That didn't sound so different from her brothers. Or other men of higher station who treated their women as mere chattel.
"I was so lonely. Oh, I know that smacks of a poor excuse for breaking the Lord's commandment, but Toste the Tall was a Northman of such merry temperament that he melted my foolish young heart with a single smile."
That sounded way too close a description of another Viking with a roguish disposition.
"And where did you get the opportunity to meet this Viking? Did he come to your keep in Frankland or your husband's trading stall?"
Rachelle shook her head. "Arnaud had taken me to Rouen for the christening ceremony of the new Duke of Normandy's first son, assuming there would be numerous business opportunities there. As you know, the Northmen have been in control of Normandy for many years now, starting with Hrolf, the first duke. Toste was a mercenary in the employ of the visiting King Haakon from Norway."
"Tykir's uncle, Haakon the Good?"
Rachelle nodded.
"Was it a momentary... uh, lapse with this Viking? Or something more?"
"Something more... leastways, on my part. I could not have committed adultery lest I loved the man... or thought I did."
"And Toste?"
Rachelle rolled her shoulders with reservation. "I know not. He professed to have deep feelings for me, but that may have been the bedlust speaking. All I know is that I was happier with him those few days than ever I have been before or after."
"Did your husband find the two of you together?"
"Nay, but he suspicioned that something was amiss. Mayhap it was a long look that passed betwixt us in the great hall. Or mayhap some talk amongst the servants. In any case, one day he announced without warning that we were leaving for home, despite riches to be gained whilst trading with all the dignitaries."
"And you never had a chance to speak with Toste again?"
Rachelle shook her head sadly.
"Does he know that he has a son?"
"I am not certain. Nay, I think not." She exhaled wearily. "Perchance I delude myself. He may know and not care. He never searched me out. Yea, deep inside, I suspect his professions of love were mere words."
She put a gentle hand to Rachelle's maimed nose. "And this?"
"Ah, this," Rachelle said with a mournful sigh, touching the same spot that Alinor had. "At first, Arnaud was jubilant over my pregnancy. He treated me almost lovingly, and I was overcome with such a soul-deep remorse that I had betrayed him so. Mayhap Arnaud's ill-treatment all those years was my fault. If I had given him a child. If I had been a better wife—"
"Rachelle, stop... stop this instant. Do not try to excuse your husband's brutality by taking on the burden of guilt."
"To make a long story not quite so long," she continued, "the proof of paternity was evident the moment Thibaud came crying from the womb. His blond hair and blue eyes were giveaways, considering that Arnaud and I share the same black hair and dark eyes."
"Would he not forgive your... indiscretion?"
"Forgive? 'Twas Arnaud who dragged me by the hair from the birthing sheets, down the manor steps, to the chapel, where he pronounced my crime afore the priest and all our churls. The villagers were invited to toss the first stones, and in the end 'twas Arnaud himself who sliced the harlot mark on my nose."
"Oh, Rachelle," Alinor lamented, taking the weeping woman into her arms.
Rachelle soon calmed down and concluded her story. "After several weeks of care in the hut of a forest midwife, who took pity on me, I made my way with Thibaud to Rouen. But, of course, by then all the festivities had ended, and the guests long departed. It was there that I met Tykir, who took pity on me and brought me to Hedeby. He claimed to be in dire need of a jewelry maker to sell his products here, but I suspect I was such a pitiful sight he could not help himself."
Alinor gave her a disbelieving look. She did not want to contemplate what this said about Tykir. He was a troll. She had to remember that. Where was his concern for her plight?
"So, now you are in reduced straits here, stranded in a Norse trading town?"
Rachelle laughed gaily at that. "Nay, I am a woman who has survived a horrible marriage and vicious punishment. Now I am self-sufficient. Tykir allows me a portion of his profits, and they are ample. I am a wealthy woman, dependent on no man. And, best of all, I have my most beloved son."
Alinor thought about that for a moment. "I must confess, I envy you."
"Me?" Rachelle backed away slightly, as if Alinor had become unbalanced.
"Yea, I do. I really do, Rachelle. All my life I have yearned just to be left in peace. I raise the best sheep in all Northumbria. Truly, I do. My weavers produce the finest wool under my direction ... soft as silk. I could easily support myself... I do now, without my brothers' knowledge. But a woman has no power in my country, or any other. Whatever wealth I gain belongs to my brothers, or my husband when I am wed. Whatever improvements I make to my estates benefit them, not me. They can sell it all right under me. In fact, they can sell me, as well. And they do... over and over."
It was Rachelle's turn to hug Alinor.
"You will think me barmy when I tell you of the fantasy I have harbored of late," Alinor said. "I have been wondering if perchance God sent Tykir to rescue me from my brothers."
Instead of laughing, Rachelle gave Alinor's idea serious thought. Tapping her pressed lips with a forefinger, she pondered her words. "But Tykir says he will deliver you to King Anlaf and be done with you."
"Does that fit the character of a man who would rescue a stranger and her child?"
"Do not put too much credence in that seeming generosity. I am a trained craftswoman, and he was in need of just such a worker at the time. Also, he had a passing acquaintance with Toste, and felt somewhat responsible for the orphaning of a Norse child... even one not of his blood."
"Well, actually, he might not be all that softhearted as I would like," Alinor conceded, and related the story of Tykir's refusal to intervene with the slave girl earlier that day.
Rachelle made a clucking noise of dismay, but all she said was, "It is a hard life for women."
With spirits dampened, Alinor reflected on her fate. "Dost thou really believe Tykir will abandon me to possible death in Anlaf's court? All for the sake of a horse and a slave girl?"
"A horse and a slave girl?" Rachelle frowned with confusion.
Alinor explained the reasons Tykir had undertaken this quest to capture a witch for King Anlaf.
"Ah, you do not know the real reason Tykir captured you?"
"The real reason?" Alinor shook her head dumbly.
"Anlaf is holding as friendly hostage the healer, Adam of Arabia. Adam is the adopted son of his half-sister Rain and his brother-by-marriage, Selik... a man who fought side by side with Thork Haraldsson in the battle many years past with Ivar the Terrible that eventually led to his death. The family connections are complicated, but the heart-bonds are not."
Alinor put a hand to her forehead in puzzlement. "So, Tykir had no choice?"
"He had a choice. Adam is in no real peril. Anlaf wouldn't risk enraging so many Northmen in high places by harming Adam, but neither will Anlaf release him till his malady is cured."
"Well, why didn't the troll just tell me all this?"
Rachelle waved a hand with dismissal. "Tykir is a man. Men do not deign to share their plans with women."
"But he told you," Alinor argued.
"Only because I badgered him to justify his conduct. And, actually, 'twas Bolthor who filled in most of the picture."
"So, dost thou think there is any chance of Tykir being my guardian Viking—"
"Guardian Viking?" Rachelle choked out a laugh.
"—sent by God to champion my cause against my brothers?" Even Alinor had to smile at how foolish her words sounded.
"Who can say? Who can say? I do not believe Tykir will release you and jeopardize Adam. But mayhap God has a finger in this porridge. Yea, in reflecting on it, I am beginn
ing to suspect you will play a pivotal role in the unraveling of this mess."
"But there is the chance that Tykir will sacrifice me for Adam... that he will leave Trondelag with Adam, and me behind to handle my fate with my own devices, such as they are."
"Yea, there is that chance." Rachelle studied her for a moment. "Do you have... devices?"
Alinor laughed at that. So, even Rachelle was not altogether sure she was not a witch. "There are devices and there are devices," she answered enigmatically. Suddenly, a marvelous plan occurred to Alinor. Stepping away from her newfound friend, she paced back and forth along the hearth. "Is it possible," she asked Rachelle, "that Tykir might be convinced to set me up in business?"
"Hah! And what business might that be?" Rurik asked, coming through the doorway, bringing a gust of frosty wind with him. So tall was he that the roof beams of the low ceiling grazed his head, as they did for Tykir and Bolthor. "The witch business?"
Alinor glared at Rurik. Then, slowly, she let a slow grin slip across her lips. Her eyes dropped deliberately to the region of his precious manparts and, surreptitiously, so no one else would notice, she waggled her fingers.
"Did you see that? Did you see that?" Rurik raged. "The witch just put a spell on me."
Tykir, who came in behind him, looked from Rurik, who was peering inside his braies, to her, and back again, then shrugged, seeing nothing amiss. "As to businesses, you'd best not be thinking I'd get involved with sheep, My lady of the Freckles," Tykir remarked to her as he proceeded to the hearth fire, where he rubbed his hands briskly over the flames... and winked at a giggling Maida—the lecherous lout. "I had more than enough of those smelly creatures on the journey from Graycote to Jorvik."
"My sheep do not smell," Alinor said indignantly and brushed her gown aside with repugnance when Tykir stepped too close to her, giving her one of those lascivious I-can-see-you-naked looks.
Bolthor was the last to come in, along with Ottar and Karl, who washed their hands in a bucket on a bench near the door. "I have a thought for a new saga," Bolthor began. Everyone rolled their eyes, but not so the giant could see. "How Tykir the Great Came to Be a Sheep Herder."
Hours later, Tykir prepared to slip into his bed furs, where the Lady Alinor awaited him.
Well, "awaited" was not precisely the correct word.
He could practically hear the grinding of her teeth from halfway across the room.
Despite his softening toward Alinor in some regards, considering that she had tried to poison him with one of her potions, he did not trust her any farther than he could see her. As a result, he'd informed her an hour past that she would share his bed furs or be trussed up against one of the roof support beams, where she would, no doubt, turn into an icicle once the hearth fires died down—a uniquely speckled icicle, at that.
She'd raged, nagged, cajoled, then raged again, to no avail.
Finally, Rurik and Bolthor had gone out, griping mightily, to seek quieter sleep companions—well, mayhap not so quiet... most men, and they were no exception, relished a woman who was vocal in her bed-pleasures. And Viking men were known for their abilities to give women bed-pleasures. In any case, Rurik and Bolthor had contended that they would be unable to rest in this longhouse with their ears ringing from Alinor's screeching voice.
Of course, Rurik had no choice but to depart anyway since Rachelle had slapped his face—not once, but twice—for suggesting she engage in some perverse activity with him.
Then, too, when she thought no one was looking, Alinor had taken to waggling her fingers in the oddest way at Rurik's manparts, which made Rurik turn nigh green in the face.
Tykir thought he might go mad before he ever reached Trondelag.
Now Ottar and Karl snored lustily at the far end of the long house, near the front door. Rachelle had long since gone to her bench bed on the other side of the raised hearth with Thibaud, who was exhausted by an hour of wrestling on the rush-covered floors with Tykir, Rurik and Bolthor. Holy Thor, how the straw had flown!
Rachelle had just smiled at their rough antics. But Alinor had tsk-ed and tsk-ed, calling them all "naught but little boys" themselves... to which he and Rurik and Bolthor had grinned in agreement, and crossed their eyes at her... which just made Alinor tsk some more.
Now he banked the hearth fire and yawned, open-mouthed, as he approached his bed furs on the other side of the hearth, where Alinor lay on her back with the skins pulled up to her chin. He suddenly realized how bone-weary he was. It had been a very long day. Good thing he had not succumbed to Rurik and Bolthor's exhortation that he accompany them to a bawdy house. He doubted he would be up to the bedsport tonight.
With another robust yawn, he began to remove his clothing. First, he hopped about on one foot, then another, as he unlaced his cross-gartered ankle boots. He thought he heard Alinor make a teeth-sucking noise of disgust at the ruckus he was making. No one else seemed to notice, though, apparently being fast asleep.
Alinor's disapproval annoyed him, along with her constant complaints all the evening long... in fact, these past two sennights. What kind of captive was she that she felt free to berate her captors? What did that say about him as the captor?
He would turn the tables on her, he decided. He would undress in front of her, slowly, and imprint an image on her brain of him, naked, just as he had of her. That would show her.
He hoped.
But the witch defeated him by keeping her eyes scrunched tight. He was fairly certain she did not see his naked form—which was magnificent, if he did say so himself—because he watched her closely. She did not once blink or peek.
That annoyed him, too.
With a muttered curse, he slipped into the furs beside her. She squealed with outrage, unable to maintain her cool composure. Mayhap she had seen him after all, and was now swoony with concern over the size of his... form. Some women were missish in that regard, not realizing that the female body was made to accommodate any... form.
"Your toes are cold, you brute. Don't touch me. Move your feet."
Well, mayhap not so swoony... or missish.
She waggled her bare toes against his bare toes, and he experienced the shock of it all the way to the top of his scalp, the ends of his fingers and the very tip of his manhood. The last time he'd felt such an immediate jolt was when Bolthor, who weighed as much as a midsize horse, had stepped on his big toe. Blessed Freyja! He had seen stars then. But that had been different. This shock was painful, too, but in a most delicious way. Who would have thought toes could be such an erotic body part?
"Stop squirming," he grumbled, trying to make himself comfortable, "lest you arouse me." That last disclosure was an impulsive inspiration, for which he congratulated himself.
She stilled immediately. "You lecherous lout! Are you naked?"
"Of course I'm naked. 'Tis how most mortal men, and women, sleep. Aren't you?" He reached out a hand to check, and encountered her underchemise. Helvtis, he thought, though why he should care, he could not say. Damn, damn, damn.
"No, I'm not naked," she snapped, slapping his hand away. She rolled over to her side and turned to face the wall, taking most of the bed furs with her.
He grinned and pulled his half of the bed furs back. Then, risking bodily damage, he nestled against her, spoon-fashion. She had no place to go. Thank the gods!
"Stop pressing your knee into my backside," she ordered in an icy voice, which, no doubt, had a chilling effect on her sheep. But none whatsoever on him.
He chuckled. "My knee is nowhere near your rump," he told her. And it wasn't.
When understanding dawned, she bolted up into a sitting position and tried to flee the bed furs. "You loathsome wretch!"
"Shhhh," he cautioned, pushing her down so she lay on her back. "You'll wake everyone." With that, he rolled over onto his side and threw one leg over her thighs and an arm across her chest, thus imprisoning her.
But what he accomplished, instead, was a soul-searing blow to his senses. With hi
s legs, through her night rail, he perceived the shapeliness of her thighs, causing the very hairs to stand up on his legs, and everywhere else. Under his forearm, the nipple of her breast budded, begging for his touch. The witch felt so damn good in his arms that the very breath seemed to stop in his lungs, and his heart skipped a beat.
She gasped, as if equally affected, and stopped struggling.
With a groan, he nuzzled her rose-scented hair and whispered, "You should stop using Eadyth's hair ointment."
"Why?" she whispered back.
He felt her breath against his cheek as she turned to speak to him. It was warm and fresh and dangerously enticing. "Because I like it too much," he answered.
That gave her pause. The lady would not like him liking anything about her... not her naked body, not the smell of her hair, not her sweet breath and definitely not the imprint of her nipple on his flesh.
I am doomed, he thought. The witch has ensorcelled me with her spells. And I do not care. All I care about is— "All you care about is your lustful impulses," she charged, trying to shift out of his embrace. "You are just like every other man, thinking only of yourself."
"I am like no other man," he assured her, tightening his arm and leg across her.
"If I lie still, will you leave me alone?" Smart woman! Knows when to fight and when to negotiate. "Mayhap."
"I would like to offer you a bargain... one that could be very lucrative for you."
His mind went suddenly alert. What was she up to now? "Lucrative in what way? I have more than enough wealth."
"Nobody has too much wealth."
"I do."
"Nay, you do not," she argued. "Make your damn offer and be done with this foolishness. But know that if it involves your release and an exchange of money, I am not interested."
"Loosen your hold on me first. I'm suffocating."