what you mean, Dane, but don’t dare malign my man when he’s not here to give you the thrashing you deserve. He was a brave warrior. Ask any of his brothers.’
‘Very touching,’ said Aric. ‘So perhaps you and his brothers should know how my men came across him and his two companions. Not being overly brave, you’ll agree.’
Fearn felt the thud of her heart betraying her loyalty. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘Do you really want to know how they were raping a woman in the woodland where she was hiding? Yes, one of the villagers. An English woman. One of your own.’
‘You lie!’ Thored roared.
‘No, Earl. I do not lie. Your man had thrown his cloak and sword aside. Two men held the woman while he...’
‘No...no! My Barda would not...’ It was Catla who screamed while Fearn covered her mouth with both hands, feeling the familiar churning of her stomach.
‘I speak the truth,’ Aric shouted above the din. ‘Why would I lie? My men dragged them off her and killed your three brave men. Go and find them for yourselves. Give them the honours they deserve, what’s left of them, but don’t whine to me, woman—’ he glared at Fearn ‘—about what you’ve lost. What makes a healthy man act like an animal when he does not have the bloodlust upon him, with a wife like you at home?’ His voice dropped so that she saw rather than heard his words. ‘Perhaps I should find out.’
But Fearn’s mind had been fed more information than it could deal with in one day and now she stared at the Dane’s pitiless expression over her hands while an icy coldness stole like a frost along her arms.
The hubbub died down, broken only by Catla’s loud lamenting that her son had not only been killed but slandered, too, quite unjustly. He would never...never do anything so base. Fearn knew that he would. Earl Thored was bound to say it was a lie. ‘The Lady Fearn’s destiny is in my hands now,’ he insisted, ‘and I say that she shall remarry. Sitric...here...come, man...you shall have her.’ Eagerly, a young man stepped forward, but was stopped by Fearn’s strident protest.
‘He shall not, my lord. I am newly widowed and I demand a year of mourning. You know full well that I may now choose my own destiny. I shall go to live with the nuns at Clementhorpe. I have decided.’
‘Then you can undecide, woman. You’re coming with me,’ Aric said, flatly.
But they had bargained without Catla and Hilda, her resentful foster mother, who saw a way of paying back all those years of humiliation at Thored’s hands and for having to bring up a child whose strange beauty had threatened her own self-confidence for so many years. Catla’s wailing seemed to give Hilda courage, for now she found a voice. ‘Take her, Dane. Yes, take her away...far away. She does not belong here. Never has.’
Catla joined in before anyone could stop her. ‘Take her, for she will ever remind me of the son I have lost this day. She is widowed and of no use to anyone, not even to you, Dane, so if you think to bear sons on her, forget it. She bore no grandson for me and I doubt she’ll do any better for you. Those witch’s eyes turn men’s heads. Take her.’ She strode over to Fearn and, with a disgusting contortion of her face, spat at her.
Being quite unprepared for this, Fearn had not dodged the spittle that ran down her chin, but now her endurance came to an end in an explosion of blazing anger and, without a thought of anything other than this appalling insult, she aimed an open blow at Catla’s tear-stained face with all the force of a young woman’s deep unhappiness behind it. The power of it sent a painful shock down her arm, but Catla went down like a skittle, tangling her legs in her voluminous kirtle. Hands reached down to help her. Fearn’s only impulse was to escape while so much of the attention was being diverted away from her.
Backing away from the crowd, she caught the brief warning from Arlen’s lips that told her to look behind. Swinging round and drawing her knife from its sheath at the same time, she levelled it at Aric’s throat, her crouching stance practised over years of child’s play that sometimes resulted in unintentional wounds. This time, her expression of steely intent told Aric that he had better take this seriously. Nevertheless, Fearn was not in training, she was emotionally upset, her right arm was still tingling from the stunning blow to Catla’s head and her reflexes were nowhere near as sharp as her opponent’s, nor her strength as great. All it took was one quick lunge from her to send the shining knife flying through the air and to have her hands caught in both of his so tightly that she gasped with the pain of it. His arms were like two iron bands round her body as he pulled her in with her back against him, but just too late to prevent her from taking a savage bite at his hand, sinking her teeth in to touch the bone at the base of his thumb.
Wrenching away, he grunted with pain, but did not relax his grip. ‘A nunnery?’ he growled into her veil. ‘Whoever gave you that idea? Now, let’s see if I can change your mind.’
‘My lord... Lord Thored!’ Fearn yelled. ‘You cannot allow this. Help me!’
But it was clear to all who watched the undignified tussle that Earl Thored was not going to intervene, that the hand on Kean’s shoulder indicated his choice. He would not set his men to fight the Danes in his own hall over a foster daughter who, he hoped, would be returned to him in one year. Though it grieved him to lose the young woman he was so fond of, it was a chance he had to take. Thrusting his son behind him, he watched dispassionately as his wife and the bruised Catla stumbled from the hall before approaching Fearn, who was still trying to escape from Aric’s arm across her waist. ‘Lady Fearn!’ he barked. ‘You must stop this unseemly behaviour and remember who you are. Stand still and listen to me.’
‘Unseemly?’ she cried. ‘Stand still? With this ruffian’s hands upon me? My lord, you need to remind him who I am, not me.’ A heavy pall of dread hung over her as she compared this manhandling to that of Barda when he was drunk on mead, when blows would follow as a matter of course. She had always found it hard to believe that her foster father was entirely unaware of Barda’s violence, yet not once had he intervened in what was, after all, a domestic matter. Now, he was standing passively by yet again, telling her to remember who she was, which indeed was the only thing that had supported her through those terrifying incidents. She was an earl’s daughter and he was telling her to use dignity as her weapon.
Over her head, Aric spoke. ‘I do not need reminding, lady,’ he said. ‘I know who you are and I know your value, too. I think you may be worth the effort.’ As he spoke the insolent words, his arms loosened their grip across her body. Stung by his arrogance, Fearn twisted round like a coiled spring, her eyes blazing, warning him of her lightning-fast move. Meant to wreak the same damage as to Catla, her hand was caught before it made contact and, along with the other, was held wide apart by the wrists, helplessly out of range. With Barda as the victor, she would have received an immediate blow to her head, so now her instinct was to flinch with eyes tightly closed. But her reflex action was wasted, for although Aric recognised the fear as her eyes opened, he merely lowered her arms and stepped back, as if to tell her that he understood about the husband she had loyally called brave.
Trembling, and very close to tears of anger and helplessness, Fearn straightened the gold circlet over her brow and pulled the veil back into place, rubbing her wrists against the pressure of his hands, giving herself time to blink away the first signs of weakness. Her voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion as she looked bravely into Aric’s eyes of cold steel. ‘I am worth more effort than you will ever be able to find, Dane. I see now that my foster father means to sacrifice me to your whim, for that is all it is. A whim. You came here for your
