Loving the Norseman: Book 1: Rydar & Grier (The Hansen Series - Rydar & Grier and Eryndal & Andrew) Read online

  Also By Kris Tualla:

  Medieval:

  Loving the Norseman

  Loving the Knight

  In the Norseman’s House

  Renaissance:

  A Nordic Knight in Henry’s Court

  A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece

  A Nordic Knight and his Spanish Wife

  18th Century:

  A Discreet Gentleman of Discovery

  A Discreet Gentleman of Matrimony

  A Discreet Gentleman of Consequence

  A Discreet Gentleman of Intrigue

  A Discreet Gentleman of Mystery

  and

  Leaving Norway

  Finding Sovereignty

  Regency:

  A Woman of Choice

  A Prince of Norway

  A Matter of Principle

  Contemporary:

  An Unexpected Viking

  A Restored Viking

  A Modern Viking

  *****

  For Aspiring Authors:

  A Primer for Beginning Authors

  Becoming an Authorpreneur

  Loving the Norseman

  Rydar & Grier

  by

  Kris Tualla

  Loving the Norseman is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2011by Kris Tualla

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.

  ISBN-10: 1456562118

  EAN-13: 978-1456562113

  This book is dedicated to my writing sisters

  at my Arizona RWA Chapters,

  Desert Rose and Valley of the Sun.

  Their constant encouragement with my

  unconventional heroes and settings

  has been priceless.

  Thank you, ladies.

  Chapter One

  Balnakeil Bay, Scotland

  May 13, 1354

  A flash of blinding light wasn’t enough warning before the slap of thunder knocked Grier to her knees. Sea wind tried to hold her down and huge raindrops clouted her. The castle grounds were already soaked as Grier struggled to her feet and stumbled back inside the keep.

  Never mind the chickens. We’ll make do with dried venison for supper.

  Lightning chased through pewter clouds. Thunder bellowed, drowning the crash of waves shattering against the rocky shore. Salt spray and rain beat against the keep’s narrow leaded windows.

  Safely ensconced, Grier flinched, though she knew the thick diamond-shaped glass protected her. Isolated on Scotland’s northernmost coast, little Durness Castle had weathered tempests from this bluff for two centuries. It would weather this gale as well.

  “It’s a bad one,” Logan murmured over her shoulder. His breath fogged the chilled panes, in spite of the healthy fire that bathed the kitchen in orange between the storm’s flashes of blue.

  “Aye.” Grier squinted against the violent light and used her woolen sleeve to wipe the window. “What’s that?” She nudged her younger cousin.

  He canted his head. “Where?”

  “Out there, see? Is that a boat?” Through the undulating shroud of rain, a dark object appeared. Sodden, black, tapered and rough, it rocked crazily in the throes of the storm.

  “I’ve never seen a boat the likes of that one.” Logan squinted. “Can you see the mast pole? Broke right off, it is!”

  Grier and Logan watched the craft as it hurtled toward landfall. No one seemed to be in control of the vessel—or the vessel was already damaged beyond control.

  “She’ll founder for sure.” Logan pressed closer to the glass. “I wonder if anyone’s still aboard.”

  “I’m going down in case there is!” Grier stepped away and glanced around.

  Logan faced her, incredulous. “Have ye lost your mind, woman?”

  “Not my mind, only my cloak.”

  Logan snorted and returned his attention to the window. He wiped the glass. “Oh, Lord.”

  “What?” Grier swooped her woolen cloak from behind a bench and leaned against Logan’s broad shoulders.

  The wooden craft was pinned against a rock. As the cousins watched, the next swell snapped the hull in half like a pod of summer peas.

  “Are ye coming?” She dragged open the kitchen door of the keep, leaving Logan little say in the matter.

  Grier gasped as shards of salty water stung her face. Pulling her hood lower against the driven rain, she left through the castle gate, crossed the wood-plank bridge over the dry moat, and stumbled down the embankment until she reached the saturated sand. The sated sea was already discarding shattered timbers.

  Before Logan reached her, she saw the first body.

  “There!” she shouted, pointing at a tumbling splash of fabric. Roistering wind and water stole her voice; Logan couldn’t hear her. She waved and gestured, then threw off her cloak and waded barefoot into the wrestling waves. Logan pushed past her and grabbed the body. Together, they dragged the limp sailor from the thrashing sea. The man’s blond head flopped oddly onto his shoulder.

  Too late. His neck’s broken.

  Logan helped her haul him beyond the grasp of the waves and lay him on the sand. Grier made the sign of the cross and felt through her soaked woolen gown for the crucifix she always wore. She squinted as rain ran into her eyes.

  “Grier!”

  The urgency in Logan’s voice bade her to turn. Another figure was washing closer. She ran into the sea, up to her waist, her teeth chattering in the frigid brine. She fought the aggressive advance of water and the suction of its retreat as she and Logan struggled to reach the second body.

  But the sea was jealous of its prize and pushed her down. Grier thrashed to regain her footing. She gagged on salt water. She rose defiantly, sand sucking at her ankles, and flung her heavy, wet hair away from her face with her forearm. She gulped air and rain, and curled her toes to gain hold in the shifting underwater ground.

  The body bumped hard against her.

  Grier twisted and her fingers clenched, but his shirt tore from her grip. On the next surge, she dug her nails past shirt into flesh. Logan appeared beside her and they dragged the second man out of the waves. Logan laid him by his shipmate.

  “Is he—” Before Logan could finish, the man shuddered. Grier pushed him onto his side and he vomited seawater on the wet sand.

  “Might ye get him inside?” Grier asked, retrieving her cloak with numbed hands. Wind snapped her tangled curls, stinging her eyes and cheeks.

  “Aye. I’ll manage.” Logan squatted and pulled the limp form onto his broad back. The stranger was substantially longer than Logan’s nearly six-foot frame but much leaner. Grier saw the angles of his shoulder blades through the tattered skin of his shirt.

  “Are there others, do ye think?” Grier asked. Her gaze skimmed the churning waves. She shivered and clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

  “I don’t see anyone, but I’ll come back and look.” Logan grunted as he shifted the dead weight on his shoulders. He swiped dripping brown hair from his eyes. “For now let’s see to this one, and he’s alive yet.”

  Grier ran ahead and clambered up the rise toward the sto
ne keep. Leaving the kitchen door ajar for Logan, she dragged an unused cot into that room, set it by the fire, and went in search of blankets. When she returned, Logan was inside with the sailor.

  “Put him on the cot.” Grier shrugged off her wrap and hung it by the blazing hearth. Steam rose from it, filling the space with the dank smell of wet wool.

  Logan lowered the man onto the pallet that proved shorter than he by several inches. The sailor moaned, but didn’t regain his senses. A gash on his cheek bled freely.

  “Undress him. I must see what else needs tending.” Grier reached for a linen towel. “Cover his lisk with this.”

  “That’s no’ proper!” Logan protested. “You’re no’ married!”

  Grier lifted one eyebrow. “And do you forget all the bodies I prepared for burial when the dying first began? The Black Death was no’ particular about that situation, either!”

  Logan groused that those persons were beyond caring about modesty, but did as he was bid even so.

  Grier went up to her sleeping chamber on the second level of the keep. She lifted a dry kirtle and chemise from her kist, changed into them quickly, and left her wet clothes in a heap on the floor. She grabbed some clean linen rags and hurried back downstairs to the warm kitchen.

  The puny afternoon light was weakening outside of the thick, leaded windows. Grier pulled her basket of healing supplies from a shelf and, fresh candle in hand, approached the stranger, now lying naked but for the linen towel.

  “His leg’s broke. See, there? Hold this.” She handed Logan the candle. He paled a little as she prodded the man’s shin. “’Tis a clean break, and only the one bone. That’s good.”

  Her experienced hands skimmed over the stranger’s mortally cold skin. The left side of his chest was already darkening.

  “His ribs are bruised, might be cracked. But nothing’s loose.” Grier punctuated that assessment with a nod of her head. “A sharp bit o’ broken rib can poke a man’s lungs, so he’s lucky again.”

  Logan glanced at her. “If he’s lucky, I would mislike seeing him on a bad day.”

  Grier grunted and lifted his arm. “This wrist is swalt. I can no’ tell if it’s broke, but the bones are where they belong.”

  “Lucky?”

  Her lips twitched. “Aye.”

  Blood pooled under the man’s left eye, most likely from a knot on his forehead. Though his body was marked with random scars, that seemed the extent of his new injuries.

  “Stitches or burning?” she mused, not really asking.

  “What?” Logan’s brown eyes widened.

  “The gash on his face. How might I close it.” Grier lifted her basket. “I’ll do that first, afore he comes sensible. That’s if he comes sensible.”

  The cousins considered the limp form stretched naked by the fire. He was far too thin. Grier had no trouble feeling his bones through pale blue skin.

  “Stitches. It’ll take more time, but will scar him less,” Grier decided, and pulled out a needle and thread.

  “I’ll take that wee look at the water.” Logan backed away. “To be sure, ye ken?”

  “Aye. Go on then,” Grier muttered and threaded her implement.

  By the time Logan returned, the gash was closed. Grier dressed it with honey and a strip torn from a linen rag.

  “None else washed ashore,” Logan confirmed and pushed a stool close to the fire. He sat and pulled his soaked doublet and shirt off over his head. “I’ll wrap the other’n and prepare his cairn in the yard when the storm blows over.”

  Grier nodded her agreement and pointed at the man’s left heel. “Will you pull a bit there?”

  Logan blanched and turned to face the patient. He gingerly grasped the man’s heel and swallowed audibly. “Here?” he asked.

  “Aye. Hold it just so.” She leaned over the man’s leg and listened to his bones as she pressed them into alignment. “Do no’ move!”

  She laid wool wadding over the break and wrapped a layer of linen around his calf. After a quick perusal of the kitchen, Grier selected two long-handled wood spoons. She laid them along either side of the man’s leg with the bowls of the spoons cupping his ankle and wrapped the shafts with strips of linen until his leg was secure.

  “Might I move now?” Logan whispered.

  “Aye. So long as his leg does no’!” Grier arched her back and stretched.

  After she extended the pallet with a wooden box to support the stranger’s legs and feet, she covered him in blankets and added peat to the fire. Logan went to put on dry clothes. Outside the sky darkened as, somewhere beyond the storm, the sun made her daily departure.

  ***

  Supper finished, Grier sat by the fire sipping a cup of warmed mead and watching the man. Fever came on him, and he alternately shivered and sweated. There was naught else she could do for him but pray that he recover. Again, she felt for the crucifix that lived on a thick gold chain around her neck.

  It was the only thing she had left of her mother. Her beloved Mam died of consumption ten years ago when Grier was but sixteen. Her grief clung to her, a physical presence both harsh and persistent, and she believed that to be the worst event that could ever befall her.

  Until the Black Death.

  For six years they lived in terror, watching friends and family fall with no apparent pattern. Over half the people in Durness died, including her beloved Da and his only brother, Logan’s da. She and Logan were all that survived. Together they oversaw the castle estate, its small keep, and surviving tenants. Eighteen months had passed since the last death, and Grier dared hope those fearsome days were behind them at last.

  She set her mug down and considered the man before her. His long hair, dried by the fire, was matted and salt crusted. It seemed to be light brown. The straggled beard furring his cheeks and throat was a bit darker. She wondered what color eyes he had.

  Her gaze wandered to his large frame, now hidden under the blankets, and she pictured how he looked nearly naked. ‘Sinewy’ was the word that came to her mind. Muscular, he might be, had he enough weight on him. Meals had been sparse for this one. She pondered if it was deprivation on the journey that wasted him, or if deprivation was the cause of his journey. Either way, if he woke, she needed to feed him well.

  Logan agreed to sit watch later in the night while Grier rested, but when she returned in the morning he was asleep in his chair.

  “Ach! Foolish boy.” Grier stoked the dying fire. Then she set about making breakfast, slamming pots on the wood table and hacking slices of bacon with a heavy cleaver. They gave off a tantalizing sizzle when she laid them in the hot pan.

  “He spoke last night,” Logan mumbled, rubbing sleep from his face.

  Grier whirled to face her cousin. “Why did you no’ come fetch me?”

  “It was no’ but gibberish.”

  “Still!”

  Logan shrugged. “It sounded like Norse.”

  Her brows pulled together. “And how might you know Norse?”

  “Malise had family in the Shetlands. They’ve come to live here now.”

  “In Durness?” Grier dumped oats into boiling water. She looked for a wooden spoon to stir with afore she remembered what she’d done with them. She used the cleaver instead.

  “Aye.” Logan made a face at the improvised utensil. “Will the parritch taste like bacon now?”

  Grier ignored the query, wondering what other information her cousin withheld concerning the girl he hoped to court. “Who came? And why?”

  “It’s two old aunts. They’re alone since the sickness. Malise’s mam said they could live here and help out.”

  “I wonder how much help a pair of old aunts might be.”

  “Aye. One’s thirty-six. The other’s already forty!”

  Grier jabbed the cleaver into the oats. “Already forty! And are you thinking that be old?”

  “It’s twice my age!” Logan looked hurt. “Why are ye mad?”

  Grier’s jaw tensed and she fought back tears.
At the advanced age of twenty-six she was very much alone, having buried one suitor after another in the six years of plague. “Never mind.”

  “I’ll never ken how a woman thinks,” he grumbled.

  Grier clomped outside to the keep’s well, a solid wood bucket banging satisfactorily against her leg. Still chilly in mid-May, the world was scrubbed clean by yesterday’s storm; only a few clouds stayed to polish the azure sky. She usually loved the smell of the earth after rain because it was so hopeful. Grier could use a wee bit of hope in her life, but she wasn’t holding her breath waiting for it.

  She determinedly changed the subject when she reentered the kitchen. “So you’re thinking he’s Norse?” she asked, pouring the water into a pot over the fire.

  Logan shrugged. “Aye, he could be. From the Shetlands? Or the Orkneys?”

  A grunt from the cot swung their heads around. Grier’s entire world was swallowed by a pair of pale green eyes the color of newly sprouting thistle leaves. They glowed, bewitching her from beneath the long thatch of twisted, light-brown locks. Something stirred deep inside her and she forgot to breathe.

  Those eyes shifted devastatingly away from hers to the pot of water, then returned and blessed her once again.

  “Ye—ye must be thirsty,” she spoke aloud to break their pull. She hurried to dip a cup into the pot and then knelt beside the cot. “Easy, now. No’ too much.”

  His hand rested over hers and the eyes disappeared for a moment, taking all the world’s light with them. Cracked lips caressed the edge of the cup and the clear liquid dribbled between them. When the cup was emptied the eyes reappeared, claimed her soul, and his hand squeezed hers.

  “Aye, a bit more shouldn’t hurt.” Grier lifted a second cup and the man seemed to relax then. When it was drained, he dissolved back into sleep.

  Grier remained on her knees by the cot, shaken to her core. Who was this man? And why did his mere gaze seem to alter her life’s path? She damped down that daft bit of foolishness. She had indeed been alone far too long if she experienced such fanciful imaginings.