“We come for the spaewives,” he announced to the room at large. “We are taking them.”
“Why?” I cried and he settled his disturbing gaze on me.
“No fear. We mean no harm.”
“No harm?” I asked.
The tattooed warrior dipped his head. “You can go with the spaewives, if you wish.”
“Begone from this place,” the abbess cried. “Take those wicked girls and leave us in peace.”
The tattooed warrior raised a brow. He exchanged a look with another warrior. The wolf at his side backed out of the room.
“Wait,” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Outside, a girl screamed, “Help!” briefly before the sound cut off.
I flinched and said quickly, “I will go.”
“As you wish.” The warrior drew close, and raised his head to sniff the wind. “You are a spaewife.”
“I am Sister Juliet.”
He said something to me, and I shook my head. I couldn’t hear him over the din and distant screams.
“Little wife,” he repeated and opened his hand to me.
I hesitated. Was I really going to do this?
Before I could back away the tattooed warrior grabbed my arm and wrenched me through the door. The second, long haired warrior followed.
Then the world tilted, and I screamed. The warrior had caught me up over his shoulder and carried me off.
“Put me down.” I beat my fists upon his back. He only quickened his pace. We were in the forest, the abbey disappearing, crowded out by the thick canopy of tree branches.
I bit back a scream and tried to think. Fighting would do no good. Neither would shouting for help. Who would hear?
I would have to think. But I could not. My thoughts tumbled about. Perhaps I would open my eyes and find this all a dream.
A burst of cries in the distance had me craning my head to see where the warrior was taking me. There were torches ahead, in a clearing between the trees. There, a circle of warriors surrounded a group of young women in white shifts. I recognized them from the abbey orphanage.
The warrior who held me swung me down. I tried to stagger away from him, but he held my arm. Steadying me as well as keeping me close.
The group of girls saw me and turned, sobbing. I jerked toward them, fighting the warrior’s grip. He gripped me harder, but when I reached for the girls, he let me go.
The orphan girls surrounded me, shaking and crying. A few warriors ranged around us in a loose circle. Others darted to and fro, entering the abbey and carrying out more orphans, adding to our number.
“There, there,” I murmured. My throat was dry, but I grabbed a young one and cuddled her close. “It will be all right.”
“What is happening?” one girl named Meadow cried. A monstrous wolf brushed by her and she screamed, lurching away from it. Her cry was echoed amid the rest of the girls.
“I don’t know.” I swallowed my fear. “Hush now, be calm. Here, now, see to the young ones.”
Tears tracked down Meadow’s face, but she turned and obeyed, gathering two younger girls to her.
I shifted the girl I held to my other hip. She buried her face in my neck. “Shhh,” I told her. Clover, that was her name. Another orphan, named by the nuns. She’d come to us as a babe, and I was the only mother she’d known.
The warrior who’d grabbed me hovered at my back. I turned to glare at him.
“What will you do to us?”
He stared at me a moment before speaking. The whorls and swirls of his tattoos went up his neck, and I found myself wondering why a man would mark his skin so. “It’s all right,” he said finally. “You have nothing to fear.”
“No, of course not,” I practically spit at the warrior. “You attack us in the middle of the night and drag us out of our beds. Why would we be afraid?”
He blinked. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. The grin made my pulse quicken, and I backed away, more disconcerted by his amusement and my reaction to it than the whole wild night.
“You are not afraid of me.”
I swallowed my retort. I was afraid, wasn’t I?
The warrior tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You have no boots.”
I looked down at my bare feet. “Of course I have no boots,” I said, exasperated.
The warrior opened his mouth to say more but the long-haired warrior nudged him. “We go.”
“Go?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Go where?”
But the tattooed warrior only clamped his large hand on my upper arm and pulled me away.
And then followed days of hell, as the warriors made us march to their mountain. The Berserker warriors were not unkind, but the days-long journey wore me to the bone. Often as not, I walked in the center of a ragged group of the orphan girls. Meadow helped me calm them and wipe away tears. At times the young ones grew so tired of walking, the warriors carried them.
“Who are they?” Meadow whispered to me one night when we lay down by the fire for a few hours rest. My calves ached and I couldn’t feel my feet. I’d left the abbey in a shift and nothing else. I’d marched mile after mile barefoot.
“They are warriors. Northmen.” I’d guessed as much from the tales I’d heard of tall, pale men who fought with axes and sailed dragon-headed ships. They were fearless and left slaughter in their wake. I could easily see these warriors as that dreaded horde. “They served as mercenaries and settled in the mountains.”
“Did they tell you that?” Meadow’s voice held awe.
“No.” I could’ve asked. Two of the warriors were often at my side. From their conversations with other warriors, I learned the tattooed one’s name—Jarl. The tall one who stalked me like a shadow was Fenrir. Whenever they were near, my skin prickled with awareness. But I ignored them as best I could.
Meadow chewed her lip, her eyes on the warriors sitting around the fire. Every once in a while, a warrior would leave and a few minutes later, a wolf would stroll from the forest. I shivered at what that might mean.
“But why do they want us?” Meadow asked finally.
“I don’t know.” But deep down, I did. But it wasn’t something a nun, especially one young as me, should think about.
I rolled away from Meadow and fell asleep, and when dawn came, I woke to a new pair of boots and a thick cloak sitting by my head. Both nicer items of clothing than I’d ever owned.
I put them on and they fit perfectly. When I looked up, Jarl was watching me from across the fire.
But I turned away. And neither he nor Fenrir said anything to me, though I knew they were responsible for the gifts. For the rest of the trip I refused to speak or even look at them. I would not thank them, or think of them, or acknowledge what their gifts might mean.
2
Juliet
“I heard the warriors talking. Laurel is with child.” Meadow slouched next to my bed, chewing on her lip.
“Good for her.” I swung down, wincing at the cold. Autumn came early in the mountains. I grabbed my cloak—the one Jarl and Fenrir had given me—and swung it around my shoulders. It was dark blue and lined with rabbit fur. Heavy and warm enough for me to wear through the winter.