LITMIR.BIZ

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The subject unnerved her, and she grasped at the first unrelated thought that crossed her mind. “Ingolf warned him off, you know. Last night, in the longhouse.”

      “Ja, but the Scot was not afraid. Far from it. Did you not see the fire in his eyes? I swear his hand itched to rip the blade from Ingolf’s grip and slit both their throats. A lesser man would have tried.”

      Rika had seen, and was impressed by Grant’s judgment and control. “Perhaps you should speak with him,” she said as she watched Grant rise from the rocks and walk along the surf line.

      “Tonight,” Lawmaker said. “He’s had time enough to think on it.”

      

      George pushed back from the supper table, sated, and made for the door. The two young dissidents who’d watched him all week offered him a horn of mead and a seat by the fire. He declined, wanting some air and a bit of solitude before bed.

      The time had come to make a decision.

      Today was his wedding day.

      In Wick, Anne Sinclair and her family waited for a bridegroom who would not come. George closed the longhouse door behind him and sucked in a draught of wintry air.

      The king and the Sinclairs would have his head. There was no way to send word to them or to his own clan about what had befallen him and his men. Mayhap they’d think him dead. Nay, no one knew they’d gone by ship. It had been a last-minute decision, made on the docks at Inverness.

      He remembered the look of wonder on young Sommerled’s face when his brother had first spied the bonny ship in the harbor. Stupid, stupid decision. George would never forgive himself.

      All lost.

      Rika’s dispassionate words echoed in his mind. What kind of woman could be so callous? A woman who dressed like a warrior, who drank and gamed with men, and showed not a whit of the softness and grace expected of her sex.

      He’d never agree to her plan. Never. Not if he lived a hundred years on this godless island.

      “You’ve made up your mind,” a voice called out in the dark.

      George whirled toward the sound, his hand moving instinctively to the place at his waist where a dirk should rest. Damn! This lack of weaponry grew tiresome.

      “Who’s there?” he called back, ready for a fight, and walked toward the dark shape lurking in the shadow of the longhouse eaves.

      “Lawmaker.”

      He relaxed. In the past week he’d formed a cautious association with the old man. He reminded George a bit of his dead uncle, a man who had shaped his thinking as a youth.

      “It’s a fair night,” Lawmaker said. “Come and sit.” He gestured to the bench hugging the wall, and George obeyed.

      There was no moon, and the stars hammered a brilliant path of light across the midnight sky. The wind had died, as was its wont after dark, and the sound of the sea filled his ears.

      Lawmaker sat silent beside him, and he knew the old man waited for him to speak first. George had a dozen questions, and began with one that had been on his mind from the start. “What is your true name?”

      The old man chuckled. “Now there’s a question I’ve not been asked in years. You likely couldn’t pronounce it.”

      “Why, then, are ye called Lawmaker?”

      “It’s an ancient custom we still abide. There must always be one who speaks the law, one who remembers.”

      “And ye are that one,” he said.

      “I am. Since I was a very young man.”

      George could well believe it. The elder had a patience and temperament well suited to such a position. ’Twas not unlike the role of the elders of his own clan.

      “And Rika,” he said. “In her father’s absence ye are her guardian?”

      “I suppose I am, as much as any man could be, given her nature.”

      George laughed. “She is unlike any woman I have known.”

      “That is not surprising.”

      He recalled the first moment he saw her, there on the beach looming over him. “Explain to me why a woman would don a helm and a suit of mail—here of all places, on an island where there is little threat of danger.”

      Lawmaker sighed. “There is more danger than you know—for Rika, in particular. Her life has not been easy. She’s fought her own battles and bears the scars of such experience.”

      He remembered one such scar, and imagined tracing it along the curve of her neck.

      “And we did not know, when first we saw you lying still on the beach, were you friend or foe, if you lived or nay. Rika is hotheaded, reckless even—save where men are concerned. There she tends to be overcautious.”

      He looked at the old man’s face in the dark.

      “And with good reason,” Lawmaker said.

      George would know that reason, and that unsettled him. Why should he care?

      “It’s her brother’s battle gear, not hers.”

      “Brother?” No one had said anything about a brother. “Where is he? Why have I no met him?”

      Lawmaker didn’t respond.

      “Will he no have something to say about—”

      “He is gone,” Lawmaker snapped. “No one knows where.”

      The old man was irritated, but why? There was more to all of this than he let on. An estranged father. A lost brother. An absent jarl. Whisperings among the women, and tension among the men.

      There was a mystery here, and Lawmaker held the answers. George knew the elder would not reveal all to him in this night. Still he pressed for more.

      “This Brodir, your jarl,” he began. “Rika is…” How had Ingolf put it? “She belongs to him?”

      “Who told you that?”

      George shrugged. Lawmaker knew exactly who had told him.

      “Rika belongs to no man. Not yet,” the old man added, and shot him a wry look.

      He took Lawmaker’s meaning, and the presumption annoyed him. “Why me? There are plenty of men here. If all she wants is her coin, why no wed one of her own? Someone who’s willing?”

      “Nay, that would be too…complicated. You are the perfect choice. You have no interest in the dowry or her. Am I right?”

      He snorted. “Too right.”

      “Well then. What say you?”

      George rose from the bench and kicked at the thin veil of snow under his boots. What choice did he have? He shook his head, unwilling to give in. There must be another way.

      “Do not answer yet,” Lawmaker said, and stood.

      “You’re tense, and still angered over your situation. Angry men make poor choices.”

      The old man had a point.

      “Go,” Lawmaker said. “Have a soak in the bathhouse.” He pushed George toward the small hut at the end of the courtyard. A fire was lit within, and a warm glow spilled from under the closed door.

      Aye, mayhap a hot soak would do him some good. At least ’twould warm his icy flesh. “Ye shall have my answer later,” he called back over his shoulder, and tripped the bathhouse door latch.

      ’Twas hot and close inside. Steam curled from under the inner door leading to what the islanders called a sauna. George had never seen such a thing before. He noticed that the bathing tubs in the outer chamber were empty. Strange. Lawmaker had said a soak would be good for him.

      No

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