Ice Maiden

For days Rika and her people watched, amused, as Grant worked in vain to build a seaworthy raft of driftwood and pitch and bits of rotten rope.

She stood on the cliff overlooking the beach, her cloak pulled tight about her, and observed him. The wind whipped at his hair and the loose-fitting tunic one of the men had given him to wear. His legs were bare though booted, and she knew not how he could stand for so long in the icy water, his gaze fixed on the southern horizon.

Winter was at its height. A thin crust of snow clung to the rocky outcrops and grass-covered moors of the island. Daylight was short, and no sooner did the sun rise each day then the wind waxed with a vengeance. She turned her face skyward and breathed of the salt and dampness.

All she knew was the sea, what it gave up and what it kept. As she fixed her eyes on Grant she found herself wondering what Scotland was like in the spring.

“He’s given up.”

Rika turned at the sound of Lawmaker’s voice. “Not yet, old man. Still he believes there must be a way. I see it in the set of his shoulders and in the way he clenches his fists at his sides.”

Lawmaker smiled and spared a backward glance to the sheep he tended on the moor.

Rika slipped her arm through his, as she often did, and huddled close. “You might have been right. This chieftain may not agree after all.”

“He’ll agree,” Lawmaker said, as they watched Grant in the surf. “In his own time.”

“Hmph.” They had precious little of that. Her patience wore thin. “He’s done naught but rage and pace the beach all this morn.”

“With you stood here openly watching?”

She nodded.

“Ha!” Lawmaker shook his head. “No wonder the man’s enraged.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand his anger. The solution is a simple one. He has only to agree and we can move ahead with our plan.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It is.” It wasn’t, but she could see no other way.

“Have you thought what you will do after?”

She hadn’t, in fact. “I’ll do what I always have done—take care of you and Gunnar. Until my brother takes a wife, of course.”

Lawmaker flicked her a sideways glance. “And what of you, Rika. Have you not thought about a husband for yourself?”

She frowned at him. “You know well I have not. How can you suggest it knowing how my father treated my mother? And how Brodir—” she turned away and bit down hard on her lip “—what he did to me.” Her arm slid from his.

“Had I known of Brodir’s misuse of you—”

She raised a hand to silence him. “It’s of no import now. All is behind me. Gunnar’s freedom is what matters.”

“Not all men are like Brodir, you know. Or your father.”

That she could not believe. She sought Lawmaker’s eyes, prepared to make some retort, but caught him studying Grant. The Scotsman moved with purpose up the beach toward them, eyes fixed on her, his face a grim fusion of unconcealed hate and barely controlled rage.

“He is,” she said. “Just like them. I see it in the way he looks at me.”

Lawmaker shrugged. “The man’s out of his element, here in this place. Fair Isle is a world apart from his, and you a woman unlike any he has known, I’ll wager.”

“Ha! So he’s made it plain each time I’ve spoken with him. This wager I shan’t take.”

“Have you never thought to marry for love?” Lawmaker asked.

Thor’s blood, would the old man not let the subject go? “Love.” She snorted. “An emotion for the weak of spirit. Men use it to bend women to their will. Some, to crush them. And I won’t be crushed like an insect under a man’s boot.”

Lawmaker sighed.

He’d heard it all before, but she cared not, and continued. “You speak to me of love, and conveniently forget that you yourself never wed. You and I are alike, old man. We need not such weaknesses.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong. I have loved, more deeply and fiercely than you can know.” He looked into her eyes and smiled bitterly. “One day I shall tell you the story.”

She had never seen him like this, so direct and forthcoming with his feelings. “Tell me now.”

“Nay, for you are not ready to hear it. Besides, look—” He nodded toward the beach. “Your bridegroom comes.”

He did come, and at a pace that caused her to take two steps back. She met Grant’s gaze and saw his rage had subsided. She hardened her heart against what remained.

Hate. Disgust. For her.

She felt it as keenly as she’d felt Brodir’s fist on numerous occasions. Rika knew she was not like other women, and she certainly didn’t look like them. Nay, she was far from the ideal. Perhaps that was another reason she’d evaded marriage.

Who would have her?

Who, besides Brodir, who favored the arrangement only for the coin, and for the humiliation he could wreak on her?

Nay, wifery was not for her, and as Grant scaled the craggy hill before her, she took comfort in the fact that her marriage to the Scot would be mercifully short.

“Woman!” Grant called.

She did not answer.

Out of nowhere, Ottar appeared on the hill behind him, and moved with a speed Rika had not known the sandy-haired youth possessed.

“Ottar, no!” she cried.

Too late.

Grant turned on him, and Rika froze. “I must help him,” she said, and started forward.

“Nay. Be still.” Lawmaker grabbed her arm.

“But—”

“Quiet. I’m trying to hear what they say.” Lawmaker jerked her back, and she watched, her heart in her throat, as Ottar confronted Grant. The howling wind made it impossible to hear their conversation.

“He’s only ten and six,” she said. “Grant will kill him.”