Page 21 of Shared By the Vikings

“Ja.”

“Good.” He tossed his chicken bones into the undergrowth. “Come here.”

“What?”

“You heard.” He tilted his chin and sat up straighter on the log. With his palms flat on his wide thighs, fingers spread, he set his attention firmly on her face.

A flicker of uncertainty trickled through Ingrid, but even so she took a step up to him.

“You lied to me,” he said, his voice low and decidedly dangerous.

“For that I’m sorry, Jarl Erik.”

He tipped his head. “You don’t seem it.”

“I am.” She tightened the fur. “I could never have known this was going to happen.”

“Surely you knew you’d anger the gods with your actions?”

“I believed it was for the best.”

“Why?”

“Because...” She paused. “I couldn’t stay in Ravndal, my fate there wasn’t... wasn’t tolerable.”

“You mean it wasn’t to your liking.” He reached out and curled the fingers of his right hand around the base of her fur covering, beside her knee.

“It was more than not to my liking, it was worse than death.”

“Worse than death?” He raised his eyebrows. “Surely death is a good thing, it is when we get to meet our gods and dine with them.”

“When the time is right, Jarl Erik. But it wasn’t my time.”

“How do you know this?” He tugged the pelt, just a little, enough so she had to grip it tighter to keep it up and around her body.

“I visited the seer in the months with the shortest days,” she spoke quietly, “and he told me change was in my future, and I had to be wise and brave.”

“And so you took it upon yourself to instigate this change by slipping onto my longboat as a boy? That may have been brave but it was not wise.”

“It was that or marry a hideous man. A man I could never have laid beside without revulsion in every one of my bones.”

He twisted his mouth as though thinking about her last words.

“He was old and ugly and smelly,” she blurted. “My father’s choice for me, not my own.”

“And why did you not tell your father how you felt?”

“I tried, but he would not listen to me. The deal had been made.”

He nodded. “But he is a good man, your father?”

“He is.”

“And your mother?”

“She has passed to the next life.”

He didn’t reply, instead he yanked the fur so hard she staggered as she attempted to keep hold of it.

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