Maidensong (18 page)

 
“
All babies look like that at first,” Bjorn said chari
tably. “Rika says little Dagmar will be more comely with time.”
And with hair,
he thought, less charitably.

 
“
Rika,
ja,”
Gunnar said. “You’ve hit upon the very
thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
He put a broth
erly arm around Bjorn’s shoulders and led him away
from the yard where the fighting men were taking their
exercise.

 
“What about her?” Bjorn asked suspiciously, his hands balled into fists. He wasn’t yet ready to discuss
her with Gunnar. He could still see Rika’s wild eyes
and hear his brother’s voice hoarse with lust.

 
“
Is it true what I’ve heard? She refuses to bed you?” Gunnar lowered his voice.

 
“Where did you hear that?”

 
“
Never mind. A
jarl
has ways of knowing things
,” Gunnar said. “Is she still a
maiden?”

 
Bjorn was tempted to lie. It was none of Gunnar’s business, but he’d never kept anything from his brother. He saw no reason to start now. Bjorn’s shoulders sagged. “
Ja,
she is.”

 
“What’s wrong with you, little brother?”

 
“J
ust because I won’t force a woman doesn’t mean
there’s anything wrong with me.” Bjorn shook off Gunnar’s arm. “I don’t see you leading Astryd around
by the nose.”

 
“
A wife is another matter entirely, trust me on
that.” Gunnar sighed. “Now a thrall, her wishes shouldn’t concern you particularly.”

 
“But they do,” Bjorn admitted. “In truth, brother, I would marry her.”

 
“Marry? Now it’s certain that Rika is not just a gifted storyteller, but a sorceress as well,” Gunnar
said, clearly alarmed. “We know almost nothing about
her. She could easily be a practitioner of
seid
craft.”
He made the sign against evil as he mentioned that
most malicious of dark arts.

 
“That’s ridiculous,” Bjorn said. “Magic can’t account for me wanting to wed her.”

 
“She’s bewitched you with some runic spell. How
can you even think of making her your wife?” Gunnar shook his head. “She’s a thrall and your bed-slave. That woman is meant for
one thing only—your pleasure, and believe me when I
tell you that marriage is not conducive to a man’s
pleasure.”

 
“It’s like to be my only hope.” Bjorn grinned wryly.

 
“But consider what you do to the house of Sogna, to
marry so far beneath you? By Loki’s hairy toes, she’s a
thrall, little brother.”

 
“Only because I made her so,” Bjorn said. “Actually,
I never met a woman who believes herself so far above
me.” An image of Rika in the bathhouse, naked and
defiant, brought a smile to his lips. “She may just be
right in that.”

 
“Hmm. Do you know what I think?” Gunnar slid his
tongue over his teeth. “I think you should free her.”

 
“
Free her?” Bjorn backed a step away. “Then I’d lose her entirely.”

 
“
I don’t think so. I’ve seen her watching you when
she thinks you don’t see. There’s a look on her face
that I wish a woman would cast toward me.”

 
Bjorn glared at his brother. Did the
jarl
still wish Rika would look his way? He suspected Gunnar thought the fiery redhead would easily be
worth Astryd’s ire. Yet Gunnar’s words gave him hope. Rika held herself aloof from him, but did she secretly
want him?

 
“You think she’d have me if she were free?” The
tone of his voice was pathetically hopeful, even to his
own ears. Bjorn winced at his words.

 
“
Ja,”
Gunnar assured him. “If she were a free woman, she’d fall into your arms like a ripe plum. It seems to me that she only withholds herself now be
cause she chafes under the iron collar. As a skald, she’s
a proud woman. She’s like a fine kestrel that needs to
fly free, but will be happy enough to settle back on your wrist of her own choice.”

 
First Torvald and now his own brother. Bjorn had been told that Rika needed to be free by no less than
two men. Three, if he counted the counsel of his own
heart.

 
“You’re right, Gunnar,” he said. “I’ll free her tonight after
nattmal.”

*
  
*
  
*

 
“Tell it again, Rika,” Ketil urged as he lugged most of
the weight of the large bucket they toted between them.

 
Rika smiled at him and launched into her second
telling of ‘Ketil the Bold.’ She’d known since child
hood that Magnus and Ketil had found her on an ice
floe. But to amuse her brother, she’d dreamed up an
elaborate story about the event. In Rika’s tale, Ketil was no longer just a young simpleton. He was a for
eign prince, who wrestled her from the coils of Jormungand, that vile serpent whose body encircles the
earth’s seas. In Rika’s tale, he was Ketil the Bold.

 
Actually, Ketil’s true story was much like hers. He
too had been abandoned at birth, a fate that befell most infants whose vacant expression betrayed a
faulty mind. Magnus had saved Ketil from a wolf pack
just outside of Trondheim and always said he’d res
cued the kindest soul Odin ever sent to Midgard.

 
As Rika told Ketil the fanciful story in which he
played such a heroic role, she couldn’t help wondering
how she’d come to be adrift on the ice. Why had she
been expelled? It was a hurt, a small keening ache, which never quite went away.

 
Yet, when she smiled up into her brother’s beaming face, the ache retreated in the warmth of his un
abashed love. Somehow, Bjorn had arranged for her to
spend more time each day with Ketil, which delighted them both.

 
Ketil was doing surprisingly well. Surt had taken
him under his wing and her brother’s good-natured
sweetness had won him easy acceptance among the
other slaves of the house. Ketil’s needs were few: kind
words, plenty of food and a warm place to sleep. Since
Ketil had difficulty making decisions anyway, he wasn’t the least troubled by taking orders all day, as
long as no one barked at him or scolded. He seemed
genuinely happy.

 
“Rika, I would speak with you,” Gunnar called from behind them.

 
“Go on into the house with the bucket, Ketil,” she
said quietly. Unease ruffled through her whenever she
heard the
jarl’s
voice, especially when Bjorn wasn’t
around.

 
Ketil squinted at Gunnar for a moment and then
heaved the bucket up. “Be careful. He’s got bad eyes,”
her brother whispered before he turned to go.

 
She bit her lip, pondering Ketil’s warning. Before
that moment, she’d never heard him say a disparaging word about anyone.

 
Rika waited for the
Jarl
of Sogna to come to her, her
hands folded demurely before her. “I have duties, my
lord, that require my presence elsewhere, so I trust this will be brief.”

 
Gunnar laughed. “What delightful impudence! You
are indeed an ornament to my court.” He circled
around her, taking his time, as though measuring her.
Satisfied, he stopped before her.

 
Rika knew he was trying to fluster her with his bold
stare, so she returned his gaze coolly. They were in a public place. She had no need to fear him, she tried to assure herself. But just the same, she couldn’t suppress a wish that Bjorn would appear suddenly around the
corner.

 
“
You want it brief? Very well,” Gunnar said. “Brief
it shall be. That large ox you were with just now is your brother, isn’t he?”

 
“
Ja.”
Her lips pressed into a tight line. It hurt her heart for anyone to demean Ketil. She wondered
sometimes how people could look at her brother and not see his good soul, shining pure and clean through
his childish eyes. “He is my brother.”

 
“Very close, are you?”

 
“
I’m all he has in the world, and he is all I have,” Rika said simply.

 
“Good. I like close families.”

 
“I’m glad to have gratified you, my lord, and now if
you’ll excuse me.” She turned to go, but he snaked out
a hand and grabbed her arm.

 
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Gunnar’s voice was sharp-
edged. Her brief flare of alarm seemed to excite him. “
We’re not finished yet.” He pulled her close and she
felt his sudden arousal, pressed lewdly against her
hip. “I need to send a bride to my trading partner in
Miklagard.”

 
“I fail to see what that has to do with me.” She wrenched herself away from him, rubbing her arm
where his grasping fingers raised angry red marks on
her pale skin.

 
“I intend to send you.”

 
A nervous smile fluttered on her lips. “It’s not wise to marry a woman off without her permission. Have
you forgotten the tale of Botilla, whose family saw her
wed without her consent, not once, but five times? All five marriages ended in maiming, murder or divorce,”
she recounted airily, trying to keep the mood light. Surely the
jarl
must be attempting some grim jest.

 
“
Still, I will see you sent to Farouk-Azziz in Miklagard,” Gunnar said with certainty.

 
“That would be rather difficult to do since I belong
to your brother.” When he circled her now, she turned
with him to keep him in sight.

 
“But if you were free?”

 
“
Then it would be even more difficult for you to
bend me to your wishes, my lord,” she said through a
clenched jaw.

 
“I think not. Not as long as your brother belongs to me.” A crooked smile stretched Gunnar’s features unpleasantly.

 
“What are you saying?”

 
“
Just that if you do not my will, then I have no choice but to send your brother—Ketil, is that his
name?—your brother Ketil to Uppsala when the year
for sacrifice comes again.” He tapped his temple
thoughtfully. “Why, that’s just next summer, isn’t it?”

 
Eight years ago, she and Magnus and Ketil, along
with most of the Northern population, converged on
the Sacred Grove. For nine days, people traded, drank
and brokered marriages. And at night they worshipped
Odin in the dark, leafy bower of giants next to the tem
ple. The mighty boughs strained under the weight of
hanged victims of all sorts, horses, goats, fowl, and
men.

 
Rage quivered impotently inside her. “How can you
demand this of me when you know it is not in my
power to grant it? I can’t wed of my own choice as long
as I am your brother’s slave.”

 
“So you’re saying that if you were free, you would
consent to the marriage?” Gunnar asked.

“Ja,
I would,” she said, her heart pounding. “To save my brother, not to please you.”

 
"I have your word, then.” Gunnar all but pounced
on her. “
If
you were free, you would willingly go to
wed my trading partner in the south?”

 
“But I am not free.”

 
“
Humor me for a moment,” Gunnar said. “If you were free?”

 
“
Ja,
you have my word,” she said warily. What was
the
jarl
playing at? It was a moot point as long as she
wore the collar. For the first time since it was bolted on
her neck, its weight comforted her. “
If
I also have
yours.”

 
“What?”