Vanquishing the Viking (Curvy for Keeps Book 7) Read online

  “Now I will return the Mermaid to the sea!” I proclaim with what I hope is dispassionate panache. Then, without waiting for the King to yea or nay my proclamation, I head for the gilded double-doors of the Great Hall, moving as fast as I dare, praying to those gods and goddesses to grant me this one wish, this one boon, this one gift.

  This one woman.

  5

  WENDRA

  Am I woman or ghost, I wonder as I look up at white mist. After blinking twice I see blue sky and smell sea salt. I take a breath and cough. Then I tense up as I swallow, waiting for the metallic taste of blood in my throat. There is none, and I almost sob in relief.

  “A hair’s width deeper and you would have drowned in your own blood,” comes his voice from beside me. I turn my head and groan when I feel the sharp pain of my cut. He touches my cheek and shakes his head. “Do not move. Perhaps it will not leave a scar if you keep still until it heals.”

  “I am long past the point where I worry about scars,” I say, groaning again as my head pounds like Thor himself is hammering at it. “Water,” I say hoarsely.

  Wolruff stands and finally I see him. He’s holding a wooden cup. I try to sit up but I cannot. He slides his hand beneath my back and raises me so I can drink. The water is warm but sweet. I smile at him and wince as he lowers me down to the rolled-up wool blanket that is my pillow.

  “Where are we?” I say when I feel movement and realize we are on a ship.

  Wolruff squints up at the sun and then looks down at me. “Heading Southwest, best I can tell. I did not track the stars last night.” He goes quiet and I smile. He was tracking me last night, I know. Holding my head steady so the skin closed up faster. Watching my chest move to make sure I was breathing. Trickling water past my dry lips every hour. I remember none of that but know it like I know my own hand, like I know my own heart, like I know my own fate.

  “What of my people?” I whisper after we share a comfortable silence broken only by the waves lapping against the wooden hull of the longship.

  “They were still captive on my anchored ships,” Wolruff says. “I ordered my men to untie them and let them set sail. I know not where they go.” He pauses. “I know not if King Nordwin will send ships after them. But they know how to sail and there are warriors amongst them. They can take care of themselves. They are not my concern. Nor are they yours. Not anymore. You are a Queen without a country now, Wendra. You are dead to the world. If King Nordwin gets word that you are alive, not only will he send ships after us, but he could well imprison or even execute my men, perhaps even their families. We are lost souls now, Wendra. Drifters. Wanderers. Ghosts.”

  I blink as I take in the enormity of what he has done for me. A tiny voice whispers that I should not forget that all of this was started by him, that had this Viking not sailed his longships up the river delta and into my village, neither of us would be here. Then another voice—this one not so tiny—whispers that perhaps it is not such a bad thing that I am here and he is here and we are alive and floating with the tides, sailing with the wind.

  “Why?” I say, not sure what I ask, not sure of whom I ask it.

  “You know why,” he says, answering my question and perhaps his own question in the only way that makes sense.

  I nod. I do know why but cannot say it. I cannot say what I felt when I saw his shadow, smelled his scent, sensed his soul. “In my tribe marriages were arranged at birth,” I say as I watch the clouds make shapes above me. I know not why I tell him this but I cannot stop the words. “They would place newborn babes in the calm shallows of a pool and watch how they drifted. There was no tide and no current, but still you would see patterns emerging, witness children drawn to one another as if by unseen forces. It was the pull of nature, they say. Matches ordained by fate.”

  Wolruff grunts. “Then clearly we are not fated to be married, because I do not float. My bones are heavy like iron. If that were the custom of my people, I would have dropped like a rock, sunk as a stone.” He chuckles. “Though perhaps it means my match is a mermaid,” he says. He raises an eyebrow at me and twists his mouth into a half-smile. “Which reminds me: Do I get three wishes now that I have set you free?”

  I smile even though it hurts. “Don’t you want to see if your King Nordwin has grown taller before trusting in my powers?”

  “He will sit upon the Throne of England before he grows taller.”

  “And he will need to live forever if he hopes to claim England’s throne,” I add.

  We laugh together and then I wince. Wolruff places his palm upon my brow and frowns. “There is a fever.”

  “A fever is good. It is the body fighting its way to balance.” He holds the cup to my lips and I drink. Then I reach up and touch his forehead. It is warm but not with fever. I think of that old matchmaking ritual of my people. Did we drift toward each other on the tides of time, the sea of space? I had no match when the ritual was performed on me, the elders said. It meant I was special, they said. Born to be alone, came the whispers when I grew old enough to understand them. Of course, soon I grew bold enough to ignore them, taking a husband even though I never gave myself to him. He drowned on our wedding night, drunk on the fermented nectar from the carrow-root. He drowned in that very pool where the babies are floated to their fates. My fate was to be alone, and I decided then I was foolish to fight it.

  So what chance do I have that this Viking has changed my fate, I wonder as I draw my hand back from his rough skin and resist the urge to look into his eyes. I see how he looks at me. I feel how he wants me. Nothing stops him from taking me. Perhaps he will do just that.

  “What would you have me do when you are healed?” he says softly. “Your village is burned. Your people may return there, but I do not think they will. I think they will settle in a safer village on England’s coast. Build new homes closer to the protection of London.”

  I blink and look away. Thoughts of home make my heart heavy, but where else can I go? What else can I do? Sail the seas on a Viking longship for eternity? Live off fish and rainwater?

  “If I return to England, King Nordwin might hear I still live,” I say.

  “He may hear of it anyway. My men know it. They are loyal, but there may be questions about where my ships have gone.”

  “They are your ships, are they not?”

  “Yes. So perhaps it will be forgotten before anyone bothers to ask. King Nordwin is easily distracted. Something new will occupy his attention. Rumors will pass like a storm, leaving the seas smooth like glass after a time.”

  I close my eyes and then open them when a heavy raindrop hits my nose. I blink as the rain comes like beads, wetting my face and hair. Wolruff lifts me off the deck like a doll, swiftly carrying me below. It is dark and stuffy under decks, the air stale and damp. The stench of dried fish and flat ale nauseates me, and I feel my fever rise.

  “You will be safe here,” Wolruff says, kicking open the heavy wooden door to what must be his chambers. It smells like him, and I relax when he lays me upon the hard straw bed. He strokes my hair like I am a child, and then he twists his face when the wind blows the rain against the thick wooden hull. The rain hits like spears, and when the thunder shakes the ship and the wind whistles through the small spaces between the logs and planks of the longship, Wolruff turns and storms toward the door. “I must take down the sails,” he says over his shoulder. “In this wind they could snap the masts like twigs.”

  As he says it we heard a crack like a tree falling in the forest, and Wolruff is gone like lightning. I hear his heavy boots go up the steps, and I close my eyes and try not to think about my fate, about what happened when I tried to make my own fate by taking a husband. Is this the goddess herself reminding me that she writes my fate and not I? Am I being punished for daring to reach for a destiny that is not mine to have?

  The wind wails as my fever rises, and soon I cannot see the dark wal
ls of the Viking’s chambers. My eyelids flutter and my lips move without sound. Saliva pools at the sides of my mouth, and I feel a trickle down my neck.

  Soon the trickle thickens, and I frown and try to see if I am bleeding again. I touch my neck and look at my fingers. My hand drips wet, but it is not blood. Then I feel more wetness, this time on my forehead and nose. I look up and gasp when I see water pouring through the ceiling.

  I sit up and swing my legs off the bed. My stomach lurches and my head spins, but I know I must go above decks. Another mast cracks above, and suddenly I fear for Wolruff. My mind takes me back to when I found my husband face down in that shallow pool on our wedding night, and now I am running up the stairs that are soaked dark with seawater.

  When I emerge I am almost taken by the wind, but I hold on to the wooden post at the top of the stairs and search for Wolruff. I see him bare-chested and bronzed, his muscles straining as he furiously brings down a heavy sail from the aft mast and moves on to the next. I do not call to him. If we lose all the masts in the storm, we are good as dead. We will drift with the tides until we one day meet our end on the jagged rocks that hide just beneath the surface all along the English coastline.

  The wind whips rain at my face, but I hold tight and narrow my eyes. It is still mid-day but the clouds make it dark as a moonless night. The once-blue sea is gray like sin, and with every swallow I taste the salt in my throat. It is almost like the rain is saltwater, I think as I glance up and then out across the bow. The waves are so high they come over the sides like it is a rowboat, but that does not concern me as much as what I see past the bow.

  “Wolruff!” I scream when I realize what I am looking at. I wipe the water from my face and look again. “Wolruff! We are upon the shore! We are being pushed aground! We are—”

  We strike the rocks and I am thrown backwards down the stairs. I tumble and roll, somehow landing below decks without breaking my neck. My left leg is twisted beneath me, and when I try to stand I scream and fall back down. Then I see movement at the top of the stairs, and my heart calms when I see Wolruff. His hands are cut from the rough ropes lashing the sails, and blood mixed with rainwater drips from his fingertips.

  I try to stand once more, but fall again. This time it is not from the pain of my leg. I fall because the hull has been breached and the sea comes through like a river, swaying me with force and fury. Wolruff roars and starts down the stairs, but before he takes the first step a shadow falls over him and I scream a warning he cannot hear.

  The mast crashes down upon his back like a silent stalker, its ambush bringing Wolruff down with breathtaking swiftness. I blink and stare as the water rises past my hips, unable to believe that he is gone. Did I just kill another man that I dared to believe might be mine? Is my love a curse? My touch poison? My whisper more deadly than an arrow?

  The saltwater burns the fresh cut on my neck, and for a moment I want to sink myself beneath the surface, end this wretched lonely life just like I started it: Alone. My knees buckle and my legs shake, but somehow I keep my head above water and breathe like there is still something for which to breathe, still a destiny for which to endure, still a fate for which to fight.

  And so even as my heart pulls me down like a weightstone, something else in me reaches out and grasps a heavy splinter the size of a small tree. I cling to it as the water rises, carrying me upwards with it as the ship sinks lower. Moments later I am being washed over the flooded decks, off the sloping side of the listing ship, into the dark waters that churn with angry froth.

  I whirl through the waves, spin through the swell, my fingernails broken and bleeding as I claw at my splintered raft and hang on like I am cursed to never die. I see the longship bent and broken on the wicked black rocks as I rise on the swell of the ocean. The last mast comes down slow and silent like an old tree, and then the longship is gone and Wolruff is gone and I am alone again.

  Alone like always.

  Alone like forever.

  6

  ONE YEAR LATER

  WOLRUFF

  It has taken forever, but I am finally able to swing my battle-ax once more. My back is twisted like an old tree, but my strength has returned and although I do not stand as straight as before, at least I still stand.

  “What of you, Wendra?” I whisper to the sea as I stand bare-chested on the rocky beach and swing my battle-ax like I fight unseen demons. “Do you still stand? Do you still breathe? Do you still . . .”

  The words catch in my throat, and I swing my ax so hard I feel the pull in my shoulder and the pain in my back. I grit my teeth and stretch my chest, looking up at the cold blue steel of the North sky and searching for a sign from the gods. Something to relieve the tightness in my throat that comes not from my broken body but my lonely heart.

  “You failed her, Wolruff,” I growl, finally letting the heavy axhead drop into the packed sand. “You failed yourself. Failed your own fate. If only you’d seized the moment when she offered herself to you aboard your own longship. But no. You held true to vows of allegiance to a man you do not respect, a weak King who would have killed her and killed you and then feasted on pheasant before your blood turned cold.”

  I drag my ax along the beach as I wander aimlessly, like I have done day after day, month after month. The gods have no respect for a man who does not rise when he is called, and so how can I respect myself any longer?

  The wind picks up and I stop and gaze out over the gray sea. A hundred times I have considered walking into the surf until I am no more. Perhaps I will wake up and see my mermaid smiling at me from her watery grave. Perhaps she will whisper that my one wish has come true.

  “It is true,” comes a familiar voice from behind me. I do not turn, though. I have spent so much time alone that voices come and go like the breeze. “You have indeed gone mad.”

  Finally I turn, and a smile comes to my dry lips when I see Carab, my First Mate from a time when I was a Viking Captain and I commanded longships and I raided and plundered and conquered. Oh, what joy I felt in those days. And then I met her, and now look at me.

  I swallow the anger that rises in me now and then like a serpent that lives in the darkest part of my soul. As much as I yearn to see Wendra again, sometimes the thought sickens me to the toes. There are countless myths of the hero being derailed from his destiny by a trickster in female form, a temptress sent by the gods, a test of will and strength that I have failed. But it is not her fault. It is mine. If there is anger and hate, then let it be aimed at myself.

  “My Captain and Commander,” says Carab, stopping in the sand before me and bowing his head in respect. He glances at my axhead covered in wet sand. Then he looks at my twisted posture and broken back. He blinks and moves his jaw and looks away.

  I smile ruefully. “Do not call me thus. I cannot be a Captain without ships. I cannot be a Commander without standing straight.”

  “We have new ships,” says Carab. He looks at my ax again, his gaze travelling up my thick arms that still bulge with muscle. “And so long as you can still swing that heavy ax straight enough, we will follow you into battle again. What say you, Wolruff?”

  My grip tightens around the warm wooden ax-handle. I raise the heavy club over my head, frowning as it strikes me as odd that on the first day I am able to swing my ax, Carab shows up like a messenger from the gods. I glance up at the clear sky, then back over to the horizon. Am I being offered another chance? A way back from the wilderness? Back to what, though?

  Back to your fate, comes the answer on the breeze. Will you seize the chance this time? Or will you shift on your feet and ask a hundred silly questions, rub your jaw and worry about the danger, scratch your elbow and grumble about the risks, pick your arse and ask about the rewards?

  “We need a Captain, Wolruff,” says Carab. “We will not sail under another man’s command. What say you?”

  I start to think and then stop
. “I say yes,” I say as I try to push away the hope of something that cannot pass, try to forget the one wish I had made a year ago. “If I can stand, I can sail. If I can swing my ax, I can plunder. Where do we raid this time? France, perhaps? It has been some time since we pillaged the French coast. Perhaps they have forgotten about us.” I twirl my ax like it is a toothpick. “Perhaps we should remind them why Vikings are feared all across Europe.”

  Carab grins and nods. “The French fools will not have forgotten, Wolruff. They will still remember us when we storm into their ports and steal their gold and fuck their women until their bloodlines change forever. That will have to wait, though. Our new ships are gifts from King Nordwin, and we sail as part of his fleet. To England. Right up the River Thames to the great City of London. We are to sack the Tower and take the Palace.”

  I frown and cock my head. I have been on my own too long. No news reaches me out here on the remote Northern coast. But this news cannot be real. Yes, our longships are built to sail up rivers and back out to sea, but to sail into the lion’s den is madness. Certainly King Nordwin is capable of madness, but not this sort of madness. He may have grand dreams, but he does not have the courage to chase them. Certainly not up the River Thames and against an army vastly more powerful.

  I lean close and sniff the air around Carab. It does not smell good, but nor does it smell like ale.

  “I am not drunk,” says Carab, grinning and swiping at the air between us. “Have you not heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  “King Nordwin,” says Carab, blinking and shaking his head like either he does not believe I have not heard the news or he does not believe the news at all. “Last month he . . . he grew.”

  I furrow my brow and blink away a pain behind my left eye. “What do you mean he grew?”