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‘We need to go. Now. Regin, Magda will make you comfortable. And the Norns willing, I will see you again.’
‘Sayrid?’ Hrolf croaked, and then she watched as the horror sank in. ‘Blodvin has my daughter?’
Sayrid went cold. ‘Blodvin won’t have hurt her. The woman sheds tears at the slightest problem and she seems incapable of doing anything except looking pretty. She isn’t a cold-blooded murderess.’
Hrolf raised a brow. ‘You want to believe that. She is capable of far more than you want to think.’
Sayrid put her hand in his. ‘I have to believe we can save Inga, Hrolf. I have to believe that Blodvin won’t harm her…or at least not yet.’
‘Does your brother know where she is?’
Regin shook his head. ‘Hiding place.’
He gurgled faintly and collapsed.
‘We will get no more from him,’ Sayrid said, kneeling beside Regin’s body. She could see the faint rise and fall of his chest. He was alive, but barely. ‘Don’t try.’
Hrolf let out a great roar which echoed around the barn. ‘I’ve no idea where that witch has taken my daughter. I want my daughter found alive!’
Sayrid put her arms about him. ‘We will find her together. There is nothing more that can be done here. But we will find her.’
‘Thank you.’
Hrolf called for his remaining men and for Magda. The old nurse took one look and understood what needed to be done, immediately volunteering to stay with Regin.
‘Where do we start?’ he asked.
‘We start with the hiding places for women. My father feared attack. He caused three to be built. I made sure that Blodvin knew about them when we first arrived. I had thought her very nervous the way she kept going on about them, but she had obviously planned this well,’ Sayrid said bitterly. ‘I’ve no idea which one she’s used.’
‘Can you give directions? It will go quicker if we can split up. We know that Blodvin doesn’t have any warriors protecting her. It is simply a matter of finding her and Inga.’
Sayrid nodded. ‘You are right. It is best to split up. We can send men to the closest two, but it was the farthest she was most interested in.’
‘We will go to that one.’
Sayrid gave rapid instructions and two parties of warriors started off towards the nearest hiding places. Each party had strict instructions to blow three blasts on a hunting horn if they found her—dead or alive.
Sayrid hugged her arms about her waist. She refused to think about that little girl being dead or harmed in any fashion. She had to hope that Blodvin wanted to use the girl as a bargaining counter in case the attack went against her lover. ‘I never suspected Blodvin would harm her or I wouldn’t have suggested going into battle with you.’
‘If you hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened to me?’ Hrolf ran a hand through his hair. ‘For years I wondered if Inga was truly mine, but now I know it doesn’t matter. Inga is my daughter and I want her back.’
‘She is my daughter as well.’ Sayrid quickened her pace. ‘I should have known that there was more to Inga’s story about the ghost than simple imagination. I was so intent on proving Regin’s innocence that I missed the obvious connection. I underestimated her.’
‘We all did.’
* * *
Sayrid led the way to the furthest and most difficult-to-find hiding place. When they reached it, Sayrid moved the ivy which covered the entrance.
‘Blodvin? Inga? Everything is safe.’
The only answer was the wind whistling.
Her heart knocked. She turned towards Hrolf. ‘I’d been so sure. It made sense.’
He put his arm about her and she laid her head against his shoulder. He drew her in closer. ‘We will find them. They will be in another safe house, waiting to hear the outcome.’
‘Of course we will. And Inga will be safe.’ She put her hand on his chest. ‘I know it.’
‘Who are you trying to make feel better?’
‘The both of us.’
‘I wish I shared your confidence.’
Sayrid stiffened as her eye caught a brightly coloured bead. ‘What is that?’
She hurried over and picked it out of the dirt. ‘It looks like one of the beads Inga wears.’
‘It could have been here for years.’
Sayrid tightened her hand around the bead. It belonged to Inga. She had been here. Recently. And the only person she could have been with was Blodvin. The problem was to find the next clue. On her hands and knees she started to scour the area.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Searching. Inga is far more capable than Blodvin will give her credit for.’ Sayrid spotted the next bead, a rose-and-white one, lying under a tree. ‘There! Do you think that one is leftover from years ago as well?’
