The Enchantment (15 page)

“Where is everyone?” she asked, wincing at the vigor of their hugs.

“They're all out in the fields, harvesting,” Marta declared, feeling Aaren's arms and scowling at her bare shoulders. “You're half frozen! Where have you been? We worried ourselves into knots last night!” She turned on Miri. “I told you we should have gone out to search for her.”

“I can take care of myself.” Aaren crossed her arms and leaned over Marta, asserting her authority through size. But that old tactic didn't work this time . . . not with her standing there half naked and frozen. “Besides, I was not alone. I had a thrall with me . . . that little round priest.”

“Oh, Brother Godfrey!” Miri said, spearing Marta with a look of vindication.

“You know him?” Aaren asked. When they nodded, she expelled a long, slow breath, realizing that since they'd begun to spend their days separately, her sisters might have a number of acquaintances she knew nothing about. The idea settled heavily on her fatigue-weighted spirits.

“He's an odd man . . . always so cheer-filled and eager to help,” Miri said earnestly, pulling Aaren to a bench and hurrying back to the hearth to dip a bowl of meat-flavored porridge for her. “All the women like him. A number of them have taken up his beliefs and become Christians.”

“They have?” Aaren scowled as she began to spoon the warm, flavorful
grautr
into her mouth. Marta hurried back with a tankard of ale and perched on the bench with her.

“Helga, Sith, and Kara and Gudrun . . . they are all believers. In truth”—she leaned closer and her voice lowered—“that is why Helga is no longer the jarl's wife. She began to believe and insisted the jarl be as a Christian husband to her.” When Aaren looked blankly at her, she sighed and explained: “You see, Christians are allowed only one wife. And they must not go to the furs with other women while they are married. It is the White Christ's law.”

“Most of the women like the teachings and ways of the Christians . . . they do not like all the maiming and dying from the fighting, and they dislike sharing a husband,” Miri continued. “But the jarl and his men . . . most will not agree. So, Helga carried her furs from the jarl's hall and calls him husband no longer. They have a son in common, but can hardly bear the sight of each other. So when Helga challenged the jarl a second time, he was furious, but he could not decline.”

“Helga challenged the jarl
again
? To what?” Aaren paused with her spoon in midair.

“To a harvest contest . . . threshing grain,” Marta informed her. “And Gudrun challenged that nasty Hakon Freeholder, and Dagmar the Dark-eyed Dane challenged her new husband, Hrolf the Younger . . . and Sith even challenged Old Oleg Forkbeard!”

“Imagine the two of them . . . waddling and squatting and swinging sickles.” Miri giggled, her eyes twinkling. “After you and Jorund Borgerson left the fields last evening, the men and women started to argue and began to dare each other to contests like yours and Jorund's. Now even the children compete to see who can carry water the fastest to the harvesters! If the weather holds—and Sith says by the cows' tails it will—then the entire grain harvest will be cut and threshed by tomorrow's sunset!”

Aaren bolted down the rest of her porridge, fat-pork, and ale and strode out along the cart path to the fields with Miri to see for herself. Helga and Borger . . . Gudrun and the lusty Freeholder . . . Sith and wizened Old Forkbeard. It was just as her sisters had described it. And beneath all the commotion, the harvest was proceeding at a promising pace.

The cutting of late hay, and the bundling of barleycorn and rye and the precious hops, was going on in fields as far as the eye could see. Near at hand, on the great sailcloths where the stacks of wheat sheaves from her contest with Jorund had lain, there were now large piles of grain. Around them worked ham-fisted warriors, flailing sheaves and beating out grain with the same ferocity they would have used in swinging swords and axes in battle. Their faces were dusty and their grins were broad as they teased the women who worked beside them.

Aaren stared at the results of the competition she and Jorund had generated. Perhaps it hadn't been for naught after all, she thought. With a bemused smile, she turned back to the village. When Miri caught up with her and asked where she was going, she declared, “I've already done my part. My whole body hurts. I need a good hot sweat . . . and a good hard rub.”

N
OT LONG AFTER
Aaren and Miri had left the cook chamber, Marta heard a scream coming from the long hall and went running to investigate. Near the great doors, she spotted the two thrall women whose task it was to clear away the refuse from the morning meal in the hall and to feed the prisoner. They were huddled together, staring at the manacled form of Borger's captive, who was up on his feet in a crouch, growling at them like a wild animal. When Marta called out to them, they scrambled toward her with wild eyes and ashen faces.

“He's mad as a dog,” Una cried, clutching Marta's arm.

“Threw his food all over me!” the other wailed, holding up her begrimed kirtle in a trembling fist. “And lunged straight for my throat, he did!”

Marta scowled at the overturned bucket on the floor nearby and the foul-smelling slurry that had splattered from it. That was his food? “What was in that bucket?”

“Th' same food he always gets . . . the hall scraps. Th' jarl said if he wouldn't eat it one day, he would have to the next,” thick-featured Una declared with a glower.

It took Marta a moment to realize they meant the
very same food
. . . mere scraps and swill to begin with, now slimy and rancid after days of sitting uneaten. She pulled free of the women's hands and edged warily to where the bucket lay—just beyond the prisoner's reach. She bent to pick it up, but the smell was so bad she snapped back up and kicked it away instead.

“Careful!” Una whined. “He'll bite a hunk out of you if you get too close.”

“Just like his old sire!” Olga choked out. “They say old Gunnar Haraldson eats babies—”

The prisoner roared and lunged against his chains, setting the thrall women running, squealing, from the hall. Marta, who stood much closer, was too stunned to scramble out of the way and found herself face-to-face with the crouching hulk. He bared his teeth at her and growled from low in his throat. Her blood stood still in her veins as she faced his battered, filthy form and realized that his light eyes burned as they raked her.

But it was those fierce gray eyes that also made him seem human. She willed herself to ignore the dirt and dried blood and bruises on his face, forcing herself to see that he was just a man . . . and a warrior, like Aaren. Her gaze fell to the heavy iron shackles that had scraped his wrists and ankles raw. She winced at the sight. He was treated worse than the hall hounds.

After a long moment she summoned the courage to breathe and move, and headed for the cook chamber. She dished up a huge bowl of the mutton stew she'd been tending since dawn, and snatched up a pitcher of ale and the rest of the morning's flatbread, to carry it back to the hall. The prisoner was slumped against the wall, in the shadows, but when she returned he stirred and glared at her. She judged where the length of his chains would allow him to reach, then slowly placed the bowl on the floor, stacked the bread on top of it, and nudged it toward him with her foot.

He snarled and she gasped and stumbled back a step—but only one step—and there she stayed. After a long silence, he slid over on his knees to investigate the food, then glared at her, then at the door, as if demanding that she leave. When she didn't move, he picked up a piece of the flatbread and threw it at her. She flinched, then straightened, irritated.

“You'd best save your food for eating, Gunnar's son . . . unless it is your wish to die like a cow in the straw.” He lunged at her, but this time she knew the limits of his bonds and did not flinch or wince. Burning with frustration, he fell back into a stoop, then his long, muscular frame knotted into a cramped ball. He was half starved and exhausted after five days of captivity, but the look on his face said that no matter how depleted his body was, his spirit would never surrender.

“You'd better run, wench . . . or I might decide to eat you up,” he ground out, his deep, menacing tones setting her fingertips vibrating.

She watched the guarded hunger and fatigue in his eyes and felt an odd fullness in her chest. “The stew tastes much better than I would.” She tucked her arms about her waist, feeling bolder, sensing that his threat was a response to Una's and Olga's prattle. “And warriors, whatever their clan, do not eat babies . . . or young maids.”

“Do they not?” he said, his eyes glittering as they roamed over her. “And how would you know about warriors, Tasty Maiden?”

“My father was a warrior. And my sister is one.”

“Your
sister
?” He frowned and sank to his knees again, eyeing her strangely. “Your sister is the battle-maiden . . . the one they call a Valkyr's daughter?” Marta nodded and saw his eyes darken and drop from her to the stew. “Then I won't eat you up, Little Morsel. Now, get out of here . . . before I change my mind.”

Marta felt his eyes return to her as she walked away, and she felt a tumbling in the pit of her stomach. Behind those fiery gray eyes, inside that hunger-weakened form, was a powerful warrior, a jarl's son, a man of obvious strength and pride. She couldn't help but wonder what he would look like beneath the dried blood and grime. But it was the remembrance of what Brother Godfrey had said to the small gathering of women in the women's house last evening—about helping those in need: the poor, the sick, and
the prisoner
—that set her on a brave and compassionate course.

After a short time, she returned to the hall with a bucket of water, some linen strips, a pot of clean goose grease, and herbs. The stew, bread, and ale were gone, and the prisoner was seated against the wall with his head lying on his arms, across his upraised knees. At the sound of her footfall, he jerked his head up, his eyes gleaming with feral threat. The sight of her, and the things she held, made him stiffen.

“I gave you your chance, Valkyr's daughter. Come no closer,” he warned. “You remind me too well of how tasty little maids are.”

“I
will
come closer.” Marta raised her delicate chin and squared her shoulders with a bravado borrowed from her elder sister. “And you will not eat me up.” She glanced at the empty bowl. “You have no room in your belly for me after all that. And if you did eat me, who would bandage your wrists and bring you food tomorrow?”

She took a step, then another, and flinched when he lunged at her. She was too fear-frozen to avoid him, but after a long, shocked moment, she realized he had not actually attacked her, at least not with his hands. He stood crouched, because of his chains, and raked her with eyes molten with heat. But looks alone, Father Serrick had always said, never killed anyone. When she swallowed her heart back into place, she lowered the bucket to the floor and reached with trembling fingers for one of his big, battered hands.

To her relief, he did not resist, and soon she was kneeling warily near his sprawled form, washing the grime from his bleeding wrists and ankles. As she mixed the herbs and grease and applied it, she felt his eyes wandering over her hair and face and breasts, and her face heated.

“Are you really enchanted, Little One?” His voice was much softer, and when she looked up nervously, she saw that his eyes were also softer. The tumbling in her middle settled into a slow, sensuous eddy of warmth.

“My sisters and I are under Odin's curse, it is true,” she said, wrapping his wrist with a strip of linen. “But I fear it is my sister Aaren who is cursed most of all. She must fight and fight . . . again and again.”

“Nej,”
he said, raising his fettered hand to touch her sun-bright hair, then stopping it just short of its goal and lowering it. “It is the men of Old Red Beard's hall who are cursed most . . . to see you and to have you walk among them, knowing that they cannot have you.” His laugh was harsh. “Curse their filthy eyes, they deserve such torture.”

She was both confused and disturbed by his words. Their gazes met and held, and his grim smile faded. She glimpsed the naked jumble of pain, frustration, and longing churning in him before he jerked his face away. She finished bandaging his wrists and ankles in breathless silence, then warily thrust the linen rag into his hands and gave the bucket a nudge in his direction.

“You can do the rest.” She got to her feet and backed away a step, where she paused, feeling suddenly awkward. “W-what is your birth name, son of Gunnar?” Her heart would not beat again until he spoke.

“It does not matter,” he said, scowling. But after a moment of being pinned squarely beneath her disappointed gaze, he answered. “Leif.” Then he struggled with something inside him and finally said, “And you, little Valkyr's daughter. What do they call you?”