“I love you, too,” she murmured. “I always have, but I never believed you loved me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You are the most special woman I have ever met. You are all the things a man hopes for. You are the most loveable woman I’ve ever met. I fear other men know that too, and one will catch your eye.”
“What men?” Lena stretched onto her toes to swipe her tongue across the seam of Ivar’s lips, demanding entrance that he was only too happy to offer.
“Say you’re mine. That you will always be by my side,” Ivar demanded with a gruffness Lena had never heard before.
She pulled away and shook her head as she swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Always? You realize there can’t be an always between us. Are you asking me to one day go from being your companion to your concubine?”
“What?” Ivar shook his head, unable to follow her train of thought.
“You will marry one day, and it won’t be to me. You would take me as your concubine, making any children I bore you bastards? Forcing me to give up a chance for a husband and a home of my own? Ivar, I love you, but you would sentence me to a life of longing for what I can’t have. A life where you may warm my bed some nights, but another woman claims your home and her rights as your wife. I—I can’t do that. Gods, that would kill me.”
Lena pushed him away and looked around wildly her before running towards the others, leaving Ivar staring after her confused by her logic. He had intended on proposing, and instead, he stood wondering why Lena assumed he meant to make her a concubine.
“You’re an ass.”
Ivar spun around to see his best friend, Eindride, approaching him.
“You’re an ass. I bet you probably intended to ask her to marry you, but that’s because I probably would have bungled things just as badly. You will be a jarl one day. Your father is going to arrange your marriage, and it won’t be to a girl from our homestead. Lena knows that all too well. She’s been dreading the day Jarl Soren announces your betrothal. She can only hope to find a man to marry once you leave her. To be your concubine would make her the most hated woman in our village. There are plenty of women already spiteful that she is the only one who warms your bed.”
“You make no sense. Why would anyone hate her if she has a position in my heart and my home?”
Eindride looked at his best friend and shook his mane of sun-bleached hair. He wondered how a man who was a brilliant strategist did not see how his current strategy would fail.
“What woman will want to arrive to marry a man already bedding the most beautiful woman in our village? What woman will want to be frú while having to accept that her husband is making love to a woman of common birth? Do you think any of our clanswomen will side with Lena once you’re married? They would be fools to choose her over their future frú.”
“I will convince my father that Lena is the best, the only, choice for me. She is more than a pretty face. She has the will and determination along with the sense to be a powerful helpmate to me and a leader for our village. She is already a natural leader among the shieldmaidens.”
“But she brings no alliance. She brings little dowry. In your father’s eyes, she brings nothing.”
“But my happiness.”
“And since when did that matter? You will rule this clan one day. Your happiness is nothing compared to the safety and prosperity of the entire homestead.”
Ivar bit his tongue, as disagreeing with Eindride was pointless. His friend and the second-in-command of Ivar’s division of warriors was correct. No one, especially his father, would consider his happiness as a factor when arranging a marriage. However, Ivar knew that a happy jarl made for a successful jarl. His grandfather had been devoted to his grandmother. They had an arranged marriage, but they had fallen in love, and their partnership made his clan prosperous after decades of struggle against neighbors. His father and mother also had an arranged marriage and barely tolerated being in the same longhouse, let alone the same room. Their discord affected the entire clan. The men sided with his father, and the women took his mother’s side. It caused arguments within many families, and the unwillingness to forgive one another for causing the friction festered between his parents. The discord was well known among their allies and enemies, and their enemies often used it against them during raids. His parents had played him against one another throughout his childhood, and the moment Ivar was old enough he escaped to raid foreign lands. He captained their fleet each year and fled the moment the fjord thawed enough for the hulls of their longboats to cut through the ice.
“We both know that a happy home sets the tone for the entire clan. We already have alliances with the neighbors who matter.” Ivar observed.
“And a few of them are excited to fight on our side.” Eindride agreed.
“My mother and father have worked hard to keep those alliances despite how they bicker with each other.”
“And it will be your doing that undoes that.”
Ivar grumbled as he looked to where Lena now stood, talking to other shieldmaidens, her back to him.
“Ivar, you must realize your father will try to arrange a marriage with Inga Thorsdóttir. Her brother Rangvald will make a powerful ally when you and he inherit your jarldoms.”
Ivar’s stomach dropped. He knew Eindride was right, but he dreaded the notion of being married to Inga. She had an even more sour disposition than his own mother, and there was something that always put him on edge. He did not trust her the woman.
“Gods help me and us if that’s true. That woman has an evil within her. I can’t tell what it is, but I have a strong feeling that she will be our downfall or will be a catalyst to whoever tries to destroy us. I will not marry her.”
“You more than likely will. Who are you to stand up to your father? Unless he dies before you wed, you have no say.”
Ivar had no chance to respond, as a clap of thunder roared through the air and the clouds opened, dropping sheets of rain on the battlefield. The storm matched Ivar’s mood, as though Thor read his mind.
