Page 5 of Heart of Winter
“Hey!”
“Lord Alfred’s son, right?” Leif asked.
“Um.” Oliver had faced any number of insults about his bastardy from courtiers of both sexes; snide comments and veiled looks. But though the word would always carry a sting, Rune hadn’t sounded rude – and now his face had fallen, his dark eyes guileless and defensive.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, half to his brother and half to Oliver. He mumbled, “Sorry, my lord.”
Oliver took a breath. He’d expected savagery in this strange land, and doubtless it was here, but so far there was nothing coy and cutting in evidence – an unexpected, but refreshing change from home. “No, no, not a lord. I am a bastard. But,” he added, feeling his face heat, “I was ill when the war started, and then encouraged not to come to the front.”
Rune’s nose wrinkled. “Really?”
“Rune,” his brother hissed, “stop asking awkward questions.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not exactly a soldier,” Oliver said, lifting his arm in helpless invitation for them to examine his absolute lack of a soldier’s physique.
“So?” Rune said, shrugging. “You could learn.”
Leif stepped on his foot.
“Ow!”
Then he bowed to Tessa, the beads in his hair clicking together as it fell in gold waves over his shoulder. “My lady.”
Oliver bit back the sudden urge to smile, thoroughly charmed by this point, even more so when Rune gave his brother a rude shove in the shoulder that didn’t manage to disturb Leif’s very respectful bow.
They were cute.
Gorgeous and gallant, even.
“Oh,” Tessa said, with a little sucked-in breath. “Oh, um, hello.” Her cheeks were pink, and Oliver didn’t think it was only from the cold.
When Leif offered his palm – calluses from hunting, and hard work, flash of silver rings, just visible with his fingerless gloves – she set hers delicately, trembling, into it, and he bent to kiss the back of it.
Tessa’s flush deepened.
Leif’s mouth curved in a small, pleased smile.
For Tessa’s sake, Oliver hoped the boys’ uncle was equally handsome and charming.
“All right, all right, you sheep heads,” Bjorn said. “We’re going in. Lead the way.”
~*~
Open stone archways led onto what Oliver realized was a flagstone-floored gallery that overlooked what must have been a garden in warm months. A sequence of heavy oak doors and stone hallways fed, eventually, into a vast stone chamber with soaring, timbered ceilings, and three fireplaces, all of them tall enough to walk inside, all of them roaring. Oliver’s cloak was immediately too warm; walking ahead of them, snow was melting on Leif and Rune’s shoulders.
They were in a great hall, Oliver noticed, as Tessa’s hand tightened on his arm, one filled with people, and very large, shaggy dogs lounging across the flags, and one dominated at one end by a dais, and a massive banner hanging on the wall behind it. The banner was crimson edged with blue, and in its center, a reindeer with massive antlers picked out in white thread.
Then Oliver laid eyes on the figure seated just below the banner, and everything else faded to a dull roar and a blur of color.
At a distance, Oliver caught only the fact that the man had Leif’s nose – or Leif had his – and Rune’s dark hair, in loose waves on his shoulders, shot through with lines of silver. Broad shoulders, large hands on the arms of the chair, rings glinting in the firelight, and in his hair – more beads, like the princes.
A strong man, a man like a lounging predator, his faint scowl exuding threat and impatience.
An unapproachable man.
A massive hand landed on Oliver’s shoulder, and Bjorn said, “Aye, there’s Erik.”
“I figured,” Oliver said.
