Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05] (6 page)

So overcome with fury was he that, for several long moments, he was unable to speak. Fisting his fingers tightly, he slowly brought his temper under control.

Eventually, he met the green eyes of the witch, who was staring at him without trepidation, even though he favored her with his fiercest glower. She no doubt thought his anger was directed at her. Well, it was … partly. And she should be fearful, if she had a jot of sense in her body.

She had changed these past five years; he could see that. His upper lip curled at the sight of her straggly red hair. Rurik had a personal aversion to red hair on a woman. Red-headed women tended to be temperamental and fiery-tongued, in his experience. Not worth the trouble. Like his friend Tykir’s wife, Alinor. Trouble, trouble, trouble. He had to concede, though, that, despite the wrinkled, blanketlike robe Maire wore, her beauty was apparent… a more mature beauty than she had exhibited when she was a mere twenty.

But he refused to be attracted to the witch. Never again!

“Maire the Witch,” Rurik shouted suddenly. Maire lurched. “Magdalene’s tears! Are you speaking to me?”

A low, nimbly sound came up from Rurik’s chest at her impertinence. “Nay, I’m speaking to that skinny rooster over there.”

“You don’t have to be testy with me, Viking,” she grumbled.

Testy? I will give you testy
. “Maire, get your arse down here,” he roared.

Dumb, dumb, dumb… The man is dumber than a wooly Highland sheep
.

“How would you suggest I do that, Viking?” she asked with seeming pleasantry.

“You’re a witch. Do you not fly?”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. The man really was a halfwit. “Not lately.”

He scowled at her mirth-making, and she recalled, of a sudden, how prickly his pride had been at one time. Apparently it still was. Men and their stupid vanities! She could not be bothered.

“You cannot be a very
good
witch, if you got yourself in this … this”—his eyes went hot with some inner fury as he gazed upon her cage—“this dilemma. A witch should be able to escape.”

Well, he was correct there. “Are you going to let
me hang here, Viking, or are you going to release me?”

He rested both palms on the horn of his saddle and smiled ferally at her. His eyelids were hooded, like a hawk’s. “Hmmm. Methinks there might be great pleasure to be had in keeping you caged … but not nearly enough satisfaction for the grief you have caused me these past years.”

“Me?” she asked, putting both hands to her chest in mock amazement. She continued in an overstated Scottish brogue, thick with rolling r’s, “What could a puir Highland lass like me do to harm a big brave Norseman like you?” She treaded dangerous waters by tweaking the tail of this Viking wolf; she knew that, but could not seem to restrain the impulse.

Rurik shook his head at her foolhardy bravado. Then he threw another jab at her, from another angle. Sniffing in an exaggerated fashion, he remarked, “What is that odor, Maire? Couldst be you are less aromatic than last time we met? As I recall, there was the scent of flowers … on certain body parts.”

Ooooh, how dare he remind her of her embarrassing surrender to his charms! She could feel her face going crimson with humiliation. As if she did not have a daily reminder of her woman’s weakness in the form of one robust little boy with raven-black hair.

Just then, she noticed bits of peat moss clinging to his apparel. For a man who was usually so fastidious about his appearance, it struck an odd note. She smiled in a deliberately gloating manner. “Ah, have you taken a bath in one of our lovely bogs, Viking?”

He snarled some foreign word under his breath. A
Norse expletive, no doubt. He recovered rapidly, though, and smiled back at her. “Is that the latest in Scottish fashion, Maire?” He was surveying her poor attire with disdain.

Now it was her turn to snarl.

He smirked at her, satisfied to have provoked a reaction from her.

The maddening arrogance of the Viking infuriated her. She would have liked to wipe that smirk off his face with a bucket of cold water. Instead, she taunted, “And what is that odd mark on your face, Rurik? Couldst be you are less handsome than last time we met?” Instantly, shame overcame her at the unkind-ness of her comment.

He seemed about to toss back some nasty retort, but they were interrupted. Off on a nearby hillock, she heard Murdoc pick up his bagpipes and begin a plaintive tune. Thanks to all his battle wounds, Murdoc was an unattractive man physically, but, oh, the music he played was rapturous. Tears welled in her eyes, as they always did when she heard the pipes.

Bolthor exclaimed to Rurik, “Is that not the most wondrous sound you have ever heard?”

“Huh?” Rurik said.

The dolt!

Bolthor turned to Old John. “Dost think I could learn how to play the pipes like that?”

“Oh, no! No, no, no!” Rurik was quick to interject.

But Old John ignored Rurik and patted Bolthor on the sleeve with his good hand. “I canna see why not.”

Rurik and the remainder of his group groaned. Obviously, they were ignorant men who could not appreciate good music.

Bolthor addressed Rurik, “Can you not see the possibilities, Rurik? Mayhap I could teach Stigand to say the words to my sagas whilst I accompany him with the bagpipes.”

“Me? Why me?” Stigand sputtered. “Be damned if I will be caught spouting any bloody poetry.”

“Not only will I be a skald, but I will be a bard, as well,” Bolthor said with an elated sigh.

“Or one might say, a skaldic bard,” Toste offered with a chuckle.

“Or a bardic skald,” Vagn added, also chuckling.

“How about a bald?” Stigand put in with dry humor. He was not chuckling.

“Now, Bolthor, slow down a bit and think on this,” Rurik advised. “When have you ever heard of a bag-piping Norseman?”

Bolthor lifted his chin and smiled broadly. “That is the best part. I will be the first.”

“This is all your fault,” Rurik yelled up at her, surprising her so much that she jumped, causing her cage to sway. Promptly, he added, “Why are you looking cross-eyed?”

“She is no doubt centering herself,” Young John answered for her, as if that explained everything. “Perchance her bars will now part of their own volition.” He seemed unable to control a snicker. “Then again, perchance not.”

Rurik glanced about and realized that, for some reason, he had an amused audience. He turned to Stigand. “Go up to the ramparts and use your ax to chop off that plank that’s holding the cage.”

Stigand frowned. “But the cage will drop to the ground.”

“Yea,” Rurik agreed with a sly smile. “That is the point. The witch deserves a good shaking up and the cage is not so high that she will be harmed.”

“Nooo!”
Maire screamed.

Everyone’s head jerked upward, and they all gawked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Would you look at what’s in that pit down there, you stupid, thickheaded, pompous, jackass Viking?”

“Tsk-tsk! Calling me vile names is no way to endear yourself to your rescuer, Maire.” Rurik alighted from his horse and glared up at her, hands on hips. “What pit?”

“Aaarrgh!” she screeched, pointing at the ground below her. “Look, damn you. Look!”

“You have a tart tongue on you, Maire. Best you learn to curb it in my presence, or you will feel my wrath. And it won’t be with a tongue-lashing, that I assure you.” He sauntered over to the area under her hanging cage, and seemed to notice for the first time the large, circular woven mat. His men followed him.

He lifted up the edge of the mat with the tip of his boot, peeked underneath, and went wide-eyed with shock. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he cursed loudly. Like many Vikings, Rurik had probably been baptized in the Christian rites, whilst still practicing the old Norse religion. On some occasions, however… like now … naught sufficed but a good Christian expletive.

“Snakes!” his Norse comrades yelped as one, scurrying back toward their horses and safety. You’d never know they were hardened warriors.

“Someone is going to pay for this atrocity,” Rurik
vowed, his frosty blue eyes taking in the cage and snake pit in one sweeping glance.

Maire’s heart lurched at his fierce promise. Was he actually outraged on her behalf? Despite all her inner warnings to the contrary, Maire couldn’t stop herself from remembering Nessa’s words:
What you need, me bonnie lass, is a brave knight in shining armor to champion your cause
.

Could Rurik possibly be that knight?

“A knight in shining armor? Me?” Rurik laughed uproariously at Maire, who was sitting at the trestle table next to him, having just finished sewing up the gash in his forearm.

At the far end of the great hall, the maid Nessa was wrapping tight linen strips about Jostein’s forearm, which was sprained, but not broken. Bolthor had declined any treatment, other than a washing of the small hole, once Stigand had pulled the arrow from his thigh. A little limp was nothing to the giant skald.

“I did not say precisely that I wanted
you
for a knight in shining armor,” she said defensively, a blush rising on her cheeks and neck.

So, you can still blush, wench? Hmmm. That is a surprise, though now that I think on it, you blushed prettily back then, too… the first time I bared your breasts… or touched your thigh. Nay, I should not recall nice things about you. ’Tis best to remember you are my hated enemy
. “When I wear armor, it is sometimes metal, but just as often, leather. And I would never call myself a knight. ’Tis a Saxon word. I prefer to be named warrior, and—”

“My knight in shining leather, then,” Maire suggested
with a sad attempt at humor. “Or, my warrior in leather.” She pretended to swoon.

But Rurik took her seriously. “I will not be your knight in armor, leather,
pladd
, or any other form.”

“Do you deliberately misunderstand my words? I merely said that I am in need of a … oh, never mind. You would not understand.” She took another stitch to distract him.

He yelped with pain, “Oooww! Did you do that a-purpose?”

“Nay, my needle slipped.”

You lie, wench. And you do it with such ease. What other lies do you tell? What secrets do you hide here in your mucky keep? I would have to be a simpleton not to notice the way your clan members shift their gazes whene’er I approach… and you, most especially. Any man … or woman… who will not look a person directly in the eye is hiding something. What could it be?

“I told you to find someone else to mend your wounds, Viking.”

“Yea, but you owe me more than any other. I intend to exact my payments one deed at a time. For instance, how soon can you remove this mark?”

“How soon can you rid my lands of the MacNabs?”

He took hold of both her wrists and hauled her forward so that she was nigh nose-to-nose with him. The needle and thread dangled from the skin of his arm, but he did not care. “You will not play your games with me, wench.”

Suddenly, he was assailed by the not-unpleasant scent of the hard soap she’d used to bathe her body and wash her hair … hair the rich dark red color of
an autumn sunset. Green eyes flashed at him through their framework of thick lashes. Her skin was like an ell of ivory silk he’d seen one time in a Birka trading stall, and her face was a perfectly sculpted heart shape. Her clean, but shabby,
arisaid
with its braided belt, hid her figure, but he knew … oh, Lord, he
knew
… exactly what treasures lay beneath. His memory was perfect in that regard.

And she was looking even better these days.

“Do you threaten me now, Rurik?” she inquired with a wince, and he realized that his hold on her wrists was unnecessarily harsh. He released her and saw that his fingers would leave bruises on her delicate skin. Ah, well, ’twas only just. His mark on her in exchange for her mark on him.

“Are threats necessary, Maire?” He had calmed down somewhat, and his voice did not betray his inner turmoil. “Do not tempt me, for I have many means at my disposal to bend you to my will.”

Was there sexual innuendo in his words? He had not meant it so. Or had he? For the love of Odin, the woman really must be a witch. She was ensorcelling him.

Fire leaped in her green eyes, but only momentarily. With a long sigh, she tied a knot in the stitches and carefully put the needle back in its special silver case that hung from the key ring at her waist. “Threats are not necessary. I will do everything I can to remove your mark. In truth, our situation is so dire that I would sleep with the devil if it would save my people.”

He could see by her deepening blush that she immediately regretted her poorly chosen words.

“Sleep with the devil, eh?” He smiled lazily at her. “Now there’s an idea I hadn’t considered afore.” He was only teasing, of course… until he heard her barely murmured response.

“To think I hoped for a knight in shining armor! And what do I get… a devil in a blue tattoo. As if I would ever want you in my bed again!”

“Maire, Maire, Maire,” he chided her. “Didst never hear that it’s plain folly to issue a challenge to a Norseman?”

Rurik was not generally a deep-thinking man; he was more a man of action. But he was thinking now. Thinking, thinking, thinking. And the answers to all the puzzling questions that thrummed at his brain were slow in coming.

He wondered idly why he had not seen the boy … Maire’s son … since their return to the castle. Was he off doing little-boy things … the sorts of things he’d never experienced as a child? And wasn’t it strange, he pondered now, that Maire would entrust her son’s well-being to a straggly band of guardsmen who could not manage to keep their own body parts intact, let alone those of a small person?

By the time everyone was settled in and had eaten a cold repast of bannock and sliced mutton, it was well past nightfall. Midnight approached and still Rurik sat by himself in the great hall, thinking, whilst others around him, men and women alike, slept soundly on benches that pulled down from the wall to form sleeping pallets. The soft and loud snores, the snuffling sounds of slumber, and the occasional rustling of clothing were comforting somehow to Rurik.
All was peaceful. For now. ’Twas a good feeling.