Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  Thoryn's hand had gone to his sword haft. To insult a Norseman was always a dangerous thing, and at that moment this particular Norseman was like a man with a bear at his throat and a wasp in his hair.

  Mayhap, in the end, it was the very audacity of it that saved the dark-eyed little man. Thoryn was amazed —and intrigued. He took a deep breath and said, "Arab, it's true we serve a lot of fish, because we have a lot of it; but you'll notice many pigs and goats in the market, for, despite the haughty remarks made by some, we eat pork and mutton, too. Exposure of sickly or crippled infants is allowed because there is no place in the North for physical weaklings. As far as Norse women enjoying a little independence, it is necessary when their men roam so much; what man wants a wife who despises him looking after his holdings? On the subject of our throat for song, and the Arab ear for music, it is not for me to comment."

  The Muslim laughed. "Well said, Viking!" He introduced himself: "Jakub Tartushi Muqqadasi. I have come a long way and am not over-impressed with this market. It seems to me you Vikings love every sort of bauble, going to foolish lengths to get hold of mere colored beads. Frankly, I am homesick for the elegance of my native Constantinople."

  "Then mayhap you should return to it with all speed."

  The Muslim laughed again. "You think me ill-bred. Indeed, travelers show vulgarity when they jeer at the habits and standards of their hosts, for there are no scales to weigh honor."

  "What I think, Arab, is that you're lucky not to look down at the floor and see your body lying there without your head."

  "Am I? I confess I was testing. You seemed different from most of your kind. A little more sensitive, which is a ray of sunshine in this cold northern place." He smiled hugely, showing white teeth. "Actually it is a great bronze dahlia of light! I saw you looking at those poor slaves, and there was sympathy in your face. Unusual for a Norseman."

  "For a barbarian, you mean. A mindless barbarian thug."

  The Muslim blinked his heavy, slow eyes. "Indeed."

  With deceptive leisure, he gestured to the shop owner, and two fresh bowls brimming with golden wine were placed before them. He paid with a Muslim gold dinar. He was as loquacious as Thoryn was taciturn: "I have dealt with Rus Vikings at Bulgar on the Volga bend. I have seldom seen a more perfect physical species. Positive Goliaths, as tall as date palms! And fair and ruddy and strong as camels. But they are also crude and uncouth —and the filthiest of Allah's beasts. They do not even wear clothes, neither tunics nor caftans, but merely use skins to cover their bodies on one side, leaving their hands free to seize their axes."

  Despite himself, Thoryn was interested.

  "When they anchor in the great river, they build big longhouses on the shore, each holding ten to twenty persons. Every man has a sea chest to sit on. With them are pretty girls destined for sale.

  "A Rus will have sexual intercourse with a slave girl while his fellows look on. Sometimes whole bands come together in that fashion, one seeming to make the others wild with lust. A merchant such as myself trying to buy a particular slave may need to wait and look on as the Rus completes his act with her."

  Thoryn recalled the sounds coming from behind the curtain in the slave trader's booth. "Things aren't much different here."

  For once the Arab refrained from comment. His dark eyes were slumberous. A lazy, thoughtful smile hovered about his lips and about his prominent cheekbones.

  Thoryn felt moved to defend his kind. "But you Arabs are like grandmothers; you tremble at the facts of life. And you seem to set yourself above us, yet you're nothing but a slave trader yourself."

  "That I am. Slavery is one fact of life I am not prone to run from, especially not if I can profit from it. But I pride myself on being civilized about it."

  Thoryn grunted. The man made him feel naive, provincial. For a moment he was lost in that feeling of impotence again. He gestured to the wine seller and raised his refreshed bowl to the Muslim. "May your heart keep youth and your Muslim mouth grow full of good Norse music."

  Muqqadasi laughed.

  "Tell me about your precious Constantinople, which we Norsemen call Miklagardur, the Great City."

  The Muslim's gaze seemed to wander away in the immensity of the task. "The Great City. But that is an understatement. It is the greatest city.

  "Its original name was Byzantium, the most magic of names, until in 300 A.D. the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire there and renamed it in his own honor." He shrugged. "Whatever you call it, it is memorably beautiful, with its domes and basilicas and pinnacles and towers gleaming in the sun. And also memorably shocking, for power and religion sit on twin thrones; courtesy and cruelty stroll hand in hand. There is wealth to be got there past the dreams of peasant Viking greed. Constantinople is the mecca for every merchant and mercenary from every known corner of the world. It teems with half a million people. It is not hard to imagine the effect it would have on a sea voyager accustomed to rough living—that heady blend of opulence and corruption, of bartering and brawling, of West and East."

  What Thoryn heard seemed a legend for the saga-sayers. It ill compared with the rugged life on an isolated steading where men wrestled their livings from stingy earth that was rock-sown and frequently frost-bound.

  They ranged through many subjects in the course of the next few hours. The clever Muslim drew Thoryn out about himself, until he admitted he was not married.

  "And yet it is clear to me that you are a man smitten with love."

  Thoryn bristled. "I know nothing of love, Arab."

  Muqqadasi chuckled into his wine bowl.

  "You find that amusing?"

  "I find you amusing, Viking. Vastly amusing. You are a walking example of the platitude that great love makes wise men become fools. You suffer, Viking, you are distraught. Your mind is full of sharp impulses. Who could help but mark it? And the only attitude I can take toward suffering of that sort is sympathy and boundless patience."

  Thoryn's hand went a second time to his sword haft.

  "To change the subject," the Muslim said smoothly, "do you realize that you Norse have a natural resource that could bring you wealth beyond measure in my land? You have access to pine and birch forests where many a warm-coated animal scuttles and burrows and swims —and I know whole markets that would buy as many as you could deliver."

  Thoryn's hand relaxed.

  "There are men the world over who can never get enough furs to flaunt their wealth and magnificence." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "Even the high clergy of the holy Christian church clamor for furs. Such a deadly poison of pride. To their shame they hanker after a lynx-skin robe as much as for eternal salvation. And they care not whether they gain either by means fair or foul." He sighed. "An able man could get rich satisfying such unsated and insatiable appetites."

  Thoryn lingered, listening, until the moon had risen, pale and full. It was Rolf who came to find him, Rolf, whose fine red cloak was torn. Thoryn refrained from asking who had won the argument between the Norsemen and the market woman. Unlike the Muslim, he knew when to keep his thoughts to himself.

  ***

  Thoryn was not sleeping well in his guest bed. Olaf was unhappy with him for staying away the whole day, for letting Hanne slip away to her bower instead of demanding her attention. Thoryn was hard pressed not to tell the man outright: Your daughter is not the wife for me; I would have so little trouble mastering her, young as she is, shy as she is, that soon I would make her my thrall. I need a stronger woman, a woman who will stand up to the dragon in me, a woman like . . .

  Edin.

  That made no sense! How could a woman who already was a thrall be stronger, more independent, less slavish than a woman who was free?

  And how could he, a free Norseman, be so mastered by his own slave? Frustration flamed out of him into the dark. He was like an ox wearing an iron ring, his tonnage tamed to the pull of a frail Saxon female. All he could see in his mind day and night was Edin. Edin's silky hair
spread over his bed pillows, a lush coverlet; Edin's shoulders and breasts; Edin's voluptuous body.

  Enough! He had to school his thoughts. By force of will he imagined Hanne in his bed, sweet-smelling, virginal. She was small, she was female . . .

  But she wasn't Edin.

  "Sheepsdung!"

  His curse sounded loud in the silence of his chamber. He groaned as luxuriant images of Edin crowded out the chaste little Hanne. Edin, who was beautiful where Hanne was only pretty; Edin, who challenged him even while she feared him, who ever made him feel he should be a better man, who had given him more, much more, than mere pleasure, who had given him hope.

  Thus he fought with himself. He'd just re-plumped his pillow and thrown himself into a new position when he heard his door quietly open. He saw a feminine shape standing there, half in and half out of the narrow opening. His eyes made out a white night shift, a lock of yellow hair lying over a shoulder.

  If this was more of Olaf's doing, he thought grimly, he'd chosen the moment poorly, for in an instant Thoryn was out of bed and catching Hanne's arm. She gasped as he yanked her into the room. He shut the door quickly and pulled her off her feet, up into his arms.

  "Thoryn!" she whispered.

  He took her to the bed and tossed her down, irritated beyond words by her cloying sweetness and her girlish bashfulness and her father's relentless pushing.

  "Oh!" She turned her head away quickly. Her hands fluttered with an air of not knowing what she was to do or where to go. "You're naked."

  What had she expected? What was her game? He climbed onto the bed with her and pulled her half beneath him.

  Still she kept her protests to sibilant whispers. "Let me go!"

  But he was not about to let her go. "You were sent here for this," he growled. "You were sent to act the whore, as if your honor was not a thing some women would give their very lives for." In his rakish mood, he willfully placed his hands over her breasts.

  They were small and maidenly, and beneath them her heart was fluttering like a captured bird's. She was hardly more than a little girl. He found his anger and frustration vanishing, though he tried hard to keep both hot.

  "Lie still now. I'm not going to take you —I'm not the fool your father thinks I am. But I don't mind toying awhile." One hand he placed beneath her nightshift's wide neckline, on the upper mound of one little breast. "Be still. This is new to you. Let me show you how it's done."

  "Thoryn-"

  "Stop squirming! You think you want to be my wife —this is part of what being a wife means."

  Suddenly she began to cry. "I don't want to be your wife! I don't! That's what I came to tell you!"

  That put him up on his elbows. He eased off her and sat up, finding enough blanket to cover the important parts of himself. She curled beside him, still weeping softly.

  "You don't want to marry me?" He smoothed his beard. "Well, I must admit I wasn't expecting that."

  A pin and a comb were falling out of her hair. He plucked them free and fingered them idly. At his touch, she got onto her knees and quickly put the length of the bed between them. Kneeling at the footboard, she faced him —almost. She was so shy, and embarrassed of course, and thoroughly afraid of him now. "Cousin," she said.

  "Cousin, is it?"

  She made a miserable sound. "This was a mistake. Please accept my apology. I'll go."

  He tossed the comb and pin aside and caught her hand. It had that slightly sticky-damp bonelessness of an infant's. He put a warning in his voice: "You will go nowhere —cousin —until you explain this visit to me."

  She stopped, checked the determination in his eyes, and sat on her heels again. She didn't fight his hold on her hand; she was as submissive as he'd known she would be.

  "Now," he began, "you don't want to marry me?"

  Her head made faint movements, as if the monosyllables no! no! no! were making a lie out of what she said: "Marrying you would be very nice, I suppose." She dared to peep at him. "It is just that, well, I'd rather marry someone else."

  "Anyone in particular? Or just anyone rather than me?"

  She looked close to tears again.

  "Who is he?"

  She shook her head helplessly. "My father is very determined that I should marry you."

  Thoryn was thinking. So the girl was infatuated with someone else. He should have read the signs, but he'd been blinded by his own appeal — and assumed Hanne found him as acceptable as he found himself.

  She was gently twisting her hand, trying to free herself. When he dropped his hold, she whispered, "Thoryn, are you very determined to marry me?"

  He said roughly, "I'm not a bit interested in taking a little slaughter lamb to wife."

  She bowed her head and sniffed.

  "Go. If you're to be another man's, it better not look as if you've already been mine."

  She climbed down off the bed. "You won't tell anyone I was here?"

  "I owe you no promises."

  Another sniff.

  "By the gods, girl, get out of here before I — "

  No need to finish the threat; she was already gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Thoryn borrowed a mount from Olaf to go riding the next day. Several men from the Blood Wing and from Olafs hall rode out with him into an eye-whipping wind. Once away from the town, they rode through an avenue of walnut trees, which formed a shady tunnel of moving light and shadow. The men talked of battles and falcons. Ottar launched into a tale of wenching that soon had everyone laughing.

  Thoryn asked the Black Dane, whose name was Far Reginn, about the tide of Christianity lapping at the Danevirke on Denmark’s edges. The man shrugged and told how he’d cheerfully submitted to provisional baptism as a condition for being allowed to work as a mercenary in a Christian community. "It is a common custom, yet a Norseman keeps whatever faith is most pleasant to him."

  Without thought, Jamsgar said to Thoryn, "And how goes it with fair Cousin Hanne?"

  Thoryn put on a little smile. "The girl understands me now.

  It took no more than that to draw the Black Dane out. "What do you mean?" he asked.

  Thoryn let his eyelids close and open again lazily. "I was growing tired of her hesitancy. She smelled vulnerable last night, and I took the chance I had."

  Far's black brows knotted, and he seemed to chew the inside of his cheek. His confident manner had deserted him. "What are you saying?"

  "I thought it was plain enough, Far Reginn."

  "And I say it wasn't, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

  Thoryn shrugged and scratched his fingernails through his beard. The Dane's eyes darkened as his anger grew. He was strung so tight he would draw his sword any moment. Thoryn said, "She strayed a little too near my chamber door and I . . . invited her in."

  Far laughed uncomfortably. "Of course you did — we're all great tellers of stories."

  Casually Thoryn drew out from his belt a hairpin and a comb. He showed them with a little smile.

  The man went white. Stopping his horse, he said in a shocked voice, "You dishonored her?"

  Thoryn halted his own mount. "You seem to feel an unnatural amount of interest for a man who is unconcerned in the matter. Or who should be unconcerned."

  Far's glare threatened to catch Thoryn's tunic afire.

  "Mayhap," he added, "she has wandered too close to your door in the past?"

  Far drew his sword.

  Thoryn's hand went to his own sword; he loosened it in its scabbard as he slid off his horse. "A challenge, Far? One can only wonder why?"

  The Dane's black eyes gleamed. "You took her —no doubt hurt her!" He swallowed his rising emotions and said more quietly, "For that I will send you out on the long voyage that ends in Valholl, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

  The wind took his words off, leaving a breezy, but nonetheless dangerous, silence. Thoryn said, "If you want a fight, a fight you shall have. But I would know exactly what we are fighting for."

  "For Hanne Olafsdaughter's honor."<
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  "I think not. I've suspected for several days that she had a fondness for another. I told the truth in that I did pull her into my bedchamber last night, and even into my bed. I know well how her breasts feel —but I didn't take her. She struggled a little too desperately, and wept, until I was half inclined to be angered. I want no wife who weeps for another when she should only be thinking of me. So I decided to find out who might be scenting after her —and now it seems I know. Olaf's hard-eyed mercenary has an odd romantic fleck."

  The man stood stiff with pride, saying nothing. The wind billowed under his cloak. One day he would be formidable; the arched staves of his rib cage were like the frames of a longship. But for now he was still young enough that his body was mainly hulking bones and nerves with little meat to hide them. Still, he already had a certain reputation as a fighter. Thoryn glowered at him. "You are poor, Far Reginn, forced to eat another man's meat. Such a thing is not above the ability of a man to set right —but let's see if you have any real skill with that sword you're so quick to draw. This I swear: If you can best me here today, I'll sail home on the first east wind —without Hanne Olafsdaughter."

  He signaled to Rolf, who spread his rather tattered, square red cloak on the ground and said formally: "He who steps off the cloak loses."

  Those from the fjord ranged about Thoryn, their eyes on him trustingly. Drawing Raunija, he said, "Aye now, see that each stroke meets its mark, Far Reginn, and none of that silly flailing of the sword you Danish men are given to. Every thrust must bite if you expect to father the children of my tender-breasted little cousin."

  Far gave a little jogging dance, as though to work up his boldness.

  An over eager puggy! Thoryn thought. For his part, he stood still, with his longsword poised before him, until at last Far struck.