The Mercenary's Claim Read Free Page A

sent him, by way of Sir Steffan, made no mention of you. We offered him lands in exchange for breaking the siege.”
    “What lands did you offer? I thought Father’s holding were not very prosperous of late, what with all the fighting.”
    “You knew about that? We had hoped to keep it from you. As it turns out, it wouldn’t have mattered if we had offered him the Garden of Eden. He wasn’t interested in just land. He wanted respectability, as he put it, which to him meant not only land, but a title to go with it and a noble wife to gain him access into society.”
    Kirsten sat up, leaning on an elbow. Looking over to the table where once there might have been a plate of grapes or some sweet breads there was only a pitcher and a cup of water which she drank from gratefully. “I see. Well, it isn’t as if I didn’t know it was possible. What are we daughters for anyway, if not to be bartered off to the highest bidder? I hadn’t thought it would be done so quickly or so late at night.” The bitterness in her voice surprised even her.
    “We had no choice, Kirsten. Surely you can see that. The siege. The war. It has to end. And there was no time to find another way. We never dreamed he would dare to enter the castle and negotiate, much less want you as a wife. But there he was, popped up out of nowhere like a stage devil in a pantomime.”
    “Rather large for a demon. They’re usually short weedy little actors with raspy voices,” Kirsten commented with a smile. “This one is more like the Goliath.”
    “Well, it’s a Goliath that’s on our side, for a change. We need a friend and this one… well, I don’t know. Your father flatly refused at first and I nearly fainted. I could just see Gustav storming off in a rage, but he didn’t. He merely smiled patiently and pressed his suit. Sir Steffan was strangely supportive, and I wondered at the time. Now we know that this Gustav seems to have made a lot of friends when he was a youth. He knew Sir Steffan’s family as well as Father Paulus when he was a lad. They seem to think well of him. And you can’t deny, he is handsome. You could have done worse with some of the choices your father had been contemplating.”
    Kirsten looked at her mother and blushed hotly. “Now we’ll never know, will we? I might have fallen in love! It could have happened. Now it never will.”
    Lady Helena gave her daughter a curious stare the younger woman did not understand. “I’m glad for your sake it didn’t. Then where would we have been? And only the young say ‘never’. Those of us who have seen a bit of life know that never is a very long time. Things change. I have a feeling young Sir Steffan may be right. Things may work out for the best. Gustav may turn out to be a good man.”
    “And what makes you think such a thing? You’ve known him what, all of an hour or so?”
    “When you fainted, he came back into the room to scoop you up and place you on this rug, then drag the whole thing closer to the fire. Not many men would have bothered or even heard. They should have been too far away to hear you fall.”
    “Wonderful, a giant with better than average ears.”
    Lady Helena stood and reached down to help her daughter up. “Come on then. There’s no use waiting here any longer. The men will be out all night, getting things ready for the dawn attack.”
    “Dawn? He’s not wasting any time, is he? Well, I suppose we don’t have any time to waste.”
    “If we did, you wouldn’t be a married woman now.”
    Kirsten heard the sorrow in her mother’s voice and repented of her harsh tone earlier. “You didn’t know Vatti before you married him and look how that turned out! At least I know he’s a good fighter.” Then her spark of hope diminished again. “What if he isn’t as good as he’s supposed to be? What if he loses? I’ll be the wife of a vanquished foe.”
    “You mean the widow, more likely. I don’t think he would surrender. I get the impression he