Page 104 of Heart of Winter
Then: “Just out of curiosity,” Ragnar drawled, glancing up from beneath golden brows. “Whatareyour plans with the South?”
None of your fucking business, Erik thought. But if he was to try to sanction the Beserkirs in front of the entire Northern Council, then he would need the Úlfheðnar on his side.
He took a breath and said, “Leif is going to wed the Drakewell girl. It’s a marriage contract between North and South, the same as my parents had, the same as my great-grandparents had.”
“Isn’t the Duke of Drakewell dead?”
Erik wanted to know how he knew that, but Ragnar was wily, and he always had his sources. Gossip here tonight at the feast, if nothing else. He nodded.
“And no heirs? That would make Leif the duke, then.”
“I applaud your deductive skills.”
“Ass,” Ragnar said, without malice. “Would he serve there, in Drakewell, as an absentee king of Aretoll? When you inevitably die of stubbornness? Or will little Rune sit the throne here?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Rune isn’t so little anymore.”
“I did notice. I noticed when he was cold-cocking one of my best men.”
“Your best.Thatwas your best.”
“Fuck you, Erik. What’s to become of Aeretoll?”
“It will endure as it always has,” Erik said, firmly. “Under my leadership, until I am old and feeble and don’t know my own mind anymore. Or until I fall in battle” – that got an eyebrow quirk; Aeretoll hadn’t been a part of anything like a true battle in years – “And then Leif will sit the throne here, a true king of my line, and an agent will represent his interests in Drakewell. It is an acquisition of valuable property, nothing more. Don’t tell me you would turn away from such a prize if it fell into your lap.”
Ragnar’s smile was chagrined. “An opportunist like me? Not a chance.” He sobered. “Still.” Stood. Met Erik’s gaze head-on. “Come to the Midwinter Festival ready to persuade and to soothe. You’ll have to assure the clans that you aren’t going to go Southern on us.”
Erik nodded, though the words chafed at him. Aeretoll’s business was its own, and no one else’s. Who was Ragnar to caution him about foreign dealings? To suggest he come meekly to the negotiation table with the kind of disordered rabble who’d murdered his brother-in-law? Who hated him for what he had, but who scorned the means by which he held onto it?
“Oh,” Ragnar added, “you should bring your new plaything, too.”
An image of Oliver as he’d looked tonight popped into Erik’s mind: his pale face a little pink from the heat of the room, and the strength of the wine; the candle flames catching on the gleaming russet of his hair, even brighter than the sapphires winking along the little braids that Erik had plaited with his own fingers. He’d been resplendent in blue, fine-featured, and beautiful enough to put everyone else in the hall to shame. Erik had sat next to him and ached, wanting to touch, wanting to enfold him and keep him away from all the prying, judgmental eyes, though Oliver didn’t need that protection, his chin lifted, and his gazes slanted and cautious. He was well versed in protecting himself – though Erik wished he hadn’t had to be.
He thought of him, and he looked at Ragnar’s smug smile, and a growl built in his throat. “Mywhat?”
Ragnar’s smile only widened. “It’s very charming how besotted you are.”
“I will–”
“But I’m being serious.” The smile fell away. “If the Beserkirs are sowing doubts about your loyalty, then you have to prove that the pretty Southern boy occupying your bed isn’t also filling your head with anti-North rhetoric.”
“If you say one more word–”
“You can snarl at me all you want, but you know I’m right. You taking a consort was bound to cause a stir anyway.”
“He isn’t my consort.”
“Not yet,” Ragnar said with a snort. “He will be. You think you’re so cold and smooth – with your lover’s beads and your lingering looks. He’ll be yours, and then what? What happens when he’s accused of being a spy sent to turn the king against his own people?”
Erik opened his mouth to argue – but found he couldn’t. That wasexactlywhat people would think.
He said, “Oliver isn’t a spy.”
Ragnar shrugged. “I believe you. But you’ll have to get the North to believe you, too. Scratch that – Oliver will have to get them to. He has to prove himself to your people, and you know it.
“If he belonged to the Úlfheðnar, he could slay a bear and kill a man in combat, and that would be the end of it. But down here in yourkingdom” – he rolled his eyes – “it’s a lot more dull and complicated.”
Erik’s fists tightened – fruitlessly. There was nothing he could do. Nothing but prove, over time, that Oliver was no threat to the North – that he was Erik’s partner, and not a political agent…if in fact he wanted to be his partner.
