LITMIR.BIZ

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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 nephew and you take me instead. A poor bargain, in my opinion. You could mould young Kean to your ways, but you will never do the same with me. You will regret your choice and you will be glad to bring me back here in a year, if not sooner. I’ll make sure of that.’

      His eyes smiled back at her as he accepted the challenge, though his mouth retained its uncompromising grimness. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to argue the point.’

      ‘Lady Fearn,’ said Earl Thored, lowering his voice. ‘I hope you will find it in your heart not to hold this against me. As you see, the choice is not easy.’

      ‘Forgive you, you mean?’ Fearn said. ‘No, my lord, I shall not. Nor shall I ever forgive you for banishing my parents and keeping me here, for you seem intent on parting me from everything I know. A pity it is that our beloved Archbishop Oswold died last year and that so far you have not bothered to appoint another in his place, or I might have sought better advice on forgiveness than our lily-livered priest can offer these days. But when I return, I shall not enter this hall again, but go to those who appreciate my worth, and I shall claim my late husband’s estate and use it for their good.’

      By the time she had finished this rebuke, Earl Thored’s eyes were lowered to the floor, his head gently shaking from side to side as if there were things he might have said to account for his seemingly weak decisions. ‘Is there anything...?’ he began.

      Purposely misunderstanding him, Fearn cut him off. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I shall need my maid, Haesel. That’s all I ask. Could someone go for her?’

      ‘I’ll go,’ said Kamma. ‘I know where she’ll be.’

      ‘And a horse for the lady to ride down to the river,’ Aric said. ‘I’ll not have her walk all that way like a slave.’ As one of the Earl’s men left the hall to attend to the request, Aric took the cloak of beaver fur from one of his men and held it for Fearn to wear.

      She put up a hand, frowning in disgust. ‘No, I’ll not have it near me with the stink of blood upon it. Take it. Burn it.’

      ‘Lady,’ said Aric, reasonably, ‘if it had the stink of blood on it, I would not have worn it either. But it was not near him. It stinks only of a Danish jarl who would protect you from the winds of the northern sea. Wear it. It would be a pity to die of cold before we reach home.’ He held it out again at shoulder height. ‘Turn round. Come on.’

      As she obeyed him, she saw Haesel enter the hall with Kamma and remembered what the maid had foreseen, earlier that day. Cold, strong winds. And she, Fearn, wearing the cloak she had made for her husband, feeling the warm comfort of the wool lining, the weight of the pelt and two large hands beneath her chin, turning her, pinning his Irish ring pin to hold it in place. She caught the recognition in Haesel’s eyes of their mutual conspiracy and saw that she carried the leather bag packed ready for the journey that neither of them had planned. Haesel wore her plain cloak of thick felted wool of the kind that the English exported to those who could afford them. In Kamma’s arms was another bag containing Fearn’s harp. ‘You cannot go without this, lady,’ she whispered, handing it to her.

      At any other time, Fearn would have knelt to ask Earl Thored’s blessing on her travels and for a token in the form of a ring or an armband. But now, when he beckoned her to come before him, she refused. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I do not want your blessing. You have betrayed me.’

      Aric appeared to condone her intransigence with a nod and a slow blink. Blessings were irrelevant and he had got what he came for. Well, almost, for young Kean still remained, standing beside Arlen. ‘Be ready for me in one year, young man,’ he said. ‘Do you have a message for your Danish family?’

      Arlen nudged the boy’s shoulder and Kean’s reedy voice piped up. ‘Give them my respects, lord. And please take care of the lady. She has ever been kind to me and courteous.’

      ‘Then you have seen a better side of her than I, Kean, but I will do my best. Who knows what a year will do?’ The tip of his head towards his men was all the signal they needed to stay close as they walked to the large doorway, passing Earl Thored with no more than a nod to remind him that he would not have seen the last of them. Fearn treated herself to one last look round the great hall lined with hangings on which she had worked, glowing colours she had helped to dye, threads of gold she had helped to make and couch down with fine stitches of silk bought from the merchants. Aric motioned her to walk before him into the bright light of the late afternoon where horses awaited them, provided with pillion pads for her and Haesel. She would not be allowed to ride on her own.

      Kamma, torn between relief that Kean would be hers for at least another year and guilt that, as a result, the Lady Fearn had lost what little freedom had been hers, accompanied the women outside. Recognising Haesel’s bewilderment, she whispered words of comfort to her, reminding her to look out for her lady’s welfare, above all else. She would have spoken similar words to Fearn, too, but such was the lady’s calm dignity that she felt words might have been unnecessary, though she could not have guessed that the show of self-possession was taking

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