Stop. Gather your wits. Stay calm. I silently chanted a litany of self-rebukes. I’d had to do it more and more oft of late.
At the prevailing tense silence, I peeked up to see Bernhard open his mouth as though to demand to know why we were causing a disturbance. Before he could speak, the wind brought us the heavy thud of horses riding toward us.
The earl’s sights shot to the newcomers—two knights and their squires. Their emblem, dragon heads on a background of red, belonged to the king’s knights. It was draped over their steeds as well as upon the cloaks they wore over their chain mail.
What were the king’s knights doing in Romsdal? And could I petition them for Lola’s life? If they knew she was innocent, they would save her from the earl’s death sentence, wouldn’t they?
I rose on my toes, needing to see above the other servants. The larger of the knights rode stiffly with a façade of stone. Even from a distance, ’twas easy to identify the golden clasp at his throat, one crafted in the likeness of the Sword of the Magi. Though I hadn’t seen the ancient sword, I’d heard enough to recognize the special emblem belonged to only one group of knights, the Knights of Brethren, given to them by King Ansgar after he’d freed the sword from the case last autumn.
If these two were Knights of Brethren, then perhaps . . .
My heartbeat gave a traitorous extra beat even as I took in the second knight riding toward us.
Yes, it was Gunnar, the earl’s younger brother. He held himself more casually than the other knight, as if he didn’t have a care in the world—or had tossed them all upon the shoulders of his companion.
Underneath his hood, Gunnar’s dark-brown hair was loose and wavy, framing his face, which was just as beautiful as always. I didn’t usually resort to calling men beautiful. Handsome, good-looking, attractive. But beautiful was a term I reserved for glorious sunsets and majestic mountains.
In Gunnar’s case, however, beautiful was completely appropriate. His features were perfect. Full lips, slender nose, high cheekbones. And his eyes . . . were wide and framed by the longest lashes ever known to mankind. The dark blue of his eyes was oft like a summer night, sometimes playful and full of twinkling stars, but at other times sizzling and sultry with heat.
It was as if a great sculptor had chiseled Gunnar into the ultimate representation of what all men should aspire to look like. If only he had a flaw—even a tiny one, like a wart on his nose or bump on his forehead. But he’d always been too handsome for his own good. And he’d known it.
The closer he rode, the clearer it became that time had given him even more to boast about. His jaw and the set of his mouth contained a maturity and leanness that hadn’t been there in the past. His body, too, seemed more defined and muscular, as though he’d honed his strength and purpose.
I bunched my fists at my sides in a silent protest of my easy admiration. I needed to control my reaction to this man—couldn’t allow myself any longing or an inkling of attraction. I was past that.
In fact, he was my sworn enemy every bit as much as the earl, and I wouldn’t forget the way we’d parted five years ago when he’d been home for a few short weeks after completing his knight’s training.
Regardless of my personal issues with Gunnar, he’d become an important knight—one of the closest to the king. Surely, he could but say a word and stop his brother. He would take one look at the woman condemned to death by drowning and would demand to know her crime.
At the cliff’s edge, the bailiff, however, hadn’t paused to watch the newcomers the way the rest of us had. Instead, he’d been too focused on moving Lola one tiny increment at a time. Before I could shout out at him to wait, he released his hold of her arms. She was already too close to the edge of the precipice and started to tip backward. Without her hands to flail and find her balance, she fell backward.
I gasped, my horror cutting off my cry.
In the next instant, she was gone.
Desperate to rush to her aid, I jerked free of Frans and Valter, who were distracted by the knights. I bolted to the edge of the plateau. But I was too late.
Chapter
2
Mikaela
A scream lodged in my throat.
As I peered into the deep blue-green waters of the fjord a hundred feet below, all I could do was watch Lola hit the surface with a splash and disappear underneath, leaving only a ripple to mark the place.
Bile rose swiftly.
How could he? How dare he? What right did the earl have to destroy a life so callously? Just because he was wealthy and powerful and born of nobility didn’t make him more worthwhile than those of us born into servitude.
Frans’s fingers caught mine. His solid presence grounded me, held me in place, kept me from tossing myself off the cliff after the woman in a vain endeavor to rescue her. Ami, one of my friends and a kitchen maid, sidled next to me on the other side, likely an effort to keep the earl from noticing my distress again.
Behind us, voices carried in the wind, the greetings of the earl and the knights, Lola’s fate now forgotten.
I stared out over the waterway that cut its way into the heart of Norvegia. Rugged cliffs lined the fjord for many winding leagues until opening into the Dark Sea in the west. The calm waters made the fjord a major water highway to the port city of Romsdal, which sat along the shore to the east of where we stood. Typical of most coastal cities, the terraced buildings were constructed of strong Norvegian timber and painted in colorful hues. The harbor was lined with traditional longboats and other sailing vessels, attesting to the thriving fishing industry of the area.
Beyond the city limits, the land flattened into a patchwork of farm fields that were being plowed and planted for the short growing season. In the far east, the fertile soil gave way to the hilly moors. Beyond the Moors of Many Lakes, the white peaks of the Snowden Mountain Range filled the interior and eastern border of Norvegia.
Behind us, Likness Castle, with thick walls and tall turrets, towered above Romsdal like a proud lord overseeing all that belonged to him. With three of the castle’s sides positioned atop cliffs, an enemy had only one way to attack—uphill and exposed in the open rocky hillside that led down to the city and waterfront.
While much of the land adjoining the castle and Romsdal had been cleared of its timber, Hardanger Forest covered a hundred leagues, a dark and overgrown woodland that had never been tamed, that no one dared to enter for fear of the jotunn.
It was on days like today that I wondered if the jotunn would be a better ruler over our lands than the earl. If I could trade one monster for the other, who would I choose? Why must I choose at all? The questions that had plagued me for years clamored for answers: Why must we subject ourselves to such heartless leaders? Why couldn’t we select someone who would rule justly and fairly?
The breeze again struck my cheeks, and I didn’t realize I was weeping until the air nearly froze the trail of my tears.
“Come,” Frans said gently. “It’s time to go.”
Huddled in her cloak, Ami squeezed my arm and then joined the others who were dispersing, most heading up the trail to the fortress, their heads hung low, their shoulders bent, the weight of the drowning heavy upon them too.
I breathed in deeply, letting the cold air settle painfully in my lungs. With my stiff fingers, I swiped at my cheeks. “You go without me. I need to hike off my frustration.”