Maidensong (36 page)

Rika and Al-Amin walked past the Hagia Sophia, the high-domed Church of Holy Wisdom. Ethereal
song floated out to them sung by smooth voices, disembodied and bloodless. The drone of plainsong was
much admired. It was considered deeply spiritual and
pure, but Rika missed the full-throated singing of her
homeland. The raucous timbres heard in a longhouse
were often unpleasant, but they were always full of life.

She could almost hear them now, earthy and bombastic.

“Less good they say for the sons of men

Is the drinking oft of ale.”

“Allah be merciful, what is that dreadful sound?”
Al-Amin looked around, trying to locate the source. “
All that growling! It sounds like a big dog is being
butchered alive.”

The voice rolled over her again.

“
The more they drink, the less they think,

And end up on their tail!”

Rika gasped. She knew that voice.
Bjorn had sung that song for her one evening on the
island, as they huddled around their
little
fire. It had a
long string of verses each more ribald than the last,
presumably as the company became drunker with each
round.

“It’s coming from that building there,” Rika pointed
to a fortress across the square. “What is that?”

“The prison, my lady,” Al-Amin said.

“We must go there.” She nearly broke into a trot. “
That voice belongs to ... a countryman of mine. I
will not see a Northman languishing in prison if I can
help it.”

“It’s not seemly for a woman to visit there,” the eu
nuch complained. “You should tell the master and he
will see to it.”

She wheeled around and fisted her hands at her
waist. “I’ll go with you or without you, but either way,
I’m going. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in Mikla
gard, it’s that anything can be bought for the right
price. Now tell me, how does one secure the release of
a prisoner here?”

 
Bjorn plodded down the dim passageway, hands and
feet bound in irons, with the jailer before and a guard
behind. He hadn’t been out of his cell since he arrived
and the wonder of being able to walk more than a few
steps before turning around was almost more than he
could bear.

“Pity there isn’t time to clean him up,” the jailer
said. “She might pay more if he looked
better.”

“I don’t know.” The guard behind him spat on the fetid floor. “I’ve heard tell some of these
randy women like ‘em dirty. Big one, isn’t he?”

“I expect that’s why she wants him.” The first man broke into gales of laughter.

“If she wants a big fellow, why don’t you get that
Nubian and let her have her pick? Maybe she’d take ‘em both.”

“I suggested it, but the lady has particular
tastes. She wants the one that was caterwauling, and
this Northman’s the only one who bursts into a singing fit from time to time." The jailer scratched his head,
sending his resident lice scurrying.

“Won’t be no trouble selling him, will there?”

“
No, I conveniently lost his records when he first came. A big bald man came snooping around once,
but I told him we didn’t have any new prisoners. I fig
ured on putting this one out on the dock for the slave
auction this spring. They always bid up the prices in
the spring, but this lady looks to have the coin to beat
whatever I’d get later.”

Bjorn listened to them discuss him as though he were a bull to be brought to market without so much
as a ripple of concern. His life seemed to be happening
to someone else since he entered this private annex of Hel. Not caring one way or the other what new horror
came to him was his only defense and he sheltered be
hind studied indifference.

He was shoved into the jailer’s office with a rattle of his chains.

“Here now,” the guard said, sliding a long club un
der Bjorn’s chin and forcing him to raise his head. “Let the lady have a good look at you.”

Blinking in the light, Bjorn tried to get a look at the
lady as well, but she was swathed in the folds of her
silk
bourka.
He could tell nothing about her except that she seemed to be tall for a Byzantine. The
woman’s hand came up to her chest and she fell back a
step or two. He must smell worse than he thought.

She, however, was scented with jasmine so sweet, it made him feel faint. Months of privation sent his senses spinning. The prison was a miasma of offal and the acrid stench of fear, but this woman’s fragrance
was a reminder that his world had not always been so. He could have dropped to his knees and licked the sole
of her perfumed foot in gratitude.

Her eunuch dickered with the jailer over his ‘fine’ and, after much haggling, reached an agreement. The
smooth alto voice was somehow familiar, and Bjorn
frowned, trying to place him.

The Arab’s house.

It was Al-Amin, though it was obvious the big eu
nuch hadn’t recognized Bjorn. He’d carried Rika into
the house and left so quickly the eunuch hadn’t had
time to mark him. But Bjorn remembered Al-Amin
well from the time he’d come to Miklagard as a boy. The Arab’s servant hadn’t changed much. Bjorn
looked down at himself. Tattered rags, crusted with
filth, down a good forty pounds. He ran his bound
hands over the scruffy beard and mustache covering
his face. It was no great surprise that Al-Amin didn’t know him. He barely recognized himself.

The woman.
He suddenly remembered that her jeweled hand was pale. He looked back up, trying to penetrate the armor of the bourka. She was tall by
Miklagaard’s standards. It had to be Rika. Her clothing was shot with silver threads and gold coins dangled
around the edges of her gauze peephole. A wealthy
Arab’s wife. She could have anything she wanted.

And now she wanted a pet Northman.

“Make your mark here,” the jailer ordered him with a leer. He pointed to a line on a piece of parchment
that would exchange one kind of imprisonment for an
other. “The lady will pay your fine and you’ll work it off as her slave.”

“No,” Bjorn said. The jailer frowned in surprise, but Bjorn cleared his throat and repeated his refusal. If
Rika wanted him, she’d have to pay dearly. Dominic’s
coming was the only thing that had kept him from madness. He
couldn’t forget his friend. “I’ll only sign if she’ll take
my cell mate as well.”

*
  
*
  
*

 
All the way to the Arab’s house, Dominic praised his God in extravagant terms. As they entered the square fortress, he turned to Bjorn.

“Remember your bargain, my son.”

“What?” All Bjorn could think of was Rika under
the fluttering veil ahead of him. Rika, whose slim an
kles he’d glimpsed as they walked along. Rika, doe-
eyed and languid in his arms on the island at the base
of Aeifor.

“God has released your body from prison as you re
quested,” Dominic said. “I believe you offered him your soul in exchange.”

“Shall I fit them for your service, my lady?” Al-Amin
asked as the heavy door at the house of Farouk-Azziz clanged shut behind them.

The veiled figure nodded and disappeared into the
shadows of the house. Bjorn’s gaze followed her, long
ing and loathing competing in his heart. She’d made
her choice months ago and it wasn’t him. How could
she expect him to be grateful to her now? To serve her? Part of him railed in defiance and another part
was satisfied just to breathe the same air she breathed.

“I’m afraid your God will have to wait, Dominic,” he said. “M
y soul has been claimed elsewhere.”

*
  
*
  
*

 
Rika was shocked by the change in Bjorn’s appear
ance. He was so thin and pallid. But when his eyes
blazed with rebellion, demanding she release his cell
mate as well, she knew his spirit was intact. A hot
bath, good food, a little sunshine and he’d be back to
himself in no time.

And if in the meanwhile, he had to bear the indignity of being her slave, well, that turnabout satisfied
her sense of justice. After all, he’d made a thrall of her
without a qualm, she reminded herself.

Helge was lying down again when Rika returned to
her suite of rooms. The old woman fussed and fluttered around Rika when she was up and about, but Helge had been more tired of late. Her advancing years were no doubt weighing on her slight frame. Rika hadn’t the heart to disturb her.

As she lifted the
bourka
over her head, Rika felt a
twinge of uneasiness. It was clear that Bjorn had suf
fered already. The thought of him being degraded in
any way made her insides squirm. And yet, hadn’t she
been suffering when he found her mourning over Mag
nus’s body? It had made no difference to him then.

But that was before they loved each other, before they’d found that they were both walking around in
pieces, yearning for the wholeness only the other could
bring.

No. She had to stop this. She’d tell Al-Amin to release him and that would be that. She started back down the winding stairs to the lowest level.

Loud bellowing came from one of the rooms near
the stables and all the fine-boned Arabian horses jerked and stamped in their stalls at the unnatural sound. Rika quickened her pace.

She saw Tariq, Sultana’s eunuch, come out a door, laughing and dusting off his hands. The cry was feebler now, almost incoherent.

“What’s happening in there?” Rika demanded.

“Only what you ordered.” Tariq inclined his head to
ward her enough to avoid insolence, but only by the
barest of margins. He
still
sported the scant facial hair and upper body strength of a late-made eunuch. “Your
new slaves are being fitted for your service.”

“But why all the noise?”

Tariq’s smile was unpleasant. “The big one objected. It was all we could do to get him strapped to the table. But do not trouble yourself. This will pass. Unreasonable passions will fade and he’ll soon be biddable as
an ox. One gets used to being a gelding.”

Rika hoisted her skirt and ran, knees and elbows pumping.

“Do not fear,” Tariq called after her. “AI-Amin is skilled with a knife. They almost always live.”

Rika burst into the small room. “Stop, oh, stop!”

Bjorn’s cell mate knelt in the corner, eyes closed, lips moving, but Bjorn was naked, strapped spread-eagle
to the long table in the middle of the room. His head
lolled to one side and his eyes were glassy. An awl
pierced one of his ears, preparing the lobe to receive
the ring that would mark him as her servant. Blood
ribboned down his cheek. Al-Amin stood over him,
knife in hand.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, rushing to Bjorn’s side. A cord had been cinched around the bag of his seed. Rika fumbled with the knot and managed to hopelessly foul it.

“Fitting him for your service, my lady,” Al-Amin said calmly. “If you remove the cord and I cut him, he will bleed to death before I can cauterize the wound.”

“No, you’re not going to cut him,” she said. “Give
me that.” She snatched the knife away and worked the point under the cord, taking care not to nick Bjorn.

“Do not distress yourself, mistress. He will feel very
little pain,” Al-Amin assured her. “I always give the
men I unmake poppy juice to dull the senses.”

That explained the spittle drooling from Bjorn’s lips. She sliced the cord and cupped his bag, relieved to her bones to feel the thump of his heartbeat still drumming through it.

“My lady, this is most unseemly,” Al-Amin said, his lips pressed together in censure.

“Do not presume to lecture me.” Rika glanced
around the little room and spied a pile of gauze. She
retrieved some and covered Bjorn with it. “I didn’t or
der this.”

“But, my lady, these men cannot attend you if they
are intact,” Al-Amin argued. “It would bring shame on my master’s head.”

“I have always suspected you do not truly serve me
with your whole heart, and now I hear the truth from
your own lips,” Rika said. “You are still loyal first to
Farouk-Azziz.”