“Come!” he shouted.
Björn entered. “Tormod, the prisoner. You need to hear what he has to say.”
“I will be there in a moment,” Tormod replied.
Aoife gaped at her husband. “There are prisoners?”
“One,” Björn said.
She turned away from him, shaking. “Is he to be killed?”
“Do you wish him to be?” Tormod asked.
“I don’t know,” she said after a long pause. “They came because of me. I heard them. They were going to kill me.”
“They came because of us. You and this village.”
Her face when she looked at him was a mask of anguish. “I can’t believe that my father ordered it. I think there is something very wrong at Car Cadell.”
Tormod couldn’t decide whether she was right, or simply clinging to a last remnant of hope for her father’s love. Although… he thought back to the way Cadell had looked to Ula during their negotiations and wondered if Aoife was, in fact, correct. Elisedd’s arrival seemed to prove that there was something wrong, too.
“I think so too,” he said. “Now we need to arrange a visit. But we will take the time to plan and prepare and be ready for whatever we find there.”
Aoife breathed in deeply, then nodded.
Tormod strode towards her and encircled her in his arms. After only a moment’s hesitation, she leaned into him. He closed his eyes, relaxing into her warmth. He was happy she was alive and sure that he was not willing to give her up.
Chapter Twenty-four
Aoife opened the doora short while later to Björn, Ulf, and Arne and ushered them inside. She had offered to leave them to talk in peace, but Tormod had insisted she stay. Now, she looked at Tormod, surrounded by his cousins. They were a formidable group—she pitied anyone who had to fight against them.
When questioned, the prisoner had admitted that they had, indeed, attacked the village on Lord Cadell’s orders and that he had not specified that Aoife be spared.
“She doesn’t deserve to die,” the prisoner had said. “It was not her choice to marry you, she should not suffer further for it.”
After he had said this, it had been decided that his life would be spared, for now at least. Arne had suggested that keeping him alive in case they needed proof of Cadell’s duplicity might make him more valuable in the long run and Tormod had agreed.
“We should send Lord Cadell a message,” Ulf said.
Aoife started. She should have been listening, but somehow… somehow she simply didn’t want to deal with the reality of the situation and was unsure why Tormod had asked her to be here.
“The bodies of his dead will be a start,” said Ulf.
Aoife looked at Ulf. Of all the group, he had changed the most since the fight. She had always sensed that he was a warrior first, but now she saw few signs of the man she had come to know sinceher arrival. He refused to meet her eye for a start, and she feared that he was blinded by thoughts of revenge.
“If you do that,” she said, “then my people will see it as a threat. And it will only help to prove that you are indeed their enemy.”
“We are,” Ulf said. He started to stand, but Tormod pushed him back down. Ulf continued, regardless. “They have attacked us twice now, tricked us into accepting you as our jarl’s wife with promises of safety. Those promises have been broken.”
Aoife tilted her head to one side and looked at him. “From their perspective, it is you who are the aggressors.”
Ulf laughed. “This land was deserted before we arrived. And if your people are not strong enough to hold it, then they don’t deserve it. That is the way of the world. The strongest survive.”
“Your people captured and murdered our king,” Aoife pointed out.
“King Artgal was killed at the bidding of another. Anyway, why should we listen to you?” Ulf demanded. “You came to us as a promise of peace. A promise that has proved to be false.”
“Ulf,” Tormod warned.
