A Viking maiden destined for the battlefield...

...in bed with her captor!

As a female warrior, Dagmar Kolbeinndottar knows she’s not meant for marriage and a family. Until she’s kidnapped by Celtic warlord Aedan mac Connall, who has been tasked with returning Dagmar to her estranged father. Fighting her father’s orders to marry, Dagmar declares she will take no one but her abductor, expecting Aedan to refuse...but he’s intent on making her his bride!

“Everyone loves Styles’ Vikings!”

—RT Book Reviews on Sold to the Viking Warrior

“Styles pens another winning Viking historical... An exciting, engaging story.”

—RT Book Reviews on Taming His Viking Woman

Born and raised near San Francisco, California, MICHELLE STYLES currently lives near Hadrian’s Wall with her husband, a menagerie of pets and occasionally one of her three university-aged children. An avid reader, she became hooked on historical romance after discovering Georgette Heyer, Anya Seton and Victoria Holt. Her website is www.michellestyles.co.uk and she’s on Twitter and Facebook.

Also by Michelle Styles

His Unsuitable Viscountess

Hattie Wilkinson Meets Her Match

An Ideal Husband?

Paying the Viking’s Price

Return of the Viking Warrior

Saved by the Viking Warrior

Taming His Viking Woman

Summer of the Viking

Sold to the Viking Warrior

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Warrior’s Viking Bride

Michelle Styles

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07350-9

THE WARRIOR’S VIKING BRIDE

© 2018 Michelle Styles

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of my father, Michael Phifer (1937–1990)

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Historical Note

Extract

Prologue

865 A.D.—Bjorgvinfjord on the west coast of Viken, Norway. Modern-day Bergen, Norway

‘You should allow me the honour of winning. It’s my tenth name day,’ Dagmar Kolbeinndottar argued with her father’s best friend. ‘It could be your present to me—telling my parents how accomplished I’ve suddenly become at swordplay. A good idea, yes?’

Dagmar gave a hopeful smile and batted her lashes. Not that she was very good at swords or warfare yet. Not that she’d ever be any good. She preferred playing with her dolls and weaving to practising in the dusty yard with a wooden sword. How her father, who was one of Viken’s most-feared warriors, and her mother, who was a legendary shield maiden, had produced someone like her who kept making simple errors was one of life’s mysteries, as her nurse would say. And she wanted to show her father how much she’d improved since he’d been away. She wanted to show him that she deserved the grown-up blue gown, the one he’d promised to buy her for her tenth birthday if she worked hard at her lessons.

‘Your mother would use my guts for bowstrings if I said such things.’ Old Alf rubbed his belly. ‘To tell the truth, lass, I am quite fond of my innards. They are the only ones I’ve got.’

Dagmar screwed up her nose. ‘My mother likes you too much to do that. She depends on you, now that my father is away so often. You’re valuable to her. A precious jewel among men.’

Old Alf merely laughed and sent Dagmar’s wooden sword flying from her hand for the fourth time that morning. ‘You would be better if you actually practised, instead of finding excuses and using idle flattery. The gods seldom help a quitter.’

‘I keep getting distracted.’ Dagmar pursed her lips. ‘I heard my mother crying again last night.’

Old Alf’s face hardened. ‘Kolbeinn should be here to dry Helga’s tears.’

‘Yes, everything will be much better when my father arrives.’ Dagmar tilted her chin upwards. ‘You will see. He will get here in time for my name day. He promised me a proper gown with an apron and brooches...provided I pay attention to my mother and do my lessons. He won’t break his promise, will he?’

‘I can’t rightly say where his head is at, lass.’

‘Attached to his body, I trust.’ Dagmar gave a hiccupping laugh. Her father was alive. They knew that. Some of his men had returned, but for the first time in for ever, her father had not been the first one to step foot on the pier. He had not even been in the longboat. He was staying in Kaupang, dealing with important business, was what her mother had uncharacteristically snapped when Dagmar asked.

‘Your mother has many troubles, but no one is born clutching a sword, lass, not even your mother. You will get there, Dagmar, if you focus when you practise instead of gathering dreams. Try once more for your old friend?’

Dagmar nodded and picked up the sword. Old Alf had faith in her. If she could conquer this skill before her father came home, then maybe everything would be right once again.

‘Jaarl Kolbeinn’s ship is coming,’ the cry went up before her sword connected with Old Alf’s. Dagmar instantly dropped her weapon.

‘My father does keep his promises.’ Dagmar lifted her chin upwards. ‘He will bring me my gown. My mother will smile again. My father will see to it.’

The wind whipped Old Alf’s greying hair from his face. ‘Aye, lass, we can but hope that he has seen sense.’

Her mother stalked past them, not even acknowledging Dagmar in her hurry to reach the waterfront. Dagmar considered her mother had never looked as lovely. The dark-red gown with its gold embroidery and the sleek fur cape she wore about her shoulders set off her colouring precisely. Her eyes appeared brighter than normal and her mouth held a determined cast, as though her mother was about to go into battle instead of greeting Dagmar’s father.

Dagmar hurried to match her mother’s stride. ‘Old Alf says that I will be as good as you soon.’

A stretching of the truth, but she wanted her mother’s intent expression to relax.

Her mother put a hand on Dagmar’s shoulder. ‘It is good that you want to be.’

‘I want to please you. I want to be like you,’ Dagmar whispered.

‘Ah, Dagmar, you are such a good child. You are truly the light in my life.’

Dagmar basked in the sunshine of her mother’s unaccustomed praise. ‘It is my name day today.’

‘We will do something special for it, but first your father must be welcomed.’

When her father came ashore, he greeted her mother very formally without his usual warmth. Her mother failed to throw her arms about his neck. Dagmar frowned. She’d never understand grown-ups. Everyone knew about their love story—the skalds sang about it and how her father had tamed the frost giants to win his bride. Dagmar never tired of hearing the tale. It was the principal reason why she wanted to linger at the feasts.

‘You returned.’ Her mother’s voice resembled a frost giant’s.

‘I gave Dagmar a promise that I would be back for her birthday, Helga.’ Her father’s voice, if anything, was far colder than her mother’s.

‘Did you bring my blue gown?’ Dagmar asked, giving into her impatience. ‘I’ve worked ever so hard. Ask Old Alf. He’ll tell you. Some day I will be as good a warrior as my mother.’

Her father bent down and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Something even better. I brought a woman who will teach you to be a true lady. You want that, don’t you, Dagmar? To be someone to make your father proud?’

Beside her, her mother stiffened and drew in a sharp hiss of breath. Dagmar glanced up and saw a dark-haired woman with cat-like eyes and a large pregnant belly.

‘You must be Dagmar. Your father has told me a lot about you. I am sure we will be great friends.’

‘You brought her here? On such a day?’ Her mother’s screech hurt Dagmar’s ears.

‘Now, Helga, easy. She wanted to come.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It is like this—I need children.’

‘You have a child, our daughter.’

‘A daughter is not the same as sons.’ The woman looped her arm through her father’s and leant into him with an easy intimacy.

Dagmar wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out for being rude. The man she lolled over belonged to another woman—her mother. However, her father did not seem to mind; instead, he seemed to welcome her touch, placing a large hand on the woman’s belly.

‘You understand,’ her father said, bestowing one of his special smiles on the woman.

‘I see,’ her mother proclaimed. ‘You have made your choice. And I have made mine.’

Her mother stripped the gown from her back. Underneath she wore her trousers and tunic, her shield maiden clothes, the ones which were kept in a trunk and were supposed to be for Dagmar when she turned fourteen.

An ice-cold hand went around Dagmar’s heart. Her mother had clearly known about her father and his new woman before they’d even arrived.

‘Mother?’ Dagmar whispered. ‘What is happening?’

‘We are leaving, Daughter.’ Her mother placed a firm hand on Dagmar’s shoulder. ‘I refuse to stay where I am unwanted. I divorce you, Kolbeinn, here in front of everyone. I will take my warriors and my daughter and I will carve a new life.’

Her father’s face became carved from ice as he stepped in front of her mother. ‘Dagmar remains here. My daughter belongs to me.’

Her mother shoved her father and he stumbled backwards, nearly falling. ‘Get out of my way, you miserable worm. Dagmar goes where I go.’

‘You may take any man who will pledge allegiance to you, a second–rate warrior long past her prime, but you leave our daughter here.’

‘Why?’ Her mother put her hand on her hip. ‘So she can become the fetch-and-carry handmaiden of your latest fancy? I know what that is like! I endured it!’ Her mother’s voice echoed over the fjord. ‘My daughter is not and never will be second-best. She is worth ten of any sons you will ever have.’

Dagmar crossed her arms and stood next to her mother. Her mother wasn’t going to abandon her. Her father wanted her. Maybe her parents could work something out. They had fought before.

Her father’s cheeks became tinged with red. ‘I have the law on my side. My daughter belongs to me to dispose of as I see fit.’

Her mother banged her sword on the ground. ‘I challenge you. I will show you how second-rate I am, you puffed-up over-the-hill windbag!’

‘You challenge me for what?’

‘For the right to bring up our daughter as I see fit.’

Her father spat on his palm and held it out. ‘Done! I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back.’

‘No, Kolbeinn, no. You must not. The she-witch will trick you.’ The woman clung to Dagmar’s father’s arm and rubbed her big belly against his side. ‘Think of my dream. You will be the father of many kings. Our unborn son and I need our strong protector.’

Dagmar wanted to be sick. Surely her father would fight for her. She had seen her parents practise fighting before. At some point during that act, her parents would start laughing and they would realise that they still loved each other. This woman with her baby-swollen belly would be no match for her mother.

‘Hush now.’ Her father put an arm about the pregnant woman. ‘I am a great jaarl now. I have responsibilities.’

Her mother made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. ‘Choose your champion then, Kolbeinn, pusillanimous coward that you are, and I will fight him. I will protect my daughter until all the breath has left my body. I will carve a new life for us.’

‘You do this, Helga, and you will leave with only the clothes on your back rather than any ships. I need to be able to provide for my growing family.’

Dagmar clenched her fists. Her father wanted to steal her mother’s life work. That woman had put him up to it. ‘My mother brought fifteen ships to this marriage—all the skalds say so. My mother built this felag the same as you. Have you forgotten so quickly, Father?’

‘You mustn’t believe everything the skalds say,’ the woman said, giving Dagmar a look of pure hatred. ‘But I predict you will lead a miserable existence should you leave your father.’

Dagmar shrank back against her mother.

‘Hush, Dagmar. You are the most precious thing in my life, worth far more than gold or even land,’ her mother said in a low voice before holding out her hand to her father. ‘Agreed. My daughter is worth that and much more besides. My daughter will have a brilliant life. My daughter will be the best warrior the world has ever encountered.’

Dagmar watched in horror as the fight began in earnest between her mother and the champion her father chose. All she had wanted was a blue gown for her name day and instead this had happened—she had lost her family and her home, the place where she knew she was safe. Somehow, she was going to have to find a way to make her mother proud of her as her father wanted nothing from her. She would find a way to give her mother a new home.

Chapter One

Ten years later—near Dollar, Pict-controlled Alba. Modern-day Dollar, Clackmannanshire, Scotland

At daybreak, a major battle would commence. Aedan mac Connall, King of Kintra on Ile in the Western Isles, had no need of divine gifts to know this future; instead he used his eyes to see the two armies ranged no more than a quarter of a mile apart. Each was as bad as the other—the Northmen from the Black Pool or Dubh Linn, and the Picts with King Constantine’s rag-tag army of hired Northmen from Jorvik and other sell-swords intermingled with Pict warriors. But he had no interest in the outcome beyond the thought that for once they were fighting each other, rather than preying on his people. His business was with a woman, a woman who was somewhere in this melee.

His entire future and that of his people depended on his returning her to her father where she belonged. He didn’t want to consider the fate of the hostages Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe had required to ensure his co-operation in fulfilling this quest. He had to retrieve Kolbeinn’s daughter now or he’d be damned for ever.

‘Have you seen a woman, a shield maiden called Dagmar Kolbeinndottar?’ he called to a warrior who was sitting gloomily by the dying embers of a fire.

The warrior raised his grizzled head. ‘Dagmar Kolbeinndottar? She goes by Helgadottar and has done for several seasons.’

Aedan let out a breath. Success at last. Tracking down Dagmar, the daughter of the north warlord Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe, was far worse than tracking a will-o’-the-wisp. He had travelled the entire length of Alba and well into Bernicia searching for her. Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe’s vague description of his daughter as a meek and mild slip of a thing with golden hair, kidnapped by her mother ten years before, had been deliberately misleading. In Bernicia, Aedan had learned that she like her mother before her had pledged her sword to King Constantine.

‘Dagmar Helgadottar, then,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘I have a great desire to speak with her.’

The warrior sucked his teeth. ‘More than my life is worth.’

‘But she is here, in this place?’

‘Oh, aye. That she is.’ The warrior gave a conspiratorial tap against his nose. ‘The King sets a mighty store by her and her men, but can they do more than rattle their shields and look fierce?’

Aedan held out the ring Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe had given him as well as a gold piece. ‘I have important information for her from her father.’

The grizzled warrior nodded and took the piece. ‘I hope you fare better than the others.’

Aedan blinked. ‘Others?’

‘Oh, aye, she cut off their heads and sent them back to her father.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Mind she hasn’t done that since afore her mother died.’

‘She will listen to me.’

‘You must have the skill of Loki to have got this far.’

‘I prefer to think it is the saints who have kept me safe this far.’

The man spat on his palm and made a cross in the air. ‘Them, too.’

Aedan whistled and his wolfhound, Mor, bounded up from where she had been lurking in the undergrowth. ‘Further up the line you said.’

The warrior took a step back. ‘Aye, you can’t miss her. She’s the one with her face covered in blue swirls. And she wears hissing snakes in her hair.’

* * *

Dagmar concentrated on putting the final flourishes of paint on her face. She had done them for so long, they had become second nature to her. First the black and then the blue.

She had acceded to her mother’s wishes and used paint every morning, rather than getting a permanent tattoo. Even now when her mother had been gone for five months she could not bring herself to go against her wishes. It was the design which was important, rather than the medium. One day, her mother had remarked as she’d applied Dagmar’s paint in the early days, it might be necessary to change course and design. But it served her purpose for now to let everyone think them tattoos. A new whorl for each battle she had won.

‘He means to kill you.’ Old Alf sidled up just as Dagmar finished the final whorl. He was the only one besides her mother who knew of the slight deception about the paint. Lately he made simple errors and struggled to lift his shield and sword at the same time. ‘Did you hear me, Dagmar? He means to kill you for real this time.’

Dagmar wiped her fingers on a spare bit of cloth. There was no need to ask who ʽhe’ was—Olafr Rolfson, her mother’s last lover. She’d seen how Olafr undermined her, damning her with faint praise, whilst being outspoken about what he considered was the correct course of action. ‘I can handle him.’

The embers of her mother’s funeral pyre had still been glowing when Olafr had started making noises about sharing a marriage bed with Dagmar. She knew his sudden declaration of overwhelming desire for her had nothing to do with her figure or the curve of her mouth. The whispers of how truly hideous she was had followed her since she was fourteen. Snakes for hair. An overlong nose and pointed chin. A face like a misshapen pile of rocks. A woman no real man could truly desire.

When Olafr persisted with his lies about her beauty, she threatened to forcibly unman any man who tried to warm her bed, including him. He had gone green and had never repeated the request.

‘I need every warrior who is willing to pick up a sword for me.’

‘Pah, you don’t need him that bad.’

‘I gave my word to my mother. Would you have me break my promise with the final season nearly done?’ Dagmar’s throat closed. Her mother had ignored a minor injury until it was too late and the infection raged throughout her body. As she lay dying, she had made Dagmar promise to fulfil her pledge to support Constantine, to get the title to those lands. Land for the men who had shown loyalty to her mother during the lean years and a proper home for her daughter, as she’d vowed when Dagmar was ten. She would hang her sword over the hearth and only bring it down to defend what was hers, instead of using it to further someone else’s ambition. ‘Constantine must honour his pledge.’

‘Your mother knew when a king was not worthy of support. She would not want her only child to be out here, facing these odds. She valued your life above all.’

‘It will be as the gods will.’ Dagmar took her sword, and began the next part of the ritual she always did before going into battle—plaiting her hair so it hung about her face like snakes. ‘Perhaps the Dubh Linn raiders will render this conversation unnecessary. Olafr often leaves his left side exposed.’

‘Make an old man happy—keep an eye on him. You may face more than one enemy today.’

‘I’ve taken care since my tenth name day,’ she said standing up. After her stepmother’s son had been born, the first attack on Dagmar’s life had happened—poison in her stew which her dog had eaten instead of her. A servant had confessed to the entire plot. Her mother had sent the man’s tongue and ears back to her father, but there had been other attempts from men desperate enough to believe her stepmother’s promises of gold if only they’d rid her of her son’s rival.

‘Perhaps you should consider an alliance, marriage to a warrior you can trust, someone who can counter Olafr.’

Dagmar took a practice swing with her sword. It made a satisfactory slicing noise. ‘I don’t need any warrior to counter Olafr. My sword arm remains strong.’

‘Dagmar!’ Olafr called out. ‘Someone asks after you.’

Dagmar swallowed the quick retort when she spied a tall man with dark auburn hair and piercing blue-green eyes, the sort of man who made women go weak at the knees and more than likely knew it. The sort of man who enjoyed a buxom woman in his bed and who would curl his lip at her meagre assets even if they were not bound tightly to her chest.

His clothes immediately proclaimed that he was not from the North. A wolfhound stood by his side. A Gael. Dagmar frowned as she spied the sword stuck in his belt—the hilt resembled one of her father’s, one she remembered from her childhood.

‘Who requires me?’ she said in a snarl, annoyed that she had noticed the breadth of his shoulders.

‘Ah, there you are, Dagmar,’ Olafr said with a smirk. ‘I had wondered if you in your eagerness had already departed for battle.’

Dagmar ignored the jibe. Before her first battle, she had set off early as her mother had been delayed with a split shield. Dagmar’s actions had ensured they surprised the raiders and carried the day. Olafr had not even been part of the felag then. Her mother had found it amusing and the tale had grown with each telling.

Whenever Olafr repeated the tale, he made it seem as though she was some sort of spoilt and naive girl, rather than a shield maiden who had taken a wise course of action and turned the tide of the battle.

‘A visitor before battle?’ Dagmar tapped her sword against her hand.

‘Sweetling...’ Olafr began with another smirk.

Dagmar cut him off with an imperious gesture. ‘My mother bequeathed her men to me. I should’ve been informed immediately when a stranger came into the camp.’

‘Always leaping to the wrong conclusion.’ Olafr’s smile grew broader. ‘I brought him to you. Is it my fault that he encountered me first? If so, I beg your pardon and will turn my back on any other messenger. No, no, I will tell them, I’m but a humble servant who can give no counsel.’

‘Humble is the last thing you are, Olafr.’

‘I know my worth.’ He gave a little swagger. ‘Your mother saw it. Others see it, Dagmar the Blind Shield Maiden.’

Dagmar belatedly wondered if she had fallen into a trap. For all his bluster, Olafr was a capable warrior. Her mother had relied on his counsel during her final few months. On her deathbed, she’d urged Dagmar to do the same. However, there was something about the man which made her flesh crawl.

‘Go on. Why do you seek me out rather than readying your men for battle as I instructed?’

‘This man, Aedan mac Connall, seeks Dagmar Kolbeinndottar. Urgently.’ He bowed. ‘Are you acquainted with such a person? Or shall I send him away to seek her elsewhere?’

Dagmar pressed her lips together. Her stepmother would not send a Gael if her father had died, she would send an assassin to ensure that her son inherited all her father’s holdings, rather than sharing it out equally between his children like the law in the North demanded. Her mother had drummed this into her since the night they fled into the forest with only Old Alf for protection—to be prepared for the knife in the night.

‘I’ve no time for riddles or to slit his throat. More’s the pity. The men need to be ready to march when the trumpet sounds.’ She turned towards the warrior and said very slowly in his tongue. ‘I will lead my men to victory and then we will speak, Gael.’

Olafr raised a brow in that irritatingly smug way of his. ‘It might be worth your while to hear the man out before cutting his throat. No harm, unless you wish to continue with a battle that you must surely lose. You get more impulsive by the day, Dagmar.’

Dagmar ground her teeth. He made it sound as though she was unblooded, rather than being a veteran of five summers’ fighting. She’d stopped being so eager years ago. There was a sort of nervous anticipation, a wanting to get the waiting finished. But after her first experience, she had never been eager for a battle. People she loved died or were injured. Battles were ugly messy things and had to be endured. If today went as she planned, this would be her final one.

‘I gave my word to my mother and she gave hers to the King.’ She crossed her arms over her bound breasts and glared at Olafr. ‘Would you have me break my promise? Would you have me lose my mother’s lands? Would you have me branded an untrustworthy traitor?’

‘What I have to say can wait until you have time.’ Aedan mac Connall made a smooth bow. ‘But it will be in your interest to hear me out before you slit my throat, Dagmar, daughter of both the great Helga and Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe.’

‘If you wish to stay, you must be prepared to fight,’ Dagmar said, her look scathing. ‘We require warriors who are capable of lifting a shield.’

‘My skill with sword and shield has never been in question.’ He raised an arrogant brow. ‘If I fight for you, will you hear me out? Will you listen to your father’s message right to the end? Will you allow me to keep my head attached to my shoulders and breathing?’

Dagmar hated the small shiver of anticipation that ran down her spine. Her father must have heard about her mother’s death. Perhaps he would be open to an alliance now... But then she dismissed the thought as wishful thinking. Her father cared little for her hopes and dreams and everything for his legacy, the one which would go to his son. ‘After the battle, much can happen including listening to my father’s emissary.’

His blue-green eyes assessed her as if he could see the woman beyond the snake-plaited hair and the paint. ‘Very well, my dog and I will fight for you in the coming battle.’

She noted that Olafr appeared to be nonplussed. Perhaps Old Alf was correct—he did intend mischief during the battle. ‘Problem, Olafr?’

He smoothed his face. His smile was far too quick and assured to be genuine. ‘Not in the slightest, Lady. After the battle, you say...’

‘I will fulfil my promise to my mother before I entertain anything else.’ Dagmar grabbed her shield. She felt more in control with it in her hand. Her father’s messenger could wait. What he wanted from her was the least of her concerns. If he died in battle, then the fates will have decided her path. ‘Go to the westernmost edge of the line, Olafr, and fill the gap caused by the loss of Gunnar.’

Olafr’s eyes flashed. ‘I thought I would go more to the right.’

‘Do you wish to challenge me for the leadership of this felag, Olafr?’ she asked, putting a hand on her hip. ‘If so, I would suggest making that challenge before the battle begins. Otherwise allow me to deploy the men as I see fit.’

A tick developed under his right eye. ‘I will go where my lady desires.’

‘What happened to your missing warrior?’ the Gael asked.

‘He ate something which disagreed with him and lurks in his tent with watery bowels,’ she replied, rubbing the back of her neck and trying to get rid of the sudden tightness. ‘As you don’t appear to have a working shield, you may use his, if you are sincere about wishing to assist me. Or return to my father and inform him that I have little time for him. You’re lucky. I’m in a good mood. Did my father inform you of his other messengers’ fate?’

‘I appreciate the shield, Lady.’ The Gael made another bow, perfectly correct, but there was a hint of arrogance in it as if he could make her change her mind about not having anything to do with her father.

‘After the battle, we will talk.’ Silently she prayed to Odin that it would not be necessary to kill this Gael, but anyone sent from her father’s house usually brought trouble.

* * *

Aedan ground his teeth as he waited for the signal that the attack could begin. How Kolbeinn must have chortled when he waved Aedan goodbye. Kolbeinn stood to win whatever the outcome—either the man got his daughter returned or a troublesome enemy was eliminated and his lands acquired. Aedan had gone into this quest blind and naive. A Northman never offered a fair deal. He had little hope in winning this wager without divine intervention.

‘He means to kill her.’ An old man sidled up to Aedan while keeping a wary eye on Aedan’s dog.

‘Who? Olafr Rolfson?’ Aedan asked the grizzled warrior.

The man gave the briefest of nods towards the warrior who had greeted him. ‘Now he has to wait until you have said your piece, to see if it brings him some advantage. He is greedy, that one, make no mistake.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘You’re from her father rather than that witch of a stepmother. You mean to take her back. There is no point denying it or causing your dog to growl at me. I’m far too long in the tooth, but I know the meaning of the sword you carry. Now that her mother has died, I am the only one left who does. You are to be treated like a friend, not an enemy. After all this time, he remembered the signal.’

‘That surprises you?’

The warrior gave a lopsided smile. ‘I know what he is like. His daughter takes after him in many ways, except she wants her way, not his.’

Aedan narrowed his eyes, wondering how much he should confide. ‘My honour and my people depend on me fulfilling this quest.’

The man nodded. ‘I always knew he would send someone honourable one day. Where is the she-witch of a second wife? Quickly now.’

Aedan cocked his head to one side. ‘His wife died. It is why he has sent for his daughter. He wants her near.’

‘A hard woman, that one, but Kolbeinn was obsessed with her. He destroyed his marriage and his daughter’s life to be with her.’ He gestured towards where Dagmar stood, waiting with her sword raised. ‘Her mother bargained her entire life’s work away to keep her daughter safe.’

‘And this is what she considered safe?’ Aedan regarded the woman with the strange blue markings on her face and plaited hair which quivered like snakes when she spoke. From what he could tell she was slender to the point of being mannish under the armour she wore. But she waved her hand with absolute authority.

‘We advance,’ she cried. ‘As long as our shields hold, Constantine holds the field. Thorsten and his Northmen have overreached. We will carry the day and with it, our lands, the lands Constantine has promised. Our servitude is at an end. One more battle. One more victory.’

The men cheered and gave their battle cry and beat their swords against their shields.

‘Can she fight?’ Aedan asked in an undertone.

‘Her mother saw to that. Few men can compete with her. Kolbeinn in his prime, maybe.’ The man shrugged. ‘I do not worry about the enemies in front of her. I worry about the ones behind her. Gunnar drank the goblet Olafr intended for her this morning and now his bowels suffer.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I switched them.’ The old man gave a chuckle. ‘Serves Gunnar right for throwing his lot in with Olafr.’

‘You are her protector.’

‘Helga was far from an easy woman, but I gave her my oath to protect her daughter and I do.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What does her father require from her now that the witch is dead?’

‘He wishes to speak with her. I am to return with her.’

‘Where precisely is Kolbeinn these days?’

‘Out to the west, in command of Colbhasa,’ Aedan said, naming the Hebridean island where most of the Northmen from the Western fleet were based. ‘He requires his daughter by All Hallows or my people will die.’

‘I see your difficulty.’ The old man nodded gravely. ‘She will not go willingly to see her father. But you must first guard against that snake Olafr.’

‘Would Olafr shift his allegiance on the battlefield?’

The man was silent for a long heartbeat. ‘I believe in my heart he is capable of that.’

Aedan nodded. His mission had suddenly become more complicated. Not only did he have to convince Dagmar to meet with her father, he might also have to save her life first.

A horn sounded and the lines moved forward. Out of the corner of his eye Aedan kept a watch on Olafr. He hung back slightly, never quite being part of the action while there was no doubting Dagmar’s courage. She shouted orders, rushed to reinforce the shield wall and encouraged her men to keep going forward.

Slowly, against the odds, it appeared that she was gaining the upper hand in the battle. She was keeping her vow, delivering the victory for Constantine.

* * *

When the battle was at its height, Olafr raised his sword and lifted his shield, shouting for Thorsten over and over again. A sudden hush fell over the battlefield. Aedan froze in mid-swipe of his sword. Immediately several of Dagmar’s men stopped fighting, allowing the shield wall to collapse and the Northmen from the Black Pool to stream through.

‘Treachery!’ someone yelled.

Aedan hacked his way to where Dagmar fought against several warriors. In a matter of heartbeats, she would be dead along with his hopes for his people and their freedom. The sword he carried shattered as he reached her.

He brought the hilt of his broken sword down on the back of her head. She crumpled.

He scooped her unconscious body up. She was slender, but all sinewy muscle, rather than soft womanly curves.

‘You go to her father?’ the old warrior cried.

‘God and the saints willing.’

The man smiled and tossed him a brooch. ‘Look after her. I will distract them. Give her that when she goes to rip out your throat. Tell her that Old Alf kept the faith.’

He gave a shout and went forward, drawing the opposing warriors to him, giving Aedan a corridor to escape.

‘Good.’ Aedan whistled to his wolfhound who bounded forward, snarling. ‘Time to fulfil our vow and return to the West.’

Behind him, he heard the old man’s dying agonies, but he honoured his sacrifice and did not slacken his pace.

Chapter Two

Dagmar slowly struggled from an all-engulfing black pit and tried to make sense of the world. Positively, she lived. She knew that from the faint drizzle which landed on her face and the prickle of pine needles in her back. However, instead of the sounds of battle raging about her, there was a low hum of crickets and the faint chirp of some bird.

She flexed her fingers and toes, relieved everything seemed to work. Her right arm was a bit stiff and her thighs screamed like they always did after a battle.

Her mouth was drier than the sand on the beach below Constantine’s court at St Andrew’s. But mostly, it was the back of her head which pained her, a great searing ache which made her nauseous and threatened to cause the enveloping blackness to return.

She tried to piece together how she’d arrived here but could only remember in snatches—the sword thrust towards her chest that she’d been certain would end her life, the sudden searing pain in the back of her head, the bumpy movement of a galloping horse and the strong arms about her as a low voice told her she would live if she obeyed. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to rid the buzzing noise from her ears.

She cautiously raised herself up on one elbow. A wave of pain rocked her, causing the world to spin and blur, but she fought against it, refusing to return to that black nothingness. Gradually it cleared and her eyes focused.

She lay on a bed of dry leaves and pine needles. From the sky, she reckoned it was nearing owl-light, then she immediately revised her opinion. The world was becoming lighter by the breath. She’d lost at least one day and night. A large multi-coloured wolfhound stood guard over her. Nearby she saw a dark auburn-haired figure sitting on a log, watching her intently. But her men had vanished. Neither were there any horses. She put a hand to her head, trying to remember where she’d seen her captor before.

At her small movement, the man straightened, his hand going to his sword and recognition crashed through her. The Gael! The man who claimed to have a message from her father. The man had kidnapped her! She’d been ten thousand times a fool not to consider such a possibility.

‘Aedan mac Connall!’ she spluttered, but it came out weaker than a kitten’s mewl.

She ground her teeth. Olafr had not required a confrontation; he’d simply arranged for her removal. She had been fooled by the oldest trick in the book. Her father would never have sent a Gael. He despised them. The only mistake Olafr had made was that she still lived. Silently she swore revenge for everything he and this Gael had done.

‘Aedan mac Connall, you’ll pay for what you’ve done!’ she said again, this time with greater force. ‘My men will be massing! Release me at once and you may yet live!’

‘You’re awake and in good voice,’ Aedan mac Connall said, lifting a brow but seemingly unimpressed and unperturbed by her threat. ‘Good. It makes things easier.’

Dagmar’s next snarled threat died in her throat. ‘Easier for whom?’

‘Everyone concerned, but mainly for me.’ He leant forward. ‘I require you to be alive, Dagmar Kolbeinndottar.’

Her hand instinctively searched for a sword, but found none. She cursed under her breath. Someone, probably the Gael, had divested her of her armour. She was simply clad in her trousers and tunic. Nearly defenceless, but her boots with their hidden gold remained on her feet and she possessed a mind if she cared to use it, instead of panicking and behaving like a feeble-minded female.

‘Helgadottar, not Kolbeinndottar,’ she said, curling her hands into impotent fists.

‘Yet your father remains Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe. Changing your parents is a privilege given only to a few.’

Dagmar screwed up her eyes and refused to allow tears to fall. Tears were what other women did, not the daughter of Helga the Red. She concentrated on breathing until she felt in control of her body once again.

The Gael had removed her sword. It was what happened when a person was kidnapped. The kidnappers took steps to secure their prisoner. She needed to stop acting like a thick-headed panic-stricken mouse and formulate a plan for escape.

The Gael wanted her alive and he claimed to be from her father. If her stepmother had sent him, she would be lying in a pool of blood with her life slowly ebbing from her. Small comfort, but a chance for escape would present itself.

‘Where are my men? Where is the High King?’ she asked, fixing him with one of her harder stares. ‘Take me to Constantine immediately. There are things which need to be said before we depart. My father wouldn’t want to anger the High King of the Picts.’

She breathed easier. The Gael would have to see the logic and yield. Once she was back in Constantine’s camp, she would not be going anywhere near her father.

‘Constantine was last seen on a horse headed towards the coast. He lost. A comprehensive defeat. No longer High King of the Picts. Perhaps he remains King of a very small slice of Alba’s eastern shore.’ The Gael rose and dusted down his trousers. ‘Thorsten and his Northmen from the Black Pool now control the Northern Alba, from the isles of Orkney to the Firth of Forth and beyond.’

She winced. Constantine had lost. Badly. The day was getting worse and worse. Her mother’s lands would also be gone. Overrun and parcelled out to some Northern jaarl. ‘And my men? Did any survive?’

‘Those who lived switched sides. Celebrating Thorsten’s historic victory for the north.’

She cursed Olafr under her breath. Old Alf had been correct in his mutterings about betrayal. ‘Who are you?’

‘Your saviour. You were supposed to die on the battlefield. I saved your life.’ His lips curved upwards. ‘You may thank me appropriately later.’

Dagmar balled her fists and struggled to breathe slowly. Saviour? Thank him? How—by sharing his bed? Not likely. Even if he did have shoulders which blocked out the light and long legs that went on for ever. She pressed her hand to her head. The blow was affecting her reason. Men had no interest in her in that way. Her chin was too pointed and her nose too long.

She had no business noticing the Gael as a man. She was dedicated to the arts of war, rather than the pleasures of bed sport.

Her finger drew a line in the dirt. He’d taken away her world. She might as well be dead. She’d lost everything that her mother had worked so hard to achieve. She’d betrayed her final vow to her mother. But she had someone to blame—Aedan mac Connall with that self-satisfied smile on his face, proclaiming he had saved her from certain death by snatching her while the battle still raged.

‘Saved my life?’ The words exploded from deep within her. ‘You kidnapped me in the heat of the battle! I could have fought my way to Thorsten and bested him.’

‘Forgive me, but I was on the battlefield. An axe was aimed at your back as well as a sword at your neck. Your man—that elderly warrior—leapt in front of the sword while I handled the axe. He perished to assist our escape, so you could live.’

The angry words dried in her throat. The man had unerringly found the flaw—why leave her alive if he only meant to kill her at a time of his choosing? ‘Old Alf died?’

‘No man could have survived that scene.’

She silently whispered a prayer for the grizzled warrior who had served her mother and her so faithfully. He’d taught her how to handle a sword and had dried her tears when her mother had become too exacting.

‘Then he is fighting for Odin now as he always wanted to,’ she said around the lump in her throat. Old Alf would be the first to scoff at tears, acting like a fragile female he’d call it, instead of behaving like a warrior. She wiped an eye. ‘A fitting end for him. Good. Old Alf trusted you. Why?’

The Gael shrugged. ‘He understood what I had to do. He urged me to do it. He knew the sword I wore came from your father, the sword which shattered saving your life. Your friend died so that you could live.’

‘My men...’ Dagmar whispered as the lump in her throat had begun to choke her. ‘My men are loyal.’

He lifted a brow. ‘Obviously not as loyal as you might have thought. Some of them betrayed you, led by Olafr. As we were leaving, they shouted for Thorsten while beating their swords against their shields. They turned the tide against Constantine.’

The buzzing in her ears increased. Her men, her mother’s men had betrayed her and broke the fellowship when she needed them the most. How was that even possible? Her mouth tasted bitter. The Gael had to be lying, hoping she’d go quietly to wherever he intended for her to be ransomed.

‘They wanted the land the King promised my mother,’ she said as her gut hollowed out. ‘One more victorious battle and it would have been theirs.’

‘Your mother is dead. Why would Constantine honour that promise even if he could? Or perhaps you know more than I, Shield Maiden.’

Dagmar’s fingers itched for a knife, for anything to wipe the knowing look off his face. He mocked her. She didn’t need telling that competing with her mother was an impossibility. Her mother had been more than an equal to men, a legend in her own time and Dagmar was merely the daughter.

She forced her hand to relax. She had to start behaving like her mother’s daughter, rather than giving in to her desires and curling up in a pathetic ball.

‘How do I know you tell the truth? I take it you conveniently disposed of this shattered sword.’

‘Old Alf gave me this brooch. It apparently belonged to your mother. He entrusted me to get you to safety and that means going to your father.’

He held out her mother’s favourite brooch, the one she had used to fasten her cloak, the one she had handed to Old Alf as she’d breathed her last. Dagmar’s heart twisted. The Gael was telling the truth. Why else would Old Alf have entrusted his most beloved possession to him?

With great difficulty, she rose. The world swirled about her, making her stomach swoop, but she forced her spine to stay erect. ‘I will go to see the High King. I will not allow this insult to go unavenged. Constantine will see sense once I explain the situation. If not for Olafr’s double-dealing, I would have given him victory. I can still do it. Once the land is confirmed, the men will see they made a mistake in betraying me and return to my felag. Without them, Thorsten will find it impossible to hold Northern Alba.’

‘You will go nowhere except where I say you go.’ The Gael snapped his fingers and his giant dog instantly blocked her way. It bared its teeth and gave a low growl. Dagmar retreated several steps.

‘I need to go there and confront the King. Please, call off your dog.’ She hated how her voice trembled on the words. ‘There are women and children’s lives who depend on me making this right. I gave my word to my mother. My first duty is to them.’

‘Your name will be the byword for treachery in Constantine’s camp,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You will not be allowed within ten paces of him. Your life expectancy would be a few breaths at most. I regret I cannot allow you to go there to your death. My people and I need you alive. Afterwards...you may go where you will, but my people come first.’

She swayed slightly. Her name a word for treachery. She rapidly sat down before she fell. ‘I had nothing to do with it. I’m innocent.’

‘Do you think Constantine cares?’ The Gael’s eyes burned fiercely. ‘He needs a scapegoat to blame for his failure and you are a pagan woman warrior, an abomination in the eyes of his priests and counsellors. A woman who lives for blood, rather than her brood. You are no peace-weaver, Dagmar Kolbeinndottar, but a peace-destroyer in his eyes.’

‘And the people who work the lands promised to my mother?’

‘They will do what people always do—work the land for the new overlord, one whom Thorsten appoints.’

‘Or they will depart, hoping to find refuge.’ She held out her arms and willed him to understand. ‘I must be able to offer them that refuge.’

‘You can do little for them if you are dead.’

She hugged her arms about her waist, hating that Aedan mac Connall’s words made sense. She had heard the whispers from Constantine’s priests about her and her mother, but always Constantine had refused to listen. She and her mother were his favourite weapon, the unbeatable combination who kept the Northmen from Dubh Linn from gaining sway over his lands. She had almost achieved her goal—her own estate with plenty of land for her men. But that was before. Before she had lost this battle. Before Constantine had been badly humiliated.

‘You appear to know a great deal about what that future holds.’

‘I know what Constantine and the Picts are like,’ the Gael said with a faint smile. ‘I know their prejudices. How little they think of the Northmen. I heard the mutterings as we escaped. Thankfully they were too busy trying to save their hides to worry about a single man leading a pack horse with a dog trotting alongside.’

‘We were winning. I sensed the shield wall beginning to break. A few feet more...’ She put her hand to her head as the blackness threatened to overwhelm her again. She had nearly tasted victory, victory which was hers alone, rather than sharing part of her mother’s triumph. ‘Or at least I think it was like that. My recollections are hazy.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you think or sensed.’ He banged his fists. ‘My task is to take you alive to your father by All Hallows. Therefore, we will not be journeying to Constantine or your lands or anywhere else you might think will serve your purpose first. We go to Colbhasa and your father.’

‘My father cares nothing for me. He turned his back on me a long time ago. He requires sons, not daughters.’ Dagmar crossed her arms. There, she had said the words out loud, words which had been written on her soul on her tenth name day.

‘Your mother hid you from him. She actively kept the two of you apart. She made sure you received no word from him. The old warrior who perished asked me to tell you that. Said it would calm you down.’

The stark words were hammer blows to her heart. Trust the Gael? Old Alf might have, but she saw no reason to. She could never trust her father—not after how he’d treated her mother and her, after he chose her stepmother and her swollen belly over them. And despite her stepmother’s prophetic dreams about bearing her father many warriors, the woman had produced only one sickly son.

Gunnar’s mysterious illness should have warned her that Old Alf had spoken true about Olafr’s attempts to betray her, but she’d ignored his warnings. All she had needed was one good victory to cement her position, gain the land she required—what she had achieved, instead, was a resounding defeat. Everything had slipped through her fingers. Her life had become the dregs of the pond as her stepmother had predicted it would—the only words the witch had ever spoken directly to her. ‘I’ll listen to what you say, Gael, before I decide.’

‘Will you behave yourself?’ he asked. ‘Or does my dog have to keep you in check?’

‘Do I have any choice?’

‘Not really.’ He gave a smile which was like the sun breaking through the mist on an autumn morning. ‘Be content with breathing, Dagmar.’

‘I would like to carve Olafr Rolfson’s heart out. I would like to slit his throat and leave him to die slowly and in great pain.’ She shook her head and tried to control her temper. ‘But I have to approach it sensibly. However, I, Dagmar Helgadottar, promise you that one day those men will pay for what they have done. I will honour my fallen friends. They may have seemed like men who failed to you, but they were my friends and comrades. Some of them I had known since I was a little girl. I’ll not forget them. Nor will I let their sacrifice be in vain.’

‘A good and worthy sentiment provided you can bend the future to your will.’

She could hear the scepticism in his voice.

‘It will happen.’ She leant forward. ‘Tell me why my father suddenly requires me? Why he sent a Gael to do his dirty work?’

‘Maybe he expects you to save him the trouble of killing me.’

Dagmar screwed up her nose, considering the words. The Gael had a point. Her father was capable of such treachery. ‘I am not inclined to do anything my father wants. I’m pleased I spared your life earlier.’

‘That makes two of us.’

‘My father hasn’t wanted anything to do with me for over ten years.’ She lifted her chin proudly. ‘He only thinks of his other family, his son that he had with that woman.’

‘Nevertheless, he sent me.’ Aedan held out a gold ring with a double-axe motif engraved in it and struggled to keep his temper. The woman should be on her knees in gratitude to him. He had saved her life. She owed him a life debt.

He knew her type. He had encountered Northern women over the years. Invariably they were proud and stubborn, inclined to argue rather than accepting his word. And this one was the worst—the most stubborn and pig-headed. She rivalled her father in that.

‘His token. Kolbeinn said it would be enough. You would understand that I came from him.’

She looked at it warily as if it was a snake which might bite her. ‘My father sent you. Truly? Not my stepmother?’

‘I’ve never encountered your stepmother,’ Aedan said truthfully. There would be time enough to explain about the death of Kolbeinn’s second wife and, more importantly, her son’s. It amazed him that she remained in ignorance of these events, but if she kept slitting messengers’ throats, what could she expect?

She was silent for a long while. The tattooed whorls on her cheeks trembled. ‘That is my father’s ring. He did indeed send you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going with you like a lamb to the slaughter.’

Aedan clung on to his temper with the barest of threads. If he could have rid himself of this burden, he would have. ‘What other options do you have?’

She lifted her chin. ‘Plenty. Give me time and I will detail them to you.’

Mor stiffened, gave a low growl and began backing into the undergrowth. Every muscle in Aedan’s body stiffened.

‘Is there a problem with your dog? I haven’t moved,’ she asked, cocking her head to one side.

Without giving her a chance to react, Aedan clamped his hand over her mouth and pulled her into the undergrowth, next to where his dog crouched. His body hit hers and somewhere in his mind he registered that Dagmar Kolbeinndottar was made up of far more curves than he had originally thought.

Her furious blue eyes stared back at him. Without the facial decoration, she would be pretty.

‘Listen with your ears. Stop struggling,’ he muttered. ‘My dog has heard something. I trust her instincts far more than your prattling.’

She pressed her mouth shut and lay still, her skin pale against the blue whorls.

‘Can’t believe we are searching for the Gael,’ came one voice, far closer than Aedan would have liked.

‘Olafr wants to make sure the Shield Maiden is dead. He didn’t find her body,’ another said. ‘Just her armour.’

‘I’m sure I heard a woman’s voice coming from around here.’

‘You hear women’s voices all the time. Why should this be any different?’

Five Northmen barged into the clearing. Aedan’s other hand inched towards his sword.

‘If she is around, she’ll be dead easy to spot.’ The man gave a guffaw. ‘How many women do you know who sport blue whorls and snakes in their hair? Nah, she’ll be dead.’

‘What do you think that was all about anyway?’ asked the voice.

‘Her mother had the whorls as well. Maybe she was born with them.’

‘Tattoos more like. After her first battle. I was there. I smelt the stench of burning flesh. And they ain’t no snakes, just plaits. By Loki, some people are gullible.’

‘All I know is that it is beginning to rain again. They didn’t go this way. Let’s get back to camp. At least we found a horse and if they have gone into the marshes they’re goners. It ain’t no one who can survive that.’

‘Wee Davy...’

‘Wee Davy has a big mouth for tall tales, but the Gael went north, I know that for a fact.’

‘Why?’

‘He came from the north. There ain’t no way man nor beast can get through what lies due west—those marshes are full of spirits who sup on the souls of the living.’

‘Aye. If the Shield Maiden has gone in there, it’ll be the last we see of her. She will have left the horse here as a diversion and taken the road north. It is the only way.’

‘We will catch her and claim the reward. She can’t hide those tattoos.’

Aedan breathed a sigh of relief as the group disappeared back the way they came. He waited, holding his body and hers completely still until the footsteps had faded.

He slowly took his hand away from Dagmar’s mouth and rolled away. ‘Believe me now?’

‘About Olafr’s treachery?’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Can there be any doubt? Your words hold merit, Gael. To stay in the lands Thorsten controls is to court death.’

Aedan released a breath. One hurdle overcome. Now for the rest. ‘I’ve spent long enough chasing after you. Time slips through my fingers. We go now.’

‘How close are we to the battle?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I thought we were far enough away. You were beginning to stir when I stopped. I didn’t know how hard I hit you.’

‘And the horse?’

‘One I stole. I let it go free. Obviously someone recognised it.’

She nodded. ‘You did well there, Gael.’

Aedan rubbed the back of his neck, unable to decide if she was serious or being ironic. ‘We go across the marshes from here. The horse would only have slowed us down.’

‘Those men said that it would be certain suicide. Spirits inhabit those marshes.’

‘They’re wrong. There is a way through and we will take it.’

‘Are you touched in the head?’ She slapped her hands together. ‘Don’t answer that. Of course you are, why else brave a battle with only a dog? Gods help me.’

‘A large portion of my family might agree with you, but I like to think that I take calculated risks. The marsh is a calculated risk.’ Aedan shifted the pack on to his other shoulder. ‘Are you ready?’

Dagmar remained where she stood, fingering her cheek with a thoughtful expression.

He sighed. ‘What else does my lady fair require afore we depart?’

‘I require clean water, and I’m not some fragile spoilt flower of a lady. I’m a shield maiden. Remember that.’

‘If you’re thirsty, I’ve the dregs of small beer remaining.’

‘To wash the paint off my face, of course. Once I no longer sport blue whorls on my face and snakes in my hair, then we can travel on the road right under Olafr’s nose.’ She gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘I do have ears. They search for a woman with blue and black circles tattooed on her face and tightly plaited hair. Both things are easy to change.’

He started. ‘Your whorls are not tattoos? In Bernicia I was told—’

She gave her first real smile. ‘Amazing what people will believe without questioning. How could anyone have venomous snakes for hair?’

Aedan frowned. He’d believed it simply because it was a rumour. He should have thought to question. Or when she was unconscious, to check for himself. Fundamental mistake. ‘It is what I was told.’

‘My mother refused to permit the tattoos as one day I might have cause to change my mind. I railed against her, but to no avail. I was going to make them permanent after I’d fulfilled my vow and won my lands,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Once again I see her wisdom and foresight.’ She picked up a handful of moss and made an imperious gesture. ‘The water, Gael. The sooner my face is clean, the sooner we can depart on the road north.’

Aedan stared at her. ‘I’m not your servant.’

‘No, but you’re my father’s. Why else wouldn’t you have a horse?’

It was on the tip of his tongue to her inform her of the truth that he owned estates and many horses on Ile, but then he decided that it was not worth it. Their acquaintance wouldn’t be longer than strictly necessary. The less she knew of him and his true reasons for the quest to find her and return her to her father, the better.

‘Why indeed?’ he murmured instead. Leaving Mor to guard his reluctant companion, he fetched water from the edge of the mist-shrouded marsh.

She poured it on the moss and began to rub her face. Rivulets of blue and black trickled down her cheeks and neck. He shook his head, disgusted with his blindness. ‘Paint. Such a simple, obvious trick.’

‘But highly effective.’ She concentrated on removing the paint. ‘It gave my face a fierceness that men respected.’

She dried her face on the corner of her tunic. Then, with quick fingers, she undid the tight plaits in her hair so that it hung about her face like a golden wavy cloud.

‘Do I look like the same woman?’

Aedan tried not to gape in surprise. The woman who regarded him had a certain vulnerability to her mouth. Her other features were a bit angular, but her skin was no longer stretched tight from the plaits. Before he’d only noticed the strange whorls of the tattoos; now he noticed her—and very delectable she was, too. Aedan struggled to remember when he had last seen a woman with skin that translucent. It was little wonder that her mother had kept Dagmar’s beauty hidden, surrounded as she was by so many men.

‘It will make it easier to travel unnoticed,’ he said, busying himself with checking the pack. His body’s intense reaction to her was because he’d been without a woman for far too long, that was all. ‘The marsh awaits, my lady fair.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘But there is no need. I have disguised myself.’

‘We must still go through the marshes. The mist is lifting. We need to make the most of the daylight.’

‘Those men spoke the truth. They are treacherous. People have perished. Several of my mother’s men lost their way last spring and only one body was ever found.’ She gave her imperious nod as if she expected him to obey her without question.

Aedan gritted his teeth. She would soon learn he was no brainless servant who would fawn over her every utterance.

‘We go around,’ she proclaimed, tilting her chin arrogantly upwards. ‘To the south, rather than to the north if we must.’

‘My dog has an excellent nose. She got me through them before. She will get us through again.’ He forced his tone to be gentle as though he was soothing a frightened horse. ‘If Olafr believes you survived, he will check all the roads. He will know that you will make for your father.’

She was silent for a long time. ‘Olafr knows that would be my last resort. He might consider the south and Halfdan at Eoforwic. My mother had dealings with him six warring seasons ago. The road south will be difficult, but he won’t be looking for me when I look like this.’

‘Who do you resemble?’

She lowered her brow. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘Your mother may have confided the paint trick to him. You can’t discount it.’

‘I look like my father’s mother except for my hair.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I get that from my mother’s mother.’ She tapped her finger against the dusky pink of her mouth. ‘But you’ve a point. He has obviously been planning this for some time. My mother may have been foolish and confided our secret to him. She was besotted. I underestimated him before, but I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘He knows your father sent me,’ he reminded her. ‘He is searching for the both of us.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘We go through the marshes, even if I have to carry you every step of the way.’

‘I can walk.’

‘I carried you before.’

‘Across the back of a horse, a horse which is presently elsewhere. I can make it difficult for you, Gael. Give in to my sensible request. I tend to win.’

That he did not doubt. Her strong jawline told of an inner strength and stubbornness.

‘It is best that we are gone before they work out their mistake. Before the mist comes down. Unless you wish to throw yourself on Olafr’s mercy, you will join me.’

He whistled for Mor and started off. His heart thumped in his ears. She had to believe the bluff. He couldn’t afford to leave her, but going through the marshes would save precious time and the one commodity he lacked was time if he was to beat Kolbeinn at his game.

‘Are you abandoning me?’ Her voice held a plaintive note.

‘I’m going the way which leads to safety, the only way open to us. Decide—do you want to live to enact your revenge against Olafr or do you wish to die, slowly and painfully?’

‘Wait! I’ll brave the marshes,’ she called.

Chapter Three

Dagmar carefully picked her way through the bog with its squelching mud and hidden pools of bad water, following in the Gael’s footsteps, trying not to think about all the tales and legends she had heard about this place.

Old Alf had delighted in reciting them when they skirted around it earlier in the season—tales of unquiet ghosts and elves who lured men into the deep where they drowned. A king’s army had once ridden in and had never been seen again. However, on the days when the mist rolled out, then the sound of their dying cries echoed across the land.

She concentrated on the Gael’s broad shoulders and the way his cloak swung instead. The man moved far too arrogantly as if the entire world should bow to him. Women probably melted under his gaze and populated his bed. She’d encountered the type before. Her body’s earlier reaction to the Gael was definitely a result of the blow to her head. She’d be immune to him from now on.

‘Does your dog have a name?’ she called out when the Gael halted beside a particularly malodorous bog. She was certain he’d chosen to stop there simply to be awkward. The Gael was like that.

The mist had started to rise, obscuring even the limited view. The small wisps of cold resembled humans with outstretched hands. A few loons called out over the marsh, sounding precisely like men begging for help.

‘Mor,’ he answered without bothering to glance back. ‘My dog is called Mor. She is a wolfhound and dislikes imperious people from the north.’

‘I’m not imperious!’

He raised a brow. ‘That is for my dog to decide.’

Since they had entered the marshes, he had not bothered really to see if she was keeping up. It was only because his dog Mor kept stopping, turning to look at her every so often and occasionally returning to her to nudge her hand and prevent her from stepping in thick oozing mud, that she remained alive and not lost for ever in the growing mist. Something else to hold against him. Soon he’d have to admit that this trek was impossible and they’d have to retrace their steps and go the way she’d suggested in the first place. She wasn’t imperious, she simply had better ideas and wasn’t afraid to say so.

‘Mor as in big or Mor as in Sarah?’ she asked to keep her mind away from the way the mist had shrouded the few scrubby trees which suddenly punctuated the landscape.

He stopped so suddenly that she nearly bumped into him. ‘Of course, you know Gaelic. I forgot that you spoke to me in Gaelic when we first met. How did you learn it?’

‘My nurse when I was little was a Gael.’ Dagmar looped a strand of damp hair about her ear. ‘It was her name. Mor like Sarah.’

His brows drew together in a fierce frown. He cursed loud and long. ‘One of the captured women, forced to work for the Northmen, but all the while longing to be free.’

She concentrated on a tuft of dead grass. He made it seem as though it was somehow wrong to have had a nurse. ‘Thralls exist. Even the Picts and the Gaels have them. Estates could not function without workers. If you know of a better way, do tell me. My mother had other duties and both her mother and my father’s mother were dead, long before I was born. Someone had to look after me when I was little.’

She waited with a thumping heart. She did not doubt that if he could, the Gael would abandon her here. She had to be grateful that his desire for payment from her father was greater than his loathing of the people from the north.

‘Even so, the Northmen have captured too many of our women. My aunt disappeared before I was born. She never returned. There were rumours about my grandfather selling her, but I know the truth.’

‘Just as you supposedly knew the truth about my hair and tattoos?’

‘That is different.’

Dagmar regarded the ground and wished she had never said anything. The Gael obviously despised her and her kind. At least her mother had never sunk so low as to become a snatcher of women. ‘And you’re certain it was Northmen.’

‘From Dubh Linn, from the Black Pool, according to my mother. They came in their ships and took her.’

‘We have been at war with the Northmen from the Black Pool for as long as I can remember. My mother despised them and what they did to women,’ Dagmar said fiercely.

‘What happened to your nurse?’

‘My nurse was a second mother to me. Mor in the north tongue means mother and she truly was kind and loving. I revere her memory.’ Dagmar hated how her voice caught. Mor had been one of the few people to show tenderness to her, drying her eyes when she failed at her lessons.

‘How convenient.’

Ignoring the Gael and his ill humour, she went and knelt beside the dog, holding out her hand and softly called her name. Mor the dog sniffed her outstretched palm and then gave it a tentative lick with a rough tongue. ‘Mor, I mean you no harm. I’m grateful for your nose which has led us thus far and I pray to Thor and Freyja that you lead us to safety.’

Mor cocked her head to one side and gave a small woof with a wag of her tail.

‘She approves of you,’ the Gael said with a frown.

‘As someone from the north, I’m honoured not to be considered imperious.’

‘It takes time for her to fully trust someone.’

Dagmar attempted a smile. ‘Like her master.’

He gestured towards the thickening mist. The bog in front of them looked particularly treacherous. The gesture revealed the breadth of his shoulders and the power in his arms. ‘Shall we get going?’

Dagmar gave the dog one last pat. ‘You’ll get us through, won’t you? You won’t allow the elves who lurk in such places to capture me.’

‘There are no such things as elves.’

‘Says the man who believed a woman could have snakes for hair.’

Mor woofed in response and started off, picking her way through the oozing mud and pools with complete assurance.

Dagmar concentrated on following the dog and ignoring the Gael. He was a temporary irritation. She would get rid of him as soon as she no longer required his dog.

He stopped abruptly and she banged into him.

‘What happened to your nurse after you finished with her?’ the Gael asked, breaking the uneasy silence that had sprung up between them.

‘Do you truly want to know?’

‘Yes. I’ve no idea what happened to my aunt. I made enquiries, but discovered only silence. I’ve accepted that I will never know. Maybe your nurse’s fate is hers. Maybe she did find some measure of happiness.’

Dagmar gave a careful shrug. How much to tell? She had learned that lesson long ago that no one needed her life story, particularly about things which had happened before the divorce, the bloody battle between her mother and her father’s chosen champion and then their terrifying flight off her father’s lands through the dark forest.

Her mother hated her talking about it and had once slapped her face when she discovered Dagmar clinging on to the small carved doll Mor had slipped her as they’d parted. The slap had startled her mother and she was instantly sorry, hugging Dagmar and weeping in a dreadful way that she’d never heard before or since. But Dagmar had learned her lesson—she never mentioned her nurse after that and she threw the doll away before her mother spied it again.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she confessed. ‘My Mor was one of the people I left behind when my mother and I departed my father’s lands. I presume she looked after my half-brother. She was a good woman who loved babies. For years, I used to recite her stories in order to get to sleep at night.’

Her throat closed. She could hardly explain how much that woman had meant to her, not to this man. He would only laugh at her. He wouldn’t understand that until the divorce, her mother had been so distracted with the demands of the running the estates and settling disputes, she’d had little time for wiping Dagmar’s tears when she skinned her knee or when her threads tangled or when she woke from bad dreams.

‘No, I’ve no idea what happened to my nurse,’ she reiterated instead. ‘If my mother knew, she kept it to herself.’

‘You’ll soon find out, if you are bothered. Perhaps she will have remained with your father’s family. Perhaps you can do the decent thing and prevail on your father to return her to her kin. She may have a home with my people if her kin have vanished.’

‘I am bothered and it is always best to see what a person desires before making decisions for them,’ she said. ‘You have given me a good reason to look forward to getting to Colbhasa. I thank you for that kindness.’

The Gael grunted.

‘My father must have given you a reason for bringing me back. You must have some idea,’ she said to keep her mind away from the potential reunion with Mor and the fact that she desperately wanted to see her again. She wanted to believe that Mor had been well treated and rewarded for staying with her father. Her mother had forbidden any talk of her previous life when they left the compound on Bjorgvinfjord.

Your life before must be as nothing, keep your face turned to the future.

‘You must ask him when we arrive on Colbhasa. He failed to inform me of the specific reasons, but he is eager to see you and the sort of woman you have become. It was part of the message he sent.’

‘May I hear the precise message?’ She pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders. ‘I was rude earlier and I apologise. My only excuse was that the battle was about to begin.’

‘It has been overtaken by subsequent events, but here goes.’ The Gael stared out at the marshes, rather than looking at her. ‘Your father requires that you attend him on Colbhasa immediately. He has much to say to you and is eager to see you again after all these years. He wants to see the sort of woman you have become. Do as he requires without delay and all will be well.’

Her mind buzzed. That part of her which had remained a little girl who adored her father wanted desperately for it to be true, that her father had belatedly remembered her and the way they used to be. Just as quickly she remembered the bitter parting—at her stepmother’s urging, he had given them until nightfall to leave his lands or be hunted like wolf’s heads—people who could be slaughtered without having to pay a blood price to their next of kin because they were vermin and not fit to live. Then he’d turned his back on them.

He would want to dictate her future and who she’d marry, but he would soon learn that she was the one who would choose what happened to her. She had earned that right. The Gael would also discover that her fate ran along a different path from the one her father plotted for her, and she looked forward to seeing his face when he realised it irrevocably.

She caught the Gael’s arm. ‘Why does my father want to see the sort of woman I have become? He has another child, a son.’

His eyes blazed and he pulled away from her as if her touch burnt him. ‘His son has died. A snake bite. None could save him. Kolbeinn’s wife claimed it was your mother’s curse. After your half-brother was born, all her other children were either stillborn or died shortly after birth.’

‘Was my brother a robust child?’

‘It doesn’t matter if he was. He is no longer alive.’

Her half-brother, the boy she had never met. The one whose existence had changed hers irrevocably. And now his death was about to change it again, if she allowed it. Her father wanted to secure his legacy. He would certainly have a warrior in mind for her to marry.

She glanced at the Gael and rejected the idea. After what had happened, her father would never risk his chosen bridegroom on retrieving her. This Gael was simply the messenger, the one whose throat she had been supposed to slit. She’d acted like his unwitting executioner.

‘I won’t pretend sorrow.’ Dagmar lifted her chin up. ‘I never knew him. I’m sorry that my father is upset. Tell him that. Tell him that I’ve become a fine and honourable warrior, but I am required elsewhere.’

He inclined his head. ‘You will have the opportunity to tell him that yourself when we reach his hall.’

‘I won’t be seeing him. You may take me back, but it’ll be my stepmother who deals with me. I know who runs that household. Similar sorts of messages have arrived in the past. They were all designed to lure me and my mother into a false sense of security before they attempted to end my life. The messengers all came from my stepmother, rather than my father. Old Alf knew, but how he knew, I couldn’t say.’

Dagmar swallowed hard, remembering how her mother had dispatched one of the messengers and sent the head back—the one who demanded Dagmar make a marriage alliance with a man old enough to be her grandfather, but who had also concealed a knife in his boot.

Her mother had believed that Dagmar should be able to follow her destiny of being a great warrior, rather than being trapped into any sort of marriage.

‘I carried your father’s sword, a parting gift from your father’s current mistress. Old Alf understood its intended meaning.’ A dimple flashed his cheek. ‘He said that he was the only one left who remembered the signal your father had agreed with him.’

‘And how would his mistress know such a thing?’

‘Who knows? She is an older woman.’ The Gael shrugged. ‘I didn’t realise its import myself until I met Old Alf.’

Dagmar clenched her fists. Just when she was starting to feel charitable towards the Gael, he said something so arrogant and short-sighted that it took her breath away. ‘What is it about that particular sword? What is its meaning?’

The tone she used would have her men running for cover, but the Gael dusted an imaginary speck from his cloak as he shook his head as if her antics had no more significance than Mor chasing her tail round and round.

‘Kolbeinn’s wife has died. She lost the will to live when her son died and faded away. I believe the sword signifies that you are no longer in danger.’

Dagmar’s jaw dropped and she staggered back a step, only avoiding falling into a puddle because the Gael’s hand shot out and hauled her back. She shook him off. ‘Dead? My stepmother has perished?’

‘You could see her funeral pyre blazing away across the seas.’

Her stepmother and her son were both dead. The words hammered against her brain. The witch who had featured in her nightmares, the woman who had vowed that she would ensure that Dagmar would not take anything from her children was dead. She no longer had to fear the killers in the night.

‘Forgive me. My head pains me.’ She sank down heavily on a rock and stared at the vast marsh which stretched out in front of her. A faint mist rose off the many pools of water. ‘I can’t pretend anything but joy at the news. She wanted me dead. For the past ten years, I’ve expected an assassin, not a saviour.’

‘Your father wants you alive and with him. Now. I can’t answer for the past.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. To prevent her from running away or to give comfort? Dagmar found that she didn’t care. She drew comfort from it. The last person to touch her like that had been her mother before she’d faced her first battle. ‘Will you come quietly now? Meet him with an open mind?’

‘Does he know about my mother’s death?’ she asked, standing up and moving away from him and the dangerous comfort he offered.

‘He made no mention of it. Kolbeinn kept certain information close to his chest.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘He has his reasons. Mayhap he wanted rid of a thorn in his side and I was foolish enough to take him up on the offer. I arrogantly considered I could win the wager without too much trouble.’

‘Wagering with my father is unwise.’

Dagmar tapped a finger against her mouth. She could see her father’s reasoning for the wager. He won either way—if she eliminated Aedan mac Connall, he got rid of someone troublesome, but if Aedan returned with her, he gained control of his daughter and his legacy, but it still added up to the end of her dream of independence. He would not understand her desire to stay a shield maiden. He would marry her off to his chosen warrior and increase his own power and prestige. She simply had to figure out a way to get what she desired.

A sudden suspicion made her miss her step. Mor instantly stopped and looked back at her, giving a low woof. The Gael instantly stopped. ‘Why did he choose you, a Gael, and not one of his men? What reason did he give you?’

His eyes grew shadowed. ‘I failed to enquire closely enough it would seem. I was simply grateful of the opportunity.’

‘Why?’ She pressed her hands against her eyes. ‘Surely you have to know the fate of the other messengers. Why risk your life for the promise of gold? You had best tell me all the terms. My father can be trickier than Loki.’

He gave a half-smile. ‘The fate of those other men was hidden from me. We wagered about a debt I owe him. I fulfil the wager and the debt is forgiven. Additionally I get an amount in gold equal to what I owe him if I return with you in the allotted time. He has kept hostages to ensure that I do as he commands. Time marches ever closer to All Hallows.’

Dagmar winced. All Hallows was in a little over a week. She could begin to understand now why this Gael was willing to brave the marshes. ‘What happens if you return with me outside the time?’

‘I lose and become his personal slave and everything I own will belong to him.’

‘How came you to owe him the debt?’

‘It was my brother’s doing. I inherited it when he died.’

‘And you pay your debts.’

‘Being beholden to anyone causes difficulties particularly when they appear with longships, ready to raid.’ His face became grimly set. Dagmar silently cursed her father. Typical of the man. He used others to enforce his will. ‘I will not allow Mhairi or her brothers to remain enslaved.’

‘Who is this Mhairi?’

‘A woman I know.’

‘Your wife?’

‘I’m unmarried, but she volunteered to be a hostage rather than allowing Kolbeinn to make his choice from the women. Her brothers went along to protect her honour. You must admire her courage.’

Dagmar nodded. This Mhairi had sacrificed herself for the Gael with the broad shoulders and the eyes to drown in, even if he refused to admit it. ‘I’d have done that for my mother. This woman has feelings for you.’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Mhairi did it for her people, for Kintra, our home, and not for me. She has a deep abiding love for the place and wishes to keep it free from the north. It is what she proclaimed in front of everyone and I’ve no reason to doubt her.’

She nodded again, seeing the sense of it but also knowing there was something that the Gael kept back. Once she had found that out, she’d use it. Right now, without a weapon to defend herself and an army searching for her, she required a protector. One man and his dog. The odds were less than brilliant, but she needed someone on her side and that someone had to be the Gael Aedan mac Connall.

‘My father wants me alive?’ she asked, hardly daring to believe it after so many years. It was only down to her stepmother’s death, but it was more than she had expected. She silently vowed that she would make him see that she would lead the life she had chosen, rather than following whichever path he had chosen.

‘Yes, he does. Very much so. Remember he arranged that sword signal with your friend to keep you safe.’

‘Good to know.’ Dagmar held out her hand. ‘I accept your protection. We travel together once the marshes finish. I will not allow others to be enslaved while I go free.’

He put his fingers about hers—sure and strong. She felt safe as if someone had thrown a warm blanket over her. Dagmar rapidly withdrew her hand.

‘How fares your head?’ he asked. ‘It must hurt like the devil.’

‘It aches as though someone hit me with a very hard object, but I can keep going. I learned a long time ago that the world does not wait for my aches. There are far more important considerations than my discomfort.’

The Gael...no...Aedan mac Connall grunted. It would be easy to start liking him. ‘Good.’

‘We have miles to go before we can sleep,’ she said quickly before she made a fool of herself and confessed how hard trudging through this ghost land was for her. She had to trust this Gael and his dog would find a way out and trust came hard for her as well.

* * *

Aedan glanced back at Dagmar. Her face was pale and intense. Against all expectation, she had trudged through the marsh with barely a murmur. She was far tougher than any other woman he’d ever encountered, and he included Mhairi and his former sister-in-law, Liddy, in that group.

Liddy possessed a different sort of courage, one which he had not fully appreciated until after his brother fell in battle as he single-handedly charged the enemy line and the truth about the boating accident where his niece and nephew were drowned had been revealed. And he’d never thought much of Mhairi until she’d volunteered to be a hostage. But she had done so without shedding a tear or hesitation, declaring that her faith would keep her safe until he had completed his quest. To his eternal regret, he hadn’t appreciated the depth of her feeling for Kintra until that moment.

‘We will stop at the hut. I passed it when I travelled to the east. We still have a long way to go.’

She shaded her eyes and squinted. ‘Are you sure it is there?’

‘I can make out the outlines. We can stop and beg some food.’

‘Steal it, you mean.’

Aedan shook his head in mock despair. ‘Typical Northern response.’

‘You were the one who stole the horse.’

‘That was different.’

She gave a pointed cough. ‘Different how?’

‘There wasn’t time to seek the owner and ask permission,’ Aedan said between gritted teeth. This infuriating woman had a way of twisting things and getting under his skin.

She gave a brilliant smile which transformed her features. His breath caught in his throat. There was something about the hazy light, the damp cloud of golden curls and her smile which did strange things to his insides. His body, which had seemed encased in ice since his former fiancée Brigid’s betrayal, was starting to thaw rapidly. ‘I am very glad you did.’

A strand of her hair touched his fingers. He cleared his throat. ‘The hut. It is where we stop tonight.’

‘I’ll race you.’

‘Mind the oozing mud.’

He caught her arm and prevented her from slipping and falling. A jolt of awareness coursed through him. He released her abruptly.

‘Having come this far, I’ve no wish to lose you to a sink hole.’

She put her hand over where he had held her. Her eyes grew wide. ‘I didn’t see it. I guess I need a protector in more ways than one.’

‘Next time look before you race off.’

Her laugh rang out over the marshes. ‘Now you sound like my old nurse. She used to be always hauling me back from one thing or another.’

‘It has been a long day.’ A long day was reason enough for his unexpected reaction to her. Kolbeinn wanted his daughter back. More than likely to marry her off and secure his legacy. He would want his daughter untouched. Aedan gritted his teeth. There would be more repercussions for his people if he gave in to this attraction for her and he had already caused them enough sorrow. He had to focus on the important things. Mhairi had sacrificed herself without hesitation or expectation. He should be thinking about her and making her his wife, instead of desiring this infuriating witch of a woman. But Mhairi had never sent his blood racing like this shield maiden did.

‘You have done well.’

‘High praise indeed,’ she said drily.

* * *

Dagmar’s stomach gave a loud rumble when they reached the hut, reminding her that it had been some time since she had last eaten. Dead grasses and leaves were blown against the door and the roof exhibited a gaping hole. Closer inspection revealed that the far wall had tumbled down.

‘Shelter for the night,’ Aedan said. ‘Better than sleeping completely out in the open with the rain and midges for company.’

She hated that her dismay must have shown on her face and that he was being kind. Aedan mac Connall was a far easier proposition to hate when he was being officious. ‘It makes it easier that no one is here. No awkward questions. No half-truths to remember.’

‘Sit with Mor by the hut. I will fetch supper.’

‘Oh, you can magic it up out of thin air, can you?’

‘I’m a man of many talents.’ He gave a bow and set off.

Mor flopped down at Dagmar’s feet. When Dagmar made a move to go into the hut, she gave a low growl and shook her head.

‘Shall we be friends? I could use a friend.’ Dagmar held out her hand again. ‘Without you, I’d have been lost.’

The dog gave a cautious sniff before settling her head on her paws.

‘Your master is right,’ Dagmar said, leaning back against the wall and allowing the pale sun which cautiously peeped through the mist to warm her face. She had forgotten what it was like simply to sit. Ever since her mother had died, she had not had a moment to spare. ‘Going through the marshes saves us time. Olafr will suspect that we are making for my father’s, though. The question is—does he realise that I am my father’s sole heir now? Had my mother confided in him about the sword signal? Could it be something he hid from me? Thinking that I’d marry him? He certainly seemed perturbed by your master’s appearance.’

Mor exhaled a loud breath of air which Dagmar took for a ‘yes, you idiotic human’ noise.

She had made the mistake of underestimating Olafr before. She could not afford to make that mistake again. Olafr remained her most potent enemy now that her stepmother was dead.

There was a possibility that Olafr would show up on Colbhasa and spin a convincing tale, something her father would believe and put her in danger, but that was a problem for the future.

Reaching her father was her best hope of long-term survival. Once there, she could make him see that she was equal to any of his warriors, that she could fight for his felag. Marriage to some unknown warrior with more muscles than brains was not inevitable. She could demonstrate to her father that her mother had kept her promise and had ensured her child could compete with the best warriors. Then she could wreak revenge on Olafr. And after that was done, she’d find the peace she’d sought. Some day she would sit with the sun warming her face and nothing more pressing to worry about than harvesting the crops.

‘You needn’t fear, you know. I’ll go to Colbhasa, but I’ll find a way to make the sort of life I want.’

‘Talking to yourself or the dog?’ Aedan reappeared carrying several trout.

Her stomach rumbled. She hated to think how long it had been since she’d had a proper meal.

‘That was fast.’

‘It is easy when you know how to fish. A line and hook is all I require. Simple.’

‘A man of many hidden talents.’

‘An old family secret.’ He turned his back and busied himself with the fire.

‘Have you passed it on to your children?’

‘I don’t have children.’ The tone of his voice had become chipped from ice.

Dagmar frowned. Aedan definitely didn’t like talking about himself. She should leave it, but it was like a sore that she could not stop prodding. ‘Am I keeping you from your bride? Your intended? Is that who Mhairi truly is? It would be like my father to do that as he likes to get his own way.’

‘No. There is no bride. Mhairi lives on Kintra. It surprised me that she even volunteered to be a hostage. I’d not have thought she had it in her, but she obviously did. I’d never considered her as wife material.’

‘Why not?’

Aedan concentrated on building the fire. Why not?

It was a question his people and his priest kept asking. His excuses were wearing thin—first Brigid, his betrothed, the woman he’d loved as a young man, had died, ostensibly while she visited relations. To the world he had grieved, but he and his brother had been the only ones to understand the full extent of her betrayal. Then there was no hurry because his brother had married and had two children. And that marriage had proved little better than his parents’.

Then there was the mess his brother had left behind after he perished in battle which had had to be sorted, but lately the murmurings had grown, particularly his need to provide an heir. Without an heir, Kintra would go to his distant cousin and many doubted if Sean would manage to hold out against the Northmen in the same way as Aedan had, but Aedan wanted something more than a duty-bound marriage doomed to failure.

‘I’ve my reasons,’ he said as he felt Dagmar’s eyes boring into him. ‘Are you married? Before the battle, I had wondered about Olafr and you. He has the sort of looks women usually find irresistible. My brother was the same with women forever buzzing about him.’

‘I’d have sooner married a viper than him.’ Dagmar’s brows lowered and her mouth became a thin white line. She used a pointed stick to draw a line in the dirt. ‘Olafr was my mother’s lover, not mine. Old Alf told me that I should have banished him after he asked for my hand in marriage before the ashes on my mother’s pyre had even gone cold. But I thought he could be useful with his ability to charm Constantine’s court. What a fool I was!’

Deep within him, something rejoiced. Aedan suppressed it. Who she married was none of his business. His business was getting her back to her father so the hostages would be released and his people could prosper. Dagmar was forbidden to him. Aedan inclined his head. ‘I beg your pardon. He simply made it seem as though you two were as one.’

‘Apology accepted. Olafr could charm the birds out of the trees. The ladies certainly twittered about him. He was better at dealing with Constantine and his advisors. I can be too abrupt at times. I dislike fools and see little reason to hide my thoughts.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Her answering laugh rang out, before her face became full of serious intent. ‘My father must accept that I will follow my own chosen path and have no intention of marrying to please him or anyone else.’

‘Indeed.’ Aedan hid his smile. There was little point in explaining that her father would be seeking a son-in-law to rule his lands and command his ships. Dagmar would have little choice but to obey. He would be interested to hear of the clash between father and daughter when it occurred, but please God, make it after he returned to Kintra.

She leant forward. ‘Being a warrior is what my mother trained me for. She believed a woman could and should be a man’s equal. She distrusted marriage and considered that it sapped a woman’s strength.’

‘Did she train you well?’

‘Warfare has been my way of life ever since we left my father’s compound in the north country. I inherited my mother’s felag because she considered me a worthy successor, not because I was her daughter. I’ve an eye for strategy and forward planning. Why should a woman be treated differently than a man?’

‘My former sister-in-law would agree with you.’

‘Former?’

‘My late brother’s wife. She is now married to a Northman—Sigurd Sigmundson.’

‘Sigurd Sigmundson shot an arrow that killed his mother.’

‘You’ve heard of him.’

‘I thought it right and proper—they’d put her alive on the fire after her master died. Being raped and burnt alive is a barbaric practice whatever a soothsayer says. Soothsayers can be bribed.’

‘You know the story?’

‘I’ve encountered him. We fought together in Ireland a few seasons ago, right before my mother pledged her felag to Constantine’s service. He chose to ally with Ketil.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘I’d quite forgotten about him. Perchance...’

‘Sigurd will do nothing to jeopardise his relationship with Kolbeinn. We may have our differences, but I believe he prefers me to be the laird at Kintra. I’m a known quantity.’

Dagmar stared at the small fire, watching the sparks fly up. ‘I’ve given you my word that I will see my father. I will, but if he forces me to do anything I disapprove of, I shall become a sell-sword. Sigurd prospered that way. I can as well.’

Dagmar as a sell-sword. He doubted Kolbeinn would agree to that. Or allow her out of his sight. She would be married off to one of his most trusted warriors as soon as it could be arranged. Kolbeinn wanted to secure his legacy. Her desires would count for nothing. Kolbeinn would triumph one way or another. But her future was not his problem or concern as his mother would have said.

‘A hard way to survive,’ he said mildly. He’d allow Kolbeinn to break the news to her and deal with his daughter’s fiery temper. Aedan had a kingdom to save.

‘My mother did it.’

‘Your mother must have been an exceptional woman.’

Her eyes lit with undisguised pleasure and her entire being sparkled. ‘She was. One of the bravest people I ever met. If I can be one-tenth the warrior she was, I will die happy. She had terrible taste in men. Olafr was a mistake from start to finish. And my father. I have to wonder where her brain was then.’

‘Wait until you see what your father offers you.’

‘Or who.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘I know what my father will want of me, Aedan. He’ll have handpicked a blockhead of a warrior for me, one he didn’t want to risk on this journey. But I’ll find a way to teach my father a lesson and then we negotiate.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Did my father—’

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