Chapter Thirteen

“In Norse mythology Loki is the son of Laufey and the Jötunn Fárbauti and is Odin’s blood brother. He is known as the God of Trickery and Mischief and The Father of Monsters.

He sired the vicious wolf Fenrir and the serpent Jörmungandr as well as Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir. He’s also the father of the Goddess Hel who reigns over the realm of the dead.”
Life In Norway.net

Crack! Erik yanked his fist back from Frode’s face as the man flew backward onto his arse on the floor of the barn. “You think I don’t love Iselin?” Erik said, his words low like a growl. “That I would turn my back on saving her?”

The early morning sun from the cracked door shone down on Frode lying flat on his back, legs spread, one hand to his eye. “You foked Hannah Sinclair.”

Erik was going to rip the man’s tongue from his mouth. “Shut your foking mouth, Frode Hansen, or I’ll slice off that offensive tongue and feed it to swine.”

Nial stepped before Erik as if to hold him back. “The accusation is true. He loves your sister, which makes his tongue unwise.”

Erik rubbed his bruised knuckles. It added to the still sore bite wound. He stepped around Nial, close enough that his shoulder knocked him with enough force to make him stagger back. “Hannah and I last night… What happened between us will not stop Iselin’s release,” Erik said, standing over Frode who pushed up to sitting.

“It has everything to do with it,” Frode said, bending his knees. “Perhaps as the leader of the Wolf Warriors, your father was in truth Loki, since you’re full of lies, and mischief taints your heart.” Frode glared up at him.

“You did name your horse Loki,” Sten said to Erik.

Frode continued. “You’ve failed our mission to bring an untouched Sinclair Horsemen sister to trade for Iselin. Untouched, Erik.”

The man was a fool. Loki? Frode talked like a pagan of old.

“She lied to him and said she was already ruined,” Sten said from somewhere behind.

Ruined was a horrid word. Hannah was certainly not ruined. In fact, she would probably have been jubilant if they hadn’t fought. And she hadn’t actually lied.

Erik met Frode’s healthy eye, since the other one was swelling closed quickly. “We will say naught of…what went on between me and Hannah. Sophie will not know, and I will still trade her for Iselin.”

“She will tell Sophie,” Nial said, his face red and pinched. “’Twas Hannah’s plan to destroy our mission in an attempt to go home. She will yell her ruination from the bloody rooftops.”

“Maybe she’s a mythical seductress or witch, and you fell right into her trap,” Sten said, shaking his head, and then leaped backward when Erik spun around toward him, his fist ready.

“Fighting among us will only weaken us,” Nial said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Then you three need to hold fast to your wild tongues and have trust in your leader,” Erik said, his words like thunder cracking through the Jotunheimen mountain range. “I have never failed in a mission. I have led us through battle after battle without a single surrender or retreat.”

“You certainly surrendered your clothes quickly enough,” Frode mumbled, still on his arse.

Erik considered kicking him in the face but turned away. “I will talk with Hannah. We will save Iselin, and then perhaps there will be a way I can talk Sophie into letting me wed Hannah myself. She will stay in Denmark-Norway then.” But he could still ensure her safety and comfort.

All three of them stared at Erik with mouths open like hooked trout. Nial recovered first. “You…will wed Hannah Sinclair?”

Erik caught the back of his neck and rubbed at the tension there. “If it will save her too.” Lord, what was he thinking? He’d sworn off all future attachments that could be used against him like Iselin. Caring for someone made him vulnerable, and the pain of losing someone like he lost his family was too great a risk. Even before the plague had decimated his village, he’d never considered marrying anyone. And he surely hadn’t considered that Hannah would forgive him enough to kiss him again. He was wrong about a number of things, it seemed.

Frode finally gave a series of small nods. Erik threw his left, uninjured hand down for the man to grasp, hauling Frode to his feet. “Offer that to her,” Frode said. “Sophie won’t exile us for not guarding Hannah’s virtue if she never learns what happened.”

Nial shook his head. “I’ve never known you to deviate from a plan, Erik. And marriage…? Are you certain you have no spell upon you?”

Erik snorted. “Even a mighty river deviates when an obstacle falls in its middle. But…” He met the gazes of his three loyal men, his three best friends. “I will not sacrifice Iselin, and to think I would, insults me.”

Sten had enough shame to glance away.

“Whatever deviation you decide,” Frode said, “it better stop that old walrus Peter Kaas from wedding Iselin.”

“Neither Iselin nor Hannah will wed Kaas,” Erik said as if his words, cast into the world, made them true. His three friends looked dubious. Erik crossed his arms. “Hannah would assassinate him within a fortnight of their wedding, and as much as the man is a slovenly walrus, Denmark-Norway needs him as chancellor.”

“He might not take a woman who isn’t a maid to wife anyway,” Nial said.

Erik didn’t change his expression as his friends stared at him. Had he considered that when he’d broken the shackles of restraint on himself last night? The action would be considered treason to act against Sophie’s plan.

Erik was a man of control, full of intent, strong and clever enough to stop an army of Swedes coming across the border, but he’d lost all control last night. And what was worse, he wasn’t furious over it. In fact, he’d woken with a lightness inside, a feeling he hadn’t had since the sickness had spread through his family.

Nial sighed long. “What’s done is done.” He sniffed, resigned.

“Goddess or not, I bet it was bloody amazing,” Sten said, his voice soft even though he spoke in Bokmål. There was a smile in his voice, but Erik turned hard eyes on him.

“I won’t talk of such things,” Erik said.

“She said it was…” Nial glanced up as if recalling the exact words. He spoke in a higher pitch. “‘I am wonderful, in fact.’ That’s what she said.”

“Wonderful?” Sten said, his face breaking into a teasing grin. “’Tis a fairly strong word.” He moved his head side to side as if judging it.

Erik rolled his eyes and strode away. He knew the truth, and he wouldn’t be goaded into sharing the experience with his men. Traipsing across the yard, the quiet made him frown. He’d defended himself after the sixth underhanded comment from Frode, and despite them being inside, the doors had been open. He’d at first worried that Hannah or the young girls would hear the small, personal battle and come running, but no one seemed about.

Erik rapped on the door to the cottage. Leif left early, walking Loinneil out of her stall to be watered at the trough outside. Perhaps he’d taken the horse with him to check the fields. Did Hannah like to sleep late? Surely, Elizabeth and Eydis would be up.

Slowly, the door opened, and Elizabeth met his gaze. At her wide eyes he said, “There’s no trouble. I but wonder where Hannah…why the ladies and children are not about this morn. ’Tis so quiet.”

“They departed two hours ago.”

“Departed?”

She waved toward the barn. “Leif took the horse out for them.”

Erik followed her gaze as if that might give him clues, but all he saw was the water trough. “He let them ride off? All three of them?”

“Four. Eydis went along.” She smiled. “Lady Hannah’s horse is strong, but it took some creative seating to get Trix and Libby sitting on top of Eydis and Hannah on the horse. And all of it quietly so they wouldn’t wake you.”

Unease sent gooseflesh up his arms, the short hairs at his nape standing on end. He looked back and forth between the barn where his friends were emerging and Elizabeth in the doorway. “Where did they go?”

“The docks.”

…

Hannah climbed higher in the rigging. The boots Erik had provided did a fabulous job of keeping her feet on each rung. She grunted as she pushed into the topcastle attached around the mast that had survived the storm. From there, she could see the men working on the broken mast that Nial had been smoothing with the plane.

“Slightly right,” she called across, holding her hands up to show that she meant for them to tip the heavy wooden arm to make it straight. Only one of Erik’s crew who’d remained with the ship spoke English and none spoke Gaelic, so using her hands was the easiest way to guide them.

“I want to climb up,” Trix said from below.

“There’s no room,” Hannah answered. It was also dangerous being that high up and disconcerting with the slight swaying.

“You don’t like heights,” Libby said to Trix.

“I might like them if I’m ever given the chance to climb high, but you’re always jumping before me.”

The two girls squabbled for a full minute before dashing off to the rail when Erik’s yelling in his native tongue filled the air. Hannah, holding onto the thin rim of the curved wall that surrounded her, looked over the edge.

Eydis glanced up. “He sounds angry but the type of angry my papa gets when he’s worried.”

“Hannah!” His voice preceded him onto the deck of his ship. He was dressed in his usual white tunic, trousers, and laced boots. He strode with purpose and strength, a warrior with just the right number of scars upon him to give his handsomeness a robust ruggedness. He was like a Norse god ready to throw thunderbolts. Delicious fire flared within her, but she hid it behind an apathetic glance down the mast.

Tipping his head back, he frowned at her. “What the pokker are you doing up there?”

“I will take your anger as a sign you were frightened I had turned your crew against you and absconded with your ship.”

“I am never frightened,” he said, “and you could never turn my crew against me nor sail this ship.”

“Then why are you yelling?” she asked with wide eyes and a slight shake of her head like she was some simple lass who had no idea how to move her pieces about on a chessboard. For her mission to counter Erik’s mission was most certainly a game of strategy.

He looked about, his hand sliding without thought over the pommel of his sheathed sword.

“I worried Stewart’s men could have taken you four.” He glanced back up. “What are you doing in the topcastle?”

“Helping your men tie the mast on straight,” she called back and threw her arm out toward the soaring main mast where the crewmen worked with silent ferocity. Hannah had lit a fire under them when she’d woken them at dawn, demanding through gestures and a few English phrases that they should get working. She had a mission now and wouldn’t rest until she saw it through.

“What are you doing out here at the docks?” Erik asked.

“Ridiculous,” she murmured. She wasn’t going to keep yelling back and forth for everyone to hear. So, she moved her arms and mouth as if speaking but didn’t make a sound. It was something that Joshua did to annoy her, especially while their father was still alive, and she spoke very softly to remain unnoticed. The gesture had the same irritating effect on Erik, his face darkening with more ire.

“Come down from there.”

She glanced back at the main mast, which was straight. Her work was done up there anyway, and his bluster certainly didn’t worry her. She’d been raised with yelling and raging around her. Anger was closer to love than people thought. It was apathy, the numb uncaring, that stood opposite of love and passion.

Hannah tucked her skirts against her legs to climb down through the hole in the forecastle and set her boot on the first rung.

“Slowly,” Erik called up. “One foot at a time.”

His order, barked with obvious annoyance, certainly wasn’t uncaring. Hannah grinned as she curled her fingers around each rung on her way down. When her arse came level with Erik, he reached up to grasp her hips, pulling her from the narrow rope ladder.

Hannah was fairly tall for a woman, but she still had to stare upward to meet his eyes when he set her down. She kept a pleasant, neutral expression.

“What the bloody hell were you doing up there?” he asked.

“I already answered that.” Her lips pinched in annoyance at his continued loud voice. “And I will say no more if you keep yelling.”

He ran a hand up his forehead. “I’m not yelling,” he said in a quieter voice. But then he threw his hand out toward the ladder and his voice rose again. “You could have fallen. ’Tis the smallest of rope ladders. Climbing it in skirts is foolish. Dangerous.”

“I have excellent balance and grip, and the men were needed to hold the heavy mast in place. And if I hadn’t gone up,” she lowered her voice, “Libby or Trix would have.”

“’Tis dangerous to walk the miles from Leif’s home by your—”

“We rode Loinneil.”

“Patrick Stewart’s men could—”

“We killed the worst offenders, and the horrid man is off the isle.”

She knew cutting into his statements was pricking his ire even more, and she wondered how far she’d have to go to make him curse, throw up his hands, and stomp away. If he was like Gideon or Cain, it would take a long time. Joshua would explode with a few more nudges, and Bàs would have already exited the confrontation without a word.

Brows furrowed, Erik seemed to be trying to loom over her. Tall people, like her brothers, utilized their height like a weapon. But a successful looming required the shorter person to fear, which she did not.

After a moment of silence, Erik began again. “There’s no reason to come out here this earl—”

“We were up, and I wanted to get started. There’s no time to lose.”

He took hold of her shoulders as if he wanted to hold back her words. “Hannah…” He searched her face. “You want to sail from Shetland soon.”

“At the next high tide if possible.”

He shook his head and lowered his voice. “Do you think…? I can’t take you back to Scotia, Hannah.”

“I don’t want to go back to mainland Scotland.”

Erik stared at her, and Hannah studied his beautiful blue eyes. If I have a child, I want him to have your eyes.

“You don’t…want to go back to Scotia?” he finally said.

“Not yet.” She flattened her hand on his chest between them. “We have a mission to complete,” she said, thumping him with each word.

“We?” he asked, his brows lowered.

She tilted her head slightly to one side as if he weren’t keeping up. “Your sister, Iselin.”

“Iselin?”

Hannah’s fingers curled into his tunic, and she raised onto her toes to close the distance. She tried to ignore the heat radiating off his chest and the now familiar scent of him. She had a mission, and that required focus, which meant not giving in to this pull between them. At least not when there was work to do.

“Yes,” she said. Her brows narrowed and her face hardened with determination. “’Tis time we go get her.”

…

“And then she walked away?” Nial asked as Erik recounted the reason why Hannah was helping them fix the Seieren while it sat docked.

“Aye,” Erik said. He watched Hannah smile and touch the arm of the elderly islander with whom she was negotiating the best price for their foodstuff. The gruff man seemed to melt a bit, nodding his gray head as they walked toward his cottage along the wharf.

“She will get the ogre to sell us his entire garden with that smile,” Nial said. He turned back to Erik. “So now she wants to go to the Danish court?”

Erik nodded, watching the way the thin wool swayed with her steps. The woman was graceful with confidence, and shined in the face of conflict, especially with stubborn, irritated men. It must be from her upbringing with her brothers.

“I told her about Iselin, and she wants to help free her.” Erik’s gaze followed her through the gate in the stone wall around the man’s garden. The blue Norwegian costume hugged her waist and flared gently over her hips. The color made her blond hair look even more golden. After her bath in the pond, it lay in wild curls all the way down her straight back.

“Does she realize she will be trading herself for your sister at the court?” Nial asked, also watching Hannah take the arm of the old man as he pointed to things in his garden. “And that her brothers will be killed if they try to retrieve her?”

Erik huffed through his nose. “I believe she has formed a different plan, one that will free Iselin without sacrificing her own freedom and her brothers’ lives.”

“Has she shared the details on how this miraculous plan will happen without us being killed or exiled?” Nial asked.

Frode crossed his arms with silent questioning.

“Aye,” Sten said, standing with them. “Is that part of her plan? Because us not dying is an important detail that cannot be forgotten.”

Hannah thanked the old man and pointed at the Seieren. He nodded back. His ruddy cheek reddened when she leaned in to place a kiss there among the bristles before turning to stride away, waving to him as she left. From the triumphant look on her lovely features, she’d accomplished her goal of obtaining food for the rest of the trip.

“I don’t think she cares about our outcome,” Frode murmured.

Nial snorted. “Maybe if Erik keeps bedding her—”

“And do it even better than merely wonderful,” Sten added, his foolhardy grin showing he was poking the wolf to see if he still wanted to bite.

Nial nodded. “Then she will want to keep you, and thus us, alive and out of Kronborg’s dungeons.”

Hannah walked over to them. “With the mast fixed, we can launch at high tide now that we will have fresh vegetables to go with the smoked fish, bread, barrels of stream water, and ale.”

Nial and Sten stared at her with blank expressions. Frode openly frowned. Erik’s mouth relaxed with pride at all she’d accomplished once she’d set her mind to it. Perhaps he should have explained things from the start.

Nial cleared his throat. “Erik says you have a plan for getting Iselin out of the Danish court,” Nial said. “Care to enlighten us?”

She glanced between them. “No.”

Erik almost snorted. Hannah was not prone to positive responses. “Why not?” Nial asked.

“’Tis still coming together,” she said, raising her hands overhead as if pulling ideas from the sky. “But we will have at least four days to reach Denmark to discuss onboard. If Dowager-Queen Sophie thinks you’re waiting for my brothers to return from Orkney before luring them to her country, then we will arrive early. Joshua would agree the surprise will benefit us.”

“Joshua?” Sten asked.

“The Horseman of War, my second brother,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “Don’t you even know who is hunting you now, to kill you? Kill you viciously?”

“I do,” Sten said, defensiveness in his tone. “I don’t think of them as having given names.”

Hannah gave him a pitying look. “Even that villain whose head is rotting on a stake by Leif’s barley field had a given name.”

Sten mumbled something about it not being worth knowing their names. Hannah turned back to Erik. Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed with exuberance. He could easily imagine her organizing a battalion.

“Denmark has a lengthy shoreline,” she said. “Where were you planning to land, and how will my brothers know where to find me when they come to my rescue?”

“I left them a message,” Erik said.

She stared at him a moment. “A message? Like… We have your sister. Come get her in the town of so-and-so?”

“Kronborg Castle,” Nial said.

“It was pinned to your horse’s stall,” Erik said. “They are to land north of Copenhagen in Denmark. Iselin is being kept at Kronborg Castle in Helsingør with the dowager-queen and her chancellor.”

Hannah frowned. “With our delay here on Shetland Isle, we might be late to my rescue.”

“Then you will have to add rescuing your brothers to your mission,” Sten said. He quirked an eyebrow at her.

Hannah frowned at Sten. “You remind me of Joshua, and not in a good way.”

She looked back to Erik. “I need a map of where we will land with hills and valleys indicated. And other bodies of water besides the sea. And a layout of Kronborg.”

Erik crossed his arms. “Is there anything else, Captain Sinclair?”

She smirked at him. “You’re the captain.” She patted his crossed forearms. “I’m merely using the knowledge I’ve learned from all the schooling afforded my brothers in order to make this terrible mission into one that is successful to more than just Dowager-Queen Sophie.”

“We were successful until last night,” Nial murmured under his breath.

Erik cut him a severe look, but before he could see how Hannah took Nial’s words, she turned in the direction of the ship when one of Erik’s men yelled. “An army is coming.”

His words were in Bokmål, but his pointing to the ridge could be understood by anyone. Hannah followed it. Riders were galloping toward them, riders bearing the Scottish flag and a nobleman’s heraldic banner. Two of its quadrants showed the gold lion of Scotland on a field of red with a black slash through them. The black slash showed that, though related to the royal Stewart house, they were illegitimate. The other two quadrants showed a ship on a field of blue. ’Twas the symbol of Orkney Isle.

“Bloody hell,” Hannah murmured. “’Tis Patrick Stewart.”