“And Einar’s father?”
“Ingrid’s father and his warriors, certainly. She knew the attack was coming and sneaked out but my cousins had set a watch on her. Arne was watching her that night, and followed her.” Tormod closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Then he looked back at her, a deep sadness in his expression. “Ingrid’s lover was waiting at the hut for her to come to him. He was going to marry her once I was dead.”
“She didn’t take Einar?”
“No, which is strange because after when I asked her why not she said she had wanted him to be with his father.” Tormod shrugged.
“You don’t think he was among the people who attacked the village?”
“No, but he and Ingrid’s father had planned the whole thing together. He wanted Ingrid and her father wanted our village.”
Tormod stood up and paced to the door. “In the end it was Arne and not me who nearly paid the price.”
“But the attack did not succeed?”
“No.” For the first time in a while, Tormod smiled. “They had not counted on my cousins.” Tormod stopped speaking.
“When Arne reached the hut, they were waiting for him. They attacked him, thinking he was me. Ingrid didn’t tell them any differently. Just stood and watched what they did to him. They tied him up, then tortured him. Hundreds of shallow cuts on every patch of bare skin, not enough to kill quickly. They wanted him to die a slow, painful death.”
Aoife put her arms around Tormod. He laid his head on her breast and she thought that he might weep, wondered what she would do if he did. He lay against her for a while, then he sat up, gripping her arms.
“We thought he would die.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “When I first saw him… there was barely any of his skin that didn’t bleed. It was horrific. Not the way for a warrior to die. Slow, painful. I wondered if I should kill him myself, but I couldn’t, even though it was my fault. He lay in a fever dream for weeks.”
“How did you find him?”
He paused for a while and she knew this was getting harder for him to talk about. “When the village was attacked, they got in quickly, did a lot of damage, got through all of our defences. But we had more men and in the end they were simply outnumbered. They had divided their men by leaving too many at the hut to wait for me.” He indicated a particularly nasty scar. Aoife laid her lips gently on it and he shuddered. “He paid for that challenge with his life.”
“But you found Arne in time, how?”
“We killed them quickly and when we realised both Arne and Ingrid were missing, the hut was the first place we went.” Tormod refused to meet her gaze, staring instead at a spot on the wall.
“So, you saved him?”
“Yes.”
“Her lover didn’t take her with him?”
“No one except Ingrid and Arne left the hut that night, alive.” Tormod smiled grimly. “We took Ingrid back to face punishment for her crimes. She had told her father all the weakest points of the village, and planned to marry her lover once I was dead.”
“You had thought she cared for you?”
“They had not heard the way she spoke to me, experienced the way she was with me.” He stopped abruptly and pursed his lips then continued.
“But you weren’t killed. And neither was Arne.”
“Somehow Arne survived the night, and then a day and a week and a month.”
“And he recovered.”
“Eventually. Although the scars will never fade.” Tormod smiled sadly. “It was my fault. If I had not met and married Ingrid, her father would not have attacked the village.”
“I doubt that is true,” said Aoife. “And besides, their attack was not successful.”
“Not ultimately, no, but we still lost good warriors that night.” Tormod hung his head. “And villagers, wives, children.”
Aoife nodded and held his hands. She understood now, why Tormod was so ashamed of the past. He had trusted the wrong person, shared information with her that she had used against them. Then she frowned.
“If she was a prisoner, how did she come to have your child?”
