Come Back to Me (21 page)

"Never—"

"I do not hit women."

"Everyone hits women."

"I don't, nor does Wolf nor Hawk. And no man in my service does so lest he wants to feel my fist. Women are the great gods' greatest gift."

"There is but one God."

"All right! Fine, his greatest gift."

A tiny smile trembled at the corners of her mouth. "But He made man first. So scripture says."

"I suppose he wanted to practice. Now hold out your arm and let's get this over with."

She did not obey but merely continued to look at him as though he stood before her for the very first time. Finally, she said softly, "I cannot swim."

"You cannot what?" She might as well have said she could not speak or walk or breathe.

"I cannot swim. If you will not accept my word that I will not attempt to flee you, word I freely give, then consider that I cannot swim. We may lie within sight of Normandy but all I can do is look at it."

"But… you can ride."

"Of course I can ride. Everyone rides."

"Everyone swims."

"I don't. Where I grew up there were only rivers and few folk swam in them. I never learned."

A great weight was coming off his chest. He had hated the idea of binding her, knowing she would hate it, but had not been able to think of any alternative. Never had it occurred to him that she actually could not…

"You must learn to swim," he declared emphatically as he returned the belt to the chest.

"Yes, my lord." She spoke more docilely than he had ever heard her do before but with an underlying thread of humor that wanned his heart. Yet he was still shaken by fading echoes of his fear that she might flee. Losing her would be very… personal.

"All right," he said gruffly. "Finish eating and get some rest. You may not be tired but I am." As though to emphasize that fact, he pulled off his sandals and lay down on the bed on his side facing her. The bed that was far smaller than the one they had occupied at Hawkforte.

My, it was warm out here on the water. She would have imagined it to be cooler but she felt flushed all over. Nonetheless, she ate every scrap of the stew and drank every drop of cider, taking her time doing so. He was tired, surely he would fall asleep. But when she finished he was still watching her, a faint smile playing over his lips.

As she hesitated, he held out a hand to her, at once commanding and encouraging. "Come to bed now, Rycca."

She did but slowly and did not touch him. Instead, she lay down on her side with her back to him. A moment passed, another. She thought he meant to do nothing, and started when he sighed. •

A steely arm wrapped around her waist. She was pulled gently toward him, nestled into the curve of his powerful body, his warmth and strength enveloping her. She turned her head into the pillow to stifle a gasp.

The boat, riding at anchor off the far shore, rocked gently in the night.

SO DID THE BETTER PART OF A WEEK PASS. They sped on fair winds and swift oars, and each night anchored within sight of shore. Twice they made landfall for fresh water and game but did not linger. The coast along which they sailed was part of Jutland, ruled by the Danes. Dragon expected no trouble, for his ships plied these waters regularly in trade. Still, it paid to be vigilant.

All day the men bent to the oars, Dragon taking his turn among them. At night he joined Rycca in the tent, but except for holding her as they slept, he did not touch her. When he wasn't rowing, he taught her Norse.

"Many of my people speak Saxon," he said, "and other languages as well thanks to their experience as traders. But they would be pleased if you learned our language."

Rycca agreed readily and proved a quick study. Toward the end of the week, she was managing simple sentences.

On the sixth day, they left the shore behind and headed out into open water. "This is the Vik," Dragon told her. "The strait that lies between Jutland and the lands to the north, including our own. From this we take our name. When we see land next, we will be home."

The same thought seemed to be in the minds of his men for they bent to the oars with even greater will. The wind stayed with them and they flew over the water. Dragon steered their course by the sun and when that was gone by the northern star. Watching him, Rycca could not help but ask, "What happens if it becomes cloudy at night? You will not know which way we go."

In answer, he drew from beneath his tunic a small pouch and took from it a stone suspended at the end of a string. Holding it up for her to see, he said, "Watch how the stone turns by itself."

True enough for through no effort of Dragon's own, the stone twisted in the air for a few moments, then came to rest. The side with a small chiseled mark on it now pointed in the direction in which they were going.

"Why does it move?" Rycca asked in wonder.

"No one knows but it always points the way north."

He carefully replaced the stone in its pouch and returned it to his tunic. "If the story I was told is true, it has traveled far, all the way from the East beyond a great wall so long it would take a man more than a hundred days to walk its length. It was smuggled from the court of a mighty king and went through many hands before coming to me."

"It must be very valuable."

Dragon shrugged. "At least one man believed it was worth his life." When he saw the look on her face, he explained quickly. "The stone was given to me by a Byzantine trader in thanks for
saving
his life. He had no son, wished to retire from trading, and wanted the stone to go to a man he knew would keep it and use it well."

Ashamed of what she had thought, Rycca lowered her eyes. "lam sorry."

"For what? Assuming I took the stone by force? But that's what Vikings do, isn't it?"

He sounded exasperated and she could not blame him. But neither was she prepared when he suddenly asked, "Why did you not want us to marry? Because I am Viking?"

She had wondered if he would ask, then decided her reasons would likely mean nothing to him. But he was a man of surprises, this hero of her strange world, and very good at biding his time.

"It is true, I did not wish to wed a Viking."

"Because of what you have heard about us?"

"No, because of what I have seen."

It was his turn to be surprised. "Mercia is inland, well away from where most of the raiding occurred."

"Wolscroft is near the river Thames, which runs inland from the coast. The Danes raided along it when I was a child."

He remembered now. The Danes had managed to claim fully half of what had been the kingdom of Mercia with the remainder thrown upon the mercy of Alfred.

"That dream you had—"

"What dream? What do you know of that?"

Her sudden alarm quickened his interest but he was careful to conceal it. "Only that you had a nightmare. You couldn't seem to wake from it but that happens to all of us from time to time."

"Yes… I suppose it does."

"It could have been anything. I just wondered if it had to do with the Danes."

"It might have." Her mind scrambled, seeking equivocation, finding none. Just then she would have given anything to be able to lie.

"Do you dream of them often?"

"It's nothing, really. Just a memory… from when I was a child."

"And the Danes came?"

She nodded, her throat very tight. To speak of such things made them even more hideously real.

Dragon's hand was over her own. "What happened?"

"They came up the river. They did what they usually did. They left. That's all. That stone is wonderful. May I see it again?"

"In a bit. How old were you?"

"About six… I was six."
Please let him stop
.

He was closer to her, his arm around her shoulders. His voice was deep and gentle, unrelenting. "You saw people die."

It was not a question. He knew what she must have seen, what anyone would have seen who survived a raid. Silently he gave fierce thanks that she had been spared, but not without injury, as he now realized. "Someone you cared for?"

She nodded against his shoulder, not knowing how her head had gotten there. "My friend Aelflynne."

"She was your age?"

Another nod. It was hard to breathe. She was shaking. "They cut her throat open. She bled to death in my arms."

His own arms were very tight around her and his voice was very hard. "How did you escape?"

"I don't know. I've never known. They were all around me after I ran to her, killing, burning… raping… but somehow they overlooked me. I don't know why I lived and she not. She was better than I, sweeter and kinder. It should have been me."

"No!" He held her fiercely, stroking away the tears that trickled down her ashen cheeks. "Do not say that! Does not your own faith teach that we are always in the hands of God?"

"A careless god or an unfathomable one. Why create a world of pain?"

"It is not. You know yourself, there is great beauty here and joy."

She knew, at least now she did, since she had known him.

"I am a Viking." He said it sorrowfully, as though he would change it if he could.

"I do not think you are like the others."
Truth
. She did not, had never, not since the knowing of him.

"Yet you did not wish this marriage."

"That was before, when you were faceless to me. When all I heard was my father ranting on about the bloodthirsty Vikings and you the bloodiest of them all."

"That is ridiculous. I have never fought but in self-defense."

"It matters not to Wolscroft. He is obsessed, ever since that night." She looked up, met his eyes, grasped her courage. "He ran away… my father did. When his people needed him most, he called for a horse and fled. He even killed the stable boy who knew what he had done."

"You are beyond him, utterly different."

Her soul wanned, slowly to be sure, but the little flickers of comfort were growing. "I think he hates Vikings so much because they showed him for what he is."

"Forget Wolscroft, he is gone from your life forever. Look there, toward the north; by tomorrow you will see the first signs of life. The gulls and terns will come out to greet us, the sea will change its color for it plunges much deeper there, and the air will begin to smell of pine. We will be home."