“You see, Hild, dear, I told you she would return.”
Camelee’s heart skipped like a stone across the water. Hild wasn’t crying anymore.
“Woman!” Odger shouted to be heard. His cool gray gaze was fixed on her. He was daunting with his bald head and thick handlebar mustache. But he paled, seeing her swelling face, and then turned red with anger. “Where did you wonder off to? And who is this?” he demanded, staring down at Alric.
“How is your wife and baby?” she asked him, breaking his gaze on Alric.
He set it on hers, surprised, confused. “They are well. I have a son.” He almost smiled.
“Congratulations!” What did one say in the eleventh century? “Huzzah? Anyway,” she said when he didn’t react. “I felt really sick.” She gave Genevra, who was, by now, doting over Alric, a repentant look for causing her any concern fixed on his young face.
“Ivar said he would take me out and stationed another man at the door. But he grabbed me and struck me when I screamed out for Wolf. He tore my clothes and was trying to rape me, but I smashed my heel into his foot. He fell back into young’s Alric’s blade.”
Odger hovered over Alric with an amused look on his face. “He fell onto your sword, eh?”
“Aye,” Alric answered, sounding unmoved and unafraid. “After I stabbed him in the back when he was humping the chief’s woman.”
Odger narrowed his eyes on him. He knew Wolf was going to ask what happened. He wouldn’t be angry with Alric. “Hmm, you may go then. Do not let me see your—”
“He saved my life, Odger,” Camelee interrupted softly. “Or do you think Ivar would have left me alive to tell Wolf what he’d done?”
“You know Wolf cares for her,” Genevra added with a bit more boldness. “He will thank this young man.”
Odger shrugged his wide shoulders and chuckled. “Unless he is angry with the boy for taking his kill.”
“Taking his kill?” Camelee asked, filled with indignation and disgust. She shook her head and held up her hands. “First of all, what was he supposed to do? Worry about Wolf or save me? Ridiculous. Second, you men really are barbarians.”
“Yes,” he told her as she stormed past him and headed for the keep. “I know.”
Chapter Fourteen
Wolf looked downat the body abandoned in the field. He recognized one of his soldiers. Ivar. Stabbed in the back with a blade discarded beside him. The body was a day old. What about the rest of the keep? Had they been attacked again? His horse was too slow with him and his brother on it so he ran back. Camelee!
He almost collapsed in relief when he reached the keep and the Danes were still holding it.
“Where is your horse, m’ lord?”
“He will be along. When my brother and the rest of the men get here, tell them to eat and drink. I will see them after.”
He didn’t wait around for the stable hand to reply but hurried toward the queen’s side of the castle where Camelee was. He saw Odger at his post and reached him with a nod.
“Chief,” Odger stopped him when he put his hand to the door. “I would have a word with you.”
“What? Has she been harmed?”
When Odger didn’t answer fast enough, Wolf pushed him out of the way and burst into the room. It took him a moment to find her in the four-room chamber. She was standing by the window. When she heard him enter, she ran to him and stopped short just when she reached him.
He bent over her to run the backs of his knuckles over her temple. “What is this from?”
“Ivar struck me,” she told him quietly. He exhaled like some dragon getting ready to breathe fire. “Wolf—” she grabbed his cloak. “Odger has a son. He left me in Ivar’s care for one hour to see to his wife. Don’t you dare punish him.”
He didn’t promise anything but knelt in front of her. “I will not leave you again.”
“Did you find your brother?”
“Yes. He is alive. The Saxons were not far from the border. That is why I have returned so quickly.”
She smiled and reached up to the side of her face.
