“So he does.” The big blond man’s laugh sounded forced. “What do I care? There are plenty of serving girls in Sogna.”
At least Bjorn’s interest would spare her from being molested by any of the other men in the hall. She lifted her chin and wound through the knots of people to the dais.
“Your nattmal, master.” She slid the soup bowl and trencher before him.
“You’re forgetting something,” Bjorn said.
“What?” She stared at the heaping trencher. There wasn’t room for anything more.
“Ale.” He handed her a hollow cow’s horn. “Dark ale.”
* * *
She snatched up the horn and turned sharply, muttering things under her breath. Things Bjorn decided he probably didn’t really want to hear.
He watched her as she elbowed her way around the room to the barrels of ale. Her long-limbed body moved with fluid grace when she had room to lengthen her stride. There was tension in the set of her shoulders and grim determination in her bow of a mouth. She had spirit. He had to give her that. Still, he wasn’t used to being turned down by women, and it stung his pride that this one rejected him. And with such vehemence.
But if there was one thing a second son had to learn in life, it was patience. Gunnar had given Bjorn charge of his land and the land demanded patience. Patient, back-breaking toil to clear the trees and plough the fields. Patient sowing of the seed and waiting for Frey to send the rain and sun in proper mix. Patience to wait for harvest and save back the best part for seed the next spring. Even as he worked his brother’s holdings, he yearned for his own. But Bjorn could be patient.
Like having his own land, Rika would be worth the wait.
“Dark ale, just as you requested.” Her pale green eyes glinted at him with the opalescence of a pair of icebergs. And just like those treacherous floating obstacles, the most dangerous part was always under the surface. She turned to go, but he gripped her wrist.
“No, Rika,” he said as though explaining to a child who was trying to skip away from her chores. “You are not finished yet. I need you to hold the horn. I can’t eat and hold it at the same time and if I set it down it will all spill and then you’d have to clean it up.” He shrugged at her. “Save yourself more work. Sit.”
“I’d rather join my brother.”
“And I’d rather you sit here with me.” Bjorn smiled as he said it, but it was an order nonetheless. He wondered whether she'd defy him openly. He watched a string of emotions—indignation, ire, and finally resignation—flit across her face. She sat. A worthy adversary, he judged, and one who knew how to pick her fights.
“Besides, given the way you feel about me, you don’t really think I’m going to eat this without a taster, do you?” Bjorn grinned at her. “Thor only knows what kind of poison you’ve seasoned this with.”
“What a charming idea,” Rika said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”
He sliced off a generous bite of the glistening chicken and held the piece to her mouth.
“I can cut my own food.” Rika ignored the meat on the point of his knife.
“But can I trust you not to try to carve out my heart while you’re cutting your meat? I don’t think I’ll chance it.” He lifted the bite toward her again.
She narrowed her eyes at him and opened her lips to receive what he offered. Bite by bite, he fed her the most delectable part of his supper and offered her the nettle soup to enjoy on her own. She drank from the same horn of ale as he and used the same spoon.
When the trencher was empty, Bjorn wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Did you get enough to eat? Is there anything else you’d like? Some honeyed fruit?”
“If you meant to show me favor in this, you failed miserably,” Rika said, her jaw clenched. “When I was a little girl, I watched a man try to gentle a kestrel he’d captured by hand-feeding it. Now I know how that hawk felt.”
Bjorn shook his head. “You’ve missed my purpose entirely. I want to assure you that you will lack nothing with me. I will treat you well.” He tipped back the horn and drained the last of the ale. “I had not thought of it, but now that you mention it, that is the best way to tame a wild hawk. So, how did the man fare with the kestrel?”
“The bird bit his thumb off.” One russet eyebrow arched. The hint of a smile played about her lips.
Bjorn’s laugh started in his belly, rumbling and deep.
* * *
For a blink, Rika was tempted to laugh with him. He seemed not to take himself too seriously and she appreciated that in a man. But then she remembered that he considered himself her master, and that was something she took very seriously indeed. She wouldn’t banter with Bjorn the Black or even be pleasant if she could help it.
From the corner of her eye, Rika noticed Lady Astryd’s face growing redder by the moment. She was obviously piqued that Rika was sitting at the main table, even though it was only in the role of a servant.
“Husband,” Astryd said, her voice forced and loud. “Did you know that our hall has been graced with the presence of a renowned skald? Come, Rika.” Her sly smile would have melted butter. “Give us a bit of the Havamal like you did for me earlier today.”
Gunnar looked at Rika expectantly. A skald in residence added to the reputation of any hall. “Is this true, little brother? Have you taken a skald captive?”
Bjorn leaned back on his bench and gave Rika a questioning look. “That’s what she claims, but I’ve yet to hear her recite. Judging from my own experience, I’d have to say she’s more scold than skald.”
Rika frowned at him, but he just smiled back at her, clearly enjoying her discomfort.
Astryd’s blue eyes went dark. “Show us your gift, girl,” the jarl’s wife urged, running her finger along the thin leather at her neck where the amber hammer rested. It was a not-so-subtle reminder to Rika that she had nothing the Lady of Sogna could not take from her. “Something from the Havamal, if you please.”
Panicked, Rika looked at Bjorn. The smile left his lips and he reached out to stroke her arm.
“Your choice,” he said in a husky whisper. “I won’t make you perform if you don’t want to. Not ever. Say the word and I’ll end this.”
Rika squeezed her eyes shut. Why the Havamal? Why couldn't that horrible woman ask for anything else but that? She couldn’t turn down a request to recite, but they’d never believe she was a skald now. She drew a deep breath, taking the air in all the way down to her hip bones just as Magnus had taught her. It cleared her mind and helped her focus.
Then she heard him inside her head.
Chapter 5
It was Magnus’s voice, rolling and clear, declaiming the most dramatic piece of the sayings of Odin in full force. Then, just as clearly in her mind she heard Magnus repeat the advice he’d given her hundreds of times: ‘Rika, you must believe that you have power over everyone within the sound of your voice.’
She could do it. She had to.
In a fluid motion, Rika stood. She lifted one arm in a gesture that suggested she had tapped into a powerful source from above. The other she outstretched toward the crowded hall. She waited. She knew she was just a thrall in a shabby, ill-fitting garment, but in her mind, she saw herself robed in silk and gorgeously arrayed in a fabulous multihued cape.
The skaldic gift—Magnus had always assured her she had it. Being a skald was more than possessing a prodigious memory and a pleasant voice for recitation with skill. The best of the Nordic bards were also blessed with the ability to crystallize an image and send it to their listeners so that it formed in their minds as well. If she could only trust herself enough, open herself enough, her audience would see what she saw and she would feel what they feel. It was time, she decided, to see if the mantle of Magnus Silver-Throat had indeed passed to her.
Whether the men in the hall saw her as she imagined herself, she couldn’t say, but one by one the raucous voices fell silent.
“Hear, O People of Sogna!” Her voice, low and musical, filled the great hall with a power that surprised even her. She inhaled deeply and went on. “I know an ash tree, whose outstretched limbs and deep roots pass through all the nine worlds, and Yggdrasil is its name.”
A low murmur rippled through the hall. She’d struck a chord by starting with the unifying Life of the World Tree, the life that binds all the spheres together.
“Come with me, and we will journey along the mighty branches of the World Tree to far-off lands,” she urged. Almost to a man, her audience leaned forward.
“We start in Asgard, that holiest place, home of the gods and of Valhalla, hope of every valiant heart, where the brave may ever live in joy.” She caressed the words and thought she sensed the pulse of her audience ticking upward. “The All-Father joins us there. Odin, the One-Eyed, the wisest of all. He marches beside us, desirous of bearing us company on our journey through the nine worlds, for he has an appointment, a grim task ahead of him.”
Brilliant as a lightning bolt and sharp as a blade, she felt the connection. Beyond the bond of a performer and her audience, the mystic umbilical bridged between them. Rika felt a delicious shiver tickle down their spines, and if any in the hall were still eating, they laid their knives on the benches, the better to listen.
“Next we fare to Aelfham, where all manner of pleasure abounds and the Fair Folk who dwell there are gilded with light. But human hearts can only bear so much exquisite joy. Our stay must be brief, but as we leave that enchanted world, the ethereal music of the Light Elves echoes in our ears.” Rika's voice floated over the hall, dulcet-toned and airy. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gunnar’s jaw sag with desire.
“Odin urges us to haste as we stop in Vanaheim, home of the All-Father’s brother-god, Frey. Mighty god of strangled sacrifice, Frey, the Horned One, knows that all life springs from death, just as a seed must die before the abundance of harvest can ever be.”
Solemn nods greeted this pronouncement.
“The branches of Yggdrasil take us to the fiery edge of Muspel, first of all worlds, but we dare not enter that bright, hot place. The border is guarded by one with a flaming sword, who waits for the dreadful day when he is loosed to burn the whole world with fire unending.”
Rika scanned the sea of rapt faces. Did they feel the heat and smell the sulfur belching from that white-hot sphere of molten rock?
“The thick trunk of Yggdrasil runs through the beautiful realm of Midgard, this very Middle Earth, the homely land of all the races of men,” Rika said simply, as her audience relaxed a bit with the familiar. “Midgard, where the lives of mortals run their course and each man’s mettle is tried by his fate.”
Rika lowered her arms and shifted her stance as the mood of her tale took a darker turn.
“Odin warns us past the land of Utgard, hidden high in the sky-mountains, where giants and trolls burrow in foul caves bestrewn with the bones of unwary men. We shun the evil world of Svartaelfham, home of the maggot-bitten Dark Elves. And let us not wander into Hel, that cold hall reserved for the dead by sickness and old age. The welcome there is Scarcity and the dish served at nattmal is Hunger.”