14. 14Steel at the Courtyard Gate
The gate chains had scarcely finished groaning when the first axe struck the outer doors.
Iron rang through the courtyard. Rurik was already moving, his hand closing around the hilt at his hip as boots thundered across the stone behind him. Dawn lay gray over the fortress, salt wind driving needles of rain through the open murder slit above the gate.
“Hold the inner court!” he shouted. “No man opens that gate.”
A second blow shuddered through the timbers.
Inga stood beneath the covered walk, pale-blond braid over one shoulder, the torn bridal veil wound about her wrist. Her blue-green eyes found his across the wet stones. The iron ring he had given her caught the weak light.
Not fear alone marked her face. Resolve sat beneath it, hard and bright.
Rurik crossed to her in three strides. “Inside. Now.”
“I am not hiding while they call me stolen property.”
“They are not here to debate law.”
Beyond the gate, a man’s voice rose above the rain. “Rurik Eiriksson! By Lord Hakon’s authority, surrender Inga Hrolfsdottir and the stolen tribute. Resist, and every man within that wall answers for it.”
The words struck the courtyard like thrown stones.
Inga’s mouth tightened. “He names the tribute.”
“He knows what we know, or he wants us to think he does.”
“Then let me speak.”
Rurik caught her arm before she could step toward the gate. Her skin was cold beneath his fingers. “You will not stand before armed men and offer them your throat.”
Her gaze dropped to his hand, then rose again. “You promised I would not be used.”
The accusation landed deeper than the axe blows.
“I promised to protect you.”
“And now you mean to lock me away until protection feels no different from captivity.”
His grip loosened. He could not deny the truth in her words.
The vow they had made in the dark still lived between them, tender and untested.
He had wanted a life with her chosen freely.
Yet the first dawn after that promise had brought men to take her by force, and his answer was once again to command her where to stand.
A third blow split the outer door. Wood cracked.
Rurik stepped between her and the gate. “I mean to keep you alive.”
“Then trust me to help keep myself so.”
The reeve appeared from the counting-room corridor, cloak half-fastened, two guards at his back. “Captain, there are at least twenty.”
“Thirty,” called a watchman from the wall. “More behind the first rank.”
Rurik looked toward the narrow corridor leading to the counting room. The altered ledger lay there under guard, its entries and false seal the only proof that could bind Hakon’s men to the stolen tribute. If the attackers breached the courtyard, they would go for it.
“Einar,” he said to the reeve, “take four men and secure the ledger. No one enters that room without my word.”
The reeve hesitated.
Rurik’s temper sharpened. “Now.”
Einar nodded and hurried away.
Inga caught Rurik’s sleeve. “If they came for the ledger, they may already have a man inside.”
“I know.”
“Then do not send the reeve alone.”
“I am not sending you.”
Her expression flashed. “I said nothing of going.”
“No. You only look at the corridor as though you might defy me in another breath.”
“That is because you know me well.”
The gate burst inward.
The first retainer stumbled through with a shield raised, rain shining on his beard.
A spear thrust from the side and struck him beneath the arm.
He fell hard, dragging the weapon from the guard’s hands as he went.
Behind him came three more, then six, their shields knocking together as they flooded the entry.
“Close ranks!” Rurik roared.
His crew met them at the threshold. Steel scraped steel.
The courtyard filled with the stink of wet wool, mud, and blood.
Rurik drove his sword into a shield rim and kicked the man behind it backward.
His left hand closed around the steering-oar callus of his palm by habit, though the oar was far away aboard his ship; his missing fingertip brushed uselessly against the hilt guard.
A retainer swung at his neck. Rurik ducked, felt the wind of the blade, and struck the man across the mouth with his pommel.
“Rurik!”
Inga’s cry came from the corridor.
He turned just enough to see her seize a fallen spear and plant its butt against the stones. One of Hakon’s men lunged toward her. She drove the spear forward, catching his shield and forcing him sideways into a pillar.
“Inside!” Rurik shouted.
“I am busy!”
The retainer recovered and slashed. Inga twisted away, but the blade caught her sleeve and tore the wool from shoulder to elbow. Rurik reached her before the second stroke. His sword met the attacker’s with a ringing crack, then his shoulder slammed into the man and sent him sprawling.
“You disobeyed me,” he growled.
Inga’s breath came fast. “You are welcome.”
He wanted to seize her and drag her behind him. He wanted to press his mouth to the mole above her lip and make certain she was whole. Instead he shoved a fallen shield into her hands.
“Stay behind me.”
“Give me a better order.”
“Stay beside me.”
That, at least, she accepted.
Together they moved toward the gate. Rurik fought in short, brutal strokes, conserving strength while his men drove the attackers back over the threshold.
Inga used the shield well, turning blows aside and striking at knees when an opening came.
She did not fight like a trained warrior.
She fought like a woman who had spent too long being told that obedience was the same as safety.
A horn sounded beyond the wall.
The men at the gate surged.
Rurik’s crew bent under the pressure. One guard fell, clutching his thigh. Another was dragged halfway through the breach before Inga caught his belt and hauled with both hands. Rurik hacked down at the retainer trying to pull him away.
“Bar the gate!” he shouted.
The surviving guards seized the iron-bound beam. Rurik and two crewmen drove their shoulders against it while the enemy fought to keep the opening clear. The beam slammed into place. A spear thrust through the narrowing gap and scraped across Rurik’s ribs, cutting cloth and skin.
Inga saw the blood. “You’re hurt.”
“Not enough to stop me.”
“That is not the measure you should use.”
The door shook beneath another assault, but the attackers were outside now. Their curses rolled through the rain. Rurik pressed his palm to his side, then looked toward the counting-room corridor.
The courtyard had fallen into a ragged silence broken by groans and the hiss of wet stone beneath boots.
“Einar!” he called.
No answer.
Rurik’s stomach tightened.
He ran.
Inga followed despite his warning, her torn sleeve trailing threads. They reached the corridor to find the first guard facedown beside the wall. The second lay within the counting-room doorway, blood dark beneath his cheek.
The door stood open.
Rurik entered with his sword raised.
The chest that held the ledger had been forced. Papers covered the floor. The bronze seal token lay beneath the table, gleaming wetly as though someone had handled it with rain-soaked fingers.
The ledger was gone.
Einar stood by the far window, one hand pressed to his throat. Blood seeped between his fingers. His eyes found Rurik, then shifted toward the narrow passage behind the counting room.
“Not… the gate,” he rasped.
Rurik crossed to him. “Who took it?”
Einar tried to speak, but blood bubbled at his lips. He sagged against the wall.
Inga knelt beside him, pressing a folded cloth to the wound. “He needs the healer.”
“Get him help,” Rurik said to the nearest guard.
She looked up. “And you?”
“I am finding the thief.”
Her hand closed around his wrist. “Do not go alone.”
The plea was quiet, stripped of the sharpness she used when anger protected her. It reached him more surely than any command.
“I will not,” he said.
But when he looked toward the passage, no one stood there.
A wet footprint marked the stone. Then another. They led toward the servants’ stair and the inner postern, the small door opening onto the sea path below the fortress.
Rurik ran down the steps. Inga stayed at his side, breath catching as the wind struck them. At the bottom, the postern swung on its hinges. Beyond it, the rocks fell sharply toward the water.
A rope ladder slapped against the cliff face.
Far below, a small boat pulled away through the churning gray. A cloaked figure crouched in its stern, the ledger held beneath one arm.
Rurik reached for his bow, but the weapon was in the courtyard, left when the gate broke.
“Can you see who it is?” Inga asked.
“Not clearly.”
The boat turned. For one instant, a bronze glint flashed at the figure’s wrist.
Then the sea swallowed the shape among rain and white water.
Rurik struck the stone wall with his fist. Pain shot through his knuckles, clean and useless.
Behind him, Inga came close enough that her shoulder touched his. “They took our proof.”
“They took one proof.”
“The ledger held the altered entries, the seals, the route.”
“And we still have the seal token. Kjartan’s testimony. Einar saw the thief.”
“If he lives.”
Rurik turned on her. “Do not speak as though I am willing to lose him.”
“I know you are not.” Her voice softened, but she did not retreat. “That is why I am telling you the truth. We failed.”
The words hurt because they were true.
He looked at her torn sleeve, the veil wound around her wrist, the iron ring bright against her finger. She had stood beside him when she might have fled. He had held the line and still lost what mattered.
“I should have kept you in the chamber,” he said.
Her eyes hardened. “There it is.”
“No. Listen. I should have placed more men in the corridor. I should have known the attack was cover.”
“You are blaming yourself because the ledger is gone.”
“I am captain. That is what I do.”
“And I am your wife by choice, not cargo to be guarded while you bear every failure alone.”
The word wife struck him with a force no blade could match. Not the false title spoken at the gate. The true promise they had made before dawn.
Rurik reached for her, stopping before his hand touched her face. “I cannot lose you.”
Her anger faltered. “Then do not make me stand outside your trust.”
Rain ran from her braid to her cheek. He brushed it away with the shortened tip of his left index finger, the touch awkward and tender.
“I do trust you,” he said. “I do not trust the men gathering beyond that gate. I do not trust the walls. I do not trust the people inside them.”
“Then trust me to help uncover which one betrayed us.”
A shout rose from above. The inner bell began to ring - three harsh peals.
Rurik looked up toward the courtyard.
“What now?” Inga asked.
He took the bronze token from his belt and closed his hand around it. “Now we question every man who had access to the counting room.”
“And if the thief is still inside?”
Rurik met her gaze. “Then we find him before Hakon’s men break through again.”
He drew her behind him as they climbed, but this time she remained beside his shoulder rather than trailing at his back. The gate still held. The ledger did not.
At the top of the stair, Rurik turned once toward the sea. The fleeing boat had vanished into the rain, carrying the truth they needed and leaving behind a fortress full of suspects.
His vow had withstood the first assault.
The proof had not.