Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (14 page)

“
What fault did you find with the rudder?” Olaf questioned several minutes later. Lyting shifted his gaze to the shipwright.

“
The underside of the reinforcing block at the pivot point shows several cracks, some deep and severe enough that I’d not trust the piece for another venture.”

The chieftain concurred with a nod.
“Best look to it and replace it if you must, Olaf. I’ve found Atlison, here, to be uncommonly familiar with ships. I’ll be surprised if you don’t agree with him.”

Lyting ignored the darkling look Hakon hurled at him for drawing Skallagrim
’s favor. “My uncle was a shipwright on the Limfjord. I spent much of my youth training at his side.”

Olaf scratched his chin.
“Limfjord is as pirate-infested as the waters of Gotland.”

“
Satt
. True. But it proved valuable training for my time with the fleet at Nørdby and Søndervig.”

“
You were at Nørdby and Søndervig? With the king?” Olaf’s excitement grew. “The skalds claim those to be among the fiercest and finest battles fought in Scandia — the Danish sea tactics, brilliant against the
Norge
men. I should like to hear a full recounting over a bottomless horn of Gytha’s beer.”

Hakon
’s face darkened further, and Lyting regretted having opened this door. Even Rig hung upon his words. Gratefully, Skallagrim diverted the conversation along a more pressing path.

“
As would I, but later friend. We must get word out around the island to anyone who would sail with us in
felag
, fellowship, for Kiev.”

“
Consider it done,” Olaf agreed. “And I’ll see to the rudder’s block as well.”

“
What of the
Sea Goat
? Is she readied for the voyage?”

Olaf shook his head.
“A storm caught her off Oland last week, and she took hefty damages. She won’t be seaworthy for another month.”

Skallagrim frowned.
“ ‘Twould be too late to join the convoy. We need reach Kiev by the first of June. Have you other vessels suitable to the rivers?”

“
One, but ‘tis promised to Bjorn Pálsson. Sven has several of varying sizes, though.”

“
Good. Let us see them. I wish to be under way as quickly as possible.”

“
You will stay with us until you sail, of course,” Gytha asserted.

Skallagrim regarded Rig just as the young man
’s eye wandered to his prize slave. “
Já
, Gytha. But we need not crowd the hall. We’ll tent apart of the
hús
.”

“
As you will, but I shall expect you to take dinner with us,” she said firmly, then smiled. “Lyting can share his adventures with the king with us.”

Olaf prodded Rig from his musing.
“Take the small boat around the cove and help Hakon transport whatever equipment he needs.”

Rig dragged a parting gaze over the captives and, acknowledging his father, left with Hakon.

“I will see to your women while you are gone,” Gytha offered and beckoned for the women to follow. She halted as the two darker-haired women joined her. Wrinkling her nose, she drew down a disapproving brow over Skallagrim.

“
Slaves or no, you could allow them a bath.” She drew up her chin and led the women toward the longhouse. “Dalla. Eirik. Come,” she called back.

As the men started to depart, Olaf chuckled and rolled an eye to the chieftain.
“You should know better than to bring the women around to Gytha like that.”

The chieftain
’s beard expanded with a grin. “I do. Those two are Hakon’s. Mine is clean enough.”

Lyting gazed after the women, his curiosity grown.
“Gytha takes an uncommon interest in the slaves.”

-Gytha was a slave herself until a year ago,
” Skallagrim apprised. “Olaf’s slave, though ‘twas more in title than in fact where he was concerned.”

Lyting
’s brows parted with surprise, comprehension sifting through him.

“
I would have freed her a time ago.” Olaf’s shoulders rose and fell. “I wished to take Gytha to wife. But a man cannot marry his slave, and in freeing her, I feared she would make use of her new rights to leave me and return to her homeland. So, instead, I gave her reasons to stay — first Eirik, then Dalla.”

Lines rayed Olaf
’s eyes as he smiled deeply. “She has grown to like her life on Gotland, as wife to a shipwright. This new child, she gives me most willingly.”

Lyting pondered Olaf
’s tale as he retraced his steps around the harbor with the chieftain and shipwright. He thought on Gytha’s trials, and on how God had brought forth this unassuming man from among those she considered enemy, to deliver her, and love her, and turn her sorrow to joy.

Love. The word caught in his
chest and pierced him straight through.

Lyting compelled his thoughts back to the present, ignoring the sting that burned in his
heart.

»«

Lyting and Skallagrim admired the broad-beamed
knarr
, a merchant ship of deep draft with half decks fore and aft, the center open to carry cargo and livestock.

The men exchanged corresponding glances. She was a beauty, but her
tonnage was too great for portage overland. Upon the rivers they required a fast ship, powered by sail and oar. On land it must be light enough to transport, even with its full cargo still laden aboard. Unfortunately,
knarrs
were more suited to the open seas. They moved on.

“
This one is built of oak, twelve strakes high, and will take a crew of ten,” informed Sven, a stick of a man, tall and balding.

“
How old is she?” Skallagrim left Lyting’s side to inspect the vessel’s hull more closely.

While the chieftain discussed capacity and speed, Lyting scanned the workyard. He preferred a smaller vessel. One swift that required as few extra crewmen as necessary. No need to compound the difficulties of transporting a ravishing virgin undefiled.

His eyes alighted on a newly finished ship, standing in the yard. There, a man affixed a gilded wind-vane to the prow, topped with a roaring lion. Lyting joined him.

“
Has she performed her sea trials yet?” he asked of the craftsman as he estimated her breadth amidship. She could take a crew of five.

“
Tomorrow,” the man returned and began to knot bright-colored streamers onto the curved, punctured underside of the wind-vane.

As Skallagrim, Sven, and Olaf trod forward, Lyting gestured to the vessel.
“This one would serve us well.”

“
‘Tis a mite smaller than what I had in mind.” Skallagrim scanned her from bow to stern.

“
Já
, but to our advantage. She will be swift as a hawk, able to maneuver and outrun anything larger or heavier.”

Skallagrim pursed his lips, then shook his head.
“The Baltic pirates are my foremost concern before we reach Kiev. If they set upon us and ensnare us, I’d prefer to have more men and more steel at my disposal to greet them.”

Lyting recognized the difference in their paths of thought. Skallagrim had fought his battles primarily on land, whether while
i viking
or making overland portages. He apparently felt more secure in meeting the pirates with the same “stand and fight” mentality and with a complement of men.

But the sea was Lyting
’s own experience — a great floating battlefield. At times the fleet “stood and fought,” the great longships lashed together. But more often survival depended on skill and dexterity with the ships and in making them respond to the tactician’s commands. Battle tactics and sea maneuvers, those were the essence of war upon the waters. They reminded Lyting of Ketil’s gaming boards.

“
Still, I would like to partake in the sea trials on the morrow,” Lyting said, thinking that he would need to speak again of the matter with Skallagrim.

Sven readily agreed to take him on, and Olaf declared he would join in the trials, also.

As they made their return to the holding, Olaf prodded Lyting to share a tale of Nørdby or Søndervig. Lyting complied, deciding it an opportune moment to describe for his companions the art and stratagem of running blockades.

»«

As Lyting, Skallagrim, and Olaf approached the shipwright’s holding, young Eirik propelled himself from the ribbon of shadow that bordered the longhouse and hastened to join his father.

Olaf tousled the lad
’s hair. “Were you a help to Hakon and Rig? Did you raise the tents?”

Já
,
Faðir
. One. They sent me off after that and took the slavewomen inside with some skins of wine.”

Skallagrim
’s head jerked around. He pinned a hard-eyed look on the boy. Oblivious, the child fell into a skip, kicking up small, gritty sprays of sand with his toes.

“
They made some fearsome noises, too, and the sides of the tent started to rumble. I waited to see if it would fall down.” He toed up more sand. “Rig grunted like a pig! And Hakon groaned and shouted, too. Sounded like something got a hold of them both and wouldn’t let go. I thought I should help, but then one woman cried out — a different sort of cry. I think they hurt her.”

“
By the gods!” Skallagrim swore as he hulked forward. “It best not have been a virgin’s cry.”

Lyting raced with the others to the far side of the longhouse, his heart catapulting out of place. They arrived in time to see the curtain separate on the front of the wood-framed tent and Rig climb out. Bare to the waist and ruddy with exertion, he tightened the drawstring on his pants, then adjusted the bulge beneath.

Hakon followed, unclad. Snatching up his tunic from just inside the tent, he drew it over his head, then arrested his movements at the sight of the others. He observed the storm on Skallagrim’s brow, then let the shirt drop to cover his male boldness.

A smile
spread across Hakon’s lips. Lyting felt a challenge there, contention, presumably over the matter of the maid whom they both claimed. The gleam that shone in Hakon’s eyes gave a knife-twist to Lyting’s insides. Had Hakon defied his uncle and violated the beauty after all?

Skallagrim pounded forward as though he feared the same. But Hakon stepped aside and yanked back the tent drape to reveal the two dark-haired slaves within
— one with angry flashing eyes, her lush breasts exposed to all; the other with her head and torso turned away, clutching her clothes to cover her nakedness as she cried softly.

“
Ease yourself, Uncle. You bade me bring women to satisfy myself. I did and I have. You’ll recall, these are my spoils of the Irish raid. Yours is inside the
hús
.”

A tinge of resentment clung to his words. Hakon crouched down and idled a finger over the younger girl
’s back. We’ll be along shortly.

Rig grinned and scratched his stomach, prepared to reenter the tent.

“
Now
, Rig.” Olaf ordered stiffly. “
Komið
now. While we have the day’s light, we work. Hakon, cover up your women before every man in my shipyard abandons his task to take a turn on them.”

Olaf heeled off toward the
hús
, Eirik tracking after him. Disgruntled, Rig caught up his crumpled shirt and headed for the workyard.

As Hakon straightened, Skallagrim eyed the equipment that lay stacked and forgotten to the side of the tent, then fixed his nephew with an impatient stare.

“Now that your most basic needs are met, mayhap you can apply yourself to the concern of our encampment. Atlison can assist your efforts.” He gave a blunt nod to Lyting, indicating that he should remain. At that, Skallagrim stalked off, dogging Olaf’s path back to the longhouse.

Lyting and Hakon faced
one another. The air lay thick between them. Slowly Hakon’s mouth curled upward.

“
How long has it been since you had a woman, ‘monk’?” His tone echoed disdain, then he chuckled. “Take one. The raven-tressed girl there is full of spit and vinegar, but you’ll find her a hot piece and willing enough. Now, this one . . .” Hakon pulled the younger girl from the tent and held her before him. She shook pitiably. “This one is the sweeter morsel. Prettier, don’t you think? — though frightened as a fawn.”

He dragged the
length of hair from her shoulder, baring a smooth, ivory neck, mottled with bruises.

“
She’ll grow more yielding in time,” Hakon breathed as he dropped a kiss beneath her jaw. “They all do, given suitable inducement.”

Lyting narrowed his eyes and bridled a thoroughly unchristian but wholly Norse impulse to run Hakon straight through. But that would guarantee him naught but a length of steel through his own belly. Every man on Gotland would uphold Hakon
’s right to deal with his slaves as he pleased and would avenge him as a matter of personal duty in preserving the Law Code.