Leaning her face closer, Ruby taunted him, "You Vikings are great ones for sagas and riddles. I have a good one for you, Thork. Would you like to hear it?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he refused to rise to her bait; so, she continued, "What happens when a Viking man drops his braies?" Like a master skald, she waited in the silence, choosing just the right moment to answer her own question: "His brains fall out."
It took a moment for her words to register. When they did, Thork reached for her angrily, but Dar and Olaf held him back.
"Enough! Leave off, you two," Dar ordered. "We have dawdled enough on silly prattle betwixt you two. Thork, I cannot believe a grandson of mine would allow a chit of a woman to goad him so. And you, Ruby, truly you seek the henchman's axe with your foolhardy words." When they both looked properly chastened, Dar went on, "What do we with the wench?"
"I trust her not." Thork glowered sullenly.
"Nor do I," Olaf added. "And I do not want her in the same sleeping room with my daughters."
"The tower room then," Dar decided finally, "with a guard present at all times."
"Should she be bound?" Olaf asked.
Dar thought a moment, then replied, "Nay, not unless she tries to escape or causes further trouble."
"She must also be guarded against those who might try to rescue her," Thork cautioned. "Ivar may make a move. Then, too, some of our own villeins would have her head in a trice on the suspicion alone."
"And what of Hrolf?" Ruby asked, realizing the dangerous predicament she was in, looking for a last out. "Will you risk his anger to satisfy a suspicion, without evidence?"
Thork had forgotten Ruby's claim of kinship with the Norman Viking and Sigtrygg's fear of reprisal. "Do you still make those ridiculous assertions?"
"Of course, I do. I never lie. Why don't you take me to him for proof?"
Ruby's cunning surprised Thork. Surely she knew her lies would be proven false on Norman soil. What game did she play now? 'Twas probably just a ploy for time.
"You could always pay Hrolf wergild for her if he protested her death," Olaf suggested.
"Wergild! A man's worth, not a woman's!" Thork snorted. "Never have I heard of paying for a woman's loss!"
"And the torture?" Olaf prodded. "Shall I order her torture? If so, how far should we go? To the death?"
"Let us talk on this more," Dar offered judiciously. He leaned back in his heavy chair, feet outstretched, fingers steepled thoughtfully in front of his face. "Olaf, take her to the tower room and make sure you post a guard at the door."
After they left, Dar and Thork shared a glass of rare Frisian wine he kept for special guests. Thork rubbed his eyes wearily with the fingertips of both hands.
"What think you?" Dar asked as Thork stared solemnly into the finely wrought silver cup he held between his two palms.
"In truth, I know not what to make of the wench," Thork answered, shaking his head. "She vexes me sorely with brazen statements and her tales of the future, but still I cannot be certain of her guilt. All signs implicate her, and yet something is amiss in this puzzle."
"Perchance you just want to believe her."
"Mayhap, but I swear on Thor's hammer, as well as the Christian cross, Sigtrygg knew exactly what he was doing when he placed the waspish wench in my hands."
"Yea, that he did," Dar agreed, then burst out laughing. "Did you hear what she said about bosoms? And men's brains?" He slapped his palm on his knee appreciatively and said, "God's blood! I swear she would be a fair match for you if things were different."
" 'Tis easy for you to find amusement in my discomfort," Thork grumbled. "Do you know, she asked if I would kill her?" Thork tilted his head back and drained his cup in one long swallow.
"And what said you to that?"
"I said I knew not, but, in truth, I misdoubt I could—unless I saw with my own eyes her raise the knife to my sons."
* * *
For two days, Ruby brooded alone in her tower room—a damp, stark cubicle with a pallet and table, not even a chair. The two small slits of windows were too high for her to see out.
The only person she'd seen' since her interrogation was the guard who handed her food, drinking water and a clean chamber pot each morning.
Aside from feeling dirty and frightened for her future, Ruby was bored. What she wouldn't give for a good book!
When her guard, Vigi, opened her door that morning, Ruby sensed something different in his shifting eyes, but she knew from experience that he wouldn't answer her questions.
She lay daydreaming on her pallet several hours later, smelling the crisp coolness of the air coming through the little windows. Autumn would be coming soon. Ruby wondered sadly if she would be home for Christmas.
Autumn was Ruby's favorite time of the year. It reminded her of a special time in her life with Jack. She closed her eyes tightly to shut out the pain of those memories.
Twenty years! How had the time passed so quickly?
* * *
She and Jack had dated all through their senior year in high school, wildly in love. As much as she had loved him, though, Ruby had held off his heated advances, wanting to be sure, even hoping, perhaps unrealistically, that she could wait until marriage. When she told women friends about that today, they laughed at her unbelievingly, not understanding the different times and mores of twenty years ago when an eighteen-year-old virgin hadn't been an aberration.
Each night, though, they'd tempted fate, as youth always does, finding it harder and harder to halt the petting which step by hot step had approached a point of no return.
After graduation, Jack had gotten a football scholarship to a university more than a thousand miles away, while she'd enrolled at a local state college. By the end of September, Ruby had lost weight, and Jack's telephone bill had increased astronomically. The two months until Jack's Thanksgiving vacation had stretched ahead endlessly for them. Neither had been able to afford visits.
So Ruby had been surprised to open her dorm door one autumn day to find Jack standing there solemnly in his tight jeans and varsity jacket. The smell of the spicy cologne she'd bought him last Christmas hung enticingly in the air.
Jack's blue eyes had held hers in an imploring caress. He traced the sharp plane of her cheekbone lightly with a finger but did not lean down with his usual kiss of greeting.
"Let's go for a ride, Rube," he'd said in an oddly raw voice, drawing her outside toward his old MG.
She'd been frightened, wondering if he'd come to break up with her. Maybe he'd met someone else. Jack had said little, despite her nervous questions, as he'd driven to the outskirts of town. Strangely distracted, he'd parked on a little out-of-the-way road leading into a secluded, wooded area.
"How's football?"
"Okay."
"Do your parents know you're back in Pennsylvania?"
"No."
"Did something happen? Are you hurt? Did you fail a course?"
"No. No. No."
Jack had folded his arms over the steering wheel and had pressed his forehead down on them. Truly concerned now, Ruby had moved closer, but the gear shift on the floor had impeded her. She'd put her left hand on his wide shoulder and had felt corded muscles tense reflexively.
"Jack? Jack, honey, what's wrong?"
"Rube, I love you. I love you so much," Jack had groaned, pulling her into his arms.
Ruby had smiled broadly then, in relief and reaction to his loving words. He hadn't planned a breakup, after all. She'd kissed him quickly on the lips.
"I love you, too, Jack. I was so scared—"
Jack had never let her finish. He'd put hands on either side of her face and pulled her toward him in a hungry kiss that had conveyed all the loneliness and unfulfilled wanting of the last month. "I... love... you," he'd repeated huskily, and between each word, his breath had feathered her parted lips. His tongue ravaged all the secret, familiar recesses of her mouth, willing her to open all her intimate places for him.
&
nbsp; Like a starving man, he'd passed his hands frantically over her body, grasping, caressing, never seeming to get enough. In his ravaging need, he'd jerkily unbuttoned her coat and lifted the hem of her sweater. When his fingertips had found the lace-capped tips of her breasts, she gasped, "Oh, Jack! A-a-h!" Instantly, he'd brought them to hard points of aching fruition with a mere grazing of the backs of his knuckles. Jack had moaned throatily then with his own intense pleasure.
This had been too fast for Ruby. In the past, it had taken them hours to reach this point of sexual frenzy. She'd started to get frightened, and excited, at the same time. Jack had tried to pull her onto his lap in front of the steering wheel, but Ruby had cried out in pain. The stupid gearshift had scraped her thigh.
They'd both started laughing then.
"Come on. Let's go for a walk," Jack had suggested in a hoarse, raw voice. His kiss-swollen lips and passion-glazed eyes had lured Ruby onto the multicolored carpet of crisp autumn leaves which had crunched under their feet. They'd walked, arm-in-arm, into the heavily canopied forest while industrious nut-gathering squirrels scurried out of their path, squealing in outrage at being disturbed.
Jack had stopped abruptly and twirled her round and round in his arms, happily. Like young, carefree children, they'd fallen laughing to the luxuriant bed of leaves. He'd leaned over her and brushed some of the errant leaves from her hair, then held her eyes seriously, "Let's get married, Rube."
The abrupt, unexpected words had startled Ruby. "What did you say?" Then she'd whispered, "Say it again."
"Let's get married."
"Is this a proposal, Jack?" she'd gasped, tears of happiness filling her eyes.
"Yes." His breath had fluttered against her parted lips, soft as a butterfly's kiss. "Oh, yes!" Then Jack had smiled for the first time that day and begun a sweet assault of kisses. His lips had been white-hot with blistering heat as they'd seared a path from lips to throat and back to lips to pursue deep drugging kisses that had turned Ruby mindless and incoherent in her cries. Over and over, he had marked her with his stalking mouth.
Impatient, Jack had torn off his jacket and removed Ruby's as well. Her sweater and his T-shirt had followed quickly after. For a moment, Jack had pulled back to look at her exposed body appreciatively. "Oh, Rube!" he'd exclaimed before lowering himself. "Oh, sweet, sweet, Rube!" By the time his lips touched the tips of her breasts, Ruby had already arched up to meet him, yearning, aching to be suckled. He'd used his tongue to circle and flick, his teeth to rasp softly, his lips to draw her into his mouth rhythmically.
Ruby had been feverish with wanting by the time Jack had stood to remove the rest of his clothing. She could no more have halted him then than stopped her wildly careening heart. All their petting in the past had taken place in his car or on the living-room sofa, with parents nearby. This had been the first time she'd seen Jack naked. Like an ancient Viking, he'd stood proudly, his tall, muscular body perfectly in tune with the autumn background, his blond hair fluttering in the air. His erect penis had grown rock hard and huge under her flattering perusual. Jack's sheer masculinity took her breath away.
By the time Ruby had lain naked, as well, they'd both been panting. His long fingers had moved expertly in the delta between her thighs to prepare her wetly. She'd budded, then flowered under his fluttering fingertips. When he'd poised between her legs finally, he'd repeated his earlier question, "Will you marry me, Rube?" At the moment she'd whispered, "Yes," he'd buried himself in her sheath in one smooth stroke. There'd been slight pain, but mostly the overwhelming, wonderful feeling of being filled by the man she loved. After that, she'd been unable to think at all as he'd driven her to the edge of eternity and then over with catapulting waves of pleasure.
When they'd lain in each other's arms afterwards, Jack had nuzzled her neck. "Let's get married—now! We can drive out of state, get married by a justice of the peace and be back at my apartment by Sunday night. I have three hundred dollars in my checking account."
"Now? Today?" Ruby's brain had still felt muddled from their lovemaking. He couldn't be serious, she'd thought.
"Yes. I want you to come back to school with me. I don't want to be there if you're not with me. Please, Rube, marry me."
"This is just lust speaking, Jack," Ruby had commented, with a shaky laugh.
"Yeah! Ain't it great?" he'd responded with the drop-dead grin she'd always found irresistible, and Ruby had felt a deep throbbing begin in her center once again. Then he'd begun a new assault on her already weakened senses. "I love you, Rube. I'll never love any other woman," Jack had whispered as they sank to the soft autumn bed. "We can make it work. We can..."
Words hadn't been necessary after that as they made sweet, sweet love for the second time in the most gorgeous setting any bride could ever want.
They hadn't eloped that weekend, but they'd convinced both their parents of their seriousness. The formal wedding had taken place over Christmas vacation, and Ruby had returned to Jack's university with him. Thanks to the financial help of both sets of parents, part-time jobs, Jack's scholarship and some extremely frugal living conditions, including postage-stamp-size apartments, both had managed to graduate from college four years later.
* * *
As the fog of memories began to dim, Ruby realized she still lay on the Viking pallet with eyes squeezed shut, her body shuddering with silent sobs she didn't want her wretched guard to overhear. Jack's words lingered in her mind: "We can make it work."
What a fool she'd been!
"Do you weep for want of me or for your sorry fate?"
Huh? Jack hadn't said that.
Ruby's eyes shot open to the sight of Jack—no, Thork—leaning against the open doorway of her tower room, arms and legs crossed. She hadn't even heard the door open.
Standing up, she asked him huffily, "How long have you been standing there ogling me? Why aren't you off sucking up to the tarantula?"
"Sucking up?" Thork questioned on a laugh. "Can I assume 'tarantula' is a spider?"
"You got it!"
"Your manner of speaking—'tis ever a puzzle." Thork shook his head quizzically.
"You think my language is odd. I've heard enough 'twas-es and 'tis-es and 'twoulds to last me a lifetime."
Thork laughed easily.
Ruby narrowed her eyes. What was up now? A short time ago the brute had shook her and almost slapped her face. Now he stood here laughing as if nothing were wrong. He was just like Jack in that regard. A short fuse, quick outburst, and then an equally rapid recovery.
"So, is the torture going to begin now? Will you do it here, or should we move out into the bailey so everyone can watch? If we had more time, we could serve popcorn and slurpees. Hey, why not give the whip to your spider friend? I'll bet she could do a good job of skinning me alive."
Thork looked appalled at her words.
"Halt thy wicked tongue, woman. Linette is not as you think."
"Hah!"
Thork still hadn't moved from his nonchalant stance near the door. He gazed at her intently, seeming to look for answers to some great mystery.
"Why are you watching me so strangely? What am I being accused of now?"
Thork shrugged uncomfortably. "Naught do I accuse you of," he started to explain, then seemed to shift course, "but I wonder what you dreamt of before you started weeping. You were making love in your dreams, were you not? Was it your husband, Jack?"
Ruby felt her face flush and pressed her fingertips to her cheek, wondering if the finger welts from Dar's slap were still there.
"The tips of your breasts swelled with passion even as you slept," Thork continued relentlessly. "You arched your womanhood and spread your thighs wantonly. You even moaned."
Involuntarily, Ruby looked down, then crossed her arms across her chest in embarrassment. The tips of her swollen breasts were, indeed, clearly outlined under her thin T-shirt.
"By the faith! Surely you do not turn shy on me now—after all the outrageous things you have
said and done."
An insufferable grin spread across Thork's lips.
"All right, what's going on here?" Ruby demanded to know. "Something has definitely happened. First you run hot, then cold. One day, angry. The next, teasing. Tell me. Do I die or do I go free?"
Thork studied her, as if weighing his words carefully. "Neither. We have discovered the traitor in our midst. One of the hesirs who traveled with us from Jorvik was Ivar's man. 'Twould seem was him, not you, who sought to entrap Dar."
It took several moments for Thork's words to sink in.
Then, shrieking loudly, Ruby sprang at him, pounding his chest, trying to scrape her nails across his face, biting his shoulder when he lifted her by the upper arms off the floor. When she hit his groin with her kicking legs, Thork twisted his body and lost his footing. They both fell to the pallet, which broke with a loud crash under the impact of his weight and the force of their combined fall.
"You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You bucket of slime! Let me up. I'm going to cut out your stinking heart. Ouch!"
"Leave off, wench. Your voice—'tis shrill as a sea gull. Oh! Your nails are sharp."
Thork pinned her down with his hard body, her arms above her head, her legs encased in his thighs. They lay in the midst of the broken bed on the floor, straw floating in the air above them from the torn mattress cover. Ruby tried to heave him off her and realized her mistake immediately.
"Oh!" she exclaimed on a whisper as the juncture of her thighs pushed against Thork's manhood, arousing him instantly. She tried to correct her error by dropping back and turning her face away.
He wouldn't allow it.
Wolfishly his lips stalked hers, forcing a response she didn't want to give. When she fought him, Thork nipped her lower lip gently with his teeth. Ruby parted her lips to scream, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, filling her with a pleasure she could not deny.
She could feel the smile on Thork's self-satisfied lips. The boor!