Sold to the Alpha novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Paid

At noon the great hall was fuller than I had ever seen it.

Lords, guards, cooks, grooms and laundresses crowded the benches, and the ones who could not find seats stood along the walls.

I came in last, still in my kitchen smock, with the folded bond in my fist.

Hetta had wanted to lend me her good apron.

I had told her I'd stand there in my own clothes or not at all.

Ketil sat in the high seat.

Sigrun leaned against the wall behind him, arms crossed.

Ivar Haugland sat at the long table below the dais with his keys in his lap.

The hall fell quiet as I walked up the middle.

My boots rang on the stone.

"Thyra Lorne," said Ketil.

His voice carried to the beams.

"Come up."

I climbed the three steps and stopped an arm's length from his chair.

The pull in my belly strained toward him.

I did not let it show.

"You signed a bond in Dunmere," he said, "to serve in my kitchens until you had worked off six hundred silver marks."

"I did."

"Hold it up."

I held it up.

"In two weeks," said Ketil, "you have cost the south twelve raiders and cost us nothing.

"I set a price on that in the first hour, and I did not tell you."

He took a small purse from his coat and set it on the arm of his chair.

"The Hold owes you six hundred marks for the traitor in its bread.

"I am paying it now."

A gasp ran down the benches.

He held out his hand.

I put the bond into it.

He did not look at it.

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