Page 10

“Do you see, Leif?” Knud’s voice at the other end of his bench jarred Leif’s attention back to their imminent arrival at the Viking settlement. “No matter the early hour, we are to be welcomed home by a goodly crowd.”

Leif glanced at the nearby shore. Children were running along the path that followed the water’s edge, attempting to keep up with the boats as they made for the rocky harbor. Their cheers carried through the air. A dog barked, and fishermen looked up from their nets as the hulls of the Vikings’ boats grazed the shale.

With well-practiced precision, the Vikings stowed their oars and pulled their crafts clear of the high tide.

“Time to show Jarl Ottar our newly acquired treasures,” Rune said proudly. His teeth flashed in the grayish light. “What say you, Leif? Will the gold cross you claimed at the first monastery be sufficient to impress your father?”

Leif had no doubt his father would be taken with the decorative piece. If the cross’s weight was any indication, it was made of solid gold. The etching was as fine as any Leif had seen, and a single red jewel sat where the horizontal piece met the vertical one. He lifted the sack out from beneath his seat, its heaviness a fitting reflection of his current feelings.

“Leif could bring home a pine cone, and the jarl would be proud of him,” Knud said, pulling his own sack out of the boat. “After all, he brought us across the sea with nothing more than the stars to guide him.”

Rune snorted. “Any Viking worthy of the title could do that.”

Knud glanced at Leif, his eyebrow raised as though expecting a rebuttal.

Leif ignored the look. His skills with an oar and with reading the night sky were well known; he had no need to prove himself to Rune. “I would concern yourself with whether my father appreciates what you have to share rather than his response to my offering,” Leif said, swinging his sack across his shoulder.

Knud’s grin was a perfect foil to Rune’s scowl.

“Mayhap the jarl would look more kindly upon your rather ordinary goblets if you were to also have some fine beeswax candles . . .” Knud left the words hanging as he reached for his bag full of those very things.

“You are a fool, Knud,” Rune growled.

“I would not be so sure,” Leif said, starting up the beach. “My father is known to study maps late into the night. I daresay good beeswax candles would be a fine offering indeed.”

Knud’s grin widened, but Rune would not be outdone. He increased his pace across the rocky beach to keep up with Leif’s longer stride. “I believe the jarl will consider a noblewoman’s jewelry box a far better supplement than monks’ candles,” Rune said.

Instantly, the weight on Leif’s shoulders seemed to increase. For a few short minutes, he had thought on something other than the events at the longhouse. Rune’s smug reminder brought the uncomfortable memories back. “An empty jewelry box is scarcely worth mentioning,” he said with feigned indifference.

“It is hardly empty.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed, it is,” Rune boasted. “It contains jewelry of finely worked silver and gold.”

Based on Rune’s ease of carrying the small wooden box, Leif was quite sure it contained far less gold than the single cross he carried. And yet, the items had obviously meant a great deal to Rhiannon. Had her strong desire to repossess the box been driven by the intrinsic value of its contents, or was there more to it than that?

“Silver and gold,” Leif repeated. “That would certainly increase the worth of a small wooden box.”

“It cannot possibly contain anything near so valuable as Leif’s cross,” Knud said.

Rune gave the box a slight shake, his eyes lighting up at the resulting clink of metal. “The promise of a piece of jewelry from the Kingdom of Gwynedd will win over any woman in Dyflin.”

The crowd had grown in the short time it had taken to unload the longboat and was now lining the road that led from the dock to the jarl’s residence. Up ahead, those who had gathered to watch the longboats arrive parted to allow Bjorn and the men from his boat to pass through. Leif followed, with Rune and Knud beside him.

“If a trinket is the greatest desire of the women with whom you associate, you are spending your time with the wrong ones,” Knud said. He was already scouring the faces lining the road along the dock, and Leif experienced a pang of something that felt remarkably like envy. Knud may be returning from the raid with little more than beeswax candles, but his new young wife, Frida, would welcome him back with open arms. She would care only that he was home.

“Rune!” Two young women stood together near the door of an ale house. One beckoned, smiling coyly. “Come. We wish to hear of your adventures.”

“Yes,” the second one called. “Show us what you have brought back with you.”

Rune acknowledged them with a grin. “Later, ladies,” he called back. “I shall return later.”

They smiled knowingly before turning to watch the men following after them. Leif looked away, sickened at the thought of the women from the ale house pawing through the things that had meant so much to the distraught young woman they had left behind.

“How many goblets did you take from the monastery, Rune?” he asked.

“A dozen.”