pain and then sucking in a deep, wrenching breath, he made his way to his men and forced Kadlin out of his mind.

Motioning a boy over to wrap his hand, he gathered them all to go over the plan for battle. In moments, he was mounted, leading the small group to their location behind the Saxons. He knew the forests in this land so well now that he rode on instinct, knowing the best place to attack, knowing exactly where they would be hidden even if he didn’t know how many there were.

The scream came from nowhere and then it was all around him at once. The Saxons had been circling them, preparing an ambush. His horse, though well trained, reared in surprise just as a spear broke free from the trees. It landed in the beast’s chest, making him scream in pain and lose his balance. Gunnar was unable to jump free as the horse fell backwards. Pain exploded in his legs and head when they landed, then everything went numb and quiet. A strange peace crept over him as he watched the Saxons flood out of the forest to surround his own men. He smiled because he knew that they had given themselves away prematurely and Magnus would surely crush them with his larger group of warriors.

Blackness pulled at him, but it didn’t take his smile. It might not have happened with a sword in his hand or a sword in his belly, but he was dying in battle, a welcomed relief. He closed his eyes and waited for Odin to greet him.

* * *

Light flashed behind his eyelids and sent shards of pain shattering through his skull. Or it should have been pain, like every other time he’d awakened to pain so sharp that it had sent him hurtling back into unconsciousness. Instead, it was darts of light that roused him enough to open his eyes and it took an extraordinary effort to accomplish that minor task. Almost too much effort, as the need for slumber pulled him under again. But the sensation of falling was enough to make him finally open them. The light that had teased him before had disappeared to a hazy golden crest on the horizon. It was dawn or perhaps dusk and he was floating in the sky, which was absurd.

Gunnar turned his head to the left and then the right and realised that it wasn’t him that was floating, but everything else around him. The horizon wobbled as if the world itself had shifted. A man’s head drifted into his line of vision and then moved out again. Soon, more heads followed, but none that he recognised. These weren’t his men.

The realisation brought with it the awareness that he was on a ship. Only it wasn’t his ship, because these weren’t his men. His gaze travelled over the vessel, trying to identify it, but he was having trouble keeping his gaze steady to look for markings. There was no figurehead on the prow.

‘Where are we going?’ he called to the man nearest him. He hardly recognised his own voice and it was delayed when it came to his ears.

‘Up the coast, Brother.’ Eirik knelt beside him, his face looking solemn and grim in the morning light. It must be morning if they were setting sail.

Gunnar jerked, not expecting to see anyone appear so close before him. Brother. The word rang around in his head and he had trouble holding on to it. ‘Brother,’ he whispered the word as if he’d never heard it before. As it found purchase, he was able to capture it on his tongue. ‘You are my brother.’

‘We haven’t been good brothers, not in a long time. I regret that.’

Gunnar smiled, though he couldn’t understand his compulsion to respond in that way. Perhaps it was because his body was finally numb from the endless pain that had gnawed at him, though he had no memory of what had caused the pain. He felt heavy and weightless all at the same time. He raised his hand and, after an attempt or two, it landed on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Aye, Brother. But there’s not much comfort in regret. What use is it?’ The soft leather of a well-worn tunic met his fingers, not the chainmail of battle. He thought it curious Eirik wouldn’t arm himself properly for battle and he meant to comment on it, but another figure he’d not noticed before materialised at his side. ‘Vidar, little brother. You are a man now. Do you go to this fight with us?’

Vidar glanced at Eirik before shrugging. ‘I go, but Eirik is staying.’

The unfamiliar smile stayed on Gunnar’s face and he couldn’t make it leave no matter how he tried to summon a scowl. He struggled to keep his eyes open as that strange heaviness tried to claim him. His head drooped and he noticed that his legs were covered in furs. Did they think he’d go to battle like a woman, wrapped in blankets and furs? His legs wouldn’t obey his command to kick them off so he yanked at the coverings. And then he stared because one leg was wrapped tight in rags and appeared twice as big as the other. But that didn’t seem possible, so he considered the fact that the appendages weren’t his legs at all but something foreign from his body entirely.

Eirik grabbed his hand, drawing Gunnar’s attention back to him. ‘I thought you’d like this back.’

Gunnar frowned down at the lock of hair Eirik had placed in his palm. He immediately recognised it as Kadlin’s, but wondered how it had become separated from his tunic. A feeling of unease sat heavy in his stomach. ‘How did you get this?’

Eirik was quiet for a moment, drawing Gunnar’s wavering attention back to him. Only then did his brother raise his troubled eyes from the blonde lock. ‘I never knew Kadlin meant so much to you. I should have realised.’

An image of her beauty swam before his eyes, bringing back that bizarre smile he couldn’t seem to shake. ‘She is everything.’

Eirik looked down. Something was troubling him, but Gunnar had no idea why that would be true. He’d gone off to battle numerous times without this concern from his brother. Deep down, he realised that it must be linked to the strange memory of pain, but he couldn’t hold on to the thought long enough to formulate a question. Finally, Eirik met his gaze again and said, ‘I want you to live, Brother. Remember that when you awaken.’

Gunnar intended to ask what he meant, but then Eirik pressed a small wooden barrel of mead to his side and draped Gunnar’s arm around it. It was the kind they would strap to their horses when out on a short campaign. He pulled out the cork and pressed it to Gunnar’s lips. Gunnar obliged him and took a long draught, but something didn’t feel right.

‘Drink more if you feel pain.’ Eirik put the cork back in and rested the barrel against Gunnar’s side.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I do this for your interest, Gunnar.’

The ship rocked and he recognised that it meant they were leaving the dock and heading towards the sea. But there was a disturbing hole in his memory and his time with Eirik was fading. The blackness was settling around his vision and threatening to overpower him again. He grabbed Eirik’s cloak and pulled him back. ‘Where are you sending me?’

‘Live, Brother.’ Then he pulled away from Gunnar’s grasp with ridiculous ease and seemed to disappear.

Gunnar tried to sit up, but his head swam and began to ache, so he laid back and allowed the comforting blackness to claim him.

* * *

Gunnar floated the entire trip, his body lightened by the strange sense of weightlessness that followed him. There were times when he realised something was odd, that his limbs weren’t responding as they should, that his thoughts were muddled, but he couldn’t find the strength to care. The allure of sleep was too much to resist. Its relentless pull on him was the only thing that grounded him. That split second before it overcame him was the only moment when he felt as if his body was connected to the world around him; it weighted him down and pressed his back solidly to the wooden platform that had become his world.

Most of the time his dreams were nightmares, clawing at his mind with their vicious memories of the past. As always happened when his mind turned dark, it took him back to that night he’d spent with Kadlin. He remembered how he’d spent hours gazing down at her beautiful face, peaceful in sleep. He’d wanted to remember it for ever, because he’d known the horrible words that would have to be said before he left her. He’d known that he had to push her away, even as it had turned his stomach to mar something so precious.

Then the nightmare shifted to that sunny day as an adolescent when he had finally acknowledged that he was as worthless as his father liked to claim. It was the day he had tried unsuccessfully to strike from his memory; the day that he and Eirik had been attacked. A small group of criminals had found them fishing and had overpowered them, tying them up and taunting them with promises of their dark intentions. Gunnar had managed to escape his bonds and had run until he found a washerwoman who sent her son to get their father, so Gunnar had returned. Except he’d been too young and powerless to do anything except hide and listen to Eirik’s screams as the men tortured and violated him. He’d made himself listen, absorbing every scream as if it had been his own, each one a confirmation of how contemptible he really was. Confirmation that had only been reinforced once his father had arrived and saved Eirik only to sneer at his bastard for not intervening.

At times Eirik’s screams would become the hounds of Helheim hunting him down. At other times, the bays of the hounds would become his father reminding him of his many failures. Or the screams of his father on those nights when he’d imbibe too much mead and seek Gunnar out to rail at his son for making Finna, his mother, leave them. He’d awoken many times with a blackened eye from those encounters. They’d begun to happen so often that he’d run to Kadlin’s home when he knew his father was in one of those moods. So, naturally, when his nightmares conjured up those memories, he would escape the nightmare and find himself in her arms. Only this time they weren’t children.

The dreams were so vivid that he was sure that he was finally with her. He twined his hand in her flaxen hair and felt the silk sliding through his fingers; he felt the softness of her mouth beneath his thumb as he rimmed her lips and pressed inside the moist heat just as he had claimed her body; he sang songs to her that he had never even heard before. It was what he had hoped would happen if he died. If not for his occasional awakenings and nightmares, he would have thought the battle had killed him. Though he couldn’t actually remember the battle, just riding towards it. He’d never admit it, though. What warrior would admit to forgetting an entire battle?

Finally, a new voice woke him enough to make him realise that he wasn’t floating any more. The world had stopped and a real beast bayed in the distance.

‘Freyja!’ a woman’s voice called out. The word crashed through his brain and he struggled to understand it. ‘Freyja!’

When he was finally able to make his eyes open, a mongrel’s giant snout appeared in his line of vision, just before a large, wet tongue stroked his face. He grimaced at the sensation, but then sobered when he saw that Kadlin loomed over him, her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders, the sky a fair blue behind her. She looked angry, vengeful. Not his sweet Kadlin. Then it dawned on him what he should have known all along. He had died in battle. Instead of spending eternity in Valhalla, Freyja had claimed him instead. Eirik had sent him off on his journey to Folkvangr. He laughed with bitterness. It seemed appropriate that the goddess would look just like Kadlin.

Death hadn’t provided a relief to his torment after all.

Chapter Four

Gunnar looked as close to death as she’d ever seen anyone look with a beating heart.

‘Get him inside.’ Kadlin forced the words past a throat that threatened to close and stood back out of the way so that Vidar and the two men he’d brought with him could unload Gunnar from the wagon. If not for the distinctive red of his hair and the fact that Vidar accompanied him, she wasn’t entirely sure that she would have known who had been delivered to her door. Gunnar’s cheeks were hollowed and his frame shrunken from that of her memories. His skin had taken on a grey, unnatural pallor that twisted her heart. This was not the powerful warrior she had known.

The men hoisted him and walked past her to the sod house. His strange laugh lingered behind him, making her shiver from the unnaturalness of it. She was no stranger to the smells of men newly arrived from sea, but she covered her nose and mouth as she followed them inside and directed them to place their burden on a large bench in an alcove off of the main room. One of the men pressed a small barrel to Gunnar’s mouth so that he drank, spilling a good bit of it down his neck.

Kadlin stared down at the man she had loved, afraid to touch him, afraid that it would wake her from this bizarre dream where nothing seemed real. One minute she had been hanging the freshly washed linens and the next Vidar was calling to her. He’d ridden ahead of the cart and she’d heard Gunnar’s name, but had been so overwhelmed she hadn’t understood the rush of

Vidar’s words. Even now, with him lying before her, she could barely believe he was there.

His head fell back to the bench and lolled to the side. Whatever animation he’d had, the drink had taken it from him, leaving him unnaturally still. She might have thought he was dead if she hadn’t just met his eyes with her own. His flesh was so drawn and pale that she didn’t know how he had survived the journey across the sea. Perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps he’d only come here to die.

‘What’s happened to him, Vidar?’ As the boy spoke, she imagined what he described. Gunnar, fallen in battle, lying trapped beneath his dead horse while the fight raged around him. His crushed leg crudely bound at camp and his head wound cleaned, but it had taken days to get him back to Eirik’s hall. A fever had raged for even more days and he’d yet to regain consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time.

Yet, he had stirred when the men had lifted him from the wagon and she was sure that he had recognised her. It gave her hope, even though he had now settled into a laboured sleep. His breath came harsh and uneven.

‘What does Eirik think of his leg?’ The right leg of his trousers was intact, but the left had been cut away to allow for wood and bindings to keep his leg stabilised.

Vidar shook his head. ‘The leg is ruined.’

She had spent many late nights cursing Gunnar, but she had never wanted this to happen. Kadlin blinked past the sudden haze of tears in her eyes and focused on the dirty linen binding his leg. The bandage, along with his clothing, had likely not been changed since the men had set off on their journey. His tunic hung from him like rags and his hair was a tangled mess. She decided that the first thing to do would be to get him clean.

‘Go help yourself to broth and ale.’ She looked at the two men who had accompanied Vidar and waved them towards the front room and the pot bubbling on the fire. Turning her attention to Vidar, she said, ‘Help me undress him.’ But Vidar didn’t move when she reached for the hem of Gunnar’s tunic. ‘Lift him up a bit,’ she urged.

‘Kadlin...’ He glanced towards the men who had moved to do as she had bidden, then lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think you should be the one to undress him.’

‘Have I shocked your delicate sensibilities, Vidar?’ She gave him a wry smile and tugged on the tunic. ‘He’s filthy. Someone needs to bathe him.’

‘But—’

‘It’s not as if I’ve never seen a man before. Help me!’

He sighed and when Gunnar groaned at a particularly harsh tug, he relented and lifted his brother’s shoulders to help her divest him of the tunic and undershirt. Fabric was tied tight around his torso, making her suspect he had at least one broken rib.

‘I can do the rest. Fetch me a bucket of the water by the fire and then go and get Harald.’

Eirik owned the farm where she lived and his farmer-tenant Harald lived across the field. He had experienced a similar leg injury as a young man, so she hoped that he would be able to provide some guidance. When Vidar left, she was alone with Gunnar, except for the two men who had accompanied them. But they were famished and drank their broth by the fire, not paying her any attention.

This was not how she’d imagined meeting Gunnar again. Any number of scenarios had crossed her mind and they varied from angrily smashing a tankard over his head to holding him tight and vowing to never let him out of her sight again. Her emotions regarding him had been wild and unrestrained. Much like her love for him had been.

She brushed the grimy hair back from his face with her fingers, noting that it was tangled and would likely need cutting. His beard, too, was caked with grime and would need to be shaved. It was a task she looked forward to, because she’d always preferred him without one. It obscured the sculpted beauty of his high cheekbones, which was the very reason she suspected he liked it. Men weren’t supposed to be beautiful, but he was. A Christian monk had once wintered with her family years ago and told them stories of angels and demons. She had always imagined Eirik to be beautiful like one of that God’s angels, full of light. But not Gunnar. He had always been wicked. He was one of the dark ones, a fallen and wrathful angel.

Fishing the washcloth from the bucket, she rung it out and began wiping the grime from his torso, careful of the bruise over his left side. She tried to work in a perfunctory manner and not linger on the scars he’d acquired since she’d last seen him. But she couldn’t help but stop to wonder how he’d come by each one as she found them. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the flood of memories that came over her. Their days of running wild through the forest as children and their evenings spent inside playing hnefatafl, when he would tease her mercilessly as he tried to break her concentration while she stared at the board, contemplating her next move. The first time he’d kissed her when they’d been children, when she was just beginning to understand what it meant. How strange and wonderful it had felt to have the weight of his body pressing down on hers, even though she’d not understood her own reaction. The years afterward when he’d become almost like a stranger to her, but she would still watch him and feel her breath catch when his gaze would lock on hers.

He’d held a strange power over her even then and she could feel it now trying to take her over. It wanted to make her soft where she had tried so valiantly to harden herself against him. She was seized by a nearly overwhelming devastation that their lives should have turned out differently. She thought she’d squelched that longing and the anger that accompanied it, but it rose up inside her anew. Tears stung her eyes, but she was able to blink them back and shake the melancholy from her head. Her task was to get him clean before Harald arrived and then to make sure that he wasn’t lying on his deathbed. Then she would see him gone, back across the sea or wherever he longed to be, somewhere away from her, before he could destroy her again.

* * *

A short while later Harald arrived. Kadlin averted her eyes from the crutch the man held and the stilted but efficient way he moved with it. She immediately felt ashamed, because it had never bothered her before, except that now she could only imagine Gunnar walking in that same crippled manner and it filled her heart with sadness. Together with Vidar, they unwrapped the wounded leg to examine it. It was horribly discoloured, but Vidar thought that it looked less swollen than when they had set sail. Harald confirmed that it had been broken in more than one spot, so they were careful to hold the wood in place to minimise any movement, but Gunnar still roused from the pain. Vidar was quick to supply him with the small barrel of mead he’d been clutching in the wagon. She gave it a harsh study, suspecting that it contained something much stronger than mead, but held her tongue.

After Gunnar settled down again, they wrapped his ribs and then the leg in clean linen and she grabbed a knife to cut away the rest of his trousers so she could finish cleaning him. Harald stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

‘Let me do this part.’

She frowned and shrugged him off.

‘Kadlin, do you think he would want you to bathe him? He’ll have trouble enough when he awakens. Don’t do more to take his dignity away.’

Her eyes froze on the grime-covered trousers and she realised that he was right. It would likely embarrass Gunnar if he knew that she had tended to him so intimately. ‘I’ll wait by the fire.’

He nodded and took the knife from her, so she left him and Vidar to finish washing him and went back to the front room of the sod house. The fire warmed the space comfortably. It was small, but she never failed to experience a wave of satisfaction at how she had managed to turn the house into her home in the year that she’d been there since her husband had been killed in battle. Benches dressed in cosy blankets surrounded the perimeter of the room, while the stone hearth sat in the middle. Off to the side were shelves and a table used for eating and preparing food. It had given her sanctuary when she’d needed it and it appeared that it was to be Gunnar’s sanctuary, as well. Picking up the empty bowls the two men had left behind, she intended to wash them, but she couldn’t concentrate. So she abandoned the bowls to the bucket of water and moved to the bench where she usually did her sewing, lighting upon it briefly before standing again to pace the length of the hearth. Her gaze repeatedly went to the alcove just off the hallway until Harald and Vidar finally emerged.

‘How bad is he really, Harald?’

Harald shrugged. ‘Hard to say. If the fever has passed and doesn’t return, he should live, but he won’t ever have use of that leg again.’ He indicated the large crutch he leaned against. ‘At least not without one of these.’

She couldn’t face that just yet, so she didn’t think about it. ‘How long before he...before he can attempt walking?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s largely up to him. A couple of months, maybe more.’

Months. How would she survive being so close to him for months? Yet her heart wouldn’t let her send him away. ‘Thank you for coming. Stay for a while and have supper.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve already supped. I’ll come back in the morning to check on him.’ Vidar rose from his seat on a bench to escort Harald home, but the older man waved him back to his seat. ‘I’ve crossed that field many times without you, boy.’ He smiled and made his way out the door, stopping outside to talk with the men who had accompanied Vidar in the wagon. Their voices rumbled through the wooden door, speaking of the battle across the sea with an excitement that baffled her.

‘Has he been awake at all?’ she asked Vidar.

‘Merewyn’s Saxon witch made a potion of laced mead. Eirik gave it to him before they set his leg and he’s been drinking it since. We thought it was best for the pain. It makes him sleep. He’s been awake a few times, but he’s not very lucid.’

‘Don’t give him any more of it. He needs nourishment now more than he needs oblivion.’

‘But, Kadlin, he’s in pain.’

‘No more, Vidar. He’s wasting away.’

Vidar sighed and nodded from his seat on the bench beside her, exhausted. ‘All right. He’s in your care now.’

She frowned at his resigned expression. ‘Why has he been sent to me? Wouldn’t it have been better to let him rest and recover at Eirik’s home?’

‘Perhaps, but Eirik believed that he had no will to survive his injury. I agree. He would have died had he stayed and he still may.’

She crossed her arms and held them tight to her belly, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the pain. Seeing Gunnar again had caused the old wounds to fester and it was taking all she had to keep them from reopening. ‘Why does he think that?’

‘Gunnar has changed.’ Vidar glanced to the alcove where his brother slept, seeming to weigh his words. ‘He fights with recklessness, without thought for his own well-being. Like a madman. It’s true that he was reckless before, but now he’s even more so. It’s clear to anyone who knows him that he fights with a longing for death.’ He paused as if trying to determine how much to reveal. ‘I once saw him walk into a camp of Saxons, alone, and draw his sword. He fought them all with a smile on his face. The men who fight beneath him have tripled in size, because he’s amassed a fortune, or so the stories claim. But he doesn’t use that fortune for anything except to purchase his boat from Father. He hasn’t bought himself a manor so that he can become a jarl. Most men fight bravely to die with valour and glory—Gunnar fights so that he won’t have to live.’

She imagined the danger that Vidar described and couldn’t control the anger and fear that made her hands shake. Had he even once thought of her and considered making a future together? If he’d settled himself in a manor, even across the sea, he could have come for her. Her father would have put up some resistance, but he wouldn’t stop her if Gunnar could prove that he could provide for her. But Gunnar hadn’t done that because he didn’t want her. He’d said as much before and it was even clearer now. ‘Why send him to me? What does Eirik suppose that I can do?’

Vidar shrugged. ‘You are the only one with some connection to him, the only one who can bring him back, according to Eirik.’

‘That makes no sense. If that were true, he would have come back long ago.’ There was a time she might have agreed with Vidar, but Gunnar had proved her wrong.

Vidar shrugged again.

‘Go. Eat your fill and then take your rest. You must be beyond exhaustion.’ She waved him to the pot on the fire.

* * *

‘Where is my mead?’ Gunnar grumbled and felt for the ever-present barrel, but the bedding beside him was empty. ‘Vidar!’ His voice, hoarse from disuse, carried through the hovel where he had been dumped, but no one answered. Opening his eyes to the meagre light that filtered in, he could barely make out the shadowed opening of the alcove where he lay. Uncertain of the distance, he pushed himself up on a shaky elbow and reached out. The opening floated before him, out of reach, but if it were feet or mere inches away he could not fathom.

A sweat breaking out on his brow, he lay back down and closed his eyes to wait for the sudden nausea to subside. Images swam across his mind. If they were from the past days, weeks, or hours, he didn’t know. The faces of Magnus and Eirik came to him and it seemed they were saying something important, but he had no memory of their words. He remembered opening his eyes to Vidar replenishing his mead on several occasions, but the world might as well have been black behind him, because he had not seen past the boy’s face. He did remember Kadlin, another dream in a long line that featured her. Clearly, she was not a goddess because he was not at Freyja’s table. If this was Sessrumnir then the goddess needed lessons on hospitality. A fallen man should not be without his mead.

‘Gunnar? Are you awake?’

He opened his eyes to see that his tiny world had righted itself and stopped floating. Vidar stood framed in the narrow arch of the opening. Nay, he finally admitted, he was not a fallen man. He was sure that a fallen man wouldn’t feel this much pain. His entire body ached from the roots of his hair to the bottom of his feet. His leg throbbed, with the pain seeming to centre around his left knee and shin. ‘Where is the mead? It’s not here.’

Vidar’s face was grim as he set the humble, wooden bowl that he held, with its single candle, on the stool beside Gunnar’s bed. The flame wavered, causing a drop of fat to sizzle where it fell in the bottom of the bowl. Vidar glanced down the passageway, running a hand over the back of his neck before looking back at Gunnar. ‘There’s no more mead. I can bring you ale or fresh water. I’ve just brought it back myself from the stream.’

‘No more mead?’ As long as he could remember there was mead. Every jarl kept a steady supply and it was a practice Eirik had adopted. Even his uncle Einar, who spent months at a time in the countryside waging battle, managed to keep a supply of mead to give out after battles. The men expected it after victory. Of course ale was often given out, as well, but generally to the lesser warriors, the younger ones who had yet to prove themselves.

Gunnar tried to sit up again and noted how his forearms trembled with the effort. How long had he been unconscious? Had he been injured? Aye, his leg throbbed with pain. He searched his memory for what had happened, but his last clear thought was forming the battle plan with Magnus and his men. But it seemed so long ago. Everything else was a fuzzy, disjointed mass of memories that he couldn’t piece together. He looked around the alcove and realised he couldn’t place it. It didn’t seem to belong in Eirik’s home.

There had been a boat. He was sure that he had travelled in a boat.

Then he realised something strange in what his brother had said. ‘Why are you fetching water?’ While Gunnar still thought of his brother as a boy, the truth was he was old enough now to fight in battle and work on a ship. Fetching water was a task relegated to little boys and servants.

Again, Vidar looked away rather than meet his gaze. Alarmed, Gunnar clenched his teeth to control the nearly overwhelming urge to bash an answer out of the boy. ‘What has happened, Vidar? Where have you taken me?’

‘You were injured. Eirik thought it best that you recover here.’

Gunnar looked down at himself to ascertain the truth of his brother’s words. His entire body felt as though he had been pelted with stones, but his head ached the most. Nay, his leg ached the most. He raised a hand to prod a tenderness on his scalp. Pain lanced through him so sharply that he hissed and closed his eyes to the light dancing in his skull. Slowly opening them, he looked down his body to find other injuries. There were scrapes on his hands, but they seemed older—mostly healed, in fact. The pain had gathered itself together and settled in his left leg, blazing through the appendage like fire. He threw off the blanket with disdain and stared.

The leg was at least twice as big as his right one, but if that was its true size or not he couldn’t tell, because it was wrapped in a linen binding. Only when he grabbed the binding to pull it off did he realise that wooden splints had been put in to keep it stable. ‘By the gods, what happened to me?’

‘Your horse was killed in battle. When it fell, your leg was caught beneath. Do you not remember any of it?’

Gunnar searched his mind for some memory of that, but he shook his head. There was nothing coherent after discussing the plan for battle. ‘How long ago?’

‘Weeks, Brother.’

The pity in his brother’s voice made rage crawl up his throat, but he bit back the bitter words that would have spewed out. It couldn’t be that bad. If it had been weeks, then it could have healed by now, regardless of the pain. ‘Move, I’m getting up.’ He waved his hand to push Vidar aside.

‘Nay, you shouldn’t get up yet.’ Vidar moved to keep him down, but Gunnar swung his right leg over the edge of the bed and grabbed a hold of his brother’s tunic to pull himself up.

‘I’ve a need to take a piss and I won’t do it here like an invalid.’ But the words were barely out of his mouth when his weight moving forward pulled his injured leg off the bed and his foot crashed to the floor. Pain like he’d never felt sliced up his leg and reverberated throughout the limb. His breath caught. A strong wave of nausea rolled over him as darts of light flashed before his eyes. Just as he felt himself falling to the floor, he saw a vision of Kadlin. She stood behind Vidar, eyes wide and arms out as if to help him, but that’s all he saw before he fell unconscious.

Chapter Five

When Gunnar next awoke it was to the warm, soothing strokes of a washcloth moving slowly across his chest. A woman hummed and the soft sound would have lulled him back to sleep if his head hadn’t begun to ache. But he didn’t want to acknowledge the pain, so he kept his eyes closed to enjoy the music a moment longer. It was pleasant, something a woman might sing to her child as she bathed him. He wondered if his own mother had ever sung to him like that as she held him close. He only had vague recollections of the woman: long red hair, dark eyes. She had been a shadow behind his father and Eirik’s mother, lurking, or perhaps banished, to stand behind the dais at meals, to serve rather than be served. Then one day she had disappeared altogether. He could remember the child he had been, wandering from one chamber to the next, from one outbuilding to the other, looking for her.

Nay, she had probably never sung to him. He didn’t know why the ridiculous question had even come into his head. To ponder those memories only made his head ache more, so he opened his eyes instead of facing them. But he wasn’t prepared for the dream in front of him.

Kadlin.

It took a moment for his eyes to focus in the flickering light of the single candle, but he knew it was her. Even with her gorgeous hair subdued in braids and pinned to her scalp, he knew it was her. He’d seen her beloved face in dreams enough to know that he had woken from one dream only to be thrust into the next. Or perhaps he was awake now, as the pain in his head would suggest, but he had finally gone mad and was seeing her when he knew that her presence was impossible. It didn’t matter. He’d gone beyond caring if he was mad, especially if it meant that she would be with him.

‘I dream of you often, you know.’ The timbre of his voice was rough from disuse. He didn’t even recognise it; more proof of his unconscious state.

Her blue eyes shot to his, widened in surprise, and just as quickly returned to their study of his hand as she drew the cloth between his fingers. ‘That sounds like a sentimental endeavour. Surely too sentimental for a warrior such as you.’

He smiled and waited for her to finish, enjoying the feel of her gentle-but-sure strokes. Though he was becoming aware of the way his entire body thrummed with pain, focusing on that small pleasure helped him to push the discomfort to the back of his mind and he didn’t want to say or do anything to make her stop. Eventually she finished and went to place his hand gently back at his side, but, instead of letting her go, he turned his hand and captured hers. It was warm and small in his own. He caressed his thumb across her knuckles and then laced his fingers with hers. It had never been like this before. In all of his dreams, he’d never been able to recreate the heat and spark of excitement that warmed his belly from her touch. He glanced at her long, graceful fingers to make sure that he actually held them. ‘A warrior such as me? I fear you’re mistaken. Warriors are required to swing their swords in battle and recite poetry over the fire at night.’

She gave a soft laugh as if she were humouring him. He didn’t care. He loved her laugh, even if it was given to placate him. She smiled as she said, ‘You’ve never recited a poem in your life, Gunnar.’

‘Nay, I suppose I haven’t.’ He loved the pink of her lips, the vivid blue of her eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin. All of his other dreams had never got her completely right. There was a challenge in her eyes now that he’d left out before. It wasn’t a mistake he’d repeat. She was captivating, truly the most becoming woman he’d ever seen. ‘But it’s a testament to my sorry ways. I should have said a poem for you every night of my existence. Perhaps that’s why you haunt my dreams, a recompense for my wrongs.’

A shadow passed over her eyes, stealing the joy that had sparked there and he was sorry to see it go. When she would have pulled her hand free, he held tight and reached for her other one with his free hand. She pulled that one back, though, so his dropped limply to his side. ‘You’re angry. I’ll accept your anger if it means you can stay with me and not dissipate as you have before.’

‘You’re not dreaming and I’m no phantom to disappear.’

He smiled. ‘You’ve said that before. It’s a trick that rouses me to waking, but I’ve not fallen for it in a long time.’

‘Believe as you wish, but I need my hand to finish bathing you.’ Her eyes softened again as she tugged gently on her hand.

He reluctantly let her go, but only because she promised more of that wonderfully soothing caress, and he watched her closely as she fulfilled her promise. But when she had finished his left arm and hand and moved to draw back the blanket, he moved quickly to grip it tight and hold it in place. The abrupt movement caused a sharp pain to lance through his head and left leg. It was so bad that he disgraced himself by gasping aloud.

‘Please, you must keep yourself still.’ She rose over him and pressed his shoulders to the bed at his back.

‘I’ll not let you bathe me there like a child,’ he panted, when he caught his breath.

‘All right, I won’t, but you must be calm before you injure yourself further.’

She wasn’t a dream! As waves of pain crashed through his body, he realised with unyielding clarity that he was awake and not dreaming at all. He remembered Vidar explaining his injury to him and he had a vague recollection of getting to his feet and falling just as he saw her. None of this was a dream. He had been gravely injured and then Vidar had accompanied him on a journey to...to where? He didn’t even know where he was.

‘Has Vidar brought me home?’ But that didn’t seem right. This wasn’t his chamber and he knew the chambers and alcoves of Kadlin’s home enough to know that he wasn’t there. Another thought—an excruciatingly horrible one—pounded through his head: that he had been delivered to Kadlin at her husband’s home.

She had turned her head, as if searching for someone to help, but looked back at him after his question. ‘Aye, Eirik believed that your recovery would best take place here.’ One hand stayed on his chest, but the other stroked his face to calm him. ‘We are at Eirik’s farm. Do you not remember it?’

He blinked and tried to look past her, but had trouble pulling his gaze from her face. It seemed so unbelievable that she was with him, after all of their time apart, that he had trouble believing she wouldn’t disappear on him if he looked away. Besides, she held him mesmerised, the stroke of her fingers on his cheek like a balm. Then he realised that there was nothing between the flesh of her hand and the skin of his face. He raised a hand to his chin, expecting to feel his beard there, but there was nothing. ‘You shaved me, woman?’

‘Aye, you were quite disgusting when you came here. I cut your hair, too. You can thank Vidar that it’s not shaved, as well. He refused to let me.’

‘Then it’s true? The battle? My horse?’

She nodded. ‘So I’m told. You arrived here the day before yesterday, but already your colour is better. We’ve tried to get some broth in you, but without much luck. I think if you can begin to eat, you could make a swift recovery.’

She was being evasive. He could plainly see the false way her eyes lit up with the hollow optimism. Before she could think to stop him, he tore the blanket back from his legs, uncaring that he was nude beneath it. He could only see the binding wrapped around his left leg. When he rolled his foot to the side, a shard of pain sliced through it.

‘How bad is it?’ he asked with the perfunctory tones of a commander, as if he were talking about the injury of one of his men. There was a part of him that couldn’t accept that the injury was his and he couldn’t even begin to contemplate what it meant for his future.

When she hesitated, his gaze jumped back to hers. ‘Tell me, Kadlin.’

‘Harald says that it is broken.’ She moved slowly and held her hand above an area of his shin. As if anticipating her touch and the pain it would bring, it began to throb. But she held her hand aloft. ‘Here. Though only a fracture, not a clean break. It is the knee that sustained the most damage. Magnus told Eirik that the limb was a bit twisted under the horse and pulled it out of place. I don’t know if there was a break. It was wrapped so tight and seemed to be so painful when we tried to unbind it that we can’t examine it. Also, you have a few broken ribs.’

He watched her soft, full lips form each word, but even that wasn’t enough to keep the despair at bay. He’d never walk again. No one had to tell him that. One look at the swollen appendage and he could plainly see it for himself. The useless limb was damaged beyond repair. They should have just cut it from his body so he wouldn’t have to look at it. He flopped back down, grimacing from the shard of lightning that lanced through his torso, and closed his eyes as he tried to imagine what a useless leg would mean. He’d never command a ship again; he’d never be able to stand with the rocking of the vessel. That would hardly matter, though, none of his men would follow a lame master. None of them. He’d be seen as unfit to lead. He would be unfit to lead.

The worst of it was that Kadlin would see him like this. He was lamed and deformed and she would witness it all. There would be no peace in believing that she would never know of his weakness. There was no hope that she would only hear of his good and heroic deeds and imagine him as the warrior that she had known. His weakness, once seen, couldn’t be unseen by her eyes. It was why they were lit with a false light; she was trying to hide her disgust. He couldn’t blame her for it.

‘There is no recovery for me. I’ll be broken like Harald. Unfit to wield a sword.’ Unfit to call myself a man. Now Kadlin—the one person who had always refused to see the bad in him—would be forced to see how useless and unworthy of her he really was. Perhaps being sent to her was his one last punishment. He’d get to watch any tenderness she felt towards him slowly leave her eyes to be replaced with pity. He refused to submit to that.

‘Leave me.’

She rose to her full height, but hesitated to go. ‘I’ll bring you some food. You need it to recover.’

He shook his head and then grimaced from the pain. ‘Send it with Vidar, if he’s still here.’

* * *

‘Mama!’ Her son toddled into the house, a smooth river rock held out in his small, chubby hand. ‘Treasure!’

Kadlin scooped him up and exclaimed over the treasure he had found. ‘It’s beautiful. We can add it to the collection.’ She set him down so he could go put it in the basket holding the other rocks he had found and deemed suitable for his collection. She smiled as he gave the alcove a quick glance and a wide berth as he went past it. She’d added a heavy blanket as a curtain as soon as Gunnar had been settled inside, so the child had only heard the strange noises coming from it. It was no wonder he was frightened.

‘Thank you, Ingrid.’ She turned and smiled at Harald’s daughter who had followed her son inside. ‘Could I get you something to eat?’

‘No, thank you, ma’am. I need to be getting home.’ With a nod, the girl left.

‘Come, Avalt, let me feed you.’

The boy was too busy admiring his collection to pay her any attention, until Vidar emerged from the alcove. He stopped playing and looked up, waiting until Vidar met his gaze before running to his mother. She laughed softly and scooped him up, cuddling him close as he intently watched Vidar’s approach. He’d been excited to have a man in the house and had generally welcomed Vidar with the enthusiasm of a young child fascinated with someone new. But the fact that he had emerged from the mysterious alcove had set the toddler on edge.

‘Can we not give him more of the laced mead?’ Vidar scowled as he set the empty bowl on the hearth. ‘He’s as irritable as a bear.’

Kadlin stifled a sigh of relief that Gunnar had drunk it all. She’d been worried that he would deny himself nourishment or that his stomach would rebel against the contents, since he’d apparently had nothing in weeks except for the mead concoction.

When she didn’t answer immediately, Vidar brushed past her with an accusatory look. ‘The Saxon witch sent plenty, enough to last for many more weeks. His leg pains him and his head is unbearable.’

‘Nay, he’s had enough. His head wound has healed. I believe it pains him now only because his body has grown to crave the mead. Once he’s gone without it a few days, that will improve. Besides, did you see him?’ Though his shoulders were still broad, Gunnar had lost the heft that came from fighting and his ribs shone through his skin. Even his face showed how gaunt he was; his cheeks had hollowed a bit and dark circles surrounded his eyes. ‘He’s wasting away. He won’t eat unless we wean him from the mead and he needs the nourishment more than he needs the relief from the pain.’ Though the groans from his pain still echoed in her ears and they tore at her. As much as she had tried to harden her heart against him in the years since his abandonment, she couldn’t bear the image of him in pain.

‘It’s cruel. He needs relief from his pain. Nourishment or not, he’ll never walk again. He’ll never carry a sword or stand a ship. Let him have his solace from the pain. What does the rest of it matter?’ It appeared that he had more to say, but he stopped when she rounded on him.

‘What does it matter? That is your brother lying in there. Are you saying that his life isn’t worth anything without that leg to support him? Are you saying that we should leave him to his mindless solace instead of trying to heal him?’

‘You heard Harald just as I did. Gunnar will not use that leg again. You know him as well as I do, or even better, I’d wager.’ He indicated the baby in her arms with his dark, flaming hair so like his father’s.

Kadlin stifled a gasp of surprise. She’d known that her son resembled his father, but she hadn’t realised exactly how much until she had seen Gunnar again. Apparently, the resemblance was visible to those who had a reason to suspect.

Vidar had the presence of mind to seem chastised and lowered his tone. ‘You know that he wouldn’t want to live with that leg.’

She couldn’t deny the truth of those words. The despair Gunnar had felt upon seeing the injury was imprinted on her mind for ever. He would think it was a weakness, an unbearable flaw that wasn’t to be overcome. ‘That choice isn’t his to make. Eirik sent him to my care, so I will see that he recovers. I hope to make him see that his life can still be good.’

Vidar grunted and walked to the front door, but stopped to turn to her. ‘You haven’t a chance, but I wish you luck. I’m going to see if Ingrid needs an escort home.’ He grinned and walked out.

‘Vidar!’ She waited until he’d popped his head back in before lowering her voice. ‘Please don’t tell anyone your suspicions.’ It was widely assumed that her son’s father was her late husband. No one except her parents knew that it was Gunnar.

Vidar looked towards Avalt and nodded. ‘I won’t say a word.’ Then he left, running to catch up to Ingrid.

Kadlin hugged her child tighter and buried her face in his curls. Vidar was right. She knew in her bones that his words weren’t just those of a young warrior unable to imagine life with an injury like Gunnar’s. His feelings were those shared by almost every man that she knew. An injury that left one lame was an injury that should result in death. Was she selfish to want Gunnar’s recovery even if he himself didn’t? She didn’t know, but she did know that it wasn’t in her power to grant him that alternative. He would recover. Despite her often confused and unfortunate feelings for him, she held no illusions about a future with him. She would heal him because the boy she had known deserved a second chance at life and Avalt deserved a chance to know his real father. She only needed to figure out if his father deserved him.

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