Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  Her eyes were fixed on his, his on hers.

  "Will you call me Master?"

  With her mouth covered by his big palm, she could only use her eyes to defy him.

  "Who do you think you are! When you came here you didn't even have shoes!"

  Now she tried to speak behind his hand. To her surprise, he lifted it. "How do you do it?" she asked, her voice suddenly calm. She saw him pause, and pressed on while she had the chance. "How do you change like this?"

  He didn't answer.

  Her heartbeat was strong and rapid. She hardly had breath enough to speak, yet speak she did. "How do you become this way? Who are you really, Thoryn Kirkynsson? I long for the powers of a witch they claim for me: I would become a swallow and dip beside you and study you when you think you're alone."

  "At the moment you need only know I am a man who desires you and has you spread beneath him and in another moment will have you."

  She grappled with her fear and, with a huge effort of will, shook her head. "It's no good, my lord; you've shown me too much of yourself. You're a Viking, yes, but you aren't a cruel man. You put on this cruelty in the same way you put on your war shirt. You decide what part is required of you, and then you play it."

  "You think so?" he said in that voice of his that could be both so soft and so dangerous. An arch smile played over his lips.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Edin was afraid, yet she forced herself to relax beneath the Viking. It was no easy thing. When one feared pain, it was no easy thing not to stiffen against it. Her body cried, Clench! Strain! But she didn’t. She even tilted her thighs and hips, teasing him. "Come, come into me. You need me, and I’m here for you."

  He kept her wrists pinched tightly in his hand as he sank into her abruptly. For a moment she regretted her foolishness. Alarm pounded in her throat and temples, behind her eyes. He was not a small man, not altogether nor in any of his parts. And she was not a large woman. Racked-out beneath him as she was, her body was utterly his. A fact he took full advantage of. She was the pool he plumbed to its farthest depths, the vessel into which he poured the wine of his desire. Yet after his first hard thrusts, after he saw that she was not straining away from him, his grip on her wrists slackened, and she found she could pull them free. She used that freedom to embrace him.

  "Deeper," she said.

  "Quiet!"

  "I-I claim my due, Viking!"

  "Keep quiet!"

  "I won’t let you cheat me of my due."

  He went at her with his powerful springing muscles coiled and his feet braced against the footboard of the bed. He thrust deeply. He thrust and withdrew with such energy she had to wrap her legs around him to keep from being shoved upward in the bed. There was no longer any call to tell her to be quiet. How could she speak? Behind her eyelids she saw a swiftly winging shape. A mist seemed to fill the room, like the smokey exhalations of a mighty dragon. It wreathed her like veils, enveloped her in its flexures and cloaked all else beneath its diaphanous covering. She felt him pause, felt him quake. His arms dug beneath her to mash her even harder against him. His legs moved convulsively as if he would walk all the way into the heart of her. "Valkyrie!" he cried, his voice breaking.

  "Yes," she murmured into his ear, "taking you to Asgard, the home of the gods."

  He lay exhausted. After a moment she said faintly, "My lord, you're so heavy."

  He groaned, but rolled, pulling her with him. She felt the blood rush back into her heart; it hammered violently.

  He leaned away to inspect the imprints his shirt had left on her breasts. "Some of those will still be there come morning."

  "No one will see them."

  "I will"

  "You need not look."

  "I think I will."

  His big hand, so superbly strong, came between them to cup a breast soothingly. "Did I take you, Shieldmaiden, or did you take me?" His eyes were still as bare as weather-washed stone.

  She felt for the first time the elation of sexual triumph as a hectic flush flooded her cheeks. "Take you?" She smiled softly and with a tremulous hand smoothed his tumbled hair off his forehead. "When I am but a woman, a mere bed-thrall? How could I take a mighty Viking jarl?" "Aye, that is the question."

  Awakened in alarm from some dream, Thoryn turned for safety to richly recollected enjoyments. The bright half-moon outside threw a rectangle of light through the uncovered window. Edin was asleep, and he took the opportunity to study her, lying there naked, her hair to her waist. As he'd predicted, she was marked by the violence of his assault. Gently he began to cross her abused breasts with those fine tresses that gleamed in the moonlight on her marbled skin.

  This is the most perfect moment of my life.

  The thought slid into his mind with no accompanying warning. It came simply, the truth put into words. A delicious secret.

  His idle play with her hair gradually awakened her, as he'd meant it to do. He fully expected her to recoil into the mattress. He'd used her sorely, caused her pain. She barely opened her eyes, just enough for him to be sure she knew it was him who was toying with her. And then a feeling he'd seldom —no, never —known swelled in him, for seeing him, she smiled sleepily and opened her arms.

  He held his breath. The unanticipated shock was such that he froze, trying to cling to this exceptional moment. He could not remember ever feeling like weeping for gladness before. He moved into her embrace —and felt cleansed. Cleansed of self-contempt, of self-doubt. She moved herself under him, adjusted her position, and drew him into her. He slid in cautiously, ready to stop at her first wince. She didn't wince; she was uninjured. He wanted to weep again, with relief. Once he was totally encompassed by her silken flesh, he didn't move. He couldn't believe he hadn't hurt her; she was so tender, and he'd gone at her so brutally. Instead, he lay reveling in the sensations of knowing he was welcome within her . . . and in another sensation which he hardly knew how to define.

  Holding himself well on his elbows, his big hands moved through her hair, stroking the silky strands. What was it, this emotion she radiated and surrounded him with? It formed a circle around them, containing them such as he'd never been contained before. It felt so . . . safe. This was the woman they said would trap him. Let her, if only she would hold him safe like this forever.

  ***

  In the week that followed the jarl's announcement of a voyage, a spirit of adventure filled the air of the steading, along with a frenzy of activity. He was busy most of each day victualling and outfitting his ship. Starkad Herjulsson spent much of his time working in the water, tarring and testing the dragonship. Pots of boiling tar out-stank racks of drying salmon at the fjordside, women sailmakers sat day after day with crossed legs and plying fingers, and the backs of men bowed beneath heavy casks of butter, cheese, and duck eggs in brine.

  With all that was going on, Edin seldom encountered the jarl during the day. When she did, always she lowered her head a little, out of deference —or was it a new shyness? He was in demand everywhere; everyone had a question for him, or something for him to inspect, but she had the satisfaction of knowing that a certain small, quick, crooked smile was hers alone.

  Thus the days passed quickly. Then there were only two nights left, and then, in an eye's blink, just one.

  The blue smoke from the longhouse fire rose into the summer night. From the hail came the sound of rude laughter and the high wailing of a bone flute. In the jarl's chamber, Edin's cheek was pressed hard against her lord's bare chest, as if to partake of the very heat and life in him. His arms were around her, holding her gently and somewhat tenaciously. She felt a crushing need to weep, though the time for tears was long past for her. When pain was profound enough, nothing soothed it. And this man, with his muscled torso and strong loins, had brought her so much profound pain.

  Earlier he'd called Inga to him in the crowded hall and said aloud so that the men and thralls should all hear, "Mark well: I go to Kaupang on the morrow. Since Inga Thorsdaughter is my mo
ther, it is in her care that I leave the steading. Her authority is absolute until I return."

  "When will you return?" Edin asked him now, feeling that even to ask was in some way to plead.

  "It's hard to say. I don't know how long my business will take me. And there's always the sea to consider, the possibility of storms —and pirates."

  "I'll pray to Aegir for you."

  "The God of the Sea? Why not to your own god?"

  "I don't think he would stoop to help you, you're so wicked."

  "He doesn't help the wolves that snuffle outside his sheep pens, eh?" She felt him laugh silently, felt his lips kiss the top of her head. "I'll bring you back a present. A mirror of burnished silver."

  Things had changed between them. He had changed. Whenever they had a moment alone, even when he didn't seem to particularly desire her, he often took hold of her, her arm, or her shoulder, casually as it were. She sensed that he was as lonely and destitute inside as she often felt, and that he found some ease in touching her.

  Just now he said, "It grows late; yet you are so full of sweet mysteries, I feel I must explore you one last time before I leave."

  She lifted her head and gave him a look of censure. "You are such a strange mixture of good and evil. I'm sure it's wrong, the things you do to me."

  "You are, are you?"

  "I used to imagine Vikings back in England"

  "And what did you imagine, Shieldmaiden?"

  "Roving scarecrows with scraggly fur strapped haphazardly around them."

  "And what did you think when you first saw me?"

  "Much worse, you were much worse. I thought: Here is a man of iron in whose judgement I count for absolutely nothing —at least nothing good. I was frightened, and rightfully so, for I believe the core of your conscience is missing."

  He was silent for a moment, and she thought she'd offended him; but then he said, "But I was governed by desire in the end."

  She smiled briefly, bitterly. "Not so. You desire me; but —I've been studying your people, and the classes are as carefully organized here as in England. And the number of classes is three. There are the unfree, the free, and the rulers. I am unfree; you are a ruler. And in the end, you are, as you warned me once, a man who sees what needs to be done and does it." Her eyes did not evade his.

  His muscled arms caught her and turned her onto her back. His strength fired her. He said, "I swear that I'll never set you aside."

  She wondered how far she should take her habit of frankness. "But someday, mayhap sooner than you think, you'll need to marry, to beget strong Viking sons and comely Viking daughters. Named children."

  He drew himself up, let her go, turned onto his back, and stared up at the low ceiling. "As you say, I'll do what I must."

  "I'm not blaming you," she whispered. "But I would ask a boon." Her heart thudded. There was risk here. "When you bring home a wife — "

  "If I bring home a wife."

  "If you do, will you choose me a husband and let me make what home I can for him? I would like to have children. There are men along the fjord — "

  He turned to her quickly. His harsh laugh rang. "Thrall-men? They are below you!"

  She licked her lips and looked up at him unflinchingly. "I fear they are not."

  His face went cold. He gave her a hard, humorless smile. "You have someone in mind —to plant the seeds of these children deep inside you?"

  "Don't be angry. It's only that you're going away, and I have no way to know what my fate will be while you're gone, or even after you return. You may find you're indifferent to me"

  He let the silence grow uncomfortable before saying, "You aren't without value, you know, even without your maidenhead. I could still sell you for a goodly profit in any market"

  "I wouldn't dare ask you not to do that except I feel you harbor some affection for me; you've shown me some kindness."

  "Some!" He looked cruel. "I've favored you. Given you gifts! Fed you tidbits and sweet yellow wine! And now I find I've nourished a snake."

  "Please try to understand! It isn't that I'm ungrateful; it's only that I need to feel safe."

  Inga had already made hints that if, in the jarl's absence, Edin presumed an inch above her place, she would feel the whip. She didn't tell him this, she still had some pride left. But her voice dropped to a mere breath. "I desperately need to feel safe."

  His jaw visibly unclenched. "You're safe with me." His voice was almost tender. "I've sworn never to set you aside, haven't I? I will grant you a boon, not the one you asked, which is preposterous, but this:

  The children I give you will be free. Your sons will grow up to use axes and shields, to practice sword-swinging and swimming, to sail the seas."

  "Vikings?" she said, disbelieving. "No! I would rather they did dirty work, carried burdens, lugged firewood, dunged fields — anything rather than be Vikings!"

  He eyed her narrowly. "They will be proud Norsemen, their father's sons. And your daughters will be the wives of Norsemen, with their own households to manage. They will carry keys and hold purse strings; they will provide food for their families, and clothing, while their men must be gone."

  "No." She lay motionless, stupefied with astonishment and suffering, with an agony that was simple but deep.

  "Aye." He drove the agony deeper still, speaking almost tenderly, as if he were granting her a great honor. "And as you see them grow, you'll know I was right to gift them with pride. But you, Shieldmaiden"—his tone roughened —"you have too much pride already. Forget this foolish idea —marry you to a thrall! You'll always be mine. You'll lay with no man ever but me, and mother no children but mine"

  ***

  The sun was just coming over the tops of the mountains, silvering the dew. Edin stood on the lookout bluff over the cobalt blue fjord. She reached outside her cloak to shade her face against the dawn's level rays.

  Below her floated the Blood Wing her gunwales deep in the water, for she was unnaturally laden with reindeer hides, bearskins, otterskins, wool, whalebone and whale oil, sea ivory, falcons and hawks, two sixty-ell marine cables, one made from walrus hide, the other from sealskin, herrings, salt, twelve rough-finished axe handles threaded on a stave of pine, ten measures of bird feathers for pillows, all for selling in the Kaupang market. Also aboard were dried meat, barley bread, casks of ale and cheese and fish and such for the crew.

  Inga was standing on the dock as the jarl supervised the last minute preparations. She looked small beside her splendid son. Now and again she said something, made a suggestion or admonished him about this or that, as mothers will. Edin could almost imagine her words: Have you got your woolen shirt on, son? The winds are bitter around the coast, and it would be too bad for you to take a cold.

  He answered her with the barest trace of a smile.

  The air was full of noise and excitement. Tall, good-looking men with rugged features, dressed in brilliant-hued tunics, and women with pinched expressions lined the shore to say good-bye to their sons and lovers. Puckish boys, mostly knees and knuckles and scabs, raced about, too full of excitement to stay still. Young Hrut Beornwoldsson stood stiff, the down on his chin still not thick enough to cover the resentment and envy on his face. His look was so telling that even Edin could feel the pounding in his throat, the readiness of his body for action, for hurrying off. He wanted to be a man so badly.

  Sweyn was there, too, his big blue eyes blazing in his wan face.

  Even the thralls had dropped their work to see the Blood Wing off. Men and women, elders and children, vanquishers and vanquished, masters and slaves —all were gathered.

  Those Vikings going with the jarl made a fine appearance in their polished and shining helmets and war shirts. From this distance Edin couldn't see that they were rather sullen: The night before had been drawn out with reminiscence; several barrels had been tapped to celebrate past vices. As they boarded the ship, the dragon bent her wooden, champing head. Studded weaponry gleamed everywhere—swords and axes, the
ir wide slicing edges opulently etched. Even though this was not a plundering party, no Viking would ever set off without all the weapons he could carry. That would be a thing of shame. Consequently, the party looked formidable. It was necessary, mayhap, for as Edin understood it, a single longship heading for market made a vulnerable target, and the southwest coast of Norway swarmed with pirates. It seemed Vikings, given the chance, even attacked one another. Brute violence backed with arms lorded everywhere in this land. They had a saying: "Seek not to know your fate —but don't travel without your sword, either."

  The jarl wore a fitted tunic of rich purple over his black trousers, which were cross-gartered to the knee. His cloak was black, lined with more purple. Truly Edin had never seen a more handsome man, none taller, blonder, more bronzed. Just to look at him caused a strand of delight to thread its way down her thighs.

  He touched his mother's shoulder as she said something more, and this time he smiled and nodded gently. He answered her. Was it something prosaic as Make sure Snorri gets the firewood stacked in cords; or was it something more laden with affection? Inga's obvious pleasure gave witness to the latter; she seemed to light up like a burning lampwick.

  Edin felt betrayed. While she stood drinking her fill of him with her eyes, he seemed to have all but forgotten his lowly bed-thrall, until suddenly —what was it? The gust of chill breeze that caused her cloak to billow and show her new royal blue dress? Or mayhap the sun catching on the wide silver torque around her throat, and the two new silver bands on her wrists? Whatever it was, suddenly something seemed to catch his eye; he seemed to wake up to her presence, like a hunting dog who suddenly smells a deer on the wind.

  He lifted his head, and not for a single instant did his eyes sweep around the mountain summits which everywhere peered down; no, they came straight to her —and her heart stood still with an extravagant anguish the likes of which she'd never known before.

  He didn't wave or shake an axe above his shoulder or by any other sign speak to her. He only looked his fill. Mayhap he was remembering her request again —or mayhap the last thing she'd said to him this morning. Either could be the cause of those thunderclouds on his forehead.