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The little one was already squirming to get down. Brit let her go with some reluctance, glancing up to see that Eric was watching, looking way too smug.
Oh, right. Back to what a wonderful wife she was going to make. Because she loved kids and would no doubt be yearning to breed a passel of them. Yeah, sure. As in, don’t hold your breath.
Asta took her arm. “Eric, see to the horses. Brit, come inside immediately. I must check your bandage, and then you are to eat a hearty meal. After the meal no doubt you’ll enjoy a trip to the bathhouse. And after that you’ll have a long, healing night’s rest.”
“Sounds terrific,” said Brit. “Good food, a bath and some rest.” She might as well drop the bombshell now. “I’ll need all that to be fresh for the big day tomorrow.”
Asta’s eyes narrowed. Eric looked bleak.
“Oh,” Brit said, with an offhand wave. “Sorry. I’ve been meaning to tell you. Tomorrow I’m heading for Drakveden Fjord. I want to have a look at what’s left of my plane.”
Chapter Nine
Asta let out a small cry of outrage. Then she started objecting. “Brit, you’ll do no such thing. It isn’t safe for you to be wandering all over the Vildelund.”
“My safety isn’t the issue here. I’m going.”
“Of course your safety is the issue. You are the daughter of our king, and your life is precious above all else.”
“Asta. There’s no sense in arguing about this. I’m heading out tomorrow at first light.”
“Eric.” Asta was actually wringing her hands. “Talk to her.”
Eric looked as if he wouldn’t mind strangling someone—and Brit had a good idea who that someone might be. “Take her inside,” he commanded. “Feed her. I’ll see to the horses. Then she and I will share an evening stroll.”
* * *
The “evening stroll” happened an hour later, in waning daylight. And as it turned out, there was no strolling involved. Eric must have decided he didn’t want to argue with her on the village street, where anyone might hear them going at each other. So he shooed the others out. They faced off as they had the morning before, alone in Asta’s longhouse, on either side of the deal table.
“What is the point of this?” Eric demanded. “You put yourself in harm’s way for the mere thrill of it.”
“No, I do not. And there is a point, since you asked. I want to have a look at that plane.”
“To what purpose?”
“I want to see what was done to it, to make it lose oil pressure out of nowhere like that.”
“Ah,” he sneered. “Not only a licensed pilot, but an airplane mechanic, as well.”
“I just want to have a look, okay? I just want to see if I can—”
“No.” His voice was carefully controlled—but his expression was thunderous. “It is not, in any way, okay.”
“Well, fine. It’s not okay. But I’m going, so get used to the idea.”
“You will learn nothing. And you might very well get yourself killed.”
“So be it. A little danger I can handle. It’s way preferable to hanging around here, twiddling my thumbs, getting the brush-off every time I dare to ask a question about my brother.” She was leaning toward him, knuckles braced on the table. “Unless…”
He looked bleak. “Tell me.”
“Well, I might be willing to change my mind, if you were to decide you’re finally ready to trust me. If you’d agree to take me to my brother…”
“How can I do that? Your brother is dead.”
“You keep saying that. Why don’t I believe it?”
“You don’t want to believe it.”
“That’s right. I don’t. Because it’s not true.”
They enjoyed a short, angry stare down.
Brit was the one who looked away. She pushed herself back from the table and stood fully upright, wrapping her arms around herself, turning from him, toward the stove. “I’m sick of it.” She tossed the words over her shoulder. “I’m through with it. I’m not going to learn anything more staying here.”
“Your injury—”
She whirled on him. “Is better. Better every day. Yes, it’s still tender. But it’s not going to stop me from doing what I need to do. I prevented a rape yesterday. I was slapped to the ground by a big, bossy kvinasoldar. I rode bareback for hours—yesterday and today. My shoulder is no worse for all the activity. Don’t you even try to use it as an excuse to keep me here. There is nothing more for me to do here. I’ve asked all my questions and I’ve gotten too few answers. I’ve got to look elsewhere. Otherwise, what’s left for me but to return to my father’s palace with nothing to show for all I’ve been through but an ugly burden of guilt over my dead guide and a gross-looking scar from a renegade’s poisoned arrow?”
The look of fury had left his face. Now he regarded her with dangerous tenderness. “There could be more than that. There could be—”
“I know where you’re going.” She was shaking her head. “Don’t.” Just because she couldn’t stop imagining what it might be like to roll around on the bed furs with him didn’t mean she was ready to wear his medallion and bear his children.
When she bound her life to a man, that man was going to respect her as a full equal. And he was always going to be able to trust her with the truth.
He was coming around the table toward her. He stopped about three inches away.
She groaned. “Why am I always standing here waiting when you get to me?”
He lifted a hand.
She should have backed away. But as usual, she didn’t.
His finger brushed the line of her jaw, leaving delicious little tingles of longing in its wake. “Perhaps you like it, when I’m near you.”
She lifted her chin and looked at him dead-on. “Maybe I do. Maybe I wish…” Oh, what was she saying?
“Don’t stop now.” His voice had gone velvety, lovely, warm.
She pushed his tender hand away and stepped back as she should have a moment before. “Forget all that. What you need to accept right now is that tomorrow I am going to have a look at my plane. Short of locking me up and throwing the key away, you’re not going to stop me.”
He was looking bleak again. “It’s more than thirty kilometers from here, over rough, steep terrain. The hazards are endless. You won’t only have to worry about the occasional renegade and other fierce bands of kvina soldars. There are also large meat-eating animals with sharp claws and long teeth.”
“In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ve spent my life going to places where the terrain is rugged, the animals predatory and the locals restless. And yet, here I am. In one piece. And ready to go.”
He was the one who stepped back then. “There is no stopping you, is there?”
“Finally. You’re getting it.”
He gave her one of those long, unwavering looks—to let her know he was about to make a point that would not be negotiable. “If you’re going, I am going with you.”
She smiled then.
He grunted. “So. That was your plan all along.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“I have to admit, the idea makes me a little edgy. You know how it is with us….” She let him finish that thought for himself. “I don’t need the distraction. However, you know the way and I don’t. I can use a good guide, not to mention…”
“What?” he prompted, when she didn’t finish.
She shrugged. “You’re quick and strong. I have no doubt you know how to handle a weapon. You’re a good man to have on my side if I have to fight my way out of a sticky situation.”
He didn’t look happy, exactly. But he definitely looked a little less fed up. “Let us hope for good weather, for an absence of ‘sticky situations.”’
“Hope for the best, be ready for the worst. It’s the only way to go, if you ask me.”
* * *
They set out at six the next morning, before the sun crested the hills to the east. Asta had loaned Brit a saddle. She stood outside to tell them goodbye.
“Bad weather coming,” she warned, as they mounted the horses. “If you must go, then leave on the morrow.”
“Oh, Asta.” Brit stroked the side of Svald’s sleek neck. “Come on. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
Eric, on a muscular gelding, gestured at the barometer beside the front door. “Falling fast.” Brit only looked at him. He turned to his aunt. “It appears the coming storm will not stop us. We are going today.”
Asta’s frown deepened, but she said no more. She stood out in the street and waved as they rode away. Pure foolishness, she’d called the venture the night before, when she returned to her house to learn that Eric had failed to talk Brit out of going. An idiot’s quest.
To a certain degree, Brit had to agree with her. But she wasn’t going to learn a damn thing sitting around the Mystic village, being coddled by Asta and the other women, getting no answers to her questions, daydreaming too much about Eric while she plucked the occasional game bird and helped Sif with the wash.
And wait another day in case the weather turned bad? No, thanks. A little rain wasn’t going to slow her down. And, anyway, it was warmer than it had been. Felt like in the low forties already. A much more pleasant temperature for traveling than yesterday or the day before.
She felt eager. Ready. Felt… a sort of happy shiver running beneath her skin to think that they were on the way.
She glanced at the man on the gelding beside her. Taking her daydreams right along with her. Oh, yes, she was. Hey. Couldn’t be helped. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. She needed a guide, and he knew his way around the Vildelund.
They rode with the rising sun at their backs until they reached the forest that rimmed the village and its fields. About a mile into the deep, cold shadows of the tall trees, the trail came to a three-way fork. Eric laid his reins to the gelding’s neck and the horse, bridle wise, took the right fork, to the north. Brit followed his lead.
At first the horses jogged easily on level ground, the trail wide enough that they could ride side by side. But soon enough they began climbing. The trail narrowed and Brit fell in at the rear. Above, through the lacy branches of the trees, clouds gathered. The wind was rising.
For a couple of hours it was much the same kind of travel as the day before and the day before that—up and down the sides of steep hills, on trails that led them in zigzagging switchbacks—much the same, only darker and windier.
They had just reached the base of a hill when Eric reined in and put up a hand. Quietly he slid to the ground. Brit followed his lead. He indicated a clump of black boulders faintly visible through the trees, perhaps fifteen feet from the trail. He took his horse by the bridle. Brit did the same.
They moved cautiously into the trees. When they reached the black rocks, Eric signaled her in close. They held the muzzles of the horses and were silent. Waiting.
Eric tipped his head, gesturing at a gap in the high, sloping rocks. Two quiet steps to the side and she could peer through.
She saw four men—young, on foot, three armed with crossbows, dagger hilts visible in sheaths tied at the thigh. The third had a rifle. Two carried a rough pole between them; a slain doe, gutted, was tied to it, dangling.
“Renegades?” She mouthed the word, careful to make no sound.
“Perhaps,” he mouthed in answer.
She understood. No percentage in finding out. Better to just keep their heads down and their mounts quiet until the potential threat could pass on by.
The wind rushed down the canyon, keening. Svald shifted, nervous, ready to dance. Brit laid her face to the silky muzzle and whispered very low. “Shh. Easy, my darling, easy my sweet girl.” The mare quieted.
They waited some more, as the wind whipped around them, singing eerily through the trees. Lightning flashed and booming thunder followed. The first drops of rain began to fall. Finally, after the four men were long gone, Eric led her around the stand of boulders and onto the trail where the men had passed.
“How did you know they were there?” she asked before they mounted up again.
He shook his head as lightning blazed in the sky above. Thunder boomed and rolled away. “Later. Now we must move on.” They mounted and went in the opposite direction from the four men.
They covered what was left of the ravine floor quickly and within minutes they were climbing again. The wind tore at them, lightning speared the sky, angry thunder booming in its wake. The sky opened up and the rain poured down—fat drops, coming harder and faster.
They fought their way upward as the downpour intensified. In no time the trail was awash in mud. The mud turned to rivulets, then to small, rushing streams.
“We must leave the trail. It will soon be a river,” Eric called over his shoulder, shouting against the wind.
Brit followed him into the trees, her head low against the mare’s neck, smelling rain and wet horse, her beanie and the hair beneath it plastered to her skull.
Eric led her on, through the close-growing evergreens. More than once she got whacked by low-hanging branches. And even there, in the thickness of the trees, the rain got through, whipping at their faces, driven by the relentless wind. Svald, bless her sweet heart, was a surefooted animal. They picked their way along the steep slope of the hill, moving east now, climbing as they went.
They were practically upon the mouth of the cave before she saw it: two shelves of rock surrounded by trees, a tall, dark hole between. Eric dismounted and climbed the rest of the way on foot, leading the gelding, slipping a little on the soggy ground, but jumping at last to the lower shelf at the cave’s entrance and urging the gelding up after him. There was space on the ledge for him, his horse, Brit and Svald, with room to spare.
He waved her on. She slid from the saddle and followed, leading her horse, landing on her feet at the cave’s entrance, Svald scrambling a little, but ending up at her side.
“Stay here.” Eric handed her the gelding’s reins and vanished into the darkness. Brit surprised herself by letting him go without a word of protest. Truth to tell, she thought as she stood there in the mouth of the cave, dripping wet and shivering with cold, she was feeling more than a little discouraged with herself. Concerning the weather, Asta had been all too right. Maybe she should have listened.
But she’d always been that way. When she was ready to go, there was just no stopping her. A character flaw? Well, yeah. In some circumstances.
Like, for instance, this one.
The horses shook the heavy, soaked braids of their manes, flinging icy water everywhere, including on her. Beyond the ledge, the rain was turning slushy—a snow and rain mix.
Terrific. Perfect. Wonderful. Would they end up snowed in here, thanks to her pigheadedness?
Now, wouldn’t that be lovely? Way to go, Brit.
“This way,” Eric said from behind her. He stood about fifteen feet into the cave. He was carrying… a flaming torch?
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s always wise to keep safe places, stocked and ready, for times like this one. We’re fortunate. No scavengers have found this cave since last I was here.” Really, the guy never ceased to amaze her. “Come,” he said.
