The Warrior's Viking Bride. Michelle Styles

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СКАЧАТЬ but she forced her spine to stay erect. ‘I will go to see the High King. I will not allow this insult to go unavenged. Constantine will see sense once I explain the situation. If not for Olafr’s double-dealing, I would have given him victory. I can still do it. Once the land is confirmed, the men will see they made a mistake in betraying me and return to my felag. Without them, Thorsten will find it impossible to hold Northern Alba.’

      ‘You will go nowhere except where I say you go.’ The Gael snapped his fingers and his giant dog instantly blocked her way. It bared its teeth and gave a low growl. Dagmar retreated several steps.

      ‘I need to go there and confront the King. Please, call off your dog.’ She hated how her voice trembled on the words. ‘There are women and children’s lives who depend on me making this right. I gave my word to my mother. My first duty is to them.’

      ‘Your name will be the byword for treachery in Constantine’s camp,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You will not be allowed within ten paces of him. Your life expectancy would be a few breaths at most. I regret I cannot allow you to go there to your death. My people and I need you alive. Afterwards...you may go where you will, but my people come first.’

      She swayed slightly. Her name a word for treachery. She rapidly sat down before she fell. ‘I had nothing to do with it. I’m innocent.’

      ‘Do you think Constantine cares?’ The Gael’s eyes burned fiercely. ‘He needs a scapegoat to blame for his failure and you are a pagan woman warrior, an abomination in the eyes of his priests and counsellors. A woman who lives for blood, rather than her brood. You are no peace-weaver, Dagmar Kolbeinndottar, but a peace-destroyer in his eyes.’

      ‘And the people who work the lands promised to my mother?’

      ‘They will do what people always do—work the land for the new overlord, one whom Thorsten appoints.’

      ‘Or they will depart, hoping to find refuge.’ She held out her arms and willed him to understand. ‘I must be able to offer them that refuge.’

      ‘You can do little for them if you are dead.’

      She hugged her arms about her waist, hating that Aedan mac Connall’s words made sense. She had heard the whispers from Constantine’s priests about her and her mother, but always Constantine had refused to listen. She and her mother were his favourite weapon, the unbeatable combination who kept the Northmen from Dubh Linn from gaining sway over his lands. She had almost achieved her goal—her own estate with plenty of land for her men. But that was before. Before she had lost this battle. Before Constantine had been badly humiliated.

      ‘You appear to know a great deal about what that future holds.’

      ‘I know what Constantine and the Picts are like,’ the Gael said with a faint smile. ‘I know their prejudices. How little they think of the Northmen. I heard the mutterings as we escaped. Thankfully they were too busy trying to save their hides to worry about a single man leading a pack horse with a dog trotting alongside.’

      ‘We were winning. I sensed the shield wall beginning to break. A few feet more...’ She put her hand to her head as the blackness threatened to overwhelm her again. She had nearly tasted victory, victory which was hers alone, rather than sharing part of her mother’s triumph. ‘Or at least I think it was like that. My recollections are hazy.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter what you think or sensed.’ He banged his fists. ‘My task is to take you alive to your father by All Hallows. Therefore, we will not be journeying to Constantine or your lands or anywhere else you might think will serve your purpose first. We go to Colbhasa and your father.’

      ‘My father cares nothing for me. He turned his back on me a long time ago. He requires sons, not daughters.’ Dagmar crossed her arms. There, she had said the words out loud, words which had been written on her soul on her tenth name day.

      ‘Your mother hid you from him. She actively kept the two of you apart. She made sure you received no word from him. The old warrior who perished asked me to tell you that. Said it would calm you down.’

      The stark words were hammer blows to her heart. Trust the Gael? Old Alf might have, but she saw no reason to. She could never trust her father—not after how he’d treated her mother and her, after he chose her stepmother and her swollen belly over them. And despite her stepmother’s prophetic dreams about bearing her father many warriors, the woman had produced only one sickly son.

      Gunnar’s mysterious illness should have warned her that Old Alf had spoken true about Olafr’s attempts to betray her, but she’d ignored his warnings. All she had needed was one good victory to cement her position, gain the land she required—what she had achieved, instead, was a resounding defeat. Everything had slipped through her fingers. Her life had become the dregs of the pond as her stepmother had predicted it would—the only words the witch had ever spoken directly to her. ‘I’ll listen to what you say, Gael, before I decide.’

      ‘Will you behave yourself?’ he asked. ‘Or does my dog have to keep you in check?’

      ‘Do I have any choice?’

      ‘Not really.’ He gave a smile which was like the sun breaking through the mist on an autumn morning. ‘Be content with breathing, Dagmar.’

      ‘I would like to carve Olafr Rolfson’s heart out. I would like to slit his throat and leave him to die slowly and in great pain.’ She shook her head and tried to control her temper. ‘But I have to approach it sensibly. However, I, Dagmar Helgadottar, promise you that one day those men will pay for what they have done. I will honour my fallen friends. They may have seemed like men who failed to you, but they were my friends and comrades. Some of them I had known since I was a little girl. I’ll not forget them. Nor will I let their sacrifice be in vain.’

      ‘A good and worthy sentiment provided you can bend the future to your will.’

      She could hear the scepticism in his voice.

      ‘It will happen.’ She leant forward. ‘Tell me why my father suddenly requires me? Why he sent a Gael to do his dirty work?’

      ‘Maybe he expects you to save him the trouble of killing me.’

      Dagmar screwed up her nose, considering the words. The Gael had a point. Her father was capable of such treachery. ‘I am not inclined to do anything my father wants. I’m pleased I spared your life earlier.’

      ‘That makes two of us.’

      ‘My father hasn’t wanted anything to do with me for over ten years.’ She lifted her chin proudly. ‘He only thinks of his other family, his son that he had with that woman.’

      ‘Nevertheless, he sent me.’ Aedan held out a gold ring with a double-axe motif engraved in it and struggled to keep his temper. The woman should be on her knees in gratitude to him. He had saved her life. She owed him a life debt.

      He knew her type. He had encountered Northern women over the years. Invariably they were proud and stubborn, inclined to argue rather than accepting his word. And this one was the worst—the most stubborn and pig-headed. She rivalled her father in that.

      ‘His token. Kolbeinn said it would be enough. You would understand that I came from him.’

      She looked at it warily as if it was a snake which might bite her. ‘My father sent you. Truly? Not my stepmother?’

      ‘I’ve СКАЧАТЬ