Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (19 page)

Deira
’s breath slipped from her. She skimmed a glance over her hands and garments, then began sniffing them — fingers, dress, hair. Catching up the hem of her mantle, she chafed her throat and began rubbing her arms.

“
Deira. Deira. Calm yourself.” Rhiannon stilled her cousin’s hands. “You can’t scour the smell away like that, goose. Leave some skin. ‘Tis water you need and a bit of soap. We haven’t the latter, but see here, there is the water that warms by the fires.” She gestured to a small, soapstone kettle that sat in the ashes. “Come. ‘Tis meant for cleaning the platters and cooking tools, but what say you we spare a little and refresh ourselves?”

Deira darted a glance about, apprehensive, and began to twist the cord of Murieann
’s girdle that she wore at her hips. “Mayhap we will anger them, and they will hurt us.”

“
Don’t be a mouse.” Rhiannon grew impatient. “The men tend to their ships and do not mind us so closely now. Besides, their only real concern is for their stomachs and that we feed them soon. Here, now.” Rhiannon drew Deira down to the ground with her. “We shall both wash. What harm can that bring? First I will assist you, then you can help me.”

Quickly Rhiannon dipped a spare cloth in the water, wrung it out, and pressed it to Deira
’s face. Deira smiled at the soothing warmth and, accepting the cloth, stroked it upward over her chin, nose, cheeks, and forehead, then downward again, along her hairline, and over and beneath her jaw.

Rhiannon swept back Deira
’s hair, exposing the graceful line of her neck, and encouraged her to continue. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed Hakon watching.

“
Doesn’t that feel wondrous?” Rhiannon heartened. “Here, let me help you from your mantle.”

“
But, what if — ”

“
Deira, if anyone so much as frowns in our direction, I promise, we shall stop. Truly.”

Trusting, Deira conceded with a brief nod and removed her mantle, then set aside the precious girdle as well.

Rhiannon worked swiftly to unlace the neck of her gown and open it wide. She cajoled her cousin with pleasant words as she helped to wash further — the base of her throat, collarbone, the curve of her neck, and the beginning of her shoulders. Rhiannon strove to expose as much flesh for Hakon’s viewing as possible. ‘Twas far from sufficient.

Rhiannon smile
d. “Feel better? Now, let’s wash your arms.”

She folded back Deira
’s sleeves, revealing long, slender arms which she knew many considered to be lovely, but an asset for which she personally held no envy. Had she not heard that Norsemen possessed a fetish for feminine arms? That they praised their ladies’ slim, white arms in verse? The Irish found this very amusing, but to look at Hakon, the reports must have been true.

“
There, now. Done. Cover your arms and let us see to your legs. We are almost finished, and ‘twill be your turn to help me.”

Rhiannon breezed a glance to Hakon, assuring that he still watched them. He did. Most intently.

She began to draw Deira’s gown upward — only to the knees at first — mindful to not upset her cousin, but equally mindful to feed the fires of Hakon’s desire till the flames licked high. Rhiannon eased the skirt higher still, in such a way that it seemed she only held it out of the way as Deira scrubbed her lower legs.

“
Best bathe as much as you can,” Rhiannon urged. “No telling when we can indulge ourselves like this again.”

She raised the gown high on one side, to Deira
’s hip, displaying a lean but shapely thigh. Deira began to object and tug it downward. “Wash quickly, if it affrights you, Cousin, but do wash. Wherever the dogs have touched you, surely they have left their smell.”

Clearly repulsed by the thought, Deira set the cloth to her leg. Rhiannon slanted a glance to Hakon. He stood motionless, his eyes fixed on Deira, near
ly salivating. Rhiannon smiled inwardly, then yanked the gown downward, covering Deira’s leg before she could finish cleansing.

“
Mayhap you are right, Cousin. We shouldn’t tempt fate. Here, refasten your cincture.” Rhiannon handed her Murieann’s girdle.

Before Deira could retie the belt, a shadow fell over her.

Deira’s hands stilled. Slowly she lifted her eyes, only to meet with Hakon’s smoldering gaze. Her face twisted with anguish, and she shook her head in dread as he reached down, unlocked her ankle cuff, and dragged her to her feet. Sweeping the cincture from her hands, he scooped her up in his arms and headed for the shrub.

Rhiannon watched Hakon
’s receding back as he carried Deira a distance and dropped down with her behind a screen of flowering underbrush. Her lips curved in a smile.

Turning, she met with Ailinn
’s hard-eyed glare.

Rhiannon tossed her head, sending her ebony locks tumbling from her shoulders. Mentally she dismissed Ailinn and took a step toward the kettle. At once pain twinged the underside of her foot as she stepped onto something akin to a root. Moving off it, she discovered the knotted cord of Murieann
’s girdle. Kicking it aside, she then took hold of the ladle and gave the stew a vigorous stir.

Rhiannon glanced about the camp, avoiding eye contact with Ailinn, and sought the handsome warrior.

‘Twas an easy matter to arouse Hakon. But what did it take to arouse the white-haired Dane?

»«

Lyting stretched out his long frame before the crackling fire, leaving one leg bent and bracing himself on an elbow. In his hands he slowly turned the silver arm cuff of Askel the Red and studied the engravings there.

Several men called over from another, nearby fire, hailing him with cups of ale and commending him for his triumph at Riga. Lyting smiled back and nodded his appreciation.

On his return from the forest, after securing the area with the scouting party, he made the expected rounds, joining the ships’ crews for a celebratory drink, discussing the tactics he had employed with sweep-oar and movable clew-beam, and quietly accepting their words of praise.

A brief but drenching rain drove them temporarily to shelter, but now they gathered about the fires once more and satisfied their stomachs with fresh roasted game. The aroma of cooked partridge and grouse lingered in sensory
contrast to the clean, rain-sweetened air.

Comfortably full and tired to the bone, Lyting was grateful to be relieved of watch this night. Grateful again to find a moment of calm to examine the Varangian
’s inscription:

The spider yet spins in the palace of the Caesars.

Leidolf, Thengil, Vegeir dead.

Lyting mulled the words. His gaze then moved from the runes to two small
characters that had been incised on the underside of the band as well — one to either side of the cuff’s opening — the
I
and the
omega
of the Byzantines’ Cyrillic alphabet. Rurik and he had discussed them at length, but they remained a mystery.

As Lyting shifted the band, catching the firelight, he noticed that the lines of the Cyrillic engravings did not match those of the runes. The Cyrillic letters looked to have been incised with a different tool, for the width of the lines were wider, heavier.

Had Askel added these letters in haste, just as he departed Constantinople? But why use Greek-styled letters when he had already inscribed the longer message in runes? Symbolic, for a surety. But of what? Something new that Askel discovered after making his original engraving?

Mayhap
these letters represented the very thing that prompted him to leave the city and join the army destined for Dyrrachium. But, did his interest lay with the army or something in Dyrrachium? Whatever he’d uncovered, ‘twas important enough to draw him from the circle of the throne, leaving only Koll — the last of the “Varangian six,” save Rurik — to guard against the “spider.”

Lyting looked again to
the two markings. The Cyrillic
I
was identical to the Greek
iota
, but the
omega
was wholly different. Instead of being horse-shoe shaped, the Cyrillic
omega
looked more like two Latin G’s facing each other — joined at bottom, but not touching at the top. At a quick glance they appeared to be two little arms, curving upward above an abbreviated head. Lyting rubbed his eyes, deciding for a certainty he must be tired to see such things.

For a time he tried to fit words to the characters, but with no success. Someone
’s name then? he wondered. Lyting stroked his thumb beneath his lower lip as he mentally culled the names his brother had given him.

Continuing to puzzle the inscription, he glanced to the right where Skallagrim sat before his tent and mended a line. To the chieftain
’s other side, Hakon spoke in low tones with Ragnar and Orm. The women clustered together on the opposite side of the fire, and he noted that the auburn-haired beauty appeared in a dark mood, provoked by something.

But
‘twas the younger of Hakon’s slaves that gave him pause — the pale-looking girl with a tangled mass of brown hair. She looked to be in a haze as she rocked herself back and forth, all the while rubbing a green braided cord against her cheek.

Lyting
’s concern deepened. She was like a dove with a broken wing, fragile, vulnerable. Had her spirit been broken as well?

Frustration
rode him, accompanied by a welling anger. He felt caged. Barred from helping her in the least of ways, for to do so would bring her even greater harm. Hakon had made himself clear. He would give the man no excuse to abuse the girl further.

Yet,
he must do something, Lyting resolved.

Mayhap
he could arrange something in Kiev. Rurik had provided him names of contacts there, also. One family came to mind in particular, one of a respectably high station. Mayhap they could make the girl’s purchase for him, posing to seek a houseslave and offering Hakon more than he could refuse.

Encouraged, Lyting thought to provide them enough silver to secure her and keep her in Kiev until his return. Against the possibility that he did not return, he would leave additional coin and arrange that she be sent on to
Valsemé before winter.

Lyting slipped on the silver arm cuff and raised himself to a sitting position. As he refined his plan, he
saw the raven-tressed slave suddenly stand and snatch the cincture from the younger girl’s hands.

»«

“Stop clutching at Murieann’s belt!” Rhiannon snapped, heaving the piece as far from them as she could. “She’s
dead
, Deira.
Dead
.”

“
That was needless and cruel,” Ailinn rebuked, coming to her feet, fighting the chain that encumbered her ankle. “The belt comforts Deira. ‘Tis all she has left of her mother.”

“
Fool. She cannot hold on to the past any more than she can change it. She must look to the present and take hold of herself. She must look to the portion that now fills her cup and face reality.”

“
What reality is that Rhiannon? The one our captors force on her? Or the one you do?”

Anger flashed across Rhiannon
’s features. “What should I expect from a lowly Érainn?” she hissed. “We must each do what we must to preserve ourselves, whatever the cost.”

“
Even at the expense of your own blood kindred?” Ailinn challenged.

Rhiannon
’s eyes thinned to slits. “Even that.”

“
You are contemptible.”

“
I am strong.”

Rhiannon raised her chin imperiously.
“I have no intention of enduring a lifetime of abuse or of filling an early grave. I can see to myself. And I
will
survive. I promise you that. But will you? Do you have enough steel in your spine to win against fate?”

“
Mayhap not.” Ailinn met her gaze, unflinchingly. “But whatever comes, I will not thrust others in harm’s path to save myself.”

“
Then you are doomed,” Rhiannon sneered her satisfaction, her eyes glinting with the fire’s light.

“
My faith and my hope are in God. His arm is not shortened by our plight.”

“
Well spoken by the last virgin of Clonmel,” Rhiannon hurled with derision. “But what have
you
suffered to speak thusly? What heathen has spread
your
thighs?”

“
Look well, Rhiannon,” Ailinn grit out. “I wear the same chains as you. I await the same fate as the one you now bear. Do not play the martyr. You do not deserve the crown. Suffer? There is the heart of suffering.” She opened her hand toward Deira, then turned back on Rhiannon. “One can only suffer that which touches the heart. But you have shown yourself to have none. Naught beats within the hollow chamber that lays beneath your breast.”

“
Bitch,” Rhiannon seethed. “ ‘Twas chance that spared you, a deception that protects you still. Many of us will soon be swelling with little pagan bastards. Your own stomach might remain flat but not for long. Not when I — ”