Chapter Eight #2
Arne smiled but shook his head. “This was many years before Alt Clut. Anyway, Ingrid grew restless. Decided she didn’t want to wait any longer and would help her family instead.”
“Help them to do what?”
“To attack our village. I’m sure she hoped that it would rid her of Tormod as well. She doted on Einar, we all knew this, and so she pretended to fear for his safety. Over time, she watched the patterns of the guards, weaselled details from Tormod and passed them all on to her father.”
Gemma frowned, trying to put the pieces together and understand how it all fitted. “And was her previous lover involved in this?”
“No. Her family. Her father and brothers.”
Arne ran a hand down his face and sighed.
“And this was when you were scarred?”
He nodded. “The attack was unsuccessful. But I had seen Ingrid leaving the village when the guards first raised the alarm. I followed her to an old hut in the woods, the place where… Just an abandoned hut. But it was a trap.”
“A trap for Tormod, rather than for you. Why did they do this to you?”
He looked at her then, the oddest expression on his face. “Ingrid didn’t care who had been captured.”
“And so they…?”
Arne stretched his hands out in front of him, staring at the scars. “They cut me all over. While she watched. And laughed.” He broke off and turned away from her.
She found herself choking back tears. To see his scars and think about what must have happened to cause them, what this flesh and blood man in front of her had gone through… It stirred emotions inside her she wasn’t sure she could cope with.
Tentatively, she reached out and touched him, pulling her hand back when he jerked back out of reach. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I would never do this… to anyone. Nor would I allow it to be done in my name.”
He said nothing but turned to look at her, his expression hard.
“My brothers found me and killed everyone who had taken part—all except Ingrid. For weeks I lay at death’s door, lost in fever dreams, unsure whether I was alive or dead.
As I recovered, no one would speak to me about her.
I thought she was dead, but—” He broke off and shook his head.
“Once I recovered, I left the village. I couldn’t stand to see her. ”
“She was still there?”
Arne’s shoulders slumped. “She was a very accomplished liar.”
“Tormod… Tormod took her back?” Gemma found it hard to comprehend. Tormod and Arne were so close. Everyone spoke of them and Arne’s brothers as a group and of how, in battle together, they were invincible. Should Tormod have been able to forgive a woman who had done such a thing to Arne?
“It was more than a month before I was… before I was no longer consumed by the pain,” Arne said. “She had persuaded the others she was not involved.”
“But… but she was?” Gemma’s chest was tight and she could scarcely force the words out. The thought of what he had suffered, the fact Ingrid had almost got away with it, confused her. And made her want to wreak her own revenge on the woman.
“She was,” Arne confirmed. For a while he was silent. Unable to comfort him through her touch, she twisted her hands in her lap, trying not to weep for him. “The thing I remember most is her laughter.”
He barely whispered it, but the soul-deep devastation was clear to her anyway. Tears ran down Gemma’s cheeks, but she was too afraid to move to wipe them away. She didn’t want him to see, knew he would only resent her pity.
“She told them she had only led me there because she was afraid to disobey her father. He had got word to her he planned to attack our village and told her to leave.” He shrugged. “It might even have been true, except for the fact she wanted me dead.”
“She wanted Tormod dead?”
He glanced at her, eyes wide, then nodded. “Tormod. Me. I don’t think she cared, so long as one of us suffered. In all honesty, I do not know exactly how she persuaded Tormod of her innocence and I have no wish to ever know.”
Once more silence descended on the shieling, with only the occasional crackle of a log in the fire to remind them time was passing.
Gemma’s thoughts swung wildly between horror at what had happened to Arne and anger about him treating her as if she were the same as Ingrid.
She would never treat anyone like that. No matter what.
She stood, faced him across the limited floor space of the shieling.
“And you think I am the same… as her?” She almost didn’t want to see his reaction, afraid she would have to accept that he saw her only as the enemy.
“No.” He spoke so quietly she hardly heard.
“I didn’t leave because the settlement was to be attacked. Rhiannon…” She stopped, still distressed that even another Briton resented her.
“Rhiannon told me what she said to you.”
“She did?”
“She was upset, felt she had pushed you away.”
Gemma smiled sadly. “In a way she did, but she was right and I do not want to have to feel guilty about anything happening at Kirkjaster. And when she told me about the reward… I didn’t know who I could trust anymore.”
“It is hard for me to trust you.”
“I understand.” She stood watching the flames and basking in the heat of the fire. Finally she felt warm again, although it would be a long time before she forgot the bone deep cold she’d experienced on her walk here. “But it is no easier for me to trust you.”
“I understand,” he said quietly.
“So, why did Tormod come here in the end? Why not stay in the Norselands? Did he always plan to set up a settlement in Strath Clut?”
“Coming here offered the prospect of more adventure, more excitement. Not to mention a fresh start for an ambitious man to create his own jarldom. After the siege, Tormod chose to come to Strath Clut. It seemed an opportune moment. Perhaps one day Kirkjaster will be as strong as the settlements we have in the islands. We planned to stay in the islands originally, but then, after the siege, Tormod saw the potential for something new. And being an ambitious man, he decided to try for the unknown.”
Gemma watched Arne’s lips curve into a smile. He was proud of his cousin. She could see that. “But all this happened long before?”
“Yes, years ago. It is not worth remembering now.”
“Then why does it control your life so much? It seems Tormod has let it go.”
“Only since he met Aoife. She has enabled him to trust again. I’m not sure I can ever do that.”
“It takes courage to trust.”
He drew in a sharp breath, and she froze. What was she doing pushing him like this?
“Are you calling me a coward?”
She looked at him, expecting to see pent up rage, but instead he tipped his head back and pinched his nose.
“Perhaps you are right.”
“I… I would never say you were a coward. After all, you followed me here, thinking I might meet with others. Others who might kill you.”
He didn’t reply.
“What is it you want from me, Arne?”
He still did not respond, his gaze fixing on the fire. He stared into its depths.
Deciding she would get nothing more out of him, she made her way back to the bed and climbed in carefully so as not to wake Caelin.
He was wrapped snugly in his own blanket, and she wrapped her own around her tightly as she lay down.
She closed her eyes and was just drifting off to sleep when he spoke again.
“I don’t know anymore. Maybe I didn’t want your deaths on my conscience.”
“Mine? Or my son’s?”
“Both. Either.”
“I thought you saw me as a threat.”
“As a danger, certainly.”
“It is not my fault.”
She opened her eyes and their gazes met and, for the first time, she thought she could see some softness in the way he looked at her.
He sighed. “No, perhaps it is not. Go to sleep, Gemma. We will sort this tomorrow when we go back to Kirkjaster.”
“I am not going back.”
“We will see.”