Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] (9 page)

Realizing that she might have brought his ire down on Ubbi, she immediately added, “It wasn’t his fault. I kind of blackmailed him into telling me. And don’t get on your high horse with me—or Ubbi. You’re the one cheating on your wife.”

“I have never cheated on my wife.”

“Hah! You have a weird definition of cheating then. I call what you did with me cheating, and I definitely call what you intended to do cheating. Where do you draw the line, mister?”

“Right now I draw the line with your shrewish tongue,” he said, tired of her foolhardy reminders of his beloved wife. “Lie down in the bed furs. Now.”

Once again, she foolishly defied him. Even as he moved closer, she backed away, around the edge of the small tent. He grinned ferally, stalking her like the helpless, trapped animal she was. When she was near the tent entrance, about to jump through, he pounced, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her easily into his arms.

For a moment, she did not struggle as her mouth dropped open in amazement. “You picked me up.”

“How wise of you to notice.”

“But I’m too big. No one has ever picked me up.”

“Look again, Sweetling. Your feet are tickling my thighs.”

She fought against him then, kicking, scratching, pushing, to no avail. With one arm under her long legs, he pulled her against his body in an iron clasp. The other arm was wrapped around her shoulders, pinning her against his chest with her face firmly tucked in his neck. He inhaled sharply at the seduc
tive floral scent that emanated from her neck, the same odor he had noticed the day before when he had chased her through the forest.

With three long strides, he walked to the bed furs, dropped down lithely without releasing her, then forced her to lie down with her back to him. He covered them both with the bed furs.

With a grunt, he threw one leg over both of hers. Forcing her head to rest in the cradle of his left arm, he wrapped his right arm heavily over her chest.

When she finally stopped struggling after calling him an odd name, “Jerk!”, which he suspected was not a compliment, he began to savor the sweetness of just holding a warm woman in his arms once again.

“What is that scent?” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

“Probably your body odor,” she snapped.

He chuckled. “Nay, ’tis a sweet odor. Like flowers. ’Tis especially strong right here.” He ran the tip of his tongue along the sensitive, pulse-beating spot at the base of her neck.

She inhaled sharply, and Selik smiled against her neck, recognizing her involuntary sensual response. How could this woman have said that she had no particular liking for mating with men when she responded so quickly to a man’s touch?

“Passion.”

“What?”

“It’s Passion, you fool.”

“Aah, now I understand. Some women exude a musk of passion when their bodies make ready for the mating. ’Tis just that I have never heard of it being a floral scent.”

“Oh, you dolt! You really are an egotist. Passion is the name of my perfume.”

For a moment, Selik didn’t understand. Then he laughed. “Truly, you are amazing. You mock me
for naming my sword, and you give a name to your perfume.”

Rain elbowed him in the ribs and burrowed into the bed furs, yawning widely. “All perfumes have names in my ti—country. It’s not the same thing as naming a gun or a bomb—or a stupid sword,” she explained, yawning.

“Stop squirming so much.” He smiled, knowing she would be outraged at the wonderful things she was doing to his hardened manhood. “And I will try not to bother you with my snoring. That is what you told Ubbi, is it not?”

“Ubbi talks too much.”

“Yea, that he does.”

When she was quiet for a long time, Selik said softly, “Rain?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are you awake?”

“Barely.”

“Astrid is dead.”

At first, her body just lay stiff and silent. He was not sure she had even heard him. In truth, he did not know why he had felt the need to tell her the truth, to redeem himself in her eyes.

Finally, she turned in his arms and looked up at him through the flickering candlelight. She seemed to be searching his face for answers he could not give.

“Oh, Selik,” she whispered in a voice so soft he barely heard her. Then she laid her face against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Selik.”

For the first time in twelve years, he felt tears mist his eyes, and he drifted off to sleep, oddly comforted.

Any soft feelings Rain may have been entertaining toward Selik after his disclosure that his wife was dead vanished the second she emerged from his tent the next morning. Fifteen captives sat shivering on the ground near the large cooking fire, hands and feet bound, each connected to the other by one long lead rope, like beads on a necklace.

Several of Selik’s retainers stood guard nearby with lethal swords at the ready. Not that any of the captives looked capable of putting up a fight. They were filthy, underdressed for the cool autumn morning, bruised, and even wounded. No wonder blood had stained Selik’s sword and clothing last night. Apparently, food was not the only thing he’d been hunting.

And—oh, my God—there were three women bound in the rope chain as well.

I’ll kill him. I swear, I have never had a violent thought in my life, but I will kill that damn Viking for this
.

Rain scanned the entire campsite, but there was no sign of Selik or the soldiers he had taken with him yesterday on his “hunting” expedition. Rain’s lips curled with contempt, and she clenched her fists angrily at her sides.

“Ubbi, where is your master?” Rain demanded to know as she stormed up to the faithful servant, who was stirring the most ungodly smelling concoction over the cooking fire. Whatever it was smelled as if it had burned on the bottom of the cauldron, and a great deal of fat floated on the top.
Great! Roadkill fricasse
.

Ubbi looked up and asked pleasantly, “Did ye sleep well yestereve, my lady?”

Rain growled with impatience at his failure to answer her question.

“He went back to the battlefield,” he disclosed reluctantly.

That was not the answer Rain had expected. “Why?”

“To bury his dead.”

Rain exhaled loudly with exasperation. “Is he totally, off-the-wall insane? His men are dead. There’s nothing he can do for them now.”

Ubbi shrugged. “The master blames himself fer takin’ men into battle when he saw no ravens aforehand.”

Rain forced herself to remain calm. “Ubbi, what are you talking about?”

“Well, ’tis a well-known fact that when ravens be about, it portends a Norse victory. And there was not a raven to be seen the entire day afore or during the Great Battle.” He puffed out his chest, as if imparting some great wisdom.

Rain clucked scornfully. “What a bunch of superstitious nonsense!”

“’Tis the truth,” he insisted stubbornly.

“Never mind about that. How could you let Selik
return to the battlefield? Aren’t you worried about him? The Saxons surely still guard that site. He could be killed.” Rain wasn’t sure why she even cared at this point. After all, she had certainly been looking for him with a killing instinct herself a moment ago.

“’Tis dishonorable fer a Norseman to let the vultures feast on the entrails of his fallen comrades,” he asserted.

“And it’s honorable to take prisoners? And mistreat them so horribly?” Rain snarled, waving a hand at the nearby captives, who stared dumbly at her across the fire.

Ubbi’s cloudy eyes looked up at her in surprise. “’Tis no dishonor to take slaves after a battle. The Saxons, for a certainty, took their fair share of Scots and Norsemen after the Great Battle. You can be sure of that.”

“But what will he do with them?”

Ubbi hunched his lumpy shoulders. “Mayhap they might be worth some ransom to the Saxons, ’though I misdoubt that. They be a sorry lot.”

Rain threw up her hands in disgust. “Oh, just give me your knife so I can release the captives myself.”

Ubbi backed away, holding out of her reach the sharp blade he had been using to cut up what appeared to be several skinned rabbits. “Nay, I cannot.”

One red-haired guard—a huge, barrel-chested man wearing a leather tunic and a scruffy fur mantle—started toward her menacingly.

“What is your name?” she demanded to know with more self-confidence than she felt.

“Gorm,” he snarled, towering over her ominously, a very sharp sword in one hand. The fetid odor of unwashed flesh and bad breath assailed Rain, but she refused to back down.

“Release those people at once.”

The bearish giant smirked. “Not bloody likely.”

“I tell you, Worm—”

“Not worm, Gorm,” he corrected in an icy voice and moved one step closer, fingering the blade in his hand.

“Yes, well, Gorm, I want those captives released. And I want it done right now.”

He chuckled derisively and gave her a rude shove. “Get back to yer master’s tent and keep his bed furs warm fer him. Ye be little more than a slave yerself. ’Tis only yer talents in the bed sport that keep you from the same lot as this bunch.”

Rain looked to Ubbi for assistance. “Tell this lout that I am not a slave.”

To her chagrin, Ubbi ducked his head guiltily and muttered, “Well, ye be more like a hostage than a slave.”

“Ubbi! I thought you were my friend.”

His eyes widened as if wondering where she ever got that idea. After all, he had only met her yesterday.

“Slave or hostage, it matters not to me,” Gorm declared with contempt, giving her another shove, this time harder. “I may just plow yer skinny arse myself.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Would I not? Best ye stay out of me way or ye will find out. Leastways, go to the master’s tent, or I will bind ye with the other captives ’til our lord returns.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Rain countered defiantly. “I’ll do it myself.”

Rain walked proudly over to the line of prisoners and sat down at the end, tying the end of the rope about her ankles in a symbolic knot of captivity. Ubbi gasped and Gorm’s mouth dropped open, revealing one missing front tooth. Rain couldn’t help herself
from feeling noble; this was like the time she and her fellow pacifists had tied themselves to the White House fence to protest increased military spending.

“Gawd! Be ye a bloomin’ halfwit?” The heavyset woman next to her moved as far away from her as the rope would allow.

“No, I’m a physician and—” The yellowish tone of the woman’s skin caught her attention then, and she asked with concern, “How long have you been feeling ill? I may be able to help you.” Rain knew the skin tone could be indicative of something as serious as a tumor or liver disease, or just a Vitamin k deficiency, easily correctable.

The woman’s eyes widened in shock. With a shriek, she tried to stand. “Git me away from her. A woman healer! Oh, Lord, she mus’ be a witch or a sorceress. Help! She prob’ly has the evil eye.”

Gorm stomped over and cuffed the woman across the head, causing her to drop weakly to the ground, where she moaned loudly.

Rain started to protest, but he wagged a filthy finger in her face. “Behave yerself, wench. Ye may pleasure the master ’til his cock falls off, but if ye do not shut yer teeth, I will truss you over the cookfire like the witch this hag accuses you of bein’.”

Ubbi was staring at her, wide-eyed with dismay. “Mistress, come back to the tent. The master will not like this.”

“No. If I’m a captive, I don’t want to be treated any differently than all the rest.”

Ubbi rolled his eyes skyward.

For about a half hour, Rain sat stiffly in sullen silence on the cold ground, shivering every time the wind blew. Even with Selik’s wool tunic thrown over her slacks and silk blouse, she began to feel a chill.

Finally, bored, her eyes began to roam among her
fellow prisoners. She inhaled sharply when they came to one young Saxon man, who was slumped practically unconscious against the woman next to him. Blood oozed from a deep shoulder wound where his leather armor had been torn away.

“Ubbi, come and help this man,” she cried out in alarm. “His wound needs to be treated.”

Ubbi ignored her pointedly, continuing to saw away at the flesh of the dead rabbits. His red face betrayed the fact that he heard her and chose not to reply.

“Gorm, release that man from the rope and take him to the hospital tent for treatment.”

Gorm, the insolent bastard, flashed an ugly smile her way and spat on the ground near her feet.

Rain bit her bottom lip worriedly, unable to ignore a patient who needed her help so desperately. Finally, she stood, jarring the woman next to her, who still cowered in fear, and complained, “Well, if no one else is going to help him, I will.” She unbound the ropes at her ankles and went to the tent to retrieve her meager medical supplies.

Ubbi barely stifled a chuckle of amusement at her strange interpretation of captivity. She glared at him until he ducked his head, but not before he shook it in wonder at her antics.

Rain loosened the ropes on the young man, who looked like he was barely out of his teens, and helped him walk to the tent. Despite the protests of the hospital guard, she soon had the sword wound cleaned and stitched. It was not as bad as she had originally thought.

She tried to calm her patient by talking while she stitched the four-inch cut. “What’s your name?”

“Edwin.”

“Where are you from, Edwin?”

“Winchester,” he replied warily.

“Did you fight in the battle for King Athelstan?”

He nodded slowly, as if not sure if he could trust her.

“Why didn’t you return to Wessex with the king and his troops?”

“’Cause I was a bloody halfwit,” he grumbled. “I went back to the camp fer my woman, and she did not want ter travel in the dark. The dark! Hah! We got a heap more than dark to fear now.”

“I’m sure everything will be all right once Selik returns,” she assured him.

“Are ye The Outlaw’s wench?” he asked, edging away from her a bit.

“No, I helped him escape from the battlefield and—”

“Ye helped the beast escape?”

Rain stiffened. “Don’t call Selik a beast. I don’t like it.”

The man’s upper lip curled contemptuously.

“I mean it, Edwin. He is no more a beast than you or any other man.”

Edwin’s eyes narrowed speculatively as he studied her while she knotted the thread and covered his stitches with a clean linen bandage. “Have you ever seen a man after he’s been scalped by a heathen Viking? Only a beast would scalp a man. And I warrant a man as vicious as The Outlaw would be no different than any other bloody Norseman.”

At first, Rain couldn’t comprehend Edwin’s meaning. Then she gasped and tears welled in her eyes. “You’re lying. Selik would never do such a barbaric thing.”

“Am I?” Fury turned Edwin’s filthy face into an ugly mask. “Know this, my lady,
the beast
had best kill me, and soon, ’cause I would rather die than be a slave to him.”

The guard, already pushed past the limits of his tolerance, wouldn’t let the prisoner stay in the tent with the other injured men. In a daze, Rain led
him back to his place in the rope chain. When she was about to retie him at Gorm’s command, Edwin grabbed her and twisted her body so that her arms were pulled behind her back and the fingers of his right hand held her throat in a strangle hold.

“Do not move, wench,” he warned, pinching her windpipe until her knees collapsed for lack of air. “I would not hesitate to kill you in a trice, but methinks yer lord holds ye in favor. Mayhap he would release me in exchange fer yer life.”

“And what about your woman?” she asked, glancing down at the young woman who was still bound near her feet, gazing up at her and Edwin with horror and fear.

“Blanche kin manage on her own. She be a crafty wench with a talent fer the bed sport. No doubt she will soon have another protector,” he said dismissively, ignoring Blanche’s cry of protest.

“And you call Selik a beast?”

Edwin squeezed again, and Rain lost consciousness for a second. A moment later, she heard a sharp cry behind her, and Edwin released his hold on her neck. But she had only a moment to wonder why when he fell forward against her back, knocking her onto the ground. When Rain finally shoved him off her and looked down, she saw a battle-ax imbedded in the back of Edwin’s head. Blood gushed from the wound, and it was obvious even before she checked his pulse that he had died immediately.

She cried out, “Oh, my God! I’ve landed in a Dark Age Bedlam.”

Looking behind her to see who had thrown the ax, she was surprised to see Ubbi standing with his legs spread in a battle stance and hands on his hips. The gentle little troll had been transformed into a fierce warrior. Fury clouded the little man’s face, but he inquired gently, “Mistress, be ye hurt?”

She shook her head, confused and disoriented by all that had happened in just a few short moments. Blood had been shed at her expense, and she needed to come to terms with that horrendous thought.

“’Tis her own damn fault,” Gorm told Ubbi angrily. “She never should have released the bastard. All Saxons be the same—deceitful to the core.”

“What did you expect him to do, you brute?” Rain lashed out. “He was desperate, and I was his only chance to escape.”

Gorm and Ubbi both looked at her as if she was crazy. “He would have killed you,” they both said at the same time.

“That’s no excuse,” Rain countered, the words sounding lame even to her.

“Well, thank the gods, ye be safe,” Ubbi said. “Why don’t ye go back to the tent now and rest from yer ordeal?”

Rain looked at the prisoners staring at her in awe and shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

To Ubbi’s chagrin, she sat back down and retied her bounds loosely at the ankles. Gorm mumbled, “Bloody bitch,” while he dragged Edwin’s body off to the trees, ordering some men to bury him “afore the stink of Saxon blood ruins me appetite.”

That reminded Rain that she hadn’t eaten since the day before. She looked at the motley group sharing her rope and realized that they probably hadn’t eaten for a much longer time.

“You have to feed these people,” she shouted to Ubbi, who had returned to the cookfire. He stood whistling blithely while he performed his domestic chores as if he hadn’t just killed a man.

Without looking up, he called back to her, “The master left no instructions fer feedin’ his captives.”

“That’s ridiculous. What if he doesn’t come back?” Rain’s heart sank at the reminder of her earlier worries about Selik. She had a lot of complaints
for him and many questions that needed answers, but she couldn’t imagine living without him. How unbelievable, she thought, tilting her head in wonder, that she would feel so intensely about a man she had just met. Forcing herself to concentrate on the present, she added, “I mean, what if he doesn’t come back until tonight?”