The Pagan's Prize

by Miriam Minger

  "Now if that isn't an odd sight," Rurik suddenly overheard someone say as he threaded his mount through the milling throng. "A boat manned entirely by monks, not a sailor among them."

  "Aye, must be headed south on some pilgrimage, probably to the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev," commented another man as Rurik glanced over to see two merchants eating their morning meal against the railing as they watched the river traffic below.

  Looking beyond them, Rurik spied the boat already well in the distance, its white sail billowing in the wind as hooded monks moved about on deck. A curious thing, he had to agree, then he turned his attention back to the busy pedestrian traffic and the market that lay ahead.

  Damn, he couldn't wait to find Zora! Had she already gone to the perfumer's section? Maybe if he was fortunate, Yakov had kept her busy elsewhere and Rurik would have the chance to see her face when his gift was placed in her hands. If not, at least he knew that she was thinking about him, perhaps even wearing the white jasmine perfume he couldn't wait to smell upon her skin.

  As for himself, Zora had never been far from his thoughts, nor had their exchange at the stream that had finally convinced him that he had been acting the fool. Why did he need to test her when he could see shining from her beautiful eyes how much she cared? If she hadn't admitted anything to him yet, he had himself to blame. He had only to remember the callous things he had said to her to understand that she might be afraid. By Odin, he would make amends!

  She would realize how much he loved her, especially now that Grand Prince Yaroslav's forces would be sailing south within two days. He hoped the battle would prove quick and decisive so he could soon return to her and even more, he hoped that her father's downfall would not drive a wedge between them. If she knew his heart, it might be enough to heal any wounds—

  "Lord Rurik!"

  Rising in his saddle, Rurik spied Yakov running toward him from the market square and he felt a sudden hard knot in the pit of his stomach. He urged his horse into a trot as he cleared the bridge.

  "Lord Rurik! God help us, it is you!"

  "What? Why are you shouting?" he demanded, although from the stricken look upon the steward's face, he already knew.

  "She is gone, my lord. Your wife! Nowhere to be found!"

  Rurik had never known such a terrible moment, but he could not bring himself to believe it. Not yet.

  "Did you look everywhere?"

  "Yes, yes, and your men are still looking. We've searched each section of the market, even the surrounding churches, but no one has seen her. The merchant at the spice stall where I left her claimed one moment she was talking with a monk, although in such low voices that he heard nothing of what was said, then she was gone!"

  "A monk?"

  "Yes, my lord, in brown sacking and a hood."

  Stung by glaring intuition, Rurik glanced over his shoulder to the river. The boat he had glimpsed from the bridge had vanished. Not even a speck of the sails to be seen.

  By Odin, had Zora somehow enlisted the aid of the clergy to see her back to Chernigov? A priest had come to the compound only a few days ago to visit the wife of one of his warriors who was ill with childbed fever. Was it possible that Zora had convinced him to help her, being the daughter of the man who ruled the leading see of the Orthodox Church? She could have told him to have everything prepared for when she came to the market . . .

  "Send one of my men back to the estate," Rurik ordered in a voice so ominously quiet that the steward paled. "I want two hundred warriors here within the hour to search every inch of this city. Meanwhile you and the others continue looking, and hire as many men as you can to help. Do you understand?"

  Yakov nodded vigorously.

  "Then why do you delay?"

  "I . . . I didn't get to tell you yet, Lord Rurik, but we did find something she left behind. The gift you gave her, the perfume . . . she must have dropped it. We found the bottle shattered into a thousand pieces . . ."

  As his heart was breaking, Rurik thought, finding it hard to breathe for the gut-wrenching pain that was ripping him apart. Yet he willed himself to keep his emotions tightly under control. He had a wife to hunt down.

  "Go, Yakov. See to my commands."

  "V-very well, my lord. But what of you?"

  Rurik didn't answer, veering his horse around so sharply that the startled animal reared, its front legs pawing at the air. This time he thundered across the bridge, giving little thought to the people who had to scatter out of his way or even jump into the river to avoid his mount's pounding hooves.

  His mind was upon Zora. By the gods, he would find her, whether she was somewhere in the city or upon that accursed boat heading south! As soon as the grand prince knew that he was taking a ship after her, Rurik would be hard upon her trail.

  "And when we're together again, Princess," he vowed fiercely, racing his mount toward the kreml, "you'll wish that you had never deceived me."

  Chapter 26

  Sitting alone in a makeshift tent, Zora suspected she had made a grave mistake.

  Ivan had thrust her in here so cruelly, threatening to bind her hands and feet if she made a move to step outside, that she wondered how she could have trusted him. She had thought he made sense at the market, but now that she had had more time to consider his words, it made as much sense that he would have promised her anything just to get her to come with him.

  "You're such a gullible fool," she muttered to herself, growing more sick at heart with each moment.

  She didn't feel well either, her stomach pitching and churning as it had never done the last time she was aboard a vessel. She felt so nauseous that she might have to peek her head outside the tent whether Ivan liked it or not and ask for a bucket. They must have been sailing for an hour already and he still hadn't come back to check on her or explain

  "You can come out if you wish," Ivan suddenly called to her, something that she was now only too eager to do.

  Feeling as if at any instant she would retch, Zora clamped her hand over her mouth and burst through the flaps, making it to the railing just in time. When she was finished, she wet her trembling hands in the river and patted her face, never having felt so miserable.

  "I'd like to think that you're only seasick, but my guess is that you're probably bearing that bastard's spawn in your belly. Am I correct?"

  Stunned, Zora gaped at Ivan, still feeling so queasy that she feared she might be sick again.

  Could she be with child? She had considered it fleetingly when she had missed her monthly flow, which should have come a few days after her marriage to Rurik. Yet she had been late before, her body sometimes playing strange tricks with her at times when she was more anxious than others. Those first weeks with Rurik would certainly qualify. But how, then, would she explain her dizziness yesterday and her sudden bout of tears at the stream?

  "I suppose I could be," she admitted, wondering if such news would have made Rurik happy. "I was never sick last time I was on the river."

  Zora jumped as Ivan slammed his fist down upon the railing and she took a few steps backward, fearing he might strike her. His angular face that before she had always thought handsome was mottled and made ugly with fury, and she remembered suddenly how her father had once described Ivan as an exacting man who anyone would be a fool to cross. Yet until now, she had never seen this side of him.

  "By God, woman, I will not foster that Varangian's whelp!"

  "No—no one said you must," she said shakily. "I am another man's wife, Ivan. My husband and I will rear our child in Novgorod."

  "If I have any say, the child will be taken from you at its birth and drowned," he countered harshly, moving toward her. "You will not be another man's wife for long, Zora, for as soon as we arrive in Chernigov your marriage will be annulled. Your father promised you to me and I will have you for my bride, spoiled goods or no."

  "You cannot annul my marriage without my consent," she breathed, horrified by his threat to the innocent babe she carried.
<
br />   "No? Once your father learns that you fancy yourself in love with his enemy, your word to him will mean nothing. He will be only too eager to end a marriage that never should have been. If you hadn't been kidnapped from the caravan by Yaroslav's spies—"

  "Is that what you think happened?" Zora interrupted, startled.

  "Why else would my men and I risk a journey to Novgorod if we didn't believe we would find you there?" Ivan shouted as he gestured to the other eight warriors aboard who like him were still garbed as monks. "After hundreds of your father's troops searched every trading camp along the Desna and as far south as Kiev to find no trace of you, it was the only thing left that made any sense. Princess Hermione was the one who suggested your abduction was the work of spies through the messengers she sent to Chernigov."

  "Hermione?" Incredulous, Zora shook her head. "Of course. She believed I was being taken to Constantinople, so she thought it safe to encourage you to search to the north . . . except now her plan has miscarried. She not only engineered my abduction, but without knowing it, she led you to find me."

  "You speak nonsense! Your half sister was distraught when she reached Chernigov."

  "Hardly distraught! Hermione paid slave merchants to abduct me from the caravan, believing they would cut out my tongue and sell me in Constantinople. It was only because Rurik found me in a trading camp and thought that he could use me to gain military information from my father that I escaped such a fate." As Ivan listened impatiently, his expression incredulous, Zora quickly recounted the story up to her marriage.

  "I would never have believed it at the time," she said more to herself than Ivan after she had finished, "but I've Hermione to thank for leading me to Rurik."

  "A sentiment as misguided as your half sister's actions," Ivan said acidly. "Yet I cannot believe simple jealousy could have fueled such a crime. There had to be another reason, something that pushed her. . ."

  "Rurik asked me the same thing one night after—-"

  Ivan glared at her and Zora felt her face reddening. Hastily she added, "We talked about Hermione and when I told him that no matter what she believed, our father had treated us equally, he asked me if there was anything I had been given that Hermione had not."

  "Was there?"

  Zora nodded. "You, Ivan. News of my father's decision that I would become your bride upon our arrival in Chernigov reached us just before we left Tmutorokan, but Hermione never said a word to me about it until the night she drugged me and I was abducted. I can only believe that she's in love with you and wanted me out of the way so she could become your wife—"

  "But Hermione has been thwarted for I have found you." Ivan swept Zora with a possessive look that filled her with dread. "I've no doubt your father will punish her soundly for her treachery."

  "Didn't you hear me?" Sensing his intent as he began to advance upon her, Zora backed away nervously. "Hermione loves you! Surely you could be just as content with her as your bride! She is a trueborn princess, not a bastard daughter—"

  "It is not Hermione I want. You're the woman I chose, the woman I will have."

  "But . . . but you never explained how you knew to find me in the market," she blurted, desperate to distract him as he drew closer. "Nor how you learned that Rurik was my husband."

  "Simple. After my men and I arrived last night in Novgorod, I had only to mention your name to hear what had happened to you. The common folk of that city seemed to know a great deal about their most famed warrior and his recent marriage, yet it was by pure chance that I spied you in the marketplace when I went to buy food. Obviously you were meant to be returned to me, Zora."

  Ivan seized her so suddenly that she had no chance to elude him, his mouth brutal as it covered hers. As he forced open her lips with his tongue, she tried to fight him but he was a strong man, and her struggles were futile. All she could do was endure his loathsome kiss, cursing herself for having been so foolish as to trust him.

  "You will be my bride, Zora of Tmutorokan," he said when at last he released her and so abruptly that she fell against the railing. "And don't think that an annulment will be enough to satisfy me. If your Lord Rurik doesn't fall in battle, he will find his death upon my sword, for I'll take no chance that you will ever be reunited."

  Tears stinging her eyes, Zora stared at him in horror. "You lied to me!"

  His laugh was bitter, but his arrogant gaze held triumph. "So I did."

  Unable to bear to look at him, Zora fled to the tent and stumbling inside, she collapsed to her knees. Hugging herself tightly, she rocked back and forth, her anguish so intense that she made no sound as tears coursed down her face.

  "Rurik . . ." she mouthed silently over and over, wishing by some magic he could hear her and know where she was. Yet even if he could, would he answer her cries? Unsure, she sank onto the floor in despair.

  ***

  It was almost dark when Rurik returned to the compound, his two hundred warriors riding silently behind him, none daring to speak. Even Arne had held his tongue, which was a wise thing. Rurik was in so black a mood he was ready to lash out at anyone.

  Zora and her accomplices were well on their way to the first portage and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Grand Prince Yaroslav had doused that hope, his words still echoing in Rurik's mind.

  "I know it's a hard thing for you to accept, Rurik, but I cannot allow you to leave. Not now. We sail in less than two days and I need you to command your men. But do not lose heart. Upon our victory, you will regain your errant wife."

  Do not lose heart. He didn't have one left. By Odin, if he ever so much as thought he might trust a woman again, may he fall upon his own sword!

  Dismounting in front of his longhouse, Rurik met Arne's somber gaze.

  "See that the men are given a good share of ale, and extend to them my thanks for aiding in the search."

  "As you say, my lord." Arne shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. "Do you wish my company? I could bring you some ale—"

  "And then what, Arne? We drink ourselves into a stupor and bemoan the fact that we were both deceived by sea-blue eyes and a soft, willing manner? I think not. I can do that well enough alone."

  "But maybe you shouldn't be alone, my lord—"

  "Believe me, friend, there isn't anything more I want right now."

  Rurik turned and entered the longhouse, sighing heavily as he shut the door. He knew Arne meant well, but he had already taken enough advice from him about Zora and he could stomach no more. Moving farther into the main room, he saw that his slaves had seen well to his comfort. A fire burned brightly in the central hearth and he could smell food, yet he wasn't surprised that he felt no hunger.

  He was thirsty, though, and he made straight for the table to pour himself a brimming goblet of wine. He downed it and, pouring another, tossed it back as well. Then he shrugged, and leaving the goblet on the table, he sat down in a chair near the hearth and rested the wine jug on his knee.

  Why not get good and drunk? If he dulled his senses, maybe it wouldn't hurt so damnably that the gods had seen fit to spite him after all.

  He could almost hear them laughing, Loki more loudly than the rest. That wily god of mischief must surely have fashioned this day's wretched events! Yet perhaps none were gloating any more than Zora, wherever she was, for Rurik granting her the perfect opportunity to escape. He couldn't have done a better job than if he had escorted her to the boat himself and shoved it from the dock.

  Thor, what madness had seized him to think that he could trust her? She must have been waiting all along for the right moment to escape, her acquiescence and softening of temper toward him just a part of her plan. He had been right about women! They were capable of only the foulest treachery. And he had believed Zora might love

  Cursing aloud the twisting pain over his heart, Rurik took a long draft of wine, almost emptying the jug as he stared unseeing at the flames.

  Until this morning he had never thought that he might regret his sworn allegi
ance to Yaroslav. His frustration that his request to command a ship had been denied was still so acute that even now he was tempted to disobey the grand prince's orders and strike out after her. It galled him more than he could express that Zora was traveling the route he and his men would take in another day's time. The same damned route!

  "My lord?"

  Muttering an oath against this sudden intrusion, Rurik glanced up to find Nellwyn standing a few feet away from him. He hadn't even heard her enter the longhouse.

  "If you're looking for your mistress," he said tightly, "she isn't here."

  "I know, my lord, and when I heard you had finally returned from the city, I came at once to speak with you."

  "Speak of what?" Rurik gave a short, humorless laugh. "If you're wondering how to fill your time now, you'll have to find yourself some other tasks to keep you busy, Nellwyn, for I cannot say when your mistress will be back. She's on a boat heading home to her beloved father and her betrothed, Lord Ivan." This time Rurik drained the jug, his pain unbearable, then dropping it with a dull thunk to the floor, he lunged from the chair to fetch another.

  "That's why I've come, my lord. To speak about your wife, not my duties. I don't know what happened today at the market, but I do know Lady Zora would never have left you for this Ivan."

  "And how do you know that?" demanded Rurik, turning on the slave woman so suddenly that she jumped.

  "Because she loves you, my lord! She confided in me many times over the past few weeks—"