Viking Passion (23 page)

Red and orange flames reflected in the
rippling water of Hadeby Noor and leapt in tall fingers against the
gray dawn sky. The same wind that sent the fire billowing ever
higher caught the sail of Rodfos’ ship as they glided past the
burning building.

“I was beginning to think you hadn’t started
it well.” Erik clapped Halfdan on the shoulder. ”I should have
known you wouldn’t fail.”

“I used strips of linen dipped in lamp oil
and laid on the earth floor,” Halfdan explained. “It took a little
while for them to burn back to the fabrics and wood we had piled
up, but then everything burst into flames at once. It looks nice,
doesn’t it?”

He watched the burning building with a
satisfied smile as they sailed beyond it and out the fjord toward
the sea.

“Did you do that?” Rodfos, coming up behind
them, jerked a thumb toward the flaming warehouse.

“How could we? We were all on your ship when
it started.” Halfdan’s handsome face was the picture of
innocence.

Rodfos balanced himself lightly on the
forward deck of his ship, his giant fists planted firmly on his
hips. He looked his three passengers over with an irritated
expression.

“I want no trouble from you,” he said. “If
there is any, all three of you go over the side.”

“There will be no trouble,” Erik assured
him.

“There is a change in plans,” Rodfos now
informed them. “We are not going to Bornholm, after all. I’ve no
cargo to unload there and too many pirates are in that area. We are
going directly to Aldeigjuborg.”

“What?” Erik was plainly angry. “You told me
you’d put in at Bornholm.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind. It shouldn’t
matter to you anyway. You wanted to go to Aldeigjuborg, didn’t you?
If we don’t stop at Bornholm, you will be there that much sooner.
With your dear uncle, who lives there.”

“You—” Erik began.

“That’s wonderful,” Lenora interrupted. “I
can’t wait to see my uncle again. I’ll feel so much safer with
him.”

Rodfos smiled at her, his gruff exterior
softening a little.

“What is your uncle’s name?” he asked. “I do
a lot of trading in Aldeigjuborg. I may know him.”

“I don’t think so,” Erik put in.

“Gorm,” Lenora said, using the first name
that popped into her mind. “Uncle Gorm. He’s a wonderful man.”

“Never met him.” Rodfos went off to attend to
ship’s business.

“Afraid of pirates,” Erik said scornfully.
“He’s a pirate himself. The silver he took for our passage would
buy a ship of our own. I wanted to send both of you back here from
Bornholm and now you will have to go all the way to
Aldeigjuborg.”

“Hush,” Lenora soothed. “He might hear
you.”

“You can hardly blame him for not trusting
us,” Halfdan said reasonably. “We did come aboard in a very strange
way.”

“I suppose so, but I don’t trust him, either.
Halfdan, you and I will take turns sleeping. One of us will always
be awake to watch Rodfos and his men and to guard Lenora – er –
Freydis.”

Erik squinted at the sky, then glanced back
toward Hedeby. The sun was just rising on a clear, beautiful day.
The flat landscape of Denmark slid by as the ship made its way down
the fjord toward the Baltic Sea. The plume of smoke and fire from
Holgar’s warehouse dipped lower. Erik drew a deep breath and let it
out in a whistle.

“Farewell, Denmark,” he said.

“I wonder if we will ever see it again,”
mused Halfdan.

“You will. I won’t.”

Nor I, Lenora thought. Edwina’s bones lie
buried there with Thorkell’s, and my babe’s remains too. I never
want to see that place again. She turned her back on the land and
resolutely faced the eastern horizon.

Rodfos’ knarr, the wider, deeper,
cargo-carrying version of a Viking longship, was heavily built to
withstand the rough northern seas. There were short decks at the
bow and stern only, leaving the mid-ship area open for cargo, which
was securely lashed down and covered with oiled canvas. There was a
square sail of brilliant red and yellow stripes. The ropes holding
the sail were made of strips of twisted and waxed walrus hide.

In spite of its heavy load, the ship skimmed
easily over the waves with no pitching or rolling, only a gentle
rocking motion that Lenora found very relaxing. She slept well at
night, knowing either Erik or Halfdan was standing guard.

Her last trip at sea, aboard Snorri’s
longship, had been a journey of sorrow and dread. This time it was
different. Lenora accepted the rigors of shipboard life without
complaint. Cold, dried food, a shortage of fresh water with which
to wash, the confinement of the knarr’s forward deck, bothered her
not at all. She was filled with a sense of adventure and of
curiosity about what lay ahead.

Early in the trip she had taken the little
packet of amber out of her bundle of clothes and goods to be
traded, and had hung it on a thong around her neck. It lay against
her skin under her gown, along with the purse of silver Thorkell
had paid her. When she wrapped her makeshift woolen cloak around
her shoulders and pulled it close to her throat against the sea
wind, the thongs were hidden.

It’s my own private hoard, Lenora thought.
I’m a free woman now, not a slave. I can do what I want. Erik can’t
send me back to Denmark or Anglia if I don’t want to go.

What she wanted, she knew beyond any doubt,
was to go to Miklagard with Erik. She’d had time during this sea
voyage to think about and make her peace with the events at
Holgar’s house. She realized that the deaths of Tola and Alara had
been quick and relatively painless. She said a few silent prayers
for those unfortunate women, but she had no regrets for Snorri’s
men who had perished. They all, but especially Hrolf, had deserved
their deaths, and Lenora held no regrets for what she had done.
Having thought this far, Lenora let herself remember Snorri’s
taunting words to Erik before the fight had begun.

“Erik?”

“Yes?” He was lying beside her, rolled in his
woolen cloak. A pace or two away Halfdan sat on the deck, keeping
watch. The starry night sky arched above them. Lenora could hear
the rustle and slap of water along the ship’s hull, the creaking of
timbers, the straining of the sail under a stiff breeze, and, out
of the dark, the occasional gruff comment of one of Rodfos’
sailors.

“Snorri said,” Lenora needed all her courage
for this, but she had to know, “Snorri said you neglected Erna
completely after I arrived at Thorkellshavn. Is that true?”

Erik stirred, turning toward her. His hushed
voice sounded close to her ear.

“If you mean,” he said, “was Snorri telling
the truth that it was Erna who told him where we were going, yes, I
believe for once in his life Snorri was being honest. Erna would
have betrayed us without hesitation if she thought it would be to
her own advantage.”

“Was it because she was jealous of me?”
Lenora took a deep breath and asked the all-important question
again. “Is it true you had nothing to do with Erna, you never lay
with her again, once you met me?” She waited tensely until he
answered her.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“But all those months before we-. And Erna
showed me a bracelet and said you had given it to her.”

“I gave her a bracelet half a year before you
came to Thorkellshavn.” Erik moved restlessly. “Don’t talk any
more. Let me sleep, Lenora. I must keep watch soon.”

He rolled over, turning his back to her, but
Lenora did not mind. She could not have spoken again if she had
tried. She was near to open tears of joy and relief. Erna had lied,
had deliberately and spitefully tried to make Lenora unhappy.
Lenora forgot all the decisions she had made out of pride just a
few days earlier. Denmark and East Anglia had no claim on her. She
would stay with Erik. They would make the journey to Miklagard
together. They would be lovers again, and all would be well between
them.

She was still thinking about her private
plans the next afternoon when Erik approached her.

“Freydis, do you want some?” That, she knew,
was for the benefit of the two sailors who were working nearby.
Erik handed her the wooden cup of ale from which he had been
drinking. Lenora accepted it and sipped at the brew. It tasted
sour. She wrinkled her nose. There would be nothing better until
they reached Aldeigjuborg.

Erik’s eyes scanned her sunburned face and
her tangled curls. She had removed the pale silken scarf as soon as
they were out of sight of Hedeby, and since then had let her hair
blow free. The sun had soon burnished its natural chestnut shade
with streaks of gold. Her brows and lashes were by now touched with
gold too. He bent toward her.

“How I would like to lie with you,” he
murmured. “I want to feel you against me. I want your arms around
me.”

Lenora’s gray eyes were brimming with
laughter and happiness as she looked up at him. He and Halfdan were
letting their beards grow, and Erik looked strange and vaguely
sinister behind the black hair newly sprouted on his chin and upper
lip. Only his green eyes were the same. Seeing the intensity in
them and recalling their present circumstances, she giggled,
choking on the sour ale, and then sobered.

“You can’t do that,” she said demurely. “I’m
your sister.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he replied through
clenched teeth, but with a spark of humor to answer her own. “It’s
driving me mad.”

“Poor Erik,” she teased. “Remember, it was
your idea.”

He scowled ferociously.

“Just wait until we get to Aldeigjuborg,” he
said. There was a world of erotic promise in the simple
statement.

“You should also remember that I am no longer
your slave,” she replied sweetly.

“You want me as much as I want you.”

He was right, she did want him, more than
ever now that she knew the truth about Erna. She missed their
nightly lovemaking. The tension between them, unreleased during the
journey from Thorkellshavn, was building up and would before long
urgently demand relief. She hoped they would reach Aldeigjuborg
soon.

* * *

Rodfos was a bold sailor. Where other Norse
merchantmen hugged the shoreline of the Baltic Sea, fearing pirates
and landing each night to make camp and to sleep, Rodfos sailed
directly northeast toward the land of the Finns. He had faith in
Thor, who had so far protected him and helped him to prosper, and
he reasoned that pirates would lurk close to land, seeking out and
pouncing upon those more timid souls who took the safer way. The
open reaches of the Baltic were the place for fearless men who knew
their gods were with them.

The winds were favorable, and on the tenth
day they reached the flat marshland, half hidden in mist and fog,
that the Finns called
neva
, or swamp. With a skill resulting
from years of travel through this wild and empty land, Rodfos
navigated his knarr up the broad, swift-flowing Neva River to Lake
Ladoga. There, not on the lake itself but on a river that emptied
into it at the southern shore, secure behind an earth rampart and a
deep ravine, lay the trading center the Norse had named
Aldeigjuborg.

Goods from the northlands and from the west
of Europe were unloaded at Aldeigjuborg and exchanged for
merchandise brought north along the river system from Holmgard and
Kiev. Some of this merchandise had originally come from
Constantinople, which the Norse called Miklagard, or from the
Caspian Sea and Baghdad, far to the east.

Almost always, merchandise traveling along
these routes went through the hands of a series of traders, each
plying his own territory overland or his own section of a river. As
the goods passed from merchant to merchant at trading posts along
the way, always with a profit for the handlers, the costs rose and
rose again. It was possible to make a fortune ‘working along the
trade routes or, if one’s luck were bad, to lose everything
including life, for these routes attracted thieves and roaming
nomadic tribesmen in addition to the natural perils of flood and
storm that were stoically accepted as routine hazards.

Rodfos traded regularly in Aldeigjuborg. He
liked the place. It was exciting. Beyond the open market at the
river’s edge and the square log houses in which the more settled
traders lived were the gaily colored tents and camp fires of the
men and their women who were passing through the town on their way
to almost anywhere in the known world. In Aldeigjuborg there was
always something new to see, someone interesting to meet.

Rodfos stood on the deck of his knarr and
watched the bustle on the waterfront. He was a happy man. It had
been a good voyage. Once more he had evaded the pirates who haunted
the northern sea, and he had made a nice pile of unexpected silver
from his unwelcome passengers, who had proven to be much less
trouble than he had feared. He turned as the passengers approached
him. He thought the men were nothing remarkable, but the woman was
a real beauty. She reminded him of a girl he had known once, long
ago, who had been forced to marry someone else and then had died in
childbirth. Rodfos sighed, remembering.

“Good-bye,” Lenora-Freydis said, holding out
her hand. “Thank you for helping us, Rodfos.”

“I hope you find your uncle in good health.”
Rodfos held her hand, gazing into dark gray eyes and recalling his
lost youth.

“Yes. Uncle Gorm. I’m sure we will.” She
smiled and gently withdrew her hand from his.

Rodfos’ eyes followed the woman’s slender
figure until she and her companions disappeared behind a crowd of
men bidding for Saxon slaves.

* * *

They pitched the tent Halfdan had brought
with him and set up the tripod and chain to hold the cauldron over
their cooking fire.