Had it not been for that armor, his arm would have been severed. A Norse sword could take off a man's arm, or his head, in one smooth blow. As it was, his grip loosened; his axe clunked to the floor. He stooped, disbelieving, tried to regain his weapon, but found his fingers would not close on the handle. He sagged forward onto one knee. Blood spilled down his useless limb to pool on the floor.
The onlookers stood with their weapons lowered, their eyes full of wonder and fear to see Sweyn the Berserk's arm streaming with the hot crimson wine of war. Sweyn lifted his own gaze from the exposed, pulsating veins in his wound, and looked from face to face, ending with Thoryn. "The hour of departure arrives and we go our paths, I to die, and you to live. Which is better only Odin knows." His lips drew upward so that Thoryn could see his yellow teeth clenched in a smile of fatality. "Finish it!"
Thoryn lifted his sword and stepped forward grimly. The Norsemen stood by wordless, their faces showing nothing of what they might feel.
To his credit, Sweyn faced his death with seeming stoicism, with his lips still pulled back from his tarnished teeth.
But into the silence of that moment the maiden spoke: "Don't, Viking! Please!" Three words in Saxon which no one but he understood. His head moved imperceptibly. He saw her eyes . . . green, eyes the silver-green color of sea swirl. A man could willingly wade neck-deep in such threshing froth. He felt an appeal to something inside himself, a knowing somewhere deep, but failed to comprehend it.
He looked back at Sweyn, then moved in on him, leading with his left leg again, ready for the closing blow. His sword, gleaming red in the torchlight, swept around.
But in the last inches he turned it, so that the flat of the weapon, and not its edge, struck Sweyn's neck with a smacking sound.
There was a moment of confusion among the Norse. They had seen their jarl poised for the death blow that would have ended Sweyn.
But Thoryn had heard those faint, foreign, feminine words, and now, to his own surprise, he was stepping back from his victim.
Sweyn's face changed. "Finish it, Jarl! I wish to feast this night with Odin in Valholl, on benches covered with the corselets of my brothers!"
Thoryn looked at the man unpityingly, then at the maiden. She stood in Rolf's hold, nearly naked except for that thin shift, wrapped in her hair, rampantly feminine, motionless. He felt like a man between two horses, being pulled two ways at once. The feeling made him angry.
He said, "The fair Saxon pleaded for you, Berserk. Mayhap she wants you to live to bed her after all. Come up with enough gold and I'll sell her to you. Then you can smother her beneath you anytime you wish."
Sweyn's face, deathly wan, swiveled to the maiden. "Aye, I would smother her. How much?" he growled.
"Eight half-marks of pure gold." Thoryn knew the price was far beyond anything Sweyn could afford, yet it was close to the price he expected to get for her.
He signaled the others to help the wounded man before he turned away. Sweyn snarled, "Barknakarl! You insult your namesake Thor. I broke my oath to you! Deal me my punishment, Jarl! Is Sweyn Elendsson so much your underling you can't stoop to give him the death he deserves? You've crippled me —now do you leave me to endure pity?"
But Thoryn, his eyes hooded against all outsiders, only gave his sundered shield a kick as he stalked off to oversee the looting.
Beware, a voice chimed in his ear, beware, Thoryn, this maiden with sea eyes and hair like tangled, amber water weed!
Chapter Three
Redheaded Rolf pulled Edin away from the scene. She didn't resist. Her head throbbed; she still felt dazed —and sick. The blood of too many spectacles had been offered to her undiluted.
On the staircase, where now the air was heavy with the smell of spilled wine, one of the last battles was taking place. An ill-armed housecarl was being backed up the stairs by a great fellow with a barrel chest and four long yellow plaits bound with copper wire. The viking's bare arms, from fingernails to neck, were tattooed with pictures of trees and other things. The iron of his weapon rang like a bell against the housecarl's shortsword. Edin could hear the young man's raw panting. Then to her dismay, he was distracted by the sight of her. He turned his head slightly.
That was all his golden-bearded attacker needed. The viking swept the man's feet out from under him. As he fell, he spat a perfectly comprehensible profanity . At the same time, the Viking threw his batte-axe back over his head, and with uninhibited cruelty the broad blade came down, swiftly, exact as a drawn line —without feeling, without charity —and clawed the man's skull.
Edin cried out. The surprise drove her backward. The dead man's legs twitched, then he was quite still. A clinging grayness surrounded Edin, a ringing void came rushing into her brain. Rolf's grip on her arm tightened. Just as she felt her knees turn to water, he bent and put his shoulder into her waist. As her upper body fell over his back, he lifted her, head down, hair hanging. She felt him carrying her roughly until she lost her senses once more.
The next time she woke it was to find herself lying in dewy grass. She reached to feel her head and found her wrists were bound with a rope of plaited hide thongs. The lump on her head was almost the size of a man's fist. Wincing, she got to her knees and discovered she was on the ancient mound just outside the village. A bearded Viking wearing a conical battle helmet frowned down at her. She looked past him to what could only be the blazing of Hell.
She moaned. They were burning Fair Hope. Vikings jostled out the splintered doors even as flames licked up from the rushes behind them. Fair Hope, where she was to have fulfilled her womanhood in marriage and maternity. Fair Hope, her future. The manor house seemed to freely, wantonly, yield to the fire. It seemed to long to burn.
"My lady," a young voice came from behind her, "thank the saints! When he brought you, we thought for sure you must be dead."
She twisted on her knees to see first a pair of sheep grazing, tied together as if the Vikings meant to take them, then several of her folk, blessedly alive, but bound like herself; and who knew what that meant? She tried to cudgel her tired wits. The voice had come from Arneld, whom she'd last seen chased down in the hall. Beside him was Juliana, the dark-haired servant girl. And there was plump Udith, the cook, and her husband, Lothere, a lank, knuckly man, his neck stretched and his head turning this way and that. There were two field serfs as well, who had nothing on but their linen underpants and short-sleeved linen shirts. One of these inquired, hesitantly, "Lord Cedric?"
"They —" Her voice broke as memory drenched her. "They murdered him!"
"Don't cry, my lady." It was the boy again; she felt his small warm hands on her arm.
When she saw the tears in his eyes, and saw Udith digging her knuckles into her eyes, Edin stopped herself, realizing she must set the example. If she had her way, these Vikings would never see any of them cry. She looked into the faces that were looking back at her so expectantly. "We must be brave."
Her words brought an exchange of weak, hopeless glances. Then the boy said, "Here they come!"
Edin heard feet thumping the ground and turned. Tears were forgotten as fear took its place. Her folk huddled behind her. She saw the dull gleam of metal mesh armor in the flamelight, and her eye tallied more than a dozen men with blades and axes. So many of them! Three new captives were being herded along. The Vikings towered above these poor Saxons, laughing and swinging their great axes like shepherds' pipes, so that they hissed with every sweep and kept the gentle folk moving in a trot.
As the newcomers were tied like the others, more Vikings came to the mound, all laden with stolen valuables. Two of them staggered past with an iron-strapped chest — Cedric's chest, the great coffer he'd kept in his room as Uncle Edward had kept it before him. The lid was split across and wrecked, and the cups and coins inside glimmered in the flickering light.
Leaving the guard again, the pirates made final forays into the cluster of thatched cottages. By now the sky was all vermillion smoke. In that light, Edin made ou
t two villagers lying lifeless outside their doors, two unfortunates probably caught by the first deadly charge.
The Vikings dashed in and out of the cottages, yowling. Edin cringed to hear their voices, high and reedy and cruel. More of her people were dragged from their hiding places. More cottages were set ablaze, until flames painted the night the color of copper.
When all of value had been garnished, the Vikings reassembled. As the red flamelight rose and dwindled, their faces alternately shone, then shadowed, then shone again. Some of them pranced like war horses, drunk on Edin's wedding wine. One blood-spattered youth stumbled off into the dark with his treasure sack and had to be brought back.
Two others were too wounded to stumble anywhere. The one called Rolf was half-leading, half-carrying the man who had nearly cracked Edin's head open. And the grey-eyed giant's outline was visible against the background of fire as he helped carry someone who hung limp between him and another man. When they put this one down, she recognized him as the man who had murdered the housecarl. He looked nearer death than life, lying on his back with his face to the heavens, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth.
One or two others walked slowly to the mound, like men who had come a long distance and were nigh exhausted. Edin herself was swaying on her knees. All the captives were kneeling, most with their palms together beneath their chins and their lips moving in prayer.
Cedric's murderer shouldered through to them. He nodded to the burly man guarding them. This one, spear in one hand, shield in the other, barked something strange and heathen at the Saxons. Naturally the Norse words made no sense to them, yet a shimmer of apprehension passed through them.
The Viking repeated his order, this time using his spear point to urge Lothere to his feet. They were being told to stand, and they obeyed, Edin included. They bunched together, rubbing against one another like deer that had caught a sudden, pungent whiff of wolf scent. Edin, dressed in nothing but her flimsy under-shift, had no modesty left at this point, and what good would it have done her anyway?
The Viking lined them up, and now the grey-eyed one, as if resigned to a distasteful job, slid his sword into its scabbard, lifted off his helmet and flung it down. He had a truly magnificent head of yellow hair. His golden arm ring and the one big bead he wore as an amulet winked in the firelight. He started at the far end and made his way along, looking each Saxon over. He examined hands, felt arms and legs, looked into mouths and at the straightness of backs. Many were rejected by him: the dairy woman, who was getting along in years; a field serf who looked as if he'd been pressed for decades between the pages of a heavy book; and many others.
When he got to Edin, he blinked slowly. She saw malice beneath his heavy eyelids. She stared back at him with what she hoped was frigid haughtiness. In return, he gripped her upper arm with a mighty hand, pushed her back and looked her over sharply — not her face, as one person looks at another, but her body. He turned her around, as if turning an inanimate object, presumably to look at her backside. When he turned her to face him again, she didn't resist. He reached for her hands. Her chest gave two sharp heaves. He couldn't help but notice, but there was no change in his expression. He was the tallest man she'd ever beheld, tall and muscular in his mail war shirt, and dangerous. His hard, battle-stained fingers turned her palms up. Unlike the other captives, she had no calluses, and for that she felt suddenly vulnerable. She clenched her fingers shut. His eyes lifted and met hers at last, his expression still grim.
He felt her head. At first she thought he meant to take it between those strong capable hands and crush it, but he only found the place where her skull had met the wall so hard. His fingers measured the size of the lump, drawing a small sound of pain from her. He left off, yet his touch hesitated in her hair an instant longer, finally lifting a few strands and letting them fall from his fingertips.
Squatting, he felt under the hem of her shift with one rough palm. There was snickering among the men surrounding them, and Edin realized why: This was not the same examination he'd given the others. He wasn't looking for strength of muscle. His palm was open. He was testing the smoothness of her skin rather than the strength of her limbs. A flood of ugly visions swamped her mind, and as his hand rose and slipped between her thighs, she flinched and tried to step away. He dropped her skirt and caught her hips.
He kept this hold on her as he stood again. She stared into his face, trying to read him in the flamelight, trying to gain some notion of his intent.
He spoke, again in Saxon, again softly: "Silken thighs and a rippling fall of amber hair somehow doesn't make me forget the sight of your pretty dagger in Ragnarr's throat. And there is Sweyn, my best warrior, whom I was forced to cripple in the axe arm. You have caused me a deal of trouble, Saxon."
"I'm surprised you don't blame me for that other man who's hurt, too."
Despite his big frame, his movements could be sudden. He let go of her hips and gripped her arms. Her hands automatically pressed against his chest. He was so close she could feel his great beating heart beneath his mail shirt, and the breath behind his half-whispered threats: "Don't speak imprudently. Think what you are —soft, a maid untouched, with skin like silk —and think what my power over you is. I could see that the man who buys you is old. Not so old his quiver isn't full, not so old he wouldn't be able to enjoy your fine, lovely thighs —but still, a man not young anymore, mayhap rotten-toothed, mayhap not given to bathing."
Though her knees threatened to give way, she defied him. "I am not cowed by a wild dog given over to every mean and filthy vice." She would have said more . . . but he had such fearfully pale eyes, eyes the color of ashes from a forge where the fire has gone out.
There was an awful quietness, during which she had time to wonder if she'd already said too much. She heard the huge fire writhing and shivering behind her. And then the Viking said, "I will see you cowed. I'll see you on your knees —all the more satisfying since they lack grease for deep bending. But you will bend them, like a proper Christian, and clasp your soft palms beneath your chin. Aye. I would see it now, but the tide is turning, and I can't spare the minute it would take. I warn you again, though, you are my thrall, mine as I please. Don't drive me to extremes, Saxon; I can be rough."
He stepped away to finish his inspection of the others. Edin risked a look elsewhere and found pairs and pairs of pale blue eyes staring down at her.
At last the giant gave orders to his men. Six captives were separated with tears and wails from those to be left behind, who were stripped naked while the invaders hooted. The chosen six were driven down the path to the river. They went like beasts to a knacker's shed, fearful yet hurrying, each oddly anxious to keep up with the others.
They came out of the riverside growth onto the bank, and Edin saw what she first thought was a monster risen out of the sea. A grinning dragon bounced on the urgent tide. It struck such fear in her heart she hardly noticed being shoved out of the way while the booty was brought down, while the pair of captured sheep were slaughtered and gutted almost at her feet, while her people clung to her mutely.
The Vikings, their shields slung on their backs, trooped with their pickings down the path, each laden with silver, utensils, and cloth.
Gathering her wits, Edin saw that though the sky was silvering, the darkness of deep night lingered in the riverside growth. She wondered if she might slip into it. She took a sidling step, then another. No one seemed to notice, so she took two more. The woods were near enough that one more step might save her. That was when the big Viking threw his sword with a swift underhanded heave. It stabbed the earth a hand's-breadth from the hem of her shift.
He came at her then, so enormous and ferocious. She felt a compulsion to run, but wisely checked it. He pulled his weapon out of the soil, wiped it on his trouser-leg, and sheathed it. He said, "Now you have been warned twice."
The dragonship in the river wrestled with its ropes; the ebb tide was sucking greedily at the current. The booty had been
loaded, and now it was the captives' turn. The Viking swung Edin off her feet and waded with her out into the water. Sounds of panic squeaked through her closed throat. She clutched the Viking with her bound hands, hiding her eyes against his shoulder. When they reached the side of the sinister, dragonheaded ship, still she clutched at him, fearing the water, if not more than she feared that monstrous vessel, if not more than she feared him, then certainly more unreasonably. With an impatient frown, he tore her from his chest, lifted her over the gunwales, and dropped her unceremoniously to the deck.
There, another Viking, this one with unusual copper-colored eyes, used his feet to tamp her into a corner where she and the other captives would be out of the way.
She kept her head down. As long as she didn't have to see the water, she could fool herself that she was all right.
The wounded men were brought aboard. The shaggy-headed one walked to his place on the arm of a companion, stumbling only a little, silently bearing his injury, yet curiously blank-eyed and twitching at the mouth and muttering. He sat by the shield-gunwales, unnoticing of the friend who bandaged and braced his shoulder with rags.
The other injured man was carried aboard white and groaning, with hardly more blood left in him than a finished flask, it seemed —only the dregs that cleave to the sides.
Suddenly the men on the ship and those still on the river bank began to clap their hands in rhythm and shout, "Jarl Thoryn! Jarl Thoryn!" Thus the grey-eyed giant came aboard. He made his way among them, indifferent to their tribute, even when they slapped him on the back with the flats of their swords.
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