Chapter Nine #3
They were drinking, and sometimes they splashed the drink onto his bleeding skin.
After a while, he couldn’t prevent himself from screaming, and it was most likely that which saved him.
Although they had never said it, he assumed it was his screams that had led Tormod, Bjorn and Ulf to the abandoned hut.
They had found him. Until today, he’d thought that not a single man had left that cabin alive except for him.
He remembered nothing of the journey back to the village.
He had only a vague memory of his brothers rushing into the hut, the sound of metal clashing on metal.
By the time he had recovered, Arne had learned that when he had followed Ingrid out of the village as the attack began, she had known exactly what was about to happen.
Had it been successful, she would have never returned, but her father and brothers had been killed.
This had left her with nowhere else for her and her son to go.
The numbers of men in her home village had been severely reduced – assisted by Ulf, Tormod and Bjorn’s slaughter of the men who had hurt him – and Tormod’s father, Jarl Lief, had sent one of Tormod’s older brothers to take over their village as reparations for the attack.
So, Ingrid had returned to their village.
Ulf had told him much later how she had begged and pleaded for her life.
He’d been shocked to discover Ingrid had been pardoned.
Although he was less surprised to discover the intricate web of lies she had woven to persuade Jarl Lief to pardon her.
Tormod had been furious, but as much with himself as with Ingrid and her schemes.
His cousin had always been a proud man, refusing to admit his mistake in public and divorce her.
Instead, he took her back, trying to fool himself as much as anyone else, that his own wife could not planned to have him hurt in the way Arne had suffered.
Tormod had even taken her back into his bed.
Arne, however, could never forget nor forgive.
As soon as he was healed enough, he had left the village, travelling north and living alone for more than a year until he had almost come to terms with his changed appearance.
By the time he had returned, Ingrid had died birthing Tormod’s child and Arne could not feel sorry for her.
And the fact that he could not be sorry about it made him feel worse rather than better.
Einar had been another complication. When he had first seen Einar, Arne’s only thought had been of the way Ingrid had betrayed him.
Tormod had never denied publicly that Einar was his son, but nor had he ever been able to bring himself to have a relationship with the boy and had left him behind in the Norselands when they had first settled in Kirkjaster.
But Jarl Lief had sent him over with one of the boatloads of settlers, clearly expecting Tormod to deal with the boy.
As soon as he had seen him step ashore, his own feelings had changed.
While Einar was, indeed, a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong in his own life, he was only a child and deserved to know what it was to be loved.
Einar was not responsible for the sins of his parents.
Arne had fostered another boy by then, knowing that he would likely have no more children of his own.
What woman would want a man as scarred as he was?
And as he got to know Einar, his feelings towards his natural son had at last started to form.
Arne’s life would be emptier without Einar in it, even if the boy never knew the truth.
But now, with the knowledge that Orm knew his secret, Arne wondered if it was better to tell Tormod himself, rather than risk him hearing the news from someone else.
The wind gusted around him and he opened his eyes to a much whiter world.
He should head back before Gemma thought he had abandoned them.
It was even more important now that they were not seen.
Someone was searching for her. Whether that was indeed the king or whether it was Marcant, once more attempting to gain control of her and her son, he neither knew nor cared.
He was tired of Strath Clut. He had come here hoping for a new start, far from the memories of the past. It had not worked out as well as he had hoped. He sighed. And now he knew there was at least one man still breathing who had been there when he’d been tortured.
He contemplated the empty whiteness where the men had disappeared. How many others had there been? How many others knew the secret he thought only he and Ingrid shared? Did it matter?
He turned back towards the shieling. Any footprints he had left earlier were gone.
The snow was falling faster and faster, and he hoped he had got enough wood in to last them through the night and the next day at least. It never usually lasted more than a few days here, or at least it hadn’t in the past, although they were higher on the moors here than at the settlement down at the side of the loch.
When he got back to the shieling, there was still smoke coming out of the chimney.
He smiled. She had kept the fire burning, at least. At first, the shieling appeared empty despite the fire burning in the hearth.
His heart started to race but he could smell the venison cooking, and it had not yet burned so she could not have gone far.
Had the hunters got here before him? He should have come straight here after his confrontation with them.
What had he been thinking? Wallowing in the past was not going to serve him well in the future.
“Gemma?”
“I told you it was only Arne,” Caelin’s voice came from under the bed and Arne watched as the two of them pushed themselves out and dusted themselves off. Gemma sneezed.
“We heard voices.”
Arne closed the door behind him but remained close to it as he took his leathers off and hung them to dry over a chair.
“It was better than sitting out in the open, praying it was a friend walking through the door.”
“It was,” he agreed. “And am I?”
“What?”
“A friend?”
Gemma thought for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “For now.”