Rescued By The Viking. Meriel Fuller

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       Chapter Three

      ‘Who is she?’ Eirik demanded as Ragnar laid the maid down carefully. Her face was grey, pallid. She was so still. Kneeling beside her, his big knees grinding into the shingle, he seized her wrist, pushing up the fraying cuff, searching for a pulse. Against his fingers her blood bumped reassuringly; relief flooded over him. He rose to his feet, his eyes assessing her calmly. Her over-gown was loose, a plaited belt gathering the shabby, patched material at her waist. Dark brown in colour, stained with white streaks of drying salt, clagged with mud at the hem. No decoration around the plain circular neck, the centre slit opening. Her garments denoted her status: a peasant, living hand to mouth on whatever coin she could earn. Foolish of him to be so concerned; the maid was quite clearly a nobody, nothing to him certainly. And yet her plight plucked at his soul. She seemed so alone, and vulnerable, with no one rushing to protect or claim her.

      ‘I’ve no idea.’ Reaching down, Ragnar yanked the rucked hem of her longer underdress over her shapely shins, woefully caked in layers of grey, cracking mud. He was not about to reveal the traitorous words the maid had spoken to him out on the marsh; he would keep that knowledge to himself until he found out her reasons for being in Bertune. Why here, of all places? In a part of the country where Normans were truly hated. A place where the Saxons had begged the Danes for their help in overthrowing them. But this solitary maid, whey-faced and slender? Whoever she was, she was no threat to him, or to anyone else. Had she any idea of the danger she was in?

      The woman who had originally alerted them to the maid’s plight lurked by the cottage wall that backed on to the beach. Ragnar turned to her. ‘Who is she?’

      ‘She works out at the salt pans with us,’ the woman replied, a wary look half-closing her red-streaked eyes. ‘And a hard worker she is, too. But she’s only been with us a day or so. Needs coin for the ferry, I think. Doesn’t talk much.’

      ‘Where does she live, then?’ Eirik said, his tone faintly peevish. ‘We can’t leave her lying here.’

      ‘Eirik, why not go and join the rest of the men in the town?’ Ragnar suggested, hearing the growing frustration in his friend’s voice. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ Eirik’s boots crunched heavily across the shingle as he came towards Ragnar. ‘I could do with a drink.’ He touched his leather-bound toe to the maid’s right flank, lifting her body in a desultory manner, a sneering twist to his mouth. ‘Surprising that such a little thing should cause so much trouble, don’t you think?’ he said disparagingly, removing his foot so abruptly that the slim body rolled back on to the beach. The maid’s arm fell out to one side; her palm, delicate pink lines creasing the soft underside, scraped against the jagged stones. Ragnar’s fists curled tight; he resisted the urge to shove his friend away. Hell’s teeth, treat the woman like a human being, he thought, not an animal!

      ‘Go.’ Ragnar pinned a wide grin on his face that he hoped was convincing. He pushed at Eirik’s shoulder, a friendly gesture. ‘I can take her home.’

      ‘After one look at you, she’ll run anyway.’ Eirik laughed, starting to walk up the beach. ‘You’re enough to scare the hell out of any woman. Don’t waste too much time on her. I expect to see you in the inn before full dark!’ He lifted his arm in farewell, the strengthening breeze ruffling his dark hair. Then he disappeared down an alleyway between the gable ends of two cottages, the shadowed twilight swallowing up his tall figure.

      The maid was shivering now; a blue caste tinged her face. Unpinning his cloak, Ragnar dropped to his knees, the shingle poking through his braies into his muscled shins. His sword hilt jabbed upwards as the tip of the leather scabbard hit the beach; he shoved it to one side so that the weapon rested against his hip. He frowned, drawing thick coppery brows together. Was Eirik right? Despite Ragnar’s vicious reputation on the battlefield, his skill with an axe and sword, he had no wish to scare any woman, let alone this delicate effigy lying on the stones. She lay so still, like one of those statues in the new church in Ribe, her cheek as smooth as marble, unblemished. Hulking over her slight figure, he felt like a cumbersome idiot, awkward and unwieldy, his body too big to tend to a woman so slight. He spread his cloak over her chest, then, sliding his hands beneath her, he raised her carefully so he could tuck the woollen cloth around her back.

      The fragile knobs of her spine pushed against his fingers. As he laid her back down, the faintest smell of roses lifted from her skin; his solar plexus gripped, then released with the sensual onslaught. His senses jolted, quickening suddenly. When was the last time he had been this close to a woman? Close enough to smell her perfume? He couldn’t remember. His sister’s desperate situation had consumed his days and haunted his nights. Any desire had been crippled by guilt, his couplings with women rare, and, if they occurred, tended to be swift, joyless affairs in which he took little pleasure.

      Impatient with his memories, Ragnar swept his gaze around the beach. He needed to rid himself of this girl and concentrate on finding the man who had bullied his sister into a ghostly shadow of her former self. But now the shingle was deserted, save for a lonesome gull, orange-beaked, stalking along the foaming edge of the incoming tide. Strange that no one wanted to help her. But then, these were troubled times—trust had to be earned. He wondered whether the townspeople had sensed the maid’s difference, her foreign ways, without actually putting a name to them.

      A slight moan made Ragnar look down. A whimper of returning sensibility. The girl’s long eyelashes fluttered rapidly against her pallid cheeks, mouth parting fractionally. Her lips were full, plump, stained a luscious rose-pink. Inexplicably, he yearned to see the colour of her hair, fingers itching to pluck at the constricting headscarf, unfasten the silver brooch and cast the voluminous length of material aside. Sweat prickled on his palms; he rubbed his hands down his braies.

      Her eyes sprung open. Huge pools of deep blue dominated her face, sparkling like sapphires. The inky depths of the ocean on a bright summer’s day. In the fading light, he drank in the magnificent colour, devoured it, nerves spiralling round and round in increasing excitement, pushing his heart to a faster beat. What was happening? Inconceivable that such a dull little maid should have such an effect on him, bundled up as she was like a nun in her drab, mud-stained garments, every inch of skin hidden from view apart from the white terrified circle of her face.

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