Drowning would have been better. She would simply have to escape, that was all, and then when he caught her, as she was certain he would, for it was an island, after all, he would kill her. It would be over.
She smiled at him. “Give me the comb.”
He tossed it at her, then left the chamber without another word.
Mirana knew it was late at night because the loud voices that had filled the silence for hour upon hour were now silent. Nearly everyone must be asleep. She’d slept most of the afternoon, but she’d awakened, hungry and alone, and laid there. Her stomach churned and clenched and growled. No one had come. She’d had no desire to rise and go into the huge outer room.
She wondered where he was. This was his sleeping chamber, she was sure of it. Where was he?
As if conjured up by her mind, he came into the room. There was a fresh bandage of soft white linen wrapped around his shoulder. He was clean and dressed in a fresh tunic belted at his waist. He was big and powerful, his hair thick and blond on his head, his eyes the light blue of a Viking whose blood wasn’t tainted, as was hers. He was clean shaven. He was a magnificent animal, she supposed, but she didn’t care. She wished she’d killed him. Her fingers itched for her knife.
He held a rush torch light in his right hand. He held it high and looked at her. “You’re awake, are you?”
She said nothing.
“Good. Now I shan’t have to rouse you and listen to your endless complaints. At least I had the foresight to have you bathe.”
He was going to ravish her. She held perfectly still, preparing herself for his attack. She wouldn’t give in to him easily. She would fight him until he was forced to strike her, perhaps kill her. She waited, her muscles tensed, ready. If only she had her knife, if only.
He doused the rush torch light. She heard him removing his clothing. He sat on the far side of the bed, so close to her really, and she pictured him taking off his boots.
Then he rose and she knew he was coming to the other side of the bed, to her. Her heart thudded hard and heavy. She tasted fear in her mouth. Fear and hatred of him and resolve that her rape wouldn’t be easy for him, that she would hurt him badly if she could. She heard him brush against his trunk that sat at the foot of the bed. She was ready for him, she had to be.
He was standing next to her, bending down over her, saying nothing, but she heard his breathing. Suddenly, he grabbed the blanket and wrapped it tightly around her, trapping her arms. He lifted her and tossed her onto the floor beside the bed.
She landed on her side, stunned and winded.
He threw another blanket on top of her.
He said nothing more. She heard him ease down onto the bed, heard him draw in a deep breath, then he was silent.
Then he laughed, and it was a rich mocking laugh.
A knife, she thought, if only she had a knife.
“You thought I would rape you,” he said, and laughed again. “Rape you? Even though you’re clean and more sweet-smelling than otherwise, I doubt I could have forced myself to take you, you who are nothing more than an ill-tempered witch. I’d rather be forced to plow an old crone than to plow your belly. You’re so fond of your brother, you who would do anything for Einar, a swine who deserves the cruelest of deaths. Do you lust after him, your own kin? Is that why you’re still unwed? Perhaps he has already bedded you. You aren’t young, after all. Does he hold you above his other whores?”
It was odd, she thought, as she rose silently to her feet. So very odd that it would happen now, that he would taunt her beyond what she could bear. She wrapped the blanket around her and walked to the entrance. She pulled the hide aside. A small sliver of light shone in. She wondered where Kerzog was and what he would do. Would he kill her, his fangs buried in her throat?
It was then that Rorik heard her. He said loud and clear, “Do not leave this chamber, damn you. Get back here or it will go badly for you.”
She ignored him, something she knew had never happened to him in his life, and walked into the outer room, still filled with the dying warmth from the fire pit. She breathed in the light smell of smoke, thinning out now, until the morrow when the fire pit was lit again, the room filling once more with smoke turning the air a pale blue. There was snoring coming from all the benches along the walls. She saw Kerzog sleeping by the fire pit. He raised his head and looked at her. Then he lowered his head and went back to sleep. He was indeed a ferocious animal, she thought as she kept walking. Then she broke into a run, for he was behind her now.
She dashed to the doors, and heaved up the heavy wooden cross-beam. She couldn’t manage it.
She heard him behind her and she jerked up with all her strength. The cross beam flew upward and fell to the side with a heavy thud. She shoved open the door and dashed outside.
She stumbled on the blanket, falling to her knees. She was up in a flash, running, ignoring the pebbles and shards of wood that dug into her bare feet. She heard him behind her, but he wasn’t saying anything now. No, this chase was a silent one, one that would end with her death.
There were four guards at the huge gates of the palisade. They saw her coming, saw Lord Rorik behind her, naked.
They didn’t move. They said nothing. It was as if she were alone with him.
Rorik caught her hair and stopped. She cried out with the burning pain and fell back against his chest.
He wrapped the thick hair around his wrist again and again, until her head was pressed tight against his shoulder.
“You wish to relieve yourself again?”
He sounded calm, not at all angry, but she wasn’t fooled. He would kill her.
“Nay,” she said, gritting her teeth against the pain as he again tightened her hair around his hand. “Nay, I wanted to escape you, to force you to catch me and kill me cleanly. But that isn’t your way, is it? You would prefer to torture me, with your words and your threats and your deeds.”
“Kill you,” he said. “Aye, that’s a thought, isn’t it? You’ve caused me nothing but annoyance, forcing me yet again to hurt my shoulder running you down.”
He said nothing else, merely jerked his hand lightly. She was close to him, pressed tightly against his side. She couldn’t move away because he held her hair wrapped tightly around his hand. The blanket slipped and she jerked it up.
He laughed, nodding to the men standing silent by the palisade.
There were men awake in the longhouse. One called out, “My lord, what goes?”
“Seek your dreams again, Gurd. The woman wished to see the moonlight above Hawkfell Island. She believes this island to be beyond any land she has ever before seen. Aye, return to your sleep.”
Once inside the sleeping chamber, he unwound her hair and shoved her down onto the bed. He lit a rush torch.
He opened his trunk and pulled out a length of chain from the bottom. She watched as he fastened one end of the chain to the post at the foot of his bed. He held up the other end and straightened. “Come here.”
A chain, she thought, staring at it dumbly. She shook her head. He would chain her like an animal? He wouldn’t kill her cleanly?
He strode to her, grabbed her right hand and wrapped the chain around it. The blanket fell to her waist.
He fastened the chain securely, then straightened again. He grabbed her left hand as she tried to pull up the blanket.
He said nothing, merely stared at her breasts. Slowly, knowing that she was watching, knowing well that she hated him looking at her, he reached out and cupped her right breast in his palm.
She froze for an instant with fear and humiliation. Then she jerked back. He grabbed the chain, laughing now, and pulled her forward. She hit at him with her free hand.
He pushed her down onto her back and came over her, straddling her. He again lowered his hand, all the while looking at her face, watching her staring at his hand. This time he ran his fingers lightly over her breasts, from one to the other, again and again. His expression was unreadable. Then he frowned and jerked his hand away,
staring at it as if he were unclean, as if she’d befouled him.
He rose off her and jerked the chain, bringing her to her feet. He looked down at her, said nothing. He hooked his leg behind her knees and sent her sprawling onto the floor.
She watched him extinguish the rush torch. She heard him fall onto his bed. She heard him drawing deep steadying breaths.
She was awake when his deep breathing evened into sleep.
6
RORIK TENSED AS Old Alna probed at the pink flesh around the wound on his shoulder. She pressed more, made more noises he didn’t understand, then rubbed a noxious-smelling paste over the healing wound. She looked hard at the paste and the wound, made more noises, patted him as she would a small boy, and said, “ ’Tis good. You’ll live, my lord. Whoever tended you after you were pricked did a fine job. Saved your lordly hide, I’d say.”
Rorik grunted, easing now as she bandaged his shoulder again in soft clean white wool. When she’d tied the knot over the bandage, he rose, and smiled down at the bent old woman. “Thank you. It doesn’t pain me so much now.”
“Aye, it shouldn’t. You heal well and that’s because of your mother, aye, never a scratch on her that wasn’t well in a day’s time.”
Rorik didn’t know this, but he only nodded. He rose to leave the longhouse.
“The girl,” Old Alna said. “What will you do with her? The men tell of how she kept you alive only for her brother to torture. Is she the one who tended you? Nay, that doesn’t make sense since the men say she would kill you if she could, that she’s not really a woman but only a woman’s form and that she’s vicious and cold and a black-hearted witch.” Old Alna spit into the fire pit.
His men had said all that? It was doubtful, Rorik thought. Old Alna had an imagination to rival a scald’s. She could plant an acorn and quickly raise a full-branched oak tree from it.
“She is Einar’s half-sister and my hostage,” he said, and turned away, saying more to himself than to the scrappy old woman, “Her intentions aren’t always clear to me. She is my prisoner. Keep away from her. She isn’t to be trusted around any of us.”
A scraggly brow rose in question. “Will you keep her in your sleeping chamber?”
He allowed the impertinence, though he gave her a look that would halt most of his men in their tracks. She’d helped bring him into the world, she’d not left his mother’s side when she’d been so very ill with the bloody flux, and he remembered then that it had nearly broken her, for she dearly loved his mother, as did he. Aye, it had been a bad time, but in large part due to Old Alna’s constant vigil, his mother had survived. Rorik shook his head. He was Old Alna’s favorite of all his three siblings and she’d journeyed here to Hawkfell nearly two years before when he’d left his small farmstead in the Vestfold, just west of the trading town of Kaupang. He suspected Old Alna and his mother had discussed it and that both women had decided she should come with him.
He had no intention of answering her. He looked over her left shoulder at Erna who was efficiently working the loom. Her withered right arm didn’t hinder her work at all. He’d heard stories when he was much younger of how her mother had seen her baby and had wanted to leave her to die on the mountainside, but Erna’s father had looked at her withered arm and said no, this was a girl to be proud of. She was wedded to Raki, one of his warriors with immense strength, his own two healthy arms the size of his chair posts. Their two boys were whole and strong as their father. Rorik heard her humming softly to herself as she worked. He turned back to Old Alna, “She was still asleep when I left her this morning.”
“When she awakens she will be hungry. All she needs is good food to regain her strength.” She cackled at that and gave him a sly look. “Not that Entti is such a good cook. Shall I take your prisoner some porridge?”
He thought of his orders to her to eat the inedible stew or go hungry. Damn her. He said aloud, “Why do you continue to make Entti cook if her results are so terrible? Why do you make us all suffer?”
Old Alna shrugged. “ ’Twas her turn. What could I do? It is all done by vote. You gave me the responsibility, my lord Rorik, to oversee the homestead, for two years now. I am doing my best. Will you strip me of my duty?”
Rorik gave her a harassed look, knew the pathetic voice was a sham, but let it go. It always seemed to be Entti’s turn of late, that or she’d given the other women lessons on how to prepare swill to cramp the belly. “I’ll see if she’s awake. Did Entti prepare the porridge?”
Old Alna cackled again. “Nay. Ottar’s girl, Utta, was up before the dawn. Aye, a born cook that one is. A pity she’s only eleven years old. She cooks only on rare occasion. Aye, a wondrous cook, that little one. No black lumps in the porridge this morning. She’ll grow up soon enough, in three years or so, and then she’ll take her turn with the other women, that or wed and leave Hawkfell.”
Rorik was so hungry at that moment he gave thought to marrying the child himself. He stood by the fire pit and fed himself first, eating two bowls, savoring each spoonful of porridge, then dished up a bowl for the woman, dropped a dollop of butter on it, and walked to his sleeping chamber. He pulled back the hide covering the doorway. Light flooded in.
She was lying on her side on the floor, her legs drawn up, her hands folded beneath her cheek. He stood over her, saying nothing. She looked defenseless. She looked helpless, but he knew the truth. He’d felt her damned knife in his throat.
What was he going to do with her?
He nudged her buttocks with his foot.
She mumbled something in her sleep, then quieted again.
He nudged her again, saying, “Wake up. I have much to do and wish not to waste more of my time with you. You try me with your very presence.”
She was awake in the next instant. She sat up slowly and brought her hands up to push her hair from her face. It was in the next moment she remembered that her right hand was chained.
He watched her face pale then saw the anger build in her eyes. He said again, “I have porridge for you. You will eat now. I have no more time to waste.”
She was so hungry she wanted to snatch the bowl from him. The smell made her mouth water. She forced herself to nod slowly, very slowly. She could smell the porridge and the melting butter. She swallowed convulsively, eyeing that porridge. She looked at the large man standing over her, the man who’d smashed his fist in her jaw and taken her from Clontarf, the man who’d set his big foot on her neck and on her back during the long voyage back to this island, and said, “Is it better than the offal you offered me last night?”
Rorik dumped the porridge on the floor, turned on his heel, and left the sleeping chamber.
Mirana stared at the porridge, that beautiful porridge with its rich smell and the sweet melting butter, all of it now seeping slowly into the packed earth. She cried. She didn’t make a sound, just cried, the tears falling over her cheeks, dripping onto the blanket. It was her own fault. Why had those words come from her mouth? She hadn’t planned them, they’d just come out without her permission. Why hadn’t she just kept silent? Just nodded and accepted the porridge from him? After she’d eaten it she could have told him it was offal. Why had she baited him? She lowered her head in her hands.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, but suddenly she heard a movement, thought it him returning, and quickly sniffed back the tears. To have him see her weak like this was more than she could bear. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look up, to see him staring down at her, doubtless pleased at her failure to control herself, more than pleased that he’d beaten her down so easily.
A soft young voice said, “I brought you some bread. I made it myself. It’s very good. Lord Rorik and the men have left. Would you like it?”
Mirana raised her head. On her knees directly in front of her was a young girl with hair so blond it was nearly white. She was slight and very pretty, wearing a pale blue wool gown with a darker blue tunic over it. T
wo simple brooches of pounded silver fastened the tunic at her shoulders. More importantly, in her hands she held a wooden plate and on that plate were four slices of flatbread. Smeared on the flatbread were butter and honey. The smells were beyond description. It was a gift from the gods.
“Thank you,” Mirana said, her eyes never leaving the bread. “I’m very hungry.”
“Old Alna said you would be. She said Lord Rorik came out of his chamber looking like a man ready to commit murder, his face all red, the cords standing out in his neck. She said she doubted you got any of the porridge, he looked just that mad. She is always saying that men have no patience, that their spirits are too easily irritated and their actions the result of too little thought. They can’t always control themselves, she says.”
“Old Alna sounds wise.” Mirana said no more. She tried not to stuff the flatbread into her mouth, but it was difficult. She concentrated on taking one bite at a time and chewing thoroughly. She knew the girl was watching her intently. She also knew that she was silent because Mirana was so very hungry and she didn’t want to disturb her eating.
She ate the fourth slice of flatbread and reached out her hand. There was nothing more on the plate.
“Old Alna also said that you shouldn’t eat more right now or you would be sick and vomit it all up. She said if you could bear it, you should just rest for a while and then I’ll bring you some more food. Is that all right?”
“Aye, that’s wonderful,” Mirana said. She sighed deeply, ignored her still hollow belly, and lay back.
“Lord Rorik is gone hunting with the men.”
“There is game on the island?”
“Aye, but he’s been careful to breed as much as he kills so that we’ll never starve when there is a long storm and he and the men can’t fish or row to the mainland to hunt. This morning he and my father and some other men have sailed to shore to hunt there. The coast is flat and there are salt marshes and bogs, but there are wild boars there that are quite tasty. Everyone was tired of fish, though I know a very good recipe for roasting herring with juniper berries.”