The Warrior's Viking Bride

Prologue

865 A.D.—Bjorgvinfjord on the west coast of Viken, Norway. Modern-day Bergen, Norway

‘You should allow me the honour of winning. It’s my tenth name day,’ Dagmar Kolbeinndottar argued with her father’s best friend. ‘It could be your present to me—telling my parents how accomplished I’ve suddenly become at swordplay. A good idea, yes?’

Dagmar gave a hopeful smile and batted her lashes. Not that she was very good at swords or warfare yet. Not that she’d ever be any good. She preferred playing with her dolls and weaving to practising in the dusty yard with a wooden sword. How her father, who was one of Viken’s most-feared warriors, and her mother, who was a legendary shield maiden, had produced someone like her who kept making simple errors was one of life’s mysteries, as her nurse would say. And she wanted to show her father how much she’d improved since he’d been away. She wanted to show him that she deserved the grown-up blue gown, the one he’d promised to buy her for her tenth birthday if she worked hard at her lessons.

‘Your mother would use my guts for bowstrings if I said such things.’ Old Alf rubbed his belly. ‘To tell the truth, lass, I am quite fond of my innards. They are the only ones I’ve got.’

Dagmar screwed up her nose. ‘My mother likes you too much to do that. She depends on you, now that my father is away so often. You’re valuable to her. A precious jewel among men.’

Old Alf merely laughed and sent Dagmar’s wooden sword flying from her hand for the fourth time that morning. ‘You would be better if you actually practised, instead of finding excuses and using idle flattery. The gods seldom help a quitter.’

‘I keep getting distracted.’ Dagmar pursed her lips. ‘I heard my mother crying again last night.’

Old Alf’s face hardened. ‘Kolbeinn should be here to dry Helga’s tears.’

‘Yes, everything will be much better when my father arrives.’ Dagmar tilted her chin upwards. ‘You will see. He will get here in time for my name day. He promised me a proper gown with an apron and brooches...provided I pay attention to my mother and do my lessons. He won’t break his promise, will he?’

‘I can’t rightly say where his head is at, lass.’

‘Attached to his body, I trust.’ Dagmar gave a hiccupping laugh. Her father was alive. They knew that. Some of his men had returned, but for the first time in for ever, her father had not been the first one to step foot on the pier. He had not even been in the longboat. He was staying in Kaupang, dealing with important business, was what her mother had uncharacteristically snapped when Dagmar asked.

‘Your mother has many troubles, but no one is born clutching a sword, lass, not even your mother. You will get there, Dagmar, if you focus when you practise instead of gathering dreams. Try once more for your old friend?’

Dagmar nodded and picked up the sword. Old Alf had faith in her. If she could conquer this skill before her father came home, then maybe everything would be right once again.

‘Jaarl Kolbeinn’s ship is coming,’ the cry went up before her sword connected with Old Alf’s. Dagmar instantly dropped her weapon.

‘My father does keep his promises.’ Dagmar lifted her chin upwards. ‘He will bring me my gown. My mother will smile again. My father will see to it.’

The wind whipped Old Alf’s greying hair from his face. ‘Aye, lass, we can but hope that he has seen sense.’

Her mother stalked past them, not even acknowledging Dagmar in her hurry to reach the waterfront. Dagmar considered her mother had never looked as lovely. The dark-red gown with its gold embroidery and the sleek fur cape she wore about her shoulders set off her colouring precisely. Her eyes appeared brighter than normal and her mouth held a determined cast, as though her mother was about to go into battle instead of greeting Dagmar’s father.

Dagmar hurried to match her mother’s stride. ‘Old Alf says that I will be as good as you soon.’

A stretching of the truth, but she wanted her mother’s intent expression to relax.

Her mother put a hand on Dagmar’s shoulder. ‘It is good that you want to be.’

‘I want to please you. I want to be like you,’ Dagmar whispered.

‘Ah, Dagmar, you are such a good child. You are truly the light in my life.’

Dagmar basked in the sunshine of her mother’s unaccustomed praise. ‘It is my name day today.’

‘We will do something special for it, but first your father must be welcomed.’

When her father came ashore, he greeted her mother very formally without his usual warmth. Her mother failed to throw her arms about his neck. Dagmar frowned. She’d never understand grown-ups. Everyone knew about their love story—the skalds sang about it and how her father had tamed the frost giants to win his bride. Dagmar never tired of hearing the tale. It was the principal reason why she wanted to linger at the feasts.

‘You returned.’ Her mother’s voice resembled a frost giant’s.

‘I gave Dagmar a promise that I would be back for her birthday, Helga.’ Her father’s voice, if anything, was far colder than her mother’s.

‘Did you bring my blue gown?’ Dagmar asked, giving into her impatience. ‘I’ve worked ever so hard. Ask Old Alf. He’ll tell you. Some day I will be as good a warrior as my mother.’

Her father bent down and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Something even better. I brought a woman who will teach you to be a true lady. You want that, don’t you, Dagmar? To be someone to make your father proud?’

Beside her, her mother stiffened and drew in a sharp hiss of breath. Dagmar glanced up and saw a dark-haired woman with cat-like eyes and a large pregnant belly.

‘You must be Dagmar. Your father has told me a lot about you. I am sure we will be great friends.’

‘You brought her here? On such a day?’ Her mother’s screech hurt Dagmar’s ears.

‘Now, Helga, easy. She wanted to come.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It is like this—I need children.’

‘You have a child, our daughter.’

‘A daughter is not the same as sons.’ The woman looped her arm through her father’s and leant into him with an easy intimacy.

Dagmar wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out for being rude. The man she lolled over belonged to another woman—her mother. However, her father did not seem to mind; instead, he seemed to welcome her touch, placing a large hand on the woman’s belly.

‘You understand,’ her father said, bestowing one of his special smiles on the woman.

‘I see,’ her mother proclaimed. ‘You have made your choice. And I have made mine.’

Her mother stripped the gown from her back. Underneath she wore her trousers and tunic, her shield maiden clothes, the ones which were kept in a trunk and were supposed to be for Dagmar when she turned fourteen.

An ice-cold hand went around Dagmar’s heart. Her mother had clearly known about her father and his new woman before they’d even arrived.

‘Mother?’ Dagmar whispered. ‘What is happening?’

‘We are leaving, Daughter.’ Her mother placed a firm hand on Dagmar’s shoulder. ‘I refuse to stay where I am unwanted. I divorce you, Kolbeinn, here in front of everyone. I will take my warriors and my daughter and I will carve a new life.’

Her father’s face became carved from ice as he stepped in front of her mother. ‘Dagmar remains here. My daughter belongs to me.’

Her mother shoved her father and he stumbled backwards, nearly falling. ‘Get out of my way, you miserable worm. Dagmar goes where I go.’

‘You may take any man who will pledge allegiance to you, a second–rate warrior long past her prime, but you leave our daughter here.’

‘Why?’ Her mother put her hand on her hip. ‘So she can become the fetch-and-carry handmaiden of your latest fancy? I know what that is like! I endured it!’ Her mother’s voice echoed over the fjord. ‘My daughter is not and never will be second-best. She is worth ten of any sons you will ever have.’

Dagmar crossed her arms and stood next to her mother. Her mother wasn’t going to abandon her. Her father wanted her. Maybe her parents could work something out. They had fought before.

Her father’s cheeks became tinged with red. ‘I have the law on my side. My daughter belongs to me to dispose of as I see fit.’

Her mother banged her sword on the ground. ‘I challenge you. I will show you how second-rate I am, you puffed-up over-the-hill windbag!’

‘You challenge me for what?’

‘For the right to bring up our daughter as I see fit.’

Her father spat on his palm and held it out. ‘Done! I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back.’

‘No, Kolbeinn, no. You must not. The she-witch will trick you.’ The woman clung to Dagmar’s father’s arm and rubbed her big belly against his side. ‘Think of my dream. You will be the father of many kings. Our unborn son and I need our strong protector.’

Dagmar wanted to be sick. Surely her father would fight for her. She had seen her parents practise fighting before. At some point during that act, her parents would start laughing and they would realise that they still loved each other. This woman with her baby-swollen belly would be no match for her mother.

‘Hush now.’ Her father put an arm about the pregnant woman. ‘I am a great jaarl now. I have responsibilities.’

Her mother made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. ‘Choose your champion then, Kolbeinn, pusillanimous coward that you are, and I will fight him. I will protect my daughter until all the breath has left my body. I will carve a new life for us.’

‘You do this, Helga, and you will leave with only the clothes on your back rather than any ships. I need to be able to provide for my growing family.’

Dagmar clenched her fists. Her father wanted to steal her mother’s life work. That woman had put him up to it. ‘My mother brought fifteen ships to this marriage—all the skalds say so. My mother built this felag the same as you. Have you forgotten so quickly, Father?’

‘You mustn’t believe everything the skalds say,’ the woman said, giving Dagmar a look of pure hatred. ‘But I predict you will lead a miserable existence should you leave your father.’

Dagmar shrank back against her mother.

‘Hush, Dagmar. You are the most precious thing in my life, worth far more than gold or even land,’ her mother said in a low voice before holding out her hand to her father. ‘Agreed. My daughter is worth that and much more besides. My daughter will have a brilliant life. My daughter will be the best warrior the world has ever encountered.’

Dagmar watched in horror as the fight began in earnest between her mother and the champion her father chose. All she had wanted was a blue gown for her name day and instead this had happened—she had lost her family and her home, the place where she knew she was safe. Somehow, she was going to have to find a way to make her mother proud of her as her father wanted nothing from her. She would find a way to give her mother a new home.

Chapter One

Ten years later—near Dollar, Pict-controlled Alba. Modern-day Dollar, Clackmannanshire, Scotland

At daybreak, a major battle would commence. Aedan mac Connall, King of Kintra on Ile in the Western Isles, had no need of divine gifts to know this future; instead he used his eyes to see the two armies ranged no more than a quarter of a mile apart. Each was as bad as the other—the Northmen from the Black Pool or Dubh Linn, and the Picts with King Constantine’s rag-tag army of hired Northmen from Jorvik and other sell-swords intermingled with Pict warriors. But he had no interest in the outcome beyond the thought that for once they were fighting each other, rather than preying on his people. His business was with a woman, a woman who was somewhere in this melee.

His entire future and that of his people depended on his returning her to her father where she belonged. He didn’t want to consider the fate of the hostages Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe had required to ensure his co-operation in fulfilling this quest. He had to retrieve Kolbeinn’s daughter now or he’d be damned for ever.

‘Have you seen a woman, a shield maiden called Dagmar Kolbeinndottar?’ he called to a warrior who was sitting gloomily by the dying embers of a fire.

The warrior raised his grizzled head. ‘Dagmar Kolbeinndottar? She goes by Helgadottar and has done for several seasons.’

Aedan let out a breath. Success at last. Tracking down Dagmar, the daughter of the north warlord Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe, was far worse than tracking a will-o’-the-wisp. He had travelled the entire length of Alba and well into Bernicia searching for her. Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe’s vague description of his daughter as a meek and mild slip of a thing with golden hair, kidnapped by her mother ten years before, had been deliberately misleading. In Bernicia, Aedan had learned that she like her mother before her had pledged her sword to King Constantine.

‘Dagmar Helgadottar, then,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘I have a great desire to speak with her.’

The warrior sucked his teeth. ‘More than my life is worth.’

‘But she is here, in this place?’

‘Oh, aye. That she is.’ The warrior gave a conspiratorial tap against his nose. ‘The King sets a mighty store by her and her men, but can they do more than rattle their shields and look fierce?’

Aedan held out the ring Kolbeinn the Blood-Axe had given him as well as a gold piece. ‘I have important information for her from her father.’

The grizzled warrior nodded and took the piece. ‘I hope you fare better than the others.’

Aedan blinked. ‘Others?’

‘Oh, aye, she cut off their heads and sent them back to her father.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Mind she hasn’t done that since afore her mother died.’

‘She will listen to me.’

‘You must have the skill of Loki to have got this far.’

‘I prefer to think it is the saints who have kept me safe this far.’

The man spat on his palm and made a cross in the air. ‘Them, too.’

Aedan whistled and his wolfhound, Mor, bounded up from where she had been lurking in the undergrowth. ‘Further up the line you said.’

The warrior took a step back. ‘Aye, you can’t miss her. She’s the one with her face covered in blue swirls. And she wears hissing snakes in her hair.’

* * *

Dagmar concentrated on putting the final flourishes of paint on her face. She had done them for so long, they had become second nature to her. First the black and then the blue.

She had acceded to her mother’s wishes and used paint every morning, rather than getting a permanent tattoo. Even now when her mother had been gone for five months she could not bring herself to go against her wishes. It was the design which was important, rather than the medium. One day, her mother had remarked as she’d applied Dagmar’s paint in the early days, it might be necessary to change course and design. But it served her purpose for now to let everyone think them tattoos. A new whorl for each battle she had won.

‘He means to kill you.’ Old Alf sidled up just as Dagmar finished the final whorl. He was the only one besides her mother who knew of the slight deception about the paint. Lately he made simple errors and struggled to lift his shield and sword at the same time. ‘Did you hear me, Dagmar? He means to kill you for real this time.’

Dagmar wiped her fingers on a spare bit of cloth. There was no need to ask who ʽhe’ was—Olafr Rolfson, her mother’s last lover. She’d seen how Olafr undermined her, damning her with faint praise, whilst being outspoken about what he considered was the correct course of action. ‘I can handle him.’

The embers of her mother’s funeral pyre had still been glowing when Olafr had started making noises about sharing a marriage bed with Dagmar. She knew his sudden declaration of overwhelming desire for her had nothing to do with her figure or the curve of her mouth. The whispers of how truly hideous she was had followed her since she was fourteen. Snakes for hair. An overlong nose and pointed chin. A face like a misshapen pile of rocks. A woman no real man could truly desire.

When Olafr persisted with his lies about her beauty, she threatened to forcibly unman any man who tried to warm her bed, including him. He had gone green and had never repeated the request.

‘I need every warrior who is willing to pick up a sword for me.’

‘Pah, you don’t need him that bad.’

‘I gave my word to my mother. Would you have me break my promise with the final season nearly done?’ Dagmar’s throat closed. Her mother had ignored a minor injury until it was too late and the infection raged throughout her body. As she lay dying, she had made Dagmar promise to fulfil her pledge to support Constantine, to get the title to those lands. Land for the men who had shown loyalty to her mother during the lean years and a proper home for her daughter, as she’d vowed when Dagmar was ten. She would hang her sword over the hearth and only bring it down to defend what was hers, instead of using it to further someone else’s ambition. ‘Constantine must honour his pledge.’

‘Your mother knew when a king was not worthy of support. She would not want her only child to be out here, facing these odds. She valued your life above all.’

‘It will be as the gods will.’ Dagmar took her sword, and began the next part of the ritual she always did before going into battle—plaiting her hair so it hung about her face like snakes. ‘Perhaps the Dubh Linn raiders will render this conversation unnecessary. Olafr often leaves his left side exposed.’

‘Make an old man happy—keep an eye on him. You may face more than one enemy today.’

‘I’ve taken care since my tenth name day,’ she said standing up. After her stepmother’s son had been born, the first attack on Dagmar’s life had happened—poison in her stew which her dog had eaten instead of her. A servant had confessed to the entire plot. Her mother had sent the man’s tongue and ears back to her father, but there had been other attempts from men desperate enough to believe her stepmother’s promises of gold if only they’d rid her of her son’s rival.

‘Perhaps you should consider an alliance, marriage to a warrior you can trust, someone who can counter Olafr.’

Dagmar took a practice swing with her sword. It made a satisfactory slicing noise. ‘I don’t need any warrior to counter Olafr. My sword arm remains strong.’

‘Dagmar!’ Olafr called out. ‘Someone asks after you.’

Dagmar swallowed the quick retort when she spied a tall man with dark auburn hair and piercing blue-green eyes, the sort of man who made women go weak at the knees and more than likely knew it. The sort of man who enjoyed a buxom woman in his bed and who would curl his lip at her meagre assets even if they were not bound tightly to her chest.

His clothes immediately proclaimed that he was not from the North. A wolfhound stood by his side. A Gael. Dagmar frowned as she spied the sword stuck in his belt—the hilt resembled one of her father’s, one she remembered from her childhood.

‘Who requires me?’ she said in a snarl, annoyed that she had noticed the breadth of his shoulders.

‘Ah, there you are, Dagmar,’ Olafr said with a smirk. ‘I had wondered if you in your eagerness had already departed for battle.’

Dagmar ignored the jibe. Before her first battle, she had set off early as her mother had been delayed with a split shield. Dagmar’s actions had ensured they surprised the raiders and carried the day. Olafr had not even been part of the felag then. Her mother had found it amusing and the tale had grown with each telling.

Whenever Olafr repeated the tale, he made it seem as though she was some sort of spoilt and naive girl, rather than a shield maiden who had taken a wise course of action and turned the tide of the battle.

‘A visitor before battle?’ Dagmar tapped her sword against her hand.

‘Sweetling...’ Olafr began with another smirk.

Dagmar cut him off with an imperious gesture. ‘My mother bequeathed her men to me. I should’ve been informed immediately when a stranger came into the camp.’

‘Always leaping to the wrong conclusion.’ Olafr’s smile grew broader. ‘I brought him to you. Is it my fault that he encountered me first? If so, I beg your pardon and will turn my back on any other messenger. No, no, I will tell them, I’m but a humble servant who can give no counsel.’

‘Humble is the last thing you are, Olafr.’

‘I know my worth.’ He gave a little swagger. ‘Your mother saw it. Others see it, Dagmar the Blind Shield Maiden.’