Prologue
Gairsay Island, Earldom of Orkney April 1098 AD
The sun had barely broken over the morning’s horizon when
Earl Magnus’s men rode into the village. It took but
moments to realize their arrival had little to do with
honoring her father for his work on the earl’s behalf.
Indeed, their swords brandished against the gray and cloudy
sky and their shouts and demands for her father and brother
to present themselves told Katla Svensdottir the
seriousness of this dawn visit.
Wrapping her cloak around her shoulders and covering her
hair with a scarf, Katla crept outside and approached the
gathering from the side. Using several smaller outbuildings
as cover for her movements, she made her way around to a
place where she could hear and see without being seen
herself. She caught her brother Kali’s eye as he was
dragged forward to stand next to their father. With a
narrowing of his gaze, Kali warned her to stay away.
Sven Rognvaldson was a bear of a man, and though his hair
might carry the gray of age, his broad shoulders were still
strong and muscled from years of hard labor and fighting.
His raised voice could still send chills down her spine
with the essence of command it carried.
And one thing she knew with certainty about her father: he
did not allow any question or insult to his honor to go
unmarked. Many men had fallen beneath her father’s sword
for questioning his actions or his intentions. Katla
remained pressed against the storage barn out of sight, but
not out of hearing distance.
“By what right do you dare this?” Sven’s voice nearly made
the wall behind her shake with his anger.
“In the name of Earl Magnus,” the man replied loudly but
not as loudly as her father had yelled. “He demands your
presence in Birsay on the morrow to answer to the charges
against you.”
Katla could not stop herself from stepping closer to the
commotion then. No one would dare challenge her father
without permission from the earl; to gain it, the matter
must be of the utmost importance. The earl did not meddle
in his chiefs’ personal business or in the way they handled
those under their command or on their lands. If no one
encroached on lands or cattle or slaves belonging to
another, the earl concentrated on other matters that would
line his pockets, fill his byres, or increase his standing
in the eyes of the king.
A few of those watching turned to look at her as she took
one step, then another forward, visible but not in the
center of the trouble. Not yet. She waited for her father
to gain more information from the earl’s man—she knew him
well enough to know he was waiting to weigh his choices.
Escape? Fight? Surrender? Katla read the expressions on his
face as they passed through his thoughts. Only surrender
was not truly a choice he would make and the soldiers
seemed to know that.
To a one, their stances tightened and the air filled with
tension as her father took a step toward the earl’s man,
growling a question at him, just loud enough for the two of
them to hear. Magnus’s man’s face reddened and he rose to
his full height, shoulders squared and legs spread.
A fighting stance she recognized at once, as did everyone
else watching the scene unfold.
Her father drew his sword before anyone could say a word,
but another of the earl’s men anticipated his action and
thrust his sword first—into her father’s chest! Chaos
erupted in that moment and several minutes passed before
order returned to the yard and to her father’s people.
Katla pushed her way past two of the soldiers to her
father’s side as he lay on the cold ground. Blood poured
from the gaping wound in his chest, and she knew his death
was close at hand. Of all the ways she had ever considered
he would meet his end, this death was not one of them.
Shock threatened to overwhelm her until she felt her
father’s hand tighten around her wrist. Leaning down, she
searched his face as she heard her brother arguing nearby.
“Girl,” her father rasped out. “Katla.”
She watched as he struggled to hold on to whatever moments
of life yet remained. “Father?”
“Save him,” he ordered with far more vigor than she would
have thought possible. “Do what you need to do, but save
him.”
“How?” she asked in a whisper. “Tell me how!”
Kali was younger than she by two years and though he would
inherit most of their father’s lands and power when the
time came, he was still a brash and sometimes foolish young
man. In spite of having different mothers, they were closer
than most siblings were and Kali accepted her counsel when
the words of others went ignored.
“You must find a way,” he uttered on a strangled breath.
The gurgling sounds from his throat and chest increased
until he could speak no more. Katla could only watch in
horror as he exhaled his last breath and then moved no
more.
The air around her seemed to stop and become silent as she
shrugged off the hand of someone pulling roughly on her
shoulder. Only the sound of her own breaths and the beat of
her heart echoed in the growing silence. Her ears buzzed
with a strangeness she’d not experienced before, and she
glanced around to see everyone staring at her and the man
on the ground. Turning back to her father, she noticed the
blood seeping into the ground under her knees and that his
grasp of her wrist had slackened, allowing her to move
away.
Save him, he’d ordered.
Katla looked over at Kali, pale faced and shocked, knowing
he was uncertain whether he should follow his father into
death. She struggled to her feet, searching for words that
would help. She still knew not the reason for the earl’s
summons or why her father would attack in such a way,
without enough of his own men to improve his odds of
success.
Save him.
The words echoed through her mind as she crossed the short
space between her and the man who’d killed her father, the
man who now controlled the fate of all those present.
Save him.
“The earl ordered such an act?” she asked of the one in
command. “Did he send you to Sven Rognvaldson?”
Straightening to her full height, she glared at him as only
Sven’s daughter could, a look she’d mastered while yet a
child and one that everyone exclaimed was the exact
likeness of her father’s glare.
“I am Harald Erlendson, retainer to Earl Magnus and sent to
bring the traitor Sven Rognvaldson to face the earl’s
justice.” She gasped at his words, both from the insult and
from the possibility of such a thing. “He brought on his
own death. . . .”
“It is no wonder he drew his sword at your words,” she said
coldly, spitting on the ground. “No one can make an
accusation like that and not expect my father to . . .”
Even as she began to say the words, the realization struck
her. They had known her father would strike out, and it had
given them a chance to kill him. They’d wanted him to
attack and he had, giving them the excuse they needed to
execute him without allowing him to defend his honor.
“And my brother? Why did you summon him?” Katla’s blood
chilled and she prayed that her brother would give them no
reason to strike him down in the same way.
“He is also called traitor by the earl,” the man said
loudly enough for everyone to hear.
The shocked gasps and cries spread through the growing
crowd, which Katla suspected was the reason he’d announced
it as he had. All this could have been handled differently,
but doing it in front of everyone made the insult worse.
Suddenly, her brother broke free from those who held him
and Katla knew he would go for a weapon. She ran to him and
placed herself before him.
“Nay, Kali,” she warned. “It is a trap. Do not resist
them.” For once Kali did not put his vanity before his
sense, and he stopped fighting the men. “Do not give them a
reason to kill you as they have killed our father,” she
whispered while the soldiers regained their hold on him.
Katla turned back to face Harald Erlendson. Only bold and
public action would forestall Kali’s execution, for she did
not doubt that his death was their true aim.
“Have you seen the proof that would mark my brother
traitor, Harald Erlendson? Do those pointing the finger at
my father and brother put their name to such accusations?
Who has spoken to the earl?”
From the way his face reddened and his gaze hardened, Katla
knew she had touched on some element this man wanted hidden
from view. She pressed on.
“If you are a man of honor, you will not allow this, Harald
Erlendson.” She crossed her arms and met his eyes, waiting
for him to take or refuse her challenge. She was only a
woman, so he could ignore her and not lose status, but her
unanswered questions would spread. “Will you make certain
that my brother lives to face the earl’s justice?”
Those watching waited for the earl’s man to reply, but
Katla did not. Stepping closer to him, she lowered her
voice and spoke only to him.
“I would be indebted to you, Harald Erlendson. If you could
see my brother safely to the earl and make certain that
proof decides his fate.” She paused and met his gaze with
her own. “I would be in debt to you.”
Though never called on to use her womanly figure or to
flirt as many young women her age did around men, she had
practiced such skills on occasion to draw the gaze of young
Bjarni Einarson. Her father would have punished her if he’d
known of such things, but now she was glad she’d learn to
pitch her voice lower and to soften her sometimes stubborn
expression by gazing up through the lashes of her eyes. She
did it now, understanding that she was offering more than
simply her thanks to this powerful man who held her
brother’s life, and her own, in his hands.
She noticed the flush in his ruddy face and the glimmer of
lust in his dark eyes when they met hers. Her body trembled
then, realizing what she was promising in exchange for her
brother’s safety. Straightening her shoulders, she nodded
in silent acceptance of the cost. If her father lived, this
man would not be high enough in status to approach him with
an offer of marriage, but everything had changed in that
chaotic moment. Now, the proud daughter of one of the
mightiest chiefs in Orkney had bartered her body and her
virtue for the promise, nay, the hope of help.
Harald barked out orders to his men, and less than an hour
later Katla found herself riding out of their village,
captive as much as her brother and with as little control
over her fate as he.
Her father had demanded that she do whatever was necessary
to save her brother, and she would do all in her power to
succeed—no matter the cost.