Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (79 page)

             
“Present company excluded” cut in Alodie.

             
“Naturally” continued Jake, “anyway one of the first things he discovered was my vial of Truthsay, and he asked me what it was, I refused to tell him at first but, after threatening to cut off my balls, I told him what he wanted to know.  He tested it first on his
wife
, a bonny blonde girl who was terrified of him.  He asked the poor kid her true opinion of her lord, confiding to me that if she had said she loved and worshipped him he would have had me killed.  But as he knew she hated him and she confirmed this in no uncertain terms, I was safe”

             
“and the girl
, Brunhilda was her name by the way
”

             
Jake shook his head.  The seagull screamed again.  “What do you think?  She was bound hand and foot and thrown from the top of the cliff”

             
Alodie nodded.  Even after half knowing the answer she still felt the hot bile rush upward.  Evil was not a strong enough word.  There had to be another term to describe Olaf the Black, and he would have had Tom and Nerissa in his clutches, it did not bear thinking about.

             
“Anyway” continued Jake “he forced a dose down my throat.  Apparently I was unconscious for days, spilling my guts.  I told him everything, about you, about psi guns, although I did not have one, about shuttles, time travel, how my anti grav belt worked, the laser bracelet, the lot”

             
Alodie chewed her bottom lip.  “I can’t understand why he kept you alive” she said.  “Surely you would have been safer dead.”

             
Jake shrugged.  “Strangely enough I think he actually liked me.  I fascinated him at first, but when that wore off I was still someone intelligent to talk to.  Apart from the fact that he did not let me leave my rooms in the castle I was treated with the utmost courtesy.  I was his honoured guest.  I knew he was an evil son of a bitch but not how evil, and I also needed to keep myself alive for you my darling.  He made sure, too, that I remained ignorant of the major part of his atrocities.  I didn’t even know about his
wife
until long after it happened.  I knew he killed people but that fact that his hobbies were torture and child molestation never came to light.  I suppose I was drifting, I was comfortable and the trouble was I had no idea where you were going to show up, just when, and as Olaf never travelled we never left Segensfjord.  He did have ships of course, four of them, but they were always out trading so we were stuck here.   He seemed fascinated with you, Alodie, he was always looking at this”.  Jake pulled a holo from his pocket which showed Alodie in her captain’s uniform just before she left on the
The Star City Colossus
.  Alodie smiled at the serious young face which confronted her. 

             
“Olaf told me that a beauty like yours was sure to become famous and as he had spies out all over.  Years passed and at last one day he came to me and told me you were the slave of an evil man called ‘Herger’ in Northumbria and that he was going to save you”  Alodie snorted with laughter at this.  “Who is Herger?” he asked.

             
“I’ll tell you everything later Dad.  Can we get to the pod if we get out of here?”

             
Jake shook his head.  “No good, I told you, it was a time travelling pod, not a space travelling pod”

             
“But you got it to come here”

             
Jake nodded.  “and in doing so I burned out so many of its components that all its good for is scrap.  Apart from anything else its at the bottom of the fjord.  That thing won’t take us anywhere my dear.  I was relying on you and the shuttle for that”

             
Alodie sighed.  “Also at the bottom of the fjord, I’ll tell you about that too in a minute, now where does Emma come into all this?”

             
Jake laughed.  “Emma, what a strange person she is.  Emma turned up here one night nearly a year ago.  A villager brought her in.  Apparently she had staggered up to his hut in the middle of a snowstorm”

             
“So how did she get all this power?”

             
He grinned again.  “Olaf cleaned her up and took her to his bed.  She was the only person he had ever slept with who actually liked what he did to her, and believe me he likes to hurt people”

             
Alodie nodded.  “I know Dad”

             
Jake squeezed her arm.  “Try to put it to the back of your mind Al.  You are sure he’s dead aren’t you?”  She nodded again.  Jake clenched his fist.  “Good.  Anyway, when he found out that she hated you, and was an ex slave of Herger’s into the bargain, she was safe.  I think he was keeping her to use against you in some way.  A nursemaid he mentioned to me but I didn’t understand his meaning”

             
Alodie gasped.  “You will when I tell you my story” she whispered.

             
“Well, after she came, Olaf began to show his true colours.  I had never really seen his dark side before, apart from when he used the Truthsay.  I knew his people were afraid of him but I just put this down to the time and the culture, however, he began to punish people in front of me.  One day I remonstrated with him and smiling, he said that unless I kept my nose out of his business I would meet the same fate.  After that I kept to my room, even eating there.

             
It was just after that he left in his ship, leaving Emma in charge.  Apparently because she was even more warped than he was”

             
He took a drink from the ewer next to him.  “Three days after he left, Emma had me moved down here.  I never even knew of the place’s existence but he had pumped me for all he was worth and he had the drilling equipment and the mercurise, he managed to salvage them from the pod before it sank.  It’s not too bad here, I get two meals a day and she does come and talk to me through the grille, that’s how I found out just what Olaf intended to do to you”

             
Alodie shivered, her boiler suit was still damp and it was getting decidedly cold in the cell.  “You’d given up Dad, hadn’t you?  The Jake Austen I knew would never have stood for any of this” she said quietly.

             
“As I said earlier, this Jake Austen had a daughter to consider, a daughter he had, literally, moved heaven and earth to save”

             
She rubbed her temples and Jake squeezed her shoulders.  “Well, what about you then daughter?  Who is Herger and am I going to have to kill him?”

             
She laughed, “Dad, you can’t kill him, he’s your son in law”

             
Jake rubbed his nose and glanced out of the window, the afternoon was lengthening into evening and the room was becoming dark and very, very cold.

             
Alodie glanced up, there were unlit torches in metal sconces along the wall and a small fire pit in the centre of the room, also unlit.  She got up and taking down a torch walked back to her father.  “Have you anything to light this?” she asked.

             
Jake shook his head.  “Emma usually lights them when she brings what she laughingly calls ‘supper’”

             
Alodie glanced down at her wrist then, setting her psi gun to stun, laid the torch on the floor “stand back Dad” she ordered.

             
Jake got to his feet.  “Alodie, for God’s sake no - the floor is mercurised as well as the walls, that beam’ll be bouncing all over the room for eternity”

             
She sighed and nodding, replaced the torch and walked back to Jake, squatting down beside him and linking his arm in hers.  He smiled at her and kissed her gently on the head.  Alodie felt tears rush to her eyes, she had missed her father so much, cynical old reprobate that he was.  “Let’s talk about Herger, something tells me you were no slave to him, what have you been up to daughter of mine?” he said quietly.

             
She took a deep breath and began, it was going to be a long night.

The huge Viking warrior pulled his bearskin cloak closer round his shoulders and shivered.  They had been waiting here only three days but it had seemed like weeks.

Herger was like a man possessed.  He and his men had ridden to the harbour which had housed the
Freyja
in just a little under seven hours, luckily finding fresh mounts at Skelmersthorpe and Ragglesthorpe, respectively twenty five and sixty miles north of Jorvik.

Once at Whitthorp Herger had ridden straight to his cousin Snorri’s house and, almost battering down the door, threw some coins at the sleepy and bewildered man and gabbling out his story went with him to the
Freyja
whilst his wife roused the rest of the village to help provision the boat.

Within nine hours of their departure from Jorvik the huge sleek dragon ship was nosing its way across the North Sea with its commander standing at the prow, staring northward, one arm looped round the figurehead.

T
hanks to brilliant navigation and three shifts of rowers, each of whom rowed constantly for six hours, not to mention friendly winds, the
Freyja
made the crossing in the almost record time of six days and, secure in the knowledge that Olaf’s ship could not possibly have made the voyage any faster, lay in wait at the lonely rocky outcrops of ‘Odin’s Twins’,  two huge rocks positioned almost twenty miles off the coast between Segensfjord and Seinshaven, both roughly half a mile long, eighty feet in height and about two hundred yards wide.  Herger anchored the
Freyja
behind the most southerly of the Twins, posted a lookout on top of the rock then settled down to wait for Olaf’s ship.  He spoke to no one save Bjarnie, ate rarely and snatched only brief periods of sleep.

In reality he was filled with fear, fear not only for the children but for Alodie, and also doubts.  How had Alodie managed to get him home from
Winchester
?  Was she a sorceress?  Why did she and Olaf speak together in that strange tongue - Olaf had never been to
Bohemia
had he?  Why did Olaf ride off in the glade when he could have put an end to his enemy once and for all?  It was not logical.  Was she, after all, a creature of Olaf’s?  Was she so false?  Herger clenched his fist, it was not possible, not his beautiful golden Alodie, she was the beginning and end of his life, never had anyone loved like he loved her.  No, she was true, she
had
to be, his sanity would take no other answer.  But facts had to be faced, she had been with Olaf over a week now, was she still alive?  She would of a certainty have been ravished by him.

Letting out a low groan he punched one massive fist into the wood, not noticing as the blood poured from his cut knuckles, ran down his arm and formed a crimson pool on the deck at his feet.  He looked up as he felt a hand on his shoulder, it was Bjarnie.

“Herger, this does not help” he said quietly  “I know how you feel, I am sick to the stomach with fear for Anstice and little Alodie, there was more than a good chance that they were both killed at Hergersby but I am eating and sleeping as much as I can to keep up my strength to tear the guts from the bastards who may have killed them”

Herger got to his feet and squeezed Bjarnie’s shoulder.  “That is not Olaf’s way my friend, a good looking wench like Anstice would have been taken prisoner, along with little Alodie if she was giving suck, I cannot see Anstice leaving her behind, can you?  She will probably be on the ship, along with Tom and Nerissa, hopefully unharmed”

Bjarnie snorted and walking over to the rail, gripped it.  “Exactly Herger, hopefully unharmed, but not unravished”

“We have to accept that Bjarnie, Loki’s balls, how many times have you raped a maiden after a raid?  T’is only when it comes home to us we begin to realise how wrong it is to take a woman against her will”

Bjarnie blanched, “I - I took Anstice the first time by force.  It was only after I looked at her lying there, crying - her maiden’s blood covering her gown, shaking with fear for her life, that I realised what I had done and vowed to make it up to her.  I am only thankful you taught me Saxon after you awoke from your death sleep and I could woo her.  Thor’s blood Herger  I love that woman, call it unmanly to admit it if you wish but I had rather I was killed a thousand times over than anything happen to her and my bairn”

Herger nodded.  “At least, Bjarnie, Anstice will have been ravished, if at all, by someone like us, a normal Norseman, she will have escaped being raped - infested, by that filthy, evil, stinking monster Olaf, Loki rot his guts”

Bjarnie put his hand on Herger’s forearm, “Olaf - will you cut the
blood eagle
on him when you get him Herger?”

Herger shook his head “No, I swore an oath to someone, a Christian priest, never to do that again.  I have another end in store for that creature, suffice it to say that he will wish I
had
used the
blood eagle”

A sudden shout from above snapped both their heads up.  “Lord Herger, there’s a ship on the horizon, coming this way”

“Is it flying Olaf’s flag Thorkil?”

“Yes, my lord, it is”

             
Herger turned to Bjarnie who grinned savagely and gripped his sword hilt.  “Now it begins” he snarled.

Herger nodded, returning his grin.  “It certainly does, my friend, but remember, cannily at first, get the women and babes safe then.....................”

“I have not sworn any oath about the
blood eagle
Herger, and if Anstice has been ravished or my little Alodie harmed..............”

“One thing at a time, Bjarnie....” he replied, then turned and beckoned to his men, as one they leapt to their feet and approached him.

He shook himself, like a dog, in an attempt to rid himself of the sudden tiredness that seemed to have overwhelmed him, and cleared his throat. “Right”  he snapped “Olaf’s ship has been sighted, there are possibly women and children aboard,
our
women and children, so this cannot be a simple board and destroy mission - we are to fool the crew into thinking we are also in Olaf’s employ.  They will have no idea we have beaten them over the
North Sea
, so will probably be taken in.  Thorund stop crooning, we will not be going into battle for at least another two hours. Have you got the banner Jorund Snowhair?”

The old man nodded and, producing a rolled bundle, handed it to Bjarnie who ran it up the mast, the early morning breeze caught it and flapped it outward with a crack.  Sable it was, with a runic ‘O’ under which were two crossed war axes.  Several men, on seeing it flapping there, made the ‘T’ sign of Thor as protection against magic.  Herger grinned,  he had found it years ago washed up along the cliffs down the fjord, had it cleaned and kept aboard the
Freyja
ever since.   He realised now it had been send by the gods to aid him.  “Now, boys” he continued “gently, let us nose our way out between the ‘Twins’, we are friends, remember.  Erik, you can be the commander” he turned to Bjarnie and winked.  “Cover that flaming thatch of yours lad or you’ll have Anstice seeing it from miles away and climbing into her nightrail!”  To his delight and relief his friend’s face split into a grin.

“Right lads!  Knut, up with the anchor, Jorund, you steer, I will go to the stern, my height will be a give away. Let us go out and meet these thrice damned
nithings,
and remember, this is the most important battle we will ever fight - before we have just been fighting for loot, this time it is for the lives of our loved ones!” he was interrupted, as with a thud young Thorssen Leifson, who had all the speed and agility his father, Leif, lacked and who had been up on the cliff, slid down the rope and landed on the deck.

Herger raised his eyebrows “I thought you were staying up there out of danger young one, you
are
only fifteen you know!”

The lad blushed scarlet.  “Lord Herger, I trust you are joking, I too have a sweetheart at Hergersby”

“Oh, you have, have you?” boomed Sven - his father’s friend - from the body of the ship “Does your mother know?”

“Know, Sven?  Of course she does, why the lady in question is her best friend!” quipped the lad, ducking as a length of rope was thrown in his direction, it was well known that Thorssen’s mother’s best friend was Sven’s wife, a pretty young thing twenty years her husband’s junior.

Grinning, Herger clipped the lad round the ear.  “Back to the benches boy.  With luck you’ll be back in your girl’s arms by
noon
, being told what a hero you are!”

“Unless it really is my wife in which case his balls will be dangling from the masthead!” shouted Sven.

Herger held up his hand and immediately silence descended.  “Men, as you know, when we go into battle I usually tell you to avoid unnecessary bloodshed but on this occasion I will tell you the opposite.  Every follower of Olaf is one follower too many.  You know the plan, we hail the ship and board her when she pulls alongside.  Once aboard we will tell them that we are there to escort her home as that thrice damned sea king Herger is expected, then we find the women and children, make sure they are safe, leave men surrounding them with drawn swords then.....” he drew his finger across his throat.  “I have no idea what these bastards have done at Hergersby but this I do know, they have my children aboard and possibly yours too.  Your wives and daughters have probably been  raped by these men”.  He heard an almost unanimous growl from his followers and smiled grimly.  “You are the cream of Norwegian manhood - this is what you have been trained for, you are free but you follow me by choice, these men are the scum of the earth, they know what Olaf is, they too have a choice – they chose to follow him.  Olaf attracts evil to him like a magnet.  Right my lads, for our families - now altogether - Tur Aie!”

“TUR AIE!!”

The scream echoed round the cliffs and sent the seagulls screaming from their nests, as the sleek dragon ship, her figurehead obscured by a cloak, slid quietly out from between the two monoliths onto an interception course with the much slower ship with all that they loved aboard.

*************************

 
             
“Wench - keep that bloody brat quiet!” Anstice winced in pain as she was buffeted above the ear by a huge clenched fist and terrified, cuddled her baby closer to her breast, trying at the same time to quieten Nerissa who was almost hysterical.  Tom was asleep, and had not cried for more than five minutes during the whole ordeal.

Not for the first time she wished for the comforting figure of Herluva or even Maudya, to help her.  But Herluva was hundreds of miles away in
Wessex
and Maudya, big hearted, kind, fat Maudya, so like Herluva both in looks and ways that they could have been sisters, she was dead.  Killed as she was lighting the fires for the morning’s baking, murdered by an axe which sliced her head from her shoulders, wielded by the kind of Norseman who had disturbed Anstice’s sleep since she was a child - the same Norseman who had hauled the covers from Anstice herself and her sleeping child and dragging her out of bed forced her to fetch young Master Tom and Mistress Nerissa.

Anstice put her hand to her mouth.  What had followed next had been terrible - as she was pushed into the hall she was greeted by the sight of forty or fifty filthy swearing Norsemen intent on stripping Herger’s hall of everything of value and torching everything that was not.

At first she did not understand, then she realised.  They were Olaf’s men. If only Bjarnie and Lord Herger were here, or that giant man who she had spied from her room a few hours before, they would send this foul mob fleeing from the hall.  It was then she had seen Maudya’s decapitated corpse slumped in front of the oven and as she watched, horrified, her captor had picked up the head and thrown it into the fire, to the cackling glee of the others.

She had immediately lost what little food she had had in her belly onto the rushes, which again seemed to amuse the men.  Then one of them, to Anstice’s horror, had begun to unfasten his
britches
and, gesturing at her captor, had made quite obvious what he wished to do to her if her captor was not in the mood to do it himself.  In answer, Harald,  for that seemed to be her captor’s name, and an uglier man she had never seen in her life, with a huge scar running down his face, dragged baby Alodie from her arms and held her up to the crowd, then gestured to Anstice’s still large belly and grimaced.  “Who is the father of this child?” he hissed at her then, and even in her terror she realised that little Alodie’s only chance of life was in her lie.

“L-Lord Herger” she whispered in her halting Norse “and if you harm a hair of her head he will – will cut the
blood hawk
on your filthy body”

             
This was greeted by a scream of laughter from the rest of the men and a guffaw from Harald who pushed her headlong toward the stairs. “
Blood eagle
I think you mean, little one, never mind, I will teach you our language by and by!  Right – Herger’s other brats, his brats by the Lady Alodie, get them –
NOW
”

             
Anstice held out her arms.  “Give me my child, I beg you, she is only three days old”