Read Online Maidensong by Mia Marlowe - Free Book Online Page B

dangerous mouth.
      “ Ja, of course.” She smiled back, in spite of her best intentions. “But Swanhilde was desolate. ‘How shall I know how it goes with you?’ she cried. ‘You could be wounded or fall ill.’ Ragnar, being a clever man, devised a way for them to send messages at a distance. He made two white flags and two black flags and gave her one of each. ‘Watch for my drag onship in the channel, and if all is well with me, my white flag I’ll fly. If you fare well, drape you your white flag over the keep so that my heart may be eased also,’ said he.”
      Bjorn breathed deeply, tension draining from his body. It seemed the evil dream receded in his mind. “ That sounds a good plan.”
      “ It was, at first,” Rika said. “When weeks turned to months and Ragnar came not home, but only sailed by from time to time, Swanhilde’s heart grew hard to ward him. For she reasoned, when men go viking, they leave their hearts behind and take their bodies with them. She wondered if Ragnar had forgotten her in the arms of an Anglish girl. So she decided to test him.”
      “ Oh, this is never a good thing.” Bjorn shook his head.
      Rika pursed her lips in reproof and then continued. “When she saw his dragonship approaching, she draped the black flag over the keep and hurried to the water’s edge. There she laid herself down and told her maidservants to weep over her as if she were dead.”
      “ Hmph!” Bjorn raised a dark brow at her. “Definitely not a good thing.”
      Rika ignored him. “Ragnar saw the black flag from afar and jumped into the sea, swimming with mighty strokes to beat the ship to shore. He staggered from the water and saw his love lying there, dead, as he sup posed. A berserkr cry burst from his lips and he drew his dagger. Before anyone could stop him, Ragnar stabbed it into his own heart and fell down, dying.”
      “ I knew testing the man was not a good idea,” Bjorn said with a small smile of vindication on his lips.
      She rolled her eyes at him. “Do you want to hear the end of the story or not?”
      “ Ja, please.”
      “ Swanhilde jumped up—”
      “ Knowing she’d done wrong,” he said.
      “ Ja, knowing she’d done wrong,” Rika mimicked, “ but there was no help for it. Ragnar was already gone. She pulled the dagger from his chest, kissed his cold lips, and—”
      “His lips wouldn’t be cold yet,” Bjorn interrupted.
      “ Would you like to tell the story?”
      “ No, please go on.” He leaned back, obviously en joying himself. “Sorry I interrupted you.”
      “ She pulled the dagger from his chest, kissed his cold lips,” Rika repeated. “And plunged the knife into her own heart.”
      “Ah, nothing like a pair of dead lovers to cheer a body up.” He grimaced at the irony.
      “ You’re the one who wanted a maidensong,” she reminded him.
      “So I was. Thank you, Rika. I think I can sleep now.” He offered her the ale one last time and when she shook her head, he drained the horn. “You know what Ragnar and Swanhilde’s problem really was, don’t you?”
      “I imagine you’ll tell me.”
      “ Timing.”
      When Rika screwed up her face at him, he went on. “ If Swanhilde had just opened her eyes a moment sooner, the tragedy would’ve been averted. Timing is everything. It changes the course of a battle. It deter mines whether a crop will fail or thrive. There is a proper time for everything under the sun. If a moment slips by for something to happen and it doesn’t, that moment will not come again.”
      He set the empty horn on the floor and then leaned toward her. “And I think the moment has come for me to kiss you.”
      She shrank back. “But what of your oath?”
      “ Not to bed you till you begged me?” he asked, moving ever closer.
      “ Ja, that’s the one.” She was sure the whites must show all the way around her green eyes.
      “ It still stands,” he said softly. “I only