Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (8 page)

“
Já
,” Ketil answered with a shadow of caution. “We arrived yestermorn from Normandy.”

The man seemed to consider this for a moment, then his eye ranged to Lyting.
“Your friend tried to buy a slave of mine.” He nodded toward a maid who labored over her wash at the end of the wharf. A maid of exceptional beauty.

Ketil lifted a brow in utter surprise. He had heard of the incident from Aleth and Brienne. But they made no mention that the maid Lyting sought to free was one so fair.

Ketil tugged at his beard, a smile spreading beneath the fiery thicket. ‘Twas a good sign. Mayhap, his badgerings and advisements would bear fruit after all.

Ketil smoothed his mustache and shrugged casually.
“I imagine that one draws many an eye.”

“
Já
, that she does. But your friend seemed more intent than most.” The man looked again to Lyting and considered him with a hard stare. “Normandy, eh? Has your pale-haired friend a name?”

Ketil bent an eye over the sea-warrior, gauging how he should respond.
“Lyting Atlison, blood-nephew to Duke Rollo himself and brother to the Baron de Valsemé. We sail under the baron’s banner. And you?”

The man rolled an eye to Ketil.
“Skallagrim, master of the
Wind Raven
. I sail under my own banner.” Unexpectedly one side of his mouth drew into the semblance of a smile, then faded. His attention returned to Lyting.

“
Best advise Atlison to take a long, cold swim. His desire for my slave is obvious, but the maid is not for purchase. He’ll have to find another to bed.”

“
Him?” Ketil fairly choked, though the thought of Lyting “in lust” was wondrously heartening.

Again, a faint knell of caution sounded somewhere in Ketil
’s brain, and he felt a compelling need to put Skallagrim’s concerns to rest. He hoped Lyting would understand the necessity to depict matters as he must to their Odin-worshipping kinsman.

“
Nei
, there be naught to glean in his interest,” Ketil avowed. “Those Franks have turned him into a knee-bending Christian. He seeks a monkish life on our return to Normandy. ‘Twas not for himself but for the baronne that he sought to acquire the maid. She is a softhearted woman, a Frank.”

Skallagrim looked to Ketil skeptically.
“Odd that she would choose a slave of such beauty to tempt her husband.”

Ketil huffed into his beard. Obviously Skallagrim had not seen the Lady Brienne nor heard the saga of
hers and Rurik’s joining. Their tale of love was the sort skalds remembered in verse and celebrated in the halls.

“
Nei
. I did not mean that the baronne selected the maid. She left the matter of purchase to Lyting. He is after all, a full-blooded son of Danmark. Understandably, he chose the most beautiful.”

To Ketil
’s surprise, Skallagrim cracked a smile.

“
I imagine the baron would have been appreciative of that, had he succeeded!”

Ketil remained silent as the chieftain cast a suspect eye to Lyting.

“He seeks to be a monk, you say? I have heard that the Christians’ beliefs can unman a warrior. But he does not look unmanned from here.”

“
Lyting honors the vows he seeks to embrace, even now,” Ketil maintained staunchly but truthfully. “He suffers as any man who denies his body. He finds his relief as you suggest, by taking frequent swims in cold lakes.”

The tension seemed to seep out of Skallagrim
’s shoulders and limbs. His smile reappeared, then mellowed as he shook his head. “ ‘Tis unfathomable, this priest-class’ devotion to celibacy that the Christians so revere.”

Ketil found no response as his thoughts went to Aleth. To his mind, the fairest and most enjoyable achievement of Divine creation was Woman, and
she
God fashioned expressly for Man.

“
At least your friend will enjoy the riches of the church without the need to first plunder them!” Skallagrim grinned.

Ketil gave a brief nod and matched his smile as though to agree. He hoped Lyting would move with care about Skallagrim and the beautiful slavegirl. A misstep could prove fateful.

»«

Ailinn rose to her feet, slipping a last glance to the Dane as she took up the dense weight of wet linens. Their eyes brushed for the barest of moments before she turned and followed Thora back along the wharf.

The vision of the bright-haired warrior continued to play in her mind as she and Thora retraced their earlier steps, turning down one lane, then another. Suddenly they came upon a gathering — mostly Arabs and Northmen — crowded about something of interest. In their midst Ailinn spied the maids of Clonmel, displayed before all as common slaves, proffered for a bit of coin. ‘Twas then that her gaze fell on Lia.

“
Ní hea
!” Ailinn lurched forward, her shackles trammeling her step. Their eyes found each other’s just as Thora cuffed Ailinn alongside the back of her head, where marks would be hidden beneath the hair.

Ailinn bent beneath the blow, clutching the sodden laundry to her side. She tasted the sharp, bitter hatred that filled her soul. Hatred for all that was Norse.

Slowly she straightened and cleaved Thora with such a look of vehemence and utter loathing that the Norsewoman drew back a pace.

Ailinn
’s eyes then sought Lia’s once more. Their gazes met and held across an ocean of pain in one last farewell.

As she forced her steps on to follow Thora,
Ailinn’s heart splinter into a thousand pieces.

Woodenly
she trailed Thora’s steps back to the house. As she approached the portal, she observed Hakon within the fenced side yard, his back facing her.

Unclad to the waist, he peered into a small disk of polished metal, nailed to a sapling, and scraped away the growth that covered his jaw. Though Hakon appeared unconcerned with the women
’s arrival, Ailinn saw that he watched her in his mirror as she moved toward the door and entered the dwelling.

Thora had no sooner set her to a task than Hakon appeared
on the threshold and stepped inside. He paused by the barrel of ale that sat near the entry and took a hollowed gourd from the wall. Ladling up a portion of the golden liquid, he drank it slowly, his eyes passing over her where she knelt by the hearth. Draining the last of the beverage, he returned the dipper to its peg, wiped his mouth, and departed without a word.

Unease settled in Ailinn
’s bone. She strove to force Hakon from her mind as she coaxed the embers to life. Thora lingered by the door a moment longer, gazing after Hakon’s back. Her eyes then drew to Ailinn.

Thora moved to a weathered trunk that sat along the wall. Opening it, she withdrew a stout chain, several
arms’ lengths in measure, and a heavy lock. Her expression lightened as she started toward Ailinn.

With a grunt, Thora half-bent, half-squatted to remove the linkage that bound Ailinn
’s ankles. She then reshackled Ailinn’s left leg with the second, much longer piece of chain. Rising, Thora proceeded to wrap the end about the carved, timbered post opposite the hearth and secure it with the lock.

Ailinn remained motionless as Thora sought her mantle and advanced toward the door. On a parting thought, Thora turned back, grabbed up an abandoned distaff bearing a fluffy knob of wool, and returned to Ailinn long enough to thrust it into her hands. She then
snatched up a shallow basket — one Ailinn recognized from yestereve as having held the supper’s fish — and quit the house. Thora’s voice sounded outside as she presumably informed Hakon of her departure.

The moment drew out. Stillness descended upon the house. Silence.

Ailinn sank beside the hearth, alert, observant, her ears strained for the slightest sound. She fingered the wool, then absently began to twist the fibers to begin a thread as she glanced about the empty hall. Abruptly Ailinn stayed her hands and dropped her gaze. Thora had provided her no spindle. The Norsewoman never intended that she should work the wool.

Just then the room darkened as though the sun had escaped behind the clouds and had been momentarily blotted out. Fine hairs raised along the back of Ailinn
’s neck. Her gaze drew to the door to behold Hakon framed within its portal.

Ailinn ceased to breathe. Hakon
’s eyes smoldered deep in their sockets, two burning coals. She prayed he had come for naught but the ale and would quickly slake his thirst and be gone. Her hopes withered as Hakon stepped inside and passed the barrel, sparing it no interest.

He came to a halt. Tunic in hand, he wiped the sweat from his bare chest, then threw it to the side-floor. Eyes never leaving her, he continued forward.

Ailinn rose on watery legs as Hakon uttered something in his Norse tongue and closed the distance.

“
I do not understand.” Her grip tightened around the distaff, and she edged -backward.

Again Hakon spoke, these words different, though as incomprehensible as the first.

“N’ on digná tu.
I do not understand. Leave me be!”

The ankle cuff bit into her flesh as the chain jarred to its end and held fast. Still, she strove to
draw back, straining against the bonds, her leg and the linkage stretched tight.

Hakon bridged the narrow space in an easy stride and clamped iron fingers about her arms. Terror sheared through Ailinn as he hauled her against his rock-hard chest. Frantically she thrashed and pitched within his hold but gained no advantage. A slim hope glimmered
— a single word. Yet, as the name of her grizzled protector rose in her throat and reached her lips, it was crushed beneath Hakon’s bruising mouth.

Ailinn cried against the assault, her pleas stifled beneat
h his ravaging kiss. Desperate, she angled the distaff and stabbed for his side.

Hakon snarled and wrenched back as the stick caught him low across the waist. Knocking the piece from her hands, he thrust Ailinn to the floor, then dropped to cover her. But she rolled from under him and clambered to gain the side-floor. Hakon aided her efforts as he grasped her about the waist and tossed her up onto fur throws.

Pain tore at Ailinn’s leg as the chain jolted against its limits once more. In the skip of a heartbeat Hakon flung himself atop her. Pinning her arms, he pressed her into the pelts. She felt the hard length of his ravenous passion as he ground his hips against her.

Yanking at the folds of her skirt, he bared her leg and swept his roughened hand upward over thigh and hip to capture her buttock. Forcing her against him, Hakon seized her lips in a brutal kiss.

Ailinn writhed beneath him, each breath hard won, the air pressed from her lungs. Just when she feared she might suffocate, he shifted. Grasping the fullness of her breast, he coarsely caressed her. Ardor blazed in his eyes. Impatient, Hakon fisted the gown’s neckline and tore it free.

Crippling fear overtook Ailinn as the fabric r
ipped. The sound of it filled her ears, then changed and swelled in volume to an earsplitting roar. Just as cool air touched her breast, Hakon’s weight abruptly left her. He catapulted backward by an unseen force, and Ailinn next found herself staring up through open space at the rafters.

Twisting, she caught sight of Skallagrim as he hurled Hakon across the room. Like a great, raging bear he set upon Hakon. Dragging him to his feet, he slogged him in stomach and jaw, then backhanded him across the face.

Hakon hurtled backward against the side-floor, yelling out as his ribs struck against the edge of board. Mouth and nose bleeding, a cut above his eye, he stirred to gain some advantage.

But Skallagrim
’s fury stormed unabated. Grabbing an ax down from the wall, he clutched the shaft at each end then started once more for Hakon. As Hakon recovered his footage, Skallagrim caught him straight on with the ax handle. Ramming it across Hakon’s throat, he shoved him up against one of the hall’s stout posts, nearly lifting him from his feet.

»«

“Cease, Uncle!” Hakon rasped beneath the wood. “Would you kill me for a mere kiss of your slave? I did but seek a taste of her lips and pleasure my hand with her breasts.”

“
You lie,” Skallagrim snarled in his face.

“
Nei
,” Hakon spat with disdain. “I would not spoil your prized gift to the Byzantine. I have not forgotten her usefulness to you.”

Skallagrim eyed him with a hard, incisi
ve gaze. “See that you remember,” he bit out. “ ‘Twill be a long journey, Hakon. Take what slavewomen you will to satisfy your lusts for the duration. But be assured, touch this one and I shall personally cut your throat, nephew or not.”

At that, Skallagrim released Hakon. Angrily Hakon snatched up
his tunic from the side-floor and stalked from the hall.

»«

Ailinn gripped the wreckage of fabric to her breast. Eyes wide and nerves racked raw, she trembled violently as her grim-faced master approached.