Chapter 22 #2
She started to protest, but he silenced her with a piercing look.
“You know it to be true,” he said quietly.
Inga padded softly up and handed Brandr the basket of food he’d requested.
“Ask Inga,” he said. “She’ll tell you it’s so. Even once the iron collar’s gone, there’s a shadow about our necks no amount of scrubbing can clean.”
“I would travel with you as your servant, mistress.” Inga cast a darting glance in Katla’s direction then averted her gaze to the rough wood of the wharf. Her submissive demeanor spoke volumes. She felt the weight of her past keenly.
There were times when Katla had struggled with jealousy, but now she felt nothing but pity for her late husband’s bed slave.
Surely things would be different for a man. Brandr was well liked. She’d seen it herself. With time, her people would come to accept him as master here.
“Perhaps when we return, Inga, we’ll take you on the next trip. We won’t be gone long,” Brandr said. “Three or four weeks—five at most.”
Brandr strapped an oilskin over the cargo to protect it from the elements.
“Finn and your other brothers have agreed to wait till I can collect your bride price from my share of the bounty my friends and I brought back from Byzantium. We’ll return to Tysnes Isle before the weather turns and can stay for a bit, if you like,” he said.
“Then we’ll sail back to Jondal to winter in my brother’s hall. ”
Katla’s jaw gaped. “But it’s my duty to care for the people here. I can’t leave them.”
He climbed out of the boat and walked toward her. “I didn’t think I could be a thrall either, but a person can get used to anything. You might be surprised what your people can do on their own. Besides, your brother will see to the folk of this holding, won’t you, Finn?”
“Ja, of course I will.” Her brother drew himself up to his full, lanky height.
“Oh, Finn, you can’t even see to yourself, much less run a farmstead.”
Even though Finn wilted a bit as she said it, she stood by her assessment. He’d shown his quality of late, but she couldn’t trust him to carry on without her. Katla turned back to her husband.
If this was the first battle of wills between them, she was determined to win it.
“Brandr, I understand you feel you have to leave. My bride price has been agreed upon, and you must honor your debts,” she said primly. “I wish you safe travels, and will see you when you return.”
“Our honeymoon isn’t near done,” Brandr reminded her.
A month of loving and feasting and sipping the special bridal ale and mead was usual for the newly married. It wasn’t her fault they wouldn’t be enjoying their time together.
“It’ll be an odd honeymoon with you gone, but I’ll manage,” she said stiffly.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “And you think that ends the matter.”
“There’s no other way to see it.”
He shook his head and sighed. Then he grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder so her head hung down behind his back and her bottom smiled at the sky.
“What about now, wife?” he asked. “Do you see things differently from that angle?”
“Brandr, put me down!” She tried to squirm away, but he held her fast.
“Stop wiggling, or you’ll feel my hand on your backside,” he warned.
Her bottom heated at the thought. “Lay a hand on me, Brandr Ulfson, and you’ll have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life.”
He laughed and gave her buttocks a love pat. “You didn’t complain of my hands last night.”
Since it was within reach, she gave his bum a sharp smack. He ignored her.
“Farewell, Finn.” Brandr clapped his free hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “I’ll be back with the bride price before you know it.”
“And you’ll be welcome, so long as you don’t try to return the bride,” Finn said with a laugh.
“Don’t just stand there.” Katla pressed against Brandr’s back to raise herself up so she could glare at Finn, but she couldn’t break free from her husband as he stepped into the swaying coracle. “Help me.”
“Sorry, sister. I can’t even see to myself, you know.” Finn slipped the chain that held her all-important keys off her neck and secreted them in the pouch at his belt. Then he loosed the mooring lines of the coracle. “Doubt I’d be any help to you.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Did you not?” Her brother gave the vessel a shove into the deep water of the cove as Brandr deposited her on a small trunk. “I never can tell when you’re joking, Katla. No matter. Safe travels.”
She stood, and the coracle bobbled dangerously. Brandr unfurled the sail.
“Can you swim, Katla?” he asked with maddening calm.
“No.”
The water temperature was so cold, few in the North bothered to learn, since the ability to swim would only prolong dying if a boat capsized. Better a clean, quick drowning than a miserable, desperate struggle against an end that would come in either case.
“Then I suggest you sit down,” Brandr said as the wind freshened and the coracle lifted in the water, quickening in the breeze.
She turned around on the trunk, facing forward so she didn’t have to look at his smug face for another heartbeat.