Chapter 1
“Please, please, please, come with me. I need to go see Halfdan.”
Gytha sighed. How would she find the strength to refuse her friend?
Why would she refuse her, rather? Well, perhaps because the expedition was fraught with danger, which was precisely the reason Eadhild was asking her to come along.
The ride to the Norsemen village was not without risk for two women on their own.
But there was another reason her help was needed.
If Eadhild was discovered going there, there would be hell to pay. Another person would deflect her father’s anger if she was caught.
“Why do you need to see him?” Gytha was suddenly suspicious. Was there another, more pressing reason than simply missing him? “Are you with child and need to ask his support?”
Judging from the way Eadhild froze, Gytha understood that it was not the case—and that up until this moment her friend had not imagined that this eventuality might befall her.
“I-I… I don’t know. I mean, I might be carrying his child, considering that we—but it’s not what I… Oh, what am I going to do if I am?”
When she started to sob, Gytha took her into her arms. Indeed her friend was in a difficult situation.
She had fallen in love with a man her father, and therefore her whole family, would never accept as her husband.
Alberic harbored a violent, and inexplicable hatred of the Norse community.
What the people had done to deserve it, no one knew.
Probably nothing. The man was just a short-sighted, aggressive fool ready to blame anyone different for all the ills in the world.
And, unfortunately, he was not the only one.
Gytha was luckier than most in that respect.
Her father had always been fair and he happened to be on excellent terms with the Norsemen.
Since his election as reeve five years ago, he’d been working in close contact with an Icelander called Wolf and helping him fight the many crimes the people in his village were wrongly accused of.
In the last few months, as the two of them had investigated the whereabouts of a missing Saxon child, their collaboration had become even more intense.
All this meant that she was used to seeing Norsemen coming and going out of her house, and, just like Eadhild, she could not help but see the appeal they exerted.
The blond giants were nothing if not striking.
Comparing them to the local men would be like comparing tranquil lakes to the vast, tumultuous seas.
Both were made of water, but one had waves capable of crashing through you with life-altering force.
Both Saxons and Norsemen were made of flesh, hair and bones, but still the Icelander and his countrymen seemed to belong to a different realm.
And Halfdan was better than most.
She had met the tall Dane a few times, and it had not taken her long to understand why her friend had fallen in love with him.
He was personable, thoughtful, and he genuinely cared for Eadhild.
As soon as he had met her, he had started to learn her language in earnest, so as to be able to communicate with her on a meaningful level.
Having recently arrived from Denmark, he’d only spoken Norse at the time, which Eadhild had now started to learn.
The two of them were perfect together, and anyone with an ounce of sense would see it.
Unfortunately, that didn’t include Alberic.
“Hush. We’ll go to the village. Of course, I’ll come with you.”
Eadhild sniffed, and gave her a watery smile. “Thank you.”
“But I think you and Halfdan should decide what to do,” Gytha added, feeling like her mother but unable to help herself.
It was high time the two of them took their responsibilities.
“This has been going on long enough. You need to know where you stand. You need to be able to come and go as you please, stop living in fear of discovery.”
She wasn’t worried about Halfdan’s reaction.
If her instinct served her correctly, the Dane was in love with her friend and would marry her in a heartbeat.
Then she could finally go live with him in the village and she wouldn’t have to worry about what her father thought, wouldn’t have to sneak out at the earliest opportunity to snatch a moment with her lover and put herself in danger.
“You’re right. Do you think I can ask him to marry me?”
Gytha thought a moment. In truth, she wasn’t sure men would appreciate a woman doing the asking. Wouldn’t they feel it was their place to ask? Well, this was not a problem for her to solve. Eadhild would know whether to take the risk or not.
“This is something for you to decide. You know him better than I do. Now, let’s go.”
The two women didn’t try to hide. The best way to appear innocent was to behave as if you were doing nothing wrong, so they simply pretended they were going to the market together, as they did every week.
The only difference was, they didn’t stop once they had reached the last row of stalls, they carried on to the south gate.
There, they nudged their mounts into an easy canter.
At this pace, they soon reached the village of huts nestled in a bend of the river.
It had become a familiar sight, one soothing even for her, though, unlike it did for Eadhild, the place didn’t harbor anyone special.
As soon as they dismounted, Gytha took the bridle from Eadhild’s hands and gave her a smile.
“Go. I’ll wait here with the horses.”
“Thank you. I…might be a while,” her friend told her, reddening.
“I know. You always are.”
Gytha always did her best not to imagine what happened between Eadhild and Halfdan when she waited alone in the forest, but it was hard not to, even if the images were not very precise.
She had a vague idea of what men and women did together but, having never bedded anyone, she could not know for sure.
Her only experience was with Theodebert, and they had never gone that far.
He would have liked to, she knew, but mercifully he had heeded her refusal the few times he had actually bared his member to her.
A few caresses had been enough to bring him the release he needed and he had never asked to reciprocate and show her pleasure.
Well, was it any wonder, considering he’d never really wanted her?
No. But why was she thinking about him now?
She had sworn to put men out of her mind until her father’s time as reeve came to an end.
Then she could finally start looking for someone who had nothing to gain by marrying her.
Nothing but a wife he loved and who loved him back, at least. It was time.
She was almost four-and-twenty and she did want to get married one day, have a family.
The horses were tethered to a nearby tree, in a patch of luscious grass and Gytha settled herself on a log.
In preparation for the long wait, she had brought the shift she had started working on, a present for her mother, to be given to her next Christmas.
It would be embroidered with daisies, her favorite flower.
Surrounded by birdsong, Gytha started to sew.
Haakon skidded to a halt as he rounded the boulder. Was he dreaming?
Barely a moment after he’d decided that he didn’t want to see a Saxon woman ever again, here he was, walking straight into one.
There was no mistaking the fact that this was no Norsewoman.
Her hair was a rich, deep brown rarely seen in his village.
It played with the sunlight when she moved, instead of absorbing it like blond hair had a tendency to.
He suspected that when she looked up at him, it would be through liquid dark eyes.
Or they might be mossy green. Or light brown.
Or misty gray, or even frosty blue. One could never know, with Saxons.
That was one of the many appeals they held.
Had held once, he corrected himself. Not anymore. He had just decided that enough was enough.
Instead of retreating back to the bushes, he looked at the woman more closely. Was she… Yes. She was embroidering the cuff of a delicate shirt, as if this were the most normal thing to do outside in a forest.
Unable to resist, he walked forward. “Are you sure this is the right place to—”
He stopped when the woman, startled by the sound of his voice, let out a squeak and dropped the garment she was working on.
“You…idiot!” she cried out. “Look what you made me do.”
She stared at the shirt now lying in a patch of mud and mumbled something under her breath, probably a series of curses aimed at him.
Laughter burst out of Haakon. It was perhaps rude of him but no one had ever called him an idiot before—to his face, at least—and this was such an absurd scene that he couldn’t help himself.
“I didn’t make you do anything,” he said while she lifted the shirt between her thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t even touch you. You just dropped the shirt. Hardly my fault.”
The woman looked up to glare at him and the laughter got stuck in Haakon’s throat.
He had suspected the color of her eyes would take him by surprise but he was still stunned.
The irises were of a pale, luminous green that reflected the patches of light piercing through the trees.
They seemed to shimmer and the effect was entrancing.
But those incredible eyes were not the only beautiful thing about her.
Everything else was perfect. Well, not perfect, exactly, but precisely what he conjured when he imagined himself married to a Saxon wife.
Had imagined, he corrected himself for the second time in a row. Fuck, forgetting about his dream might be more difficult than he had anticipated.
“How do you explain this, then?” the woman asked, showing him the soiled garment in her hand.
He shrugged. “If you don’t want your delicate work to be dirtied, perhaps you should refrain from embroidering outside in the wild. I mean… I assume you don’t grow mushrooms under your table, do you?”
“Mushrooms—I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”
He nodded at the needle she was holding upright, like a warrior would hold his sword. “You’re doing something all the people I know do in their home, so it makes sense you would do what most people do in the forest in your home.”
“So what if I were?” she challenged instead of acknowledging the truth of his word. “Is that forbidden?”
“Not forbidden, but—”
“I can embroider wherever I want, surely? It is nothing to you.”
“That’s not what I—”
“And what do you think you were doing, creeping up on me like that? Couldn’t you see I was busy and why? Couldn’t you guess I would be startled?”
“I—”
“You could be a dangerous criminal for all I know.”
“I’m not dangerous, or a criminal!” he exploded, goaded beyond endurance.
“How should I know? You could be.”
Haakon raised both hands in the air in surrender.
There was no point arguing. He could have been a threat to her, and he understood why a woman on her own might have taken fright at the sudden appearance of a man his size.
But still, he knew he was not at fault. He had not asked her to come to the forest alone or to get so absorbed in her work—work that, damn it all, normal people did inside their house, no matter what she said—that she didn’t realize dangerous criminals were creeping up on her.
Haakon sighed. This was exactly why he’d decided to stay clear of Saxon women.
They were nothing but trouble, and this one looked particularly shrewish.
But she was right about one thing. He should have left her alone.
What had possessed him to go to her? He should have ignored her and just gone back home.
“Oh, and look, I pricked myself as well! I hadn’t even realized.”
Scowling, she held her forefinger up for inspection. There was indeed a pearl of blood at the tip. Before Haakon could say anything, she brought the finger to her lips and started sucking gently.
His lower body leaped to life with shocking urgency.
Evidently, some parts of him, the ones that could not think but only react, cared not who the Saxon was or what she was saying.
All they cared about was how alluring she looked with a finger in her mouth.
Or even without. She was, as he had already noted, an exceptionally alluring woman.
Even if he had not been drawn to Saxons from a young age, he would have thought so.
She removed the finger from her mouth, allowing him to breathe marginally better.
“Are you just going to stare at me all day or—”
A rustle in the branches interrupted her. Haakon tensed, readying himself for an attack from, well, a dangerous criminal.
The person who tore through the undergrowth a heartbeat later was anything but dangerous, however. A petite woman—another Saxon, to his everlasting horror—ran over to the vixen he’d been talking to, looking flushed, and threw herself into her arms.
“Halfdan said yes!” she cried out. “I asked him if he wanted to marry me and he said yes! He didn’t even hesitate. I’m so happy! It will be—” She stopped when she realized they were not alone. “Oh. Forgive me, I—”
A masculine roar interrupted her apology. Haakon tensed further. This time a dangerous criminal might well be heading their way.
“Where are you, Eadhild? If you are doing what I think you’re doing, I swear I will kill you!”