The Viking's Captive (3 page)

“I do not agree with you. Stop being unreasonable.”

Rashid unpuffed his chest. “You could start small, with one or two females. That would be reasonable. You wouldn’t need to have a full harem right away. You’ve heard of that famous Arab proverb regarding harems, haven’t you?”

“The one which says, ‘If there is no nubile female about, a camel will suffice’?”

“For shame!” Rashid exclaimed, but his lips were fighting a grin, too. “Nay, I refer to the one which says, ‘A man’s staff needs constant polishing.’”

Adam shook his head with amusement.

Rashid’s dark-skinned face turned somber. He put a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “In all seriousness, my lord, I worry about you. You have become a recluse here in your own land. You do not mix in society. You make no attempt to refurbish your keep so that others may visit. Most worrisome of all, you continue to refuse to treat the ill and dying who come seeking your healing skills.”

Adam should have been affronted. Rashid went too far, for a servant. But then, he was not really a servant. He was a friend. And Adam had given him good cause to worry.

Adam squeezed Rashid’s hand on his shoulder and motioned for him to move to the other side of the table where work awaited him. “I’m getting better, Rashid. Really, I am. I know I have been morbid overlong, but—”

Rashid made a snorting sound of commentary on just how morbid he had been of late.

“—but I have been thinking of establishing a small hospitium in that old weaving shed near the moat. What think you of that?”

Rashid gave him a look that said, without words, that he would have been much more impressed if he’d said he was thinking of establishing a harem … even in the old weaving shed.

“I knew you could not walk away from medicine permanently,” Rashid said. “Why else would you maintain your studies? Why else would you continue to gather herbs? Why else would you correspond with healers of other lands? You may call yourself knight or land owner, traveler or hermit, but at heart you will always be a physician. Till the day you die. For the love of Allah, ‘tis time you stopped fighting your fate.”

Rashid’s wise words did not require comment, but Adam did ponder all he had said. A long period of silence followed.

Adam worked with great concentration, writing in his journal. Rashid, giving up on his harem exhortations for the moment, sat on the bench across the table from him, looking for more work to do now that he was finished with the beeswax balm. After years of noisy towns and battlefields, after the turmoil of personal tragedies, after so much death … well, the familiar, peaceful sounds of his quill scratching on parchment and Rashid’s pestle now moving rhythmically against fragrant herbs in a stone bowl were oddly soothing.

Alas, their solitude was broken of a sudden.

Clang! Clang! Clang!
they heard, accompanied by huffing-and-puffing noises and a few muttered expletives. There were also the neighing of horses and the
rhythmic clatter of shod hooves on wood, probably the drawbridge planks.

Adam and Rashid turned as one with surprise toward the windows that looked out over the bailey, then toward the open doorway that led down to the great hall. The sounds seemed to emanate from somebody, or somebodies, stomping through the courtyard and up the steps to his keep.

“Did you forget to pull up the drawbridge?” Adam asked sardonically.

“Ha, ha, ha! May Allah be laughing at your marvelous wit,” Rashid replied. Adam, Rashid, the cook, a chambermaid, and a stable boy were the only people living in this cavernous wood castle. There was nothing worth stealing. And the drawbridge was rusted into a down position, as they both well knew. “No one ever comes to this desolate place. You live like a hermit.”

“You already said that.”

“Some things bear repeating.”

“Not that.”

“Mayhap it is your stepuncle, Lord Eirik, returning with yet another invitation to spend the coming harvest season at Ravenshire.”

Adam peered out through one of the arrow slit windows. “Nay, these men appear to be Viking soldiers and a
hersir,
by their attire and weapons.” Although Eirik was half Viking, he had long ago adopted Saxon ways, including his manner of dress.

“Your other stepuncle, Tykir, then? He is a full-blooded Viking, is he not?”

Adam shook his head. “Tykir is Norseman to the bone, but he would not venture past the bounds of Dragonstead in Norway … not at this time of year … not with
his lady, Alinor, breeding yet again at the advanced age of five and thirty, no less.”

Adam shrugged with unconcern. They had naught to fear; there was nothing worth stealing. Even so, they both grabbed short swords lying nearby and made for the doorway.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Huff, puff, huff, puff.
“Bloody damn hell!” The noises made by the intruders were getting louder as they climbed the steps. Adam heard a female screech of dismay … probably Emma, the cook. No, there were two female screeches, combined. It must be Emma
and
Bridget, the chambermaid. By the timbre of their screams, you’d think a dragon had entered his keep.

The huffing-and-puffing, the clanging, and the expletives, he understood immediately. After all, there were thirty-seven steep stone steps leading up from the bailey to the double doors of the great hall. He knew because he’d counted them on innumerable occasions and cursed fluently in several languages, especially when he was suffering from mead-head.

Adam and Rashid were making their way down the interior stairway when Adam stopped abruptly at the bottom, incredulous at the sight he beheld. Rashid slammed into his back.

“Oh … my … God!” Adam muttered.

“For … the … love … of … Allah!” Rashid muttered.

They were standing next to each other by now, gaping at the other side of the great hall, where a small entourage of Viking warriors stood, broadswords drawn and battle-axes at the ready. They were a fearsome group of fighting men, massive in height and breadth, clad in furs and armor, wielding weapons that could cleave a grown man from head to groin with a flick of the wrist. That
was what had caused Emma and Bridget to scream, no doubt; both women stood leaning against a nearby wall, fanning themselves with their aprons.

“May God help us!” Adam exhorted.

“Hah! I prefer the proverbial wisdom, ‘Call on your God, but avoid men with sharp blades.’”

In truth, these Norsemen did not frighten Adam, his words prompted more by surprise than fear. Even though he was Saxon by birth, he and his sister Adela had grown up in a Norse household. It was not the sight of armed Vikings that had caused Adam and Rashid to go slack-jawed with amazement. It was the leader of the Norse troop that drew their attention. Tossing aside a full-length, midnight blue, wool cloak lined in gray sable, the Norse chieftain stood before them, arrogant and proud.

It was a woman.

A woman warrior.

A sudden thought occurred to Adam, and he turned on his assistant. “Rashid! You didn’t! Surely this is a coarse jest, even for you.”

“Me? What have I done?” Rashid slapped a palm over his heart, as if suffering some great insult.

“The harem nonsense,” Adam reminded him. “A short time ago, you urged me to start a harem, and now
this,”
he said, indicating the Amazon who had resumed her bold approach toward him, followed closely by a dozen soldiers. The woman even walked like a man, in an exaggerated, swaggering sort of way.

“Are you mad? That … that man-woman is not what I would consider for a harem.” Rashid practically sputtered with indignation.

“What then? A Valkyrie?” He’d heard the tales of the legendary female gods who led brave warriors to the afterworld.

“That is no Valkyrie,” Rashid asserted. “That man-woman is live and human … I would swear it on Muhammad’s grave.”

As the group drew closer, Adam got his first good look at the woman through the light provided by the open doors and meager arrow slit windows. And he had to agree with Rashid’s assessment. This was no goddess, come from the other world. She was flesh and blood … and definitely woman.

The oddest thing happened then. Fine hairs stood out all over Adam’s body. His heart stopped beating for a second, then raced wildly. Most remarkable, a surge of energy slammed into his loins, pumping hot blood into the region, and settling there, thick and pulsing. Like the drawbridge, he’d thought his manpart was rusted down. He was wrong.

She was tall, for a female. In fact, Adam was very tall himself and he had only a half head on her. Despite being slender, she was well muscled, as any soldier would be. The short-sleeved tunic she wore, belted at a narrow waist, left bare her arms, which bore etched silver armlets over well-defined muscles. Even her forearms displayed the raised tendons and ropy muscles of a swordsman. Exceedingly long legs were encased in skintight, soft hide leggings which also showed the delineation of musculature … no doubt from long hours atop a warhorse.

That image—female legs spread wide, the rhythmic up-and-down canter of the horse pressing against her womanplace—caused the throb in his manhood to intensify.
Bloody hell! It feels as if I have a heartbeat there.

She must have been wearing flexible chain mail, because he could see its hem beneath the thigh-high tunic, and because it molded her body in such a way that her breasts were upthrust against the fabric of her tunic.
From a distance, she might have resembled a man-woman, as Rashid had referred to her, but up close she was all woman, in Adam’s opinion.

To his utter shock, the woman did the most outlandish thing. She scratched at her groin … as men were wont to do. He could swear she did it deliberately, to reinforce the notion that she was a manly woman, or mayhap just to startle them. Repulsed as he was by the crude gesture, his manpart knew no better … it still throbbed.

Two years without a woman, and the first one that arouses me is wearing chain mail and scratching at her groin. Some celestial being must have a twisted sense of humor.

Who is she?

The richness of the jewel-brooched garments and gold-studded belt she wore, along with the silver-scabbarded weapons, bespoke a personage of high rank. He thought he knew all the families of Viking nobility, but this woman did not strike a memory chord.

Even as he stared at her rudely, the woman pulled the fitted leather helmet off her head, causing thick, pale blond braids to fall out, then cascade loose from their leather ties into what could only be described as skeins of golden silk.

He gasped.

And throbbed some more. Good thing he wore the loose Arab robe he favored when in his own home, or he would embarrass himself.

Under his breath, Rashid murmured in Arabic, “On the other hand …”

Adam arched an eyebrow in question.

“On the other hand, yon man-woman might make a magnificent harem houri. Dost think she would consent to wearing pierced bells on her breasts?”

“Shhhhh,” Adam cautioned, then added, also in
Arabic, “It would be more likely she would pierce your balls with bells, my friend. This is no tame desert damsel, eager to please her master.”

Eyes of cerulean blue pierced them both, almost as if she understood their words. Her men snickered under their collective breaths.

“Which of you is the healer?” she asked, speaking for the first time.

Her voice was deep and husky, but not at all manlike. Nay, Adam could imagine that voice whispering wicked things to a man when they were both stoked to passion. He could imagine it suggesting ways to cure the pleasure-pain that continued to envelop his loins. He could imagine—

“Well?” she interrupted his reverie. “Enough time have I wasted, traipsing across this wretched land. Which of you is the healer I have been searching for?”

He and Rashid exchanged a long look, not sure if either of them wanted to be the subject of her search. Finally, Adam admitted, “I was … am … Adam the Healer.”

Rashid piped in, “And I am Ibn Rashid al Mustafa. Your humble servant.” He performed a peculiar obsequious bow native to his country, involving the rapid touching of his forehead, nose, mouth, and heart.

“I have been trained as a physician,” Adam continued, “but I no longer treat patients. Perchance I could recommend another doctor for you … there are several monk healers in St. Peter’s ministerium at Jorvik. What exactly is your problem?”

“It’s not
my
problem that causes me to seek you out,” she explained, the whole while motioning with hand gestures to Emma and Bridget that they should provide drink for her men who were sitting down at the long trestle tables. Adam should have been embarrassed at not
offering the hospitality himself, but he was too confused by this woman and her mission. “‘Tis my father, King Thorvald of Stoneheim, who needs your help. He is gravely ill of an unknown malady. Dost know of him?”

Adam shook his head slowly.

“He is called Thorvald the Wolf.”

“Aaaah. Now I recall. His kingdom is in far northern Norway … Halogaland.” Adam’s stepuncle Tykir lived in Dragonstead, at the end of beyond in Norway. Men had body parts frozen off there if they were careless enough to venture outdoors overlong during the winter months. Stoneheim was even farther north, in the most primitive, mountainous area … a land nigh uninhabitable.

She nodded. “How long will it take you to pack your medicinal supplies?”

“I beg your pardon, m’lady … I mean …” He paused meaningfully, not knowing her name.
If this woman, magnificent as she is, thinks I am going anywhere near the frigid mountains of that godforsaken section of Norway, she is sadly mistaken.

“Tyra. Tyra Sigrundottir. Tyra, Cub of the Wolf. Tyra First Child. Tyra the Blonde. Tyra Brave One.” She shrugged as if to say she would answer to any of those appellations.

“Or Tyra Warrior Princess,” he offered, half in jest.

To his surprise, she agreed. “That, too.” And she didn’t even smile as she said it. Of a certainty, the woman was full of herself, and lacking in humor.

But her ego was of no consequence. He, and an important part of his body, thought she was glorious. Especially since she had not scratched herself again … thanks be to God! If she belched or did something else of a distasteful masculine nature, he might just cry with disappointment.