Viking Ecstasy

ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

ZEBRA BOOKS

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Kensington Publishing Corp. 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 1993 by Robin Gideon

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First Printing: February, 1993

Printed in the United States of America

Hedeby, Denmark

I
t all felt wrong to Tabor. Wrong for a dozen very good reasons. He could smell danger in the air, death. Even though his instincts warned him to leave now, before blood had been spilled, before he actually committed himself and his men to anything, he stayed.

He looked over at Sven, standing to his left. He, too, had a concerned look on his face, the chiseled Scandinavian features seemed sharpened by his tautly stretched skin, defining his Viking heritage as surely as the battle-axe at his hip.

"I don't like it," Sven said when his gaze met his leader's. "It smells of a trap."

Tabor nodded. "I know, my friend. But we have a chance for peace. We've risked our skins for profit; shouldn't we risk as much for peace?"

"Aye," Sven agreed. "I just don't trust that Northman. He earned the title of Ingmar the Savage, he did. What makes him want to propose peace now? His fighting force numbers more than ours — "

"Aye, that's true," Tabor cut in. "But the advantage he has in numbers does not equal the edge we have in fighting skill. Ill put any two of Ingmar's men against any one of us, and well win most every time."

Tabor grinned, and the brief conversation between them died away. He looked over the crowd of people at the trading village, pleased that he and Sven stood a head taller than the rest of them. The hawker was taking bids on yet another slave, and Tabor made no effort to hide his distaste for the business. Of all the villages he and his Viking warriors had raided, he could safely say that only one woman had been raped by his men (and that man paid the ultimate price for violating Tabor's orders) and not one house had been burned afterward. True, Tabor had allowed the villagers to build themselves back to prosperity only to be descended upon by himself and his men again, but the senseless slaughter, the savage rape and pillage of defenseless communities, the inhumane carnage that marked the behavior of so many other Viking warriors was never a hallmark of Tabor and his men.

Seventy feet to his left he saw the crowd part, and a moment later spied the coppery red hair of the man he despised most and respected least: Ingmar the Savage. Men and women scurried clear of Ingmar, clearing a wide berth for him. Everyone had heard the stories of this man or that woman being cut—literally —for not moving aside or showing sufficiendy deferential behavior when Ingmar was near.

Tabor passed his left hand through his long blond hair. He did not have to look to know that thirty-five of the finest fighting men in the world—exactly one-half of the troops under Tabor's command —were now on battle alert and were ready to fight at the slightest provocation, though they remained hidden, interspersed in the crowd.

When Ingmar approached, Tabor could see that his adversary had arrived with very few men — certainly much fewer than the thirty to forty Tabor had anticipated. With his right hand, Tabor again ran his fingers through his hair; and thirty-five men slipped deeper into the Hedeby crowds, disappearing like smoke from a hidden fire.

"Hail, Tabor!" Ingmar the Savage said in his bellowing, too-friendly voice, striding forward as though he didn't have a care in the world^

"Ingmar," Tabor replied simply, nodding slightly. The unadorned simplicity of his greeting was an insult, and he made no effort to hide it. When Ingmar did not react either positively or negatively to the slight, Tabor privately wondered whether his formidable adversary had suffered some great war loss recently. Accepting insults without returning insults was not at all in keeping with the Ingmar the Savage that Tabor knew.

Ingmar stepped close to Tabor, and for a moment there was silence between them. Would Ingmar extend his hand in friendship? If he did, would Tabor accept it? And if he did not, would Ingmar challenge him, as was custom among Vikings for such a display of disrespect? Their gazes met and locked, two strong men long accustomed by might and self-won authority to having their own way and having strong men bow to their greater will.

Men and women near Tabor and Ingmar sensed the tension between the tall, dangerous-looking men and moved aside, giving them plenty of room should the thinly disguised contempt between them explode into action —violent action.

"Why have you called this gathering?" Tabor asked at last, breaking the explosive silence.

Ingmar hesitated, as though weighing how honest he should be, how much he should tell his nemesis. "We have been enemies for a long time, Tabor. And even though we have hated each other and fought each other many times, we have managed to amass fortunes for ourselves, haven't we?"

"Yes. And so?"

"And so I propose that we stop wasting our energies fighting each other. There's simply no money to be made in it." Ingmar passed a broad palm in the direction of the crowd of people who surrounded them. "I have come with the fewest amount of men, and you have brought how many warriors with you? Forty? Fifty? Does that show trust, Tabor? And the fact that your men are lurking in the crowd and that three of your best men, with throwing-daggers in their hands, stand ready to toss their deadly blades into my body, does that show trust?"

"Four," Tabor corrected, mildly impressed, despite his contempt for Ingmar, for his grasp of the situation.

"See? All this work, and for what? Neither of us are collecting a grain of gold for this. But if we work together, we could make much gold."

"I don't think so."

"Women, Tabor!" Ingmar whispered, leaning close, his green eyes fiery, glinting with avarice. "Why search for gold, gems, grains, or wines when women can be captured easily and sold for a profit that impresses even Odin?"

"I don't believe the gods are impressed with money made by kidnapping women and selling them into slavery," Tabor replied drily. Though not a squeamish man, he had always found the slave trade irredeemably appalling. "Is that why you brought me here?"

Tabor's contempt for the business was well known by all. Why would Ingmar even propose such a deal?

The hawker's voice rose dramatically, drawing Tabor's attention to the auction. Tabor watched as a dark-haired young woman, dressed in a torn and soiled gown that at one time must assuredly have been a fine and expensive garment, stepped onto the raised platform. Unlike the other young women who had stepped forward, she held her head high, her shoulders square. One need only glance into her angry, defiant brown eyes to know that she had been hardened and strengthened — but not defeated —by the cruel treatment she had received since her capture.

Though she was barefooted and her clothes were in rags, there was an unbending defiance in her eyes that gripped Tabor with a strange force deep within. It curled to life in a place inside him that he had not consciously known existed.

The instant the dark-eyed woman stepped onto the platform, a clamor of bids shouted by the men in the audience arose. The woman, clearly aware of what was happening and why, looked with unconcealed contempt at the men who bid to buy her as one might buy a prize mare.

"She is magnificent," Ingmar said softly, mentally calculating his profit. His ship had captured the fiery-eyed beauty off the coast of Egypt, near Opar, and Ingmar was entitled to eighty percent of whatever gold was paid for the woman. At present, she was his prized possession. "So angry! Look at those eyes! You can tell just by looking in her Egyptian eyes that she will be a thunderstorm in a warrior's bed. Don't you agree?"

The bidding for the silent, angry Egyptian woman was escalating quickly, moving far beyond the price paid for any other slave. Callously, Tabor thought that if Ingmar would take the time and spend the money to clean his captured slaves and dress them in fine clothes, he could command a much greater price for them. Hardly had the mercenary thought entered Tabor's head than he felt guilty for it, thinking of the heinous profit made from the purchase and sale of a woman's body.

"If it is the slave trade that you have come to discuss, then we have nothing to say to one another. You have wasted my time," Tabor said through clenched teeth, furious with himself for the unexpected sexual thoughts that had sprung into his head since the Egyptian woman had stepped on to the stage, even angrier since he was certain that Ingmar would profit greatly by the vast sum of gold that was now being offered for her.

Not far from where he stood, Tabor watched a man, a Moor, raise the bid on the woman. Tabor had seen the man in Hedeby before, and knew of his reputation as a man more inclined toward torture than sensuality. The slaves the Arab bought in Hedeby never lived long, it was said. In a blinding flash, Tabor saw in his mind's eye the stunning creature on the stage having her flawless flesh torn asunder by the Arab's destructive whip.

"Fifty kronor!" Tabor heard himself shout.

It took a moment before he realized he had actually tendered a bid on the woman. He felt the curious stares of people nearby surveying him and heard the stunned whispers. "He's got so many women who would gladly bed with him! What's Tabor want to buy a woman for?" And "She must be truly gifted in the sensual world to catch Tabor's eyes. Everyone knows he's got his choice of women!"

Even Ingmar, who was not a man easily shocked, looked at Tabor as though seeing him for the first time—or, at least, seeing him in an entirely new light.

"She meets with your fancy, eh?" Ingmar asked, his tone much too friendly and confidential for Tabor's liking. "I didn't know you have a taste for purchased flesh."

Tabor was furious with himself and livid with Ingmar. Worse, there was a grain of truth in what the vicious Northman was saying.

"I just didn't want the Arab to get her. She's got a warrior's spirit in her blood, and you know as well as I do what that man does to his slaves."

Tabor glanced up at the woman again, and he felt the strangest tightening in his chest — as though he had never before been held fast, enthralled by a woman's beauty. But this one —dark-skinned, voluptuous, spirited—not merely looked different from the assortment of women that Tabor usually warmed his bed with, she was different inside, in her heart, in a place deep within her soul. As he searched the depths of her eyes and realized that she was different from other women, he also realized that he wanted her, that he had tendered a bid for her, and that by doing so he had violated his own code of proper conduct. He would not profit by the slave trade, and he would not help others —particularly not Ingmar the Savage — profit by it, either.

"If you brought me here to convince me to join you in the swinish business of buying and selling human souls, you have failed again," Tabor said, biting the words off caustically. "Stand aside. You have taken up more of my time than you are worth."

Ingmar stepped aside, nodding nonchalantly in the direction of the portly moor who had once again raised the bid on the Egyptian captive. "You want her, Tabor? Let me give her to you. Call it a peace offering. Something to make our time together profitable for you."

Tabor scowled, fighting the urge to draw the huge, heavy sword at his hip. Though Ingmar was a capable fighter and a powerfully-built man, Tabor was taller, stronger, and —he was certain —a better swordsman.

"If you don't accept her as a gift, then the Spaniard will get her. Is that what you want?"

Tabor's mind reeled. He did not want a slave, yet if he refused Ingmar's "gift," then the woman would surely live out her few remaining days in hideous agony. If even half of the stories that Tabor had heard about the Spaniard were true, he could not risk allowing such a fate to befall the proud, defiant Egyptian woman.

"I'll take her," Tabor said, his blue eyes burning bright with contempt for Ingmar.

Ingmar smiled pleasantly, but the triumph he felt showed in his eyes. He raised a broad hand to the hawker. "The auction for this one is off," Ingmar said, his voice just barely above a conversational level, not needing to speak loudly because whenever he spoke, everyone else nearby went silent. "I have decided to make her a gift to my friend, Tabor — " he hesitated a moment, then added the nickname " — Son of Thor."

A hush went over the crowd, followed immediately by the low murmur of voices as those nearest to Ing-mar explained to those farther away exactly what had just transpired. The Spaniard who had been bidding on the Egyptian woman reddened with anger, his fleshy hands balled into impotent fists. He dared not challenge an edict from either Ingmar or Tabor—not here in Denmark, anyway —but his fury was consuming him inside, and everyone in the crowd knew that one day the Spaniard would want his revenge.

"I'm not your friend," Tabor said under his breath.

He felt like he had been outmaneuvered by Ingmar, perhaps even outwitted, and he did not like the sensation at all. And by referring to the nickname "Son of Thor," a ridiculous title pinned on him by a lover who thought such sensual skill must come directly from the gods, Ingmar implied an unearned, intimate knowledge of Tabor, as though they drank together and talked of their conquests of women.

Raising his hand again, Ingmar motioned for the woman to be taken from the stage and brought closer. Two thickly-muscled men took the woman by the arms and pulled her roughly from the stage, pushing through the crowd, nearly dragging the young Egyptian. Tabor scowled again, hating to see the rough treatment the woman was needlessly receiving, privately pleased to see that she was fighting against the men even though it was clear that she had no chance of winning even the slightest victory.

Tabor felt himself stir, part of him responding to the woman's beauty and allure, even if he did pity the cruel treatment she was receiving. Now that she was directly in front of him, he saw that she was very short —perhaps barely five feet tall —and rather slender though curvaceously built. Her ebony hair fell in curly waves well over her shoulders, and the wide, full-lipped mouth looked perfectly designed to give a man pleasure. Across the surface of his mind flashed images, suggesting the sensations he would know holding her slender body close, feeling the firmness of her supple breasts against him, her full, sensuous lips pressing tightly against his, her mouth opening to receive his questing tongue. For only a second, Tabor closed his eyes and fought against the almost tactile response to the mental images.