Heart of the Viking (Band of Bastards #2)

Epilogue

August 1286

“A small chest was delivered from Hawkspur today,” Galiena whispered after Red placed a gentle kiss on her lips. It wasn’t the kiss he wanted, but it would have to suffice for now if he did not want to wake the babe in her arms.

The light of a single taper illuminated the look of contentment on her angelic face. It was a look that Red would never tire of, and a look he expected was reflected on his own face at this moment.

“Ani was fussing,” she said softly with a smile so full of love that it made his heart twist in his chest. “I think she needed her mama to hold her.”

“I think it is fair to say it is her mama who needs to hold her.” He chuckled gently, as he reached down to pick up Ani’s sleeping twin brother, Erik, and cradle him against his chest. He had not protested when Galiena wanted to name the little girl after her dearest friend Anora, and she had agreed to name the boy for his commander and closest confidant—though she preferred Hawk’s given name of Erik for the boy instead of the moniker of “Hawk”. Red would have been satisfied with either.

Galiena scoffed quietly. “As if you are any better! I’ve woken many times in the night to see you with one or both of them asleep on your shoulders.”

Red could not deny it. After his wife, the next best things to have in his arms were his son and daughter. He’d been ecstatic when Galiena had informed him the previous autumn that she was with child. But when her belly grew so distended and heavy that he doubted her ability to stand upright without falling forward, he’d started to get fearful. If the baby took after him in size, surely it was too much for a woman so petite to birth. But Lady Alyce had assured him that many women smaller than Galiena had birthed large babies and both mother and child flourished.

He’d spent many hours in those last days before the babies came with his arms around his wife, cradling her swollen belly in his hands to take some of the weight of it off her. It had driven him almost mad with worry while she labored to deliver the first baby, and then to find out there was another!

He’d been terrified that it would be too much for her tiny body to birth a second baby, and then he’d worried that the tiny babies would never grow hale enough to thrive. But like their mother, who had the strength of Freyja coursing through her veins, the little warriors grew stronger with every day, their hardy wails soon filling the manor at all hours of the night and day.

Anora and Erik had survived the cold, wet days of early spring and grew fatter with each passing day. Red had felt some of the fear and panic release their iron hold on his chest as mother and babies gained in strength and vitality in the months since the birthing.

“At least when they are asleep, I don’t have to worry about you throwing them up in the air until they are breathless with giggling,” Galiena chided, though the curve to her lips told him she was not bothered by his playing with the babies.

He put Erik back into the cradle, then reached for Ani as he raised a questioning eyebrow at Galiena. “Are you ready to put her down?” When she nodded and held his daughter up for him to take, he took the tiny girl in his big hands, and marveled at her little bowed lips and the puff of fine, dark hair on the top of her head, which he kissed before placing her next to her brother.

Galiena stood and he wrapped her in his arms as they both stared down at their babies. The children had taken after their mother in coloring, both with dark hair and grey eyes, but already Erik was beginning to outgrow his sister and was becoming a hefty boy. Secretly, Red hoped his son would be as big as his father so that he could protect his little sister when Red wasn’t there to look after her. Even if he wasn’t big, Red had nothing to worry about because he knew Hawk would ensure Erik would be trained by the best warriors in the kingdom, even if he wasn’t there to see it.

He dropped a kiss on the top of Galiena’s head and then whispered. “Will you come to the solar with me?” The babies had been sleeping in their chamber from the day they were born and neither mother nor father were ready to move them to their own bedchamber as of yet. Though the babies were too young to take notice of their parents’ activities, when Red wanted his wife completely to himself, he took her to the solar where they could take their time making love on the fur before the hearth.

Galiena looked up at him with a seductive grin on her lips and the sparkle in her silver-grey eyes that still made his breath catch in his throat. “Has my husband missed me today?”

Taking Galiena’s hand, Red pressed it to his lips. “Always, even when I am away for only the day.”

He led her from their chamber and down the stairs to the solar. He’d already stoked a fire in the hearth and brought up tankards of wine. He guided her to one of the pair of cushioned chairs that faced the fireplace and set a cup of wine on a low stool within her reach.

“Tell me what the wee little ones did today,” he urged, taking a long drink of the fragrant wine. As much as he preferred ale, he’d learned to appreciate the drink that was his wife’s preferred choice in the evenings.

“Ani is trying to crawl,” she said with a wistful smile. “But Erik is very contented to lay on his belly and watch her scoot across the floor.”

He laughed at the image of his determined daughter and carefree son. “He can take his time. There will be plenty of years to come where he will long for idleness.”

Galiena smiled and nodded, but he could see the apprehension in the creases around her eyes. She would never get over the pain of losing her first child, Nahara. He’d always been sympathetic to her loss, but now that he had children of his own, he better understood the fierce protectiveness they invoked and the constant terror of losing either of them. He could not fault parents who resisted forming too strong of an attachment to their children because they were as likely to survive to adulthood as not. But it was too late for him to adopt that frame of mind; he was as smitten with Ani as he was with his wife, and the pride he felt swelling his chest every time he looked at Erik was overwhelming.

Deciding it best not to dwell on thoughts of gloom, he instead looked at his wife’s serenely beautiful face, as she sipped her wine and relaxed into the chair. She sighed and her lips relaxed into the smile that had become his reason for living from the first day they’d met.

“Tell me of your day, Husband,” she said, turning those mesmerizing grey eyes in his direction, the light from the flames making the silver specks in their depths dance.

“The breeding pair Hawk purchased from Spain arrived,” Red told her.

“I’d forgotten that you had requested horses from Spain,” she said. “Are they what you hoped?”

He nodded. “They are. Once they settle in, I will show Hawk why they are superior to anything else for warhorses.”

“He is not convinced?” she asked, raising a sleek, black eyebrow at him.

“He trusts my opinion when it comes to breeding and training horses, but I’ll feel better when he can see the value of what he paid for the pair.”

“He tasked you with creating the strongest and best warhorses in the kingdom,” she said with a smile full of pride. “If you say they are the best, then they must be.”

He loved her unwavering confidence in him.

He loved her.

He reached for the pouch at his side, but his hand was stayed when she said, “I am dying of curiosity, Red. Will you not open the cask on your desk? Lady Alyce seemed to think it was from the king.”

He laughed as he stood, “If you were so curious, you need not have waited for me to open it.” He pulled the dagger from his boot and pried the lid off the wooden cask. He turned the dagger over in his hand before returning it to the sheath on his calf, as always admiring the intricately carved, ruby-eyed wolf. While the knife had been a gift from his uncle and had been the instrument that brought an end to the man who took the lives of his mother and his uncle, it had also saved his wife from meeting the same dire end at the hands of that same murderous man; Red had carried it since the day he’d lost his family and one day when Erik was old enough, he would pass it on to him, along with the history of the knife’s origin and the deeds attributed to it. The knife’s twin, with its similarly carved wolf bearing emerald eyes, had been left with the king; it had been in the possession of the evil man—the queen’s cousin—for so long and used by him in so many heinous ways, Red had not wanted to keep it. The ruby-eyed wolf was enough of a legacy to pass on to his son.

He set the lid to the small wooden chest aside and looked down at a rolled parchment sealed with the royal seal and nestled in a bed of straw. Carrying the box over to Galiena’s chair, he kneeled next to her and held it out. “You should finish opening it.”

She picked up the parchment and broke the seal, then unrolled it to read aloud, “We are returning your family treasure to you, but it’s been crafted into a new form in honor of the new lives you’ve brought into this world. May the pain of the past be put behind you and may the Lord bless your children with health and renewed hope for their future.” She tipped the parchment toward him, pointing toward the two elaborately designed and intertwining E’s.

“Edward and Eleanor,” he confirmed.

She set the parchment aside and then peered tentatively at the bed of straw, hesitating before lifting a handful of it away to reveal the contents. Then she gasped, her mouth dropping open as she reached in and scooped up the gifts to hold up to the light from the fire. In each hand, she held a beautifully crafted silver cup. Each of them was adorned with the profile of a wolf, each facing the other when held side by side. The wolves had their front paws propped on a stone as they stretched their necks heavenward with their mouths parted in a howl. Each had a dazzling emerald for an eye, and at their feet were the links of a broken chain.

“Fenrir’s broken restraints and his pups to carry on his legacy,” Red said, admiring the work. He blinked hard to clear his blurring vision, then cleared his throat. He stood and gently took the silver cups from her hands so he could place them on the mantle of the fireplace, the green eyes winking in the flickering light from the fire. Then he sat on the large chair next to the hearth and held out his hand to Galiena. When she placed her delicate hand in his large palm, he tugged so that she would come to him, then settled her on his lap.

Other than when she was naked in his arms, this was his favorite time with his wife, alone in front of the fire with her on his lap, safe in his arms. As she always did, she draped an arm around his neck and stroked his cheek with her other hand. “Are you happy with what the king did with the dagger?”

He cradled her shoulders in one arm and gently tugged on the ties at the neck of her thin chemise with the other. “Aye. It had been turned into something evil by the queen’s cousin, and I did not want the memory of it. But I like that it has been melted down and turned into something representing the hope of the future—our future, and our children’s future—but is still a reminder of my uncle and my homeland.”

“Hope,” she repeated in a whisper as she rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip. As distracting as her touch was to him, her solemn tone indicated her words required attention. “It is something I thought I would never feel again.” A small smile curved her lips as she lifted her gaze to meet his. “But you changed that.”

“No, kitten, you changed that—” he stared into her wide, silver-gray eyes—“when you burst into the lane and into my arms and chose me as your husband.”

She laughed. “I called you ‘husband’ to escape a ruthless killer. You thought I meant it.”

“Why would you not, kitten? I knew the moment I saw you that you were to be mine.” He dipped his head and nuzzled the side of her neck. “I could only assume you knew the same the moment you saw me.” His words were muffled against the delicate skin behind her jaw, just below her ear where he knew her to be sensitive to his touch.

“It took some convincing,” she said, tilting her head to give him better access, just the way he knew she would. “I might need more convincing.”

“Is that so?” he asked, nipping the lobe of her ear between his teeth.

“Love me, Husband,” she gasped, “before the babes awaken again.”

With her cradled in his arms, he rose from the chair, then lowered her onto the plush fur spread before the hearth and showed her in every way possible just how much he worshipped her.