Chapter 11
As soon as she walked out of the town gate, Cwenthryth felt a weight lift off her chest. She would never come back here, she vowed, looking at the walls one last time.
It would be too painful, bring on too many memories she wanted to erase.
She would miss her friend, but she would make sure to send word of her new abode, and hopefully Eahlswith would come visit once she was settled.
Where the new place would be, at the moment she wasn’t sure.
The only thing she knew was that there would be a river not too far, where she could bathe and swim every time she wanted.
Determined not to think that the last time she had fled the town she had taken refuge with a certain Norseman, Cwenthryth started walking.
It was only when she reached the lake that she realized she had unwittingly taken the direction of the Norsemen village.
Well. So much for forgetting about Steinar. She had not even made it one morning.
More than a little disheartened, she stopped and sat on a rock. Why had her feet taken her here, when her mind had been set on going the other way? Apparently, it was going to be more difficult than she had imagined to erase the hard-headed man from her mind.
Well, she would just have to try twice as hard. Eventually, it would work. It had to, or else she would go mad. She would not allow herself to go mad, not now that she was finally safe and free.
As she was standing back up, already eyeing up the north road, the one pointing away from the Norsemen village, footsteps disturbed the silence of the clearing. Someone was walking toward her. Without knowing why, she tensed.
“Cwenthryth.”
Everything within her froze at the sound of that voice.
She had never thought to hear it again, and she had hoped she would never have to look at the man’s face again.
Oh hell, it seemed she had been wrong to relax her guard and believe she was safe.
Godfrid had not gone. He was standing just behind her, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence.
Panicked, she looked around, and saw no one who might be able to come to her rescue. It was too late to flee. She was trapped. Something died within her at the thought.
“Well, this is a surprise. I thought you’d gone.”
She had. And then, fool that she was, she had come back, because she’d thought she would be able to avoid him. Why had she done such a stupid thing? It was not as if she had been able to retrieve anything from her house, was it?
“I was not best pleased to find you had disappeared,” Godfrid continued, his voice sounding nearer. He said that as if she would care, as if she would feel bad for having disappointed him. She did not.
“Why are you here?” she asked, turning to face him. She'd thought he had gone too, hoped it was over.
“I decided that since neither you nor your father were here anymore, I had no reason to stay in town.”
Yes, as she had thought. And then it hit her.
He’d said “your father,” not “our father.” Could it be that she was right, and he was not really her half-brother, as she’d suspected all along?
Cwenthryth pushed the question from her mind.
She could not think about this now, she had to get away before he pounced.
She could see the intention of doing so in his eyes.
Unfortunately, she knew that expression too well.
“Well, you were right. You have no reason to be here,” she said, taking a step back. “You should leave.”
“I will. I had, in fact. But I remembered yesterday that I had promised to meet with a wool merchant at the fair starting next week. So I came back.” Lust glinting in his eyes, he took a step toward her.
“And aren’t I glad I did now… It would have been a pity for us to part without one last fuck, don’t you think? ”
“No.” Bile rose in her throat.
“And, of course, I have to make you pay for abandoning me before I was ready to let you go,” he said, as if she had agreed to his proposition. Then his voice hardened. “I say when I want to discard my lovers, not the other way around.”
Lovers. Cwenthryth almost laughed at the choice of words. They had never been lovers. She had been a victim and he had been her tormentor, nothing more. And she had finally decided to put an end to her torment. Her time at the village had made her stronger.
“I will never lie down for you.”
She had sworn Godfrid would never touch her again and she would do her best to prevent him from doing so.
“Oh, you don’t have to lie down if you don’t want to. I like it just as well when you bend over,” he said, the light voice belying the horror of what he was saying. “But you can start by kneeling at my feet.”
Before he could grab her by the throat, she ran.
It was the stupid thing to do but the only option.
Though she knew she would never outrun a determined man, Cwenthryth could not help it.
She could not just stand there and wait for him to rape her or kneel at his feet just because he’d ordered her to—she had to do something, show him that she didn’t want it, prove to herself that she had at least tried to escape.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
There was a roar as Godfrid started to give chase.
The lake appeared through the trees, which meant it would not be too long before he reached the town. Finally.
Steinar urged Fáfnir on. Thanks to his earlier visit to town, he already knew where Cwenthryth’s house was so he would not waste time looking for her.
He promised himself he wouldn’t leave before he had convinced her to go back to the village with him.
If she refused, he would stay with her until he was certain the danger “this Godfrid,” as Eyja had called him, represented was gone.
And if she threw him out of her house, as he expected her to, then he would sleep outside by the door, and keep guard.
Whichever way, he would not let her out of his sight until he knew she was safe.
As he got near the meadow a cry of powerless rage reached his ears.
A woman? A child? A young boy? He wasn’t sure.
What was certain was that he had to go and see.
He was in a rush, but it would not take him long to ascertain what the situation was, and anyway, he could not ignore the plea of someone who was obviously in trouble.
He entered the clearing—and took in the scene in front of him in one all-encompassing glance.
To his left, there was a woman, lying on the ground with her bodice torn open and her dress bunched to her waist. Her head was turned to face him so he immediately identified her as Cwenthryth, but he had the impression he would have identified her even if her face had been hidden.
She was immobile and pale as death. His own blood drained to his feet at the sight.
And then his attention was drawn to his right, where a youth was being thrown to the ground by a tall, blond man who started to beat him to a pulp. Shock seared Steinar’s skin, sending blood rushing back into his veins when he recognized the boy.
Ulf.
What the hell was his son doing here, so far away from home alone? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was being hurt by a man three times his size. Godfrid, if Steinar had to venture a guess. Who else would have attacked Cwenthryth?
Steinar’s arm was up before he could think.
The axe he’d brought along with him sliced through the air, as fast as a hawk and just as deadly.
Two heartbeats later it was embedded in Godfrid’s back, right between the shoulder blades.
Everything happened with terrible inexorability.
The Saxon let go of Ulf and raised his head to the skies, as if to ask for intervention from his god.
Nothing came. Slowly, he fell to his knees, and finally on his front, where he lay still as a corpse, blood pooling under him in a scarlet puddle.
Everything went silent. Steinar jumped from the saddle and called out to his son.
“Ulf!” The word was one raw cry. What if he’d been too late, what if his son was already—
“Faeir?” Ulf sounded hesitant, as if wary to believe it was truly over and his father had come.
“Yes, I’m here.” Steinar tore through the meadow.
Kicking the bastard’s corpse out of the way, he reached down for his son, lifting him up in his arms and cradling him as if he were still a babe.
Then he forced himself to put him down again.
After what he’d done, the boy would want to be treated like a man and he deserved the honor. “Are you—?”
“I’m all right.”
He was not all right. His face was bruised and bleeding, one eye was swollen shut.
By the gods, Steinar should have been on the receiving end of Godfrid’s blows, not a youth of barely thirteen summers.
He held Ulf’s frail shoulders and stared straight into his blue eyes, so like his father’s—and his own, or so everyone kept telling him.
He had named him Ulf, which was the Icelander’s real name, and never had it suited him better.
The youth was every bit as fierce and protective as his wolf of a grandfather, and would grow into a dependable and fair man.
“Son, you are twice the man I am. I am so humbled and proud to be your father. What you did was…” He shook his head. There were no words to describe the bravery of the act. “I should have been here. I should have been the one stopping the foul man.”
A glance at Cwenthryth, who was still lying down, immobile, made his meaning clear.
He should have stopped the man from raping her.
What a terrible way to find out she had not been lying about being in danger.
Who the hell was this Godfrid no one in town had heard about, and why had her brother not protected her? He would make sure to find out.
“I think she will be all right,” Ulf said, his voice slightly more assured. “I arrived before he could…”