Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(35)

Aelfhild let slip the breath she had been holding and looked to Ceolwen. Relief was writ large on her mistress’ face. She, too, had been far from certain of the outcome of her little gambit, it seemed.

Jarngrim and Rolf lifted Ceolwen out of the hold. Bercthun’s strength appeared to be flagging after his long ordeal, and his arms gave out as he attempted to help Aelfhild up.

She patted his shoulder and smiled. “You did well,” she whispered.

Then she remembered—Sola and Runild. So much had happened, one thought had driven out the last. Crossing the hold, she called them out of their hiding place. Runild emerged with Sola in her arms, squinting against the glare and looking miserable.

“Leofstan is dead, Runild, we are saved!” Aelfhild cried, embracing the woman and daughter. “We are saved, Sola!”

Sola beamed right back, but her mother looked unconvinced. She stared at the raiders.

“More of you?” came Eyvind’s voice from behind.

Aelfhild turned to face him. “The man you killed threatened to kill this little girl. They have been through more horrors than you can imagine. You must let them come with us.”

The Thrym captain looked her up and down. “Must?”

The tone of that one word reined in Aelfhild’s galloping spirits. His cocked eyebrow hinted at jest, but there was a note of challenge in the voice as if to say, push it further, and see what happens.

Ceolwen stared down from above, eyes wide with disbelief.

Swallowing hard, Aelfhild lowered her eyes. She had grown too bold, forgotten to keep her head down and voice low. “If it please you, master,” she said. “They deserve fair treatment.”

Eyvind snorted. It might have been a trick of the scar along his cheek, but Aelfhild thought—or hoped—that she detected the ghost of a smile. “They are under my guard, this I say to you. This boat is also going to Jarlstad, and they go with it.”

She took Runild’s hand in hers. “I will see you in Jarlstad, I promise. But I must go with my mistress.”

Runild squeezed back and at long last smiled. “The Gods love you for all you have done, lady. We will remember you.”

Aelfhild swept Sola up in a hug. The girl grabbed her hand as they parted and kissed the palm. It was an odd gesture, but Sola was an odd child. “Farewell, Sola. I will see you again, I promise,” she said, then turned to join Ceolwen and Bercthun.

Her heart sang and her steps felt light, as though she might drift away in the breeze. Leofstan would never know it, and had never meant it as more than a cruel jest, but he had given her a gift. With his death, her hope returned, hope that there was some justice in the world, however small, and that the Gods had more in store for her than murk and madness.

Humming one of Sola’s tunes, she vaulted onto the upper deck.





18

Eyvind’s men were hard at work making the slave ship sailable once more. The boards of the deck were sticky with rust-brown blood, the oars were scattered, the sails a tangle of loose ropes and billowing cloth. Some of the raiders carried barrels and sacks across the gangways from the longship, replacing supplies ditched during the pursuit—Eyvind had said that they would take the slave ship to Jarlstad, so the warriors and slaves needed fresh provisions for the journey.

Aelfhild got her first look at the longship as they crossed the deck. The sleek, overlapping boards of the hull lent the ship a predatory air alongside the squat bulges of the cargo hauler, an impression deepened by the contorted wyrm-head carvings at the prow and stern.

Bracing his booted foot against the corpse’s shoulder, one of the Thrym removed his axe from the ribs of a former slaver. The damp sucking noise as blade parted flesh made Aelfhild wretch into her mouth.

More bodies disappeared over the side of the ship, splashing in the sea below.

The Northmen laughed and called to one another as they worked. Most had removed their helmets, revealing close-cropped hair and beards layered in plaits and braids. Aelfhild could not understand the words of their merry cries, but needed no translation—it was the trifling nonsense of those too proud to show relief that they had survived a battle. Men were men, all the world over, and she had not yet met one that would gladly admit to fearing anything.

The slaves were no longer in chains but still on their benches. The two Thrym women who had shared the cargo hold with Aelfhild and Ceolwen were back to carrying water and food to the rowers, but Aelfhild could see a light in their eyes that had been absent before.

“What will happen to them?” she asked of no one in particular.

Rolf gave no indication he had heard; he did not seem much of a talker. Jarngrim spoke no Earnfolding and just shook his head.

“They will work. Some will earn their way back home.” It was a woman’s voice, and came from what Aelfhild had at first glance taken to be a man.

“Built for breeding” was a term Aelfhild had once heard a midwife use, and it sprang to mind. The woman was no taller than Aelfhild herself, but broad shouldered and with hips to match. Her arms, poking out from beneath her leather jerkin, were knotty as aged oak. Short hair, combined with that silhouette, had tricked Aelfhild’s eyes into believing they saw a beardless man.

Jarngrim shepherded Aelfhild along to the stern before she could ask any more questions, but she stole a look back over her shoulder. The female raider was tossing another corpse over the side with the assistance of one of her fellows.