Lord of Hawkfell Island (7 page)

Ottar laughed. “Aye. But the other women say that she must take her turn, that it isn't fair she just perform one task—no matter how well she performs it.”

“She has remarkable talents,” Hafter said, grinning, his blue eyes lighting up. “Surely it is enough to occupy her time.”

Ottar just laughed. “Aye, 'tis enough that she part her legs for me, for you, Hafter, for Gurd, or for you, Sculla—”

“Nay, not for me,” Sculla said. “I would crush her were I to take her.” This, Rorik thought, was probably the truth. Sculla was so tall he had to bend over to enter the longhouse. Sculla and Amma were well suited, at least in their respective sizes. Ah, but Amma was a sharp-tongued woman, taking no orders from the men, even her husband.

“Entti much enjoys herself,” Rorik said. “She is a woman of calling. You, Ottar, may cease your listing of men's names.” He sighed. “It's not just Entti's cooking, though it is bad enough. The other women seem to have forgotten what ingredients go with what and the most simple of preparations. I don't understand it. I have asked why anyone would put onions in porridge, but Old Alna just shakes her head and grunts. If the women don't regain their skills, we will all be dead or lying about with cramping bellies. They suffer just as we do, which makes it even more a mystery.”

Hafter shook his head. “Perhaps they will take a new vote and decide to remove Entti from the cooking pots. It's been nearly three weeks of her cooking—Old Alna swore to me Entti had cooked all the time whilst we were gone. She said the other women were trying to teach her, but it was not a skill she took to easily.”

“Alna is a treacherous crone,” Sculla said, hunching down so his head didn't strike against the low-lying oak branches just off the path. “She lies like a virgin born, the old crone. I've always admired her. So does Amma.”

“Women are stubborn,” Ottar said, “mayhap even dangerous, for their thinking isn't reasonable like ours. Even my little Utta gets a notion and I can't move her from it. Her mother was the same way. Sweet and gentle one moment, then her chin would go up, her eyes would turn black, and I knew I would be stupid to open my mouth to disagree with her. By Thor's hammer, we'll all starve before the women reverse their vote. Mayhap you should speak to Old Alna, Rorik.”

“I did,” Rorik said. “She spoke of how I had made her responsible for the homestead and how she was doing her best. She then gave me a look that clearly said I would be a brutal monster were I to complain more.”

Aslak stared at them, laughed until he choked, spat on a rock in his path, and marveled aloud, “You are all blind. I have been here only a day and have seen that the women are preparing wretched meals apurpose. You surely don't believe they're eating the same food they prepare for us, do you?”

“That is foolish,” Hafter said, swatting at a fly. “You're wrong, Aslak. They wouldn't dare.”

“Ha!” Aslak said, louder this time, shaking his head at them. “Don't you see? The women are punishing all of you for taking Entti to your beds.”

Sculla said, “None of the men who are wedded seek her bed, or if they do they are cautious about it, they don't boast of it to their wives. Aye, they creep about very carefully. Gurd is very sly about it.”

“I wonder,” Rorik said.

“You are all fools,” Aslak said. “I know it is the truth. It's as obvious as the snout on that boar.”

“Women,” said Ottar, “are occasionally shrewd in their cunning. They shrink from nothing. I think Aslak might be in the right of it. We should—that is,
Lord Rorik
should simply order that Entti doesn't touch another piece of food. It is for the women to obey, especially to obey you, Rorik. You will simply tell them what to do and what not to do and who is not to do it. You will tell them they are to remember how to cook properly or you will punish them.”

Rorik looked at him as if Ottar were mad.

Raki flexed his mighty fists. Rorik knew he could slay six of the enemy with ease and bellow with joy all the while. But with Erna and his two sons, he was a man of gentle parts. He'd been thoughtfully silent until now. He said, “The crops grow well. Not all of us are needed here for protection or for hunting or farming. We could sail up the Seine, and go araiding on all those rich little towns. Ah, aye, 'twould be good sport and our pockets would grow heavy with gold and silver. Or we could go to Hedeby to trade some of Gurd's swords for wine from the Rhineland. Aye, we could trade some soapstone bowls for leather and ornaments. There is no reason to stay here and starve. Even bedding Entti isn't worth that, though all of you say she passes the time most pleasantly. What say you, Rorik?”

Rorik sighed. “I will speak to the women again. Then we will see.”

The men looked at each other without much hope.

O
LD ALNA SAID
to Asta, who was Gurd the blacksmith's wife, “Lord Rorik keeps the woman chained to his bed. He tells me to stay away from her. What think you?”

Asta, always laughing, wasn't laughing now. She shook her head. “It is all strange. Lord Rorik isn't brutal, particularly to women. Is she really so vicious, so cold and cruel? I know she is the sister of Lord Rorik's avowed enemy, but still, why would he treat her so meanly? She did nothing to harm him, at least I don't think she did. But the stories the men have told could curdle the goat's milk.”

“Little Utta thinks she's very nice and she's been feeding her all day—her cooking, not Entti's—the same as we've been eating. Do we do the right thing, Asta? With the good food, the girl will regain her strength in no time at all.”

“Aye, and when she does, Alna, what then? It makes no difference. Let her eat, let her belly sing with happiness. The child is an excellent cook, and the men wouldn't ever suspect her of duplicity, even Ottar, her father. Aye, let them suffer and let the prisoner grow fat. Do you know that two of the wedded men have taken Entti since their return not twenty-four hours
ago? I suspect Gurd, but he is sly, and when he returns to me, he complains of loose bowels and belly pains. Ha! The wives are furious. I'm furious. No, Alna, let them eat Entti's cooking until they come to reason.”

“It is a good plan, this one of Amma's,” Old Alna said. “She is smart and determined to teach the men a lesson. She is always saying that Sculla is constant and that the others should be as well. She says that they can starve unless they come to reason.

“It takes a long time for a man to starve,” Old Alna continued. “Mayhap starvation takes longer than it takes to bring him to reason.”

 

Rorik strode into the sleeping chamber. He'd bathed all the wild boar's blood off him, all the rotted marsh mud, and donned a clean tunic. He stopped, surprise and fury combining to make him flush red. She was propped up against his feather pillow like a lady taking her ease. Her hair was combed and braided. Soft curls had come loose to feather around her face. She looked very different, aye, that lady or princess ensconced in her bed, waiting for her slaves to attend her. He frowned down at her. She looked up at him, saying nothing.

He saw the chain around her wrist. It made him feel better. She might look like a princess, but she was, indeed, his hostage, chained by him. Aye, he was the master, he was the one who held her future in his hands. He wouldn't allow her to forget it. “Get up,” he said.

She rose slowly, to stand before him. “Give me your hand, your right hand.” It was heavy with the chain but she thrust it toward him. He unfastened the chain from her wrist and let it drop to the ground.

She was wearing a gown of soft gray wool, a white linen tunic over it, belted. He frowned, sudden anger
roiling in his belly. “Who has aided you?”

“If I tell you, will you chain them to the floor and beat them?”

“I haven't beat you,” he said, watching her massage her wrist.

“Now you will because I have given you the idea.”

“Who?”

She saw the pulse quicken in his throat. He was angry, and becoming angrier by the moment. He was the lord here and yet someone had aided her, his prisoner.

“Hafter helped me.” Oh aye, Hafter, his man, let him chew on that one.

Rorik didn't chew long. “Ha! Hafter help you? Even if he would ever be so unwise, nay, so stupid, he wasn't this time. He was with me all day. Stop your damned lies. It was doubtless one of the women. Who?”

She turned from him and walked toward the doorway. He grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. She raised her other hand to strike him, and he grabbed her wrist. He saw then the scrapes and cuts and eased his hold on her hands. He saw the red marks still sharp and angry on her wrist from the rough links of the chain.

“Are you hungry?”

“Since you have starved me since you dragged me here, I am ravenous. I nearly gnawed at the chain. Will you offer me food or pig swill again?”

He frowned. “I don't know. Sit you down on the bed, and I will bring you what there is. If I don't deign to eat it, then you won't have to either.”

He returned shortly carrying a wooden plate. On the plate was a pile of mashed peas with some sort of red berries crushed in, a reeking pile of cabbage boiled with small chunks of what seemed to be bark
from a pine tree. In the center of the plate lay a large herring, headless, not boned, and burned blacker than a Christian's sins.

She looked at the plate. “Is there naught else? Is all the food like this?”

“Aye,” he said, and looked grim.

Mirana didn't know what was going on here. Also, it threw her off balance to see another side of this man. He'd been only vicious to her, but now he looked ready to howl or weep at the sight of the inedible slop on the plate. Mirana thought of the wonderful bread, the delectable roasted herring she'd been fed earlier, the big plate of beans seasoned to perfection. But now this. She said nothing. It made no sense.

“I would rather starve,” she said deliberately, and glowed at the thought of her full belly. “Take this miserable swill and grind it under your heel, or act an enraged child again and throw it onto the ground like you did this morning with the porridge.”

Instead, Rorik dumped the plate onto her lap, stepped back, rubbed his hands together, and said with a good deal of mockery, “If it was Hafter who aided you—which of course seems very likely for I see him wearing gowns all the time—why then, he now owns one less gown.” He gave her a long thoughtful look. “Though I must say that this particular shade of gray with the white tunic doesn't match his eyes. Why then, he will surely be displeased for this gown is ruined now. I will tell him what you have said and watch his face turn purple with fury.”

He strode from the sleeping chamber. She stared after him. She realized a few moments later that he'd been so angry, he'd forgotten and left her unchained. She stood, wiping gobs of food from the skirt of her gown.

The gown had belonged to Utta's mother. Now it would need to be washed, vigorously, and hopefully be saved. She walked into the great hall, a folded blanket over her arm, and was again aware that conversation flagged. She could feel the men staring after her, distrust in their eyes, uncertainty, since she was free. She felt only curiosity from the women. Perhaps something more than just curiosity from them. Whatever they were thinking of her, she didn't feel the chill she felt from the men.

She looked neither to the right nor to the left. She walked to the front doors. They were pushed wide open. Not a word, not a shout, not a yell from Rorik. She wondered why he hadn't at least ordered her to stop.

She went to the bathing hut. There were buckets of water in the outer room. She stripped off the gown and the tunic and washed both garments. She wrapped herself in the blanket, spread the gown and tunic over the benches to dry, and left the hut. She turned toward the palisade wall, just to see what was there, how thick the walls were, what the gates were like, what . . .

She came face-to-face with Rorik. He held three good-sized silver bass by hooks on a line. Kerzog was standing at his side, his tongue lolling.

She stared at the fish.

He looked at her face, then down at the blanket wrapped around her. “What are you doing out here?”

“I had to wash the gown you ruined with the swill. What are you doing with the fish?”

He looked undecided, then shrugged. “Come with me.”

She followed him, her blanket held firmly to her neck. He squatted down near the wall at the eastern corner of the palisade, and built a small fire from the
pile of twigs and small branches stacked there. Kerzog fell onto his haunches close to the fire and watched his master, his big head cocked to one side, as if in question.

Rorik motioned for her to sit down. She watched him scale the bass with a small knife as sharp as the one she'd lightly speared into his throat. Then he lifted an iron pan he'd obviously brought from the longhouse, smeared the bass with thick sweet butter, and laid all three of them with near reverence into the pan. He set it over the fire, sat down cross-legged and stared at the pan, as if willing it to heat quickly and cook that fish.

She laughed, she couldn't help it.

“I'm starving,” he said matter-of-factly. He continued looking at the fish, now beginning to bubble and spit, and said, “I'll give you one of them.”

“It seems fair. I did feed you in your captivity.”

“Aye, and you tried to gullet me.”

“Had I wanted to kill you, I could have, easily. You were as helpless as that gutted bass.”

“I am tired of your swaggering. Be quiet. Watch the fish. Do you think this one in the middle is nearly done?”

It was hissing in the thick butter, darkening nicely, looking quite delicious.

“No, it is still raw on the inside. Must you feed yourself every night?”

He grunted. A fat half-moon shone down overhead. The night was clear, the stars vivid in the black sky. The air was warm and still. The birds had quieted for the night. It was so quiet, the water lapping against the rocks sounded faintly in the distance. She saw him quite clearly, the planes and shadows of his face in the firelight. He was staring as hard as he could at the frying fish.

It was difficult to hate a man who looked as if he'd cry if something happened to that frying fish.

“Will you chain me again tonight?”

“Probably. I cannot trust you to keep your word—you are Einar's sister, after all, and he is a murderer, and much worse. I will chain you, aye.” He stuck his knife into each of the fish and flipped them over.

She watched them sizzle and brown for several minutes, then said, “What did he do to you? I have never heard him say your name.”

“The fish is cooked.” He picked up a wooden plate, realized he had only one, then shrugged. He knifed each of the fish onto the plate, then set it between them. “You will use your fingers. I have only one knife. Take that fish nearest you. It's the smallest.”

She simply nodded, but made no move as yet. She was blessedly full. She watched him slice the bass, carefully cut it, and spear it. He eased it into his mouth as one would present a gift to a god. He chewed, the expression on his face blissful. He said nothing, just ate, one bite after another, until all that was left on the plate was the smallest bass he'd said was hers and a half of another.

He looked at that half of bass. Then he looked at his dog and sighed. To her astonishment, he offered the remaining half to Kerzog. To her further astonishment, after Kerzog sniffed at it, he wuffed softly, and refused it, looking at Rorik as he rested his head on his front paws. Rorik frowned at him but said nothing.

She said, “There is something strange going on here. I was fed all day, the most delicious porridge and fresh bread with butter and honey, and then there was stewed beans in onions and eggs, all delicious. Yet you bring that horrid swill for dinner. You are starving. What is happening here?”

He continued to stare at that half fish and at the small one that was hers. He said, more to himself than to her, “So Aslak was right.” He cursed. “By all the gods, my damned dog is full bellied! That's why he disdains the bass I offered him. It is only the men the women are torturing. Even Kerzog is blissfully full.”

“Eat the rest of the bass. I am very full, perhaps even more so than your dog. As I said, the women fed me all day.”

He did, saying nothing until he'd wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, wiped his knife on an oak leaf, and tossed the leaf into the embers of the small fire.

“Aslak said the women are punishing us because Entti beds the men. The women don't care if the men aren't married, but married men are seeking her out as well and that makes them very angry.”

She stared at him. This was the man who'd tried to kill her brother, who had fought over a dozen men with naught but a sword and a knife? This was the man who'd borne the wound in his shoulder like the warrior he was, contemptuous of weakness and pain, until, finally, he'd escaped, taking her with him? He'd been cruel, treating her like an animal, abusing her endlessly, yet saving her from drowning, even though at that moment she'd wanted to drown, to end it. She was thankful now that he'd saved her. But all of it came down to this—he and his men were being punished by the women for their faithlessness.

He'd caught his own dinner and cooked it.

“I don't know why the women fed you,” he said absently. “You're their enemy since you're also my enemy.”

He sat back against the palisade wall and sighed in contentment, lacing his hands over his belly.

“Aye,” he said, filling the silence, for Mirana said nothing, “aye, I must do it, there is none other. I will
stop this women's rebellion. My men said I should put a halt to it and I will, though in all truth, I don't think they believe me able to succeed. But I will succeed. If a man wishes to bed a woman, it is his right to do so.”