Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05] (8 page)

His only response was a raised eyebrow.

She decided to steer the conversation away from the dangerous subject of her son. “Exactly what was
the nature of the proposition that Old John offered you?”

“You don’t know? The offer did not come from you?”

“Old John has the right to speak for me, on occasion. And I was unavailable to speak for myself, as you well know.” She shivered inwardly at remembrance of the wooden cage, which she planned to burn this morn in a joyous bonfire of celebration.

He waved a hand as if the details of the proposition were of little import. “I help you build up your defenses against the MacNabs. You remove my blue mark. Those are the essential details … all that you need to know
for now.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What more could you ask?”

“Oh, lady, you owe me aplenty for what I have suffered these past five years. My time here is short, and my list of grievances is long.”

“You can see how poor my clanstead is. We have no coin or treasure to offer you in recompense.”

Rurik stroked his upper lip as he regarded her, then smiled—a slow, lazy smile that failed to reach his ice blue eyes. “Ah, then, I will have to take my payment in some other form.”

That was what Maire was afraid of.

A short time later, Rurik was standing at a low chest, splashing water onto his face from a pottery bowl, after having just shaved, when Maire came storming back into the bedchamber without knocking. The force of her entry was such that the heavy oaken door swung back on its hinges and hit the timber wall with
a resounding crash. A battle shield, which had no doubt belonged to her father, fell to the floor from its wall hooks. The tapestry in the corner shook on its frame.

“Back already? That anxious to begin your punishment, are you?”

She glared at him. “Did you give an order that I was to be confined inside my own keep?” she demanded. “That huge warhorse of a guard of yours … the one with the battle-ax the size of a drawbridge … actually laid his hands on me when I attempted to walk through my own gates.”

“Laid his hands … Who, Stigand?”

“Aye, he’s the one. He had the nerve to lift me by the scruff of the neck—with one hand, mind you—and toss me back inside like a… like a pestsome dog.”

Rurik smiled at that image. Little did she know that she was fortunate to still have her head in place.

“I… need … to … see … my son,” she said, spacing her words evenly.

“Bring … him … here,” Rurik replied in like fashion.

“Nay,” she snapped, with no explanation whatsoever. Then her eyes dropped lower and took in his nakedness. In an instant, a rosy flush spread across her face, down to her neck, and beyond. He could tell that she wanted to bolt, but she stood frozen in place. “Have you no shame? Tsk-tsk. Don some garments, at once.” She turned away as if she expected him to comply immediately.

Hah! It will be a sorrowful day in Valhalla when I bend to the orders of a woman, and certainly not a
woman who happens to be a witch
. Just to annoy her, he took his time drying his face with a linen cloth, ran a carved-bone comb through his long hair, yawned loudly, and stretched widely. Only then did he pull on a pair of braies. “I am decent now,” he announced finally.

Her eyes swept over his hip-hugging, low-slung braies, which exposed his flat-ridged abdomen and the beginning of his navel. He had a good body, and felt no shame at her close scrutiny. “You are never decent,” she asserted.

He took that as a compliment and tipped his head in thanks.

She made a low, growling sound, which she intended to demonstrate her displeasure, but which he found oddly arousing. When she noticed the effect on him, she repeated the growl in a prolonged fashion, accompanied by the tugging of both hands at the roots of her luxuriant hair.

He surmised that she was getting frustrated.

’Twas always a good sign when women got frustrated, in Rurik’s opinion.

“Didst thou barge into my bedchamber for some particular reason?” he inquired sweetly.

“Your
bedchamber?” she sputtered.

’Twas also a good sign when women sputtered over men’s superior actions, Rurik decided.

“I came into
my
bedchamber to inform you that I will not be a prisoner in my own keep. I had enough of that with the MacNabs. I will not abide similar treatment from Vikings … whom I gave good welcome into my home, I might remind you, muckle-head.”

“I would not exactly describe it as
welcome,”
he pointed out as he hitched up his braies, then pulled a brown tunic over his head and gathered it at the waist with a wide leather belt. The tunic was an old one but of the finest wool fabric made by Alinor, his friend Tykir’s wife. The embroidered thistle design along the edges in shades of green and yellow was still visible. “Know this, m’lady witch, my guards have been given precise orders to ride your tail like fleas, everywhere you go, even to the garderobe. And that order stands till the blue mark is gone from my face … and mayhap even beyond that, for there is still your punishment to be dealt with.”

She huffed with disgust and murmured something under her breath that sounded like “We shall see about that.”

“I’m ready if you are,” he pronounced then, having slipped on a pair of half boots and attached his scab-barded sword to his belt.

“Ready for what?” she choked out.

“To have my blue mark removed. What else?”

“I thought that perchance you might want to break your fast first.” Her eyes shifted from side to side as she spoke.

Rurik immediately tensed with suspicion. “You do have the antidote to remove the blue mark… do you not?”

“Well, not exactly.” She looked everywhere but at him.

“What
exactly
do you mean? How will you remove the mark?”

“I do not know.”

Aaarrgh! She does not know. Is the woman demerited?
What kind of witch is she anyhow? Three long years of searching for her and she tells me she does not know
. Through gritted teeth, he asked, “How did you put the mark there?”

“I do not know.”

I swear, I am going to kill her… and take great pleasure in the act. Does she know how close she is to death?
“How do you plan on fulfilling your part of our proposition?”

“I do not know.”

Rurik counted to ten inside his head,
Einn, tveir, rr, fjrir, fimm, sex, sj, tta, nu, tu
. Only when he’d regained his calm did he speak. “Well, I know something, wench. Best you explain yourself, and quickly, or I am going to hold the world’s biggest witch-burning. And guess who will be tied to the stake?”

Maire cringed, but to her credit, she did not cry or beg for mercy, as most women would. “Fanned fires and forced love ne’er do well,” she said, instead.

“What in bloody hell does that mean?”

“You cannot force things that come naturally.” She must have sensed his rising temper, for she quickly explained, “The answer will come to me when it comes … naturally.”

“Are you barmy?” Rurik felt like pulling at his own hair, a wee bit barmy himself.

“It’s like this …,” she began.

Rurik groaned inwardly. Every time a female began with, “It’s like this …” it was a certainty that her man was not going to like what she was about to say.
Not that I am Maire ’s man. No, no, no. I am definitely not her man
.

“… I was angry with you that time that you… that we … uh …”

“Made love?”

“Coupled,” she said with a becoming blush.

He grinned at her discomfort, despite the seriousness of their conversation. So much of his life depended on the removal of that damned mark… his marriage, his reputation, everything.

“In my anger, I wanted to lash out at you, but I also needed to go away with you, far from the Highlands, for a time, leastways. But as you will recall, you declined my request… in a most rude fashion, incidentally.”

“Rude fashion?”

“You laughed at me.”

“I did? And for that you marked me for life?”

“Nay, you do not understand. My need for escape was more important than my damaged pride. So, whilst you were sleeping, I took a vial from the leather bag Cailleach gave me—”

“Cailleach?”

She frowned in annoyance at his interruption. “Cailleach was the old crone who taught me witchcraft at one time.”

Rurik was getting a huge ache in his head from Maire’s roundabout explanation, which made no sense at all. “Backtrack here a bit, Maire. You took a vial from the witch’s bag. What did you intend to do with it?”

“I was going to slip some of it through your lips whilst you slept, but I tripped and the liquid in the vial spilled onto your face.”

Rurik still did not understand. “What kind of potion was in the vial?”

“Well, I thought it was a…” Her words trailed off into an indecipherable murmur at the end, and she picked up with, “but obviously it was something else.”

“What did you say? I could not hear you. What kind of potion had you intended to give me?”

“A love potion,” she practically shouted. “There! Are you happy now that you know?”

“A love potion? A love potion? Lady, the desire to swive you has ne’er been a problem.” He could not stop the grin that crept over his lips.

“Ooooh! Do not dare to laugh at me again, Viking.”

“What will you do? Put another mark on me? Slip me a love potion? Turn me into a toad?”

“You
are
a toad,” she declared and had the nerve to dump the pottery bowl of wash water over his head before she sailed away, out of the room.

He could not care. He was laughing too hard.

And he did not believe a single word the witch had said. He knew only too well the conspiracies that enemies wove in the course of battle, and there was no doubt in his mind that he and Maire were in a war… of wits, if nothing else. The only leverage she had over him was the blue mark, and she would not want to remove it till she had gained all she could from him.

Little did the witch know what a seasoned warrior he was, and how much he relished a good battle. She would never, ever win, whether crossing swords, or wills, with him.

He was sore angry with the witch, and had been for five long years. Still, for now, he could not help delighting in the laughter that rippled through him at her weak machinations.

A love potion? Indeed!

It was late afternoon, and the Campbell clan was celebrating their liberation before a huge bonfire composed of the wooden cage that had held their leader for almost a week.

The number of clan members seemed to be growing by the minute as more and more of them came out of hiding… most of them battered or handicapped in some way by war or their harsh lives. Rurik had tried to tell them that it was too soon for celebrating, and that liberation could be a momentary thing, but they would not listen to him. Instead, they gazed at him as if he were a savior sent by the gods … or, worse yet, a knight in shining armor called forth by a dimwitted witch.

The only one missing was Maire’s son, and Rurik was starting to be sorely annoyed by that fact. He suspected that Maire feared contamination by him… as if he might turn the wee-laird into a Viking, of all horrible things.

“What do you think?” Rurik asked Stigand and Bolthor, who had been working with the men all day, attempting to instill some discipline and rigor into their fighting exercises.

“They have heart,” Stigand informed him. “Even those who are lame and weak have the will to fight. That may not seem like much, but it could make the difference.”

“And there are those who were fierce warriors and can be again, despite their weaknesses,” Bolthor added. “Like Young John with the one eye. Even with just a few lessons this morning, I was able to show him how to better handle himself. In truth, his half-blindness is not near as bad as mine. He can still see blurry shapes with his bad eye. It is a question of balance, and he is an enthusiastic learner.”

Rurik nodded. “Toste and Vagn have been assessing the physical defenses.” He peered off into the distance where they were assisting some of the younger Campbells, pulling down the rotting timber walls with their crumbling stone foundations with an eye toward rebuilding and remortaring them over the next few days. Of course, there were several Campbell lasses about admiring their work… or could it be their good looks? Truly, the twins garnered female admirers no matter what country they were in. “We have much to do to repair the walls,” Rurik went on, “but this clanstead is well situated to ward off attacks when guards are positioned strategically.”

“It’s all a question of time and numbers of fighting men,” Bolthor concluded.

“And skill,” Stigand added.
“That
the six of us have aplenty, and the others can be taught. In time.”

“Jostein,” Rurik yelled out to the young man, who was working with his Campbell counterparts on the wall. Hastily, Jostein rushed over to do his bidding. “Dost think you could find your way back to Britain on your own?”

Jostein nodded eagerly, panting from his vigorous activity.

“This is an important mission, Jostein. I would like
you to ride out on the morrow. Go to Ravenshire in Northumbria, the estate of Lord Eirik and Lady Eadyth. Explain the situation here, and ask if he has troops to spare that he could send to our aid.”

Jostein fair beamed with self-importance over the task he was being assigned. “I could depart right now,” he said, overanxious to fulfill Rurik’s wishes. “It should be only a three-day trip each way. I could be back within a sennight.”

Rurik patted him on the shoulder. “Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

Maire walked up to them then. She was still annoyed with him over being confined to the keep, and Bolthor wasn’t too happy either. A short time ago, he’d grumbled that he’d never known a woman to visit the privy as often as Maire did. He was even considering the creation of a special saga about it, “The Mystery of What Women Do for So Long in a Privy.” He’d immediately quashed that idea when Maire had overheard and whalloped him over the head with a halibut that the cook had just given her to examine for dinner fare.