Maidensong (24 page)

 
His soul shone through his dark eyes, pain-filled but
with a glimmer that Rika thought might yet be love. When Bjorn looked at her like that, she had difficulty
drawing breath. Her insides rioted and she felt warmth
between her legs. Was it possible for a man to make
love to a woman with only his eyes on her, hot and knowing? Part of her wanted to be as wild as Freya and fly across the campsite at him, begging him to bed her and Loki take the rest of the world.

 
“And then what happened?” Jorand prompted.

 
Rika shook herself slightly and resumed the
tale. “After the four nights of dwarvish love, Freya re
turned with the necklace to her home in fair Asgard to find that Odur had arrived at home,” she said, noting Jorand’s
disappointed frown. He must have been hoping for
more salacious details. “Loving the dwarves had meant nothing to Freya, so she felt no need to tell
Odur how she came by her new trinket. They were
supremely happy together with Odur none the wiser.”

 
“Isn’t that just like a woman?” Uncle Ornolf said cynically.

 
“More like most men, if you ask me.” Helge raised a wiry brow at him.

Rika continued with the tale. “But Freya’s deception
could not be overlooked. Loki, the trickster, is never
satisfied that joy should reign either among the gods or here in Midgard amid the realms of men,” Rika said. “Loki told Odur the price Freya had
paid for her gor
geous new necklace and his heart was enraged. Odur
stormed out and left Asgard to roam the wilds of the
nine worlds forever.”

Love betrayed is love lost. The theme was potent
enough not to need any elaboration and Rika waited
for her audience to absorb the sorrow of it. She knew
the pain of it too well herself already.

Then she continued softly. “Freya still wears the
Brisingamen necklace she bought so dearly, for it has great power, but nightly she searches for her lost Odur.
As she travels through Midgard, the goddess weeps for
her love, leaving golden tears behind her.”

“A man might think more of those tears if he be
lieved they were genuine,” Bjorn said, looking side
ways at her. “Favor that can be bought with baubles,
no matter how fine, shows a certain . . . shallowness.
Love without faithfulness, love without a life together
is no love at all.”

Rika’s lips tightened into a thin line and she wouldn’t meet his eye.

As Bjorn studied her, he wondered whether she was trying to tell him that Gunnar was right. She was marrying the Arab for his wealth. If that were truly the
case, he knew he should despise her. But when Bjorn
saw her chin tremble, he knew he would always love
Rika, however she might shred his heart.

Rika’s hand went to her neck, where the little ham
mer used to reside. “Men who find Freya’s tears do value them highly.” Her voice quivered. “They have
become a glowing substance so prized we even bear
some to faraway Miklagard. Freya’s tears are what we
call amber.”

She paused for such a long time, her listeners shifted restlessly.

“The next time you wear amber, remember the
woman who made a poor bargain and lost her love in
the process,” Rika said softly. Bjorn noticed she had
said ‘woman,’ not ‘goddess.’

“Rika, the time for you to wear amber is now,” Tor
vald said. He drew the little hammer from the pouch at his waist and dangled it before her. “I heard you’d lost this and might want it back.”

Astonishment kissed her face and she reached for the necklace, open-mouthed.

“How did you ever . . . ?” She looked at the hammer
in wonderment. In the glow of the firelight, the tiny or
chid trapped inside winked brightly. It was her necklace, without a doubt.

“I’m glad it pleases you.” Torvald reached
around her slender neck to tie the leather cord. “It be
longs on the neck of a beautiful woman. It always has.”

Bjorn slitted his eyes at the old man. What was he
playing at? First Torvald wanted to see her freed, al
most to the point of coming to blows with Bjorn, a man
less than half his age and in his fighting prime. Now
Torvald was giving her presents like a hopeful beau.

“Thank you so much! How shall I ever repay you?” Rika gushed. When she wrapped her arms around Torvald,
Bjorn mentally kicked himself for not thinking to re
trieve the necklace from Astryd for her. She might
have been embracing him instead of hugging the stuff
ing out of that old man.

“I thought your faith in Thor had dimmed,” Bjorn said flatly.

“This isn’t about faith,” she said. “This necklace is m
y one link to the past, my last remembrance of my
father.”

“Your father?” Torvald blinked.

“Ja,
Magnus Silver-Throat,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him. Magnus always told me I have worn this emblem since I was a babe.”

Bjorn saw a shadow pass over Torvald’s face, a stricken expression that faded so quickly he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it. His distrust and dislike
of the older man was growing by the moment. Bjorn still didn’t understand why Torvald had insisted on coming on this long, weary trip. He’d seen well over
fifty winters, maybe more than sixty. Occasionally, Tor
vald was nearly crippled when the painful gout in his
foot flared up. He had no business on a trip of this
length and they hadn’t even reached the most danger
ous part of the journey yet. Why would the old man push himself to make the voyage?

When he saw the warmth in Torvald’s eyes as he
gazed at Rika across the fire, Bjorn was beginning to
think he knew why. And he didn’t like it one bit.

 
They reached the headwaters of the Dvina sooner than
Rika would’ve liked. She enjoyed the relaxed travel up
the placid waterway and the easy camaraderie of the
party. But sometimes the tension between her and Bjorn was so thick, she was sure the others must feel it
vibrating in the air around them. If they did, they gave
no sign, and each night Bjorn’s eyes sent Rika silent messages of desire.

Part of her knew it was foolish to extend the tor
ment for them both. Yet another part of her was grateful for one more day to spend in his company, to
watch his muscles working as he bent to the oar, to
hear his laugh when Jorand said something ridiculous,
and to feel him caressing her with his gaze across the
fire each night. She was storing moments, saving snip
pets of time forever in her memory, like her orchid
trapped in amber. They were stolen treasures to be sa
vored the rest of her life once the harem doors slammed shut on her.

The great city with its tall walls loomed larger in her
imagination, but she was not there yet. She would wring every drop of joy and exquisite torment she could from each day.

Ornolf had trade agreements with a Slavic tribe at
the river’s end. In exchange for hack silver, they fur
nished a large wagon with a bowed box, designed to haul the
Valkyrie
overland to the town of Kiev. The
price for this service was meticulously weighed out in silver and Ornolf snapped one of the coins with
strange Arabic symbols in two to make the scales fi
nally balance.

Each morning when Bjorn lifted Rika onto her horse
for the day’s travel, he slipped her a small piece of
wood with his rune carvings from the previous night. Some days, he’d worked on the names of the members
of the party, straining to make the sounds appear in
proper sequence. Rika noticed that he had yet to get Torvald’s name right. Other times he used the individ
ual letters in their symbolic meanings to send a nonsense message that made her laugh. One morning he surprised her with a horn comb he’d carved, on which
he’d inscribed ‘Rika owns this comb.’

There was never much opportunity for them to have
a private conversation, but the runes had become their
method of secret communication. Since no one else
knew runic writing, it was almost as if they had their own code. This morning when he pressed the wood into her hand, his palm lingered on hers a moment longer than propriety allowed for another man’s bride, but she didn’t pull away.

As they began their day’s journey, Helge and Torvald
rode in the wagon with Uncle Ornolf. She, Bjorn and
Jorand rode sturdy horses. When the rest of the party was engaged in conversation, she sneaked a glance at
the wood Bjorn had given her.

‘Rika owns this heart,’ the inscription proclaimed.

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. A leaden weight settled on her chest. Why was she doing this to
herself? She couldn’t have his heart. Didn’t want it, she
told herself angrily. His kisses came back to her against
her will, and she remembered his mouth on hers, full of wanting and hers on his, accepting and demanding
in return. She swayed in the saddle.

There was no chance for them. None. Gunnar and
his threats against Ketil and Bjorn ensured that. So
why was she playing the wanton, making eyes at him,
laughing with him, torturing them both with what could never be?

Because it’s all we’ll ever have
. Because she was greedy for him and no
matter the pain she caused him later, she had to have
what little she could of him now.

When she squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears,
she could almost see Magnus’s reproving face, mouth tight, one wiry brow arched. The old skald hadn’t raised her to be cruel.

A cut from a sharp blade
healed quickest. Bjorn might not see it as kind now,
but later, when he forgot her in the arms of another
woman, he would recognize the wisdom of her action.

Rika squared her sagging shoulders and dropped the rune stick so Bjorn could see her do it. When she heard it crack under the wagon wheel behind her, she didn’t even flinch.

 
The wedding party spent little time in Kiev, even
though it was the only sizeable town they’d encoun
tered for weeks. The settlement was laid out in
the typical Norse plan with half-timbered paths winding through the narrow lanes, and peopled with tall,
fair-haired folk, but Rika still felt out of her element.

The trappings of home in this faraway place made
her feel all the more homesick for the northlands. The town wasn’t perched on the edge of the sea or in the sheltered inlet of a fjord. Instead, Kiev signaled the start of their journey down the river Dnieper, whose
reputation for ferocity Rika was beginning to dread.

There was no space in the
Valkyrie
for additional
trade goods, so Ornolf wasn’t of a mind to linger in the
market. And Bjorn had pushed the group to exhaus
tion each day, driving them to cover more
landmiiller
than Rika would’ve thought possible. He hadn’t spoken to her or met her eyes since she purposefully dropped his last runic message to her. She supposed she should be grateful.

Rika climbed into the
Valkyrie
after Helge.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy to be
getting back into the boat, so 1 am,” the old midwife
announced. “My bony backside has had enough of be
ing jolted along in that wagon. The
Valkyrie
glides
along pretty smooth by comparison.”

Rika wondered whether the old woman was reconsidering that comment when they pulled back to shore
later, above the first cataract. It was called Es
soupi, which meant ‘Do not sleep.’ The roar of water
made normal conversation impossible. Rika couldn’t imagine anyone would actually be able to fall asleep amid the din.

The
Dnieper narrowed at that point and was clogged with mossy boulders standing midstream like
little islands that sent the waters surging and leaping
over them. Trying to shoot over the rapids in the cen
ter of the river would tear out the bottom of even so
light a craft as the
Valkyrie,
reducing the boat to shat
tered splinters.

But
if
all
the cargo was off-loaded first, there was a
narrow lane along the high bank where the men could
half-float, half-drag the boat without having to portage
away from the river. After they passed through the
white water, the men would hike back along the river
side path to retrieve the trade goods and carry them
down to the waiting
Valkyrie.