Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife. Michelle Styles

gesture, but one fraught with meaning. Surrender. She bowed her head, swallowed hard. ‘The battle ends.’

      She stepped backwards. All perfectly correct. She knew the form. She had seen others bow down to her father, but she never thought she would have to make the gesture herself. She had believed in her father’s boast that no one could ever take this hall.

      She opened her mouth to speak the final damning words, but her voice refused to work. She glanced up into the unyielding planes of Vikar’s face, pleading silently that it was enough; she had done all she could. She wished she hadn’t given in to the impulse as his lips turned further downwards. ‘The words escape me.’

      ‘No, you tell your men. It must come from you. You hold your father’s sword. You say the words of surrender.’ Vikar’s green eyes were colder than a frost giant’s. ‘I know Bose the Dark’s tricks. He matches Loki in resourcefulness.’

      Sela glanced towards the hall, half-expecting her father to appear, half-fearing he would. The doorway remained vacant, a gaping black hole.

      Removing her helmet, Sela raised her hand showing her surrender. She waited. Nothing happened. She glanced at Vikar, who gestured for her to repeat the movement. She tried again. Nothing.

      Vikar nodded towards the standard. She went over to it, took it from her man’s hand and waved that, then lowered it with one sweeping motion. ‘The battle belongs to you…my lord.’

      Bose’s standard with its dark sun against a golden background fell, hitting the ground with a solid thump. And with it, her hopes and dreams.

      All around her the noise subsided until the very stillness appeared to be unnatural. The men turned towards her. She saw Vikar nod imperceptibly towards his men, and they lowered their swords.

      The fighting was over; the carnage littered the gentle slope.

      Sela started towards the nearest fallen warrior. She wanted to use her skills as a healer to help with the wounded, but Vikar’s arm clamped around her wrist, preventing her.

      ‘Let me go.’ Sela moved her arm sharply downwards, but Vikar’s hand remained. Strong and determined. ‘I have done as you asked. You are the victor here. The battle is over. I have surrendered. You are the master. You may take what you wish from the hall but my men need my aid. I possess some small skill that might be of service.’

      ‘War leader, now healer. What other talents do you possess, Sela?’ Vikar’s hard, cynical eyes and tight mouth mocked her.

      I had no talent for being a wife. The thought pierced her with its suddenness, drawing the breath from her lungs.

      Gorm’s broken sword caught her eye and she swallowed hard. And it would appear she possessed little skill as a war leader either. This hall was supposed to impenetrable, but it had fallen in less time than it took a shadow to cross the courtyard. Her failure at Vikar’s hands was absolute. Her knees threatened to give way. She straightened her back, and drew her dignity around her like a cloak.

      ‘What can I say? I am my father’s daughter.’

      ‘Bose the Dark absent from this battlefield? What mischief is this?’ Vikar said through clenched teeth. ‘The truth, Sela. How did he breathe his last?’

      ‘My father lives.’ The breeze blew strands of hair across her face. She tried not to wonder where her father was. Or if he knew that she had lost, that their world had irrevocably changed. ‘He might not be able to lead his men in battle, but his mind remains clear.’

      ‘It is only you who have surrendered, not the hall, not the jaarl of the northern lands. My men remain in danger.’

      ‘You bandy words. We have no more men.’ Sela held up her hands. ‘Look around you. You have defeated us. The hall is yours, to do with what you will.’

      ‘Your father’s hall boasts of many more retainers. He keeps an army as great as Thorkell’s.’ Vikar gestured to where the men stood or sat with their heads in their hands. ‘These are the old, the young, the infirm. Where are your father’s warriors?’

      ‘If I had had the warriors, I would have used them.’

      ‘Are you leading me into a trap, Sela? Seeking to lull my men with the promise of victory only to have it snatched from their hands.’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I know about women and their honeyed promises. I learnt my lesson well, Sela.’

      Sela kept her head raised, and met Vikar’s eyes. ‘The bulk of my father’s force departed weeks ago…to find new markets…in Permia.’

      ‘But your father remains. His standard fluttered in the breeze when we first arrived. It was his standard, not yours that you lowered.’

      ‘He is here. My entire family is here,’ Sela replied carefully. Every fibre of her being tensed as she waited to hear him reveal his true reason for making war—the command to see his son.

      ‘Take me to Bose.’ Vikar’s face was hard and uncompromising underneath his helmet. ‘I desire to speak with him.’

      Speak with Bose. Demand that he swear allegiance if he was lucky or meet a swift death if he was not. Sela had no illusions about what Vikar intended. The rules were harsh. And there would be no recourse to Thorkell. He had allowed her father enough men to defend himself. It was not Thorkell’s fault that they had chosen adventure with Hafdan, instead of their duty. For their sakes, she hoped that they had gone to Permia and had not decided to raid Viken as one of the women whispered they might.

      Sela forced her mind to concentrate.

      There had to be a way to stall Vikar and to allow her father a chance to escape with Kjartan. If he held out, if Hafdan and his men returned quickly enough, the hall might yet be restored. Kjartan might inherit more than a broken sword and an arm-ring. She had to find that way. She had to give her father and Kjartan a chance.

      ‘What about my people? The wounded must be seen to.’ Sela nodded towards the battlefield where the wounded lay, moaning and crying out. ‘The hall will have to be secured, but neither my father nor I would desert our people. I have a responsibility to bind wounds.

      ‘They are no longer your concern.’

      ‘But they are,’ Sela protested. ‘They depend on me.’

      Vikar’s eyes hardened and became chips of green stone. ‘You lost that right.’

      

      The hall was very different from the last time Vikar had entered its walls. Then it had been hung with expensive tapestries, furs had lined every bench and the air had been scented with sweet perfume. No expense spared for his only daughter’s wedding. Vikar pressed his lips together to form a tight line.

      All of that was long gone, including the marriage. The rafters with their carved men and strange beasts stared down on a stone floor and cold hearth. Even stripped bare, Bose the Dark’s hall remained an impressive site. Large, echoing.

      The benches were pushed to one side. The tables stacked, ready for the last defence. A defence that had never come. Why had Bose left his hall so unguarded? Had his pride reached such a state that he thought none dare attack him? Even when he attacked others?

      ‘Your father fails to come forward with open arms and a horn of mead to greet his former son-in-law,’ Vikar said as he looked at the slim woman before him. ‘Why does this fail to surprise me?’

      ‘You expected him to be?’ Her full bottom lip curled slightly and her eyes became daggers. ‘My father has never been foolish.’

      ‘It was foolish to try to hold this hall with such a force.’

      ‘One has to do something when raiders come calling.’

      ‘I will grant you that.’ Vikar looked at his former wife with narrowed eyes. Most women would have been wailing and tearing their hair. but Sela looked as if she wanted to run him through. Her beauty had grown and matured in the intervening years since they had last