Viking's Love (46 page)

He rarely spoke. Collin dealt with Grogan the
most, or the one named, Terek, who was the youngest in their group.
He favored the one named Oram, who was the most jovial and spoke of
his home on Joran’s lands with longing. He learned they were more
than just barbaric warriors as he had thought, for most had wives
and children.

They had a three day journey to the outskirts
of Ulsted. They avoided towns and stuck to the main road. When they
saw riders, the Vikings hid along the roadside until they passed.
One wagon was loaded down with textiles and fabric as covers for
the Vikings in the back of both wagons when they rode into Ulsted.
The Vikings eyed the English countryside as they made their way
down the rutted lane without expressions on their grim faces.

The Viking named Harrick told the tale of the
thirteen warriors as they trekked across the countryside to gain
their interest. Collin chuckled as he realized he would be the
thirteenth, and listened with great interest.

They camped under the stars at night and he
gazed at Joran across the fire and tried to draw him out, feeling
it unhealthy for the man to suffer in silence as he seemed wont
to.

“
If my sister lives, will you be
leaving to go back to your home right away?” Collin winced from the
pained expression he saw, and cursed himself for not minding his
tongue. “I only ask because I would like to know my nephew, and I
must see to Meghera’s departure with you.”

“
I will worry of it when we find her,
Collin.” Joran spoke in such a detached voice Collin became
angered.

“
This is not her fault, you realize?”
He eyed the Viking’s stony visage with anger. “Whatever was done to
her was against her will, and no fault but Ulsted’s! My sister
despises the man. If you think she welcomes what he may have done
to her, you are wrong!” He was rewarded with a grimace of such rage
he was satisfied. “Will you still feel the same for her if he has
touched her?”

“
That is not your affair, Collin!”
Joran’s eyes were glowing with fury and he punched and splintered
the wood in the side of the wagon. “I will love her no matter what
he has done to her! I cannot think of it now! I have to think of
what is ahead! You must leave me be with your accursed doubts! Yea,
the thought of that worm touching her makes me sickened, but it is
not any fault of hers. I know who I will hold
accountable.”

Collin relaxed and that was when he heard the
noise in the wagon filled with textiles and feared they had an
animal in it. He rose to investigate and drew back the canvas cover
to see Meghera making her bed in the back of the wagon.

She stared at him and bit her lip as she met
his horrified gaze. Her hair was disheveled from riding in the back
of the wagon all day, and he jerked her out of the wagon and raged
down at her.

“
What in the devil are you doing here,
Meghera? Mother of God, you test me sorely, Girl!” He was rewarded
with her sobs as her small shoulders shook. The other men joined
him and saw her there with grim faces. They couldn’t turn back
now.

“
I wanted to go a-Viking too,” she
whispered and her tiny figure wracked with sobs as the Vikings
chuckled at her words. Her husband wasn’t amused as he glared down
at her, and shook his head in disgust and eyed Joran
sourly.

“
We cannot turn back! It is too late
for that! We must take her with us!” He raged and she sobbed as he
cursed and flung her an angry look. “This is not a lark, Meghera!
We go on a siege to rescue my sister and you make a game of
it!”

“
I didn’t know, I swear.” She hung her
head dejectedly. “I didn’t think, Collin. I wanted to go and you
said no.”

“
Leave her be, Collin.” Joran strode
forward and eyed the raging man with a scowl. “We need all the help
we can in this. She can help us.”

“
No! She is just a child! I will not
have it! What do you think she will do when she sees the sight of
blood, Viking? Do you think her reaction will help us? It is out of
the question. We leave her at the next town.”Collin went nose to
almost nose with Joran Ivarsson over involving Meghera and her
strange abilities into the fray.

“
I once cut myself with a knife whilst
cutting my own meat,” she supplied helpfully as both men stared at
her in incredulity at her comparison. “I shall not faint should
there be battles. Do I get a sword too?”

The Vikings laughed delightedly at her words.
Joran chuckled as he saw Collin’s shoulder’s sag in defeat. He was
lecturing his child bride quietly as the men drifted back to their
blankets around the fire.

“
You have no idea what atrocities of
war are like, Meghera, nor can you control your responses to them.
I am asking you to refrain from using your gift unless I ask it of
you.”

Meghera looked up at him and thought how
handsome he looked when he wasn’t being stern. She nodded and
secretly decided she would use her gift when she felt it most
needed. She gazed at Joran and he winked at her and she hid her
smile as she looked down.

The Vikings had been helping her harness her
strange gift when she snuck down to the barn to watch them during
their sword play. They caught her and it wasn’t long before she was
showing them how she commanded fire from her fingers.

Joran, in particular, had taken an interest
in setting up targets for her. She’d become quite good at hitting
the targets in the last few weeks. She planned to surprise Collin,
but now he looked so angry at her, she didn’t share her newest gift
that she had discovered with the help of Joran Ivarsson.

She discovered it quite on accident when the
Vikings were practicing and Joran’s arm was cut. When the Viking
would have gone in for the kill and pinned Joran, she focused her
energy upon the Viking and held him suspended into the air until he
promised he would leave Joran alone.

Air had always been a difficult element for
her to master unless angry. She had thrown a man a hundred feet
with it in the village, and hadn’t been able to do the same since.
Joran wasted little time in working with the girl.

She stared at the clumps of dirt at her feet
as she listened to Collin berate her. They twitched as she pointed
to them. She had also mastered earth, calling up the soil into a
twister of fury. She sighed and thought it terribly rude he yell at
his wife in front of others, but didn’t say so.

Allisande was grateful when Robert was called
away to court on a matter involving their king. She shuddered and
felt ill when she thought of the things he did to her in the three
weeks since her arrival at Ulsted.

She closed her eyes in horror, and was
grateful he allowed her time with her son in his absence, though
she couldn’t bring herself to nurse him. She felt tainted by what
Robert did to her, and cringed when she recalled him demanding she
nurse him in their bed like he was a small babe every morning.

Robert was depraved and enjoyed his
perversions. After he drained her breasts, he would roll on top of
her and take her brutally. He called her names and hit her, and
grunted upon her like an animal until he gave her his seed.

She lay beneath him, shuddering in revulsion,
neither participating nor feeling the vile things he did to her
anymore. He kept her tied to the bed at times, and enjoyed her
being helpless.

He demanded she give him a child. Allisande
shuddered at the thought of bearing a child with the monster. He
hadn’t taken her to his hidden room since that first night, and she
was relieved.

Allisande endured it all to keep her son
safe. She stared down at Storm as he slept in her arms, and prayed
she survived long enough to escape her husband. He had guards that
stood outside her door and it was locked.

She was grateful Robert was pleased enough
with her to give her the boy in his absence. The servants didn’t
speak of the horrors she endured. They knew all too well. They were
kind to her and tended to her many bruises and wounds inflicted by
their master. She knew they were also victims as they failed to
meet her eyes most of the time.

Robert would return in the morning. She
shuddered at the thought of his coming to her again. Her son was
hungry and tears filled her eyes as she knocked on the door and
asked he be sent to the wet nurse down the hall.

That was the worst of it. He made her so
shamed and disgusted with being touched, she couldn’t endure
nursing her own child anymore. She felt hollow where she had once
been filled with love.

Allisande refused to think of Joran at all,
knowing his eyes would fill with disgust if he knew what Ulsted did
to her. Robert destroyed her with his sick, twisted games and she
would never feel as she once had with the man she loved.

She felt dirty even when she got out of the
tub, and felt ill at the thought of his return, growing nauseated
until she ran for the chamber pot and vomited up her stomach.

****

Robert returned the next morning and was in a
rage over his audience with the king. He didn’t say what it was
about, but she knew it involved the Vikings who hunted him now. He
soon turned his anger upon her and dragged her to his secret room,
an insane light in his eyes as she begged and grabbed at the walls
along the way.

He laughed and kicked her. He opened the door
and shoved her inside. He tossed off his overcoat and tunic and
removed his belt, and tossed them aside. His dark hair was in his
eyes as he was panting in his rage and fury. He approached her and
a smile curved his handsome lips as he met her terrified violet
eyes.

“
Did you miss me, Wife?” Robert drew
near and she shrank back. He pursued her, looking like a beast
snarling down at her. She covered her face, unable to look into his
face and see the madness there. “I missed you, my dear,” he said as
he took in her fear and fed off it. He gripped her wrist and jerked
her up. “Take off your clothes, or I will rip them off you!” She
hastily complied fearing he would hit her again. When she was naked
he sucked in his breath at the sight of her breasts, fully engorged
with milk. “You haven’t been feeding that little bastard, have you?
If I catch you, I will kill him, Allisande!”

“
No, I have not!” She sobbed and backed
away from the cruel gleam in his eyes. She knew should she raise a
weapon to him, her baby son would be killed. She had no choice but
to endure this depravity.

He jerked the chain pulleys down and jerked
her forward. He smiled as he shackled her in place. He stood back
and turned the wheel that jerked her from her feet and hung her
inches off the floor. He retrieved a long whip from the table and
he rubbed it over her body, telling her it was made of silk and
wouldn’t mar her flesh as he removed his clothing and came to
her.

“
Show me how much you missed me, sweet
wife!”

****

Joran surveyed the fortress from the hill and
squinted as he watched the guards in the towers and counted them
methodically until he figured how many men Ulsted had at his keep
this day.

He counted nearly twenty. He signaled to
Grogan and he stepped away from the trees. The men were divided in
the wagons. Collin and Meghera covered them with fabrics and
textile materials before Terek got up onto the perch, and declared
the first wagon ready.

Collin disguised himself with a gray wig and
a floppy hat, and eyed Meghera who was dressed less genteel and
would no doubt be thought to be his granddaughter. He got up on the
perch after he covered the Vikings in the wagon and pulled Meghera
up beside him as they made their way to the road.

They drove slowly as not to alert the guards
who eyed the covered wagons approaching without concern as they
noted them to be merchants.

Robert’s retainer entered the hall of the
keep and said the merchant carts were there. Robert waved him away
as he ate the midday meal. The drawbridge was raised and the two
wagons rolled inside. He shouted for his housekeeper and told her
to go down and purchase some cloth for his wife.

She needed more gowns as he had ripped nearly
every one she had in the last three weeks, and found himself
longing to return to court. He grew tired of Allisande, as much as
he had wanted her.

He hoped she was with child, for he was
growing bored. There was more sport to be found at court, and more
variety. He heard a shout and frowned as he rose from the table to
investigate.

He made it to the door when it crashed open.
Joran Ivarsson stood in front of him covered in wolf skins and blue
paint, his eyes so dark they appeared black as he stepped across
the threshold.

Robert heard the screams and shouts outside
and knew the Viking didn’t come alone. He backed away from the
Berserker who was growling in rage, swinging his axe in front of
him and shouting in fury. Robert turned to run, his only thought to
get his hands on Joran’s son.

Robert felt himself grabbed from behind and
grunted as he was thrown to the floor. He stared up at the man as
his eyes met his. There was no escape. He cried and screamed as he
was dragged from the keep.

Lord Ulsted saw his retainers all lay dead.
His servants were unharmed and watched with scorn as he was dragged
through the dung piles in the outer bailey to the front wall of his
keep. Joran removed a hammer and five large nails from his waist
band and pounded the first nail into his right palm into the
stone.

Robert’s screams echoed eerily and the man
flailed as he grabbed his left palm, and impaled a nail into his
other palm with a vicious swing of the hammer into the stone.