Erinsong Read Free Page A

name.”
    “Your daughter is right. I
don’t remember any thing before I woke up
on this beach.”
    Brian squinted at him,
taking his measure. “ ‘Tis easy enough to
trick a woman, but ye’re daft if ye be lieve I’ll be fooled by a Northman.”
    “Better we should just kill him, says I,” one
of Brian’s men grumbled.
    “Hold there, Connor,”
Brenna interrupted the king’s bloodthirsty follower. “One Northman
alone isn’t likely to harm us. Alive, he
may be useful. We know precious little
about the Finn-Gall. I’ll warrant he remembers more than he wants us to know. Or
he will, if he’s allowed to live. I’d like
to know how he comes to speak our language. If he’s dead, he can’t
tell us anything.”
    The king’s gaze shifted to
his daughter for a flicker as if
considering her words. Even so, the Donegal raised the point of his arrow at the Northman
again.
    “Are you a betting man, Brian of Donegal?”
the Northman asked, his voice surprisingly calm.
    The tip of the arrow dipped
slightly. “What wager have ye in mind, Ostman?”
    Northman thumped the cask
with his knuckle. “This barrel came up out of the sea with me. It’s
ei ther full of ale or salt water. Here’s
my wager: If the drink is good, I’m telling the truth about not
remem bering. You lose nothing by letting
me live.” He shrugged eloquently. “If the
ale is foul, then you can kill
me.”
    “We can kill ye at
will, Ostman, and
use the ale to toast your dead carcass.” Nevertheless, Brian’s
keen dark gaze swept over the briny cask.
Then he looked again at his daughter, an
unspoken question in his narrowed eyes.
Brenna sent him a silent entreaty, and the
Northman’s hopes rose. The Irish princess pleaded his case without
a word.
    Clever
girl . Now if only the Irish king doted upon his offspring to heed her.
    Brian eased the tension in
his bow and replaced the arrow in the
quiver slung over his back.
    “Wager accepted, Northman,”
the king said. “Ye are either a fool or a
brave lad. Come back to me keep and we’ll
raise a horn to prove which. No sense in drinking out here when we
can do it in comfort. Aidan, take the
cask. Connor, bind his hands.”
    The Northman’s wrists were cinched together
and the knot jerked tight. Then he was shoved into line with the
Irishmen as they began plodding up a path leading into the hills.
Brenna walked ahead of him and he allowed himself to enjoy the
twitch of her hips as she climbed.
    “Princess,” he whispered to her.
    She didn’t answer him, but she turned her
head to one side, so he knew she’d heard him.
    “ I
thank you for your help.”
    “ ‘Twas not for ye I
spoke,” she whispered back. “ ‘Twas only
sense. If you’re no use to me father, he’ll kill ye anyway.”
    The Northman expected no less. “Why didn’t
you introduce me properly?”
    “How could I be doing that?
There’s nothing proper about ye,
Northman,” Brenna hissed at him.
    “I’d like it better if you found something
else to call me. Northman isn’t a well-favored name around
here.”
    She flashed a look back over her shoulder
that should have reduced him to cinders.
    They walked in silence for
a while, the only sound the even thudding
of leather-shod feet on the hard-packed path.
    “I don’t understand,” he
finally said. “Why do you all hate my kind
so?”
    Brenna whirled and planted her fists on her
waist.
    “Look ye into yonder
clearing and tell me what you se e.”
    He peered through the
spindly stand of trees. Scorched grass surrounded
black ened timber and the crumbling ruins
of a round struc ture. “Looks like there was a fire.”
    “Aye,” Brenna said. “There
was a fire, but before that there was a
crofter’s cottage where a man and his wife lived with their three
bairns and one on the way. Liam and Colleen, they were, and they
had nothing of value—nothing but each
other. After the Northmen came, all we
found were charred bones. And ye wonder that we hate
ye.”
    “I’ll not