Michelle Styles - A Deal With Her Rebel Viking

He pressed his hands against his thighs. Dreams were for other men, men who hadn’t had fathers who abandoned their comrades to die and then lied about it. Men who didn’t need to keep proving their loyalty to their commander thanks to the reputation of their father.

He would focus on keeping his men alive and out of Guthmann’s murderous clutches. If he achieved it, he would have fully removed his father’s taint and fulfilled the vow he’d made on his mother’s grave—he would be a better man than his father.

Lady Ansithe was the key to his achieving this—a counter to be used in his very real game of King’s Table with Guthmann. ‘Leave Lady Ansithe to me and me alone.’

Dawn had not yet arrived, but Ansithe had been unable to sleep for more than a few hours. Her dreams had been full of buzzing insects, faceless warriors who escaped and someone with broad shoulders and golden hair who fought through everything to save her. She had woken covered in sweat and with a deep abiding sense that something was wrong. In her haste to get away from the blue-eyed Northman, had she forgotten to do something simple like lock the door of the byre? She hurriedly dressed and ran out into the yard.

A steel-grey light illuminated the yard with deep shadows and harsh planes. A rumbling snore resounded. She advanced towards the byre. The swineherd, the lad who had faithfully promised to keep watch over the prisoners, was sound asleep.

‘What is this?’ she asked putting her hands on her hips. ‘Asleep? And here you promised that you could guard.’

The swineherd’s eyes blinked open. He rapidly stood. ‘My lady! Lady Ansithe!’

‘Are they still in there?’ she asked, tapping her foot on the ground. ‘Or have they vanished in the night because you forgot how to stay awake?’

He tugged at his tunic. ‘I haven’t heard a sound. Honest. Not even a squeak louder than a hoglet.’

‘It is amazing that anyone could hear anything above that racket.’ Moir’s languid tones dripped from the byre.

The air rushed out of Ansithe’s lungs. Moir. Her prisoners remained captive. Her dream of finding an empty byre and her best chance of proving her worth to her father gone had been nothing more than night-time imaginings.

‘They are still here.’

‘Where else would we be, Valkyrie?’ Moir asked. ‘Dining at Odin’s table is a privilege saved for those who fall on the battlefield.’

‘Are you all alive?’

‘You did not make your promise lightly, Valkyrie. Good.’ He pointedly coughed. ‘We could do with breakfast. Our stomachs pang with hunger.’

‘Her name is Lady Ansithe,’ the swineherd said, his face contorting to a blotchy colour in the half-light. ‘And you should be grateful that she brings you anything, not demanding food!’

‘Rest easy. A Valkyrie is a woman warrior,’ Moir retorted in a voice which was clearly designed to calm. ‘Your lady Ansithe is the very definition of one. I seek to honour her, not mock her. And my men will be grateful for any food. Other than the bread, our bellies have been near enough to empty for many days.’

Honour her? She stared at the wall where Moir’s voice came from. He respected her ability as a warrior. She couldn’t help smiling.

‘It is all right, I will deal with him. You go and get breakfast before you take care of your normal charges—the pigs,’ Ansithe told the swineherd.

‘Valkyrie, are you going to answer me?’ Moir asked again in a louder voice. ‘Why are you here? The cockerel has not yet begun to crow. I thought ladies like you lay in bed until the sun had well risen.’

‘You have no idea what women like me do.’

‘I’ve met a few Mercian ladies, simpering giggling nonentities mostly, but none have been warriors until you.’

As if on cue, the cockerel began his morning crow. The sound echoed through the shadowed yard.

‘Not so early,’ she said, rubbing her hand against the back of her neck. The lock was there, but she hadn’t removed the key. She carefully turned it and this time pocketed the key. ‘And no one is in danger. Breakfast will happen once the chores are done. Starving you will not do anyone any good.’

‘You have a good heart, Lady.’

‘You have a glib tongue, Northman. Your compliments fall as easily as rain falling on the fields.’

‘I do like a beautiful woman with wit.’

Again, the easy remarks about her beauty. He was flattering her now because he wanted something. She dredged her late husband’s words from the depths of her memory—the ones he used to explain to his son why he had no fear of ever being made a cuckold by her—clever, capable but lacking in that certain something which made men’s blood hot. It was why she had been the perfect wife for a man who was well past his prime and more in need of a nurse and housekeeper than a wife. She hated the tiny piece of her which still argued her late husband had been wrong about many things.

‘Liking has nothing to do with anything.’ She glared at the byre wall. Why did he persist in thinking that because she was a woman, she could be flattered and cajoled into doing anything she didn’t want to?

His laugh resounded through the wall, rippling through her and reminding her of her dream about the golden-haired warrior. She wondered if his eyes crinkled when he laughed. ‘You are the most interesting thing to happen to me in a long while.’

‘I am not a thing. I am a person and I had fully intended on ensuring you were fed even before your pathetic attempt at flattery,’ she said to the wall and imagined him standing facing her with his ice-blue eyes and a contemptuous expression on his face.

Silence from him. She breathed easier before she dusted down her gown, straightening the pleats. ‘Dawn has broken on a new day. I trust it will be a less eventful one than yesterday.’

The yard rang to the sound of horses’ hooves before she had gone five yards from the byre.

Ansithe’s heart plummeted. Her neighbour, the ealdorman Cedric, with several of his warriors in battle dress trotted into the yard. She had sent word that they were under siege before the Northmen arrived, but there had been no offer of help, no explanation, just silence in return. Now this, bristling Mercian warriors ready to save the day, but many hours too late.

She had to wonder if it was deliberate and Cedric had been hoping to find them missing or dead or if he truly was all shiny sword and no action as her late husband had always claimed.

‘Lady Ansithe,’ Cedric said from his horse after they had exchanged pleasantries. ‘I understand you experienced trouble yesterday. I was away hunting, but came as soon as it was practicable.’

Anger rose in her throat. Hunting? All day and night? She forced it back down.

‘We did have some trouble, but we managed to cope perfectly well. We do not require your assistance now, Lord Cedric.’ She gestured about the still yard. ‘As you can see, everything is at peace.’

‘A false alarm, then. Monks again? Like when you were a girl and were convinced Mercia was about to be overrun by Danes?’ His high-pitched laugh grated. ‘You cost your mother’s life that day.’

‘Not a false alarm, a plea borne of desperation.’ Ansithe blew on her nails to show she wasn’t intimidated, but the familiar claw of guilt twined about her entrails. Cedric did speak true—her excited warning about enemy Danes approaching who’d turned out to be monks had resulted in her very pregnant mother’s death along with her father’s much-desired son’s. It was why this time she had to finally save the family instead of nearly destroying it. ‘But I was wrong about one thing—no help or assistance was required. I...that is...we captured a number of Northern warriors.’