Walpurgis Night (4 page)

“I’ll take none of you willingly,” she answered, still struggling to catch her breath. “And I promise you will all regret it do you force me.” She tried to work her hand down to pull the dagger her mother had given her from its sheath.

“Brave words,”
Artur
said. “Yet I wager we shall have you begging us for more before we finish.” He saw her fingers creeping toward the leather sheath at her side and forestalled her effort. He got to the dagger before she did and drew it from its case. He studied it while the third man huffed up beside them and latched on to one of her arms. Even so, she continued to try to wriggle away from the men’s
hold
.

Fear tightened her throat and sent waves of icy coldness down her body. Her stomach clenched as nausea roiled through it. She would not show it. “You’d best plan to kill me when you’re done, and even then I’ll haunt your dreams and make your nights a torment,” she promised them.

For a moment the men paused, but they couldn’t back off now without losing face in front of the others. A month ago they wouldn’t have dared do this, but her choice of the Norseman had rubbed them on the raw and pushed them into proving something, though whether to her or themselves, she couldn’t guess.

Fianna
found herself abruptly tossed to the ground and stretched out with one man holding her arms above her head and another holding her ankles. Jerrod released one leg long enough to flip her skirts up, revealing her knees and thighs.

“Nay.
Wait,”
Artur
warned. He knelt over her with the dagger poised. The slanting rays of the late afternoon sun glinted off the silver blade and set the red jewel in the hilt burning. For a moment she thought he meant to cut her with it, but then he inserted the blade under the top of her dress and began to slice down through the material.

The fabric parted and fell away from her. She shivered in the chill fall air as her breasts and then her belly were left naked to the kiss of the wind and the lecherous, leering eyes of her captors.

Chapter Four

She closed her eyes, praying to whatever deities might be listening that something would happen to spare her this. Even so, when rescue did come, she barely believed it.

She felt the thunder of
hoofbeats
through the ground before she saw or heard anything else. Her captors were so fascinated by her naked body, they failed to notice even when the sound of approaching horses became audible. By the time they looked up and prepared to fight, it was too late.

The leader of the group of horsemen surveyed the scene quickly and gave them all a disdainful glare. He didn’t even bother to draw the sword strapped to his side.
Fianna
pulled the remains of her clothes back over her body as soon as the men released her hands, but she still colored when
Henrik
stared at her.

“I regret that I interrupt your recreation,” he said to her tormentors. “But I have need of the lady’s services.”

Fianna
couldn’t help staring at him. In sunlight, the man’s handsome face, straight carriage and a natural air of command made him even more striking. His expression, though, was tight and hard, promising no
kindness,
very different from the way he’d looked the last time she’d seen him. What had happened to rouse that fierce glare? A frisson of unease crawled up her spine, and she shook despite her efforts to remain still.

The three men who’d been her late captors stirred.

“She’s no lady,” Jerrod said. “She’s a witch.”

“We have need of her services, as well,”
Artur
protested at the same time. “And were about to avail ourselves of them. You’ve had your time with her. Give us an hour and then come back and get her.”

Henrik’s
expression showed no change. “I know what she is. I cannot wait for you to finish this business.” He turned to her. “I need you to come with me,” the man stated.

“Why?”
Fianna
asked. Was it possible that he did want her—enough to take her this way? The Norse raiders were notorious for their sexual appetites and for taking what they wanted whenever they wanted. Still,
Hjalmar
and his son
Henrik
had been restrained and had even intervened in a case where a woman had been forcibly taken from her family by one of his men. And he would surely know that even now he had only to ask to get her to come to him.

Artur
protested, “The lady doesn’t want to go with you.”

He had read her hesitancy correctly, but he misjudged the strength of her hatred for them and what they’d tried to do.

Henrik
threw
Artur
another disdainful look and then ignored him, focusing his attention on
Fianna
. He watched her struggle to hold her dress together for a minute then reached up, removed his own cloak and tossed it to her.
Fianna
wrapped it around herself, grateful for both the coverage and the warmth. She’d begun to shiver with reaction as much as the chill. The garment bore the remembered scent of the man.

“Come with me,”
Henrik
repeated, and it wasn’t an invitation.

Fianna
shrugged, trying not to let the hope rouse. “Why do you want me?”

“We need a healer.”

She wasn’t disappointed. No reason she should have expected anything else. It was a struggle to keep her emotions in check and her face blank. She nodded. “Then it would be wise to let me collect some things before we go.”

Henrik
considered that for a moment. “So be it.”

She nodded. Her late tormentors stood watching the interchange.
Artur
still held her dagger. He didn’t protest or resist when she walked over to him, took it out of his hand and replaced it in the sheath at her side.

Two of
Henrik’s
men dismounted and came to her. She turned away and started to lead the way on foot, but one of them put a hand on her shoulder. “Ride,” he said, firmly. “Come.”

Sensing that they would brook no refusal,
Fianna
went with them to the group, looking for a
riderless
horse. She was shocked when the two men on foot suddenly took her and lifted her onto the back of
Henrik’s
mount without giving her any warning or time to prepare. They ignored her shriek of surprise.

Her companion turned his horse.
Fianna
gasped and put an arm around his waist to steady herself but was able to relax a bit when the horse settled into an easy walk. She didn’t move her arm, though. Her hand rested against his flat stomach, and there was something both soothing and exciting about the contact. Although his shoulders were broad and substantial, his waist was much leaner. Beneath the leather jerkin, she felt the play of hard muscle there. She didn’t look back, but she felt the glares of her late captors following her as they left the area.

The party of five horsemen drew considerable attention riding through the small village. People stepped aside, stopped, stared and pointed, muttering among themselves. Neither
Henrik
nor any of his party paid notice to it. Instead he led the group to her cottage.

Marla heard the clatter and came outside to peer at the arrivals. Her expression changed from alarm to puzzlement when she saw
Fianna
being assisted from the horse by one of the Norsemen. “What is happening?” she asked as
Fianna
approached. The woman’s gaze swung back and forth between the grimfaced horsemen and her young friend.

“Come inside with me.”
Fianna
took the older woman’s arm. “I need to pack a bag. They need a healer.”

“Ah. And did they ask you?”

“Nay, but I haven’t been coerced, either. Indeed they rescued me in a sense.” She told Marla about the men who’d nearly raped her.

The woman sighed. “I’ve spoken to Tom Miller about his son before, but he will not curb him. Those boys will not give up easily and will cause you more grief. Girl, you must find someone who can protect you or settle on one of them. That is the jarl’s son you shared horse with, no?
The one who companioned you on the equinox night.”

“Aye, but harbor not any romantic notions concerning him.”

“He has no wife here, I’m told.”

“He’s a Norseman.”

“And a strong man.
Well-favored, also.
You could do worse.”

“I could not do it at all. Why should he have any interest in me but for a pleasant night’s dalliance?”

“For the same reason those other young men do,
Fianna
. I know you have no vanity yourself, but your looks will draw men. Perhaps even that young Viking, do you exert yourself but a bit. You cannot go on as you’ve been doing. It might be better for you to find some other place to settle if you will not have one of the men here.”

“Nay, I know,”
Fianna
admitted as she pulled off the ruined dress and slid a fresh one over her head. “They might well have killed me after using me this afternoon. I don’t want to leave here, Marla. Where would I go? What would you do without me to help you? I am needed here.” She tied the ribbons on the dress and set her girdle with the leather sheath back over it. Then she gathered a cloth bag and began to choose what she might need.

“I’ll survive, dear,” Marla said
,
handing her pouches of herbs to put into slots in the cloth bag
Fianna
was loading. “And so will most in this village, if you do leave.”

A growing
rumble
of voices and tromp of feet swelled into a commotion outside.
Fianna
wondered if the Norsemen were having an argument with people from the town. That wasn’t it, though, as she learned moments later when three of the town elders, followed by assorted others, crowded into the main room of Marla’s home.

Alfred, the most prosperous and influential merchant in
town,
stepped to the front of the group and stared at her.
Fianna
spied
Keovan
lurking behind several of the older men.

Alfred watched her for a moment longer. “The situation grows intolerable,” he informed her. “Long have you been a disruptive influence with your arrogant refusal to choose any man in town to partner you. Too much like your mother, you are. You have come close to inciting some of the young men of this town to violence. Just today, I understand, there was trouble. You’re disrupting too many lives,
Fianna
,
Eislinn’s
daughter. This cannot continue.”

The man paused and looked around the room as though waiting for someone to contradict him.

“I agree,”
Fianna
answered. “Three men nearly forced me this afternoon. They need to be warned that such behavior is not tolerated.”

Alfred looked surprised but recovered. “I’ll be speaking to them about it,” he promised.
“But there is an argument that your refusal to take any of them continues to injure and wound them, inciting them to uncharacteristic acts.
This cannot go on. You,
Fianna
, must do your part to stop it.”

“And that part is?” she asked.

“You must marry.
And soon.
I’ll not tell you who to choose, but I declare this. You have until the eve of May Day, the night the Norsemen celebrate Walpurgis, to make your choice. Have you not agreed to wed with some man, you’ll have to leave the village that night and not return, on pain of death.”

For the first time his expression showed some distress. “I do not like having to pronounce this doom or force you to this,” he said. “
but
the need for peace in the town compels me to it. You must decide whose suit to accept and cease tormenting the young men of this town.”

Alfred looked at her. “Do you understand what you must do?”

She stared back at him. “Aye,” she answered on a sighing breath. “Because they cannot control themselves as reasonable men are normally expected to do, I must sacrifice my freedom to live my life as I would. This is a strange justice.”

He had the grace to look abashed. “It is perhaps not entirely fair to you,” he admitted. He drew a breath and his face hardened. “It is nonetheless necessary. You are a woman and so must be subject to a man. That is how it must be.”

“I see,” she agreed, wanting to argue further yet recognizing the futility of it.

“Very well.
We’ll await your decision.” The man nodded to her and to Marla then turned to leave, signaling that the others should go with him.

Marla’s face showed compassion when she turned to
Fianna
. “I’m sorry it has come to this for you. I know there are few good choices.”

Fianna
shrugged and resumed packing her bag of medicines. “I suppose I could agree to marry Jerrod or
Artur
or
Keovan
. Not a one of them thrills me, but I could reach accommodation with one, I suppose. I know not how to choose among them, though.”

“There are other possibilities, no?”

Fianna
shrugged.
“Walter, the blacksmith’s apprentice.
He’s slow, but strong enough.”

“My cow’s smarter than Walter. And he’s too young anyway.”

“I’m sure I could get a proposal from
Densley
, the old Cooper.”

Marla shook her head.
“Too old.
He’s doddering. He’d fall over dead from the shock did you make a move toward him.”

Fianna
sighed, closed up the bag and hung it on her shoulder. “I’ll think on it.” She glanced outside and saw the Norsemen still waited there. “I know not what exactly the Norsemen want of me so I cannot say how long ’twill take.”

“Take care of
yourself
,” Marla said.

Fianna
nodded to her and went back outside. Two Norsemen approached the door but stopped when they saw her emerge. Again they accompanied her to their leader’s horse and helped her mount behind him.