Stopping abruptly when Canute did, Dagmar waited until a chalice flew past her head and into the wall beside her. Another fight between one of her brothers and his wife.
Not even bothering to look, she stepped over the rolling and dented chalice on the floor and headed to the Main Hall. Her father sat at the main dining table; several of her brothers sat near or across from him as did their wives, but the chair next to him was vacant because it was Dagmar’s chair. Something she knew annoyed her sister-in-law Kikka, who sat glaring at her from across the table.
As she walked in and took her seat, her father shoveled food into his mouth as if afraid the thick porridge would try and make a run for it. As always, she ignored the sight of her father feeding.
In her world, there were worse things than bad table manners.
“Father.”
Her father grunted. He’d never been a talkative man, but he especially had little to say to his only daughter. After twelve sturdy sons from three different wives—two had run away and Dagmar’s mother had passed away during childbirth—he never expected a daughter. And he never expected a daughter like her. When drunk, he often bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t been born a man. He could do more with her if she was useful, rather than something he simply had to protect.
It should hurt her that after all this time her father still didn’t recognize what she did for his fiefdom. How much she contributed, including the defenses she’d designed, the dogs she’d trained to save the lives of his men during battle, or the important truces she’d help to arrange. But why waste time being hurt? It wouldn’t change anything and would only take precious time out of her day.
Dagmar reached for a loaf of bread and tore it apart. “The new batch of puppies looks very promising, Father. Very strong. Powerful.” She tore the half of bread in her hands once more and gave Canute a portion.
Her father grunted again, but instead of waiting for an answer she didn’t expect, Dagmar dug into the hot porridge one of the servants placed before her. Their mornings together, when he wasn’t off defending his lands, were often like this. In fact, she’d become so very used to the silence or occasional grunt that when her father suddenly did speak to her, Dagmar nearly choked on her food.
“Pardon?” she said, once she’d swallowed.
“I said what message did you send out a few days ago with my seal on it?”
Dammit. “You allow me to use your seal and sign your name to almost all correspondence. So you’ll have to be more specific, Fa—”
“Cut to it,” he snarled.
So she would. “I sent a message to Annwyl of the Dark Plains.”
He stared at her for so long, she knew he had no idea who she meant. “All right.”
Without another word, he stood and picked up his favorite battle ax. Mornings were for battle training in the Northlands, when the two suns were in the sky but the air was still at its coldest. As her father walked out of the Main Hall, Kikka put down her spoon and loudly asked, “Isn’t Annwyl of Dark Plains also called the Mad Bitch of Garbhán Isle?”
Dagmar had only a moment to look coldly across the table at her worthless sister-in-law when The Reinholdt stormed back in, Dagmar’s brothers suddenly disappearing in the face of their father’s rage.
The blade of The Reinholdt’s ax slammed into the dining table, the sound of cracking wood scattering the remaining servants. Before Dagmar could speak a word, her father yelled, “You sent a message to that crazy bitch?”
Gwenvael stared at the Queen of Dark Plains and worried. She seemed so weak. Weaker than he’d ever seen her before. And pale, which didn’t fit a warrior queen who spent most of her time outdoors with her troops, killing all those in her way. Her skin had always been golden brown from the sun. Not as brown as Talaith and Izzy, but they were from the deserts of Alsandair where everyone was born in varying shades of brown. Annwyl was not.
Yet these last few months, as her belly grew larger and her twins more active inside her, Annwyl had seemed to have none of the glow of other first-time human mothers he’d seen throughout his travels. Instead, she looked drawn and tired.
“What is it, Annwyl?”
At least she’d finally stopped crying, but now she stood at the window and silently stared down into the courtyard.
“What’s wrong, my queen? You’re not your usual self.”
She smiled. “I’m not your queen.”
“You are when I’m here. And as your loyal and most loving of subjects, I just want to help.”
“I know you do.”
“So what is it, Annwyl? What is it that has you so worried that I’d bet five gold pieces you haven’t even told Fearghus.” When she turned farther away from him, he sat down in one of the sturdy straight-back chairs and held his hand out to Annwyl—he wasn’t fool enough to approach her again when she was in a mood. Not with those damn swords no more than arm’s length from her. “Come tell Gwenvael what you cannot tell my dear—but not nearly as handsome or charming—brother.”
After a long moment, Annwyl took Gwenvael’s hand and allowed him to place her on his lap. He stroked her back while she dug into the pocket of her gown. She handed over the piece of parchment, and Gwenvael immediately looked at the wax seal still stuck to part of it. He didn’t bother immediately reading the letter itself because he’d found that who letters came from mattered almost as much, if not more, than what was actually stated inside.
“Whose seal is this? I don’t recognize it.”
Annwyl let out a sigh. “The Reinholdt.”
“The Reinholdt?” He frowned in thought; then his body jolted. “Good gods! That madman from the north?”
“The very one.”
“Honestly …” He glanced again at the letter. “I didn’t know anyone in the Reinholdt Clan could write.”
Dagmar patiently waited while her father ranted. He must have had another sleepless night, because he lasted longer than usual. Although she was impressed by two things when her father got like this toward her. Not once had he ever touched her in anger or with violence and not once had he ever made his screaming fits personal. While more than one of her sisters-in-law had called her “plain bitch” or “ugly sow” when wittier words had failed them, her father always kept it about his issue. And his issue was usually that Dagmar had overstepped her bounds.
Usually … she had.
When her father finally stopped long enough for her to speak, she said, “I think you underestimate what Queen Annwyl can do for us.”
“Besides bring her love of blood to our door?”
“Father,” she soothed, “you can’t listen to rumor.” She smiled. “That’s my job.”
“Ohhh, you have a job now?” Kikka asked sweetly, all smiles.
And, all smiles herself, Dagmar asked her, “I didn’t know Eymund bought you a new dress. It’s beautiful!”
Her brother Eymund, who’d been conspicuously absent upon their father’s return, walked back into the Main Hall. “What? What new dress?” He glared at his young wife. “New dress?”
Kikka’s glare was almost worth every moment of having to deal with The Reinholdt.
Dagmar turned back to her father and raised her voice to be heard over her brother’s yelling. “Now, Father, I do understand your concerns. But we cannot ignore the kind of ally Queen Annwyl would make. It is believed she has near a hundred legions at her disposal. All of them trained and ready.”
Her father rested his big fists on the table, and Dagmar knew she was no longer talking to the frightening warlord feared throughout the Northlands, but Sigmar Reinholdt. The man who cared greatly for his people and his kinsmen. “It’s Jökull you’re worried about. Isn’t it?” he asked, not looking at her.
“With good reason. We can no longer ignore your brother.”
“I ain’t been ignoring him!”
“He’s increasing his troops, buying them apparently. Your men are clearly preparing for a siege. I want to help and Queen Annwyl allows me tha
t.”
“I don’t need your help, little miss.”
“No. You need hers. And I see no shame in it.”
Her father cleared his throat, glanced around, and muttered, “You know this ain’t ya fault.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t know that. But when she didn’t reply to his statement, her father took a large breath and slowly let it out. “What are we giving her?”
“Information.” They could afford to give her little else.
“You and that bloody information.”
“It’s what I barter in.” She leaned forward, looking him right in the eyes—one of the few unafraid to do so. “I need you to trust me on this.”
He snorted and stared down at the table, Dagmar patiently waiting.
When he finally grabbed hold of his ax handle, yanking the weapon from the table, she knew she’d won—or at least gotten a short-term reprieve.
“Don’t push your luck with me, little miss,” he grumbled.
Of course she would. She was so good at it.
As her father walked out, a servant rushed in. “My lady, Brother Ragnar approaches.”
She nodded and stood, her appetite long having left.
“Look all”—Kikka sneered, her husband still ranting about “all the bloody coin you spend!”—“another male who won’t be bedding our little Dagmar.”
“And then there’s you, sister.” Dagmar leaned down and finished on a whisper, “Who will apparently fuck anything.”
Heading toward the doors and her respite from idiocy, Dagmar heard her brother snap, “What did she say? What are you doing?”
Gwenvael skimmed the note quickly. “The Reinholdt wants you—they’re very clear on that ‘you’—to come to his territory to save the lives of your unborn children. You know, personally, I don’t appreciate him trying to order my lovely queen about, but what really bothers me—”
“Is that the barbarians already know I’m having twins?” At Gwenvael’s nod, she added, “And if they know that, they might already know I’m no longer as fierce as I once was.”
“You won’t be expecting forever, Annwyl. And once the twins are here, you’ll be as violently cruel and madly bloodthirsty as you always were.”
“Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“Is it working?”
“A little.” She closed her eyes, and he knew she was in pain, the “twinges,” as she called them, happening more and more lately. She took a cleansing breath and went on. “But even if I wanted to go to the Northlands myself, Fearghus will never let that happen. And Morfyd! Gods, the whining.” Gwenvael’s older sister, a powerful Dragonwitch and healer, could wear the scales off a fast-moving snake when she was in a mood. “Besides, someone I thought adored me told me I was too fat to travel.”
“That is not what I said, although I love how all of you willfully misinterpret me. And how quick we are to forget I did notice that your breasts had grown even fuller and more lovely. If that’s possible.”
Annwyl laughed and shook her head. “Not even a modicum of shame.”
“Not even a teaspoonful. Now, we both know you can’t travel, so what would you like me to do? Want me to write them back for you? I think we both have to admit that I have a way with the written word that you do not, my lovely.”
“This is very true.” She turned a bit on his lap so that she looked directly at him. “But I thought perhaps you could go in my stead.”
“Me? Go back to the Northlands?” he scoffed. “I’d rather eat bark.”
“Do you think I like asking you to take this risk? Especially with the reputation you left behind?” She raised a brow. “Ruiner.”
“You know, they weren’t virgins,” he argued as he’d been arguing for decades. “They stumbled upon me at the lake. Took advantage of me. They used their tails in a manner I found enticing, and I did what I had to do to survive the horrors of war.”
“Is it true you, and you alone, is specifically mentioned in the truce?”
“As long as I keep my distance from Lightning females—you may also know the Lightnings as the Horde dragons, my beautiful majesty”—he gave her his most appealing smile but she only stared at him, so he continued—“I can go into the Northlands for short periods of time.”
“Then I need you to go. But to be quite honest you’re the only one I can send.”
The admission surprised him. “I am?”
“I can’t send Morfyd. She’s female, and the Lightnings would snag her faster than you can lure a local girl to your bed.”
“What a lovely analogy. Thank you.”
“Besides, your sister is needed here because she’s the only one who can stop Fearghus from killing his own parents.”
Gwenvael barely stopped his angry frown, determined to keep the conversation as light as possible. “I see Mother still refuses to believe your babes are Fearghus’s.”
“I don’t know what she believes, and I don’t care. She hasn’t been here in six months since she was first told and that’s fine by me.” Gwenvael knew that to be a lie. That fight had been the ugliest he’d seen among his kin, and though all of Fearghus’s siblings had stood by him and Annwyl that day, the whole thing had hurt Annwyl more than anyone wanted to admit.
“I can’t send Keita,” she went on, “because she’ll have all the men turning on each other and won’t even remember why I sent her. Besides, when is she ever here for me to ask?”
Gwenvael couldn’t argue with her on that. His younger sister was more like him than anyone in their family. Only a couple of decades apart, they’d always been close and understood each other well. Yet he’d noticed that over the past few years, Keita had been spending almost all her time as far from Devenallt Mountain and Dark Plains as she could manage. She had her own cave but was rarely in it, and when she did return home, things often became uncomfortable between her and their mother. When he thought about it, Gwenvael couldn’t remember a time when mother and daughter had gotten along, making family get-togethers quite intense. Then again, Gwenvael lived for that sort of tension and often found perverse pleasure in making it worse.
“Of course there’s Briec, but—” Annwyl looked for words but couldn’t seem to find anything to say about the arrogant, silver-haired dragon, and ended with, “Do I really need to expound on Briec?”
“Not to me.”
“And Éibhear is still too much a babe. Besides, to be quite blunt, you’re the most politically savvy of the entire bunch.”
Gwenvael smiled, shocked and truly flattered by her statement. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course I do. I’m not blind. And one should always know the strengths and weaknesses of the allies they have surrounding them. My father used to say that … you know, before he went off and destroyed something or someone.”
She chewed on her thumbnail, a habit she’d developed over the last few months as her stress level grew. “In the end, I’m sure you’re the only one who can truly do this.”
“And I’m sure you’re quite correct on that point, but what do I get out of it?”
Annwyl dropped her hand into her lap. “Get out of it?”
“Aye. What is my reward for doing this task you’ve set for me?”
“What do you want?”
Grinning, Gwenvael craned his neck forward a bit and, using his thumb and forefinger, gently pulled the bodice of her dress forward.
“Stop that!” She slapped at his hands and laughed.
“Come now. I’m just asking for a moment to immerse myself in the lush garden of your bosom.”
“The lush garden of my …” Annwyl shook her head. “You’re not immersing yourself in any part of me, Lord Gwenvael.”
“Now, now. I’m only asking for a chance to play with them a bit.” He stuck his nose in her cleavage and Annwyl laughed and pushed at his head.
“Gwenvael! Stop it!”
The front door slammed open and Fearghus stalked in. “What the hell’s going—” Blac
k smoke billowed from Fearghus’s nostrils. “Get your nose out of there.”
Taking his sweet time, Gwenvael looked up into Fearghus’s raging face. “Oh. Hello, brother. What are you doing here?”
Dagmar smiled warmly when the gates opened and several monks came in, two pulling a large cart weighed down with books. Books brought for her.
“Brother Ragnar.” She briefly bowed her head in respect.
“My Lady Dagmar. It’s so good to see you, my dear.”
Brother Ragnar, a longtime monk of the mysterious and rarely seen Order of the Warhammer, had been bringing books to Dagmar since she was ten. It was the one thing about her father’s fortress and the surrounding towns that kept her sane—non-warring travelers who always had information she found of use. Brother Ragnar was definitely her favorite of all their regular visitors, but she’d met and talked with many—most of them monks or scholars—over the years, learning much about a world she’d never seen. They brought her books, news, and gossip that she often used to help her father and her people, but it was Brother Ragnar who’d actually tutored her in reading, writing, and negotiation skills.
He’d taught her much from the beginning, suggesting ways she could get what she wanted from her kinsmen without ever appearing as if she were trying. “Why be a battering ram, my dear, when you can simply knock on the door and be let in?”
He’d been right, of course. Like he always was.
Dagmar took his right arm since his left hand held onto his traveling stick. She never could see much of his face because of the cowl he always wore but doubted he was extremely old based on the sound and strength of his voice. And although he’d been wounded badly, his body broken and weak, he hadn’t lost his spirit. The eyes that gazed at her from the darkness of his cowl were a vivid blue with strange flecks of silver throughout the iris and were always bright and lively.
The Order forced Brother Ragnar, even with his body broken, to walk everywhere although she’d offered more than once to purchase him a horse. But it came down to the sacrifices monks of every order were forced to make, which Dagmar would never understand—wasn’t life difficult and painful enough without adding more misery to it?