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Day One
Caitriona
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Cait had been walking away from Sanne when she’d overheard her tell Godfrid that her husband hadn’t loved her or his daughter as much as he’d loved his wealth. It wasn’t Cait’s place to reply, since Sanne had been talking to Godfrid, but, to Cait’s mind, Sanne’s assessment was exactly right. Rikard had been perfectly content to have been no more than mildly fond of his wife, but he had naturally assumed that his wife loved him. In fact, Rikard had taken her entirely for granted.
And after three weeks spent observing the relationship, Cait didn’t think she was projecting her own marriage issues onto Sanne either. Like Sanne, Cait had been married to a much older man, one who enjoyed having a young wife on his arm, so she knew both what to look for and what it felt like. Sanne’s role had been to appear beautiful at all times, with perfect skin and the softest hands Cait had ever seen on a woman, without even a needle pinprick or calluses from handling the tight threads of the loom or the shuttle.
Unusually, she did no chores, not even teaching her daughter to weave. That task had been delegated most recently to Cait. And while Sanne claimed to have slept on a separate pallet from her husband so she could take care of her daughter, Cait knew for a fact that it was Marta’s nanny, a young slave named Tilda, who slept with the girl and attended to her needs most nights. There was a reason Marta had come willingly to Cait: she was used to being ignored by her mother.
Cait hadn’t given her husband a child, but outside of that fact, her marriage hadn’t been so different from Sanne’s. It had been arranged by her uncle in an attempt to forge ties with the neighboring kingdom of Munster. She and Niall been married for eight years, which was approximately seven years and eleven months longer than Cait would have preferred. His death had freed her to be her own woman—or at least given her the courage to fight for her right to be one.
At the time of the betrothal, Cait had not protested her marriage. As the daughter of a sister to the king, she had known her duty, and Niall had been a handsome man, noble, respected, and wealthy. Unfortunately, Niall had not turned out to be the man of her dreams, and she couldn’t blame her uncle and father for not knowing about Niall’s gambling and womanizing ways. As far as Cait was aware, no whisper of his vices had come to her family before the wedding. Conall had made inquiries too, but it may be that Niall’s people were so pleased to learn of her coming to his lands that they’d outright lied about his proclivities.
Regardless, her marriage hadn’t been a success, made worse by the fact that she hadn’t conceived a child within the first year—or ever. Like Rikard with Sanne, over time, Niall became indifferent to her. She had become akin to an item on display for sale more than a lifelong companion, and as awful a person as it made her, she couldn’t deny that his death in a riding accident hadn’t come too soon.
Before her sojourn in Dublin, her uncle had suggested a new marriage for her—to Donnell, one of the princes of Connaught. Cait had objected strongly, never mind that Donnell was the heir to the throne of not only Connaught but of the High King of Ireland. As a widow, refusal was her prerogative under Brehon law, though it was rarely invoked within a royal family, where every daughter and son was raised to understand the importance of alliance. Cait didn’t want to marry Donnell. She didn’t want to marry anyone.
Conall had supported her decision, in part, she suspected, out of guilt for making such a terrible mistake with Niall the first time around. She was aware, however, that her uncle hadn’t given up on the idea, and she suspected he’d agreed to her becoming a spy to humor her on the way to softening her defenses. The irony was that she’d felt less like a slave in Dublin than she had in Imokilly.
Cait laid Marta down on the bed in the office. Before today, she had only ever stood in the doorway to speak to Rikard. It had been the first place she’d gone after the alarm had been raised by the pool of blood, now known to be wine. She’d been worried about what might have been taken by the intruder, who’d pulled everything off the shelves and cleared the table of documents, but she didn’t know enough about what the office had contained in the first place to tell if anything was missing. The account books were still there, now stacked in a pile by Conall and Finn, who were leaving the room as she arrived with Marta.
She returned to the main floor to find the others gathered around the open trapdoor. In one of Cait’s last acts as a slave, while the men had been conferencing with Ottar, she had wiped up the last of the wine, so they were able to stand at the top of the stairs without marring their shoes. Still, she hadn’t chosen to do anything about the wine on the stairs, since that would have necessitated pulling open the trapdoor and entering the vault again. While she was very curious about what Rikard had stored down there, the existence of the vault was still not common knowledge, and she hadn’t wanted to explain to anyone what she was doing.
When Cait approached, Sanne was staring down at the smeared wine. Evidently impatient with her hesitation, Finn went down the steps ahead of her.
“It’s only wine,” Cait whispered in her ear. “In death, your husband showed no sign of injury.” It still remained to be seen whether or not that was entirely true, but it was close enough for Cait’s purposes. Whatever had been done to him, his death hadn’t been a result of stabbing.
Godfrid also noticed Sanne’s reluctance—and guessed the reason for it—because he began rummaging through a pile of scattered goods near the stairs. He came up with an armful of hemp sacking, which he proceeded to lay on the steps over the wine spots. “Perhaps this will help.”
Cait watched him work, acknowledging how rare it was for a man of Godfrid’s station to be so casual about service to others. He’d had an idea, and he’d implemented it. While that might not be remarkable in and of itself, he’d solved the problem himself rather than asking a servant to fetch the sacking and do it for him. He was so sure of himself—so sure that he was worthy—that he didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. She honestly had never seen that before from any nobleman—maybe even any man—except her brother.
Brushing away further noises of concern on Cait’s part, Sanne descended the steps and stood on the floor of Rikard’s vault—her vault—shivering.
Cait followed and moved off the steps to stand where Rikard had written Godfrid’s name, in case some sign of the lettering remained. She didn’t mention that Sanne herself was standing where Rikard had died. The vault was so small that there was no way to avoid the spot.
Finn stood a few feet away. “Until today, I’d forgotten this was here. After we built it, my father never let me enter it again.”
“Why not?” Godfrid lifted the lantern he held to more fully light the room.
“He was grooming my older brother to take over the business after him, not me. I didn’t mind, since a trader was the last thing I wanted to be.”
Godfrid laughed under his breath. “You wanted to go a Viking.”
“I did.” Finn laughed back. “It’s in our blood, is it not?” Then his face fell, and his voice turned sad. “Our intent was to sail as far west as Iceland. While the seas can be very dangerous between here and there, the Icelanders are always short on supplies and profits are great.” Finn lifted one shoulder in an apologetic shrug. “Once in Iceland, I decided to strike out on my own. I have no excuse for it except I was young and criminally foolish. I left my brother in charge of the ship and our men and joined another crew sailing west.”
“To Vinland?” Godfrid actually gasped the words.
At first Cait thought he was horrified, but then she realized it was excitement, not fear, she was hearing in his voice. Three weeks in Dublin was long enough to realize that what she’d heard growing up about Danes was true: it was every Dane’s dream to sail west to the horizon. If there be dragons, so be it. Better to have seen a dragon and died in the attempt to defeat it than not to have sailed west at all. As Finn had said, going a Viking was in their blood.
She herself had no desire to leave Ireland. No land could be more beautiful—and that wasn’t just her opinion. Travelers from Europe and beyond to her uncle’s court claimed the same.
But Godfrid’s expression had turned rueful. “I gather things did not go well after that?”
“We made it as far as Greenland, but the weather was very bad, and the seas froze solid. We spent a terrible winter on that lonely shore and almost died.” He looked at Sanne and Cait. “Greenland isn’t green, you see. And although the sea ice melted eventually, our boat had been damaged in one of the winter storms. We tried three times to sail back to Iceland, but each time we were forced to turn back because our ship wasn’t seaworthy. There are no trees in Greenland with which to repair it.
“Finally, a ship arrived from Vinland on its way home, and those of us who still lived were able to barter our way on board. We arrived in Iceland to find my brother had fallen ill and died within weeks of my initial departure. I can’t help but think that, had I stayed, he might have turned for home and been spared the sickness that swept through Reykjavik.”
“Whether a man lives or dies is in the hands of God. You know that.” Though as Godfrid spoke, he retained the faraway look in his eyes from his visions of Vinland.
Sanne appeared disinterested in her stepson’s account and asked no questions of him nor professed her sympathy for the loss of his brother, who was also her elder stepson. While he’d been speaking, she’d been slowly spinning on one heel, inspecting the contents of the room.
Cait put a hand on her arm to get her attention. “Is anything missing?”
Sanne shook her head. “I haven’t been down here in several months, but nothing looks disturbed to me. What about you, Finn?”
Finn shook himself. “As I said, I was never allowed down here. Treasure chests could be missing, and I wouldn’t know it.”
“If chests were missing, there would be an outline of where they’d stood in the dirt.” Godfrid pursed his lips as he studied the young man. “You do realize that everything that was your father’s is yours by right now, providing you make dispensation for Sanne and Marta and pay the proper tithe to Ottar.”
“Which of course I will do.” Finn bowed in Sanne’s direction. “My father’s house is your home for as long as you choose to live in it. Tell me what you need or what you would like, and I will provide it.”
Sanne gazed at him, and Cait saw the moment she realized that she was truly a free woman. As when Cait had thrown off her mantle of slave girl, Sanne’s shoulders straightened and her chin came up. “Thank you, Finn. After your father’s funeral, I think I would like to return to the house in Wexford with Marta, but perhaps I could make a firm decision later.”
“Of course,” Finn said. “As I said, whatever you need.”
Sanne nodded and then climbed the stairs to reenter the warehouse proper. Cait glanced upwards in time to see a last flash of Sanne’s cloak as she disappeared, and then she heard the thump of her footsteps as she climbed the stairs to the office where Marta slept.
Conall waited until she was out of sight and then turned back to Finn. “What about Arno? Will you continue the partnership with him?”
“I left my desire for seafaring in Greenland. This business is my father’s legacy, and I will not abandon it. I will do whatever I have to do.” Finn made an impatient gesture with one hand. “If you don’t mind, I will do an accounting of what is here later.” He left the vault, taking the stairs two at a time as if he couldn’t wait to leave it. Cait couldn’t blame him, since for him the vault must have the smell of death about it. A moment later, Cait could hear him greeting Sanne and Marta, who had come down from the loft and were leaving too.
Conall waited until the main door slammed shut. “Does anyone else find it odd that he would leave us here unattended?”
“He appears to trust us,” Godfrid said.
“Well, he shouldn’t.” Conall looked from one to the other. “You two stay here. This is our chance to search the vault. Maybe something here will tell us why Rikard died, and also what he hid. Leave Finn to me.”
