With that, Spade let her go. The other one checked his pocket watch, which he wore on a chain. “Forty-one minutes to sunrise,” he muttered. Natalia just pointed at the computer workstation.
Gasping for breath, Lisa moved with shaking hands over to her desktop. She pressed the power button on her computer tower. Uncomfortable silence followed. Lisa reached for something to say to reduce the tension and hostility. “Spade?” she asked. “Like the tool?”
“No, it’s ‘spade’ like the card, idiot,” the sword-bearing man snapped. “Like the ace of spades?”
Lisa figured that made him only seem more like a tool, but she held her tongue. She didn’t want to die at this crappy job even before the sun came up.
* * *
“He wintered in the land of the Danes once,” said Sibbe, her voice dry and markedly devoid of sympathy. “Did you know that? He raided with Thialfi and his men, and was there when Thialfi fell and his longship was taken. He survived that battle. He was among the others who stole a ship to return home that summer with plunder. You might have remembered his name from the tales.”
“Skorri is not an uncommon name,” Valgard grumbled. “I do not remember everything I have ever heard of every man named Skorri, nor could I tell them apart.” He leaned forward in his seat, looking on his second wife with impatient interest. “What else?”
Standing before her husband in his hall, with his adult sons and his men in attendance, Sibbe was for the first time in her life unafraid. What would be, would be. “Gunnar was there, too. He remembers. I spoke with him before I returned.”
“And what does Gunnar say?”
“That Skorri fights with strength beyond his size. That he snuck past the Danes on many nights. That Skorri feels no pain from blades or fire. That he once saw Skorri so eager for a fight that the lad chewed on the edge of his shield. That the only thing Skorri loved more than battle was his wife.”
At Valgard’s side, his tall son Koll snorted in derision. “Skorri is a goatherd, not a berserker. And Gunnar is an old goatherd as well.”
“Gunnar is a goatherd now,” Sibbe said, not bothering to look at Koll directly. Her gaze remained on her bearded, muscular husband. “But Gunnar did not always limp. He sailed with Thialfi as well. And my father. He has always spoken truth to me.”
“What else did Gunnar say?” Valgard pressed.
“He said that Skorri will never accept any amount of gold as recompense for his Halla’s death. That the loss of the men you sent chasing him is not the end of your woes.” She paused, and saw that Valgard could tell there was something else. Finally, she said it: “And Gunnar offered to take me as his wife when my husband and his sons are dead at Skorri’s hands.”
Koll roared with laughter. After a moment, so did his father, and then the dozen men in the room laughed as well. The serving wenches smiled, too, though their smiles didn’t reach their eyes. They moved about the hall with ale and meat in silence.
“You don’t seem amused by this, mother,” said Bram. He sat at the end of one long table, sharpening his sword beside his meal. He seemed convinced that such behavior made him look intimidating.
Sibbe ignored him. He wasn’t actually her son, anyway. She kept her eyes on her husband. “I do not find humor in this,” she said simply.
“You find humor in nothing,” Valgard scowled. “Not since we were married. Maybe not even before.”
“Husband, I have done as you have asked. I have spoken to those who will not speak plainly to you. I have learned much that I wish to tell you, as a wife should tell her husband and a mother should tell her sons.” Sibbe pointedly ignored that Valgard’s brutish sons were, thankfully, not actually hers but borne instead by his first wife.
“Indulge me,” Valgard shrugged.
“You asked when Skorri and his wife came to your hall, requesting to live in your lands and under your protection, why they had left Skorri’s old lord. Do you remember what he said?”
“Something about green pastures and a warmer place for his wife to give birth,” Valgard sighed.
“A goatherd,” Koll repeated pointedly.
“Did you not notice that he referred to the coming child as hers? Not his?”
“I did not,” Valgard admitted. He rolled his eyes. He hated it when Sibbe spoke to him like this. He would beat her for it later. One would think she’d know better by now.
“It was not his child,” Sibbe said. “Stillborn, as we all know. But not his child.”
Valgard snorted. So did his sons. “Then he was already a cuckold before he came here,” Bram said dismissively. “Makes one wonder about his supposed rage now.”
“Indeed,” Sibbe said, “but his raiding came before his marriage. They were a young couple. Married barely two years ago. He made only one voyage after he and Halla came together. So imagine-I know this is hard for you, so I will use small words,” Sibbe noted, her eyes narrowing. “Imagine a man who fights as Skorri does. Someone who has raided much more than Valgard’s sons. This man finds a woman, marries her, and when he finds she has lain with another in his absence, he does not kill her. Rather, he moves to a new land where few if any may know them.
“He is taken in by a strong lord. He swears his allegiance. And then the first time he is away from home, his lord and his lord’s sons murder his wife.”
“Watch your tongue, Sibbe,” Valgard snapped.
“My point is to ask: what manner of warrior forgives a wife who is once unfaithful to him? Who travels with her from their lands to avoid the scandal of her condition, giving up all he has when he could cast her aside for another woman? Who intends to keep and raise her son by another man? What must there be between them? Surely this is not a man who makes decisions based on fear or weakness,” Sibbe suggested. “And if he kept her at his side for some other reason, perhaps for the sort of emotion unknown to my husband and my sons…if he made such sacrifices to keep his wife, consider: what would such a man do if he lost her?”
“If the bitch had given us what we’d wanted, we wouldn’t have been so rough,” Bram shrugged. He kept sharpening his blade. “How were we to know she was so fragile?”
“Tell me, Bram,” Sibbe asked, her face emotionless, “how many of Valgard’s men have you cuckolded?” The question hung in the hall like a cloud of smoke that refused to dissipate. Only Valgard and his sons met her gaze; every other man’s eyes turned to the floor, or to the wall, or to his own boots. No one ever dared speak of such things before. “Koll? Valgard? How many women have you been ‘rough’ with? How powerful does it make you feel to take whomever-?”
“Get out,” Valgard growled.
Sibbe did not need to be told twice. She left the hall.
Awkward silence remained in her wake. Valgard and his sons looked upon the rest of Valgard’s men with searching eyes. Few of the men were willing to meet their gaze.
Valgard’s hall grew quiet that night, despite the efforts of the host and the ale and food that was shared out among his warriors. It grew quiet, and before long, it grew somewhat empty. Perhaps only half a dozen men remained an hour after Sibbe had withdrawn. The others found reasons to leave early.
The serving maids left, too. Bram was the first to notice. He sat at the end of the long table nearest Valgard’s high seat, sharpening another blade. “Raghild!” he roared. “Where are you?”