Come Back to Me (42 page)

UNLIKE HIS WIFE, THE JARL OF LANDSENDE did not sleep. Bred to the hardship of battle, Dragon kept close vigil all through the night. Nothing moved in the yard, nothing stirred. There was scarcely a sound until the cock crowed morning.

Magda appeared immediately thereafter and took Rycca away for some little time. When they returned, the older woman attempted again to persuade her to eat. Rycca promised she would try, and with her mood much lightened she really meant to do so. Yet the very smell of food made her stomach oddly unsettled and she set down the bowl of porridge without taking a spoonful.

That infuriated Dragon, still watching from the stable. As though the circumstances were not bad enough, a night without sleep had left him even more on edge. It was all he could do not to stomp out into the yard and demand she swallow every bite.

After which he would take her in his arms, kiss her lingeringly, beseech her to tell him he could not possibly be wrong to trust her, and generally make a slobbering fool of himself to rival those great dolts Grani and Sleipnir.

No, that he would not do. He would instead have a word with the men on the watchtowers, telling them to keep an eye on his wife and leaving them to make of that what they would while he went off to the river, there to immerse himself in blessedly cold water and cast off the shadows of sleeplessness.

When he returned, freshly garbed but not having taken time to shave, he found the day unfolding much as usual. People were coming and going about their daily tasks, now that the barn was rebuilt, apparently determined to ignore the fact that the lady of their manor was tied to a punishment post. Not Magda, though. That stalwart passed him with as close to a glare as she would ever come and bustled out to ask Rycca advice about something or other. The sheer ludicrousness of that struck Dragon and he was chuckling when Magda passed by again, which earned him another stern frown.

That was the height of levity for the day. Hours passed and nothing happened. Magda came and went, clucking over Rycca's failure to eat and glaring more at Dragon every time she saw him. Several of the other women began to do the same. He took that as an indication that those who had gotten to know Rycca best held her blameless. His venture into Byzantine intrigue of the previous day rankled all the more. He tried not to think about it.

The day dragged on. With the stronghold as busy as ever, Dragon told himself no one would be so foolish as to approach Rycca with intent to do her harm. Yet he found excuse after excuse to be in the yard himself. Magnus met up with him there at midday and asked if Dragon wanted him to take his place training the men. Dragon agreed and Magnus went off.

The sun hung motionless in the sky, or so it seemed.

"Get some sleep," Magda advised as she bustled by on her way to bring Rycca yet another meal she likely would not eat.

"Find out why she isn't eating," he shot back. For good measure, he added, "And tell her she damn well better."

Magda rolled her eyes but knew better than to say anything more.

Dragging the whetstone out in front of the stable, Dragon settled down to sharpen his sword. It was a proper enough activity, one he engaged in frequently. No one ought to think anything of it. The Moorish blade truly was remarkable, enough so to give him a few minutes' surcease from his constant worry over Rycca.

The day warmed. He noted that Rycca had on a fresh gown and was trying once again to eat. Magda was doing her job. From the nearby paddock, Grani and Sleipnir nickered. They refused to quiet until he got up, went over, and fed the fools apples.

"She'll be all right," he told them under his breath. "I probably won't be but I don't expect you to concern yourselves with that."

They bobbed their heads in what, he suspected, was agreement.

The sun was slanting westward, and Dragon was wondering how he was going to get through a second night without sleep, when a sudden shout from the watchtowers alerted him. He took the ladder two rungs at a time and reached the nearest tower while yet the guards were pointing out toward the road that led past the town toward the fields.

"Look, lord, there!"

Dragon looked. He saw two men pushing a handcart of the sort farmers used for trundling tools back and forth between the fields and the barns. Each man had one hand on the cart and was waving frantically with the other. Something was slumped in the cart but Dragon couldn't make it out. Yet it was clear that the men were in distress.

Quickly, he summoned half-a-dozen of his men, threw a saddle on Sleipnir, and rode out to find out what was wrong.

"We found him in the ravine near the river," one of the farmers said. He gestured to the bundle in the handcart.

Dragon approached and moved aside the coarse blanket flung over what proved to be the body of a man. He was of medium height and slim build, in his mid-twenties, with brown hair worn loose to his shoulders. Exactly the man Rycca had said she had seen in Landsende and who reminded her of someone from Wolscroft.

The fellow's eyes were closed and his skin held the pallor of death. There was a livid bruise along the right side of his head, partly caving in his skull. No doubt it was this that had dispatched him to eternity.

"Look at his wrist, lord," the other farmer said. He spoke diffidently but with an undercurrent of excitement that Dragon could not miss.

The dead man wore a plain shirt and trousers. The shirt was long-sleeved. Dragon lifted the fabric covering the man's left wrist and saw tattooed there…

Twin serpents entwined, devouring each other.

"Begging your pardon, lord, but the Lady Rycca said someone took her from the stable by force and she saw twin serpents. Mayhap it was these."

The surge of relief that roared through Dragon almost made him dizzy. In the dark night of his soul, he had battled doubt and chosen to believe in her, and now he was fiercely glad of it. Yet this confirmation of his trust was deeply welcome all the same.

He had scant time to enjoy it for hard on the evidence of her innocence came anger so intense that he felt as though the top of his head was about to come off. For the first time in his life, he understood what propelled the legendary berserkers, men who became something other than human on the battlefield as they were utterly overtaken by the drive to kill.

The struggle he waged to maintain control of his rage required every ounce of his formidable self-discipline, and victory remained precarious. Had the man from Wolscroft still been alive, Dragon truly did not know if he could hold off killing him long enough for him to talk. Talk he would have, of that there was no doubt. But whatever secrets he possessed had gone with him into the world beyond. Not much effort was needed to conclude what his presence at Landsende and his actions meant.

"Bring him," Dragon ordered and turned Sleipnir, spurring him to a gallop back to the stronghold.

The stallion came to a jarring stop near the punishment post, clumps of dirt spraying out from beneath his hooves. Dragon was out of the saddle in an instant and beside Rycca. He said not a word, unable to bring himself to speak until she was free of that loathsome place. His hands actually trembled as they undid the rope binding her.

"What is it?" she asked as he pulled her to her feet but resisted the urge to yank her into his arms, uncertain how she would respond. That she had realized his intent the night before did not absolve him of responsibility for being willing to use her in such a way, far less for entertaining even briefly the notion that she might be guilty.

"There's a dead man," he said and immediately regretted the words. Frigg and all her maidens, he was supposed to be skald-skilled! Surely he could have found a gentler way to inform a woman who had just been through so much.

However, far from looking concerned, Rycca appeared instantly interested. "Really? Who?"

"Your man from Wolscroft, I think. At least he fits your description."

She thought about that for a moment while she shook her skirts free of dirt. "I had begun to wonder if I'd imagined him."

"Apparently not, nor did you imagine the serpents. They were tattooed on his wrist."

"So that's what happened. He had a hand over my nose and mouth. I couldn't breathe but I remember looking down at his other hand grabbing me around the waist. I must have seen the tattoo just as I was losing consciousness."

She spoke matter-of-factly. Dragon did not. Indeed, he had trouble speaking at all. "I'd give almost anything to have him alive."

"Yes, it would have been better if he could have talked."

"I was thinking more about the pleasure of killing him."

Rycca gave him a swift look. "Done is done. What happened to him?"

"I'm not sure. He appears to have died from a blow to the head."

"Perhaps he fell after he left me. The fog was so thick it would have been easy enough to do."

It was a likely enough explanation but Dragon wanted more time to consider that before coming to any conclusions. He had done quite enough jumping as it was. The farmers, aided by his men, were bringing the body into the yard. Already, people were clustering around.

He took Rycca's hand, held it high in his, and said,

"The Lady Rycca is blameless. The true culprit has been found."

His people nodded, happy with this news. Yet the women still appeared stern. The men looked at him sympathetically, as well they might. He sighed inwardly. She already thought she had too many gowns and seemed to have no interest at all in jewels. The two best horses in the world were hers to ride. How exactly might he make amends?

"You did what you had to." He started, sure he had heard her wrong. "Oh, don't mistake me, I have no more liking for being staked out like a goat than would the next person. Still, it was a good plan, all things considered."

Shocked by her perception, he made no effort to hide his intent. "But it didn't work. I thought the culprit would come after you."

"Fortunately, he was already dead, or so it seems." She had seen enough of the body as it was trundled by to be sure of that. This was not a fresh death. Several hours old at least, she thought, and perhaps even an entire day.

"You have experience to judge such things?" Dragon asked.

"Death was common at Wolscroft."

"Which brings me to the matter of your father—"

She turned, her eyes very wide against the paleness of her skin. He realized suddenly that though she had slept some the night before, she was as exhausted as he was.

Very low, she asked, "Do you have any idea how humiliated I am to be related to such a man, much less to have to call him father?"

"Take comfort. Perhaps your mother strayed."

"Oh, dearly would I like to believe that! It was my fondest dream for years. But she was meek by all accounts. I am his get, like it or not."

"As far from him as day from night. We have spoken of this before. You know my feelings."

She was silent, looking at him. Her eyes said all.

He took both her hands in his and raised them to his lips. Their gazes locked, he said, "I made a mistake."

"Confusing your wife with a goat?"

What was that he had thought about the difficulty of having a wife who was a truthsayer?

He took a breath, let it out slowly, and sent with it a prayer. "There was a time—a brief time—when I considered you might be guilty."

Truth.

Rycca smiled. She freed her hands, cupped them to his face, and rose on her toes to touch her mouth to his.

"What is that for?" he asked, caught between relief and bewilderment. Likely she would always keep him so off balance and likely he would always be glad of it for truly fortune smiled upon him. A great knot seemed to be untangling in his chest.

"For believing me."

"I only briefly didn't," he repeated.

"No, I mean for believing I am a truthsayer."

"And you know that because—"

She laughed and took his hand again. "Because you are a wise and canny man, Lord Dragon. You could as easily have insisted you never even flirted with the thought that I might be guilty and thereby saved yourself what must surely have been an uneasy moment for a husband."

He was slightly stung but not too much, for her ready forgiveness was as a balm over all else. "Generally speaking, I do tell the truth for its own sake."

"I never thought otherwise. And I would be as truthful with you. Last night, I realized suddenly that I was not afraid. All things considered, that was rather ridiculous but it was how I felt nonetheless."

The knot was definitely gone. Indeed, a great warmth seemed to suffuse him. If a woman who had every reason to fear Vikings could be tied to a punishment post by her own Viking husband and not be afraid, that could mean only one thing:

"You trust me."

"And you trust me."

At that moment, looking down at her, his face held nothing of the mighty warrior and jarl. He looked instead like a boy handed the world. She wanted only to give it to him again and again.

"I would say," Rycca murmured, "that for a rocky beginning, we are managing well enough."

It was an incongruously happy note upon which to discuss a dead man.

Silently giving thanks that his wife—
his wife
—had not a squeamish bone in her lovely body, Dragon studied the corpse. "Is he the man you saw in town?"

Rycca nodded at once. "Definitely, and I was right to think I knew him from Wolscroft. His name is Fuller, for his family who have been fullers of cloth for as long as anyone can remember. But he aspired to bigger things and put himself in service to my father."

"Who sent him here. With hindsight, I should have thought of it." He remembered Wolscroft at the wedding, drunk and belligerent, disarmed by his own daughter. How had he failed to realize the man would seek revenge?

"I must tell Hawk and Wolf of this," he said.

She nodded but he saw the misery in her eyes and was loath to leave her even briefly. "Come, I will write in our lodge, where you will oblige me by resting."

"I would rather have a bath," Rycca said and mustered a smile though he thought it rather thin and cursed her father again inwardly.