Viking Ecstasy (17 page)

❧

When they reached the quarters in the temple where Tabor would stay while in Opar, he was rendered speechless. Though a wealthy man by Viking standards, nothing that he had in Denmark could compare to the extraordinary wealth of Pharaoh Moamin Abbakka.

"It is . . . amazing," he whispered, looking at the high-ceilinged room with its ornately woven rugs, plush fabric bed, and personal bathtub.

Tabor was particularly perplexed by the tub, which was sunken into the rock floor of the room.

"How does it become empty? It would take many servants many trips with a bucket."

Tanaka smiled, walking down the steps that led into the deep enclosure. She felt a flush of pride in her culture and in the palace she called home.

"See?" she said, pulling out the leather-wrapped stopper at the lowest point on the stone floor. "The water drains out there."

"And where does it go?" Tabor asked, genuinely amazed at such an invention.

"Beneath the stone floor there are small channels for water. The water runs beneath the floor. I suppose it goes outside the palace walls, though I'm not certain exactly where."

Tabor smiled. "There is much that I can learn while I am here."

Tanaka returned his smile. She was enormously pleased at how readily Tabor accepted new ways. If he let his Viking pride flare, it could cause problems for everyone in the palace. No matter how strong and powerful Tabor, Son of Thor, was, he wasn't in his Scandinavian waters now. He was on land, in the palace of the pharaoh; and if he thought the pharaoh wasn't a powerful man, he was absurdly, even suicidally, mistaken.

Tanaka reached up for Tabor's hand, letting him help her as she ascended out of the tub. When she was on the floor again, she tried to slip her hand away, but his fingers tightened around hers. When her questioning eyes met his, she recognized instantly the romantic gleam.

"Not now," Tanaka said quietly, aware that servants had been dashing about the palace, making sure the Viking guests were treated like heroes.

"Why not now?" Tabor teased, pulling her to him, locking his hands together at the small of her back. "I have brought you home. Isn't that cause enough for celebration?"

He tried to kiss her, but she twisted in his grasp, avoiding his lips. "Yes," she said nervously. "It is a time for celebration, and I would love to share that celebration with you, but right now I must see Pharaoh Abbakka. There are many questions he has for me." With some effort, Tanaka slipped from Tabor's grasp. She saw that he was disappointed, but not defeated. "Be patient."

"Patience is not a Viking tradition."

At that moment, four of the most beautiful servants among the dozens at the palace stepped into the room. Their dark hair was unbound, falling in glistening waves almost to their slender waists. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, all wearing identical, sheer bust-wraps and leggings that left little of their figures to the imagination. It shocked Tanaka when she realized that her first emotion upon seeing the attractive young servants was jealousy. She instantly chastised herself, but the feeling persisted, particularly when she glanced at Tabor and saw that he had noticed their beauty as quickly as she had.

"Tabor," Tanaka said, whispering now so that the young women would not hear, "if you are patient and wait for me to return to you, I promise you, you'll be happily rewarded."

Tabor, aware of Tanaka's unease, felt not in the least inclined to lessen her fears. He let his gaze slide quickly back to the servants who awaited orders.

"I am not a patient man," Tabor said.

Anger now mingled with jealousy inside Tanaka. The servants were all freshly bathed, shaven, beautifully clothed, their hair brushed to a glossy sheen. In comparison, she felt unwashed, her legs and underarms scratchy with a stubbly growth of hair. She was certain the servants had been given the order to provide Tabor with whatever entertainments he might request; and, for the first time in her life, Tanaka questioned the usefulness of having so many servants at the palace.

"Be patient," Tanaka said again, a sharp edge to her tone, her dark eyes holding a flame that could burn with passion or resentment.

"Only if you promise me that you will hurry back," Tabor said at last, giving Tanaka a smile that said he was only teasing.

Tanaka felt a warm, melting sensation, an anticipatory feeling that she had come to know well during her days and nights aboard the Viking longboat.

Though the servants walked about the room, preparing the bath for Tabor, Tanaka rose up on her tiptoes and quickly kissed him on the mouth.

"I will hurry," she said, then whisked out of the room without a backward glance. She would see the people she needed to, bath and shave and go through a proper Egyptian toilet, and then return to the much too powerful, far too alluring, and much, much, much too exciting Viking warrior.

T
abor was too well aware of women not to understand the covetous glances he received from the four thinly clad servants. Although the diaphanous cloth hid the body, it did nothing to hide the tempting shapes beneath. And they were all beautiful and young, although none could compare with the high priestess, Tanaka.

He smiled, watching the women as they scurried about the room, accompanied by short, powerfully-built men who carried huge buckets of steaming water for the bath.

How long had it been since he'd enjoyed a hot bath? In his Viking homeland, baths were a ritual, but only during the worst weather did anyone ever heat the bath water. That would be unmanly. But to not bathe was equally inappropriate, so the Vikings frequently cleansed themselves in water that left their flesh pinkish white and numb and their jaws clamped shut so their teeth would not chatter.

But, when it was possible, there were few pleasures more appreciated than a hot bath with a good bar of soap . . . and, should the high priestess Tanaka return (Tabor had begun to think of her in terms of her formal title, now that he had witnessed the power she wielded in Egypt), he'd have a good and passionate woman to make the water even hotter.

So dark and petite
, Tabor thought, looking at a small-featured servant who twice now had brushed against his arm as she hurried past him while readying his room.
Eyes like midnight on the open sea.

The servant, perhaps younger than Tanaka, met Tabor's stare. Her smile was fleeting, and as she lowered her eyes, she gazed on his chest.

The other women noticed the flirtation and began to make comments. Tabor could not understand their Egyptian, but he was not sure if it was because they spoke so quickly or if they were speaking another dialect.

As soon as the bath was prepared, the men left the room, and with the daintiest of shrugs of small shoulders, the four women slipped out of their Housings. Naked from the waist up, their small breasts pert, lush, and inviting, they stood at the four corners of the sunken tub, now steaming with scented and soapy water, and indicated Tabor was to enter. They would bathe him, it was clear . . . and probably do anything else to and for him that he wanted, the language barrier not being much of an impediment.

"First, I must see to it that my men are well cared for," Tabor said in his gravelly tone, by no means immune to the charms of the young servants who, evidently, were his for the taking. "I shouldn't be gone too long."

He left the room, feeling strange. He knew he had taken the proper course of action by leaving them when he had, but the notion of Tabor, Son of Thor, walking out of a room containing four beautiful, bare-breasted young women did a disservice to his name, his reputation . . . and also played havoc with his senses!

The room closest to his was now occupied by Sven and Carl. Though he had not noticed it before, Tabor realized that there were very few doors in the palace. The doorways were covered by woven rugs of brilliant color, and though this did provide visual privacy, it did little to keep sound out or in.

He eased aside the doorway curtain. Sven sat in a tub of some sort —it looked to Tabor like a huge stew bucket that was used for gatherings, where enough stew could be made at one time to serve three hundred people. A young woman was trying to wash Sven's back, a task made difficult both by his amorous movements and because she was sitting in the tub facing him. Her giggles and his soft laughter told Tabor that the two were understanding each other quite well.

Carl was on a mound of pillows, his head in the lap of a young woman who fed him grapes slowly, sensually, one at a time.

Tabor turned away from the curtain, a smile curling his mouth. His officers were well cared for, he knew. Now he had to find out about the rest of his Vikings, then he could return to the hot bath and the four women that awaited him.

Sometimes, a Viking likes to test his willpower, and the four servants — combined with his own imagination and the possibilities for pleasure that he imagined — provided a test that Thor himself might be unable to resist.

❧

Tanaka felt a jarring rush of fear as she approached Pharaoh Moamin Abbakka's private quarters in the palace. A ridiculous fear, because the pharaoh had made it clear that she was second only to Neenah, his wife. But Tanaka had not seen Abbakka in many months, and she could not help worrying that she might somehow have fallen out of favor.

Total and complete power rested solely in Abbakka's hands, and Tanaka felt a twinge of apprehension. If they ever had a disagreement, there would be no one whom Tanaka could turn to, for in Opar, there was no higher power than Abbakka.

She lingered in the hallway, smelling the familiar scent of her palace home with its marble walls and stone floors, its bowls of dates displayed where hungry wanderers through the corridors could stop to nibble or sip a goblet of the hearty wine that the good Pharaoh Abbakka was so proud of. Dignitaries visited the palace just for a taste of the wine produced by Abbakka's people.

The presence of so many servants and guards surrounding the entranceway to the west wing of the palace signified to Tanaka that Abbakka and his wife, Neenah, were awaiting her.

The guards saw Tanaka approach, and they snapped to their best military posture, but as she drew nearer, she saw concern in their eyes. And sympathy.

Tanaka stopped at the doorway to Abbakka's spacious quarters. She looked up at one of the guards and asked quietly, "There is sadness in your eyes. Why is that, soldier? Are you not pleased that your high priestess has returned?"

The young man's knuckles were white as he squeezed the handle of his battle-axe even tighter. "It is not displeasure at seeing you again, high priestess, that makes me sad. If I could, I would gladly have traded places with you so that you would never have known a moment's discomfort."

Tanaka felt a tightness in her chest again, and she had to blink away the crystal tears that filled her eyes. She was home with her people —home at last!—and they were happy to have her back. The guard's declaration, she knew, was not mere boasting. She was the spiritual leader for Pharaoh Moamin Abbakka and all who resided in his palace and lived under his rule in Opar, and as their spiritual leader her return meant much more than just the return of a kidnapped woman to her home.

"You are a good and loyal man," Tanaka said quietly. She raised her hand, pressing her palm flat against his chest, over his heart. "Your heart beats with loyal blood. Such loyalty will be rewarded, either on earth or in heaven, or, more likely, in both places."

The guard's smile was such a beam of pure pleasure that Tanaka had to resist patting him on the cheek as she would a young boy.

But Tanaka's happiness vanished the moment she stepped into Pharaoh Abbakka's quarters and saw Priest Kahlid standing near the pharaoh's chair.

For years, Kahlid had been able to hide his scorn for Tanaka, though many people were aware of his resentment. Pharaoh Abbakka had slighted the spiritual guide Kahlid in choosing Tanaka to be his high priestess. Though Kahlid always showed Pharaoh Abbakka a smile and claimed he did not mind being a mere priest to Tanaka's exalted position of high priestess, Tanaka had never believed it.

"She is back!" Kahlid said when she entered the room.

Pharaoh Abbakka burst from his huge, ornately carved chair, his purple robes fluttering. He rushed to her, taking her by the shoulders to examine her at arm's distance.

"You are well?" he asked, honest emotion tightening his throat and filling his voice.

Tanaka nodded. It was always awe-inspiring whenever the pharaoh deigned to show his feelings, and by looking into his face she could tell that he had missed her greatly and that she was being welcomed back into his palace with open arms.

"Neenah and I . . . there has been a hole in our lives, an emptiness in our hearts, since you've been away. We prayed for your safe return . . . but it was difficult ... so difficult to pray without the one who understands such matters the most."

In formal fashion, Tanaka and Abbakka greeted each other as protocol dictated, with Tanaka kneeling and kissing the back of Pharaoh Moamin Abbakka's hands, signifying her loyalty to him as pharaoh. Then Abbakka bowed and kissed Tanaka's open palms, signifying his respect for her as high priestess.

When they stood again facing each other, Neenah and Kahlid stood on either side of Abbakka.

"I thought of you constantly while you were away," Neenah said softly, her eyes glistening with tears.

It took all of Tanaka's strength to keep her tears in check. In many ways, Neenah had been a surrogate mother or aunt for Tanaka, and though their positions in life were vastly different, it had never seemed to make any difference to them.

"I thought of you, too," Tanaka replied, then kissed the backs of Neenah's hands.

The warmth of the greeting ended abruptly when Tanaka was forced to acknowledge Kahlid's presence. She had always loathed the man. He used spirituality as a tool to worm his way into the hierarchy of the palace, and Tanaka hoped that Abbakka had seen through Kahlid's mendacity. Perhaps that was why he had chosen her over the older and more experienced man to be the chief spiritual guide for the palace, though it was disconcerting to her to see that Kahlid still held great power in the palace of Opar.

Neenah, however, believed deeply in Kahlid's spirituality, which she called a gift from the heavens. Neenah, unlike her pharaoh husband, was extraordinarily gentle-hearted. She could not believe that anyone would smile at her and then lie. Her sheltered existence as Abbakka's beloved wife insulated her from most of the dangers in the world . . . except from men like Priest Kahlid.

"It is good to see you again," Kahlid said, smiling.