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“Be honest for once, Drifa.”
“What will you do now?” she asked, abject fear in her dark eyes.
He could not allow himself to be moved, even when tears welled and streamed down her face. “I will get us back to Miklagard, meet with the emperor, make ready my longship, and go to Stoneheim to recover my daughter.”
“You will take her then?” she choked out.
“How could you think otherwise?”
“She will be frightened. She does not know you.”
“And whose fault is that? Nay, forget I said that. I do not blame you for that. I blame you for not telling me the instant you saw me on the steps of the harbor when you arrived in Byzantium.”
“That, I concede. But betimes a sin is balanced out by a good. Can you not forgive my sin by acknowledging my good intent and the loving care I have given your daughter for five years?”
“Forgiveness? Mayhap in time. But I cannot forget. You have no idea how the loss of my child has affected my life, how guilty I have felt. I never should have left the baby at Stoneheim, not for a moment, let alone sennights. I knew my father was not to be trusted. I knew.”
“Where will you take her?”
He noticed that she did not mention a refusal to give up rights to the girling, to say she had the Stoneheim hird at her back. That was wise of her because, in his present frame of mind, he would welcome a battle. “I am not sure. Wherever I decide to settle, that’s where she will be.”
She began to sob then, big, blustering, nose-running, gasping cries of pain. He could see that she cared for his daughter and that separation would hurt.
But what could he do? Even if he forgave all, what could he do?
Ivar stuck his head out the flap of the tent to see what was going on. Then he just shook his head at him, and returned to his bed furs.
For one brief moment, Sidroc wondered how different his life might have been if he’d married Drifa as he’d planned and they’d raised Signe, or Runa, or whatever her name was now. What might they have been by now? Would they have their own estate, other children, a good life? Or would he have become a cruel husband and father like the men in his family seemed prone to be?
It was a hopeless exercise to contemplate all those possibilities.
Fury and compassion warred inside Sidroc. Fury won out. He walked away.
In love with a loathsome lout ...
Drifa allowed herself one whole night of weeping and self-pity before raising her prideful chin and saying, “Enough!” to herself.
Marching outside the tent the next morning, she saw that the cold camp fire had been scattered, the camels packed, and both Ivar and Sidroc preparing to leave.
“There is cold fare laid out for you,” Sidroc told her, pointing to a slice of hard bread, a slab of leftover snake, and a piece of cheese.
If he thinks to intimidate me with the snake meat, he underestimates the stubbornness of a Viking woman. We surpass our menfolk tenfold in that regard. I can out-stubborn him any day. She bit into the meat and stared at him, daring the lout to make a remark. It was hard swallowing the food, even mixed with a bite of bread and washed down with ale, but she refused to show any weakness.
A wasted effort because neither Sidroc nor Ivar was watching her. Therefore, she dumped the snake meat under the log, and ate only the bread and cheese.
When she went over to Ivar to share his camel, Sidroc said, “Nay! You ride with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I say so.”
She turned to Ivar for help, but he just shrugged.
“If you are going to continue insulting me, I’d rather walk.”
“Good thing it is not raining. Or you would drown with your nose so high in the air.”
“Does boorishness come naturally to you?”
