The Pagan's Prize (Captive Brides Collection)

by Miriam Minger

  “My lady, if you will come this way, I’d like to show you something in another section of the market,” said Yakov, his nasally voice once more breaking into her thoughts. “Something that I think will please you.”

  Puzzled by the steward’s enigmatic smile, Zora waited while Yakov handed the wrapped bolt of silk to one of the four warriors who were following them at a discreet distance. Then the spare little man eagerly led her through the bustling market, pointing out various of the brightly colored stalls—a locksmith whom he trusted or a merchant known for the quality of his rubies—until they came to an area that she recognized at once from the cacophony of smells as the perfumer’s section.

  “Lord Rurik asked me to buy whatever you need to make your perfumes, my lady,” Yakov announced, waving his thin, white hand at the many stalls. “Copper braziers to distill the precious oils, flowers fresh plucked from the fields, spices, sweet gums and resins, ambergris and musk to fix the scents, and over here” —he beckoned to her as he moved to a nearby stall, the same secretive smile upon his narrow face— “rare oils from the fabled city of Constantinople.”

  Flushed with pleasure at Rurik’s generosity, Zora watched the swarthy Greek merchant who stood behind the counter set a delicate blue-green bottle in front of her.

  “What is it?” she asked excitedly, her intuition pricked as Yakov’s smile grew wider. She and the steward might have started out on the wrong footing, but since she had made it clear to him that she had no intention of usurping his duties, he had gone out of his way to be kind to her.

  “A gift from your husband. Lord Rurik sent men into the city each morning to ask if any perfumers had come from the south, and two days ago, word was brought that this merchant possessed the scented oil you favor. Lord Rurik thought to present it to you himself, but he decided you might enjoy the surprise of finding it here.”

  “White jasmine?” Zora didn’t have to see Yakov’s nod to know that it was so. She had no sooner pulled out the stopper than she was greeted with the lush, intoxicating fragrance. She closed her eyes, savoring its beauty.

  “You are pleased, my lady?”

  “More than I could ever say.” Remembering how Rurik had looked at her when he had asked what was her favorite scent, it was all Zora could do to return the stopper for how her fingers had begun to tremble. She clasped the precious bottle to her breast. “I’d like to carry it, Yakov. My husband might meet us here and I want to thank him…”

  “Whatever you wish, my lady. Now if I may, I’ll leave you to choose the things you need while I speak with some of the other merchants. But I’ll be back soon to pay for your purchases, and Lord Rurik’s men will not be far away if you have need of them.”

  “Yes, thank you, Yakov,” she murmured. She was so absorbed in the fragrant array of Eastern spices at the next few stalls that long moments passed before she realized when looking around her that she had been left completely alone, Rurik’s warriors nowhere in sight among the dense throng of shoppers. It dawned on her then that her test had begun, and smiling confidently to herself, she bent to sniff some pungent cinnamon.

  “I cannot say that I’m pleased to see how well captivity suits you, my love, but at least you were easy to find.”

  Zora froze, her heart suddenly slamming in her throat. Dear God, no, it couldn’t be…

  “What’s this? No fond greeting for your betrothed? Perhaps I’ve cause to be jealous after all of the bastard you were forced to wed. I sensed as much after witnessing how favorably you respond to his gifts.”

  Zora slowly straightened, seeing first a tall man wearing the plain brown garb and hood of a monk before she could find it within herself to focus upon his face. She could no more swallow than speak as she met Ivan’s cold blue gaze.

  “Yes, it’s me,” he said, keeping his voice very low, “but we have no time to answer your questions. My men are waiting for us at the wharf.”

  “Y-your men?” Zora’s voice was a mere squeak.

  “I didn’t come alone to rescue you, and from the looks of it,” he spat, his tone derisive, “I would almost think that you may not want to be rescued.”

  “I…I don’t.”

  Ivan’s angry countenance grew all the blacker.

  “I’m sorry, Ivan, but I want to stay here—”

  “So it is as I thought,” he cut in bitterly. “Wedded and well bedded and now a traitor to her own countrymen. Hardly the news to encourage your father to spare this Lord Rurik of Novgorod if he falls into our hands.”

  “What are you saying?” blurted Zora, Ivan’s ominous words passing like an ice-cold hand over her heart.

  “Simple, my love. Come with me and you can plead for your husband’s life when the battle falls to our favor. If Lord Rurik is captured, surely you know he will be held for execution, but perhaps your voice raised in his defense will sway your father’s judgment. Yet if you stay here, you will have no way to help him, no way to be heard.” Glancing around them, Ivan shifted impatiently. “Choose, Zora, and quickly. The time to be gone is now!”

  Holy Mother of God, what was she going to do? Zora wondered desperately, her mind racing. She didn’t want to leave! Not now! Now when she and Rurik were so close to admitting their love for each other. Yet she could not deny that Ivan was making sense. Damn him for making sense!

  She had been tormented for days with thoughts of what might happen to Rurik if her father’s forces prevailed, imprisonment, torture, and, if what Ivan said was true, execution, yet now she was being presented with a way to intercede for him. Surely her father would listen to her pleas!

  And if he didn’t win and Grand Prince Yaroslav retained his throne, Rurik would get her back…that is, if he would still want her after her seeming treachery. She had no doubt that he would think the worst of her, yet she could explain everything to him when they were together again. Surely he would understand that she had left him out of love

  “Zora, there is no more time!”

  “I don’t know…” she whispered, never having felt so horribly unsure.

  “Do you love him?”

  Meeting Ivan’s piercing gaze, his expression inscrutable, she nodded numbly.

  “Then there is only one thing you can do. I will lead the way and you follow. Our boat is docked by the bridge.”

  With that, Ivan lowered his head, and folding his hands as if in prayer, he began to move deftly through the crowds, leaving Zora staring after him. But she didn’t stand there for long.

  Glancing around her and seeing no sign of Yakov or any of Rurik’s warriors, she hastened to catch up with Ivan, almost tripping in her haste not to lose sight of him. To her dismay, the bottle of perfume went flying from her hands to shatter at her feet but there wasn’t anything she could do.

  As tears welled in her eyes, she rushed on, trying not to dwell upon what Rurik would think of her when he discovered she was gone. It was too terrible to contemplate.

  ***

  Rurik had never known such impatience as he was forced to slow his horse to a walk, the bridge so jammed with people and carts coming and going from the market that he had to wend his way carefully or risk trampling someone.

  Thor’s blood, he hoped he hadn’t missed Zora! The council of war had ended early enough that there was still a chance he would find her at the market; he didn’t want to have to wait until he returned to the estate to tell her what he should have said days ago. It was amazing that he felt so exhilarated after being awake all night, but he supposed love could do that to a man.

  “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, Rur
ik 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.

  “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.”