“Because you had a vision?”
“Yes, like this morning and just now. Sometimes it happens in a dream, a very vivid dream, where I can smell and taste the scene as if I am truly there. Other times the visions come upon me when I am awake. Sometimes I faint.”
“You see the future?”
“Only rarely. Sometimes it is the present, but in another place. I don’t know what I’m seeing. I can’t help it. What will you do to me?”
He didn’t answer her. “Is this true?” He shook her gently.
“Yes.” She tried to pull away, fearful he was going to break his promise not to hurt her and was shocked when instead, he leaned forward and kissed her.
“A seer!” he said, laughing. “I can’t believe it. Why did you think I would punish you for that?”
Her heart pounded. “You… you don’t think I’m evil?”
“Evil?”
“The Church, the priests, everyone. They whispered I was evil. The spawn of the devil. Had it not been for my father, I think Ula would have had me killed.”
“But this is a gift. A skill few possess. And your people see it as evil?”
“Maybe not in the past, but the Church… well, the Church sees things differently.”
“Yes, I am aware of that, but I didn’t realise they would reject one of their own because of it. This is why you were beaten at the abbey?”
“Yes.”
“Your father must have welcomed handing you over to a Norseman to marry. Punishment for you and justice in the eyes of the Britons.”
“I can only assume that is how he is regarding it,” she said. “Or rather, how Ula sees it.”
Tormod laughed. His grip on her loosened, but he still held her close to him. “Your father has no idea what he has given away. And I am indeed a fortunate man. A seer. Now, tell me what else you have seen.”
She frowned, still not quite believing his reaction. “Over the last two winters, most of my dreams were of darkness and storms and…” She stopped and laughed. “It is foolish.”
“Tell me.”
“It is nothing. A simple nightmare born of fear of a strange place. Thunder and bears, wolves and birds. The two ravens leading me to a circle of light, where I knew the bear and the wolf and the hawk waited for me. But I know there is a fourth presence. A man.”
Tormod smiled at her. Then he threw back his head and laughed again, then kissed her soundly.
Thankful his mood had lifted and he no longer seemed so angry, she kissed him back. His hands ran down her spine, letting her feel just how she affected him.
He broke their kiss, smirking. “This man — you have seen him?”
“No, never. I just know he is there. I feel him more than see him. I think he is the storm coming for me. The thunder. I can feel it inmy bones. It engulfs me. And I don’t know whether to be afraid or not. I’m sorry,” she said, turning away. “As your wife, I should not be thinking about another man.”
He turned her back around and stared into her eyes. “Good answer,” he said, smiling. “But you are not dreaming of another man. I am the thunder. Tormod, thunder. You have been dreaming of us all along. The bear, the wolf and the hawk. They are Björn, Ulf and Arne. That’s what their names mean.”
Should she tell him now what she had seen? The Brothers of Thunder walking through her father’s fort, across the bodies of her people. And of her father lying dead. The sound of screaming and the cold fear of betrayal.
“Then you must not go to Car Cadell,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“I saw you there,” she said. “There was blood, so much blood and so many bodies. My father was one of them.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
