Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife. Michelle Styles

it impossible for her to think of anything else.

      Join with him? Willingly? Again?

      Surely he had not been serious? He was trying to worry her, to make her act without thinking. He would offer some other man and then expect her to fall on her knees in gratitude. It would be entirely like him.

      The man was insupportable. And there was no way of escape from this particular room except through the door.

      Sela stamped her foot and felt a floorboard give way slightly. She sank down on the hard ground and her fingers searched for a bit of purchase. She tugged and pulled. The board gave way without warning, and she flew backwards, landing on her bottom. Gingerly Sela reached into the cavity, felt around the narrow space. Her fingertips touched the hilt of a dagger.

      Hurriedly, Sela withdrew it and stuffed it into the waistband of her trousers. She felt better now that she was armed. She shrugged out of the chain mail and let that fall to the floor with a thump. Immediately her shoulders and back became lighter. Whatever happened, she had no intention of wearing that cumbersome piece of clothing again.

      She bit her lip, trying to come up with some semblance of an escape plan. Vikar knew the ways of the hall as well as her father.

      In those happy days when they were first married, she had taken great delight in showing him some of the secrets. Not all—thankfully there had not been time to show him where the safe houses were. It was always something she was going to do some day, but then their marriage had fallen apart.

      She stretched her limbs.

      Had it ever really begun?

      Vikar had been a skilful lover and she, young and untried. Her body had responded to his skilled touch, but he had not cared for her. She had been naïve, overwhelmed that such a great warrior would want her. They had barely known each other. It had been a political match and it had been unfortunate that she had imagined otherwise.

      The only part of the marriage she did not regret was Kjartan.

      The door creaked, and Sela lifted her head, every nerve on alert. Her hand reached for the dagger, but she resisted the temptation. She’d wait, and only attack if provoked.

      ‘Who goes there?’

      ‘Vikar sent me.’

      An unfamiliar giant of a man put a plate of dry bread, a mug of ale and a small rush light down on the floor near her, but not so near that she was tempted to rush him, and then backed away.

      ‘Why have you brought me these?’

      ‘Vikar says you are to eat. He will not have you starving.’ The guard leered before throwing a fur at her feet. ‘And he does not want you to be cold. You should sleep; soon you will not get much rest.’

      ‘How very generous of him.’

      She examined the guard from where she sat. The man resembled an over-fed ox. Vikar had chosen well. She would have to trust Loki that another less obvious way to escape would appear.

      The guard made another bow and slammed the door shut. Sela waited for the sound of the lock clicking into place. But there was only one click. Then the sound of heavy footsteps retreating, going out of the room.

      There was only one click. Had Vikar forgotten to tell the guard?

      She pressed her hand against her head and tried to think of how to open the door. Her heart pounded in her ears. Loki had heard her prayer, and given her a sign. Freedom beckoned, if she was careful.

      It was easy, her father had often boasted. She simply had to…And her mind went blank.

      Sela went over to the door, and attempted to turn the handle. It didn’t budge. She tried the other way. Nothing. Sela held up the little rush light, trying to find the secret way, but the wood looked smooth. It had no wish to deliver up its secrets. She beat against the handle with her fists, but it remained stubbornly shut.

      ‘Father! You created a trap for your own daughter!’

      She kicked the bottom of the door and it swung open. Sela gave a strangled laugh. The answer so easy that it was in front of her. She wiped her hands against her trousers and peered out into the darkened chamber.

      No guard stood there, waiting. Her brow wrinkled. Vikar must be losing his touch. Or perhaps he thought her incapable of escape. Whatever it was, it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was breaking out of the hall, rejoining Kjartan and getting as far away from Vikar as possible.

      Vikar, arrogant in his superiority, had miscalculated. His own man had failed him.

      She would be free. They would not soon recapture her.

      She started towards the entrance to the chamber as the sounds of feasting swirled around her, then stopped.

      Her escape would only work if it was not quickly discovered. She retraced her steps and arranged the armour and fur to look as though she slept. She then held up the sputtering remains of the rush light. Not perfect, but it was the best she could do. If the guard checked tonight, it would be late, probably after the feasting.

      Voices rumbled outside her father’s chambers and Sela quickly doused the light, pulling the door to her former prison shut. She flattened her body against the wall, ready to run, if they entered the room.

      Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she thought they must hear. Just when she thought she could no longer bear it and would have to act, the footsteps moved on and the voices receded. Sela relaxed against the wall. Waited. Risked a breath.

      Staying here was asking to be recaptured. She might as well try to march through the centre of the feast and announce her plan to the entire hall. She had to move. She had to find a way. Kjartan was counting on her.

      She eased the door back and looked out. The passage was silent. Beyond it, she could see the flickering light of the hall’s fire and hear the laughter as a skald started his tale. Sela clenched her fists. Vikar had wasted no time in making himself at home. These men were making free with the stores she had worked so hard to build up.

      Cautiously she made her way along the passage, keeping to the shadows. She peeped out into the great hall. Vikar sat at the high table, with his back towards her. Over-confident in his finery and hearty laugh, but breathtakingly handsome. She stood watching the way his long fingers held the goblet.

      A sudden burst of laughter at a poor joke about her father by the skald brought her to her senses. She should have expected it, but it still bothered her.

      She fingered the knife and took a step forward. He deserved to suffer.

      Her toe hit something—a little wooden horse. Rapidly she bent down and picked it up. Kjartan’s favourite, the one he took everywhere with him.

      Tears pricked her eyes and she used the back of her sleeve to wipe them away. Kjartan would be lost without his horse. He must have cried when her father led him to safety. Sela straightened. There were more important things than exacting her revenge. And this horse would be her talisman.

      She had loathed that tunnel ever since her brother had lured her there as a child. Her nurse had rescued her, shaken and dishevelled, after what seemed like hours in the company of bats and spiders’ webs. But there was no hope for it. She did not dare risk the kitchens or going through the main hall.

      She would have to brave it and hope the bats had gone. Even the thought of the creatures in her hair turned her stomach. After the tunnels, the woods and then the long way around to the hut. It was safer and was bound to be the route her father had taken with Kjartan. She might even reach them before the fording place, if she hurried.

      A sudden burst of applause as the skald reached the high point in his recitation of the saga about the Lindisfarne raid forcibly reminded her that she could not simply stay here, pressed up against a wall for ever. Her muscles tensed as she prepared to run to the next group of shadows. Vikar called something out to the skald and the place erupted in laughter. Coarse rough laughter from men who had filled their bellies with meat and ale.