Chapter 2
“What do you mean, I need to die?”
Hope surged inside Ylva because she was suddenly seeing Ulf with new eyes.
He had not taken her to Wolf to be punished like most people would have done, he had not killed her in retaliation for the blow she had inflicted upon him, he had not even injured her.
Instead, he had asked her name and he wanted to know what was on her mind.
Perhaps she could reason with such a man, explain her situation, make him see that she had no choice.
Yes… Perhaps if she explained her dilemma, he would take pity on her and help.
It was worth a try. After all, what did she have to lose?
“Why do I need to die?” he repeated when she remained silent. “What have I done to deserve such a fate?”
Nothing. She shook her head. He had done nothing wrong. He was innocent in this. As was Wolf, as were his sons, as was she. As was Judith, who was even now in the hands of Walstan.
The thought of her friend gave Ylva the strength to speak in short, blunt sentences.
“I was sent to kill you. Or, at least, to kill someone from your family. Wolf’s family. In retaliation for something he did in the summer. I thought you might be the best choice. I could not bring myself to kill a woman or a child and your father and uncles are—”
She stopped. Now was not the time to offend him by hinting that she had thought him easier to dispose of than the fearsome men because he was less strong.
Besides, she’d been forced to see that, despite his youth, he was anything but weak.
True, he was less formidable than his father, Steinar, and his blond uncle, but his chest was tightly muscled and he exuded masculine energy.
She remembered how taut he had felt against her.
For a moment, it had been all she could do not to abandon herself against him.
“You were sent, you say. By whom?”
“A madwoman called Mildred.”
She saw from the way his eyes widened that he had not expected his enemy to be a woman. Which went to show that she had been right to think a younger man might be less ready to see evil everywhere, at least. She, however, had learned the hard way that women were capable of the worst.
“I don’t think you know her,” Ylva carried on, her speech just as hurried as before.
“But you might have heard of her from your grandfather. She is the daughter of the slave trader he and his sons killed back in the summer. Mildred is holding my friend captive and if I don’t do as she says, namely kill someone from the Icelander’s family, Judith will be—” A sob escaped her when she realized she could not say the words out loud.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t want her to die. ”
She was making little sense. But to her surprise, Ulf didn’t lose patience, storm out of the hut in search of Wolf or laugh in incredulity. Instead, he sat down on a stool in front of her, a frown on his face.
“Yes. I know who you mean, even if I didn’t know her name until now.”
Ylva let out a sigh of relief. If he remembered the events of the summer, he might not believe she was making things up. “Well. She wants revenge on your grandfather for destroying her life, as she put it.”
Ulf nodded, then let out a heavy sigh, like someone understanding that this would not be as simple as he’d imagined. “Very well, tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”
She did, pouring her heart out into the ear of the first sympathetic stranger she’d met in her life.
She told Ulf how she had been captured in the streets of her hometown at age six, after the death of her parents.
That day, she had been with her brother, Oslac, at the market and the slave trader and his men had walked over to them, asking all sorts of questions.
She’d since understood that they had been trying to establish whether anyone would come looking for them if they disappeared, but even at the time she had been wary.
But there had been no putting them off. Once the men had had confirmation that, as orphans, they had no protectors who would wonder where they’d gone, they had pounced.
She had only had time to shout to her older, stronger brother to flee before she’d been thrown onto one of the men’s shoulders and carried away to the trader’s house.
With the bag pulled down over her head, she hadn’t seen what had happened to her brother.
She hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to him.
A few days after she’d been captured, Judith had joined her in the house.
The slave trader had selected them to replace his daughter’s former slaves, who had been killed the previous month for trying to escape.
The two little girls had formed an immediate bond and agreed not to attempt anything foolish before they were strong and old enough to succeed.
Walstan, a man in his twenties at the time, had been watching them constantly.
“Because of him, the opportunity to flee never came and we didn’t want to risk being killed.
It didn’t seem worth it. We were miserable at the house, but we were not mistreated.
For some reason, Mildred never unleashed her wrath onto us.
Perhaps she didn’t want to have to train other slaves, perhaps she preferred to concentrate her attention on the young boys she had a taste for. ”
Ylva closed her eyes in disgust.
The vile woman had had an arrangement with her father.
If one of the slaves he intended to sell caught her eye, she was allowed to keep him in the house for a few days, time to satisfy her lust. Some of these poor boys had been as young as fifteen or sixteen, by Ylva’s estimation.
It had been sickening, but there had been no way to stop it.
Only once, the previous summer, had they actually managed to smuggle one of the poor lads out of the house and away to freedom.
This success had given them the courage to act.
At eighteen, stronger and used to Mildred’s habits, the two women decided to finally attempt an escape.
Before they could risk it, however, a group of Norsemen had come to the house, asking where they could find the trader and his son.
There was no prize guessing that they were on a punishing mission.
As soon as they had left the house to find the men, fearing reprisal, Walstan and Mildred had disappeared.
It had taken Judith and Ylva a long moment to understand that they were, as a result, free at last.
Later that day, two of the Norsemen, Wolf and the one she now knew as Haakon, had come back for Mildred, only to find her gone. They had advised Judith and Ylva to leave the house while they could.
They had, spending the next few months with the only person they knew who might offer some help, the wife of the butcher Mildred bought her meat from.
The woman, who had a daughter the same age as them, spoke to the weaver, her neighbor, who agreed to let them use the workshop as a sleeping place in exchange for their help keeping it clean and ordered.
It had been as good an arrangement as they could have hoped. But a few days ago, disaster had struck.
“We thought Mildred had left for good, fearing the Norsemen, so after a few months we relaxed our guard and attempted to lead a real life. We could have gone away, of course, which is what I wanted to do, but Judith preferred to stay in a familiar place for the winter, since we had been offered a warm and comfortable accommodation. I agreed to wait for spring.” She shook her head.
In the end, it had been the wrong decision.
“Mildred happened upon us at the market last week. Before I could react, Walstan caught my friend. I could not run and abandon her.”
“Why did they come back if they thought my grandfather was after them?”
“They wanted revenge, and had decided that he likely had forgotten all about them by now. It’s been five months.”
Ulf sighed. “Yes. He hasn’t forgotten, exactly. But he thought, like you, that they were gone for good and unfortunately, too many things require his attention for him to remain focused on one single mission.”
Indeed. The world was not short of bastards in need of punishment.
“Well, Mildred came back with the intention of making him suffer. Rather than risk her own life, she decided to use us, seeing as we had so conveniently put ourselves in her path. Why she decided to send me instead of Judith, I have no idea but I wish… I wish she had killed me instead of making me do this. I spent the last twelve years wondering whether I was grateful not to have been sold on or not. Now I know I’m not, because she made me try to kill someone.
” Ylva closed her eyes. “So now you know why I apologized. Because I truly am sorry.”
Silence spread through the hut while Ylva waited for Ulf’s reaction. He had listened, without judging. Would he do more?
“Please. You must help me,” she said when he did not answer.
“By dying? I don’t think so.”
As she had expected such an answer, Ylva did not let it rile her. After all, what else was he supposed to say? No one would sacrifice themselves thus, especially not for someone they didn’t know.
“No, of course not. But… Don’t you see?”
It was time to tell him the plan that had started to form in her mind.
It was a mad plan, admittedly, but it was the only one she had, and she refused to give up just yet.
She had to do all she could to save Judith, however extreme, however ridiculous, however risky.
Hadn’t she just tried to stab a man? Nothing she did would make her feel worse than that.
“What don’t I see?” He sounded curious rather than dismissive.