Chapter 3 #2
“I’d be grateful.” Brandr covered Harald’s hand with his in a quick clasp. These five men had each been more a brother to him than Arn had ever thought about being. “And so will Arn.”
“No, he won’t. It’s not in him to be grateful,” Harald said.
“We’ll try to hold Jondal for you, my friend, but you know as well as I that an iron crown won’t wait.
Plenty will rise to try to wrest it from Arn.
We need you there to take it in peace. Get clear of this mess as quick as you can.
What’s your plan? I know you must have one. ”
Harald was always ready to pull out his ax, but Brandr was the strategist of the group. A well-executed plan often trumped superior numbers and strength.
“I don’t know yet,” Brandr admitted. “But I’ll come up with something.”
“I hope so,” Harald said as they turned to go.
Brandr watched them till they disappeared around a bend in the path. “So do I, my friends. So do I.”
***
Katla stretched and dug her fists into the small of her back, trying to work out the knots.
The day’s work had progressed nicely, even though the memory of Brandr Ulfson’s kiss still made her lips tingle.
She tried to banish thoughts of him as she walked past the barn where cows lowed, impatient for their evening milking.
The ram’s bell tinkled in the distance. Shepherds drove her flocks down from the upper pasture to the safety of the fold for the night.
Between her herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, Katla owned more hooves than any other farmer on Tysnes Island.
She smiled as she surveyed the busy farmstead. She was happy. Certainly she was. Why had Brandr thought she was not?
Osvald’s holding had been impressive when she first married him, but after his death, the farmstead prospered even more. She no longer had to answer to her husband for her decisions. Or have them overridden by him.
Whole families of women worked the big looms in her longhouse, producing linen and wool cloth for trade, while their men tilled the patchwork fields and tended stock.
All told, thirty souls depended on Katla for each bite of food in their mouths and each coin in their belt pouches, including her three shiftless brothers.
That would change if her prospective bridegroom could afford to set them up on their own farmsteads as Finn hoped.
Brandr Ulfson stomped past her with another armful of wood for the growing pile.
Make that thirty-one souls in her care.
She tamped down the flutter in her belly at the sight of him. The man was her thrall. It wouldn’t do to start imagining the yearning hollowness in her chest had anything to do with Brandr Ulfson.
She’d experienced a moment of concern that morning when his friends turned up.
She half expected the son of her enemy to take to his heels with his companions.
They all had the battle-hardened look of warriors.
If they were determined to take him, she’d have been powerless to stop them.
But hidden in the shadows of the longhouse door, she watched as the men from Jondal left without Brandr.
He’d kept his vow not to run away. Brandr’s worth rose several notches in her evaluation.
“Katla!” Waving one long arm, Finn loped up the hill from the wharf toward her.
“I see you managed to find your way home now that night meal’s not far off,” she said, settling her arms across her chest. She wished her brothers would grow up. It wearied her to have to scold them as if she were their mother.
Finn shoved his sandy hair out of his face and eyed her up and down with a frown. “What are you doing? Your suitor’s ship has docked. He’s on his way to the longhouse, and here you are looking like a common drudge.”
“Freya’s cats!” Katla had forgotten they’d be bringing around a new suitor today.
She tucked an errant strand of hair back under her headdress. The linen kerchief that covered her braids had been starched and bright white when she donned it that morning, but it was probably limp and gray now.
“You promised, sister,” Finn said. “I’ve lived up to my end of the bargain and brought you a man to consider, but you’re not even trying.”
“Well, if the man you’re bringing doesn’t like my looks,” she said, “he’ll have to look the other way.”
“Don’t fret. I expect he’ll be too taken with this place to notice you overmuch, in any case.”
Katla flinched. It was one thing to agree to a loveless match. It was another to be considered of no import whatsoever in the making of it. Was she really nothing more than the lands and stock she possessed?
The thwack of an ax splitting wood echoed off the stone barn. Finn glared in the direction of Brandr and the chopping block. He snorted.
“I’ll bet the son of Ulf isn’t taking much to that iron collar.”
“No, but at least he isn’t afraid of hard labor.” Katla slanted her gaze at Finn. “Unlike some.”
Since Brandr was a jarl’s son, Katla expected him to be demeaned by the tasks she assigned him. The gods knew her brothers couldn’t be bothered to work, and they were only the sons of a karl, a simple landed farmer. But Brandr tackled each chore without complaint.
She was still amazed that he’d kept his word not to run away. It would have been a simple matter to escape with his friends that morning if his oath meant nothing to him. There was more character there than she’d suspected.
Against her better judgment, she watched his easy stride as he walked back across the barnyard.
His bare arms rippled with strength, and that snug tunic showed far too much of his muscular thighs.
Several women churning butter by the open barn door turned their heads to follow his progress.
When he bent to stack the wood, his tunic rode up so high, the women were nearly treated to the sight of his bare buttocks.
“Better find a longer tunic for the man, or you’ll get no work done from your women,” Finn observed.
Katla couldn’t blame them. Brandr Ulfson was extremely well made. She had to keep reminding herself he was son of her husband’s murderer. Yet even knowing who he was, he was not an easy man to resist. Would it be so terrible if she stopped trying?
“Katla, the man’s almost here.”
Finn’s voice pulled her out of her indecent thoughts.
She turned to see her other brothers, Einar and Haukon, flanking a third man and coming up the hill toward her.
Katla gave herself a silent scolding. It wouldn’t do to be musing about her attraction to a thrall when she was about to meet the man she might marry.
“Who is he?” she asked Finn as the party approached.
“Albrikt Gormson. He owns a tidy property, three times the size of your farmstead, on the northwest corner of Stord Island,” Finn said.
“Stord? That’s a good day’s sail, two if you meet rough seas. You must have made these arrangements before you brought me the son of Ulf. When did you intend to tell me you’d already set up another match?”
“At the last possible moment,” Finn admitted.
Katla gave him a sisterly swat on the shoulder. If Finn would only show as much initiative in other things. “He hasn’t another wife, has he? I’ll be no man’s second.”
It wasn’t unusual for a man to keep a concubine handy.
Her husband, Osvald, had one, but he never turned to her unless Katla had been unable to welcome him.
A few foolhardy men actually had more than one wife under the beam of their longhouses.
While Katla had tolerated sharing her man with another woman on occasion, she’d never resign herself to sharing the running of a household.
“No, Albrikt has no wife. He’s widowed.”
“Any children?”
“A son, but he’s gone to Iceland to manage Gormson’s land there.”
Katla nodded her approval. If the man had other land for his existing heirs, it would make it easier for her children to inherit this farm.
If she was blessed with children. She couldn’t give up hope.
“If Gormson has come this far, you must have done some preliminary negotiating.” When Katla married Osvald, he set up Finn and Einar on small farmsteads.
Unfortunately, her brothers were indifferent farmers and ran their places into the ground with overgrazing and mismanagement.
In the end, their holdings had been sold to pay their bills at the mead house.
She hoped they’d do better next time. “What has he offered you?”
“Gormson will deed his property on Stord over to us in exchange for control of your land.”
“And why is he willing to trade a larger holding for a smaller one?” Katla arched an eyebrow at her brother.
She didn’t like the idea of giving someone else control of her land.
What would happen to the people who depended on her?
“Does his steading have a source of fresh water? Timber? Stord is mountainous. Mayhap the land is all vertical.”
Finn shrugged after each question.
“Have you even seen Gormson’s land?”
“Well, no, but if the holding’s that big, it should divide well three ways.”
“Hel’s chambers are said to be spacious, but no one wishes to bide in that cold hall, do they?” Katla said waspishly. “Honestly, Finn, your head is supposed to be good for more than keeping your ears apart.”
“You underestimate me, sister. This time, we’ll get some ready coin from the arrangement too.
” Finn straightened to his full lanky height and gave her a withering glance.
“But we’re not likely to if he sees you like this.
Go clean up. The bath house is already hot.
I can smell the smoke from here. We’ll give Gormson a long look around the place, and you can meet him at night meal, ja? ”
A lovely hot bath sounded too delicious to pass up.
“All right.” She snapped her fingers, and Brandr turned to look at her. “Son of Ulf, haul up a fresh barrel of water for the cooling room in the bath house.”
“Oh, good. More water to haul. I live to serve, O Merciful and Clean One,” he answered with a smirk and went to do her bidding.
“Insolent dog. I’d beat him if he were my thrall,” Finn said. “Want me to do it for you?”
Katla lifted her skirt and started toward the already steamy bath. “I think he’d like you to try.”