Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] (16 page)

To Rain’s chagrin, Selik turned away from her then.

“Attend me well, Rain. You will stay here at Ravenshire with Tykir ’til I return,” Selik commanded the next morning in his bedchamber as he was packing a leather bag.

Rain rebelled, not in a good mood after a restless night of poor sleep—prompted, no doubt, by sexual frustration, a problem Rain had never experienced before. And it annoyed her to hear Selik speaking so calmly, his demeanor so unaffected as he gathered his belongings.

Wearing only a
brynja
, the padded undertunic which would protect his chest from chafing under metal armor, and a pair of heavy wool braies that clung to his muscled thighs, Selik tried to ignore her.

“Why? Why must I stay here? Where are you going? When will you come back? Hey, you’re
not
thinking of dumping me here, are you? No way!”

Selik put both hands to his ears in disgust. “Freya’s tit! You have turned shrewish with your endless
questions. Just accept my orders and be biddable, for once.”

“Me? Shrewish? Hah! And, by the way, I don’t appreciate those crude Viking expressions of yours. Not one bit.”

Selik’s gray eyes widened with exaggerated surprise. “You take exception to my crude words when you told me just a few days ago, in a vulgar fashion even for me, exactly what I could do to myself? As I recall, you very clearly directed me to scr—”

“You don’t have to throw my words back in my face like a damn parrot.” Rain lifted her chin defiantly and tried to pretend that the warm skin on her face was not a blush, that she was not embarrassed by her increasingly sharp, and sometimes vulgar, tongue. Good Lord! She was turning into a woman she no longer recognized. “Well, you provoked me.” Her excuse sounded weak even to her ears.

“You have an answer for everything, wench.”

Not everything, Rain thought bleakly. She watched forlornly as Selik folded several of the strips of fabric he wore as loincloths. Suddenly, an image flickered in her head—an enticing image—of Selik in a pair of men’s bikini underwear. Hey, Selik in boxer shorts wouldn’t be so bad, either, Rain thought.

“Why are you grinning? Do you plot some other mischief to muddle my life?”

“No,” Rain said with a smile. “I was just picturing you in modern underwear, the kind men in my country wear.” She described all the different kinds to Selik, but he wasn’t impressed.

“Why would men care whether they wear silk or linen loincloths? Or whether they had ‘designer labels’ by that Calvin person?” he scoffed.

“Because they want to impress women.”

“’Tis what is inside the loincloth that matters more, wench,” Selik asserted, winking at her with supreme arrogance.

“Yeah, well, I still say you’d look better than Jim Palmer in those jockey shorts ads. Hey, better yet,” she added, fanning her face dramatically, “in a pair of edible underwear.”

Selik stopped his packing completely and turned to stare at her. She had his full attention. “Now I know you jest with me. People eating underwear?”

“Use your imagination, Selik. You, the supposed sex god of the Dark Ages, should have an idea how they would be used.”

Rain knew the moment Selik understood. His neck colored and the flush moved slowly up his face. She loved it! Then his lips tilted in a boyish grin.

“A sex god! I ne’er claimed to be such.”

“Anyhow, I’ve never tried edible underwear myself, but I understand that it comes in different flavors, like strawberry or lemon. I’ll bet there’s even some that tastes like cherry Lifesavers.”

“Really?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked with a laugh.

Selik shook his head from side to side, convinced now that she was fibbing. “Truly, you amaze me, woman. Do you stay up all night inventing these outrageous tales to scandalize me?”

“Are you scandalized?”

“Nay. You disconcert me, and that is, no doubt, your purpose. I will not allow you to divert me, however. Heed me well on this one thing. You swore not to escape, and I hold you to your vow. Stay at Ravenshire with Tykir.”

“Will you return?”

Selik scowled at her, refusing to answer.

“But where—”

“Where I go and if I return is my concern. Just follow my orders. And stay near the keep. There are Saxons about, I wager, and the bastards would
lop off your winsome head in a trice, never stopping to ask
why
you traveled with The Outlaw. Tis enough that they think I favor your company. T have assigned Gorm to watch over you—”

“You wouldn’t dare. I don’t want that slimebucket within a mile of me.”

Selik’s face stiffened with menace. “All my men have orders to protect you. Has Gorm done aught to harm you? On my oath, I will skin the misbegotten cur alive if he has touched even a hair on your fair body.”

Fair?
Rain honed in irrelevantly on his inadvertent compliment. Selik had called her beautiful last night, but she had doubted his sincerity. Was it possible it hadn’t been a line? Could he care for her? Was the emotion he displayed just now a sign of deeper feelings?

But then Rain’s heart sunk as his other words sunk in,
I will skin the man alive
. “Selik, please tell me you don’t skin people.”

He grinned. “It was just an expression, sweetling. Even I draw the line somewhere.”

She laughed shakily. “Well, I knew that.”

He shot her a look of amused disbelief. “Do you ever admit being wrong?”

A short time later, Rain watched with dismay from the steps leading up to the great hall as Selik mounted Fury. This was the Selik of the battlefield, the warrior of the Brunanburh painting, the man who had haunted her nightmares for years, drawing her back through the tunnel of time.

Wearing a thigh-length tunic of flexible chain mail over a wool hauberk and tight leggings, Selik expertly maneuvered the reins of the horse as it pranced nervously about the bailey awaiting the half-dozen men who would travel with him. He sheathed his lethal sword, Wrath, at his side,
and hung his pike and helmet from special saddle hooks.

His eyes, distant and formidable, locked with Rain’s. There was no emotional connection now. Rain realized, with foreboding, that his berserk mode had taken over.

“Take care,” Rain whispered in a soft, shaky voice.

Selik didn’t seem to hear her words as he stared blankly ahead, ignoring her, but then she noticed his Adam’s apple move jerkily several times as if he was trying, but unable to speak. He surprised her by nodding. Then, without speaking, he rode off.

Watching his departing back, Rain felt as if he were taking a part of her with him. It was incomprehensible to her how a man she had met so recently could have touched her so deeply. She was beginning to think she would never be able to return to the future if it meant leaving Selik behind.

The moment Selik disappeared from sight, Rain went searching for Tykir, determined to get some questions answered. How could she help Selik if she knew nothing about him?

She found Tykir in his bedchamber with Ubbi exercising his leg. The men had improvised a primitive form of physical therapy by tying a small sack of flour to Tykir’s ankle. Lying on the bed, he was raising his leg up and down in slow repetitions.

“Swimming would be a good exercise to strengthen your leg muscles, too, Tykir. And massage. In fact, I can work on the muscles for you when you’re done with the leg lifts.”

Tykir and Ubbi both looked toward her as she approached the bed, raising their eyebrows skeptically.

“Swimming this time of year? I think not, sister. Methinks the leg would just cramp up.”

“It might be just the thing for speeding up the healing process, actually. And you, too, Ubbi,” she said, directing her attention toward the little man. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your arthritis. After you’re done with Tykir, I want to examine
you
. I think I might be able to help.”

Ubbi backed away from her. “Art-rye-tits?” Then he stood and threw his stooped shoulders back in challenge. “Examine me? Nay, ye will not be touchin’ me body. ’Tis unseemly fer a maid to even think such.”

“Oh, Ubbi, I’ve seen hundreds of naked men, and your body is no different, believe me.”

“Hundreds of naked men!” Ubbi and Tykir both exclaimed.

“Mistress, for shame! Ye should not missay the truth. A woman of virtue such as yerself has ne’er bedded with hundreds of men.”

Tykir just grinned as he released the flour weight from his ankle. The idea of such a promiscuous sister amused the fool.

“Don’t be silly, Ubbi. I meant that, as a doctor, I have examined many, many men in my hospital.”

“Hmmm. There is a hospitium in Jorvik. Is your ‘hospital’ the same?” Ubbi asked cautiously.

“There’s a medical facility in Jorvik?” Rain asked excitedly.

“Yea, at St. Peter’s minster. The culdees—priests—care fer the sick an’ dying in their own hospitium.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful When can we go to see it? Is it nearby?”

“’Tis a day’s ride from here, but you cannot leave until Selik returns,” Tykir explained, his long blond hair falling forward as he leaned on his wooden staff, trying to pull himself up off the bed. “Selik gave orders, and he would have my head, as well as yours, if I disobey.”

“No, don’t get up,” she told Tykir, pressing him back down. She began to massage his thigh through his leggings. At first, her intimate touch embarrassed him. Then he cursed her as she drew out each painful tendon. “Oh, sweet Mother of Thor! Do you save my life just to throw me back in the grave?”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

Later, he sighed with pleasure at her expert manipulation, his dark lashes closing briefly over big brown eyes so like her brother Dave’s. “Truly, you have magical fingers, my sister.”

Suddenly, Rain noticed Ubbi inching his way toward the open doorway. “Don’t you dare leave. I’m done with Tykir’s workout for today, and now it’s your turn.”

Ubbi rolled his eyes pleadingly toward Tykir, but her brother just laughed. “Let the witch work her wiles on you, Ubbi. Who knows? Mayhap her hands will perform wonders on your flesh as well.”

Tykir hobbled out of the room on his makeshift crutch, chuckling with amusement over Ubbi’s apparent discomfort at being left alone with Rain.

Rain had to cajole, threaten, and bribe Ubbi into removing his garments, but even then he would only strip down to his loincloth. She barely stifled a gasp of horror at the misshapen condition of his body.

“Ubbi, how long have you suffered from arthritis?” At his look of confusion, she reworded her question. “How old were you when you first felt a stiffening in your joints? Is it more painful sometimes than others?”

While she asked her questions, Rain checked out every inch of his body with probing fingers, from his bunched shoulders to his knobby feet, except, of course, for his genital area. She knew Ubbi would never allow her to examine him there.

Finally, she forced Ubbi to lie facedown on the bed, despite his protests and obvious humiliation. With alternately firm and gentle pressing and flexing of her fingers, she soon loosened his painfully gnarled muscles.

“Oh, mistress, I have not felt so good since I was a boy,” Ubbi said on a sigh, his voice overflowing with adoration.

Rain smiled, happy to help the sweet man. “Starting tomorrow, I’ll do the massages twice a day. It would be great if we could find some oil. Also, I’ll give you some exercises to do on your own. And we might even be able to gather some herbs to alleviate the pain. Oh, and I just thought of something else—hot mud packs all over your body.”

Ubbi groaned, but his rheumy eyes bespoke his heartfelt thanks. “Do you truly think you can make me better?”

“No, I can’t cure you, Ubbi,” Rain said, patting him gently on the shoulder. “There’s no way to correct an arthritic condition, but there are things that can help make a person more mobile and pain-free.”

“’Tis a miracle,” Ubbi declared, and Rain knew her status as an angel in Ubbi’s eyes had just gone up another notch. He practically skipped out of the room.

Suddenly, Rain realized that she’d forgotten the reason for coming up to Tykir’s bedchamber in the first place—to get answers to her questions about Selik. Searching for Tykir once again, she found him in the great hall, directing some of the captives in cleaning out the soiled rushes and scrubbing down the tables.

“Tykir, I meant to ask you something earlier. Where has Selik gone?”

“He did not tell you?”

“No. Is it a secret?”

“Nay,” he replied carefully under her intent scrutiny. “He travels back north to the Alban lands of King Constantine.”

“Scotland? But Ubbi told me he was unwelcome there.”

Tykir shrugged. “’Tis true, the Scots would just as well he go elsewhere, but he has been a good comrade. They cannot in good conscience turn him away from their doors.”

“Then why does he go there?”

“To protect me, and Ravenshire.”

“What!” That Selik might have a noble cause for doing anything had never occurred to Rain. What did that say about her? And her faith in the man she had been sent to save? Rain did not like herself much at the moment.

Tykir lowered his body to a nearby bench, rubbing his aching leg, and Rain dropped down beside him.

“Tell me,” she urged.

“When we returned yestermorn, I found a message from Eirik in a special hiding place we had as children. He warned me that King Athelstan plans a massive manhunt for Selik and that he will raze Ravenshire to the ground if he discovers Selik anywhere in the vicinity.”

Rain’s blood froze in her veins and her heart went out to her outlaw, who truly had no home—was, in fact, welcome nowhere. “Please go on,” she encouraged shakily.

“Selik figured that if he shows his face in the land of the Scots, so far from here, King Athelstan will direct his forces there. The Saxons will have no reason to invade Ravenshire. I am not big enough quarry for him to send a troop of soldiers.”

“So he intends to wave his body like a bloody flag in front of his enemies to save you,” Rain said, appalled.

“To save
us
,” Tykir corrected, his face reddening at her implied insult. “If the Saxons found him here, ’tis not just the keep they would destroy but all who are in it. That includes me, you, Ubbi, everyone.”