Captive Of The Viking. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ rather against her wishes, by the man before her whose sun-bronzed skin rippled over bulging muscle and sinew, over powerful shoulders and a chest like those men singled out for their wrestling skills for Jorvik’s entertainment. He saw where her eyes went before they locked with his. ‘Well?’ he said, quietly.

      She blinked. ‘Hold your hand out,’ she retorted. ‘I need to take this one off.’

      Bantering shouts diverted his attention as she began to unwind the soggy linen. ‘Are you coming in to bathe with us, lady?’ they called. ‘We’ve warmed the water for you.’

      Aric grinned. ‘Enough!’ he called. ‘We man the oars at a count of two hundred.’

      ‘Hah!’ said Oskar, holding out the linen strips. ‘Which of them can count to two hundred?’

      Fearn took them from him, flicking a haughty eyebrow. ‘Twenty counts of ten?’ she murmured. ‘Yes, it’s healing. I don’t need the moss, just the honey. Hold still. It won’t hurt.’

      The two men exchanged grins, appreciating their beautiful captive’s attempt to patronise them in retaliation for her plight, taking the advantage the bandaging offered to watch her hands skilfully tending the row of punctures on his skin. They noted her graceful figure braced against the rocking of the ship and took time to admire the smooth honeyed complexion and the long sweep of black eyelashes on her cheeks. They had time to see the swell of her perfect breasts beneath the linen and wool, and the neat waist tied with a narrow leather girdle. A leather purse hung from this beside the knife in its fur-lined sheath and a rope of beads hung from her neck at the centre of which was a large chunk of cloudy amber, nestling into the valley of her breasts. Just for a moment, the two men would both like to have been that piece of amber.

      ‘There,’ she said. ‘Try not to wet it. It will heal faster if it’s kept dry.’

      Aric turned his hand over and over, then nodded his thanks. But Fearn had already turned away to help Haesel fold the skins and furs, pretending not to have seen. She did not hear Oskar’s flippant question asking if Aric thought she might bite him some time, but Aric was not as amused as his friend had expected. ‘It was not done in play,’ he said, pressing the wound. ‘Far from it. If she’d done this to her lout of a husband, he’d have knocked her down.’

      ‘Well, so do many men when their women step out of line,’ Oskar said.

      ‘Do you?’

      ‘Hit Ailsa? No. Never had to.’

      ‘No man has to, Oskar. There are better ways than that to deal with women.’ There was a tone in Aric’s voice that his friend had not heard before, that made him wonder if Aric was telling the whole truth when yesterday he’d said that he didn’t yet know what he was going to do with her. Was revenge his only motive? Oskar thought not.

Chapter Three

      The Earl had been right when he’d said how the Vikings’ ships moved fast, for now there was a sense of urgency as the rowers took turns to man the oars, thirty-two at a time, speeding through the water with the current to help them. Time and again they passed burnt-out villages, still smouldering, some no more than heaps of charred wood and ash, earning no more than a brief comment from the men who watched impassively. Fearn and Haesel felt the despair and anger of the villagers who saw the ships pass by, who dared not call out for fear they would stop again. At any other time, in happier circumstances, the two women would have enjoyed the sight of swans and their cygnets, the wide stretches of flat countryside in its new greens, the great expanse of sky, the green-brown water rushing past the oars. Now, they sat close together in silence, always aware of the men’s bare backs straining with the effort, their grunts of exertion, the hostile situation of being stolen by Danish Vikings who were under no obligation to be on their best behaviour. The women were no strangers to the crude expressions men used, their oaths and unrestrained humour, but as the Earl’s foster daughter, lack of respect had never been an issue. Here, as comments flew backwards and forwards between the Danes, usually followed by a laugh of sorts, Fearn suspected that their vernacular phrases alluded to women and particularly to them. The fact that this stopped when Aric the Ruthless passed by seemed to confirm her suspicions and, although it should not have concerned her too much, it did nothing to alleviate her sense of total helplessness.

      Apart from access to ale whenever they wanted it, there was no stopping for food until the sun almost touched the horizon. Then, as the river widened considerably between sand dunes and scrubby woodland, they came to an island where oars were lifted out of the water and men leapt over the sides to haul the ships halfway up on to the sand. Assuming that the deck would remain at the same angle as it was before, Fearn and Haesel were quite unprepared for it to tip to one side, tumbling them out in a sudden lurch on to their fronts, half in and half out on to tufts of coarse grass and clumps of prickly sea holly. Unhurt, but by no means as amused as the men, Fearn controlled the temptation to make a fuss. Gathering herself together, she reached out for her golden circlet lying in the sand just beyond her reach, but not before it was snatched up by one laughing young man who set it upon his own brow, challenging Fearn to retrieve it.

      Remembering Aric’s threat to deprive her of her knife if she should draw it on one of his men, she deliberately rested her hand on its hilt. ‘Give that back,’ she said. Without it, her veil had slipped down around her neck, revealing the shining black hair and the thick plait hanging over her breast, and she saw that the young man was making the most of her threat by responding to the men’s jeers, hoping she would be goaded into action. He came closer, grinning, yet he was obviously unsettled by seeing for the first time that her eyes were not of the same colour.

      Fearn saw his eyes shift, as men’s often did, then she deliberately let her gaze flicker over his shoulder as if she had seen Aric approach. In that moment, as the man’s attention was distracted, she darted forward to snatch her circlet off his head, whipping out her knife as she did so to warn him not to retaliate.

      Hearing the hoots of derision and seeing the crowd of men shirking their duties, Aric barged his way through them to seize the offender by his hair, pull him backwards, and to kick into the back of his knee. The man landed with a thud, but just as quickly sprang to his feet, none the worse and bearing no grudge.

      Aric snarled at him. ‘Fool!’ he said, pointing to Fearn. ‘Don’t underestimate our passenger.’ Holding his bandaged hand under the man’s nose, he waited for the realisation to dawn in his eyes, before the man nodded. ‘Get to work, all of you, or it’ll be dark before we eat,’ Aric barked.

      Fearn and Haesel dusted the sand and sea holly off their gowns, righting their veils and, in Fearn’s case, sheathing her knife. She held a protective hand over it, half-expecting confiscation. ‘Self-defence,’ she said.

      ‘Stay by the ship,’ he said. ‘Bring your rugs and furs out here. We shall be making camp on the island.’

      ‘My maid and I need to go...’ She pointed to the low gorse bushes and stunted trees making a dense thicket behind them. ‘In there. We need privacy.’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Make a shelter and do what you have to do here.’

      ‘With those louts gawping at us?’

      ‘Get on with it, woman. There are ships between you and them. I’ll have your food sent as soon as it’s ready.’

      With little option but to do as they’d been told, they made the best of the situation, erecting a makeshift hide between the prow of the ship and a young willow that gave them some shelter СКАЧАТЬ