Page 2 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

Brynhild's eyes grew distant, seeing beyond the walls. "Trials await her, and she will need your strength. Would you leave her unprotected?"

"No," Torstein whispered, his voice barely audible above the crackling fire.

The old healer nodded, satisfied. "Then fight. Push the Valkyries away."

"How... how will I find her?" Torstein asked, his voice slightly stronger.

Brynhild replied, "Grow strong. Learn the ways of sail and sword. In time, the gods will guide your ship to her shores." She placed a hand above his heart. "But if you surrender now, she will walk alone forever."

Torstein grasped Brynhild's wrist with newfound strength. "Tell me what to do," he said.

Brynhild smiled in the firelight. "Live, Torstein Hagansson. You must live."

"I will," he whispered, his gaze no longer fixed on invisible Valkyries but on the smoke hole above, where stars glimmered.

"Good," Brynhild nodded, satisfaction in her voice. "Now rest so you will be alert and ready to rise again with the sun."

As Torstein's eyes grew heavy and eventually closed, his breathing grew steadier. Brynhild and Runa kept vigil over him through the night as Hagan stoked the fires and guarded his household.

By morning, when the first gray light filtered through the windows, Torstein slept peacefully, the worst of the fever broken. Brynhild sat back on her stool, her old bones aching from the night's vigil. "Stubborn, just like your father," she muttered with grudging approval. "This desert maiden of yours will have her hands full with you."

***

Chapter 1

1047 Winter - Kirkwall, Orkney Isles

The boat came in with the morning tide. Two women in travelling cloaks stepped onto the shore and requested an audience with Thorfinn Sigurdsson, the mighty Jarl of Orkney.

To anyone else they looked like simple nuns. But Thorfinn, who had been watching for their arrival, knew better. They were women of the cloth, but they were also part of one of the highest secret orders in Christendom, and only a fool would treat their visit lightly.

He recognized the first as Abbess Murdina of Saddell Abbey. His cousin, King Macbeth mac Findláech, had once described Murdina's life as one long chessboard, the pieces forever moving, the woman always several steps ahead. Thorfinn had known her long enough never to underestimate her. He also knew that a woman who crossed the Pentland Firth in winter did not do so without good reason.

***

JARL THORFINN RECEIVED the Abbess in his private council chamber, because whatever she had come to say was not for other ears. Sister Eithne took her post outside the door, a quarterstaff strapped to her back and her eyes scanning the corridor. Thorfinn knew a bodyguard when he saw one.

Murdina sat without being asked and folded her hands on the table. "You look well, Jarl Thorfinn."

"As do ye, Abbess. Though I can tell ye have come in person because what ye have to say could not be put in a missive."

She smiled slightly. "As always, nothing escapes your attention. I hear you plan to make your pilgrimage to Rome soon."

"Aye. I journey with Macbeth."

"That is why I came now rather than later. I need to contact an old friend in Fez. A merchant trader named Dawud ibn Yusuf al-Idrissi. He has something that must come north. A parcel that has waited a long time for the right escort."

"What manner of parcel?"

"The kind that requires discretion, and someone ye trust, with a legitimate reason to be in Fez. Trade goods. A scouting mission. Something that does not invite suspicion."

"And if I were to ask what it is?"

She took a breath. "An ancient relic. Of great power. The Brotherhood are searching for it, and they are closer than I would like. It cannot fall into their hands."

Thorfinn stiffened. He had heard of the Brotherhood, and of their strange hunger for old relics. He turned his cup slowly on the table. He was a strategist, and he knew there was more to this than the Abbess was saying. Someone had forced her hand, or she would not have crossed the firth in the dead of winter.

"Ye have come yourself, rather than sending a letter," he said. "That tells me ye move because ye must, not because ye choose. So my question is this. Who else is looking for it?"