Chapter 25
As a mother living in the aftermath of a battle, Kathryn was well aware she shouldnae be enjoying herself. The trouble was, she just couldnae help the feelings that surged into her heart when she took Axel’s plump little body in her arms. She didnae care what Olaf and Finn thought; this bairn was her grandson. What she didnae understand was how Rory hadnae recognised that and told Calder.
Calder would be up and about soon. Too soon. If she hadnae been regularly feeding him an infusion she had made frae some of the soothing herbs she always carried when she travelled, the lad might be dead by now. He had been sleeping a lot, but that could only help with his healing.
Meanwhile she had taken o’er caring for Axel, except for the times when the wet nurse put him to the breasts. She had laughed the first time she watched them. He was a greedy wee lad, not easily satisfied, as if he knew he would need much nourishment to grow into a big lad like his father, big like Rory, big like her younger sons, since her sons took after Gavyn.
A lot of her days were spent sitting with Olaf, Axel on her knee, talking of times past, of his wife and his his son, both gone now. As he spoke, she noticed how easily he tired, which prompted her to offer to make him a potion, but he dismissed the notion with a waved of his hand. “I’m fine, Kathryn. All I need to make me feel better is to see our young folk come through that door. When I look at them, I feel content, knowing the future is in safe hands. Your Rory has a guid head on him. I asked him for a plan and I got one. I’ll tell ye for naught, he saved us. I know that I’ll need another boat for my journey to Walhalla, but if this week has taught me one lesson it’s that the gods willnae mind whether my dragon-boat is painted with gold or pitch. Unlike yer Christian god, for us Norse, I’m certain it’s our deeds will count the most.”
It had been four days now since Gavyn had gone chasing after Rory. Surely they would all be back soon—together again. Every time she heard a shout go up, she hurried out of the dim interior of the Great Hall, hoping it would be Gavyn returning. She could sense that Olaf was becoming anxious. His hand would worry the handle of his stick. The flesh covering his knuckles had grown so thin the bones looked as if they might pierce through the skin. Besides that, his clothes hung frae his shoulders as if naebody was inside them. All of that made her as anxious as he was to see them all arrive home safe.
Much as Finn might like to be with his grandfather, there was so much to be done: bodies of their enemies burned on the beach while one of the aulder boats was being made ready to take the Caithness men on their final journey.
The Great Hall was quiet after everyone had broken their fast and left. With the numbers of Caithness men reduced by death in the battle, they were short of the men whau had gone on the dragon-boats accompanying Gavyn and Rory. That’s why the shouts reaching her frae the Great Hall as she pushed through the leather curtain gave her pause, made her feet freeze to the floor.
Olaf was standing, hand halfway down the length of his stick shaking it head high at a very fair man that she couldnae remember seeing afore. His hair tangled about his face and neck, and his clothes were dirty, as if he had been travelling, sleeping rough. When the stranger’s hand went to the hilt of the sword at his waist, Kathryn stepped back through the curtain, felt the leather edges scuff her boots as it closed behind her. “Whist,” she hissed at the lassies laughing o’er pots they were stirring, steam rising around their heads. “One of ye go find Finn. Hurry! Someone is threatening the auld Jarl.”
Kathryn’s heart pounded. She hadnae been so wrought up since the last time she had been in Caithness and her own life had been at stake. Today it might be Olaf’s life hanging in the balance. Gavyn had saved her frae the flames; she could do naught less than try to save Olaf.
Why did her heart sink as she watched the stranger’s silhouette framed in the doorway as he stepped outside the longhouse? Olaf was nae longer standing, his stick was abandoned on the floor. Mouth open on a silent scream only she could hear, Kathryn rushed through the Hall. She found the auld Jarl sprawled on his back, half on, half off his big carved chair, one leg splayed wide, the other twisted beneath the chair. As soon as she reached him, Kathryn bent at the waist and slipped her hands under his arms, doing what she could to lever him upright.
Though Olaf was naught but skin and bones, getting him into his chair was more difficult than she had imagined. Eventually she sat him upright in his chair, his face blanched as white as his hair and his breathing shallow. She had ne’er thought of him as really auld afore, but in the harsh midday sun piercing the gap in the open door, his true age was obvious. They said that spirits haunted some halls, the pale essence of someone frae another age, and by the looks of him Olaf’s spirit was about to join them. She saw nae blood staining his fine cream worsted robe, and that made her worried. She could heal a wound, but a heart worn out frae beating far too long belonged in the lap of the gods and fell outside her purview.
Kneeling beside his chair as she gently rubbed his bloodless hands, Kathryn noticed that his big gold ring, studded with a dark green, engraved bloodstone had gone missing frae his finger. Mayhap the heavy gold circle had fallen off, because his fingers were that thin. However the scratch and bruise on his ring finger said otherwise.
The blue tinge to Olaf’s lips worried her enough to hope that it appeared much worse in contrast to the pure white of his moustaches. She stroked her hand o’er his face, brushing away the locks of his hair, all a-tumble frae his unexpected fall. Continuing to stroke his time-worn face, she thought of how much he reminded her of Magnus. Aye, he looked like the auld constable of Dun Bhuird—the one whau had given his life for her sake all yon years past.
After Gavyn had left her, an outraged, young, newly wed bride with nae husband in sight, it had taken Magnus’s even-handed temperament to bring her down to earth. For two years while Gavyn fought in France, the constable had taught her to run Dun Bhuird, had passed down stories of her family’s history that had made her realise being the Comlyn matriarch was a thing to be proud of, and more than a wee game to show Gavyn she could manage without him. Olaf had played a big part in that history and, as if he too realised the truth about Axel’s heritage, had passed down tales of Caithness—history she would tell to her grandson when he was auld enough to understand what grand folk he came frae.
Finn must have been a guid distance away, for he still hadnae arrived, so she sat there in the silence soothing Olaf’s passing, for there was nae doubt in her mind that he was about to die. There was naught she could do about the tears running down her cheeks, or the hot lump in her throat, nor did she wish to quell them. Lifetimes of emotion imbued these moments she shared with the auld Jarl and naught that needed hiding. She spoke to him softly of Axel and Ainsel, of Rory, and how she would make sure they married and became a family.
Olaf’s pulse fluttered under the thin skin at his temple as she stroked his brow with one hand and held the other. It startled her when his grip on her hand tightened and his pale blue eyes stared up at her. When he spoke, the words were hardly more than a breath, but the way she had been leaning close to Olaf made it easy to catch them all. “Nils … he wants the bairn … take Axel away … save him.” The last he spoke was louder, a truth they both knew: “Not his son.”
And then he died.
She was still weeping and stroking Olaf’s dear face when Finn and the woman whau had finally caught up with him arrived in the Great Hall. She found it hard to watch a big strong man like Finn’s face crumple at the agony of realising his grandfather had gone to the gods the Norse folk believed in. “What happened?”
Kathryn didnae bother to hide her tears, her sorrow. “An argument,” she said her voice flat as she pictured the scene she had come upon when she left the kitchen. “He was shouting at a very fair man that I didnae recognise, shaking that heavy stick he always relied on at the stranger, as if he’d rather hit him with the knobbly end. That’s when I sent for you.”
Her breath departed her lungs in a sigh that left her feeling empty inside. “It took me but a moment, yet when I returned to Great Hall the man was in the doorway, his back to me so I couldnae see his face. I just knew frae his unkempt appearance, boots clothes and hair that he had been travelling for a while. And nae, afore ye imagine it, I have none of Ghillie’s gift, just years of experience. Yer grandfather was sprawled on his back slipping off his chair. I hoisted him back into it and sat with him, giving him what comfort I could until he passed.”
She held up the hand that still held Olaf’s as Finn knelt on the other side of the huge chair that would now be his. “Did he say naught?”
“A few words right afore he died. He gave me the man’s name: Nils.” She heard Finn suck in a sharp, painful breath. “But he’s dead,” he said his voice full of disbelief.
“Apparently not.” She lifted the hand that still held hers. “Whatever his name, he stole Olaf’s ring frae off his finger as he lay here, defenceless. Olaf also said Nils wanted the bairn, wanted Axel, and I must take him away and keep him safe. I dinnae claim to know why, but Olaf surely knew Ainsel’s husband as well as anyone apart frae her.”
Finn’s lips folded in tightly against his teeth in a grim, bitter line. “Grandfather wasnae aware of the half. Nils was a bully, he abused Ainsel but for some reason she ne’er told anyone, kept it all to herself.”
Kathryn huffed a sharp breath down her nose. “He would have been threatening her or someone she loved. I know frae experience. My father, Erik the Bear, was just such a man. Ach nae, he didnae hurt women, but he knew fine how to make guid on a threat.”
With that she got to her feet. “I ken ye will have a great amount to do, one death after another, but Olaf’s death requires the time and respect needed to send him to Walhalla. I would have been honoured to stay, and mayhap my husband and the other Scots will be back in time, but I must leave and take Axel with me.”
When Finn opened his mouth as if to protest, she cut him off, “It was yer grandfather’s dying wish, and I promised him I would make sure Axel was safe. Until ye make sure Nils is gone from this earth. The bairn will ne’er be safe here.”
Straightening her spine, she smoothed the creases out of her kirtle and pulled back her shoulders, fixing Finn with a piercing gaze. “I’m afraid I’ll have to take my housecarls with me for protection on the way to Dun Bhuird,” she tilted her chin as she spoke. It came naturally to assume the mantle of Lady Kathryn, wife of one of the most preeminent Chieftains in Scotland and descendant of many more—Norse and Scots—she stared down at Finn where he knelt by his grandfather’s chair. “I think it’s obvious to us both that the moment Nils lays eyes on Axel, he will know the bairn isnae his. The only way I can keep him safe is to take him and his wet nurse with me to Dun Bhuird.”
“Mayhap I should—” began Finn.
“Ye do realise that ye are now the Jarl of Caithness, aware that the responsibilities Olaf bore are now on yer shoulders? The Norse folk whau live in Caithness now depend on ye to take care of them. Trust me when I say, adding one wee bairn to yer load is like to double it. Nae man can be everywhere. Let me deal with my grandson while ye see to the rest.”
When his pale blue eyes, so like his grandfather’s, few open wide, she simply smiled, telling him, “I knew the moment I laid eyes on him, and to confirm it, Axel has the same heart-shaped birthmark as Rory and all my other bairns. That comes frae Gavyn’s side. What I dinnae understand is how Rory has not claimed him already.”
She quirked her brows at him, “Of course he might have been so blinded by a certain widow he ne’er noticed the bairn.”
Finn answered, stare for stare. “Then again, he might simply have been too busy to notice by being caught up in making the plans that saved the settlement.”
“Aye, that as well. I have to admit he takes after his father,” she said. Finn’s expression said he wasnae so sure about that, and she smirked to herself as she walked away saying, “Time to organise my housecarls if we are to leave while there is still plenty of daylight betwixt us and Dun Bhuird. It’s a grand place. Feel welcome to visit Axel anytime.”
She returned to the kitchen through the leather curtain and Finn still hadnae uttered another word.