Viking Passion (3 page)

“Where is my sister Matilda?” Lenora, looking
around her, now saw a group of miserable women sitting dejectedly
together on an oak plank floor. No, not a floor. It was a deck.
They were on a ship, and there were Vikings all about them, engaged
in sailing it. “Matilda?”

“She is gone, Lenora,” Maud said quietly.

“Gone?”

“I have been trying to tell you. These
murderers killed everyone but the ten of us who are here on this
ship. All of them. All gone.” She began to cry again.

“No!” Lenora leapt to her feet, forgetting
the pain in her head. ”No! It’s not true, I won’t let it be true.
It can’t be. Matilda! Wilfred!”

A heavy hand clapped her on the shoulder.
Lenora spun around, nearly falling from a combination of dizziness
and the motion of the ship. She looked up into the sunburned face
of the Viking leader.

“Snorri,” he said, grinning at her. “Lenora.
Edwina.” He gestured toward the silent girl still sitting on the
deck of his ship.

He was tall, a heavily muscled, bulky man,
with a thick blond beard and matted shoulder-length blond hair. He
wore the same kind of rough wool jerkin and narrow breeches as his
men did, with a heavy leather belt with a battleaxe thrust through
it and a large broadsword hanging on the left side. Snorri did not
look much different from the other Vikings on the ship, but there
was about him an air of authority that made it clear that among
this rough band, he was in charge. Lenora regarded him with
loathing.

“What have you done to my family?” she
demanded. “What is wrong with Edwina?”

“Edwina.” Snorri laughed, tapping his
forehead and making a face.

“What did you do to her, you Norse murderer?”
Lenora’s rage was clear in her burning cheeks and flashing gray
eyes. Snorri poked a thick finger toward her chest.

“Down,” he said in a loud voice. “Sit.”

“Lenora, for heaven’s sake.” Maud pulled at
Lenora’s torn blue skirts. “Do as he says or he’ll kill you. They
kill so easily. Just sit down and be quiet.”

Lenora sat. Snorri grinned triumphantly,
standing over her.

“Thrall,” he said in his harsh, heavily
accented voice, opening his arms as if to embrace the entire group
of captive women. “All are Snorri’s thralls.” He walked away,
calling out cheerfully to one of his men.

Thrall. Lenora shuddered, She knew what the
word meant. Slave. She was now that murdering monster’s slave, to
do with as he wished. She put her aching head down on her knees and
sat that way for a long, long time.

“Lenora.” Maud touched her elbow lightly and
Lenora lifted her head. “They’ve given us cloaks. They must want to
keep us warm and healthy for – for whatever they plan for us.” She
wrapped a gray woolen garment about Lenora’s shoulders.

“Edwina?”

“Still the same. She hasn’t moved.”

Lenora could see that for herself. She and
Maud wrapped Edwina’s silent form in a dark green cloak. When
Lenora pulled the girl into her arms, Edwina gave no sign that she
recognized her friend.

“Why is she like this?” Lenora asked.

“I think it is because she knows what
happened. You were unconscious, but Edwina saw it all. It was
horrible, Lenora.” Maud choked back tears. “She hasn’t spoken since
Snorri took her bracelet. Look.” Maud pointed to the long scratch
on Edwina’s hand.

“That filthy Norse beast. I have never hated
anyone so much,” Lenora told her, indicating Snorri by the barest
movement of her head. He stood toward the bow of the ship, a
hulking mass of finely tuned muscle. His back was turned to them as
he discussed something with his two companions. “If I had a dagger,
I would kill him now,” Lenora added. “And his friends.”

“His men would kill you first.”

“Not if I were quick. I could do it.”

“Don’t think of such a thing, Lenora. You are
no longer free. If you want to live, you must do as you are told.
You must submit to your new master. That is what I am going to
do.”

“Never!” All of Lenora’s fierce pride was in
that one word. “I want revenge for what they have done to us.”

Maud was possessed of a good deal more common
sense than pride. “It is impossible for a slave to get revenge. The
first time you raise your hand to try, you will be killed.” When
Lenora made an impatient movement, Maud leaned forward, her voice
tense. “Hear me, Lenora. Don’t turn your head away and close your
ears to reason. It is foolishness to die unnecessarily. It is
always preferable to live, because while you yet live, there is
hope. You might regain your freedom one day, and then you can think
of revenge, but for now you cannot fight them. They are too strong,
and you can see there are too many of them. Don’t let them destroy
you.” Maud paused to take a deep breath before adding her final
argument. “And if you continue to live, you will be able to help
Edwina. She has always depended on you. What will happen to her if
you are dead?”

Lenora did not answer, but her arms tightened
protectively about Edwina. She bent her head and felt Edwina’s
smooth hair beneath her cheek. She thought of the lovely, happy
beginning of that day. Now everyone and everything she cared for
had been taken from her, lost forever. All were gone except for
herself and poor, senseless Edwina, and the eight other women who
sat weeping or moaning behind her.

Throughout the long midsummer twilight that
never seemed to turn into real night, the
Sea Dragon
smoothly sailed on, its great square blue and yellow sail taut with
wind, and Lenora sat holding Edwina and staring at Snorri’s tall
form, feeding her hatred and thinking of revenge. In her heart she
knew Maud was right. But even as she admitted her own helplessness,
something in Lenora, some undefeated corner of her being, cried out
against the enormity of Snorri’s crimes against her family.

I will be patient for now, she thought, but
some day, if I have the chance, even for a moment, to pay you back,
Snorri the Viking, then beware of me.

Denmark

June A.D. 867, to March, 868

Thorkell the Viking chieftain had been given
his lands and made a king’s jarl 20 years ago, in return for his
services to King Horik. He had been charged with protecting the
flat, marshy wastes of western Jutland against invasion from the
sea, and from the incursions by land of the Franks and Slavs who
lived south of Denmark. His prowess as a warrior and his skill as a
negotiator during the civil strife that had wracked Denmark after
Horik’s murder in the year 854 were legendary. Now, in his fifth
decade, Thorkell ruled a strong, peaceful earldom that was almost
an independent domain.

Thorkellshavn, his home, was securely
situated behind wide tidal marshes and sand dunes. It lay on a
gentle rise above the river, the only elevated land for miles
around. More than a farm, less than a village, it consisted of a
great hall built of wood, with a thatched roof that had a hole in
the center to let light in and smoke out. The gable ends of the
roof were finished with double carved wood representations of
legendary beasts similar to those on the prows of Norse ships that
were intended to frighten off demons and to protect the
household.

Behind the hall, well protected from the
constant westerly winds, was a cluster of outbuildings for storage
of foodstuffs and the merchandise obtained on raids, and the small
buildings that served Thorkell and his family as private quarters
and bedchambers, for Thorkell was wealthy enough to indulge his
family in the almost unheard-of luxury of privacy. The other
household members – the free servants, the slaves, and Thorkell’s
hird – slept on the platforms that ran down both sides of the great
hall, or in the women’s quarters off the kitchen.

Spread out beyond the hall and its
outbuildings were the homes of the farmers who worked Thorkell’s
lands. These men and women were more fortunate than peasants in
other parts of Europe, for they were not bound either to Thorkell
or the land. They owed him allegiance, but they were free to come
and go as they pleased, and many were the young men who went off
a-viking after the spring planting was done, to return before
harvest with the loot that made their lives more comfortable.
Thorkell’s older son, Snorri, was a popular leader; his luck was
known to be good.

Nearly everyone who lived in or near
Thorkellshavn was in the great hall on this day to enjoy the
spectacle presented by the display of plunder from Snorri’s latest
voyage, and to eye the new slaves who had just been brought in from
the
Sea Dragon
.

“Where are we, Lenora? What is this
place?”

“I don’t know, Edwina.”

They stood in a huge, wood-paneled,
tapestry-hung hall. Its high roof was supported by a long double
row of carved and brightly painted wooden posts, each as large as a
tree trunk. Torches flared, providing light in the shadowy
building. The hall smelled of wood smoke and charred fat, of boiled
vegetables and damp wool, and of the unwashed bodies of Snorri’s
men and their captives.

Lenora shivered. In spite of the fire burning
in a stone-lined oblong pit in the center of the hall, it was
nearly as cold and damp inside as it had been out of doors.
Snorri’s crew had rowed through thick fog and drizzle for most of
the day, bringing the longship at last to this mist-wrapped place
at the edge of a peaceful river. Everyone who had been aboard the
ship was thoroughly wet. The Vikings did not seem to mind.

Raising both hands, Lenora brushed back the
sodden curls hanging over her forehead, feeling the water dripping
off her hair and running down her back. She straightened her
shoulders and stood proudly. She would not let these Norsemen see
her discomfort or her fear.

At least Edwina had begun to speak again.
That was the only spark of hope in a miserable world.

Upon the beaten earth floor of the hall the
Vikings were spreading the plunder obtained in their raids on East
Anglia. There was a lot of it tumbling out of cloth bundles and
leather sacks.

Lenora recognized a few items from her own
home as clothing, weapons, dishes, coins, jewelry, and gold and
silver ornaments from dozens of churches and houses were
displayed.

The slaves stood to one side, dirty,
bedraggled, and hopeless, eight of them, including Maud, tied
together by hide ropes. Lenora and Edwina, unbound, but no less
dirty and no more hopeful than their comrades, had been separated
from the others.

The Vikings began dividing their loot, each
member of the ship’s crew claiming his share. There was much
discussion, and some noisy argument among the sailors, as to who
got which prize, but Lenora could not understand what was being
said. Only a word here and there was intelligible to her.

Unable to decipher the conversation of the
Vikings, Lenora continued her examination of her surroundings. In
the center of the hall, set between two pillars and close to the
firepit, was an ornately carved wooden settle, big enough to hold
two people. Its intricate interlacing patterns were highlighted by
paint applied in gaudy shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. In
this wide chair sat an old man. He was tall, still well muscled and
strong, but his hair and his luxuriant beard were almost completely
white. Fine lines radiated from his pale blue eyes. He wore a robe
of wine red made of a fabric such as Lenora had never seen before.
The embroidered gold bands at its hem and the edges of its wide
sleeves glittered and the dark wine cloth shimmered as he leaned to
one side to speak to the man standing next to him.

This second man was very tall, muscular but
slender, lacking the heavy, bulky appearance of many of the
Northmen. He was dark. Tanned skin stretched smoothly over high
cheek bones, over a firm, clean-shaven jaw and a long straight
nose. His wide mouth turned up at the corners, as though he knew
some private joke. There was a thin scar running from the outer
edge of his left eyebrow straight up until it ended in a streak of
pure white hair, startling against the inky blackness of the rest
of his mane. His shoulder-length hair was confined by a
gold-embroidered ribbon wrapped across his forehead and tied behind
his head. He wore a knee-length blue jerkin of fine Frisian wool
and tight brown breeches. A heavy gold chain lay close about his
throat. His leather belt was decorated with gold bosses and his
sword hilt was jeweled. On it one long, tapering hand rested
gracefully, a gold ring on his little finger winking in the
torchlight.

He stood at an odd angle. Something about his
tense stance struck Lenora as not quite normal. He watched the
proceedings intently as the goods were divided. Once, Lenora had
the sensation that he was looking at her closely, but then he bent
over and said something to the old man in the chair, and she
decided she was mistaken.

At last the plunder was divided to everyone’s
satisfaction. One by one the captured women were freed of their
bonds and handed over to Snorri’s crew in exchange for a portion of
each man’s share of the loot. Finally, a pile of the best goods was
placed before the old man, who nodded his approval and said
something to Snorri. Lenora decided it must have been a compliment,
for Snorri grinned broadly and his friends, Bjarni and Hrolf,
clapped him on the back.

“Thorkell,” Snorri said, and continued to
speak in a language tantalizingly similar to her own, but in her
distressed condition, not intelligible to Lenora. Snorri motioned
to Lenora and Edwina, and a crew member who had been standing
beside the two young women pushed them forward.

They stood before Thorkell, their arms about
each other, eyes wide with fear. When Snorri finished speaking,
Thorkell looked them over, one gnarled hand stroking his beard.
Then he spoke.