“Just be thankful it wasn’t the blood of a freshly sacrificed animal,” Alrik whispered as I worriedly eyed his silk shirt. Luckily, it escaped the baptism.
“Oh, man, that’s heavy. Thank you, Alrik. Er…” Alrik suddenly thrust a sword into my hands. What was I supposed to do with it?
“It is the sword of my ancestors,” he told me earnestly. “My father’s sword, and his father’s before him. You will give it to our son.”
I raised my eyebrows. “We’re having a son?”
“Many,” he said in all seriousness.
“Uh-huh. Well, we’ll just leave that subject for further discussion, shall we? I think I have a sword for you, too—ah, thanks,” I said as Njal handed me the sword he carried. It wasn’t as ornate as Alrik’s, having no gemstones set into the hilt as the other, but it was twice as heavy, and had an odd line of runes on the blade. “This is for you. It belonged to…” I glanced at Momo.
“It is the sword of Sigurd, given to me as his pledge of marriage,” she answered, her eyes narrow on Alrik. “It returns to you now, son of Sigurd.”
Alrik took the sword easily in one hand, tracing the runes along the blade, outright amazement and delight on his face. “Can it be? This is Gram,” he said in a reverential tone. “It has been reforged?”
“Aye, it is Gram, the blade that killed the dragon Fafnir. With this wedding, I forgive the debt of marriage which Sigurd owed me.”
Alrik strapped the leather sheath to his belt, carefully handing the sword to Baldi. Paul stepped forward and placed a ring on the sword hilt, which Alrik took. “I will honor and respect you as my wife until the end of my days,” he said as he slid the plain silver ring on my middle finger.
Njal held out the sword Alrik had given me. On its hilt was another silver ring. I took it and repeated Alrik’s words, feeling an indefinable bonding, a sense of rightness as I slipped the ring onto his finger.
“Now you are wed,” Momo said with a sharp nod at Agda, who helped her to her feet. “We feast.”
“That’s it?” I asked as the family broke up and headed to the main yard, where tables had been set up with enough food to feed a small army.
Pia and Maja gave me a hug and congratulated me.
“That’s it?” I asked again as Paul kissed my cheek. “Don’t we have to sign a wedding license or something?”
“You would if you had a civil ceremony,” he answered, giving Alrik a hearty whack on the back. “This is more akin to a hand fasting. Less formal, but just as legally binding. Congratulations, cousin. Oooh, the roast pig is done!” He hurried off.
I turned to Alrik, who stood patiently beside me.
“What—”
That was all I got out before he wrapped his arms around me, and kissed the very thoughts right out of my head. It was a doozy of a kiss, a real epic-quality one, and oddly fitting with the bizarre ceremony in which we’d just participated. Alrik’s tongue was everywhere at once, tasting me, teasing me, driving me wild until all I could think about was kissing him back just as thoroughly.
Just when I thought I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, he set me back on the ground, holding on to me as I swayed.
“Wife,” he said, with a distinct note of possession in his voice.
“Two can play at that game. Husband!” I answered, and lunged at him, twining my hands through his hair as I took my turn kissing him.
Behind us, his men cheered and called out several suggestions that I thought it best to ignore. By the time I was through kissing Alrik, his eyes were a molten dark gray.
I’m not sure how we made it through the feast without my wrestling Alrik to the ground and having my way with him, but I held on to my libido, promising it a wedding night to end all wedding nights. The feast itself took several hours, the light starting to fail by the time it was over. I had long since changed out of my dress and Momo’s wedding crown, and was just wondering if I was going to have to spend another night in Alrik’s makeshift tent when Paul sidled up to me and handed me a set of keys.
“Moster Agda’s keys,” he said softly, his eyes on the wide veranda where Momo and company had moved. The Vikings were out in the orchard with some of the younger family members, laughing as they set out a target and tried to use a couple of ancient-looking archery bows. “She won’t be going anywhere for the next few days.”
“Thanks. I guess we’ll be leaving tomorrow to go find this ring that Momo insists on being returned. Alrik said he talked to you about it?”
Paul frowned and was about to say something when Alrik emerged from the bathroom, his eyes searching me out immediately. He’d been next to me almost all day, and I had to admit I didn’t mind the attention at all.
“Yes, I did talk to him about it. Alrik, haven’t you told Brynna about the ring?”
“Andvari’s ring? No, there has been no time.”
“Told me what?” I asked, wanting nothing more than to be alone with him. I might only have him as a husband for a few days, but I fully intended to enjoy every minute of it.
Paul answered, “Alrik asked me to do a little research on the history of the Andvari ring. It’s out of the range of my specialty at the antiquities museum, but I thought I’d be able to find out something about it. There is much mythos about the ring before Sigurd died, but nothing after.”
“It was given to my mother,” Alrik said, stroking my back. Little frissons of fire triggered by the touch made me shiver. “She cherished it. It must be buried with her.”
“You don’t mean we’re going to dig up your mom’s grave and rob her corpse, do you?” I asked, appalled.
“Of course not,” Alrik said, stepping forward as he cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a yell. “I would never do anything so outrageous.”
“Good. So, how are we going to find it, then?”
The Vikings answered his call, charging up en masse from the orchard.
Alrik picked up his iron-bound chest, heaved it onto his shoulder, and started around the side of the house to the area where the cars were parked. Paul and I followed, the rest of the Vikings close on our heels. “We’re going to ask my mother for it. Bardi, did you get Brynna’s things?”
“Right here,” he answered, tossing Alrik a leather satchel. Paul opened up the back of Aunt Agda’s station wagon, helping the Vikings put their chests and fur bundles into the back.
I tugged on Alrik’s sleeve, confused. “What do you mean, we’re going to ask your mother for it? Isn’t she…you know…dead?”
“Yes. You will drive.”
He marched around to the passenger side of the front seat, the others piling into the back.
I looked at Paul.
He shrugged.
“How are we going to talk to her if she’s dead?” I asked, bending down to peer into the car.
Alrik sighed, got out of the car, and escorted me around to the other side, pausing at the door to point at the sky. “You see the moon?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“It is the last night of the full moon.”
I nodded. I thought it was romantic.
Evidently Alrik thought otherwise. He glanced at Paul. “I can’t believe you people are so technologically advanced, yet so clueless about everything else. Everyone knows that the only time you can summon and speak to the shades of your ancestors is during the full moon. You will have to drive quickly if we are to reach my mother’s grave before the moon sets. It will be a month before we have another opportunity to talk with her again.” He pushed me gently into the driver’s seat.
I looked in confusion through the open window to where Paul stood. “We’re going to talk to a ghost?”
“Lucky, lucky you,” my cousin answered, giving me a rueful smile. “Drive safely.”
“We can talk to ghosts? Real ghosts, not like you guys, but ghost ghosts?”
“Yes, if you know how. And I do—my aunt was a ghost talker. She taught me when I was young.”
Hey, I wa
s the descendant of a Valkyrie, married to a Viking ghost—I really had no right to question anything at this point. Besides, there was something more important at stake.
“Yes, but…now?” I asked Alrik. “Tonight? What about our wedding night?”
Behind us, the Vikings burst into song. I had a feeling it was a risqué song because there was lots of elbowing going on, as well as many grins directed toward me.
Alrik patted my knee. “I’m sorry, Brynna. This must come first. I will do the best I can to satisfy your lustful desires later, after we have spoken to the shade of my mother and located the ring.”
I felt like a great big sleazeball, putting my own desire ahead of the happiness and welfare of Alrik and his men.
“We’re going to talk to a ghost,” I repeated to myself as I started the car. Sometimes, it was just better not to question life too closely.
“Don’t worry,” Alrik said, giving my knee a little squeeze. “My mother will be furious when she finds out I married you, but I won’t let her hurt you. I’m sure she’ll be reasonable after she gets used to the idea.”
Eight
I think we’re going around in circles. Doesn’t this bit of trees look familiar?” I whapped back a sticker bush and glared at the rocky hillside.
Alrik helped me over a fallen log and looked where I was pointing. “No, it only seems familiar because of the darkness.”
Jon sprang out from the dense shrubbery. “There’s nothing up there, Alrik. Bardi thinks we’re too far north. He says the house used to be near a stream.”
“The house, yes, but we’re looking for the spot where my mother wanted to be buried. She loved these woods. I distinctly remember her grave being on the hillside so she could look over the valley. You check down there. I’ll go over here. Ah. Is that a stone? Brynna?”
I clicked on my lighter, holding it high as I followed Alrik past a clump of willow trees. “It’s almost out of fuel, so I hope we find it soon. Man, I could use a smoke.”
Alrik turned back from where he’d been scouring the ground, pulling me into an embrace with such strength it startled an “Oomph!” from me.
“I am the worst of husbands, and you are the most patient of wives. I promise you that I will reward you handsomely this evening.”
His kiss was hot and sweet, driving out all thoughts but how much the man in my arms was coming to mean to me.
“Wow, are you going to do that every time I have a nicotine craving?” I asked when I managed to retrieve my tongue.
He wiggled his hips against mine. “I told you that I would make you forget your desire for cigarettes.”
I touched his lower lip, my stomach turning upside down as I followed the delicious curve of his mouth. “You are so much better than a nicotine patch. We’re going to have to get you some industrial strength lip balm, because I anticipate having nonstop cravings.”
He laughed, gave me a quick kiss that left me breathless and nearly mindless, and returned to his search of the area.
I wasn’t sure what a thousand-year-old-plus grave would look like, but I did my best to look around for something that looked out of the ordinary.
“There is nothing but nettles down there.” Jon re-emerged from the undergrowth. “I’ll try to the south.”
“This is it,” Alrik said, triumph in his voice as he squatted down next to a crumbled bit of stone. I knelt next to him, not seeing anything about the stone to indicate a grave.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “There’s no writing on it or anything.”
Jon yelled for the others. They came from where they’d scattered to search the countryside. Although Alrik had said a grand manor house had once stood on the top of the hill, there were no signs of it. Everything was overgrown and wooded.
“My mother has been dead for many centuries. The writing will have long since weathered away. I am sure this is her grave; I feel it,” Alrik said, standing. From his boot he pulled out a small dagger, using it to nick the tip of one of his fingers. He held out his hand for me.
“You’re not going to use that on me?” I asked, shoving my free hand behind my back. Around us, the Vikings formed a circle.
“I need blood to summon the shade of my mother. She has been sleeping for more than a thousand years—if I use my blood only, she may not wake up. But with the blood of Brynnhilde’s descendant defiling her grave, she will be sure to answer the summons.”
“Oh, lovely. I get to meet my mother-in-law, and she’s going to hate me right from the start.” Reluctantly, I held my hand out to Alrik. “Ow!”
He grinned as he tucked the dagger away, squeezing the tiny cut on my finger until a bead of blood welled up. “My mother can be formidable when she wishes, but I will put my gold on you.”
“Thanks. I think.” Despite my general grumpiness, I had to admit I was looking forward to seeing a real ghost summoned. I watched with interest as Alrik drew a circle on the ground, etching odd runic symbols into the dirt before squeezing out a few drops of blood from first my hand, then his own.
“Now what happens?” I asked as he pulled me back a step, his hand warm on mine.
“Now we wait for her to wake up. I’m hoping that it won’t take too—”
A huge blast of air burst upward from the ground like a tornado spawning directly in front of us. Alrik and the men were knocked backward by it, but I stood rooted to the ground, almost as if something held me there. Horror crawled along my skin as the air in front of me thickened, twisting into the form of a middle-aged woman with a long nose, high cheekbones, short blond hair…and an extremely pissed expression.
The woman pointed at me and shrieked something.
“Uh…hello,” I said. I knew the meeting with Alrik’s mother was bound to be awkward at best, but I was determined to remain calm. I would not let a ghost rattle me, no matter how scary she looked.
“Holy cripes!” I yelled a second later, as the woman seemed to grow a good twenty feet as she loomed over me. “Alrik! Help!”
“Do not fear, wife. She is just expressing her unhappiness at having her sleep disturbed,” Alrik said, rushing to my side. He said something to the twenty-five-foot-tall woman, and she shrank back down to normal size.
“Wife?” the now-normal woman shouted. “WIFE? You have married this…this…this spawn of Brynnhilde?”
Alrik’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You speak English? Where did you learn to speak English?”
His mom turned a scornful look upon him. “Do you think I’ve done nothing but sleep away the centuries? I am not as slothful as your father! I learned English from the same place I learned Pilates and Chinese cooking—Niflheim.”
Alrik gawked at his mother. I was long past the point where I could feel astonishment. Niflheim, I remembered from the fairy tales my mother had read to me, was the place where people who didn’t get into Valhalla went after they died—it had several levels, ranging from an area where sinners were punished, to a heavenly realm where evidently people exercised while learning how to make Kung Pao chicken.
“Well. That’s good, then,” Alrik said slowly, continuing to look befuddled. I slid my hand into his and tried out a friendly smile on his mother. “How is Father?”
“He is asleep. He went into a rage when he was denied Valhöll, and refused to enter Niflheim. I have not seen him since then.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “What is this creature doing on my grave? And why have you wed her, spawn of the one who murdered your father?”
“It’s a long story,” he answered with a grin at me, his fingers tightening around mine. “But let me do this properly. Brynna, this is my mother, Gudrun, daughter of Grimhild, wife of Sigurd.”
“I do not have the time to listen to such foolishness,” Gudrun interrupted. “You bring shame on your father’s name by wedding this creature. Clearly she has bewitched you. I will have her head cut off, burned, and the ashes scattered to the four winds. Then you will be free again.”
My eyes just about popped out of my hea
d. “Hello! I’m standing right here!”
If looks could have killed, the winds would have been scattering ashy bits of me all over Sweden.
“She is my wife,” Alrik said calmly, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “I am not bewitched. Brynna is a Valkyrie and is helping us get to Valhöll. But to do so, we must have your ring.”
“My ring?” she asked suspiciously.
Alrik ran through a brief explanation of the last few days. Gudrun chuckled at his description of Momo Hildi, and made some rude comments about women who didn’t age well, but I figured she was entitled to do a little venting, since Momo had murdered her husband.
When Alrik finished, I said, “I’m sure you can think of just about anything else you’d rather do than give Momo Hildi your ring, but it comes down to Alrik—either you give us the ring so he and the others can toddle off to Valhalla, or they will stay cursed for forever.”
“The ring of Andvari…” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then marched over to me. I didn’t want Alrik to think I was a coward, so I lifted my chin and stood my ground.
“You are of Brynnhilde’s blood,” she said, taking my chin in chilly fingers, turning my face first one way, then the other. “You have nothing of her looks.”
“Does that matter?”
Her eyes, a watery green, seemed to sear right through to my soul, leaving me feeling as if she could see every mistake, every regret, every good intention that I’d failed to fulfill. Suddenly, she smiled and patted my cheek. “This must infuriate Brynnhilde, seeing you with Alrik.” She turned back to Alrik and nodded. “Very well, I will give you my blessing. I will not kill your bride to break this enchantment that she must surely have cast in order to catch you, a warrior second only to my beloved Sigurd in valor.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“Are you with child yet?” she asked me, studying my midsection. “You don’t look like you are, but I cannot believe that my Alrik, beloved of maids all over the eastern coast, would not have you with child. Are you barren?”
“Mother,” Alrik said, shooting me an embarrassed glance. “We were just married today.”