Raging Sea by Terri Brisbin

tea. Ingeborg knew much about herbs and plants and made several different varieties. This one was her favorite, and Ran was pleased that Ingeborg remembered.
    â€œSo you saw Soren and he told you of Einar’s passing?” Ingeborg asked.
    â€œAye. I went looking for Einar to thank him for his letters these past two years, and found Soren at the broch.” Ran could not stop rubbing her hand across the lid of the box in which the letters sat. “He said Einar passed quietly?”
    â€œRan, I know you were special to him. He spoke of writing to you after . . .” Ran shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “Soren spoke true—Einar passed in his sleep. He was buried next to his wife.” Ingeborg nodded to the box. “Are those his letters?”
    â€œAye. Soren asked to see them. He said Einar had been confused the last few months and he wanted to see if the letters could help him understand why.”
    â€œEinar was disturbed, surely, but never confused,” Ingeborg said with conviction. “I’ve thought on it much since he passed. At first, when he lived, I did think him confused, but not now. He was disturbed over some matter.”
    â€œDisturbed?”
    â€œHe was convinced he had failed in some duty and that his end was coming without having the opportunity to carry out some task. It brought to mind a holy vow made and broken.”
    â€œBut to whom would he make such a heartfelt promise? His wife before she died? Their son?” Ran watched Ingeborg’s face as she shook her head. “Then who?”
    â€œThat I know not. Mayhap Soren does? Einar left a packet for him.”
    Ran did not speak then, thinking on seeing Soren again, at the broch. Mayhap Soren did know more? In the silence, she took a deep breath for courage and asked the question she wanted most to know.
    â€œHow does she fare?”
    Ran could not speak the name of the woman Soren had seduced and ruined, then had to marry. Not yet. Not ever. Ingeborg’s face lost all its color and she dropped the cup she held. Tea splashed on her skirt and the floor, but Ingeborg only stared at Ran.
    â€œYou do not know? Your father did not tell you?” Ingeborg asked. Ran found it difficult to breathe, knowing that whatever Ingeborg said was going to be terrible. She shook her head and put her cup down.
    â€œTell me what, Ingeborg?” At her request, Ingeborg slid from the stool and knelt in front of her. Taking Ran’s hands in her own, she met Ran’s gaze and whispered the news.
    â€œAslaug is dead. She died just after you left, falling from the cliff near her father’s house.”
    Ran gasped and shook her head at this. Dead? Her brother Erik had loved Aslaug for years and planned to marry her. When his best friend, Soren, betrayed all of them and seduced Aslaug, all their neatly made plans for the future fell apart. In one act of betrayal, Soren had torn apart three lives and his own. When her condition was made known, her father disowned her, forcing Soren to marry her or lose all honor.
    â€œShe was carrying . . .” Ran could not finish the words.
    â€œAye. Both gone in a moment.”
    Ran’s throat was thick with burning tears as she thought on the ending of the young woman’s life. And that of the babe she carried. No matter what she might have blamed Aslaug for, Ran had never wanted her death or that of an innocent life either.
    â€œSoren?” she asked, using only his name.
    â€œHe was not there. ’Twas said that Aslaug went to beg her father’s forgiveness and he denied it. They found her body the next day when Soren went looking for her. He was . . .”
    The opening door stopped her words.
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    Soren stepped inside and looked at Ingeborg and then Ran. When no one spoke, the uncomfortable tension told him that he was the subject under discussion. From the pale look on his