Dispute after dispute arose over the profusion of golden crucifixes and pyxes and ciboria, the ivory reliquaries, the tapestries of woven silk and books of illuminated vellum set with precious stones. The jarl claimed and got the lion's share of everything, though the others seemed unwilling to give up anything without an argument. Sometimes he made an airy gesture of giving in; more often his voice rasped of iron, and it was the disputer who made the gesture. At length, Edin grumbled to Udith, "Never were there such quarrelsome men. I swear, these Vikings would sit on the beach with the sea rising about them and quibble about who was going to stand first and give the other a hand up —until they both drowned."
Though the arguments could seem bitter, the men toasted the jarl again and again. She realized that from their point of view he'd led them on a spectacularly heroic adventure, one that would never be forgotten; he was a mighty Wreaker of Deeds. It made no difference that from their victims' point of view it was an exercise in thievery and murder that had brought untold misery.
As the quarreling continued, Edin's eyes felt both staring and weighted. She vaguely noted that now it was the middle-aged Kol Thurik speaking around his broken tooth in disagreement with the jarl. Her eyelids were as heavy as lead. But she sat up as Kol strode toward her. It was not her he took by the arm, however, but Lothere. Udith immediately tried to take her husband's other arm, but Edin stayed her.
The carpenter was pulled before the jarl, where the wrangling continued. Finally the jarl, with a frown, nodded, and Kol grinned. The Viking gestured for Lothere to pick up his battered sea chest. It was apparent that he meant to leave and to take Lothere with him.
The carpenter's thin angular face turned to his wife, fearfully, hopelessly, and Udith, who'd been standing with Edin's staying hand on her arm, broke and ran forward. She ran right across the hall and threw her arms about her husband. Lothere put the Viking's chest down to embrace her.
Kol, clearly annoyed, separated the two so forcefully that Udith tripped and fell to the rushes. When Lothere would have helped her, Kol stepped before him. The big Viking moved like a lynx and stood with a look for the smaller Saxon that was nothing if not threatening. Lothere raised his woody hands in a beseeching way and whimpered like a beaten dog.
Edin's heart leapt and took fire inside her. Without thinking of the possible danger, she went directly to the jarl. "Where is he taking Lothere?"
The jarl's gaze narrowed and darkened like a closed-in pewter-grey sky.
"They're married. You can't separate them!"
"Can I not?"
There is a silence that is not really silent but more a chilling diminuendo of all sound. Such settled over the hall now, like a gigantic raven folding its wings. Every eye was on Edin. She felt her half-nakedness; she felt the fire flaring behind her, no doubt outlining her body in its thin shift; she felt herself hopelessly revealed. She also knew that the smoothing of the jarl's expression was no indication of understanding on his part. Indeed, whenever he was most dangerous he also became his most smooth.
Nonetheless, she said, "You must know they will pine for one another. Lothere will try to get back to Udith; Udith will try to reach Lothere. No good will come from it."
The jarl seemed to consider her, his face a mask that could not be read. At last he gestured her aside —saying, however, in an almost caressing tone, "Stay near, Saxon. I'm not finished with you." Then he called in a voice of iron, "Kol Thurik!"
The two spoke in Norse again. Kol shook his head, then looked at Udith, who had gotten to her feet and stood leaning forward, straining toward her husband as if pulled by an invisible leash. In turn, Lothere's mouth was pitifully drawn. The jarl kept talking, Kol kept shaking his head; then the jarl said something in a tone of exasperation. Now Kol nodded, his grin bigger than ever.
The jarl's expression was not nearly so pleased. He turned to Udith and spoke in Saxon: "Your husband belongs to Kol Thurik —and you are to go with him, too."
She rushed forward to Lothere. They embraced with muffled cries, until Lothere remembered their benefactor. He bowed low to the jarl. "Thank you, master!"
"Yes, thank you, master!" Udith echoed —then added to Edin, "and thank you, my lady!"
Kol managed to get them away and soon the ornately carved door closed after them. Edin belatedly realized she'd just seen the last of the only person in the world she might call a friend.
When she turned, she found the jarl's attention on her again. If her heart had been warmed by his benevolence, it was chilled now by his stare. He stared at her until she wanted to scream, "What?" All up and down the hall, only eyes moved, darting like excited fish as they followed the development of what looked to be a fearful —and extremely entertaining —confrontation.
In his own time, the jarl said, "I wanted that carpenter, but Kol would have him and nothing but him. It was bad enough to lose him . . . but also the cook I brought to help my mother?"
He sat leaning on one arm, his bearded cheek in his hand, his hard, impassive face totally indifferent, looking at Edin, looking and looking at her. "What disturbs me even more, however, is your insolence. No man disobeys when I command. If I say dance, he dances. Yet you, a mere woman, and a thrall-woman at that, you dare to interrupt when I'm dealing with another Viking. How do you explain that?"
She stood stiff and erect and prideful. "I have a duty to do what I can for my people."
"Your people? If you mean those thralls" —he nodded toward the platform—"they're my people —as you are mine."
She squared her chin. "I am nobly born. And free-born. You may have stolen me, but the say-so of a barbarian does not make me a slave."
She felt giddy with her own temerity. Whatever was she saying? She was getting beyond her depth. But she wouldn't retreat now. Now that she'd started, she wouldn't give this Viking another victory. Of course, he would take it anyway, but she would make him work for it.
He seemed to consider this in silence. Then, in a quiet voice that nonetheless rang with blood and power, he said, "Come forward, Saxon"
Now she regretted her little speech. She took a few barefoot paces over the rush-covered floor toward his chair. The grins around her were more than coarse; they were positively bloodthirsty.
"Closer."
She complied, full of dread, wondering what was behind his indifferent expression.
"You remind me of a bird, always cranking out nonsense. But . . ." He spoke in Norse to his friend Rolf, who was sitting on the nearest bench. The red-haired man left his seat and brought the jarl his sword. Caution entered Edin as he examined the blade. He touched the edges, felt their sharpness, and seemed to note a tiny flaw, a chip. The drawn steel glittered in the flickering firelight.
There was now a vein of threat in his casual tone as he said, "Aye, you chatter without thought. But you aren't a bird. You are nobly born— freeborn, you say. And no slave. Let us test this claim of yours, Saxon."
He stood and stepped down from the dais of his chair, and lifted his longsword suddenly, so that it's lethal point touched her left breast exactly over her heart. She gasped, shivered, but did not move. He kept the point against her breast, and he pushed—just enough to make the tip penetrate her undershift and dent her flesh.
There he held her. She felt the sword point keenly. She became aware of her ribs beneath it, of how delicate the bones were, how easily they could be pierced.
He said, "I'm waiting, thrall! What say you now?"
She whispered, "I-I am free, a nobleman's daughter."
Why was she doing this? He had no scruples against murder —he'd already murdered Cedric before her very eyes!
"You suffer from an unnatural belief in your own immortality," he answered softly.
He spoke to Rolf again, without looking at him. Quickly another sword appeared. Rolf's face behind his red whiskers seemed to offer Edin a warning. She looked from him to the sword he held out to her.
"Take it!" The jarl stepped back a half-pace, removing
his sword point from her breast yet not lowering it.
Rolf's red brows beetled as she took the sword from him with both hands. Even so, as soon as he released it, its point fell almost to the floor. She struggled to bring it up again, but couldn't raise it even to the height of her waist. It felt as if the weapon had unseen roots anchoring it to the floor. Possibly the same roots that anchored mountains. She heard murmurs and felt the Vikings' amusement.
"Lift it!" the jarl said. He waved his own weapon as if it were a twig. "All it takes is a good arm." She saw the sinews in his forearm, the muscles rippling. "It's Rolf's own sword, that," he said, "a good killing blade. Its name is Tickler. If you aren't my thrall, you'll lift it and defend your claim. I say you're mine, my property to dispose of as I see fit. Prove to me I'm wrong."
She stood as she was, her arms and shoulders and back trembling in the effort of keeping the heavy sword point from falling to the floor completely. She couldn't look at him now, but gazed unseeing at his steady damascened blade.
"Well?" He was like a dragon in his fury, rending and unreasonable. Those who resisted, he would always mercilessly overcome, if not with his muscles then with the tremendous strength of his mind and purpose.
"You know I can't fight you."
"Because the weapon is too unwomanly," he said crisply. "Very well." He spoke in Norse, and again Rolf appeared, this time with a dagger. He took his sword back and held the knife out to her, but she shook her head.
"Come," the jarl said dryly, lowering his sword, "take it; charge me with it. I know you can kill if you want to."
"I can't."
"You killed Ragnarr."
"I can't."
He made a sound of contempt. "You are a race of slaves, you Saxons."
Her gaze dropped to somewhere near his feet. She wanted to cry, but somehow kept her sobs held in.
"I'm challenging you —fight me, my lady"
"I can't fight you, Viking, as well you know."
"Aye," he said slowly, lowering his weapon at last, "as well I know."
Her gaze lifted again, all the way to his face. "But I will never be a slave," she said stubbornly.
This time he reacted with immediate anger, the most parlous kind of anger, the kind born of frustration. The jerk of his head told her of his ire, and her breath froze at the cold flare of temper in his eyes. In an instant he became fearsome, furious, mad. His mighty sword swung up again, and he closed in. There was an ice storm rampaging in his eyes. The flat of his sword lifted her chin, until she was looking at him down its long, gilt-and-silver length. All he said now was "Slave or sword point?"
The flames snapped in the firepit behind her. The cold, steel point pricking her throat never moved the slightest. For an immeasurable extent of time she stood perfectly still, living in a state of strain. She searched for some answer. And impaled on his gaze, feeling all those wild and hungry eyes on her, something of her pride broke inside her. In the end she could only whisper: "Slave."
It seemed an eternity before she felt the metal leave her skin. He slowly dropped his weapon and stepped back onto the dais, lowering himself into his chair. The storm in his eyes had settled to rime-ice. At last he said, "My mother will teach you and the others what you need to know. The first thing she will teach you is that you are to be silent —or I shall see you can't be anything else"
Then, more quiet than ever before: "Saxon, for your own sake, don't struggle against your destiny. There is no mercy for the subjugated. I warn you I shall not put my anger aside again. Next time . . .
"Next time I will fall on you like an avalanche."
Banished back to her corner, all Edin wanted to do was pour out her terror in an orgy of tears; but she found she couldn't think of herself and her great humiliation yet, for she discovered Arneld was to be separated from them. Another thrall, a shepherd by the looks of him, had come to take the boy outside. He made gestures that it was going to be all right, yet Arneld cried.
"He probably means for you to sleep in the byre, just like at home," Edin soothed.
"I'm afraid!"
I'm afraid, too! "I'm sorry, Arneld, but . . . there's nothing I can do about it." The bitterness of those words.
The Vikings who didn't live in the hall gathered their possessions to go, and those who did live there headed for their beds. The Saxons were given fur sleeping bags. The fire was banked, leaving the torches alone to cast flickering shadows. In the mill of the closing evening, Edin was subjected to several kinds of quick and shocking touches. Juliana was treated even worse. One man claimed a hearty kiss of her, insistently shaping and fitting her young lips to his own and even plunging his tongue into her soft mouth—until he was stopped by the jarl's mother. Snapping, she showed the women where to bed down in one of the cubbies along the wall.
Juliana was put in with Olga, and Edin and Dessa were given a tiny "room" to share. This was furnished only with a wide wall-bench covered with a layer of straw. It was separated from the hall by nothing but a thin curtain, through which any Viking might walk at any time. Even so, Edin fell quickly into an exhausted sleep.
She dreamed, however, and woke with a gasp in the middle of the night. In the next hour she hit the very bottom of the matter: She was a slave in this strange cold place; she was caught in bondage to heathens. Forever. There in her bed, alone, she entered her soul's night.
Memories rose like a tide, higher, higher, swamping her now that she wasn't distracted by anything else, now that she was completely vulnerable to every loss. In her mind, Cedric died once more, and once more she regretted that she hadn't had the courage to die with him. In her mind she saw her home, saw it all as a dream, composed and calm, full of beauty, a place where honeysuckle grew in lush drifts calling the somnolent bees in the summer afternoons. Her heart had been so innocent, so unaware.
. . . my property which I can dispose of as I please.
The Viking's words rang in her head. Again she felt all those men's eyes on her, intent on her degradation.
Cold crept into the hollows of her bones. She didn't want to be their victim. She didn't want to be here. But what she wanted was no longer of any importance to anyone.
It seemed only minutes after she'd finally fallen asleep again that she was roughly wakened. The Viking woman was giving her a good shaking. If the jarl was a dragon, then his mother was a dragonette. She struck Edin as a fierce, bitter, violent person.
Dessa was already up, but evidently had been afraid to wake Edin, whom she still thought of as "my lady." She seemed embarrassed to see Edin treated so rudely —yet her simple mind didn't fail to take in that Inga was now the one to be obeyed.
In the hall, Juliana waited. She muttered to Dessa, "Her ladyship has to get up like the rest of us now, despite her airs and graces." Edin's pride ached like an open wound.
Although Inga spoke no Saxon, she managed to show each woman what her duties were. Edin saw that she was a careful manager —a little too careful. Edin, who was light-fingered in the preparations of such delicacies as partridges and doves, helped cook a heavy, grainy barley porridge. She set the table with loaves of rye and oatbread. Then, at the first of the two meals of the day, she was given the task of keeping the men's mugs full of buttermilk.
They drank a great deal of buttermilk as they sat on their benches and let the women serve them. Edin, still in her undershift and nothing else, was mortified when early on Ottar Magnusson pointed out to his table-mates that the little points of her breasts could be seen beneath the thin linen fabric. After that, they drank twice as much buttermilk, drank it hard, threw it back, and placed their empty mugs where she had to reach to fill them, causing her shift to draw tightly over her breasts. The jarl refrained from this sport, but the others —not a hand touched her, yet their taunting was remorseless.
It confused her. If her body was desirable, she'd never known it. She'd been respected by the men in her life, and consequently had preserved the sweetness, the innocence of a sheltered girl. She
had an unhardened mind and an open heart and no defense against this kind of male coarseness. She suffered their stares, but they sickened her. The sound of their chuckling cut her.
Nor had she ever been criticized or reviled, but it seemed she was reviled now. The Viking woman, Inga, hated her, and for what reason? Edin couldn't say. But whatever she did was not done quickly enough, or well enough, or in the right way. This was like an injury, a new wound made in the old, this feeling of being utterly despised.
When at last she and the other thralls were allowed to eat, she had no appetite. She had to force herself to drink her own buttermilk.
An hour later she learned that milk does not appear from nowhere, and that a dairy is always in need of extra hands. Inga instructed her in unfamiliar words and a voice like cracking ice.
While carrying buckets of milk from the dairy to the longhouse, she came upon Juliana and the young copper-eyed Jamsgar. The man had taken the girl into his arms, and even Edin could see that she was making no more than a sham protest. He kissed her and held her tightly around the waist. And then he slid his hand up her skirt —with scarcely any resistance. Edin slipped away, more troubled than ever.
Chapter Eight
The Viking household regularly consisted of twenty to thirty people, and the work was endless. By late afternoon, Edin was filled with hopeless, unshed tears. That was when Inga led her into her own sleeping chamber near the entrance to the hall. The room was the size of a lockable closet, but at least it was private. Inga reached under her ornately carved bed to pull out a chest. Rummaging, she cast gauging eyes on Edin, and finally tossed her a doubtful-looking, formless garment of faded grey-purple material.
The neck was suitable only for a cowherd —and a much stouter woman at that. If Edin weren't ashamed of being half-naked, she would have refused to put it on. Or so she told herself. As it was, she threw the thing over her head, over her filthy undershift, and fastened it. It had long loose sleeves and no belt. When she looked down, she was struck again by her position. In this gross garment, she seemed to have nothing in common with that young bride-to-be of Fair Hope Manor, she had looked forward to being a mistress of servants, a revered wife and mother, a gentlewoman of grace and generosity.
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