Lord of Hawkfell Island (5 page)

He cursed again and towed her back to the pier. “Hafter, take her!”

Rorik cursed all the way to the farmstead, through the thick wooden gates, into the longhouse built by his grandfather. He cursed even as Kerzog, a huge mongrel of a hound, barked madly into his face then leapt up against his chest. He cursed even as he calmed Kerzog, cursed even as he took her from Hafter and carried her into his sleeping chamber. He started to lay her on his bed, then shook his head. He leaned her against him, and stripped off her sodden gown. He ripped the shift off her, laid her on her back on the box bed and untied the leather straps and pulled off her shoes. He drew a blanket over her and left the chamber. Immediately, he cursed again, turned back, and strode to the bed. He pulled the blanket down, jerked her over onto her belly, and splayed his hands across her narrow back. By the gods, her skin was nearly blue with cold. He straddled her and pumped the rest of the water from her body.

She sputtered and coughed and vomited up sea water, too much water. He was surprised she had survived. At least he had the presence of mind to pull her to the side of the bed so that the sea water didn't end up soaking the feather mattress. Kerzog sat there, staring at the
vomiting, heaving woman, just staring, not barking, just looking thoughtful at this stranger.

“She's a witch,” he said to his dog, and Kerzog looked at him for a very long time, his tongue lolling from his mouth. “I should have let her drown. Keep your distance from her,” Rorik continued, “she just might bite you.”

He slapped her hard between her shoulders one last time, then turned her onto her back once again. She stared up at him, her lips blue, her face whiter than her very white belly that he didn't want to look at, that he refused to look at.

“Why didn't you just let me drown?”

“You sound like a wet rag that's been trod upon by a dozen men.”

“Why?”

“I should have,” he said, then pulled the blanket up to her throat. He looked at the thick black hair, sopping and matted and filthy, and quickly fetched a drying cloth of soft white cotton. He spread it beneath her head then fanned her hair out like a halo around her head to dry.

“Are you through puking?”

She nodded, so tired, so beaten, she had no more words. She wished he'd let her drown. She wished she'd let herself drown, but even though she'd wanted an easy death, something in her had rebelled and she'd fought her way to the surface, only to realize that she had no more strength. He'd saved her life, damn him. If he'd just walked away, it would be over. She thought of the past three days, the endless humiliation of it, ignored after a while even by his men, kept bound unless she had to relieve herself or eat. Aye, she wished he'd let her drown. And now there was this massive ugly dog sitting there, staring at her. She wondered
if the dog were as vicious and unpredictable as his master.

“Stay here and keep quiet. I'll bring you some food.”

He left her. Mirana immediately sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The dog didn't move. She eyed him, then moved some more. The dog still didn't move or growl, just sat there, looking at her. She whistled, then sang a verse from a child's song her mother used to sing to her, but he still just sat there on his raw-boned haunches, looking. The chamber was dim. She was cold, shivering, despite the warmth of the room, despite the warmth of the sun that shone so brightly upon the thatched roof above.

She wrapped the blanket around her and rose. She stumbled and sat down again. She drew a deep breath and stood again. Her legs were stronger now, but she was so weak, so very weak. Kerzog didn't move.

What should she do?

S
HE WAS STANDING
when he came into the room again, a wooden bowl of stew in his hand. He stared at her as she was bent forward like an old woman, wrapped in a blanket, her hair streaming down her back and over her shoulders, staring at him, her eyes dull, her face too pale. He saw a brief spark of anger, of defiance perhaps, in her eyes, but it was quickly gone. As for Kerzog, he was being watchful, but nothing more. It appeared he'd made no move to stop the woman from rising from the box bed.

He said to her, “I told you that my men really have no interest in you. You're skinny, not at all appetizing. A man would have to be starving for a woman before he would turn his eyes to you. Although the dousing in the sea relieved you of the worst of your smell, you still look like a wet scrap. You will not go into the main chamber. Get back into bed. I won't tell you again. Kerzog, watch her. Keep her here.”

She didn't move. His dog, raised by him from a tiny pup, merely kept looking at the woman.

He frowned at his dog, then at her and took a step toward her. She still didn't move.

“Where were you going?”

“I must relieve myself,” she said, and hated him for forcing her to say it aloud, though it shouldn't have mattered, not after the three days on his warship.

He cursed, plowing his fingers through his hair. “Come along.” He set the bowl of stew on the end of the bed, told his dog to keep away from it, then turned and left the chamber. She trailed behind him, wrapped in the now-damp blanket, half of it dragging behind her on the beaten earth floor. Kerzog slowly followed.

She followed him from the longhouse, aware of the boisterous conversation that quieted when she appeared. He took her to a small shed and said, “This is the privy. Hurry. I will wait for you here.”

When she emerged from the small shed a few minutes later he simply looked at her, just like his damned dog was still looking, then motioned for her to follow him again. This time he led her into a large stone and wood building. Inside there was an outer chamber with benches along the sides of the wall. It was the bathing hut, and she felt a spurt of hope. Surely he wouldn't bring her here just to watch him bathe. She followed him into the inner chamber, small and square, filled with heat and steam drawn from the pile of burning embers filling the fire pit in the center of the chamber. Wooden planks covered the floor and more wooden benches lined the walls. He stood her in the middle of the room, pulled the blanket off her, and said, “Stand still. If you move, I'll toss you in the sea again. I'll have my dog kill you. He's vicious. He protects me and my island that you have so freely scorned.”

She stood there, shivering despite the billowing heat and the thick steam, trying to cover herself, and knowing that she failed and knowing too that he was looking at her, but that he didn't care, that she repulsed him. She should be grateful for that, she thought, watching
him coming into the chamber again, a bucket in each hand. She knew what was coming and nearly yelled with the anticipation of it. He threw a bucket of hot water on her. He handed her a piece of soap carved into the shape of a small bird. A tern, if she wasn't mistaken. She was going mad, she knew it. A tern!

“Bathe, all over, and hurry.”

She did. She didn't even notice that he'd left her alone. She'd never before in her life realized the luxury of a bath with soap. It was wonderful. He'd left another bucket on the wooden plank beside her. She rinsed her hair and soaped it again. Once clean, she had nothing to do but wait. She couldn't fetch her own water, not naked.

When he appeared, he looked at her, his expression grim. “Hold still.” He poured the water slowly over her head as she rinsed herself. Then he backed up several feet. She looked at him even as he raised the bucket and threw ice-cold water on her.

She shuddered and heaved and yelled even though she'd known what was coming.

He laughed. She reacted just as he always did. Evidently Einar had a bathing hut on Clontarf like this one.

Once she was dry, he handed her the damp blanket again, and motioned her to follow him.

Conversation became muted once again. Mirana looked neither to the right nor to the left. She followed him into his sleeping chamber and sat down on the edge of the bed. He tossed an antler comb onto her lap. Kerzog hadn't come into the sleeping chamber this time.

“Eat first else you might collapse again. I don't wish to have to untangle that witches' nest on your head.”

Obediently she took the bowl of stew from him, the stew now long cold. She took a bite, and gagged. It tasted
like congealed grease and strangely sour. The bits of meat were stringy, the sauce filled with lumps as nasty as rye root. She was hungry but she wasn't starving. She forced down another bite, then set the bowl aside. Any more of it and she'd vomit again. Her stomach was knotting and unknotting in painful spasms.

Rorik looked at her, his frown building. “Finish it.”

She looked up at him, holding the blanket tightly over her breasts. “It tastes like pig swill. There is so much grease on the top that it has hardened.”

She thought he would burst with rage but she didn't care. If he struck her, perhaps he would kill her. At the moment, it didn't matter, nothing mattered.

He seemed to get control of himself. He lifted the bowl and took a bite. It was bad, he thought, very bad. Worse than it usually was, though that was usually bad enough of late. Even the women who prepared food well seemed to have forgotten over the past weeks. It was Entti, he thought, the women had given the task again to Entti. He sighed, but he didn't give in, he was still too furious with her. She was his prisoner, less than a slave, and yet she dared to speak her mind as if she were the mistress here. She dared to show her disgust for him and for his farmstead. She dared to scorn the food that only a halfwit would eat. She dared to allow Kerzog, the dog he'd raised from a pup, a very small pup, just watch her but make no threatening growls or moves. He said, “You will consume it as you would a feast. Every bite. If you don't, then you may go hungry, I care not. You can starve.”

“I can't eat it,” she said, and knew immediately that he would indeed not give her anything else to eat. “I won't eat it.” For how long? Would he let her starve to death? “No one could eat it.” She looked at him, at the closed expression, at the anger in his eyes. She didn't
want to starve. She fancied it wouldn't be a very pleasant way to die. It would be far too slow even though she was already so hungry she'd believed she could eat anything. She'd been wrong.

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?”