The Shipwreck (3 page)

But this was the same lovely temptress who’d clubbed him, dragged him home, and tied him up like a dog.  He wasn’t about to be fooled by her pretty face.

He studied the stone cottage, which was well-kept and welcoming.  Its curious furnishings appeared to be made mostly of scavenge from the sea.  Odd pieces of driftwood were fitted together to form stools, and candles were set in holders made of mussel shells.  A bit of fishing net tacked onto one wall held hair combs carved out of abalone, and on a shelf fashioned out of an oar sat an assortment of clamshell bowls and dishes.  A fishing pole and a net were propped against the hearth.  But it was what was leaned against the corner that interested him most.

It was a nobleman’s sword, a magnificent blade.  Its pommel was set with gems, the grip was wrapped in seasoned leather, and the guard was carved with designs that intersected, weaving complex knots.  The sword looked well cared for.  The steel was highly polished, the edge keen.  He wondered where the man who owned the weapon was.

“Mama,” the little girl said, picking up her clamshell bowl, “my da wants some, too.”

“He’s not your da, Kimmie, and he’s not even…”  She ended on a gasp as she glanced his way.

It was too late to feign sleep.

She rose suddenly, knocking over her stool.  “Awake.”

“He’s hungry, Mama.”

Brandr swallowed, and his throat clicked.  He didn’t feel like eating, but he was as parched as winter tundra.

The little girl started toward him with her bowl, but her mother hauled her back.

“Listen to me,” she said sternly.  “He is
not
your da.  He’s a bad man, a
very
bad man.  Promise me you won’t go near him.”

“But—“

“Promise me, Kimbery.”

Kimbery sighed unhappily and put her bowl back on the table.  “I promise.”

A very bad man.  Brandr supposed he was that.  After all, a good man would never have deserted his wife and children to go a-Viking.

Avril righted her overturned stool.  Then she picked up Kimbery and sat her atop it.  “You stay here.”

She straightened and took a steadying breath.  The Northman looked much more menacing now that he was awake.  She’d already decided he was astonishingly handsome, but his fierce frown made him look dangerous as well.  She glanced at the hound collar and leash, hoping they’d hold.  She’d managed to keep their great wolfhound, Finn, at heel on that leash until he’d died last year.  But the man probably outweighed the hound three times over.  And she’d seen, once she removed his cloak, that he was all muscle and bone.  She shivered at the thought of all that male strength.

Still, if her father had taught her one thing, it was never to show fear to the enemy.  So she raised her chin and confronted him with a stern scowl.  “You.  Can you understand me?”

He glowered at her through the strands of his hair, but didn’t reply.

“Your ship.”  She pounded one fist into her palm, then exploded her fingers outward to indicate a crash.  “How many men were on board?”

He continued to glare at her.

She counted on her fingers.  “How many?”

He could understand her.  She knew he could.  Hell, even Kimbery could understand what she was asking.  But he stubbornly refused to answer.

She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Damned Viking,” she sneered, biting out a word he’d surely recognize.

His lip curled slowly into a grim smile.

An uneasy tremor slithered up her spine, but she refused to let him frighten her.  The man was chained to the wall, after all.  She had the upper hand.  He was at her mercy.  She was in control.  She’d been trained for command, and she knew how to wield it.  If only he wouldn’t stare at her with those piercing blue eyes.

She picked up the fireplace poker.  It felt good in her grip, like a weapon.  “I know your kind,” she told him, smacking the poker against her palm in threat.  “You’re not the first Viking I’ve met.”

His gaze slipped to Kimbery, as if he understood her perfectly and had divined her entire sordid history.  Avril’s nostrils flared, and her cheeks grew hot.  She leaned forward out of Kimbery’s hearing to snarl under her breath.  “That’s right.  After slaughtering half my people—men, women, and children—one of your kind took me by force and left me with a babe.”  She licked her lip, inventing a more satisfactory end to the story.  “When I was through with him, he was unable to breed again.”

A long silence followed as he stared at her, his face expressionless.  She decided he must not be able to understand her after all.

She backed away, turning to jab at the coals on the hearth.  “How unlucky for you, Viking,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk.  “You come to invade my land and end up shipwrecked on my beach.  Maybe that will teach you savages to stay where you belong.”

Brandr creased his brow.  Where he belonged.  He didn’t belong anywhere.  He had no home, not anymore.  The place he’d once called home was full of painful memories, and he had no wish to return there.

Had he come to invade her land?  Aye.  Had he meant to plunder it?  Absolutely.  But he’d come to settle here, not to wage war.  He only meant to kill if he had to.  He wasn’t a savage.  Of course he’d taken slaves before.  But none of his men brandished their weapons without good cause.  And none would ever bed a woman against her will.

The Vikings who’d come before must have been berserkers.  Such men ingested peculiar mushrooms that made them crazed and violent, driven to mow down everything in their path.  To Brandr, they were worse than wild animals.

“I expect your shipmates will be washing ashore soon,” the woman mused, replacing the poker.  She gazed into the fire, adding sardonically, “I hope I have enough leashes.”

Brandr tightened his jaw.  He doubted any of his shipmates were alive.  No one should have survived that storm.  The fact that he’d been spared was proof that Loki, that mischief-making god, wasn’t finished torturing him.

He didn’t know what had happened to his brothers’ ships.  The tempest had roared to life halfway through the voyage, and the three vessels had become quickly separated.  Even if Halfdan and Ragnarr somehow miraculously managed to sail into the storm and come out the other side, it was unlikely they’d end up on the same stretch of the winding Pictish coast.

“Meanwhile,” the woman considered, “what do I do with you?”

She gave him a thorough perusal that ordinarily would have been flattering.  But where most women gazed at Brandr as if imagining exactly what they wanted to do with him, she looked as if she hadn’t the slightest idea.

“I could turn you over to the lawmen,” she murmured.  “If you’re lucky, they’ll hang you quick.”

He doubted that.  If berserkers had wreaked havoc here, the villagers would more likely stand in line to exact revenge on a Viking trussed up for their pleasure.  They’d delight in tearing him to pieces.

“I can’t keep you here,” she said to herself.

She was right about that, he thought, staring straight ahead, betraying no emotion.  She damned well
couldn’t
keep him here.  He’d allow no one to keep him on a leash, least of all a puny Pictish lass.

The woman continued to contemplate his fate aloud while, behind her, her daughter quietly inched her stool forward.

“The last thing I need,” the woman said, “is a third mouth to feed.”

A third.  So she lived alone here with her daughter.  His gaze went to the sword propped in the corner.  Then whose was that?  Maybe, he thought morosely, it had belonged to the
last
man she’d tied up in her cottage.

The little girl picked up the stool beneath her, toddled a few steps closer, and sat back down.

The woman sighed peevishly.  “I should have tossed you back into the sea while I had the chance.”

The little girl stared intently at Brandr as she tiptoed forward again with the stool.

“It would probably be a kindness to kill you,” the woman muttered, “before someone with less mercy finds you here.”

The little girl took two more cautious steps forward and sat down an arm’s-length behind her mother, watching him fearlessly.

“And it’d be no less than you deser-“  She whirled and almost tripped over the little girl.  “Kimbery!”  She glanced back at him, blushing, then turned to confront her wayward daughter.  “I told you to stay.”

“I did stay.  See?”  She pointed to the stool beneath her, blinking in all innocence.

The woman growled in frustration.  Then a strange thing happened.  The little girl flashed Brandr a conspiratorial grin, and, of their own accord, his lips curved slightly in answer.  It was his first genuine smile in almost a year.

“Mama,” Kimbery said sweetly, “I don’t want my pottage.  You can give it to my da.”

The woman spoke between clenched teeth.  “Once and for all, Kimbery, he is
not—“

“Your mother’s right,” Brandr interjected.  “I’m not your da.  I’m a bad man, a
very
bad man, and you should stay away.”

Avril’s jaw dropped.  Damn the Viking!  He did speak her language, which meant he could understand her perfectly well.  “You!” she spat in annoyance, at a loss for words.  “You…stop speaking to my daughter.”

He did.  But his compliance didn’t keep her from feeling suddenly threatened.  She didn’t know why.  After all, he was bound, injured, and at her mercy.  Still, that he’d been able to deceive her troubled her greatly.  And the fact he was warning Kimbery away didn’t fit with her assessment of him as a depraved killer.  His manner—part devious, part disarming—was definitely unnerving.  And she hated to be unnerved.

“Kimmie,” she said over her shoulder, “go to bed.”

“But I’m not sleepy.”

“Go to bed.  Now.”

Kimbery stuck out her bottom lip, and then flounced off the stool and stomped off, whimpering under her breath.

Avril took a moment to compose herself, and then turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest.  “I want some answers, and I want them—“

“Twenty.”

“What?”

“Twenty.”  At her furrowed brow, he added, “You asked how many men were aboard my ship.”

She swallowed hard.  The berserkers had had at least twice that number.  Still, twenty was nineteen more men than she could handle at the moment.

“Where were you headed?”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know?”  That she didn’t believe.  The Northmen were notoriously good navigators.

“I didn’t care.”

His words chilled her.  But she supposed she should have expected as much.  Barbarians like him scoured the seas, wreaking havoc wherever they landed, unmindful of the devastation they left behind, the people they killed, the lives they destroyed.

“I’d wager you care now,” she said with grim threat.  “You made a grave error, Viking, landing on my shore.”

The doubtful arch of his brow was admittedly subtle.  But Avril recognized scorn when she saw it.  Men had always questioned her strength, her judgment, and her skill with a blade.  At one time, it had infuriated her.  Five years ago, she might have succumbed to the impulse to draw her sword to show him just how capable she was.

But she’d learned to rein in her temper.  The last time she’d drawn a blade impulsively, she’d wound up at the mercy of a berserker.  She wouldn’t let it happen again.  Besides, what satisfaction could be derived from turning a sword on a helpless captive?

He was staring at her again with his penetrating eyes.  She didn’t think she’d ever seen eyes so blue—as blue as a summer sky, nay, a robin’s egg.  Rattled, she turned aside to add another log to the fire.

“I think your arm is broken,” she mumbled.  Why she’d told him that, she didn’t know.  After all, it didn’t matter.  She wasn’t about to fix it for him.

“It’s a wonder my head isn’t broken,” he said with a humorless smirk.

She blushed at the reminder of her unchivalrous blow and picked up the poker again, eager to change the subject.  “How is it you know my language?”

“I learned it from a Pict slave.”

She clenched her teeth.  A slave?  She jabbed at the glowing coals, but refused to rise to the bait.  Maybe she should turn
him
into a slave.

As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “What do you intend to do with me?”

She’d been asking herself that same question all morning.  For the moment, she’d hold him hostage.  If any of his men turned up alive, she might be able to bargain for her safety with his life.  But she wasn’t sure there were survivors.  Even if there were, there was no telling whether he was of any value to them.  The Northmen didn’t seem to have the same regard for life as her people did.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“If you’re going to kill me,” he growled, “get it over with.”

She frowned.  Kill him?  In cold blood?  Obviously, he knew nothing about chivalry.  She straightened with pride, planting the poker between her feet like a blade.  “I can’t do that.  Unlike you, my sense of honor prevents me from slaying unarmed men.”

He lifted a brow in mockery.  “Give me a blade then,” he suggested.

Avril gave him a sardonic smirk.  She wasn’t so foolhardy as to think she could easily triumph over a gargantuan Northman.  But she didn’t appreciate his insulting attitude.  “I may be honorable, but I’m not soft in the head.”

He half-smiled.  “You look soft to me.”

Her composure slipped, but only for an instant.  “I assure you, you wouldn’t be the first man I sent limping from the field of battle.”

His eyes narrowed suggestively.  “And you wouldn’t be the first woman I laid out flat on her back.”

B
randr regretted his words as soon as he spoke them.  He’d forgotten she’d been the victim of rape.

She winced as if he’d struck her, and then recovered so quickly he thought he’d imagined her hurt.  “No doubt,” she coldly replied.

For some absurd reason, he suddenly wanted to defend himself.  He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t a berserker.  He’d never killed a man without just cause.  And he’d never forced himself upon a woman.  True, he’d bedded more than his share of eager wenches in his youth, but only at their invitation.  And once he’d taken a wife…