She didn’t feel like a bride.
Rika stood naked before Sitryg, the woman who had been her mother’s closest friend, and frowned.
“Come now.” Sitryg slipped a light woolen shift over Rika’s head. “Is this not what you yourself wished? To wed the Scot?”
“Ja,” she said, but would not meet the older woman’s eyes.
“I will say this much for him,” Sitryg said, then pushed Rika down onto a stool and began to work a tortoiseshell comb through her hair. “He’s fair handsome, and canny as any man I’ve known.”
“Hmph. That’s not saying much. Who have you known?”
Sitryg clicked her tongue. “Enough, girl. In a few hours he shall take you to his bed. If you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’ll change your mood before then.”
“Why should I?” The comb pulled harder. “Ow!”
“Because it will go easier for you if you do. A man expects a compliant bedmate, not a sharp-tongued serpent in women’s clothes.”
At least she’d agreed to wear women’s clothes. She would have preferred Gunnar’s hauberk and helm. It seemed, somehow, more fitting to the occasion.
Rika crossed her arms over her chest and ground her teeth. Ja, compliant she’d be for as long as it took. And if her experience with Brodir was any indication, it wouldn’t take long.
She’d do it for Gunnar. Nothing else mattered. After all, how much worse could it be than what she’d already experienced in Brodir’s bed? Rika toyed with the wide hammered bracelets circling her wrists.
“I suggest you remove those,” Sitryg said. “They don’t belong with your gown.”
Rika ignored her. She never removed the bracelets. Not ever, except in the bathhouse, and only when she was alone. A shiver ran up her spine as she recalled Grant’s eyes on her in the sauna last eve.
He could have taken her then, in the heat, on the birch-strewn floor. Brodir would have. But Grant hadn’t, and she knew why. She repulsed him. Disgusted him. Her size and plain features, her scars—Thor’s blood, had he seen her with her bracelets off?
He’d stood not an arm’s length from her and had said not a word save her name—yet she’d felt his contempt. Oh, she knew well that sensation. Her father had taught her young that she was less than nothing. She and her brother—their mother, too.
Why Fritha had stayed married to him all those years, Rika could not understand. When her mother died, it seemed almost a blessing. So peaceful did she rest on her funeral pyre, Rika longed to go with her to the next world.
Then there had been Brodir’s lessons.
Rika closed her eyes and swallowed against the taste souring her mouth. By rights, she should have told someone and Brodir would have been punished. But she had not. The humiliation had been too great. Too, she feared he would exact some worse revenge. Instead, she’d borne his abuse in silence.
And she could bear it once more at the hands of a stranger. She must.
“Leave me now,” she said, and rose from the stool.
Her pale woolen gown lay strewn across a bench in the small cottage where she and Grant would pass their wedding night. Most of the islanders slept in the four longhouses that ringed the central courtyard, though some couples built cottages of their own after they wed, in the style of the mainlanders—and the Scots, she supposed.
“Let me help you finish dressing.” Sitryg reached for the gown.
“Nay, I can manage on my own.”
“But—”
“Sitryg, please.” Rika put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. Only then did she realize she was trembling. This was ridiculous. She must compose herself. “Leave me now. I shall see you at the ceremony.”
“As you wish.” The old woman covered Rika’s hand with her own. “Your mother meant the world to me, you know. I would help her daughter in any small way I could.”
She smiled, remembering how close the two of them had been. “I know that, and I thank you.”
Sitryg squeezed her hand, then left.
Rika collapsed on the freshly made bed and whispered “I must be strong” for the hundredth time that day. As strong as her mother had been. As strong as Gunnar would have to be to stay alive until she could reach him.
This wedding was only the first of the trials she must endure. Her father’s wrath would come later and, after she returned, she’d have Brodir to face.
The fire in the room did little to warm her. Rika rose and snatched the gown, pulled it on and smoothed it over her shift. Perhaps she wouldn’t return to Fair Isle at all after Gunnar was freed. She could stay on the mainland and make a new life. Now there was a thought.
She donned her sealskin boots and secured her hair with a kransen, a plain bronze circlet that rested lightly on her forehead. It would have to do. She was no beauty, and it made no sense to fuss over her appearance.
Besides, what did she care how she looked? It wasn’t a real marriage, after all. Following the celebration, Grant would do the deed—damn Hannes to hell—and she’d never have to suffer it again.
An image of the Scot looming over her naked in the sauna shot through her mind like a lightning bolt. It was not the first time that day she’d thought of him so. Last night in the heat and close air Rika had felt something so overpowering, so foreign, it frightened her.
Desire.
“It’s time,” a voice called from the other side of the door. “Your bridegroom waits.”
George paced the dirt floor of Lawmaker’s cottage and shook his head. “She must be mad if she thinks I’ll recite such pagan words.”
Lawmaker arched a brow in what George knew was exasperation. They’d been over the details of the ceremony a dozen times that day. “It’s not up to her. It’s the law. You have your rituals, and we have ours.”
“But it’s…heathen.” He didn’t want to offend the old man, but there it was.
“It’s a Christian ceremony for the most part.”
“Oh, aye? Well where’s the priest then?”
Lawmaker shrugged. “The only one we had died years ago. Besides, the people like the old ways. There is little left to remind us of our ancestry. The wedding rites are something we all enjoy.”
“Hmm.” Well he wasn’t enjoying it one bit. He supposed he should be relieved there was no priest. ’Twas not a proper Christian wedding and, therefore, ’twould not be recognized by God or king. That was some consolation. No one would have to know about it once he was home.
Home.
Again, he thought of Sommerled.
“Take this,” Lawmaker said. To George’s astonishment, the old man offered him the hilt of a sword.
His fingers closed instinctively over the finely crafted weapon. The weight of it felt good in his hand.
Lawmaker grinned. “It suits you.”
“Why now? And why a weapon so fair?” He ran his hand along the rune-covered blade.
“Oh, it’s not for you to keep. The ceremony requires that you bestow on your bride your family’s sword—as a vow of protection.”
George frowned.
“You have no family here, so I offer you my weapon.” Lawmaker looked at him, waiting for his acceptance, and George knew from the elder’s expression that the gesture was no small honor.
He was moved by the man’s trust in him. “Thank ye,” he said.
“Rika, in turn, will offer you her family’s sword. Her brother’s.”
“As a sign of…?”
“Obedience.”
“Ha!”
“And loyalty,” Lawmaker said. “Do not scoff. I told Rika this, and I shall tell you—” Lawmaker snatched the sword from him and sheathed it. “This marriage will change you both—for the better, methinks.”
He snorted. “The only thing ’twill change is my location. For if I do this thing, I expect to see the bonny shores of Scotland posthaste.”
“Hmm, Latin. You are as I thought—an educated man. It will be a fine match.”
“Stop saying that.” The old man annoyed him to no end. He’d sent George into that sauna deliberately, knowing Rika was there. George knew it, and Lawmaker knew he knew it. Damn him.
He’d not been in his right mind when he agreed to the wedding, but by the time he’d come to his senses, the news was all over the village. He’d given his word, and he was not a man to go back on it. Lawmaker knew that, the canny sod.
“Take this, as well.”
“Huh?” He hadn’t been listening.
Lawmaker handed him a small, devilishly heavy tool—a hammer.
“What’s this for?”
“Put it in your belt. It’s a symbol of Thor’s hammer. For the ritual.”
He looked at it skeptically before tucking it under his belt. “What does it signify?”
Lawmaker smiled. “Your mastery in the union. And a fruitful marriage, if you take my meaning.”
“Oh, aye.” George shot him a nasty look, and the old man laughed. What fruit ’twould bear would be bitter at best.
“Bear with me, son. We are nearly ready.”
’Twas a good thing, too. He didn’t know how much more of this pagan nonsense he could stand.
“Now, about the bride-price. I expect—”
“Bride-price? Surely ye dinna expect me to pay for her? And with what, pray tell?” This was too much.
“Calm down.” Lawmaker placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I was about to say, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. When you meet Rika’s father.”
“Fine.”
“For now, all that’s needed is for you to present her with a morgen gifu—a morning gift, after the, uh…consummation.”
George felt his eyes widen of their own accord.
“Well, on the morrow sometime.” Lawmaker fished something out of a chest behind him. “Here, give her this,” he said, and dropped it into his hand.
“What is it?” He examined the delicately crafted silver brooch and marveled at the workmanship. For all their roughness, these islanders were excellent craftsmen.
“Something I’ve had for years. It was Rika’s mother’s, in fact. It’s time she had it.”
George slipped the brooch into the small pouch at his waist and nodded.
“Well, are you ready?”
“As ready as any man who faces the hangman’s noose.”
Lawmaker smiled like a cat who’d cornered a tasty field mouse. “Come, your bride awaits you.”
Rika turned into the courtyard and was not prepared for what she saw there.
The whole of the village was assembled and fell silent when she appeared. Hushed whispers and children’s laughter rose around her, threatening to swallow her up as she walked slowly along the path that opened before her. A sullen Ottar followed in her wake, bearing her brother’s sword.
She was not used to such attention, and her kinsmen’s stares unnerved her. Lawmaker stood with Grant by the well at the courtyard’s center. Mustering her resolve, she fixed her gaze on the old man’s calming features, and moved one foot ahead of the other until she was there.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The weather was blustery, the sky white, and her thin woolen gown afforded her little protection from the chill air.
Sitryg stepped forward, and Rika stooped so the small woman could remove the bronze kransen from her head. It was a symbol of virginity, and after today Rika would wear it no more. Few knew why she’d ceased to do so months ago. Most of the islanders thought her strange anyway and paid her actions no mind.
Lina held the bridal crown. Fashioned from straw and last year’s wheat, it was garlanded with dried flowers, and set with a few precious pieces of rock-crystal gathered from the beach.
Sitryg seated the crown, and Rika stood tall, turning her gaze for the first time on her husband.
Grant’s expression was stone, his eyes cool steel. Attired in rare leather and borrowed fur, he looked every bit a Viking bridegroom. To her surprise, he wore Lawmaker’s broadsword. She glanced quickly at the old man and caught him smiling.
Lawmaker cleared his throat, then nodded at the Scot. Grant stepped forward, and she fought the ridiculous urge to step back. He looked pointedly at her as he unsheathed the sword. His eyes were so cold, for a moment she thought he might use the weapon to slay her.
What did she expect?
This wedding was forced on him. The Scot hated her, and she knew he’d use that hate tonight in their bridal bed, much as Brodir had on many occasions. So be it. She was prepared. Rika swallowed hard and forced herself to hold his gaze.
Grant presented her with the weapon’s hilt and she took it from his hand. Hers was shaking. She motioned for Ottar, but he did not step forward. When Rika turned to prompt him, she saw that his dark eyes were fixed on Grant and that his face twitched with what she knew was pent-up rage.
“Ottar,” she whispered. “The sword.”
The youth thrust it toward her. She nearly dropped it when he let it go and stormed off into the surrounding crowd. Later she would find him and again try to make him understand.
Lawmaker nodded at her to proceed.
She studied Gunnar’s sword. Though it had been their father’s, she had always thought of it as Gunnar’s, and was now loath to part with it. She had little left of her brother, and the weapon had been one of his most treasured things.
“Rika,” Lawmaker said.
She met Grant’s eyes, and read something new in them. Amusement? Ja, the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. Lawmaker must have explained the significance of the ritual. Her hackles rose.
She gritted her teeth behind tightly sealed lips and thrust the sword toward him. Grant’s hand closed over it, and for a moment she hesitated. He jerked the weapon from her hand and smiled.
Thor’s blood, she hated him. That hate fed her resolve, and her confidence. She knew men, and the Scot was no different. They fed on power and domination. Tonight’s victory would be his, but she would win the war.
Lawmaker fished something out of the pouch at his waist, and Rika’s eyes widened as she recognized what he held.
Wedding rings.
No one had said anything about rings.
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he merely shrugged. Hannes stood behind him, grinning.
Grant had obviously been well instructed, for he proffered the hilt of her family’s sword while Lawmaker set the smaller ring upon it. She pursed her lips, and did the same with the weapon Grant had given her.
They exchanged the rings, each on the hilt of their newly accepted swords. Without flourish Rika jammed the silver circle on her finger. Grant followed suit.
There. It was done.
Save for the speaking of vows—a Christian custom Rika never much cared for. Grant raced through the lines he’d been taught, and Rika mumbled her response.
A shout went up in the crowd, and others echoed it. Lawmaker grunted, satisfied, and Rika supposed she should be happy, as well. It was, after all, what she’d wanted—the first step in her carefully crafted plan.
She turned to the crowd of onlookers and searched for the two faces she knew would be there. Erik and Leif. Her brother’s closest friends. They nodded soberly when she met their eyes. The two young men shared her secret, and their stalwart faces buoyed her confidence.
“Wife,” Grant’s voice boomed behind her.
Her head snapped around.
The Scot had the nerve to offer her his arm. “Come, there is a celebration, is there no?”
She scowled. “I don’t wish to celebrate.”
“Ja, she does,” Lawmaker said, and pushed her toward the path opening before them.
Her temper flared. She shot both of them murderous glances, then stormed toward the longhouse.
“Wait!” Lawmaker called after her.
She looked back, but kept walking.
“Rika, watch—”
“Unh!” She tripped over the threshold and hit the packed dirt floor with a thud. Thor’s blood!
A collective gasp escaped the mouths of the onlookers.
Grant was there in an instant, looming over her but offering no help. Lawmaker pushed him aside and pulled Rika to her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Grant said, obviously bewildered by the shocked expressions all around him.
“You should have been here waiting, as I instructed you,” Lawmaker scolded.
“Aye, but she beat me to it. So what?” Grant shrugged.
“It’s an ill omen, you fool.” Lawmaker shook his head at Grant. “You were to carry her across, remember?”
Grant snorted. “She’s so big, I wasna certain I could manage it.”
Of all the—
Her kinsmen roared, and Rika felt the heat rise in her face. She tested the weight of the sword Grant had given her, and was sorely tempted to unman him on the spot.
Instead, she glared at him until the smile slid from his face, then she blew across the threshold into the midst of the celebration.
George followed her into the longhouse, which was already packed with people. Tables were jammed into every available space, and laden with fare—roasted mutton, bread, and a half-dozen kinds of cheese. Flagons of honeyed mead were placed within easy reach of every diner.
The air, as always, was thick and smoky. The central fire blazed. George welcomed the heat, for the weather had turned. By nightfall snow was expected and, from what the elders predicted, in no small measure.
“Ho, Scotsman!” A burly islander slapped George on the back. “Have a go at this rooftree, man, so we can see of what you’re made.” The man pointed at one of the thick timber pillars supporting the low longhouse roof.
George had no idea what the man wanted him to do.
Rika beckoned him to the high-placed table where she sat with Lawmaker. “Nay, you need not partake of such foolishness.”
“Come on, man,” the islander said. “Draw that fine sword she’s given you and see how far you can sink it into the wood.”
George followed the man’s gaze to the timber pillar, which he now noticed was riddled with scars. Still he did not understand. Men crowded around him, spurring him on.
“’Twill predict the luck of the marriage,” one of them said.
“Oh, I see.” George nodded his head, but he didn’t see at all.
“It’s a test of virility, of manhood.” The burly islander slapped his back again. “The deeper you sink your weapon…” He cast a lusty smile toward Rika, who blushed crimson with rage. “Well, you…understand, do you not?”
George understood, all right. “Why not?” he said, enjoying Rika’s discomfort. He drew the sword and raised it double-fisted over his head as instructed by the men. The room went deadly quiet.
Rika glared at him, her eyes twin daggers. He grinned at her, drew a breath and, with all his might, plunged the sword into the wood.
“Hurrah!” The shout went up as a dozen beefy hands slapped him on the back, a few reaching up to rumple his hair. ’Twas all fair amusing.
The burly islander grunted as he pulled the sword from the timber, carefully measuring off the length that had been embedded. Apparently, George had done quite a good job of it, for the men howled as the burly one held the weapon aloft for all to see. After George had been congratulated a dozen times over, the crowd pushed him toward the table where his bride waited, her face the color of ripe cherries.
“You did not have to do that,” she seethed.
“I know, but I enjoyed it.” He smiled again, just to taunt her. He had enjoyed it, but reminded himself that his brother was dead, and that he was far from home.
Too far. ’Twas easy to forget amidst such revelry who he was and why he participated in such pagan rites.
He scanned the faces in the room, and nodded at those he recognized. Most of the men seemed to accept him, which he thought odd. Others—Ingolf, in particular—spared him naught but menacing glances.
“Here,” Rika said, and pushed a strange-looking vessel toward him. “The bridal cup. You must drink from it, and I will do the same.”
The handles were carved into the likeness of a fantastical sea creature. Never had he seen such a thing. George grasped the handles, brought the cup to his lips, and drank. What else? Honeyed mead. Another cheer went up. He screwed his face up as the sweet liquor hit his senses. Nay, there was no hope of a decent ale for fifty leagues.
Three days’ sail.
He passed the cup to Rika and she drained it.
“There,” she said to Lawmaker. “It’s done. All rituals complete.”
“All but one,” Hannes said, and rose from his seat on the opposite side of the table. “Grant,” he said,
“your hammer.”
“Nay.” Rika visibly stiffened beside him. “I won’t have it.”
“It’s custom,” Hannes said, and the crowd cheered him on.
George wondered what, exactly, this custom signified, to cause her such distress. He rose at their beckoning, slipped the hammer from his belt and handed it to the skald.
“It’s ridiculous,” Rika hissed, and turned to Lawmaker as if he would put a stop to Hannes’s antics.
George had no idea what was about to happen, but ’twas clear Lawmaker had no intention of stopping it.
Hannes moved behind Rika, whose fists were balled on the table. So profound was her anger, it radiated from her like an icy heat.
“Get it over with, poet,” she said to the skald.
Hannes placed the hammer in her lap, and every man, woman and child in the tightly packed room let out a howl.
Lawmaker smiled.
“What does it mean?” George leaned behind the fuming Rika to ask him.
“Hannes invokes Frigga, who is also the goddess of childbearing.”
George could not stop his eyes from widening.
“The gesture is meant to bless the bride’s…er, womb.” Lawmaker arched a brow at him.
“I see,” George said, and decided he’d best have another cup of that insufferable mead, after all.
Hours of feasting and drinking ensued, during which Hannes recited a host of verses—many of them love poems, to Rika’s enormous displeasure.
George relaxed for the first time since he’d arrived on Fair Isle, and decided, after all, that this marriage was no great burden. ’Twas harmless, really. A pagan rite, nothing more. Had he agreed to it immediately, he might have been home by now.
His obligations to king and clan, and to the families of his men who’d perished at sea, weighed heavy on his mind. Surely they’d sail on the morrow. His bride was as anxious to secure her dowry as he was to return home.
As for tonight…he’d make the best of it.
Rika sat not inches from him, but had barely glanced in his direction all evening. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “This was no my idea, ye know.”
His closeness startled her, and she drew back. “I know. It will all be over soon.” Her expression was cool, but her eyes were troubled.
“No soon enough,” he said, and wondered why this much celebrating was really necessary.
She whispered something in Lawmaker’s ear, and the elder rose. “It’s time!” he shouted over the din. “The night is on us.”
“Time for what?” George asked to no one in particular.
Rika’s grim, pale expression gave him his answer.
“Oh, the—”
“Ja,” Rika said, cutting him off. “We will retire now to our…” She drew a breath, and if George didn’t know her for the icy thing she was, he’d think it was for courage. “To the cottage,” she finished weakly.
Without preamble, he and Rika were whisked from the bench and carried outside on the shoulders of a small throng of drunken islanders.
’Twas snowing. Billowy white flakes blustered down on him, clinging to his hair and garments. He sucked in a breath and realized, too late, that he’d had far too much mead. His head began to spin.
Moments later, the door to a small cottage at the other end of the courtyard was kicked open, and Rika was dropped unceremoniously onto the bed within. George was set on his feet in front of her.
Before he knew what was happening, three men relieved him of his weapons, his boots, and his tunic, leaving him next to naked in naught but his leggings. He snatched a fur from the bed and held it in front of him. He wasn’t usually this modest, but the strangeness of the situation unnerved him.
Two women hovered over Rika, and when they drew back he saw that she, too, had been stripped of her outer garments. Her undershift was thin, nearly transparent. In his mind’s eye he saw her as she’d been in the sauna last eve—her skin pearled with sweat, her hair damp and clinging to the curves of her body.
He drew a sobering breath.
One of the women, an elder, said, “Remember what I told you, girl.”
Rika did not respond, nor did she move a muscle. Hannes and Lawmaker and the few others packed into the tiny cottage fell silent. Finally she tipped her chin at George and said, “Do it then. Get it over with.”
He looked at her, uncertain of her meaning.
She set her jaw and eased back onto the bed. “I’m ready, Scotsman. Finish it.”
“What?” he croaked. Truth dawned, and his mouth gaped. “Ye mean…” He glanced at the others in the room, and shook his head. “She canna mean what I think she means?”
“Ah, what’s that?” Lawmaker said, his face as innocent as a babe’s.
Oh, nay. Surely they didn’t expect…
“It must be witnessed,” Hannes said. “It’s the law.”
George stood speechless, clutching the fur.
“Go on then,” the burly islander said, and slapped him on the back for what had to be the hundredth time that night.
“With all of ye here? Ye’re daft.” In truth, since the third or fourth flagon of mead he’d been thinking he wouldn’t mind it so very much. And why not? Any port in a storm, so the Inverness sailors were fond of saying.
But this, this was unthinkable.
Rika sat up in the bed. “You must, or it won’t be legal. Am I right?” She looked to Lawmaker for confirmation. “Unless of course, we don’t have to do it at all?” Her face lit with hope.
“We’ve been all through this,” Hannes said. “Have we not?”
“Ja, we have,” Lawmaker said. “But it need not be witnessed. That’s an ancient custom we rarely practice. I, myself, shall attest to the legality of the marriage when the time comes. Now, let us away.”
“But—” Rika flew from the bed as Lawmaker herded the onlookers from the room. “Nay, you must stay!” Her eyes widened in what George could swear was fear. “Sitryg, Lawmaker, do not leave me here alone with him.”
Lawmaker paused in the doorway and cast her a hard look. “He’s your husband now. You must trust him, as he has trusted you in agreeing to this bargain.”
She started toward the door, and on impulse George reached out and grabbed her braceleted wrist. Her whole body went rigid at his touch.
“Remember, too, what I have told you,” Lawmaker said to her. “Not all men are the same.”
George looked into the blanched face of his bride and, as Lawmaker closed the door on them, wondered what the devil the old man meant.