Page 49 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

And loyalty is a lovely sentiment. In my experience, it’s also the first thing to go missing right before a body does. Or a set of marriage vows.

Stanton again. The man is versatile that way.

“Now there’s a queen,” Magnus murmurs, watching Poppy with open appreciation. “Composed. Controlled. Gracious under pressure. A woman like that would be magnificent to unravel. Give me one evening and a barrel of mead, and that crown would be on the floor by moonrise.”

I bet it would. Death has clearly done nothing to humble the man.

Several book club members nod approvingly. Someone actually sighs. I recognize that sigh. It’s the sound a woman makes when she’s mentally redecorating a throne room.

“That was good,” Wes observes.

“Very good,” I agree.

And I, for one, am thrilled Poppy showed up this morning, mostly because she’s next on my list of suspects to butter up. It’s so much easier to grill a woman when she delivers herself to the grill.

Freya steps forward next, all dramatic black braids and enough silver jewelry to anchor a small boat, wearing black leather despite the morning sun and looking like she cleaned out Valhalla’s gift shop and left a scathing review on her way out.

Marina leans my way. “I really like her style.”

“Me too,” I say. “I couldn’t pull it off, but I’m glad someone can.”

“I’m an unconquered queen,” Freya declares, lifting her chin in defiance. “I bow to no one and answer to nothing but my own truth.”

I nod. “Now that I believe.”

There’s fire in her voice, a challenge tucked inside it, and a barely contained fury wrapped up in all that silver and leather.

“Now her I trust,” Magnus says. “She wears her anger honestly. I could work with a woman like that. In my day, we called that much heat foreplay.”

I’ll agree with the first half—the anger worn honestly. The foreplay portion I’m leaving right here on the cobblestones where it belongs.

Although it does beg the question, just what is Freya so angry about? And she was plenty angry the night Astrid died. I watched her arguing with the woman mere hours before Astrid met her demise. Freya would be the obvious killer. Although if I’ve learned anything in my scant time as an amateur sleuth—and an accidental one at that—it’s that the obvious suspect is rarely the one holding the poison.

“Fear makes better subjects than love ever did,” Freya belts out, and this time she earns a gasp from the crowd.

Fear. There’s a campaign slogan for you. I make a mental note that Freya’s queendom would not come with a suggestion box. Or exit interviews.

A few book club members trade glances, and not the friendly kind. Freya’s words didn’t land as a declaration. They landed as a threat, and judging by the wide eyes and the sudden interest in personal space, these women think she’s good for it.

Sienna looks as if she’d very much like to move the ritual along, with the expression of a woman watching somebody belch during a funeral. Instead, she holds up a hand, clutching her purse, her frizzy auburn hair escaping its headband in wild spirals. She hesitates a beat, and her face flushes pink behind her round glasses.

“I’m a merciful queen,” she says with a touch of pride, and the crowd lights up with applause.

“Mercy didn’t serve Astrid well,” someone mutters from the back, although I can’t quite make out who.

Silence crashes over the group like a rogue wave. Wes and I exchange a look. Marina clears her throat. The drums inside the palace keep right on pounding, blissfully unaware. Even the nearest royal guard manages to look uncomfortable, and that man is paid handsomely not to have a single facial expression.

Sienna’s cheeks go the color of a steamed lobster. Women shift in place. Sienna tries to restart the festivities, but nobody is listening anymore. They’re all thinking about Astrid, about mercy, about how their tyrannical founder ended up crushed by an ice Viking of her own commissioning.

Dead tyrants cast long shadows, it seems.

Which raises a different question entirely. What did mercy have to do with Astrid in the first place? If the woman was the despot everyone keeps hinting she was, whose mercy failed her? Or better yet, who finally ran out of it?

Poor Sienna. Whatever else she may or may not be, right now she’s a substitute teacher whose class just turned on her in front of an actual palace, and my heart goes out to the woman.

“Oh dear,” Magnus says, cheerful as can be. “Someone in the back just reminded the entire flock that their leader was not, in fact, merciful. Bold move. Astrid never forgave a slight in her life. That woman tended her grudges the way other people tend houseplants. Watered daily and thriving.”

I frown up at him. That’s an awfully specific portrait from a man who swears he never met her.