the boat, his eyes creasing with laughter. Eylir’s jokes had finally transgressed beyond acceptable. He would have to teach the man a lesson about interfering in other people’s lives, but that was a task for another time.
Her eyes flashed with a hidden fire, but her voice was steady. ‘I’ve no idea where Eylir is. We parted company on Kaupang’s quayside.’
‘I swear he is trickier than Loki. Come out, Eylir, you have had your fun. Now let’s see what you are truly on about.’
The sailors stopped moving the trunks and regarded him as if he had lost his mind, but his friend failed to appear.
Gunnar swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Is this the wife you have been threatening to acquire? She has your same sense of humour. This prank has gone on long enough, Eylir.’
The seagulls mocked his call, but otherwise the only sound was that of the waves. The woman watched him with perfectly arched brows and a faint supercilious smile on her overly large mouth.
‘He remained in the north. He had business to attend to, but will arrive in the new year.’ The woman adopted a tone more suited towards talking to a young child than a grown man.
‘What business?’
‘His second cousin died. He needed to get the estate in order before sailing again to the west.’ Her hand trembled, betraying her nerves. ‘We agreed that it was best for all concerned if I undertook the journey immediately. There was nothing to keep me in the north.’
Her voice trembled on the last word. Fear? Fear of what? Why had she braved the sea at this time of year? What drove her to risk her life and that of her sister’s?
Gunnar frowned. Becoming interested in this woman’s problems was the last thing he needed. Better to get rid of her and be done with it. It was a slippery slope to caring and, if he cared, women died.
The soothsayer’s dying prediction resounded in his ears. His friends had warned him the old man had supernatural power, but he’d refused to allow the man to slaughter those young girls. He’d lost his temper and killed him. The necessary sacrifice to the gods instead of the girls who reminded him of his sisters, he’d proclaimed with a laugh. He’d stopped laughing when he’d discovered the bodies of his mother and sisters. By his reckoning, they had died about the same time as the soothsayer. And then it happened again with Dyrfinna’s betrayal and death. He forced his mind away from the past and back to the present.
The woman was connected to Eylir. How? He narrowed his gaze. Family matters had forced Eylir across the North Sea. Eylir had no sister. She had to be the family-forced bride as she was not the sort Eylir would take as a concubine.
‘Indeed.’ He forced a short laugh. ‘I suspect he wished to avoid being torn limb from limb once I got my hands on him. Your husband is notorious for his pranks, my lady.’
‘Eylir is most definitely not my husband.’ The woman made an imperious gesture towards where the longboat was pulled up on shore. ‘Ask the captain if you doubt me.’
‘He did tell Ragn to come!’ the girl called out. ‘He is soon to be married to our cousin, Trana Ragnardottar.’
‘How did you know that, Svana?’ Ragnhild asked, drawing her brows together.
‘I overheard them speaking as we left. He was kissing her.’ The girl smacked her lips. ‘They will have to get married after that as they will have lots of babies.’
‘You are being ridiculous, Svana. Trana’s father requires a different husband for his only daughter. Not a penniless sell-sword like Eylir.’
Gunnar kept his face impassive. Eylir had hidden his wealth from them.
‘After what he did for us, Trana will defy her father.’ The girl lifted her chin. ‘I just know it. And I made a wish about it as we left.’
Ragnhild gave an exasperated sigh. ‘You and your pronouncements. Would that the world was ordered the way you wish. One must be practical, child.’
‘Trana thinks he has fine legs and a good backside,’ Svana confided from behind her hand. Gunnar struggled to keep a straight face.
Ragnhild pinched the bridge of her nose, making her skin appear even more sallow. ‘That is more than anyone, let alone Gunnar Olafson, needs to know. Curb your tongue.’
Svana hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’
‘Next time remember some things remain private, but you are young, Svana, and I forgive you.’
Young. The girl was indeed too young to have made this journey in the winter. The fact knifed through him. While Eylir might enlist the aid of a woman, he would not stoop so low as to send a child on a perilous autumn journey.
‘Why did Eylir send vulnerable women alone on the sea?’
The woman gave a small cough. ‘We agreed that I’d travel alone as the circumstances dictated.’
Circumstances—whose? Eylir’s or this woman’s? Something had driven her across the seas, but she wanted to keep it a secret. ‘Truly?’
‘Would that he was here! You would greet your friend properly and we would not be forced to stand in the mizzle.’ A convulsive shiver racked her slender frame, but she kept her head proudly erect and her hands at her sides.
Gunnar winced at the accusation of less-than-proper hospitality. Worse, her words rang true. His mother would have been appalled. He’d allowed a lady, any lady let alone a lady of breeding, to stand outside while the rain pelted down. Despite the years since her death and against his instinct, divorcing himself from his mother’s teachings was impossible. ‘Into the hall with you. Get dry.’
Her eyes gleamed triumph. ‘Thank you.’
She motioned for her trunks. Gunnar gritted his teeth. Ragnhild would learn that he might have given on one point, but he would not give in on the other. She was most definitely not the wife for him.
‘No, they stay outside. It should not take long to clear this mess up.’
With its piles of filthy rushes, half-finished benches and the nearly cold hearth, the best thing Ragn thought about the hall was that it was out of the icy rain. But she was inside and that was a start. She would make this warrior understand that they needed to stay for the night, that returning on the boat to Kaupang was not an option. She’d worry about the future after that. Little steps, rather than focusing on the mountain looming in front of her.
‘Has there been a mistake, Ragn?’ Svana whispered. ‘He is going to allow us to stay, isn’t he? He won’t behave like... Vargr?’
Ragn glanced towards where Gunnar was busily filling tankards.
‘The future is in front of us.’ Ragn bent down so that her face was level with Svana’s. ‘Keep the past behind you. Never mention Vargr again. He is dead to us.’
Svana gave a little nod. Her sister was too young to understand that if Gunnar knew her brother-in-law’s identity, or the danger they faced in Viken, that he’d close his doors to them as many of her so-called friends had done. Survival depended on keeping their troubled past hidden.
‘Promise me you will remember that.’
Svana worried her bottom lip. ‘I’ll try.’
Ragn withdrew the rune stick, which she had insisted Eylir write, from her pouch. It should be sufficient to make Gunnar Olafson see reason now that he was being hospitable.
Once he had finished ensuring the captain and his men had drinks, Gunnar returned to where they stood. His face had settled into even harsher lines. Svana shrank back against her.
‘You are out of the wet. Explain.’
No please. No courtesy of any kind. Perhaps he had taken one look at her and decided, no, that she wasn’t attractive enough. Ragn stiffened her spine. This marriage wasn’t supposed to be