Maidensong (4 page)

Some men loved killing. Bjorn must be just such a
bloody-minded man, she decided. Yet he also seemed
to be a man of his word. Even though she’d wakened
to feel his hardness pressed against her backside as the
big man slept spooned around her in the
hudfat,
he
made no advances toward her. He kept his pledge only
to warm her body. Still, his arousal proved Bjorn the
Black’s restraint wasn’t for lack of interest in women.

“Like him, don’t you?” The young man called Jorand had
caught her looking at his captain. He grinned
at her between strokes of the long oar.

“Of course not.” Rika jerked her gaze away. “How can I like my captor?”

Jorand’s lips twisted into a knowing smile. “No woman I know can spend a couple of nights curled
up with our Bjorn and not come away liking him.”

“Consider me the exception.” She stared straight ahead.

“Don’t worry.” Jorand rocked forth and back with
the oar. “He’s always favored redheads. He’ll protect you when we get there.”

Protect me from what?
Rika wanted to ask, but
Bjorn bellowed an order, interrupting them.

“Jorand!” His voice was amplified by the water around them. “Stop flirting with the pretty thrall and take down the dragonhead. We’re almost there.”

“See, what did I tell you?” Jorand winked at her. “He likes you, too.” The young man scrambled up the nar
row prow to remove the grotesque serpentine figure
head. No point in frightening the land spirits on their home ground.

When the ship pulled up to the wharf, Rika realized
what was wrong with Sogna. All the wealth, all the
choice livestock, all the best building materials had
been amassed in one place to create an unusually sumptuous longhouse and compound for the
Jarl
of
Sogna. The
jarlhof
was massive, with several extra
rooms jutting at right angles from the long main hall.
On the flat plain before the
jarl’s
house, scores of fight
ing men engaged in a mock battle, honing their skill.

“Supporting that many retainers would tax the coffers of a king,” Rika murmured to Ketil. “No wonder
the farmsteads along the fjord look so depleted.”

They disembarked and marched up to the long
house, trailing Bjorn the Black and his crew. As they
climbed the steep path up from the water, she held
Ketil’s hand to steady her pounding heart. She forced herself to smile up at her brother. It helped quell the
dizzying sensation of being totally powerless for the
first time in her life.

“Welcome home, Brother.” Once inside the long
house, a raucous voice boomed toward them. It
wasn’t as low or as resonant as Bjorn’s, but it filled the
space.

Rika scanned the long hall. It’d been freshly scrubbed for spring with new rushes strewn about the
stone floor. Light shafted in through the smoke holes
spaced at intervals along the spine of the high roof.
Earthen benches lined the sides of the hall, but instead
of situating the
jarl’s
seat in the middle, near the central fire, Bjorn's brother was ensconced in an ornate
chair flanked by pillars on a dais at the far end. Rika recognized the deviation as a Frankish influence in the
design of the great hall. Raised seating—even for
nobility—was not typical in a Norse
jarlhof.

Fires burned at the many hearths and a carcass
roasted over each one, tended by a young girl with a
basting gourd. After days of dried fish and flatbread,
the savory aroma made Rika's mouth water. The
Jarl
of
Sogna must set quite a table to attract and keep the host of fighting men in the yard.

A serving girl approached Bjorn with a long drink
ing horn brimming with golden mead. He lifted the
horn toward the dais in salute and then drained the en
tire contents in one long swallow,

“You need to find a larger horn, Brother.” Bjorn swiped his mouth with his forearm.

Bjorn’s crew guffawed and congratulated each other
on the drinking prowess of their leader. Rika stood
quietly, a combination of irritation and dread curling
her lip as she waited to see what it was she needed
protection from.

Other than him, of course.

“You had a successful raid?” Gunnar asked.

“
We retrieved every head that was taken from us.”
Bjorn glanced at Rika. “And picked up a few other
things as well.”

The whole crew marched the length of the hall until they came before the
jarl’s
great carved chair. Entwined serpents writhed in bas-relief up the pillars on
each side of the
jarl
. Rika noticed the same double-
serpent motif embossed on the shields hanging on the
walls. The
Jarl
of Sogna’s device, no doubt.

At first glance, Rika thought the two brothers couldn’t be more different. Gunnar’s coloring—white-
blond hair and pale gray eyes—marked him as the exact opposite of Bjorn the Black. But when she looked
more closely, Rika saw a resemblance in the brothers’ strong features. But while Bjorn’s mouth was full-
lipped and smacked of sensuality, Gunnar’s thin one
had a cruel twist to it.

Jorand dropped the bale of cloth he’d balanced on his broad shoulders. Another member of Bjorn’s crew spilled out the contents of a leather bag. Pewter house ware, silver brooches and armbands, along with a
goodly quantity of hack silver clattered to the stone
floor. Another bag filled with carved amber was eased to the ground. Six fur bales joined the rest of the
spoils. The
jarl’s
eyes glinted with calculating avarice.

“And new thralls, I see.” Gunnar’s gaze slid over Rika and Ketil and the handful of other unfortunates Bjorn and his men had captured. His pale eyes returned to Rika and his tongue flicked out to wet his
bottom lip as he studied her from head to toe. “You’ve
done well, little brother.”

The slight twitch of Bjorn’s shoulders told Rika he didn’t much care for that appellation.

“How shall I reward you?” Gunnar asked.

“I’ll take those two for my own.” Bjorn pointed at
Rika and Ketil. “For my men, we’ll take half the spoils here.”

“Agreed. None of the livestock?” Gunnar asked.

“We returned the livestock to the
karls
they belonged to on the way in,” Bjorn explained. “They were
stolen property and couldn’t be counted as spoils.”

A muscle ticked in Gunnar’s left cheek. “I’ll be the
judge of that in the future.” His gaze flitted back to
Rika. “Now that I think on it, your reward seems over-
generous. You can have one thrall.”

Bjorn looked at Rika and Ketil as if considering
which of them would profit him most. “Then,
I'll
take
the girl.” He arched a brow at her. “I’ve need of a bed
warmer.”

“You can have that anytime just by crooking your
finger at the serving girls,” Gunnar said.

“Not in my house, you won’t.” A woman’s voice came from behind them. The group of men parted to allow the
jarl’s
wife to enter the circle. “Some here may wish to forget it, but this is a respectable
jarlhof.”
Rika shifted uneasily as the woman, who could only be
the dragon Bjorn had mentioned, skewered her hus
band with a sizzling glare.

Lady Astryd was dressed in a kirtle and tunic of rich
blue and yellow. Her honey-blond hair fell in heavy
braids to her thickening waist, and her head was cov
ered discretely with a fine kerchief. The keys of her of
fice dangled from the gilt chain above her distended
belly. The woman’s complexion glowed with her preg
nancy. At least something in Sogna was fruitful, Rika
thought.

Astryd stopped in front of Rika and gazed at her
mud-spattered clothes. “My girls are cleaner than this
one, I’ll grant you,” she said, turning to give Rika her back. “Why don’t you just let her work for me, and
your brother will find you a wife to warm your bed,”
she said to Bjorn. “There are plenty of houses that
wish to ally themselves with Sogna, even through a
second son.”

“
When
I’m
ready for a wife,
I’ll
find one myself.”
Bjorn folded his arms across his chest. “Besides, I’ve grown attached to the muddy
little
thing.” His crew
chuckled. “My men and I risked ourselves and our
ships in the service of Sogna. Shall it be said that such
a simple request was denied?”

Rika glanced from the
jarl
to his wife. An undercur
rent of frustration and rage crackled between the noble couple. Astryd seemed to follow her husband’s
gaze, and her face hardened as she caught the look the
jarl
cast toward Rika. The matter was decided.

“Very well, you shall have her by night, Bjorn,” Astryd said.
“But there’s no reason why she can't work for me by
day. Come along, all of you,” she ordered the entire
group of thralls. “No one eats here unless they earn
their bread with hard labor.”

She clamped a firm grip on Rika’s wrist and
dragged her from the hall. When Rika cast a glance
back over her shoulder at Bjorn, an infuriating smile
was on his lips.

Jorand was wrong, she guessed. Bjorn the
Black didn’t like her at all. He certainly hadn’t lifted a finger to save her from the Dragon of Sogna.

“My lady, please stop.” Rika trotted to keep up with
Astryd’s swinging strides. “There’s been a mistake, a terrible miscarriage of justice, which I’m sure you’ll set right.”

 
When
they burst out of the longhouse into the mid-
morning sunlight
, Astryd wheeled around to face
Rika, hands fisted on her hips. “What are you babbling
about?”

 
“Just that there’s been a misunderstanding.” Rika
gulped a quick breath. “My brother and I were taken because your men thought we belonged to the settle
ment at Hordaland. We don’t, you see. We are traveling skalds, and as such, we aren’t subject to capture and enthrallment.”

 
Astryd cocked a pale eyebrow at Ketil, her cold gaze
sweeping over the young man’s pleasant, vacant ex
pression. “Oh,
ja,
I can see that your brother is much
in demand, no doubt. Recite for us, you great towering
slug,” she ordered.

 
Ketil’s half-smile changed to panic and he backed
several steps away. “I don’t
...
no, it’s not me. Rika’s
the skald. Father always said so.”

 
“
Very well.” Astryd turned back to Rika, crisscross
ing her arms over her chest. “Let’s hear the skald. What shall it be, I wonder? Thor and the Frost Gi
ants? Freya and the Brisingamen necklace, perhaps?
That’s one I understand quite well, being overly fond
of jewelry, myself.”

 
She eyed the silver brooches holding up Rika’s kyr
tle. The craftsmanship was finer and the design more
subtle than the gaudy ones at her own broad shoulders. Astryd circled Rika, running a jeweled finger over the fine quality of the cloth beneath the caked
mud. Rika froze like a hare that sees the shadow of a
hawk hovering overhead.

 
“No,” Astryd decided. “How about something easy? Let’s have a bit from the
Havamal.”

 
Inwardly, Rika groaned, but she straightened her
spine and took her stance.
Breathe,
she ordered herself. At first, no words tickled her tongue, and then, like wa
ter pouring over a precipice, they
all
came at once.

 
“A flame leaps to another. Fire kindles fire. A man listens, thus he learns,” she rattled off all in one breath. “The shy . . . stay shallow.” Rika’s voice trailed
away. Her eyes flitted from left to right, but no more of
the sayings of Odin appeared in her mind.

 
Astryd’s lip curled. “Not your finest moment, was it?”

 
“Please, you don’t understand. I’m a very fine skald.
I know all the sagas, truly I do.” Even to her own ears,
Rika didn’t sound very convincing. “I’ve been working
on the
Havamal,
but I just don’t know it all yet.”

 
Was that Magnus’s gentle laughter she heard in the back of her mind?