Viking Passion (13 page)

“I have missed you,” he whispered, as his
lips rained kisses of sultry fire from fingertip to elbow to
shoulder to breasts, until she cried out in delight.

“Lenora, my sweet,” he breathed, his mouth
setting toes and calves and knees and thighs aglow with heat and
flowery explosions of joy.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her, his face
buried in her throat, her breasts, her abdomen.

And then finally, when she thought she could
bear no more pleasure, when her senses were spinning and her eyes
were unfocused and half-closed, when she was totally bewitched by
his tender explorations, she heard him out of the shimmering space
above her.

“You are mine, Lenora,” he said at last, his
voice trembling with emotion, his body fierce yet gentle with her
as he led her to the ultimate joy.

“Yes,” she cried out while she could still
speak, “I am yours, Erik. Always, always.”

Again and again before morning he awakened
her with deep, passionate kisses and the most intimate of touches.
She was not always certain whether she was dreaming about him, as
she had so many nights during his absence, or awake and holding him
in her arms while he carried them both to the heights of delirious
rapture, until she lifted her lids and found his green eyes looking
deeply into hers as he made her his yet again.

“Erik,” she sighed, “I have been so lost, so
empty without you.”

“You are not empty now.”

“No, I am full of you. Never leave me again.
I want to sleep beside you every night. There, do that again, and
that. Ah, Erik, Erik…”

Snorri’s marriage to Gunhilde was to take
place at the turning of the year, during the great Yule feasts that
celebrated the time when the days began to lengthen. He and
Thorkell and a large retinue of men left for the home of Sven the
Dark. Erik and Freydis were responsible for the preparations to
welcome the bridal party on its return ten days later; then Sven
and a group of his friends would accompany his daughter to her new
home.

The guest chamber where Sven would stay and
the great hall where his men would sleep along with Thorkell’s hird
were cleaned and decorated with evergreen boughs. Snorri’s own room
received special attention. Lenora, unwilling to enter the room,
stood at the door, watching, as Freydis put the finishing touches
on the decorations. Lenora regarded the little statue of the god
Frey that had been placed near the bed and nervously crossed
herself.

“Stop that,” Freydis ordered. “You will bring
them bad luck. This is for fertility, so they will have many
children.”

“If anything will work, that will,” muttered
Edwina, considering the statue’s enormous, erect phallus. “Maybe I
should have placed my faith in Frey.”

“Don’t say that, Edwina. You are just upset
because Thorkell took Maura with him.” Lenora was genuinely
shocked. Edwina had once been deeply religious, had often scolding
Lenora for her laxity.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Thorkell
hasn’t slept with me since Maura came. I thought he would marry
me.”

“Edwina, come and help me in the kitchen,”
Freydis advised. “You will be much happier if you do some work. You
think too much about your problems.”

When the bridal party returned Lenora was
fascinated to find the bride’s father tall and thin, with thick,
silver-blond hair and pale blue eyes.

“Why do they call him Sven the Dark?” she
asked Erik, who had just greeted the returning Halfdan, arrived for
the feasting.

The two men laughed uproariously.

“Because,” Erik said, when he had calmed
himself, “when Sven was born he was a deep red color, no one knows
why. It was believed he would not live, but he did. In fact, he has
never been sick a day in his life. His father thought it was a
great joke to call him Dark.” With this, he and Halfdan burst into
laughter again.

Lenora shook her head, understanding that
this was another of those strange jests the Norsemen found so
amusing, like the friendly insults they often hurled at one
another.

Sven’s daughter Gunhilde was extremely tall,
almost as tall as Snorri. She was coldly beautiful, with red-gold
hair and pale, creamy skin. In spite of many friendly overtures
made to her, she maintained an unbending aloofness toward the women
of Thorkell’s household, preferring the companionship of the people
she had brought with her to Thorkellshavn from her old home. Lenora
did not like Gunhilde, and she believed Freydis did not either.

The wedding feasts continued for days. On the
third night, in the midst of noise and revelry, Lenora was talking
with Halfdan when she became aware of a growing quiet in the hall.
She turned in her seat to see by the firepit a tiny old woman,
gowned in white and holding in her right hand a staff taller than
she was. There was a majesty about the woman, a serene and profound
stillness. And something more, a quality of unknowable mystery, of
darkness, that Lenora felt even before the woman’s eyes briefly met
hers. Lenora had been about to cross herself for protection against
the power she felt emanating from the woman, but her hand was
arrested in mid-motion by those deep, impenetrable eyes. In an
instant the woman’s gaze had moved on to rest on others in their
turn, but still Lenora could not move.

As those in the hall fell into an unnatural
state of complete silence, Thorkell rose from his seat beside
Snorri and Gunhilde. At the same time, Lenora found her tongue
again.

“Who is she, what’s happening?” she asked
Halfdan.

“It’s the volva,” Halfdan whispered back in
an awed tone.

“The what?”

“Hush.” Halfdan’s voice sank even lower.
“Thorkell is the officiating chieftain here; he will speak. You
must be quiet. She is the volva, the seer, the Angel of Death. I do
not know the word in your language.”

“You are welcome,” Thorkell told the old
woman. “Do you come to prophesy?”

“I do.” In spite of her apparent frailty, the
woman’s voice was strong and commanding. She looked around the
hall, as though assuring herself of everyone’s complete attention
before she drew herself to her full height. In a gesture almost too
rapid for the eye to follow she threw something into the firepit.
There was a flash of light and a billow of gray smoke, followed by
an appreciative murmur from the audience, as though most men and
women in the hall had seen exactly what they expected to see. Borne
on a wisp of smoke, the smell of bitter herbs pricked at Lenora’s
nose, making her want to sneeze.

Again the volva waited until silence was
restored. When all was quiet once more, she lifted her staff off
the ground to point its base toward Thorkell.

“You, my old friend Thorkell the
Fair-speaker, will not see another Yule. I will come for you.”

A gasp was heard around the hall, followed by
frightened whispers. Thorkell nodded at the volva’s words,
unafraid. Lenora was more than ever impressed by his great
dignity.

“I am ready,” he said. “But what of my
sons?”

The volva’s long staff pointed now at Snorri.
Lenora thought she saw a tremor of fear pass over his face before
he recovered himself and sat impassively, staring back at the
volva.

“Snorri,” the woman intoned, “your end lies
far from here. I see treachery and double treachery.”

Snorri laughed. “What of my reputation?” he
asked. “Will it live after me?”

“You will be long remembered.”

Snorri nodded in satisfaction, for such was
the wish of every Norseman.

“Will I have sons to follow me?”

“You will have twin sons, but you will never
see them. Before they are born, you will die the most shameful
death of all. You will die at the hands of a woman.”

“I don’t believe you.” Snorri’s face had
turned bright red. He began to rise, but Thorkell stopped him.

“Sit,” he commanded, and Snorri sank back
into his seat.

“My other son,” Thorkell asked. “What of
Erik?”

The volva turned to face Erik and pointed her
staff at him.

“Ah,” she said, “such a long path. So far
away. Other lands, other gods. And treachery. Danger. Trust no one,
son of Thorkell. Your way is long and difficult. I cannot see, I
cannot see…” The old woman fell onto the earthen floor in a
crumpled heap. Freydis hurried forward with a cup of mead to revive
her. No one else moved. Lenora felt a cold chill along her
spine.

Suddenly, Snorri leapt across the firepit,
his sword drawn.

“You,” he shouted at Erik. “It is you who
have done this.”

Sven, on this occasion seated next to Erik,
put out a restraining hand. “Would you bring shame to my daughter’s
marriage feast by spilling your own brother’s blood?” he asked.

“This is no brother of mine,” Snorri rasped,
showing his yellowed teeth. “You did it, Erik. You brought the old
crone here to curse me.”

“You know perfectly well the volva goes where
she wishes,” Erik replied cooly, “and she spoke not curse but
prophecy.”

“Snorri, sit down.” Thorkell’s voice rang
across the hall. “I will have order in my home. Sit down, I
say.”

With a scowl, Snorri crossed the room and sat
down. Lenora noticed the icy expression on his bride’s face and her
rigid shoulders.
I would not be Snorri’s wife for all the gold
in Grikkland
, she thought.

The disturbance had spoiled the
once-boisterous mood, and the night’s feasting ended early.

“I’m glad Snorri didn’t hurt you,” Lenora
said when she and Erik were alone in his house. She ran her hands
along his finely muscled arms and locked them behind his head. She
kissed his lips, but to her surprise found no response. “Erik?”

Reaching up, he took her wrists in his strong
grip and held her away from him.

“I should kill you,” he said.

“What?” She stared at him in shock.

“I believe yours is the hand that will strike
down my brother. You are the woman the volva spoke of, who will
destroy him in shame. You will bring disgrace to my family. Why
can’t I kill you?”

Since the first night he had owned her,
Lenora had never feared Erik, but now she was terrified at the look
on his face.

“What are you saying?”

“I think you have bewitched me, Lenora. You
are more seductive than all the dark-eyed beauties of Grikkland. I
swore I would never touch what had once been Snorri’s, and yet
every night I lie with you and I cannot help myself. I told myself
I would find another woman when I visited Halfdan, but there was no
one I wanted. Erna wants me again, and I look at her with disgust.
What have you done to me that I want no other woman?”

“You need no other. You have me. And you know
full well I was never Snorri’s woman.”

“Do you deny you want revenge against
him?”

“I had thought of it, but I gave up the idea
as impossible for a slave. Besides, I promised Thorkell—”

“I know what you promised. And I know what
the volva said.”

“I remember a night when you almost killed
Snorri yourself, after he insulted your manhood,” Lenora responded.
“Why do you worry about his safety now? He would kill you if he had
the chance and not think twice about it.”

“On the night you mean, I did think a second
time, even in the heat of anger,” Erik told her. “I remembered that
we have the same father, that I was born a slave yet Thorkell freed
me and adopted me, that he has always treated me fairly. In that
thinking lies the greatest difference between Snorri and myself. I
am so grateful to Thorkell, I love him so well, that however angry
I may be, however much I might wish I could, still I will not harm
any son of his.”

“Not even to save yourself?”

“It will not come to that.”

His confidence dismayed her.

“It almost came to that tonight,” she
responded quietly. “Snorri would have killed you and laughed to see
you die. He is dangerous, Erik. Please, be on your guard against
him.”

He would not listen to her. His hold on her
wrists tightened.

“If I ever catch you in treachery, Lenora, I
will kill you slowly. I know how you Christian Saxons fear
death.”

“That’s not true. I’m not afraid to die, but
I haven’t done anything wrong. How can you treat me like this
because of what a half-mad old woman says?”

“She is the volva.”

“You don’t believe that heathen nonsense?”
Lenora would not admit that she herself had felt a thrill of fear
at the volva’s prophecies. She knew what Father Egbert would have
said about such witchcraft.

“The volva has powers you do not understand.”
Erik dropped her hands and she rubbed her wrists where his fingers
had bitten into her. “Go to sleep,
slave
. I am going to talk
with Halfdan, and then I will go to Erna.”

But he was back later that night, after
Lenora had cried herself into exhaustion. He lay down beside her on
the straw mattress and put his arms around her.

“I need you,” he moaned as his mouth found
hers. “Only you. Lenora, you beautiful witch, I can’t do without
you. What in the name of all the gods have you done to me?”

At his touch, a heavy, throbbing desire
stirred in Lenora, stronger than the fear and anger she had known
earlier. She could feel her own hot blood coursing through her
veins.

“Erik,” she whispered, “whatever I have done
to you, you have also done to me. I can’t stop wanting you, and
when I am with you, nothing else matters.”

There was no gentleness in their coming
together. They tore at each other’s garments, gasping and sobbing
in their urgent, primitive need, until they were both naked. Her
fingernails raked his back as he pulled her roughly to him. She
cried out like some wild animal, totally lost in the sensation of
his skin against hers, his body demanding equal passion from her,
until suddenly she lost all control and was swept away beyond
thought, beyond time and place, to some strange realm where all the
stars in the sky exploded at once and fell in shimmering pieces
into the quiet sea.