Chapter 18
“Sven!”
Eahlswith’s whole body felt weak with relief when the cloth was removed from her face and the familiar face of the Norseman was revealed.
She’d thought she’d heard raised voices but as there had been no sound of a scuffle she had lost hope of being rescued.
Ealawynne and Godstan were only arguing again, she’d concluded, probably because he’d reiterated his desire to bed her.
Thankfully she’d been wrong, and someone had indeed come for her.
The man she most dearly wished to see.
“Sven,” she repeated, weak with a mixture of emotions amongst which relief and exhaustion played the most part.
“Alva, thank the gods,” Sven answered, removing the gag from her mouth with gentle hands. It was obvious he didn’t want to hurt her further. “Are you all right?”
Was she? Yes, now she was. He was here, so she would be fine. “I’m all right,” she said, fighting a sob.
Sven grimaced when he heard how cracked her voice was. “Here. You need to have a drink.” He handed her a wineskin and at last, she could take long gulps of cool water. Never had anything tasted sweeter.
“Thank y—”
“Don’t thank me. By the gods, I’ll kill the man. Look how bruised your mouth is.”
It would be, considering she had been gagged all night but she ignored the pain throbbing at the corner of her lips to ask instead. “How are you here?”
His nostrils flared as if he appreciated her not asking why he was here. But she had known he would come for her if he could. She simply could not understand how he had freed himself and found out where she’d been.
“I always keep a dagger in my boot,” he told her, extracting the weapon in question to cut the cloth holding her captive.
Though she could easily guess that his curt explanation did not do justice to the difficulty of the operation she didn’t press him, because there was something she was dying to do.
As soon as the top half of her body was free and her wrists unbound she threw herself into his arms and gave him the most heartfelt kiss she had ever given anyone.
To hell with the pain it caused her bruised lips, she needed this.
And it was clear from Sven’s response that he needed it also.
His hands had fastened around her waist, holding her tight against him.
“You came for me,” she said when they finally drew away.
“Always.” He spoke with his lips against hers. “I’ll always come for you.”
She blushed at the evocative words. What was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be thinking of such things after having escaped death. He groaned, indicating he’d understood what he’d unintentionally said, and his tongue licked along her bottom lip.
“Yes, and that as well. All in good time. I will come for you as many times as you like, in whichever way you want.”
Oh. Had she not been sitting down, her legs might well have given way. She forced herself not to think of the next time they were in bed together. For now they had to see to the situation they were in.
“What happened to Ealawynne?” Eahlswith asked, looking around. There was no trace of her abductors that she could see. “Godstan?”
“You mean your sister and her brute?”
“Yes.”
All trace of teasing vanished from Sven’s expression.
His eyes became as hard as cut glass and almost as transparent.
“He’s probably dead. She’s tied to a tree while we decide what to do.
You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to.
I wanted to give you the option but I can go untie her and join you on the cart. We can be gone in a trice.”
“No. I do want to see her.”
They couldn’t leave like that. She hadn’t had the chance to tell her what she wanted to tell her earlier.
“My Alva. I knew you would be brave.”
Sven placed a kiss on her forehead before helping her disentangle herself from the cloth holding her legs together.
Once she was back on her feet, he selected the biggest piece he could find and wrapped it around her shoulders.
How thoughtful. Bundled up in the cart, amongst the balls of wool, she hadn’t been cold, but now the chilly wind was biting at her most unpleasantly.
“Thank you.”
“Would you rather have my cloak?” he asked, already making to remove it.
“No.” The piece of cloth was fine for her but would be too small for him.
“Wait.” Sven planted himself in front of her and took her by the shoulders. “Before we go, tell me this. Did the man touch you?”
Eahlswith swallowed. How had he guessed Godstan had wanted to assault her? Had the man told him as much before being dying?
“No,” she said as firmly as she could. In the end, though he had put his hand on her breast and whispered his vile intentions to her, he had not done any of the things Sven was imagining. That was all that mattered.
He nodded, looking only marginally reassured. He’d obviously guessed she was hiding something from him but, to her relief, he didn’t press her. “Let’s go see your sister then.”
Ealawynne was, as Sven had said, tied to a young tree and gagged in much the same way she herself had been last night, though she could see that the piece of cloth didn’t dig as deep into the sides of her mouth as hers had done. The point had been to stop her from calling for help, not to hurt her.
As soon as Sven removed the gag, Ealawynne snarled at him. “Untie me, you bastard!”
Neither she nor Sven dignified the request with an answer.
“When we release you, I don’t want to see you again,” Eahlswith said, planting herself in front of the woman who had once been her closest friend, who had once shared a womb with her.
“If you’re unsatisfied with your life, you only have yourself to blame.
I warned you Wiglaf was not a good man. I told you he would make you unhappy.
I told you he was a lecher. You ignored me. ”
“Yes, you told me all this, and then you just left, instead of trying to make me see reason. You abandoned me. You didn’t even come to my wedding!”
Everything within Eahlswith bristled. How dare she put the blame on her?
“I didn’t abandon you! I did try to make you see reason, as you say, but you refused to listen to my warnings, no matter how many times I repeated myself.
” She took in a deep breath and decided to tell her sister what she had sworn never to tell her.
“And I didn’t go to your wedding because the night before Wiglaf had come to me.
He was about to marry you, and he tried to bed me. Do you hear? That is why I left.”
By her side, she heard Sven growl. If the man had been in front of them now, she was certain his corpse would have joined Godstan’s in the snow.
“It will have been a mistake,” Ealawynne spat. “Or have you forgotten that we look alike? He would have thought to—”
“A mistake!” Eahlswith cut in, feeling her heart break anew.
How could her sister persist in her folly when confronted with facts?
How could she place a vile man’s word before hers?
“He knew, as did the whole village, that you and your friends were in Mathilda’s hut, getting ready for the ceremony and wouldn’t see him.
Trust me, he knew exactly who was under him that night. ”
Another growl. Sven turned her to him so she could meet his gaze. His face was a mask of fury such as she had rarely seen. “Tell me that bastard didn’t succeed in—”
“No.” She could see the intention to go hunt him down flash in his eyes.
There was no doubt in her mind that if she told him Wiglaf had raped her, he would make sure the man didn’t see another day.
But, mercifully, she had not been raped.
“I managed to escape his clutches thanks to a friend,” she said, addressing him instead of her sister.
“He heard my screams and prised Wiglaf from me.”
Sven nodded, jaw still clenched, seemed to will himself to calm and eventually released her.
“You never wondered why Wiglaf’s face was scratched on your wedding day?” Eahlswith carried on, addressing her sister once more.
“He told me he had fallen into a ditch on his way back from the tavern.”
“And you believed him?” This from Sven, who apparently had decided he could not contain his hatred any longer. “Just how stupid are you?”
“I had no reason not to believe him. It can happen.”
“No reason, you say! You had your sister’s testimony that the man was a lecher and yet you chose to disown her instead of seeing the truth. She’s right. If you’re unhappy now, you only have one person to blame for it. Yourself for not heeding Eahlswith’s advice.”
“How dare you—”
“Eahlswith said what she had to say. Now it is my turn. She wants you out of her life and you will do as she wants. You will disappear, and we will never see you again. Speak to her again and you’ll suffer.
Touch her again and you will die. Slowly.
” Sven had never looked or sounded more lethal.
“Woman or not, I will come for you. You being Eahlswith’s sister will not protect you, not when I know how dangerous you are.
Hurt her in any way and you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” Ealawynne sounded half dead with fright, and Eahlswith could not blame her. Had she not known Sven for the man he was, she might have taken fright herself.
“As to the bastard you call your husband,” the voice, icy a moment ago, had gone positively glacial, “should he even attempt to see her, he will find himself under me. And he will not be allowed the mercy of death until I am finished playing with him.”
It was clear from the way Ealawynne blanched that they would not hear from her or Wiglaf again. “Y-yes,” she repeated, though no questions had been asked.
“Good. Because I will know it if you dare set foot in town ever again. I too, have connections, more than that pathetic Saxon. And I will make sure you regret ever remembering you had a sister.”
With those words he set about undoing the ties holding her to the tree.
Eahlswith watched on, happy to let Sven take charge.
She had tried all she could to get through to her sister, and finally understood that she was never going to succeed.
But at least she wouldn’t have to worry about hiding anymore.
“Go,” Sven told Ealawynne once she was free.
Eahlswith noticed that she didn’t make a single move to go to her lover, who was still immobile on the ground.
There might still be a chance, slim though it was, to save him but her sister did not seem interested in stemming the flow of blood or going to find help.
So much for claiming to love him. Had it been Sven bleeding to death in that meadow, Eahlswith would have tried anything to save him.
Thankfully, he seemed whole—and in full command of the situation. His gaze flicked back to the cart by the river.
“This has been stolen, I gather?”
She confirmed it, having heard Godstan say something to that effect earlier that morning. “From a wool merchant, if I understand correctly.”
He turned to Ealawynne, who still hadn’t moved, as if wary of his reaction. It was clear she would wait until they were gone to do anything. “It goes without saying that we will take the cart and horse and bring them back to their owner.”
“So I’m to walk the rest of the way in the snow?”
His answer was terribly blunt. “Walk, crawl, stay where you are even, I care not. Neither Eahlswith nor I are wasting another moment on you.”