Page 61 of Come the Morning

Waryk nodded, acknowledging Daro’s words. “I admit to being glad to seeing you together.”

Daro smiled, looking down at Anne. “Your kin have agreed to our wedding?”

Anne smiled radiantly, flashing a quick glance at Waryk. “Aye, and we are indeed in debt to Laird Waryk. The king made the suggestion to my uncle that we would make a fine pair, and that he would bring your strength more tightly into his fold if we were to wed.”

He kissed her forehead. “Anne, I can’t tell you of my happiness. Ragnar will take you to your quarters while I speak with Waryk and Mellyora.” He gazed at Waryk. “We are to be married soon?”

“Aye, the week following my marriage to Mellyora. Naturally, you are to renew your commitment to the Christian faith.”

“Aye, that I’ll do. If a Christian god brought me Anne, then I can bow before him. Ragnar?”

Ragnar offered Anne a hand. She cast Daro a last dazzling smile and departed with the huge warrior. “Laird Waryk?” Daro said, and bowed, indicating his hall.

Waryk entered ahead of Daro, aware that his back was exposed, but also that Angus and his men waited behind Daro. If there were any treachery here, they might die because of the overwhelming numbers, but they’d bring down a dozen or more of the enemy before they did so.

But Daro entered behind him and strode by him, pouring wine. “You’ll pardon me?” he said, sipping from the wine. “I wouldn’t want you to fear that we were trying to poison you.”

“Not the Viking way,” Waryk said dryly, accepting the chalice from Daro. “But I thank you for the assurance. You had promised my safety. I wasn’t afraid of your men, or your wine.”

“I didn’t want the least suspicion to mar your enjoyment of my hospitality,” Daro said. He drank from a chalice of wine he then poured for himself, watching Waryk. “What you have done is truly extraordinary, generous, and merciful.”

Waryk grinned. “Not so, merely logical. I understand the king’s fear regarding Vikings, since invaders do upon occasion continue to come from the Nordic countries, and create mayhem here from our own islands. But I don’t see outsiders as our real enemy now. With the English schism creating so much bloodshed there, keeping our borders strong against Norman invasion seems the expedient course. And if David trusted Adin, then he should trust his brother.”

“Ah, but he wanted you on my brother’s property because he was afraid of it becoming a Viking stronghold.”

“Your brother’s property became very important with your brother’s death. Vikings have too often ruled too many islands—they still do. David doesn’t intend to lose Blue Isle. Its positioning is far too strategic. He needs it.”

Daro nodded. “If the king had told Mellyora that she’d be removed if she didn’t agree to the wedding, she’d never have tried to escape the arrangement. You might have been saved a great deal of aggravation.”

“Have you told her yet?”

Daro shook his head. “But I will do so, now that you are here. She hadn’t slept much for days, and last night—before I had received your message—I had herbs put in her wine to allow her to rest. But I will get her now, and explain the situation before she meets you.”

“Inga!” he called, walking to the opening. A middle-aged woman with long braids entered at his bidding. “You must waken Lady Mellyora now and tell her that I’m coming in to speak with her.”

Inga went to do as bidden.

“I’m curious,” Daro said. “After all Mellyora has put you through, you might have chosen to have her set aside. I had, in fact, heard rumor that you were to marry the widow of a border lord.”

“If I take the property without your niece, Daro, we both know that some men will revolt, and I’ll have to kill them. I don’t wish to kill people for their loyalty.”

Daro nodded, and lifted his wineglass. “Well, Laird Waryk, I welcome you then, I thank you for your intervention in my life, and I pray that you’ll remember, I do love my niece. And I hope that you won’t want to killhereither.”

Waryk hid a grin. “I intend no violence,” he assured Daro, then added, “other than in self-defense.”

Daro shook his head. “You don’t know Mellyora.”

“I feel that I am beginning to know her very well.”

“Aye, well, she can be headstrong. But once she realizes her position, her home will mean more to her than anything. You’ll see. Ah, there’s Inga now. Is Mellyora ready to see me?”

The woman was obviously distressed. She glanced at Waryk, and spoke in her Norwegian tongue. “Mellyora is not there.”

“Not there?” Daro said, frowning.

Was it a trick? Waryk wondered. Daro looked completely surprised and confused, but that could be part of an act.

“What do you mean, not there?” Daro demanded then. He didn’t wait for the woman to respond, but walked across the hall, throwing open a partition to a smaller room with the personal trappings of a woman’s sleeping quarters. Following behind Daro, Waryk saw that the side room was empty. He felt a curious tightening within him. An ivory-handled brush lay on a dressing table along with two dragon-headed, hammered-gold bracelets. He could almost breathe in her scent; the bedding was disturbed, as if she had just risen. He hunched down and touched the furs and linen sheeting on the bed. Still warm.