“It’s only because you’re a woman that you are not lying dead by his side,” Ulf spat, nodding at the corpse by the table. It was obvious he was fighting the urge to run her through with the blade in his hand and Ylva could not blame him. She felt the same urge herself.
Sheathing his dagger, he took a quick look inside the other room, where he saw the chains that had kept Ylva and Judithtied to the wall. He walked over to the two women. Judith was still crumpled against Ylva, with her face hidden in the crook of her neck. She had not wanted to watch any of the confrontation.
“Is she—” Ulf started, looking stricken. He would have seen the state she was in and, unlike Mildred, he cared.
“She will be all right, I think, if she can see a healer.”
Wolf, who had joined them in turn, nodded. “We have two good healers in the village. We’ll take her there.”
“There is a cart waiting outside, we can use that,” Ylva told the men, affording a grim smile. The cart that should have taken them to their final prison would now take them to safety. “But I think she’s too weak to walk to it.”
Ulf nodded. “Will she allow me to carry her?”
“Yes. I have told her she has nothing to fear from you.”
He made no move toward Judith. Instead, he asked. “What about you? You’re hurt as well.”
Ylva placed a tentative hand on her temple. It felt tender and swollen, indicating it might also be bruised. “’Tis nothing.”
And it really was nothing of importance. Now that she knew they were at last free of Mildred and her acolyte, she felt better than she had in years, ever since the day of her capture. Because even when they had escaped the first time, she had worried they would be found again and had never fully allowed herself to drop her guard. She had been right to worry, because they had been found. But now, at last, their troubles were over.
“What about Mildred?” she asked, refusing to look at the woman.
“We’ll take her with us. You and Judith will decide what happens to her. You have earned that right, I should think,” Wolf declared. “Sven, Torsten, carry the man to the cart. We’ll take him to Elstan on the way. He can dispose of his corpse the Saxon way.”
The blond man lifted Walstan by the shoulders, while the one with brown hair took hold of the man’s feet. While they brought him outside, Wolf led Mildred to the cart with an arm in the crook of her elbow.
The two women were left alone with Ulf, who had straightened back up. Ylva swallowed, because in that moment, he appeared much larger than in her memory. Probably because he was bristling with fury. Fury aimed not at her, butforher and Judith.
He had followed her last night, instead of going to the cooper’s, she realized. It was the only way he could know where to find her. How had she not guessed he would do that? Because she was not used to other people looking after her, that was why. Such acts of kindness were unknown to her.
“What are you doing here?” she couldn’t help but ask.
A corner of his lips lifted. “Rescuing you, apparently.”
Most definitely.
“Why?”
“Because you needed it.” So simple, once again. These Norsemen… They just did what needed to be done, with no questions asked, and no expectations of rewards. It was such a change from what she had known all these years that she felt her eyes starting to burn. “What happened to Judith?”
“Last night, Walstan… He assaulted her. He said he had always wanted her and Mildred told him he could— I wanted to stop him…b-but I couldn’t?—”
“It’s all right.”
Ulf clenched his teeth. Ylva didn’t have to tell him more. He could all too easily guess what the man had done. This was exactly why he had come. Because he’d known Mildred would not send the two women on their way with her thanks for doing her dirty work. But he had not imagined something as dire as keeping them tied up and allowing her thug to rape them.
“And you?”
There was a large bruise over her left temple, but unlike her friend, she hadn’t bled and she appeared able to stand.
“Nothing happened to me. Walstan hit me when I tried to stop him from—you know.”
Yes, he did know. Ulf had done the same once, tried to stop a man from raping the woman who was to become his second mother. He, too, had been hurt in the process. He knew all about the desperation she would have felt, the powerlessness, the guilt.
“Come,” he said gently. “The sooner we leave this place, the better.”
“Judith, Ulf is going to carry you to the cart now,” Ylva told her friend. “You have nothing to fear. He will not hurt you. He and his family are going to take us to their village, where I will be able to look after you properly. It’s all over.”
