Torunn tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. Her brother grinned at her and slapped his hand down on her thigh. The blow was meant to be comforting, but her head throbbed with a sudden pain and she fought to keep from gasping aloud.
“Jarl Hallvard, your sister is not yet healed,” Bersi said quickly. “Iarund gave instruction that she was to rest and recover for seven days.”
Hallvard’s eyebrow rose. It was clear that he was not accustomed to being addressed by a slave, especially in such a direct manner. “Indeed.”
Bersi did not move from Torunn’s side and he did not look away from Hallvard’s gaze. It was a dangerous move—Hallvard was unpredictable.
Her brother removed his hand from Torunn’s thigh and stood up from the bed. “Seven days it shall be,” he said. “And then I shall take you to see your new house.”
“My house…”
“As you requested,” Hallvard said. “Asgaut and I have worked tirelessly to locate a house for you, and he would be most disappointed if you were to reject his efforts.”
It was difficult not to argue with her brother so she forced herself to smile. “Your generosity is overwhelming,” she said.
Hallvard’s smile widened, but the effect was more ghoulish than charming. “It is my duty as Jarl to have a care for my people,” he said. “Especially my own sister. I was surprised that you wished to leave our father’s house, but I can see now that you wish to make your own way. Even if it is only for a short time.”
Torunn’s smile melted away in an instant. “A short time?”
Hallvard seemed unperturbed by the change in her tone. “Of course. When you are married, things will be different. You will leave Skaro—“
Torunn lurched forward and grabbed her brother’s tunic. “I will what?”
Hallvard laughed and brushed her desperate fingers away from his tunic. “We have much to talk about,” he said. “But it will wait until you are recovered. I would not disobey Iarund’s orders if my life depended on it.”
He rose from his seat and leaned down to pat her cheek but Torunn flinched as though she had been slapped.
“We will speak again, Sister.” He said the words with a smile, but to Torunn they sounded like a threat.
He turned and walked out of the room, and Bersi jumped up to close the carved wooden door. He stood there for a moment, as though he were listening to the noise in the house, before he turned back to her.
“What?”
Bersi met her glare without flinching. “You are not pleased with your brother’s plans.”
She shifted slightly and winced. “Slaves do not ask questions.”
“But I am a poor excuse for a slave.”
Torunn snorted and tried to pull the pillow he had used to prop her into a sitting position out from behind her back. The twisting motion sent pain streaking through her body and she gasped at the severity of it. Bersi stepped forward instantly to help her and she felt her cheeks warming with frustration as he pulled the pillow aside and helped her to lie back.
“Do you still feel unwell,” he asked gently.
Torunn shook her head. Her brother’s announcement had taken away any other ailment and replaced it with a different kind of sickness. She rolled to her uninjured side and closed her eyes. She wanted to shout and throw things to release the anger and frustration that boiled inside her, but she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stay calm. No amount of rage would do her any good. Not now.
“Rest now,” he said.
She heard him rummage in a basket near the end of her bed and opened her eyes just a little to watch him spread a blanket onto the floor.
He unbuckled his belt, but did not remove any of his other garments. She closed her eyes as he glanced down at her and tried to pretend to sleep. He gave no indication that he had noticed her watching him and she heard him lie down on the floor next to her bed.
A guard who never left her side. She had thought she would hate to be watched so closely. But if Bersi had not been with her, she might have died in the frozen mud on the night of her father’s funeral.
She owed him her gratitude. But how did one say such a thing? And why had he done it? If Solva had struck true, Bersi would have been free.
“Why did you do it?” she murmured.
“Do what?”
Bersi’s voice was a low rumble in the dark and Torunn let out a breath.
“Why—” Suddenly she could not think of what she had wanted to ask him and she pressed her lips together. She felt foolish. What would she ask him? He helped her because it was his duty to do so. If he had not taken her to Iarund, he would have been punished, and she had no doubt that Hallvard, or even Asgaut for that matter, would not hesitate to take his life.
She had been foolish to think that he would have had any choice in the matter. She took a deep breath and focused on the orange light of the fire that flickered over the walls.
“I could not see you hurt,” he said.
Her breath caught, but she tried to control her racing thoughts. “What?”
“You were too quick. I was going to pull you away, but you moved too quickly—”
“I could not allow them to keep fighting,” she said. “If either of them had been killed… it would have been an insult to my father. To the gods. There have been too many rumors, too many bad omens. I could not allow it to continue.”
“But if you had died—”
“Then I would have sat at my father’s side in Valhalla,” she said firmly. For some reason she wished that she could see Bersi’s face. Would he be frowning in the dark as she expected?
“Do you believe that?”
“With all my heart.”
Bersi sighed heavily but said nothing in reply.
“You have tried to convince me that my father had given himself to the heathen gods across the sea,” she continued. “I cannot believe that it is true. I will not.”
“Torunn—”
“I will not listen to your lies,” she said thickly. “He was burned with the gods of his shrine. The ones he had prayed to since I was a child. Odin and Tyr. Thor and Njǫror. They would not abandon him, just as he would not abandon them.”
Bersi said nothing else and Torunn wondered if he was asleep. She let out a short breath and closed her eyes. In that darkness, she saw the burning ship that carried her father’s corpse and heard the chant of the priest who had sung him toward Valhalla. The priests on the breakwater chanting in an unceasing drone.
But why had they been present?
Why had Hallvard prevented her from seeing her father’s body before the funeral?
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She could not think about any of these things. It was done. All of it was done and she no longer had her father to protect her from her brothers, or their ambitions.
The week that Iarund had commanded that she take for her recovery had passed slowly, but only because Bersi would not let her leave her bed to do more than the small amount of exercise that the healer had demanded she perform. She tried to argue with him, but he was firm in his refusal to allow her to leave her chambers without his presence.
When Iarund’s acolyte appeared at the door of the Jarl’s house to change her bandages, Torunn was relieved that the young man seemed pleased with the progress that had been made.