‘Cedric,’ she said in warning.
‘We should have killed him the first night you brought him here. I will remedy that now.’ Cedric moved forward, pulling a dagger.
Rurik tensed, prepared to defend himself with his bare hands if necessary. Hot oil from one of the lamps scattered about the room could hurt Cedric enough to slow him down. He made to move towards one, but Annis stepped in front of him. Her back was to his chest as she faced Cedric.
‘He will not be hurt. I won’t stand for it.’
A swell of tenderness came over him, completely at odds with the fury of the fight burning in his veins. She stepped back so that her body touched his, a human shield. His arms ached to hold her, but he would not allow her to stay between him and the dagger, not when he didn’t know if Cedric could be trusted with her.
Cedric paused, but did not lower his dagger. ‘We cannot let him go. It will only be a matter of days before someone else is here for retribution. Their death will be followed by another seeking vengeance, and another in a never-ending cycle that will persist until a great war swallows us all whole.’
Rurik stepped to the side, but Annis followed him, keeping herself between him and Cedric. She grabbed his thigh and a frisson of longing rippled beneath his skin. He took her wrist, intending to pull her away from him, but his hand lingered instead. ‘I will go in peace as long as I have the names of the assassins,’ he said.
Cedric raised a prominent brow. ‘And we cannot trust you. There is no trust between enemies.’
‘Then we are at a standstill.’
Silence descended on the chamber, only broken by the sound of Wilfrid’s harsh breathing. A gleam shone in Cedric’s eyes and the corner of his mouth tipped up in a slow smile. ‘There is one option left unexplored.’
‘Cedric, do not!’ said Annis, the panic in her voice suggesting that she still believed he meant death.
Whatever the man was about to say, Rurik had the strange feeling that the conversation had been leading to just this moment all along, that Cedric had manipulated them towards it. He held his breath.
‘You could marry Annis.’
Marry Annis? He could hardly put the two words together in his mind. ‘What?’
‘If you are Lord, you will hardly be inclined to bring destruction down on your own people. One would hope you would not want to harm your own wife, but if you did, there is the threat of death from Jarl Eirik to stay you. When you think of it, short of your death, it is the only way to protect Glannoventa from you.’
Whether that were true or not, Rurik could not say. He could only stare in disbelief. When he could finally draw a lucid breath, he moved to look down at Annis. Her face was pale with two spots of colour riding high on her cheeks. She seemed to be as shocked as he was, which indicated that she had not spoken to Cedric about this. It was not planned. Or at least, not with her knowledge. He quickly looked down at Wilfrid, still seated at the table. The old man did not appear shocked at all. The glimmer in his eye indicated that he and Cedric had discussed this.
‘I do not understand,’ Rurik said. ‘How did we go from my death to this?’
Cedric returned his dagger to its sheath and stood as if he had not threatened Rurik only a moment before. ‘Our meal is on the table. Let us discuss it as we eat. Wilfrid needs his rest.’ Before anyone could reply to that, Cedric left.
‘Did you have a hand in this?’ Rurik knew it was unlikely, but he had to know.
Annis shook her head. ‘Not at all. This is not something you should consider. I will discuss it with Cedric.’ Turning her attention to the large manservant hovering behind Wilfrid’s chair, she said, ‘Irwin, see that Father is comfortable.’ Then she leaned down and placed a kiss on the old man’s cheek. ‘You have been plotting, I see. We will talk about this when you have rested.’
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a grumble and then she walked out after Cedric. Rurik watched the guard close the door behind her and felt as if his legs were wooden and his feet stuck to the floor. He could not go after them even though every part of his body urged him forward. They would not move.
‘Rurik,’ Wilfrid said in that way of his that fused the R and K sounds together.
‘You agree with Cedric? You believe that marriage is the best way forward?’
The older man gave a jerky nod.
‘Why? What do you get out of this? You would marry Annis to the son of the man you claim to despise?’ Because Rurik was so shocked, his words came out more harshly than he intended, but Wilfrid did not seem to take offence. Instead, he gestured that Rurik should retake his seat. After some negotiation with his still-reluctant legs, Rurik accepted and sat down heavily.
‘I get to die knowing she is well.’
‘I came to kill you. How do you know that she will be well?’ None of this made any sense to him.
‘You’ve not killed me and you’ve not harmed her.’ His words were halting now as if he were having more trouble forming them. ‘You had chances. You didn’t do it.’
‘Perhaps I am simply biding my time.’
For the first time Wilfrid looked impatient. His face flushed and it seemed as if the words wanted to spew out of him, if only his body
