Her fingernails pressed into her palms. She looked back at him and, in the urgency of her terror, said, "You plan to sell me!"
His face was fierce. "Aye, I do. But since you won't be a virgin, I'll have to bring my price down."
When he started toward her, she turned for the door again, her hands seeking the crossbar. He took hold of her arm and spun her around so hard she clattered against the wall. She flattened herself, ready to leap in whichever direction seemed most prudent. When she saw his face, saw how furious he was— Why? —her heart plummeted. "Please . . ."
His face changed, closed down to ferocity. He hissed, "No more of your 'pleases'! If I hear 'please' from you again, I may well run berserk myself!"
She was stung by the sharp accusation in his voice. He seemed a giant looming over her, angry with her —for what? —and she felt all her femininity and fragility.
Thoryn was angry, enraged. She'd tempted him until he'd made a fool of himself. Now the regular, established order of his life was shattered. He wanted to strike out, to break something —or someone.
Luckily for her, she didn't move. She shrank into the tapestry that covered the wall, her amber hair all tousled around her face and her eyes staring through it, like a green-eyed rabbit staring out of tangled grass. He slowly backed away, giving them both space to breathe.
She continued to look at him as if he were a savage, however, and that made him feel savage. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at her. He said loudly, almost violently, "Take off your clothes."
That at least made her avert her eyes.
"I could do it for you," he said when she didn't obey him. She would obey him, by Thor! In this savage mood, he thought, She will obey me or—
She didn't look at him, but began to unbuckle her belt —his belt. Her hands were unsteady, but she got it off, then took the hems of her dress and undershift together and pulled them off in one motion. Briefly her arms were raised, and he saw her body completely uncovered, her waist stretched, her torso taut, her breasts lifted. His chest was rudely shaken by the rapacity of his heart. Then her face emerged; she brought her arms down and stood with her clothes clutched before her. Her hair fell around her like a cloak.
She'd obeyed; she'd made herself accessible to him. But it had been done so guilelessly, so modestly, that his temper was softened. And further softened by the way she stood trembling —no, shaking hard —as if she were near to freezing, though the night was not that cool. He'd seen her as she'd removed her clothes, however, and it'd had the effect on him of drinking fire. His jaw was still clenched.
He gathered his control. Holding his breath, still shocked, he approached her, the way he might approach a wild creature, cautious in case she startled. He allowed himself only the touch of one fingertip; he traced it down from her shoulder to the upper slope of her breast. "Where did you get this bruise?"
She said nothing.
"I know about my mother's wooden spoon. She did this?"
Again, nothing.
Yet there must have been something conciliatory in his tone, because her head turned —in short jerks because of her great fear —and her eyes lifted, to his chest, his beard, his mouth, nose, finally to his eyes.
Such terror! It crashed against him with the force of a storm-lifted wave. He remembered well why he'd brought her in here against all the arguments of his reason: because he wanted her. Norsemen were never ashamed about their needs. For a man with a need to take a woman without a protector was as natural as a hungry man slaying a stray sheep. And he had a huge need. His body's almost uncontrollable passion amazed him, unnerved him —and thoroughly galled him. He wanted her —yes! But not like this. He found he was disgusted with the idea of forcing her, frightening her more. Surely she would just die; her heart would just stop. He remembered capturing a bird once, as a boy, and feeling its heart throb in his hand . . . throb . . . and then just stop. It had died of fright.
Fear so terrible must be put out of the way; there was nothing else for it. With a great gust of emotion, he turned from her. His eyes were wild to find some way out of what he'd begun. He saw the sheepskin rug, and lifted it and flung it into the corner farthest from the door. Then, quickly, he stripped a quilt off his own bed and turned back to her.
Everything about her drew his gaze and held it. Girding himself, he swirled the quilt around her, encasing her, covering her nakedness. She seemed startled. He pointed to the sheepskin. "You'll sleep there."
She didn't move.
"Do as I say!"
She sidled away from him, clutching the quilt closed with the same fingers that were clutching her pathetic clothes. Her face was full of questions as she stepped onto the sheepskin. There she stood, with the veering yellow lamplight scattering over her hair, her small body trembling beneath that bright formless quilt.
"Lay yourself down."
She went to her knees —so doubtful!—half-reclined. He turned away and went about his own undressing, fumbling unnaturally with the silver buttons of his tunic. Was she watching him? He'd never felt such a thing as shyness in a woman's presence before and refused to feel it now. Firm and unflinching, he stripped off his tunic, his shirt, his boots, and long pants. He went about it quickly, his back to her, tossing each item haphazardly into the chair.
But then he had to turn to blow out the lamp. Her eyes stared directly at his erection, and went round as plates. His hand moved involuntarily to his turgid manhood, to shield it from her awed gaze. At the same time her head jerked sideways, as if she'd been struck.
Then the lamp flame was out. He found his bed in the dark.
It took him a moment to regain his attitude. He said, "I sleep with my ears open and my hand on my knife handle, Saxon. Don't so much as move in the night or I may gut you by reflex alone."
There was no answer from her corner.
"Do you hear me?"
"Yes." A watery whisper, laden with unshed tears.
Minutes crept by, accumulated, formed an hour. He knew exactly when she believed he was safely asleep, for that was when he heard a sound, buried into her hair and covered by her quilt, a sound like the cracked, forlorn cry of a seagull.
Her stifled sobs went on for a long time, but eventually her breathing grew steadier, rounder, deeper. Her rest was still occasionally sob-broken, but she was asleep. Her mind had simply had enough. She didn't rest deeply at first; her sleep was fitful, and she started up out of it often. It wasn't until the darkest hours that exhaustion finally pulled her down into a truly unguarded repose.
The room became stone-quiet then. Thoryn lay sunk in his big feather bed. He didn't think about the steading, or about hunting or fishing or tool-making; he didn't think about building ships or repairing buildings or raising sheep or cattle or goats. He thought about the fact, the tantalizing, troublous, inescapable fact, that this piece of womanhood was his, that he could do with her whatever he liked.
Her face flashed up in his mind's eyes; he abhorred its beauty.
Whatever you like!
He'd thought the decision was made: He would sell her and earn eight half-marks of pure gold. But now he saw that he'd never made a decision at all, never really considered the two sides of the scales. He'd simply pointed to the side weighted with gold and totally ignored the possibilities of the side weighted with her. Now the choice had to be made all over again. He could have eight half-marks of gold in his money chest ... or he could have her beside him in this bed, beneath him, to do with as he liked.
***
Everywhere on the steading, sleep was giving way to waking, dreams to being. In the longhouse, in the jarl's chamber, a voice whispered to Edin, a pleasant, velvety voice. She resisted waking, however. Waking had become too hard. The ultimate disappointment. Still, she opened her eyes —to find the giant Viking leaning over her.
She looked blankly into his face, studying his beard and the bulging muscles of his bare shoulders. She wasn't sure this was real; his features seemed to drift thr
ough opaque swathes of dream-mist. She was still warmly encased in her sleeping sack. How could she be lying beside him?
She moved her head just enough to see that she was not in her wall cubby. It was early morning in this place. A small window hole in the outer wall was open to the fresh sea air, to the first pale-silver wash of light. The shepherds would be going out. In a moment she would have to wake up and start her weary workday.
She was tired, tired in a deep, dull way that had nothing to do with physical weariness.
Her eyes returned to the Viking and met his eyes. Eyes like the grey water on an overcast day. At last his features coalesced from the morning mists. He was there; she was awake— not in her sleeping sack but wrapped in his quilt —and he was really there above her. She was staring up into his eyes while he rested on his elbow and looked down into hers. She felt a stab like a blade in her heart.
She remembered everything, and guessed the rest — that he'd carried her here to his feathered bed while she was still asleep. Now he meant to rape her. Tired, dazed, she resolved to bear it, to let it happen rather than fight it and be hurt all the more.
Because she found she was determined to somehow live through it.
Because, as she'd discovered belatedly, her love of life remained.
With an effort he could never have fathomed, she looked up at him with level calm eyes and said, "All right, Viking."
"All right?" he said. His face changed. Before, it had held no expression at all that she could discern, but now —what was he thinking? "All right?" he repeated.
She didn't answer; how could she? She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding.
She jerked when a frantic knock started at the door. He rolled away from her and leaned up on his other elbow, so that she was faced with his broad, bare, muscled back and buttocks. He roared something in Norse, in a voice that frightened her.
Inga's voice came back through the thick wooden planks, a spew of Norse like breakers of sea bursting into white blossoms of rocky cliffs.
Edin saw the Viking's back heave with a breath of patience, but his answer was as fierce as before.
"Thoryn!" Inga called, pleadingly.
His answer was two words that even Edin understood: Leave us!
She sat up, holding to her quilt tightly. He rolled back, swinging his arm around to catch her. She flinched; he was so enormous. For an instant, with his anger still on his face, she perceived his resemblance to his mother, only, as always, he seemed infinitely colder. There was about Inga's mouth a feminine curve that might once have been called sweetness. There was no such thing about his.
"Where do you go, Shieldmaiden?" he asked, in an altogether different voice than the one he'd used to frighten Inga off. He seemed different, relaxed. They were both sitting up. She steadfastly kept her sight lifted above his alarming lap. She needed to hear him speak again. Silent, he was completely alien. She firmed up her shoulders and asked, "What did she say?"
"She called you the doxy of demons and the scourge of men." He seemed to consider her. "Are you?"
He began to toy with her hair. He pulled it out from her quilt, freeing it to flow loosely down her back. Meanwhile, the fine, clear morning light rained over his body. His arm around her pushed her back down into the feather mattress, where he could lean over her once more. "What did you mean when you said a moment ago, 'All right, Viking'?"
Again she refused to answer.
He regarded her for a moment. And then —he smiled. It didn't last long, but the man had a smile like a sunset!
"Come. What does 'all right' mean?"
Her mouth was dry; she needed a drink of water badly. Beneath his gaze, his wide shoulders, his massive chest, she felt completely defenseless. "I have work to do, as your mother knows." Her voice sounded thin and reedy. And never did she think she would yield to the posture of servant so eagerly! She made an attempt to rise.
His arm over her tensed. "Wait —before I let you go-"
Was he going to let her go, then?
" — it means that you won't fight me, doesn't it? You won't answer that, nor can I blame you. Yet it satisfies me that you realize I can take you —now, or an hour from now, or the next time the moon rises full —and that you'll be better off not to resist me."
"Please . . ."
His face grew sterner. He was once again an arrogant giant of a Viking. "'Please,' again?"
"I promise I'll never bring myself to your attention again."
"It's too late for that —if ever it were possible. I've spent this night thinking —oh, yes, and listening to your weeping, as lonely as winter wind — and I've come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to take you as my bed-thrall. You'll come here to me each night — or whenever else I require you, early or late — "
"No." It was wrenched out of her.
" — and you will open your arms and attend me as your master. During the day, you'll perform whatever domestic services are assigned to you, unless I want you-"
"No!"
"Aye. It will be to your benefit as much as mine, because now that my men believe you're no longer a maiden, I can't guarantee that any one of them might not take it into his mind to sample you. Only if I cast my claim over you completely, will they leave you be."
"No!"
His voice sharpened with irritation. "I don't like it when a thrall says no to me. You must not battle against some things in life, Saxon. You can't battle against me, take my word for it. Nothing is more pitiful than to see a brave female struggling against a man twice her size and strength. I've seen it, and it's pathetic."
He paused, mayhap to see if she would make the same mistake-say not to him-yet again. She didn't. His hand went to the quilt. She clutched it tighter. Let go," he said.
Chapter Ten
The Viking said, "You think I mean to take you now? Fear not. I have things to see to this morning —and I want to take my time with you. For now I just want to examine my plunder. Let go of the quilt."
He sighed when she still refused. "A bargain then. Let me see you, and you have my word I won't take you this morning."
Did he think she would trust him?
"I may be many things, but I'm a man of my own word."
She considered that, and thought it true to the best of her knowledge. She also thought it best not to anger him again. She loosened her hold on the quilt.
Then she let silence gather around her like a secret protector as he folded back one side, and then the other, laying her breasts bare to the cool morning. She felt her nipples tighten. His eyes seemed to devour the sight; but he didn't touch her, not yet. Instead, he opened the quit more, uncovering her belly, her thighs.
Now, his open palm —it was cool and rough with calluses —cupped her waist. His hand slid down the curve of her hips; his thumb stretched to the curls bracketed by her thighs. Then his hand came up quickly to take a breast. The touch was like a cool flame and made her wince.
He gathered the breast, shaping it so it stood up in his hand. She watched his face with mixed anguish and fear, biting her lower lip to keep from crying out at this intimate handling, this manipulation.
The movement of her mouth was not missed. He lowered his head to kiss her. She jerked her head aside.
"Saxon," he said to her, in a gentle and somehow thrilling tone.
Her face was to the wall. He still had her breast.
"Saxon," he repeated softly, without impatience, his voice husky, "a bargain."
His hand left her breast, took her face, and turned it. She glared at him, accusing, "You said you wouldn't!"
"I'm only going to kiss you."
She bore it. Somehow she bore it. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft. And his beard and mustache were fleecy against her cheek and chin. Nonetheless, her hands stole to his chest and pushed at him.
He lifted his head—how slumberous his eyes were now! — and he caught her right wrist. When she tried to free it with her left hand, he also caught that w
rist, both in his one huge hand, and he pulled them over her head, pinning them amid the nest of silk cushions there. Then he leaned into her mouth again.
Nothing separated her breasts from his bare chest. His matted hair rubbed her nipples while his mouth nudged her lips open. And then he touched her tongue with his own.
He murmured against her opened mouth, "It's as I expected; you're brimful of sweetness and spirit."
He deepened his next kiss. Though she pulled her tongue far back in her mouth, he tracked it, until her mouth was filled with him. Overwhelmed, she arched to get away — and felt a shock of sensation as her breasts were flattened against his hard, hard chest.
Another shock hit her as he threw his leg over hers and she felt his hot flesh hard against her thigh.
Panic rose. He had her pinned. She should never have trusted him! Just when she was sure of her doom, he lifted his head. His eyes were hooded, his breath a little quicker and heavier. "I want you, Shieldmaiden."
"We have a bargain!"
"Aye, for now. But tonight . . ." He lifted himself up, to bare her breasts to his gaze again. He pondered her, caressing her again. "Tonight there will be no one hammering on my door, and you will be reconciled, having had the day to think through the alternatives." His fingers were toying at the bottom of her belly. "Tonight, I will finger these yellow parsley-curls at my leisure —and when I tire of that, I will have you."
She looked at him; she felt confused by his masculinity. She whispered, "Have I no choice at all?"
"One —to struggle or not. Since I'd prefer not to see any more bruises on you, if you struggle, I might feel it necessary to bind you. Will you make me do that? . . . Ah, you feel you have to consider your response." It seemed he was trying not to smile again. It seemed there was a big smile wanting to break out of him, and then ... it did! She got the impression he wanted to do more, to laugh outright. That he didn't do. But he said, "Well, take the day to make your decision; should you attempt to extend your time beyond that, however, the choice will become mine." She thought he was teasing. Could he be? Did he know what teasing meant?
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