Page 59 of Ulf's Destiny
“You will just have to tell your master that if he wants to speak to my grandfather, he’ll have to come himself. In a few weeks’ time of course, once he’s back and can actually meet with him,” he told the guards, enjoying their discomfiture.
“Grandfather.” The tallest of the men lifted his chin and looked at the way Ulf was holding his grandmother. “You’re his grandson then?”
“Yes.”
The Saxon looked at the other two. “What do you think?”
The men grinned. Sinister grins. “I’m thinking it’s good enough for now.”
21
“Is Ulf here?”
Ylva looked around the hut, surprised not to see him. His mother had just told her he had gone to see Wolf with Steinar and she was impatient to tell him what she had understood.
That night, after a wonderful evening getting reacquainted with her brother, she’d had a dream. She was running on the beach after three laughing, blond-haired children while Ulf watched from the side, a fiery-haired baby in his arms and a smile on his face. It could mean only one thing. The six of them would one day be a family. For this to happen, she and Ulf had to agree to stay together. They would not only raise the child she was carrying together, they would also marry. Love would come, she was sure of it, because, in truth, she was already halfway to being in love with the handsome, protective Norseman.
How could she not be after all he had done for her? With her?
“Is Ulf here?” she repeated when Merewen didn’t answer. She was looking at her, a stricken expression on her face.
“No. He’s been arrested,” she said eventually.
Her heart had suddenly exploded, Ylva was sure of it. There was no other way to explain the crippling pain ripping through her chest.
“Arrested?” she breathed. Why? How? When?
Why?
“The reeve’s men… Just now, they— They wanted my husband, but he wasn’t there so they took Ulf instead.” The poor woman was wringing her hands in her anguish. “Steinar had just left to warn Wolf, I was alone and I could do nothing to stop them. I’m so sorry.”
The reeve? But… “I thought the reeve and Wolf were friends?” The man had helped save her the previous year. Why had he suddenly turned against the Icelander?
“It’s a different one, elected a few months ago.”
Of course, now she remembered Oslac telling her as much the night before. But what did the man want with the Icelander, or Ulf for that matter? Ylva could not think, she could barely breathe. This was a nightmare.
Just then Steinar came back, looking as stern as usual. “All clear?” he asked, looking around the hut.
“No. Well, yes, but…the men took your son instead of Wolf. I’m sorry, I couldn’t do anything to stop them.”
Ylva could only watch as the same pain exploded in Steinar’s eyes as it had in her chest a moment ago. She had a vision of how he must have looked when he’d seen a young Ulf at the hands of that madman, Godfrid. Her heart went out to him.
“Faðir!” he called out, running to the forest, presumably in search of Wolf, who’d been told to hide.
It was not long before the two men burst through the door, eyes ablaze with fury.
“Little one, tell me all.”
Looking paler than Ylva had ever seen anyone, Merewen explained what had happened. Instead of going back empty-handed when they couldn’t find the man they had been sent to seize, wary of the reeve’s reaction when he saw they had not carried out his orders, the guards had taken Ulf, as a kind of hostage, and possibly to appease their hurt masculine pride.
“I thought that lying and pretending you weren’t here was the best thing to do but if I had known they would?—”
“You did nothing wrong,” Wolf and Steinar said at the same time.
The Icelander drew his wife into his arms and let out what Ylva imagined to be a frightful series of curses. “This has been brewing for a while. Elstan did warn me that his successor was holding a grudge against Norse people and would create problems for us. It seems he was right.”
“Ulf put up a fight, as you imagine, but there were three of them, all burly and angry at his resistance. One of them was badly hurt before the other two managed to tie him up,” Merewen said on a sob. “And now I fear for his life. The men said they would make him pay for the wounds he inflicted on their friend once the reeve was finished with him. I tried to run to Magnus, Haakon, anyone, but they stopped me.”
