death or that her husband would take Svana’s part, refusing his brother’s demand for her immediate death and instead bodily removed him from the hall.
‘Do you think I will be able to meet the farm’s nisser? To make sure he knows that I intend to look after him properly with porridge and everything. That way he will know to favour this farm,’ Svana said, interrupting Ragn’s thoughts.
Ragn stared at the rapidly approaching spit of land, trying to decide if her sister asking about the mischievous elf who was supposed to guard homes but often played tricks on the inhabitants was a good thing. Such creatures in Ragn’s experience did not exist or, if they did, they were not inclined to assist her.
‘Tending to your chores will do more to ensure the farm prospers than putting out porridge. Believe me. This farm will prosper with me in charge.’
‘And this will be my home for ever? You won’t make me marry unless I want to?’ Svana gestured towards her inward-turning eye. ‘No true man will want me like this. I have heard the whispers. What the men on board this ship said about me, what they wanted to do.’
‘Stop doubting my schemes. I might start to think you have lost faith,’ Ragn said lightly.
Svana squeezed her hand. ‘I trust you, Ragn. I just can’t help overhearing what other people are saying.’
Ragn clucked her under the chin. ‘Would you believe them if they said the sky was green? So why believe them about that? We will be fine.’
We have to be, I have no other plan to save her life, she added under her breath.
The boat made a scraping noise as it hit the shore. Ragn was jolted forward and her stomach hit the railing. The ill-favoured crew leaped out and dragged the boat further up the shingle.
Ragn’s legs wobbled slightly when she first set foot on the rough shingle. She forced them to stagger a few steps. ‘Svana, firm ground. Good ground. Safe ground.’
‘It wobbles.’
‘Only because we have been on the sea. It will pass quickly.’ Ragn prayed to any god that her words were correct.
She glanced about the barren windswept beach. Their approach had to have been noted. They had come in peacefully with the shields down. And it was obvious from the smoke lazily curling in the sky that someone was at home.
To hide her discomfort, she directed the long-nosed captain to put her trunks on the shore above the tideline. The man shrugged his shoulders, muttering about the tide turning and having to leave quickly.
When she was about to give in to despair, a large man came out of the hall. A shaft of winter sunshine illuminated him, turning his skin and hair golden. His shoulders were broad and powerful, a man used to fighting and hard work, rather than a courtier like her late husband, a man a woman could count on to fight for her and her family and win. Her next thought was why in the name of Freya did a man who looked like that need to send to the north for a wife? Women would be buzzing about him like bees around a honeycomb.
‘He isn’t very friendly and wants us gone. He should have tankards of ale to offer strangers, but his hands are empty.’ A worried frown puckered Svana’s forehead. ‘Something is very wrong, Ragn, isn’t it?’
Ragn forced a laugh. ‘They do things differently here, I suspect. We will soon have their manners.’
Svana glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘On the ship, they said I brought that storm. I didn’t. I promise. I am not bad luck and shouldn’t be thrown overboard.’
‘As if I’d allow that to happen to you!’
‘You are wearing your serious face, like you did when you spied Vargr and his berserkers riding towards our old home.’
Ragn forced her lungs to fill with air. Vargr believed them dead in the fire he and his men had set. He did not know they had escaped just as the roof caved in. He would not come looking for them, particularly not with the North Sea between them. Vargr had feared the North Sea ever since his father perished on it.
‘Nothing is wrong, sweetling. Wives are for civilising. Warriors are for defending their land. It is why he has sent for a wife—to learn how to be civil. I can do that.’
‘Who goes there?’ her soon-to-be husband asked, placing a hand on the large sword he wore. ‘We are a simple farm, not a market. I’ve little wish to waste your time or mine. Best be gone before the tide turns.’
Despite its roughness, his deep voice was easy on the ear. Ragn placed her hand on her stomach and bid the butterflies to be gone. It was possible the captain had made a mistake and this golden mountain of a man wasn’t her intended. Her husband was probably old, missing a limb and confined to bed. This warrior would lead her to him.
‘Ragnhild Thorendottar, the contracted wife of Gunnar Olafson, come from Viken as requested.’ She made the sort of low curtsy she’d make to the King or Queen.
The only sound was the cawing of the seagulls. The man’s stance turned more foreboding. He drew his brows together.
‘Contracted wife?’ he said after what appeared to be a lifetime. ‘Of whom did you say? Gunnar Olafson?’
‘Are you Gunnar Olafson, also known as Gunnar the Strong Arm, of Kolbeinn’s felag? Or his steward?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side. Her voice sounded thin on the breeze. She swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Or must I seek him elsewhere?’
Ragn watched the man from under her lashes now that she clearly saw him. His features were regular, his hair was a dark blond which had begun to go to brown and had been shaved at the sides but allowed to grow long on top. He sported two golden rings in his beard. Everything about him proclaimed vitality and virility.
She pressed her hands together to stop them from trembling. His gaze raked her form, making her immediately aware of her many failings from her lack of curves to her above-average height and overbearing manner which made men’s manhood shrivel to nothingness. Her late husband’s taunts, the ones he said when he drank far too much ale, echoed in her mind. She tried to list the good things she brought to a marriage—her willingness to work hard, her knowledge of making ale, and...her mind went blank. She no longer possessed any land or riches of any kind, nothing to tempt a successful warrior like this one.
‘I seek Gunnar Olafson.’
‘I am he,’ the man confirmed with a puzzled expression. ‘But I’ve made no contract for a wife. Ever. I have no wish or desire for one at the present. Who plots against me?’
Ragn’s stomach swooped and knotted. There had to be some mistake. She refused to risk Svana on the sea again with that crew. The captain of the boat had driven a hard bargain to bring her and Svana out here—a one-way passage only, no return or onward. Eylir the Black had paid for her passage as the morning gift for the marriage, but the captain had demanded double for Svana. She had relinquished both her grandmother’s gold brooches to pay for it. After sacrificing her gold necklace to calm the waves during the storm, all she had left was her mother’s silver necklace, but that would not pay for the return passage or safeguard Svana from being tossed overboard if the ship encountered another storm.
‘Eylir Rokrson, whom some call Eylir the Black, made the contract,’ she said, banging her fists together and
