Blood Feud by S.J.A. Turney

Author:S.J.A. Turney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

‘Two weeks,’ grumbled Bjorn, dipping his cup in the large earthenware container they had acquired and pulling out a sizeable measure of the local heavy, amber-coloured wine. It was not a drink Halfdan had come across before, and he had discovered quickly that it swept the legs out from under a man much faster than ale. Bjorn seemed to be able to handle it in the same relaxed manner as beer, of course, though it was often hard to tell when the big man was inebriated anyway.

‘Two weeks too many,’ Halfdan nodded, his eyes lifting and his gaze playing across the other figures in the tent. They were all similarly frustrated and becoming fractious. Two weeks was a long time for any man to spend in a tent, especially a man born to wander the gaunt lands beneath the cold northern skies.

But stay here they had. Not once had even Halfdan ventured beyond the encampment, for Queen Borena had made it perfectly clear that the fleet was not welcome in her city, which was Kutaisi, the capital of this land. He could hardly blame her, in truth. With her husband and his army off fighting in the east, she had little in the way of military might to protect her city, and near a thousand silver-hungry Northmen hovering at the edge of the place would make any leader nervous. Moreover, that display of pointless violence at the dockside had hardly done their reputation any good. Not that Halfdan had any qualms about killing, of course, for silver, or land, or love, or revenge. But killing for no reason was wasteful and risky.

The queen’s shadow loomed over the entire encampment, which was another source of concern for Halfdan. The notion that this queen, who was now interfering with their journey, and who now saw Yngvar alone in her fortress most days, might be that shadow of which the Völva had spoken was one that would not go away. Even Gunnhild had nodded sagely when he’d voiced the fear, for she already distrusted the queen in some nebulous way. That the queen could seal the jarl’s fate in her own chambers while Halfdan and his friends loitered, trapped among the tents, was not encouraging.

‘I hate this tent,’ Bjorn grumbled, drawing him back to the now. ‘And I hate the queen. And I hate Georgia. And I hate not having women around…’ A quick sidelong glance at Gunnhild, which she parried with a glare. ‘At least the wine takes the edge off the boredom,’ he sighed.

The queen’s soldiers had provided great tents not unlike the ones the nomadic peoples of these regions used, and so a large encampment had been set up outside the city beside the river where the ships could be guarded. A fence of wicker and posts had gone up around it, and men only left that fence with the permission of the queen.

How fiercely the rule of non-fraternisation was to be upheld was made clear on just the

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