Read Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures for Free Online

same thing you promised me, knowing neither of us would throw away his life for less.”
    “No! – no! – no!” she shrieked. “I swear by the ring of Thor – ” then as the agony grew unbearable she cried out: “Yes! – yes! – I promised him – let me go – oh, let me go!”
    “So!” the Viking tossed her contemptuously onto a pile of silken cushions where she lay whimpering and disheveled.
    “You promised me and you promised Sigurd,” said he, looming darkly above her, “but the promise you made me, you will keep – else you had better never been born. The throne of Ireland is a small thing beside my desire for you – if I cannot have you, no one shall.”
    “But what of Sigurd?”
    “He will fall in battle – or afterwards,” he answered grimly.
    “Good enough!” Dire indeed was the extremity in which Kormlada did not have her wits about her. “It is you I love, Broder; I only promised him because he would not aid us otherwise – ”
    “Love!” the grim Viking laughed bitterly. “You love Kormlada – no one else. I understand you; but you will keep your vow to me or you will rue it.” And turning on his heel, he strode from her chamber.
    Kormlada rose, rubbing her arm where the blue marks of his savage fingers marred her white skin.
    “May he fall in the first onset,” she said between her teeth. “If either survive may it be that tall fool, Sigurd – methinks he would be a husband more easily managed than that black-haired savage. I will perforce marry him if he survives the battle, but by the ring of Thor, he shall not long press the throne of Ireland – I will send him to join Brian – ”
    “You speak as if King Brian were already dead,” a silvery mocking voice brought Kormlada about suddenly to face the other person in the world she feared besides Broder. Her eyes widened as from behind a satin hanging stepped a small dark girl clad in shimmering green.
    “Eevin!” Kormlada gasped, recoiling. “Stand back – cast no spell on me, little witch – ”
    “Who am I to bewitch the great queen who has bewitched so many men?” asked Eevin mockingly, secure in the knowledge of the queen’s superstitious fears; to the Danish woman the Pictish girl was something fearsome and unhuman – an uncanny sprite of the deep woods.
    “How came you in my palace?” demanded Kormlada with a weak effort at imperiousness.
    “How came the breeze through the trees?” answered the forest girl. “Your guards watched well enough, but do the oxen know when the field mice run through the wheat? You of the fair folk are like blind men and deaf when the dark people steal among you.”
    “Why do you spy on me?” asked the queen angrily.
    “To see what the great Gormlaith does when a Viking manhandles her in her own chamber,” taunted Eevin. “So many men have knelt before Gormlaith, it was right merry to see Gormlaith on her knees before Broder.”
    At this heckling the Danish queen went white, clenching her hands until the nails bit into the delicate palms and brought trickles of blood.
    “I will have you thrown into a dungeon for the rats to eat, you witch!” she whispered, so choked with fury she could not speak louder.
    Eevin’s dainty lip curled with contempt.
    “You dare not touch me; you fear I might put on you a spell to rob you of that cruel beauty whereby you rule men. Now tell me, quickly: what was it Broder told you before I came into this chamber?”
    “He had been consulting the oracle of the sea-people,” Kormlada answered sullenly.
    “The blood and the torn heart?” Eevin’s lips writhed with disgust. “Faugh! You Danars are but bloody beasts! What did it portend?”
    “The priest bade Broder attack tomorrow,” answered the queen, not considering, with the usual illogic of the primitive, that if, as she believed, Eevin were indeed a witch, she should know without asking.
    Eevin stood with bent head for a moment, then turned and, slipping through the hangings,