Page 73 of Summer of the Viking

‘Sit down. You are hurt. Let me examine you. All this can wait until later.’

‘I will heal. I’ve done so in the past without difficulty.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Please.’

‘What are you going to do? What can you do? The cut is clean. It is not bleeding overly much.’

The pallor of his cheeks told a different story. She pressed some more moss in the cut on his arm and wrapped seaweed about it. The cut on his chest looked superficial.

‘I’m going to try to save your life. Then we will be quits, but we will never go back to what we had.’

‘I love you, Alwynn.’

‘I doubt you even know the meaning of the words.’ She turned on her heel and walked away. ‘You knew what you were and how this was going to end. You never risked your heart.’

* * *

She stood looking over the smouldering remains for a long time. Violent shivers came over her as she thought about what had almost happened and she knew sleep would evade her for many weeks to come. She wanted to be so busy doing things she did not have time to think. She also knew that she never wanted to believe in anyone or anything again.

‘Stepmother! Stepmother!’ Merri rushed up to her. ‘Our Valdar was the hero. Everyone says so...well, everyone but Urien and she is not in her right mind.’

‘What is Urien saying?’

‘That he brought this terrible misfortune on all of us. That he was in league with those men.’ Merri’s face crumpled. ‘If that was true, we’d all be dead. We would never have survived. And why would they attack this farmhouse? There are more treasures in the church and the hall. Valdar knew that. He stopped them from destroying everything.’

Alwynn put a hand on Merri’s shoulder. Merri was real flesh and blood. She should be thinking about her not mourning something which could never come to pass. Valdar was a totally different man from the idol she had built up. But Merri was right. Because Valdar was here, these men had been stopped. They would not harm anyone else. Her insides felt as if they had been ripped to shreds.

‘I’m very grateful to Valdar. He saved my life,’ she said around a lump in her throat. Saved her life and broke her heart all at the same time.

‘Shall they take him back to the hall?’

‘Valdar says he won’t go. One of the monks has re-wrapped his arm and his chest with seaweed.’ Merri’s eyes sparkled. ‘He said that you did a good job, but were probably distracted because the one on the arm wasn’t tight enough.’

Alwynn clasped her hands together so tightly the knuckles stood out. Monks had arrived. Who else? She peered at the scene and saw that the place swarmed with villagers. It was only a matter of time before they discovered Valdar was truly a Northman and then... Her mind shied away from the picture.

‘I didn’t realise that any had come,’ she said in a toneless voice. ‘I’m not myself. I don’t think I have been myself for the entire summer.’

‘But you have started singing again. Please say you will still sing. No matter what.’

Alwynn stroked Merri’s hair. The hair was soft as silk against her fingers. She shuddered to think what those depraved monsters would have done if they had got their paws on this sweet girl.

Lust. It was little wonder that the priests warned against it.

‘You should keep your head covered,’ she said when Merri gave her a questioning glance. ‘You are growing up. I won’t have people saying that you are allowed to run wild. I want you to make a good match.’

Merri gave a weak laugh and leant back against her. ‘Same old stepmother. You never change. Always worrying.’

Her heart thumped in her chest. It surprised her that it was still beating. It felt as if there was a huge hole where it had once been. Merri might think she had not changed, but she knew she was not the same woman she’d been before Valdar had appeared.

Her fist clenched. She needed to get back to that woman who knew what she wanted from life and was content in her garden. She wanted the old certainties to return. She had to make them return.

She pressed her lips against Merri’s hair. ‘It’s my job to worry about you, sweetling.’ Her entire body was numb and it seemed as if she was moving in a dream, a waking nightmare. She watched the villagers’ faces. None tried to hide their joy at the rout of the Northmen. Several sang Valdar’s praises and openly wondered if he could be enticed to stay.

With each new adulation of Valdar, her stomach tightened. She wanted to scream that he wasn’t the hero he seemed. But if she did that, he’d be torn apart before her eyes. And she knew her heart could not bear that.

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