Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (20 page)

She had no wish to see the Jarl of Geitland. Ever again.

No one met him on his way, so Leif walked the full distance of the pier alone. Vali stood at the end, with Bjarke and Orm on either side, and Jaan, Hans, and Georg arrayed at the front as well. Vali’s hand rested on the head of his axe, hanging at his hip.

Time and distance had not warmed his friend’s heart, then.

No sign of Brenna and her babe. Or of Olga.

When Vali did not speak in greeting, Leif waited until he came close enough that he would not need to raise his voice and said, “Vali Storm-Wolf. I come as a friend and an ally. Am I welcome here?”

Vali took an awkward sidestep, and then Brenna was pushing past him, babe in arms. “Enough of this posturing. Of course you’re welcome here, Leif!” She stopped just before him, smiling brightly, and there was an uncomfortable moment when Leif didn’t know whether to embrace his friend, with her husband’s scowl at her shoulder. Brenna herself wasn’t usually easy with physical affection, but when last he’d seen her, she had hugged him hard.

The tension broke when the babe in her arms squealed and reached out and tried to grab at Leif’s chestpiece.

“This is your daughter?” He cupped his hand around her soft, fair head. Such a lovely young miss, with deep, keen blue eyes.

“Yes. Solveig. She likes shiny things.” Brenna patted his chest, too, and her smile curved into a smirk. “Jarldom has made you extravagant, it seems.”

His new leathers were deep russet brown, and hundreds of small metal rings had been embedded into the chestpiece, something like the armor the princes’ men had all worn, but not linked together. The metalwork in the center formed a shape with five points, bound in a circle, which Olga had told him described the balance that was so important in her view of the world.

“Astrid’s idea. She says I lead too much with my heart and should protect it better.”

“She’s wise, then.” Brenna cocked her head, though, and her eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you and she close?”

Leif laid his hand over Brenna’s, still on his chest. “Astrid is my good friend and gives me wise counsel. But my heart is elsewhere.”

A shadow of dark emotion moved over Brenna’s face, but before Leif could ask after Olga, Vali stepped up and pulled his wife back. “Leif. As an ally, you are welcome in Karlsa. You and your crew should come to the hall. We will fill you with food and drink, and you can tell us why you come now, after so long.”

He took his daughter from her mother’s arms, turned, and stalked up toward the great hall.

Leif stood where he was and sighed. “I had hoped.”

“He is not so cold toward you as he seems. But he took your distance as an act of guilt. Why did you not come last year, after you bested Calder? You said you would.”

“I was wounded.” He left it at that. A true enough answer for several reasons. Again, he searched the crowd that had amassed, as one always did, at the arrival of a ship. Olga was not among the curious onlookers.

“We heard. I didn’t realize it was so serious to keep you away for a year.” Brenna’s arm snaked around his waist. “I’m glad you’re here now. You have been missed.”

He squeezed her shoulders. “It is good to see you, my friend.”

~oOo~

His other friends were glad of his arrival, too, and it took some time before he and the small crew he’d sailed with arrived in the hall. Vali sat in his seat with Solveig in his arms. The babe had the end of her father’s braid in her mouth. He glowered at Leif until Brenna went up and sat next to him. She leaned in and whispered, and Vali scowled more deeply, then smoothed it from his face and smiled down at his daughter.

The hall was quickly full, and food and drink were already making their way to the tables. Leif allowed himself to be drawn into discussion with Bjarke and the others, who were full of questions and news of their own.

Leif answered their questions to the extent that he could. There were things he wanted to discuss with Vali and Brenna, too; this visit was not solely for friendship. But he would wait until he had a moment of quiet with them. It was not yet news for all.

After a while, Brenna came down and leaned over his shoulder. “I’m going to feed her. Come with me and talk.”

Surprised, Leif shot a glance toward Vali, whose attention was homed on them. “Will your husband not mind that?”

“What you and I have been through together—watching me nurse is no great thing. He will abide it. I would do it in the hall, but she settles at it better in quiet.”

Leif doubted that, but he could tell from the look Vali was sending in their direction, and the one Brenna was returning, that her husband knew what she intended. With a nod to his friends, Leif refilled his cup and stood.

She led him into the private quarters. This hall was not so elaborate as the hall in Geitland, and Vali and Brenna’s private quarters looked little more sumptuous than that of any other prosperous freeman.

He felt uncomfortable back here, alone with Brenna while she unfastened a brooch from her hangerock and pulled the neck of her gown loose. Their people didn’t cling much to personal privacy, and he had seen many women with babes at the breast. It was no unusual thing. Part of life. But he worried it would be different with Brenna.

When his wife had nursed, he had always found it…compelling. Sensual. He felt close to Brenna—in a different way, true, and more fatherly than anything, but he loved her. He very much did not want his affection for her to get bound up with sensual feeling, so he busied himself exploring the space until Solveig was settled at her meal.

Turning, he saw that Brenna had covered herself and the babe with a linen, and he relaxed.

“You look happy, Brenna.”

“I am. It’s a strange thing, to be happy after so long. I feel jealous of it, like someone might take it from me at any time.”

“You have been tested again and again. Perhaps this happiness is the gods’ gift to you.”

She rolled her unusual eyes. “I very much hope not. Gifts from the gods always have their price, do they not?” She gazed down at her daughter. “She is well, Leif.”

He knew she didn’t mean Solveig. “Is she happy?”

Brenna shook her head. “No. I think sometimes she is content, but there is always a dimness in her eyes. It wearies me that the people I love are so at odds. I love precious few, and you are my family. I would have wounds healed.”

“As would I. Brenna, I…” he didn’t know what to say. He had tried hard not to speak of Olga during their time in Estland, to keep their love private. Astrid had laughed at him and told him that everyone had known—but she hadn’t known how close they had truly been. Now, he didn’t know what Brenna knew, so he didn’t know what he could say to her. Though he had known the shieldmaiden many years, now, here, he felt like the interloper. He
was
the interloper.

“You love her,” Brenna said as if she were filling in the sentence he’d left incomplete.

He wasn’t sure if that was what he’d meant to say, but it was true. “Yes. With all my heart, I do. I hurt her, though, I know.”

“I doubt you know how much.”

“I know that her brothers were killed. I don’t know how she will ever forgive me for that. And she doesn’t seem to want me to try. If she’s here, in Karlsa, she is not seeking me out.”

Brenna stared at him for a long time. She shifted the babe to her other breast, mindless of her exposure, before she spoke again. Leif realized with relief that his response to Brenna nursing was not like it had been with his wife.

“I think you should go to her. She won’t want you there, she will probably be furious to be faced with you, but the last time she saw you…you were letting Toke’s guts out on the ground.”

Leif dropped his head as his own memory of that horror surged up. Toke had been good-natured and eager, a good and loyal young man. But in the chaos of that night, Leif had been fighting for his life like any of them. It had been kill or be killed, and he had had to survive to save Brenna and Vali.

“You killed our friends, Leif.”

Her words, said gently, without malice or anger, were like claws.

“You know why.”

“I do. Because I heard it from your own mouth. You need to make her listen. I don’t know if she can forgive you, or will even soften, but I do know that every day, she hardens that much more. She is a shadow of who she was. At the least, she needs a new last memory of you.”

“Don’t meddle, shieldmaiden. Olga knows her mind.” Vali came into the room and stood between Leif and Brenna, blocking Leif’s view.

“Usch! Stop. You are being absurd,” Brenna snapped, and Leif saw her hand slap at Vali’s leg. “Sit. Speak like the grown men and friends you are.”

Vali sat, and Leif saw that Brenna was fully dressed again, and Solveig rested on her shoulder.

With a wave toward Brenna, his hand at the level of her neck, which bore a choker of darkened, uneven skin, Vali sneered, “You see her scars? And this?” He drew his finger over the long scar on the side of his head. “A man Brenna calls my friend made them.”

“Vali. Please.” Now Brenna’s voice was softer. “Please.” But the hostile light in her husband’s eyes didn’t fade.

Leif had spent a long year wallowing in his guilt and his loneliness. That time had given him understanding and perspective. “You would both be dead had I not acted as I did. Now, you are jarl, and you have this beautiful daughter with your shieldmaiden. Åke and Calder are both dead. All of this happened because I acted to save you. Are your scars not worth your future?”

“You say you saved us. And yet only you sit here unscathed.”

With a laugh roughened with his own bitter losses, Leif stood and unlaced his chestpiece. “I bear scars, you may take heart in that. They ache still. But only this one can be seen. He dropped his leather to the floor and pulled his light linen tunic over his head.

Brenna gasped, but Leif wasn’t looking at her. He was watching Vali, and he was heartened by the flare in the stubborn jarl’s eyes. The scar that crossed his chest was thick and wide, puckered and angry. “Made by Calder’s axe. They say it scored the bone and showed my heart beating in my chest.”

He thought that last part was likely an embellishment for the stories, he couldn’t see how he’d have lived if his heart had truly been exposed, but the wound had been dire and the scar severe.

“And yet you killed Calder,” Brenna said, her voice low.

“Yes. After this, I had one swing left in me, and I made the most of it. I loved him, but I killed him. Because it was right.” He faced Vali again. “I am your
friend
, Vali. I am sorry for what you’ve suffered, but I did save you, and at no small cost to myself. I, too, have lost much. I
sacrificed
. For you.”

When Vali didn’t respond, Leif yanked his tunic back on and snatched his leather from the floor. As he tugged the lacing tight, he said, “I am your ally always, and your friend, but I will not press the point again. I have news I would like to share with you, when tempers are cooler and the hall is quieter. Tomorrow, perhaps. I won’t stay longer than I have need and am welcome, so we will sail again the day after. Is there a place I might put my head to sleep?”