Page 12 of The Stag & The Owl
“Yes.”
Alina flung a few of her Uncle Han’s favoritecurses at Roark as she climbed down the ladder, and glared daggersat him when he picked the iron cuff up, waiting with irritatingpatience until she finally held out her left arm and he clapped itaround her wrist.
“Is it true?”he asked, his voice low.“Whatyou said about this Fenrir and his yellow beards?”
“Every word.”
“Why should I believe your version and notLeif’s?”
Alina met Roark’s gaze and held it.“Becausemy version was witnessed by two hundred people.”
***
Roark stood at the ship’s bow, the sun on hisface, the wind at his back, Leif’s and Alina’s words swimming roundand round inside his head.For ten years, he’d been listening toRoger’s and his brother’s, Donald’s, stories of the young, upstartJerrik showing up after years at sea to take the throne of SeaRidge from his dying brother and keeping the younger brother fromassuming the throne he’d been trained to rule while Jerrik had beensailing across the known world.Not only had he forced his way ontothe throne, but he’d brought his young and inexperienced Rus wife,an outsider, to rule as his queen.
According to Roger and Donald, the new kingand queen had run rampant over the kingdom, displacing long loyaljarls and karls with their own people and concocting a tale of liesand treason against Fenrir and his sons and loyal guard, whomthey’d denigrated as yellow beards, in order to strip them of theirlands and titles and send them into exile.
Roger and Donald had been two of the banishedguard and had fled with their wives and children and widowedmother, who’d contracted a virulent sickness that had taken herlife along with those of Roger’s and Donald’s infant sons on a longand winding journey, which eventually landed them in the GreenIsles, where their uncle, Ronald, welcomed them into his home.
Aging and without a living wife or children,Ronald had named Roger his heir.He’d died six moons later of awasting sickness, and Roger had become the new laird of North ShoreKeep and Donald his chief counsel.Leif, Roger’s eldest and onlyliving son, had been three years old at the time, and Gwyneth hadbeen born at the keep four years later.
Now Roark was helping carry out theMacKinnons’ revenge on King Jerrik and Queen Alyssa by kidnappingtheir only daughter and delivering her to Roger to be held forransom.He laid his hand over the vial of White Milk in his tunicpocket and shook his head at his luck, which was either really goodor really bad, depending on how he looked at it.
Not only had the kidnapping gone off withouta hitch, but the wind had shifted in their favor as if on cue.Asif the fates had ordained everything that had happened was meant tobe.Yet by a cruel twist of those same fates or the gods or dumbfucking luck, Roark had fallen head over heels in love with Alinathe moment he’d spied her racing her horse on the beach, legs bareand hair flying.
He told himself over and over Alina would bekept safe, that she was worth a king’s ransom whole and intact.Yethe couldn’t ignore Leif’s salacious interest in her, or his threatof leaving her for his father, which could have simply been Leifspouting off.Or not.
Roark shook his head and toed the deck withhis boot.Roger was many things, but foolish wasn’t one of them.Hehad to know Jerrik’s retribution would be swift and mercilessshould anything happen to Alina.
“Damnation.”
“Sir?”Roy stood holding a bowl of themorning’s porridge.“Captain said you’d likely want to take theprincess her breakfast yerself.”
Roark took the bowl down into the hold andheld it out to Alina, who sat on her pile of furs glaring athim.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste any betterthan it looks,” he said as he handed the bowl of half-congealedgroats with a boiled egg sitting on top to her.“But it’ll fillyour belly and keep your bowels moving, which can be a problem on aship.”
“So I’ve been told,” she said, taking thebowl from him and peering at its contents.
He sat down beside her as she took onedistasteful spoonful, swallowed with a grimace, and then another.He recalled the delicious food he’d eaten at the festival.PrincessAlina had likely never been forced to eat such a piss-poor excusefor a meal in her life.Still, she finished the bowl withoutcomplaint.Something Gwyneth never would’ve done.With Gwyneth, theporridge would’ve ended up on the floor or the wall and the entireship would’ve heard about it.
“Do you want more?”he asked when she handedhim the empty bowl.
“No.That was quite sufficient.”
He glanced up at the open hatch but saw noone lingering about.“I’ve heard Roger’s and Donald’s telling ofhow they came to be in the Green Isles many times over the years,”he said, speaking low.“Will you tell me your version again, inmore detail?”
She told him of her parents’ long, strangecourtship, of how her father happened to be in port when hisbrother, Bard, died of a wasting sickness, how his family hadbegged him to assume the cursed throne.She told him of how herUncle Aaron died saving her father from a rock slide, of her fathersailing east and marrying her mother in her home before bringingher to Sea Ridge as his bride and queen.
She told him of Fenrir’s and his wife,Ermelinde’s, campaign of lies and betrayal against her parents, ofhow her father had believed their lies, as had his father, causingthem both to deny their wives.She told him how her father began todoubt Fenrir’s lies, how he and his men set a trap for Fenrir andhis yellow beards, of the public trial that followed, where thewater scryer and the stable hand who’d spoken against her motherconfessed their lies, forced on them by Fenrir.
She retold the rest, how her father hadkilled Fenrir in a trial by combat that Fenrir had demanded, howJerrik had then banished Fenrir’s widow and two adult sons andtheir families from Sea Ridge, along with the yellow beards loyalto him, when by rights, he could’ve had them all killed.The eventshad been witnessed by hundreds of people.People who’d chosen tostay at Sea Ridge under Jerrik’s and Alyssa’s rule and hadprospered there along with the thousands of others who emigratedthere.Facts, she reminded Roark, he’d seen with his own eyes.
“Thank you,” he told her, taking her emptybowl and climbing the ladder back up to the deck.
If he’d had been back at North Shore Keep,Roark would’ve taken a long ride through the countryside to go overall he’d heard, seen, and done since theThe Roverhaddropped anchor in the port of Sea Ridge.But all he could do on theship was pace back and forth across the deck under the curiouswatch of Leif and the ship’s crew.
He’d heard Roger’s and Donald’s story so manytimes he could repeat it by heart, along with their grievancesagainst King Jerrik and Queen Alyssa, at whose feet they placed allof their ills and troubles.Which weren’t that bad, consideringRoger was now a wealthy, landed laird of a keep in a prosperousport town, and Donald his right hand and chief counsel, severalsteps up in rank and wealth from men at arms for this Fenrir.
