He walked to the bed and stared down at her. Her hair was lank and dull. His mother had fashioned it in a loose braid that fell over her shoulder. She had said naught as she’d treated Mirana as matter-of-factly as she would have one of her own. She was strong, his mother was, sometimes too strong, too forceful, but in this instance he didn’t understand her. He looked at Mirana, at the tendrils of black hair curled about her pale face. Her green eyes, so mysterious usually, were as dull as her hair and that bothered him though he knew now that she would regain her strength and her health.
He said again, his voice as cold as the Oslofjord, “You won’t leave. You won’t decide what it is I must want or not want. You will cease telling me what I must feel, both toward you and toward my family. You will not leave, Mirana. You will obey me now and always.”
She said nothing, merely looked at him, then away, to her fingers that were fretting with the wool blanket.
He’d spoken honestly to her, yet he hadn’t, for there was too much here, too much that was beyond him as yet, and beyond her as well. She would do as he told her. For a while, at least.
“You don’t trust me,” he said, and that surprised her, for surely she trusted him more than he did her. “Nay, don’t shake your head. I don’t know you well, but trust I understand. I understand the feel of it in another, the smell of it, the expression of it in another’s eyes.
“You will rest until you have your strength back. You will not leave. I will hear no more about it from you. I am protecting Entti, so you will not throw her up to me again. You will not have her as an excuse to escape. Her honor is now safe, as is Hafter’s manhood.”
He left her then. The rest of the afternoon passed very slowly. Far too slowly.
She slept and ate for the next two days. Rorik spent less time with her, as if knowing she needed to be with her own thoughts. But she wanted him to come into the sleeping chamber. Just to see him, to watch his mouth as he spoke, to feel his hands on her when he lifted her on the pillow. At night, he was close, his breathing deep and even, beside her throughout the night. But during the day he stayed away now.
His mother, Tora, was a different matter.
The following morning, it was Tora who brought her porridge, topped with rich honey.
“Will your belly like this?”
Mirana was salivating. The smell of the porridge and the honey filled the small chamber. She was pushing herself up on the bed, her eyes on that bowl. “Oh, aye,” she said, then saw the look on Tora’s face. She stilled, now uncertain. Tora said, her voice impatient and cold, “There was no one else to bring you food. If you want it, take it.”
“Thank you.”
Still the woman didn’t leave. She sat on the end of the box bed, silent, watching Mirana eat the porridge. Mirana took the last bite, sighed deeply, and leaned back against the pillow, closing her eyes. “It was delicious.”
“The child, Utta, made it for you. She said you liked the way she seasoned the porridge.”
Mirana nodded. She said nothing, merely waited. Would Tora ask her to leave again?
“Sira has decided she will take Hafter. He is a good man. He will treat her well. He also looks a bit like Rorik and I suspect that is another reason she will have him.”
“I see,” Mirana said.
“They will wed soon. Sira will leave with him to the mainland.”
Mirana was silent.
“I thought you should know.”
“Thank you.”
“Rorik will bathe with you on the morrow. I told him I would see to it, but he insists. He says only he knows how hot you like the bathing water and how cold you like the rinsing water.”
She couldn’t hold back the words. “But I thought you wanted Sira to wed Rorik.”
“Rorik said he had no wish to wed her. That he would never wed her. It is done.”
Tora left then, no more words between them.
The next day Rorik did indeed take her to the bathing hut. She was still very weak. Indeed his gentleness made her feel even more helpless, something she hated. He washed every bit of her, his large hands slick with soap, gliding over her back, her buttocks. He even had her balance herself with her hands on his shoulders whilst he washed her feet. He was matter-of-fact, saying nothing even as he held her against him with one hand, his other hand going between her thighs to bathe her there. She wished by the end of it that he would yell at her so she could yell back at him. Instead, he merely rinsed her off, doused her with a bucket of icy water, then wrapped her up warmly and carried her back to the sleeping chamber.
He combed her hair then left her.
He returned within five minutes, striding like a warrior into battle, frowning ferociously. Anger burned bright in his eyes. His jaw was working. Muscles corded in his throat. He looked ready to kill. Mirana brightened.
“It must be your doing,” he said.
“And just what is my doing?” Ah, her voice rose, vibrating in the still room. It felt good. His kindness was irritating. She was bored with her own company and tired of his continued goodwill. Now, this was something to bite into. No longer was she a helpless child.
“Hafter just told me he didn’t want to wed Sira.”
“But why?” she asked, just staring at him, her joy at his ire momentarily forgotten.
“He just said he didn’t wish it, nothing more.”
“Surely this is strange, Rorik.”
He had the look of a man forced to swallow bitter dregs, a man who didn’t like it one bit. He yelled at her, full strength, “Damn you, Mirana, you know what he wants! He wants Entti, curse both your heads! I’m not blind or stupid. Hafter is as clear as the stream that flows shallow on the island. Aye, you’ve planned and plotted this. You’re a meddlesome wench and won’t leave things alone. Aye, and Entti is in this as well. It’s all a woman’s plot. That’s why she’s refused him and beaten him and kicked him. I won’t have it, Mirana.”
She grinned up at him, a taunting grin, full of mockery. She felt marvelous. She felt strength flow through her. She watched him rise to the bait. He actually shook his fist at her.
“You listen to me, woman. You will tell Entti that she’s to take him into her. She’s to let him sate himself on her body. Then he will be free of her and her damned wiles. Then he’ll whistle and straighten his trousers and leave her without a backward look. Then everything will go as I have planned. He will wed Sira and we will all be free of her, and I do want to be free of her, do you understand me? I want that damned violent woman out of here!”
She continued to grin and keep quiet. She drummed her fingers on the blanket, waiting, ever grinning.
There was a strange chomping sound. She believed it was Rorik grinding his teeth.
“Mirana, I won’t have it!”
She chose her words with fond disregard for peace. “Ah, I was just remembering how you told me that you would protect Entti’s honor, how you would keep her safe so that I would not have to worry about her. Your vow did not last long, Rorik. Like other men, you make promises and scatter them to any willing female ears, then you break them just as easily, when it suits you.”
“This is different and I know you see the differentness of it. You are merely being stubborn; you are merely enjoying yourself at my cost. You are enraging me, I see it clearly now. But I will tell you, Mirana, and you will not argue with me more, this is naught but a problem to be solved and the solution is simple and straightforward and Entti will do as she’s told.”
Mirana listened to him with growing joy. She was filled with such energy, nearly bursting with it, and she wanted to run and dance. She threw off the woolen blanket and swung her legs over the side of the box bed.
“Wait! What are you doing? Get back into bed, I won’t have you ill again.”
“Rorik,” she said, grinning shamelessly up at him, “you want me to speak to Entti. I will speak to her now, oh aye, I certainly will. This differentness, I am certain she too will understand it well. She is
sometimes slow in her thinking, but I will explain it to her carefully and at full length, giving her all your reasons and your man’s logic.”
“I will get her and bring her here.” He said nothing more, merely leaned over, grabbed her legs and swung them back into bed. He covered her with the blanket. Then his hands stilled. He looked at her silently for several moments. “You look as healthy as a stoat,” he said slowly. “There is color in your cheeks, your eyes are sparkling. I don’t understand this, Mirana.”
“I am pleased to see you, Rorik. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“Why?”
She cocked her head to the side.
“Why are you happy to see me? That rings not of any truth I know. I think you’re lying.”
“You please me,” she said simply. “I like to hear your voice, whether it’s dark with threat or filled with laughter. I like to see you smile or frown or just stare at nothing. I like to see you stomp about when you’re irritated. That I like particularly. You have been too considerate—not at first, mind you, just of late—and it has grown wearisome. But even that I can bear, if it be only rarely. I just like to see you. Just you.”
That took him off guard. He frowned and straightened. He stared down at her from his great height. He would never understand her, never. “You would have preferred that I yelled at you when you were retching up your guts?”
“Oh no, but this tenderness of yours, Rorik, is rather like a father or a brother would treat me. Or a mother. You are a man, a strong man, and as I said, to see you furious, to see your face turn red with anger, why, that does please me. It brightens my spirits.”
“You say nothing that makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps not,” she said, and smiled at him.
“I will fetch Entti to you now. You will speak sense to her, and not this morass of words that vex me even more. You will see that she obeys me.”
“Very well,” she said, crossed her hands over her stomach and smiled at his departing back, rigid with outrage and distrust of her motives. Ah, but she’d been tired of his endless kindness, the low-voiced gentleness that made her grit her teeth, for she’d known he was thinking other thoughts deep down, far more important thoughts for him, for her, for both of them together, yet he’d held them in, showing her only restraint and moderation, and the gods knew how irritated she’d become. But now he was angry and his brow had flared upward, and his jaw had worked in his anger, and it had pleased her enormously.
It was odd how life could be so very bleak one moment and make one want to burst with laughter the next. Odd, but it was so.
22
WHEN ENTTI STRODE into the sleeping chamber a few minutes later, she looked like a Valkyrie, her eyes mean with temper and outrage, nearly snarling, looking nonetheless like one of Odin’s prized maidens in her tattered gown, the tunic held up with knots over each shoulder. Mirana knew that her feet were bare.
“Lord Rorik,” she said slowly, as if that were sufficient.
Mirana remained silent.
Entti drew a deep breath. “He orders me, Mirana—orders me—to let Hafter take me until the lout is bored with me. Were he not your husband, I would have unmanned him.”
“I am pleased you didn’t. Doubtless Rorik is even more pleased.”
Entti stopped cold, staring at Mirana. “You believe this is all a jest. You are laughing at me.”
“Nay,” Mirana said, sitting up now. “Sit down. We must decide what to do. Rorik is convinced he’s being noble and wise, providing a beneficent solution for all involved. He doesn’t know that—”
“Know what?”
“Entti, you are making my neck ache. Sit down. Aye, that’s better. Stop waving your arms at me and listen. Rorik wants Hafter to marry Sira, but he’s refused. It is your fault—yours and mine—that Hafter refuses. He wants you, and in Rorik’s mind, it is only lust, nothing more, and it is you who are responsible for this uncontrollable lust, and I, of course, because I am your friend.”
“Of course it’s nothing more! By the gods, Hafter is like all men—a randy goat who thinks of naught save that rod between his legs and shoveling it in a woman. I will not do it, Mirana, I won’t. Using me to cure his lust so he will want to wed that venom-tongued Sira! Ha, Mirana!”
“No, you won’t. And it’s not lust. I have come to realize that Hafter wants you, Entti, but not just to assuage his man’s unending needs.”
Entti stared at her. She shook her head, sending a thick coil of rich brown hair to fall free over her shoulder. She said finally, bewildered, “You’re mad, Mirana. Quite mad.”
Mirana shook her head. “Nay, he loves you. Perhaps he doesn’t yet realize it, but he did refuse to wed Sira. He must know something, or sense it, whatever it is a man does understand when he wants a woman forever, as his mate. As for you, my friend, you have been so busy fighting him and cursing him and escaping him, I don’t think you know what you feel either.”
“You’re mad. I despise Hafter. He is—”
“I know, I know. He’s an animal, a goat, he believes himself a stud, a stallion, a—”
“I don’t mean to bore you, Mirana,” Entti said, all stiff and cold. She rose and began to wring her hands. Mirana stared at those wringing hands and smiled.
“Listen, Entti. Why don’t you tell Hafter that if he pleads with you, if he shows sincerity and suitable adoration in his speech and in his voice, you will consider accepting him for a husband.”
“No.”
“Make it clear to him that you won’t let him take you until after you’re wed.”
“No.” Entti flung off the bed and began pacing. “I don’t believe what you are saying. We will escape, Mirana. You are nearly well. We will escape, perhaps tomorrow night. We will be free of all of them.”
Mirana felt a deep misery. She shook her head.
“You believe yourself safe now that you’ve been so ill? I hear things, Mirana, since I am a slave and of no account. Everyone speaks freely in front of me, all save Hafter, who just stares and broods and looks sour. I heard Merrik and all the other men talking, and his mother and father as well. None of them want you here. Perhaps they don’t want you dead, for surely that is too extreme a measure even for these cutthroats, but they want you gone. I think they fear you, fear that your half-brother will come for you, and thus it will begin again.
“As for Sira, that viper, the bitch would stick a knife in your ribs if she but has a chance. We must escape, Mirana, we must.”
“Do you want to, truly, Entti? Do you truly wish never to see Hafter again?”
“What choice do I have?” Her voice was low and dull and filled with despair. “I have no wish to remain and be made into a whore again. Aye, a few of the other men are looking more closely at me now since they realize that you can no longer protect me. Particularly Gurd. They will force me, Mirana, ’tis but a matter of time.”
Entti looked up to see Rorik standing in the doorway. He smiled suddenly, for he had heard her speak.
“Hafter is waiting for you, Entti. Go to him now.”
She shook her head, not moving.
“I gave you to him. You need have no fear of the other men. They won’t touch you. Hafter is now your master. Go to him now and do what it is he wishes you to do.”
“May you go to the Christians’ hell, Lord Rorik, and roast for all eternity.”
He paled. Anger wiped away the fear of her curse. He drew himself up. He had no intention of striking her. He had never struck a woman and he wouldn’t begin now. “You aren’t a whore, Entti. However, you are naught but a slave. You will do as I bid you.”
“She wasn’t a slave until you raided her town and stole her.”
“You will be quiet, Mirana,” he said. “As for you, Entti, it matters not that you weren’t a slave before. If your father or your husband or the other men couldn’t save what was theirs, they deserved to lose everything, including you. That is simply the way of things.”
Entti sa
id nothing more. She drew a deep breath, and walked past Rorik, head high.
Rorik rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Good. That is done, finally. Surely Hafter will tire of her by tomorrow, for he is sorely tried, and will plow her belly until the sunrise. Then he will see reason. Then he will agree to wed Sira and remove her from here.”
Mirana swung her legs over the side of the box bed and rose to stand nose to shoulder with him. “I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t have my friend abused just because you want Sira away from here.” She was wearing only her shift, a white linen garment that came only to her mid-thighs, but she didn’t seem to realize this. She walked from the sleeping chamber, her black hair in wild tangles down her back, her feet bare, her legs long and equally bare.
He stared at her, his brain at first refusing to work. Then he roared her name and ran after her.
He caught sight of her when she had reached the outer hall. She was in the midst of a knot of women and thus beyond his reach.
Erna was stroking Mirana’s hair with her one good hand, pulling it free of tangles.
Old Alna was clucking through her few teeth—it sounded like hissing—and was patting her bare arm.
Utta was standing back, merely staring at her, worship in her young eyes.
And Amma, that damned woman who had brought the other women to revolt, that woman who should have been a man, so solid was she and so filled with guile and cunning, why she held her hand over Mirana’s forehead, seeing if there was fever. Entti was nowhere to be seen. The other women just stood there, besotted looks on their faces. It galled him. Why did they give her their loyalty so quickly? Why had their loyalty escaped from him and flown to her?
Rorik gave it up for the moment. He went to Hafter, who was slouched on a bench against the far wall, a wooden mug of mead in his hand. He was staring at the floor between his feet. He did not have the look of a Viking warrior. He looked like a man beset, a man who had lost something dear and was at a loss as to how to retrieve it.