Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

HOY ISLAND, ORKNEY

“ S hut the door, lass, you’ll catch your death in that cold wind!”

Tira pretended not to hear the stout older woman left to watch her—no, guard her was more the truth of it. Instead she leaned out the rough-hewn door as the wind buffeted her, icy drizzle lashing at her face.

Icy drizzle that made her squint at the gray expanse of ocean with its angry, white-capped waves until she was roughly hauled inside and the door slammed shut behind her, the woman’s face flushed red with outrage.

“Are you mad? Thorgren will lash me tae the prow of one of his ships if any harm comes tae you! It’s well into May, but the foul weather’s not done with us yet. Go sit by the fire and dinna defy me again, do you hear?”

How could she not hear Brinda with all her screeching? When the woman’s back had been turned while stirring a potful of fish soup, Tira had seized her chance to pull open the door to breathe in fresh air.

The turf-roofed cottage with its dirt floor and rock walls so stuffy that she felt sick much of the time and with no appetite for food—not that she cared at all about eating.

In truth she didn’t care about anything, no, not anymore, Tira settling awkwardly into a chair near the hearth. She stared into the flames as fresh despair overcame her, along with memories of her one chance for rescue that had gone so wretchedly awry.

She had heard the battle cries on that wintry November day and guessed the Orkney raiders’ camp was under attack, wild hope flooding her until her hulking captor, Thorgren Sigurdson, had lunged into the tent and thrown her over his shoulder.

A young woman with long red hair already hoisted over his other shoulder, Tira had gaped in shock at Rowen Sutherland, whom she hadn’t seen since they were girls.

Both of them carried swiftly to Thorgren’s ship where he dumped them over the side, Tira sobbing with such desolation that she could hardly breathe as Rowen gathered her close to try and comfort her.

Yet within a moment Thorgren had wrested her, screaming, from Rowen’s arms to pass her to another raider and then lunge at Rowen, who screeched so vehement a string of curses that he stopped in surprise to stare at her.

Tira had ceased her desperate struggles to stare stunned, too, as Rowen seized her chance and threw herself overboard while Thorgren rushed to the railing to try and grab her, only to straighten up empty-handed. His own curses even more foul as he spun and slapped Tira across the face so violently that she fainted—ah, God, why would these terrible memories not cease to plague her?

“Here, eat some soup.”

A brimming bowl thrust at her, Tira had all she could do to grasp the vessel, her hands were trembling so.

Brinda spoke with a lilting accent more Norse than Scots, the Orkney Islands a stopping point for centuries for Vikings traveling southward on their longships—or so Tira had learned from Thorgren during the rare moments when he had spoken to her with some civility.

His life as a brutal raider was Thorgren’s way of emulating his ancestors, whose exploits had been immortalized in the Norse sagas.

Yet to Tira, he was nothing more than a beast with a broad face and flattened nose who had stolen her innocence and abused her for months—aye, even more cruelly after he lost half of his men and two ships during the attack that came so close to rescuing her from her torment.

“Aye, so close,” Tira murmured, her hands still shaking so much just to think upon Thorgren that soup spilled down the front of her woolen tunic as she raised the bowl to her mouth.

“Och, lass, you’re a mess,” Brinda muttered as she ladled up some soup for herself, shaking her head in disgust. “It’s a wonder Laird Sigurdson sees anything pleasing in you at all. Your long hair tangled and your gown soiled. Your face pale and wan. I heard you were a rare beauty when he first brought you tae Orkney, but I didna see you then and it’s a tale now that’s hard tae believe. Eat your soup and I’ll warm up some water so you can bathe.”

Tira nodded, doing the best she could to chew and then swallow the chunks of cod that were tasteless to her.

Brinda’s words about heating water not uttered out of kindness but that she had been charged with Tira’s care while Thorgren had gone raiding along Scotland’s eastern coast—and he wouldn’t return for a fortnight.

A blessed fortnight when she wouldn’t have to attempt to sleep beside a brute of a man who reeked of sweat and filth, Thorgren loath to bathe at all. Many a night she had lain awake after he’d had his way with her and then rolled over to snore and break wind, the guttering light from an oil lamp illuminating the markings etched with black ink onto his shaved head.

Pagan markings that made her shudder now to think of them, though he had told her Orkney had become Christian centuries ago. Thorgren nonetheless followed the path of his forebears with his strange talk of Odin, Thor, and Freyja, which made Tira lower her bowl to cross herself and mouth a silent prayer for deliverance, even if it meant death.

Aye, she wanted to die. Even if her father hadn’t given up hope for her and intended to launch another rescue attempt, she was no longer the daughter he remembered.

She was no longer the unsullied young woman who had grieved with him last summer at the untimely death of her mother.

She was no longer the lovestruck young woman that Errol Sutherland wished to marry—ah, God, that was her worst torment, to think of him!

Tears filled Tira’s eyes and she set the bowl upon the floor, unable to swallow another mouthful.

Thankfully, Brinda didn’t chide her, but shrugged her shoulders and set a pot of water inside the hearth to warm so Tira could bathe herself.

Yet why even make the effort? It was all she could do to find the strength to rise and move over to the cot where she slept upon a straw-filled mattress.

This musty cottage wasn’t where she had lived during the long winter months with Thorgren, but on the opposite side of Hoy where he had left her with Brinda.

A small village lay nearby where the raiders who hadn’t accompanied Thorgren on the first raid of the spring, lived with their wives and families. Four of those men were hunkered down outside of the cottage to guard her as well…as if she could ever try to escape being so close to giving birth to Thorgren’s child.

Tears coursing down her cheeks, Tira heaved a ragged sigh as she sank down upon the lumpy mattress and curled onto her side.

No other position comfortable for her with her swollen belly so huge and the bairn feeling so heavy inside her.

A bairn she couldn’t bring herself to hate no matter how she had tried, Tira resting her hand protectively upon her stomach.

Her fervent prayer now that the child should live, but that she succumb to the sweet release of death after the birth.

“Forgive me,” Tira whispered, feeling the tiniest of kicks beneath her fingers that made fresh tears well in her eyes.

She had always wanted children, but not this one—God help her, not this one ! Errol was to have been her beloved husband and the father of her bairns, but that longed-for dream was gone forever.

Tira was certain she had caught a glimpse of him standing with a bloodied sword upon the shoreline where he stared after Thorgren’s retreating ship—but had she simply imagined it? Wished it?

If it was Errol at that sheltered cove where the Orkney raiders had taken refuge for the night, why hadn’t he tried to find her earlier? Had everyone believed her dead after those Mackays had abducted her from the graveyard where she had gone to pray for her mother?

That wretched day last summer had become a blur in her mind of horror and disbelief, but nothing could have prepared her for those same enemy clansmen bartering her away to Thorgren, who had been raiding with his men along Scotland’s northern coast.

He had ravished her that very night and plunged her into abject desolation, even as he had blustered to his men that Tira was his woman and he would slay any of them that glanced at her with lust in his eyes.

The following months into November she had been forced to accompany Thorgren on every raid, and he had displayed her like a trophy alongside him at the prow of his ship.

She had watched villages burn, her fellow Scotsmen murdered, and weeping young women taken captive to suffer ravishment until they were thrown overboard before the next raid, to either swim to shore…or drown. A horrible nightmare from which Tira saw no hope of awakening until that November day when she had come so close… so close …

“If only I could have thrown myself from the ship like Rowen—ah, God, help me!” A sob broke from Tira’s throat that made Brinda gasp and whirl around from the hearth.

“What, lass? Is it the bairn coming?”

The dark-haired woman didn’t wait for Tira’s answer, which was another choked sob, but rushed over to press her hand upon Tira’s stomach.

“Have the pains started?”

“N-no, I am sad, is all?—”

“ Sad ? You who are the most fortunate of women tae carry Laird Sigurdson’s bairn within you? Dinna you know what that means if you give him a healthy son? He will marry you, lass! You will be wife tae Orkney’s most renowned raider and held in esteem among all of us, a lowly captive no longer. He’s never sired a son, only daughters?—”

“Then I hope it’s a girl for I will never marry Thorgren. Never ! Or mayhap I will die in childbirth and deny him myself and the bairn?—”

“Enough!”

Brinda grabbed Tira by the shoulder to shake her so roughly that she nearly toppled from the cot, and now she did feel a stab of pain that made her gasp.

“Ah, now, you see? The wee babe heard your curse and demands tae be born at once!”

Tira shook her head wildly, but before she could utter another word, Brinda had pulled her to her feet and demanded that she walk around the cottage.

“W-walk?”

“Aye, tae see if it’s truly your time or you have a while tae wait yet—now move .”

Trembling, Tira did as she was bade, Brinda following behind her and prodding with a finger poked into Tira’s back.

As she made several circles around the cottage, the pain subsided and felt more uncomfortable than anything as sharp as the first, which helped to quell the fear that had gripped her about the prospect of giving birth. A few moments more, Brinda still urging her on, Tira felt no pain at all and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Ah, you see? The bairn isna ready even though he must know his own mother doesna want him. Shame, lass, shame .”

Tira felt her face redden at the harsh rebuke, but all she wanted to do now was lie back down on the cot and turn her face to the wall.

In spite of Brinda’s words, she didn’t feel shame at all, only a gnawing emptiness as she felt herself sinking further into despair.

In spite of the woman’s insistence upon speaking about the bairn as if a boy, Tira began to pray fervently to herself that she carried a daughter.

She didn’t want to marry Thorgren! The very thought making her feel like she might retch as she sank onto the cot, Brinda covering her with a blanket before Tira could do so herself.

“Aye, sleep, lass. You’ll need your strength for the true pains when they come—and they will, I promise you, sooner than later from the size of your belly. Och, I would swear you carry two babes in you! Wouldna that be a fine surprise for Laird Sigurdson when he returns tae Hoy, and finds two squalling sons waiting for him?”

Tira didn’t answer, but squeezed her eyes shut as tears blistered the inside of her eyelids, her silent prayer growing more desperate.

God help her, was there no relief from this worsening nightmare?

“The storm grows worse, Laird MacLachlan! Mayhap we should shelter along the coastline until?—”

“Och, Brody, are you losing your nerve?” Gavin roared to his wiry helmsman as Errol looked on, icy rain lashing his face and stinging his eyes.

He stood next to Gavin in the stern of the thirty-six-oared birlinn that dipped sharply and then ascended in the rolling waves like a wild thing, his feet braced wide to keep his balance as Gavin had instructed him.

No matter his heavy cloak, he was soaked to the skin, but he didn’t want to join other men taking cover under the canvas drawn over the middle section of the ship, precious hours passing by.

Already they had been at sea for three days, which left only seven more to attempt to find Tira and then return to Dumbarton. Seven more ! The journey to reach the Orkney Islands had taken longer than Errol had anticipated due to rough seas, but Gavin hadn’t seemed daunted at all by the foul weather.

Instead, the strapping warrior appeared to relish the rolling waves and blustery wind that whipped at his dark red hair…a wild, exuberant look in the man’s eyes that lent credence to his former title of devil of the seas.

“We’ll know soon enough if those bastard raiders spoke the truth about where tae find your lady, Sutherland. A good thing you brought two of those prisoners with you tae Dumbarton tae join us on this quest. We’ll haul them from the cargo well straightaway if we discover they lied and have led us astray—aye, a sword pressed tae the throat will sharpen their memories. Hoy is dead ahead!”

Errol nodded, his heart pounding hard as he squinted into the distance at the imposing cliffs that seemed to have risen out of the stormy sea.

Tira was somewhere on that island…aye, his lady , just as Gavin had said. The woman he loved, who would become his wife.

God help them that they find her, and not a grave. Please not a grave…