they descended another hill and began moving east along the narrow strip of relatively flat land at the bottom. They were deep in the trees. Brit hunched into her jacket and shivered and let go of another M&M. After that she had only one left.
It was perhaps ten minutes later—by then she was tired enough she hardly glanced at her watch anymore—that another woman, dressed much like Rinda and Grid but with skin the color of richest mahogany, materialized from the bushes at the side of the trail. The woman stood, hands on hips, dark eyes flashing, squarely in their path.
“Greetings, sisters.”
Grid reined in and saluted, the tips of her fingers to the center of her forehead. “Freyja guide your sword arm, Fulla guard your hearth.”
“You have her,” said the woman on the trail.
“We do.”
“Come, then. Ragnild awaits.”
The warrior on the trail turned and vanished into the trees. Grid—and Rinda and Brit—followed. Brit let go of the final piece of candy, right there, a few yards after they turned into the trees.
They all three had to duck low to the horses to keep from being unseated by the thick, low-hanging branches. They rode for five minutes or so, Grid and Brit with cheeks to the necks of their mounts, Rinda with her head pressed against Brit’s side.
At last, the trees opened up into a clearing: the camp of the kvina soldars.
Brit saw teepee-style tents arranged in a circle, smoke spiraling up through the tops of them. In addition to whatever fires burned within, there were open fires, rimmed by rocks, before the tents. Beyond the tent circle, hobbled horses nibbled the short grass. Warrior women of various ages moved in and out of the tents. Some of the women were black, some were of Asian descent, some Middle Eastern. There were dogs. And there were children, two of whom—at first glance, anyway—appeared to be little boys. In the center of the circle, someone had pounded in a tree trunk about a foot in diameter and around seven feet tall.
Grid dismounted.
“Get down,” said Rinda from behind her.
Stiffly—after all that time riding bareback with bound hands—Brit slid to the ground. Rinda dismounted last. The dark-skinned woman who had found them on the trail led the horses off.
“This way,” said Grid.
Brit fell in step behind her. Rinda took up the rear. Grid led them across the central area between the tents, to one slightly larger tent on the eastern side of the circle. As they passed, the children stopped their play to stare. The other women either ignored the newcomers or paused to salute, fingers to forehead, as Grid had done on the trail.
At the tent, they ducked inside.
A woman waited beyond the central fire, on the far side of the tent. She wore a white leather robe over her clothing. The robe was decorated with red runic-looking symbols. She sat cross-legged on a pallet of furs. Her hair was auburn, loose and full around her handsome face. Brit would have guessed her to be about forty.
“Unbind her,” the woman in the robe commanded.
Grid turned to Brit, a knife in her hand. One clean swipe and the leather thongs fell away. Brit slid off her gloves, stuck them in a pocket and rubbed her tender, leather-abraded wrists.
The woman in the robe saluted Grid and Rinda. “Thank you. You may leave her here with me.”
“But—” Rinda began.
The woman on the pallet cut her off with a slow shake of her head. “Discipline, my daughter. The first cornerstone of a life of power.”
Rinda said nothing more. She followed Grid out.
“Do you thirst?” asked the auburn-haired woman. “Do you have need to relieve yourself?”
Brit was not at her best by then. Her thighs ached and her shoulder throbbed and she hadn’t a clue where she was or what was going to happen next. Also, if she’d thought the Mystic villagers lived primitively, well, hel-lo. The kvina soldars had them beat by a mile. “Do I get to talk now?”
The handsome woman frowned. “You are angry?”
“Uh, yeah. You could say that. There I was, walking in the woods, minding my own business. And I come upon what is about to be a rape. I step in, stop the rape—and get kidnapped for my trouble.” She touched her cheek. “Plus, Grid backhanded me for asking questions about what, exactly, was happening. And no, I don’t have to relieve myself and we stopped to drink at a spring not far back down the trail.”
The woman gestured at her pallet, which was big enough for more than one. “Please. Will you sit? I apologize for the… zealousness of my women. I requested that they bring you to me. They only did what I asked of them.”
“So you’re saying you’re the one to blame?”
The woman smiled, the fine lines around her eyes etching deeper. “Yes. I am Ragnild, leader of this camp. And I am to blame for everything. Now. Will you sit?”
Brit blew out a breath. “I suppose.” She circled the low fire and dropped to the furs with a tiny groan. She really wasn’t used to riding without a saddle. Everything was going to be way sore by tomorrow. But back to business. “Okay, Ragnild. What is going on?”
The woman put up a hand. “Please. Be still now. Look me squarely in the eye.”
Brit stifled a second groan—one that had nothing to do with her physical discomfort. She wanted answers, damn it. And she deserved them.
But something in the leader calmed her. Made her willing to just sit there—for a moment, anyway—and stare straight into Ragnild’s hazel eyes.
“Yes,” said Ragnild, after a long, strangely peaceful span of time. “It is as my dreams have foretold. You will be a great queen, the first in our nation’s history to rule with her king.”
Chapter Seven
Brit opened her mouth to argue—but decided against it. What Ragnild predicted would happen or it wouldn’t. And the future wasn’t the issue right now.
Now she had questions. Lots of them. “Rinda called me her cousin…”
“Because you are. As I am her mother.”
“But how are we related?”
“Your mother had a brother named Brian. Have you been told of him?”
Brit made a face. “More than I wanted to know, to be honest.” Her mother had finally told Liv, only weeks ago, why she had left their father, why she had split their family in two—baby triplet daughters to Ingrid, sons to Osrik. Brian Freyasdahl, a real piece of work, as it turned out, had been at the center of the problem. She frowned. “You’re saying that my rotten uncle Brian was Rinda’s father?”
Ragnild sighed.
Brit understood. “You’re the one, aren’t you? The one who killed him, the one who cut off his head and his—”
Ragnild
