Chapter 11 Bjorn
Harald clapped his hands together sharply, and servants appeared. “See that they have everything they need to journey to Saga’s cabin,” he said. “Arrange for my two fastest horses to be saddled.”
“Steadiest horses,” I corrected, because Freya was not an experienced rider and the terrain was rough.
She only crossed her arms, eyes mercifully amber in hue, but that only made the defiance in them more obvious. “Fastest.”
Harald cast his eyes toward the rafters. “I’m sure a happy medium can be accommodated. If you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.” He left the hall, Skade following at his heels.
The servants led Freya into the rear of the great hall and I moved to follow her, unwilling to chance anyone who felt like-minded to Steinunn and Skade stabbing her in the back, but Tora gripped my shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye on her. You two will have enough time to bicker on the road to Saga’s, so save your energy.”
A fair point, so I nodded. Tora followed Freya, leaving me alone with Steinunn.
We stared each other down. I’d known her for years as Snorri’s skald, and we’d never gotten along particularly well. She’d always been lurking in the shadows, often watching me, and I’d believed her to be Snorri’s spy as much as his skald. Even if I hadn’t been living a lie, the behavior would have irritated me. But with the stakes as high as they’d been, Steinunn’s spying had made me avoid her at all cost. That she’dbeen Harald’s informant didn’t change the way I felt about her constant lurking, but her motivations for working for him did. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Her head tilted, gaze full of venom. “Being an unrepentant prick?”
“For being a prick, I remain unrepentant.” Hooking my thumbs in my belt, I considered what I wished to say. “But I am sorry for what happened to your family, and for being the cause of it. Snorri’s pursuit of Tyr’s fire cost many Nordelanders their lives, which is why I allowed him to rescue me when he did. In hindsight, I should have arranged it sooner.”
Steinunn’s chin trembled but then she clenched her teeth, swiftly regaining her composure. “I wished you dead more times than I can count and considered killing you more than once. I, too, am unfated, and if you were dead, Snorri would have lost his method of finding the shield maiden.”
“Why didn’t you just cut my throat while I slept?”
“Because I’m a coward.” Her tone was bitter but not directed at me. I knew self-loathing when I heardit.
Given she’d just threatened Freya, there was a part of me that was happy to allow Steinunn to wallow in contempt for herself, but instead I said, “A coward wouldn’t have followed us into draug-infested tunnels.”
I recalled my conversation with the draug jarl. I shall win great fame and honor for your death, Firehand. A song sung by the skalds for generations to come. “You negotiated with the draug jarl, didn’t you? Promised to compose a song about him if he let you live?”
Steinunn shook her head. “I promised to compose a song about him if he killed you and Freya. But for that to be possible, it necessitated allowing me to live.”
Though she’d conspired against us, I couldn’t help but smile. “Clever.”
“Not clever enough. Freya was…more capable than I’d anticipated.”
As I blinked, visions of Freya reaching for my axe filled my mind. Her hand had been covered with Hlin’s magic, but with the burn scars fresh, it had still taken incredible courage to risk Tyr’s fire. Freya was impetuous and rash and meaner than a cornered minx when she was angry, but never in my life had I met anyone half so brave or half so selfless. There was no one who I’d rather have fighting at my back than Born-in-Fire.
Focusing again on Steinunn, I said, “You two have exchanged harsh words, but Freya isn’t the threat. Snorri is.”
“You only think that because you’re in love with her.” Steinunn lifted her chin. “The rest of us see more clearly.”
She left the great hall, closing the doors with heavy thuds.
“Bjorn?”
I turned to find one of Harald’s servants standing a few paces behind me, a woman I recognized from before I’d left for Skaland. “Remind me of your name.”
“It’s Una.”
I recalled that my friend Troels had been quite taken with her before I left, but that was the extent of my memory of her.
“We saved your things because we knew you’d return to us.” She looked up at me through thick lashes. “We brought the chest out for you.”
I had nothing but the clothes on my back, which all needed mending. “Thank you.”
Una gestured to the upper level of the great hall. “This way.”
I followed her up the wooden steps, which shifted beneath her swaying stride, my mind all for the conversation I’d had with Freya the night prior. Most especially the oath she’d sworn to save herself from having to endure Snorri. Gods, but every man in her life was a weight around her neck. Her father and brother. Vragi and Snorri.
Me.
There was a moment I believed that I stood strong because you were always at my back, Bjorn. Now I know better. I stood alone then, and I’ll stand alone now.
Her words repeated in my head, and it took me far too long to realize Una had stopped next to a dusty chest and was watching me expectantly.
“Thank you,” I muttered, recognizing the look she was giving me and wanting no part ofit.
“Is there anything else you need?” She leaned against the wall and twisted a lock of her hair around one finger.
I silently cursed my much younger self, because his behaviors were what had invited this flirtation. “No. Thank you.”
She pushed away from the wall, then gave me a slow smile. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
I’d chosen Freya, and she’d remain my choice until the end of days, even if I suffered for it. “I won’t change my mind.”
Kneeling before the chest, I opened it and stared at the clothing and weapons. All mine, yet they seemed foreign and strange, as though they’d belonged to a different version of myself. I pulled off my tunic and tossed it aside. Digging in the chest, I extracted a similar garment and held it up, swiftly determining that it would not fit. Years of good eating and nothing to do but fight had put more bulk on me than I’d realized. These looked like the clothes of a boy.
They’d fit Leif.
The thought was a punch to the gut, my younger brother the one person I’d refused to allow myself to think about. Leif’s grinning face filled my mind, his smile falling away as he learned what I’d done. That I was not his brother but his enemy.
Time and again, I’d told myself that my actions would benefit Leif in the long run, but it had all been hollow platitudes. Necessary, so that I could live day after day in the deception that I was loyal to Snorri. Loyal to Skaland.
Before I’d met Freya, the only thing that hadn’t been deception were my feelings about my brother.
Lowering the garment to the chest, I allowed myself to remember when Snorri had first brought me back to Halsar. I hardly knew the town given I’d been raised in my mother’s remote cabin, and most of the faces were strange to me. As was mine to them.
Leif had been so very young. Skinny as a rail where he stood at Ylva’s side, and though his mother’s blue eyes had been frost on the coldest of winter mornings, Leif had been smiling. He’d come down the dock with no hesitation and said, “You are Bjorn?”
At my nod, he’d taken my wrist and lifted it as high as he could, shouting, “My brother has returned!”
His acceptance had changed everything, and every one of those strangers had cheered. From there after, he’d been my shadow, wanting me to teach him everything I knew. Wanting me to take him everywhere I went. Not once did he begrudge the nature of my birth or the fact I’d taken his place as heir, only loved me as his elder brother.
And the gods strike me down, but I’d loved him back.
Yet I couldn’t help but curse myself for allowing it, because the moment he learned of my betrayal, Leif would know that he’d been the one who’d made it possible because he’d been the one who’d opened the gates of Halsar and let the enemyin.
“You aren’t weeping over your old clothes, are you?”
I twisted on my knees to find Troels setting a bucket of steaming water on the floor. The passing years had not changed his ferret-like face, though his lank brown hair had grown longer. He looked me up and down and said, “You always were such a mother’s boy, Firehand. Weeping over pretty sunsets and sad songs. Never understood why the girls always chased after you.”
“Because the alternative was your ugly face.”
“It’s not so bad in the dark.”
“Troels, your face is the sort that sears itself into memory. Not even the darkness can spare you.” I wrinkled my nose. “And it certainly does nothing about your stink.”
Troels grinned, his hazel eyes bright. “Gods, but it’s good to have you back!”
Then he tackled me to the floor. All the wind rushed from my lungs and my ribs groaned beneath his embrace, no amount of flailing on my part enough to break his hold. Troels was a child of Magni and possessed of such strength that he could fling me about like a rag doll if he was of a mind to do so. More than once, I’d seen him rip enemy warriors clean in half. “You’re going to kill me, you ugly fuck. Let go!”
He laughed and sat back on his heels, pounding me on the back with such vigor that I was going to have bruises.
“All the girls are placing bets on which of them you’ll take for a tumble first,” my friend said. “But I told them they’d have to be content with me, because that shield maiden needs only to crook a finger and you’ll come running.”
“So that she can stab me in the gut,” I grumbled, still struggling to catch my breath.
Troels shrugged. “To have that face be the last thing you see before you go to Valhalla would not be a terrible thing. And if you’re dead, I might have a chance.”
I gave him a flat glare but he only laughed. “You’re right. She and all the rest would probably prefer your pretty corpse to me. I take it back, I didn’t miss you at all.”
There was something off in his tone that caught my attention. As though my friend’s ever-present humor hid a very different emotion. “Troubles?”
He reached for the bucket of steaming water and set it in front of me. “Your stink. It wasn’t me you were smelling, Firehand.”
“Besides that.” I wrung out the cloth and set to washing, waiting to see what he’d say.
He shrugged, then shoved a pile of clothes toward me. “Una sent these up with me. Put them on so I don’t need to look at your stomach. It makes me want to give up mead.”
“Start talking, and I’ll put on clothes and put in a good word for you with Una.”
My friend huffed out a laugh, but then his face turned serious. “It was as though Harald’s focus went with you to Skaland. He was obsessed with every piece of information that could be gleaned and left everything else to Skade.” He made a face. “You know how she is.”
I grunted in agreement, digging a razor out of the chest and testing the edge. “What has my mother said on the matter?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I haven’t seen Saga once since you left.”
I lowered the razor. “Truly?”
“Not once. I heard that Skade brought her over to Skaland to see you at Fjalltindr but not until after the fact. Saga’s been even more reclusive than usual. I don’t even think she allows Harald to visit, because I don’t recall the last time he traveled to see her.”
The metal of the razor reflected my frown, no part of me liking that Harald hadn’t mentioned this. “Does he still heed her council?”
Troels hesitated, then said, “I believe her council serves primarily as justification for his obsession with Snorri. Islund has taken advantage, but he cannot see past your mother’s prophecy. Snorri. The shield maiden. Skaland. There is nothing else.”
Troels’s words added fuel to the fire of doubt in my chest over my father’s intentions for Freya.
“But perhaps he’s in the right.” My friend unfastened the wineskin at his belt and took a swig before handing it to me, the smell of strong drink filling my nose. “Everyone knows that the only thing I’m good for is knocking over the threat right in front of me. Harald always sees the long strategy and he’s never led us astray. Has led me away from astray, for which he will always have my loyalty. But suffice it to say, Bjorn, I’m glad you’re back.”
“It’s good to be back.” But as I took a mouthful of the liquor, it struck me that every time I said those words, they felt more and more like a lie.