Edin's embrace (15 page)

And did he feel her racing heartbeat?

Despite that testimony, she continued to lay corpselike, even when he touched her inner thighs, even when he placed himself over her.

He didn't enter her. Something in him seemed to fail. What had happened to that desire to outrage her? What had become of that boldly self-satisfied knowledge that nothing and no one could keep him from reveling in her whenever he pleased? He'd wanted her so much she knew he'd been ready to hurt her had she not lain there passively letting him do as he would. But all that was vanished suddenly. He fell beside her, shaking with fury, evidently filled with emotions so murky he could hardly contain them.

What would he do now? Would he strike her? One unmeasured blow from his mighty fist and. . . . But no, she was still a valuable piece of property. He needn't go so far as kill her. Not when there were so many other horrible ways for a woman to be degraded and destroyed.

Minutes passed. Her breath grew ragged with tension. She started when he said, "You loved him?"

It took her a moment to gather her wits enough to answer. "I loved my life, my home, my people and, yes" —her voice filled with anguish —"I loved him! He was brother to me, and friend, and . . . and. . . ."

She couldn't go on. And couldn't resist as he took her into his arms once more. Her mind was in no condition to fight him. She was alone; she'd lost even herself, Edin of Fair Hope Manor. Now she was merely a female body to be used, to be caressed to satisfy this man's urgings. She began to weep, for herself, for Cedric, for everything that had once been and was no more.

He pressed her wet face into his neck and held her as heartbreak wracked her body. "I wanted children," she cried, her voice aching and poignant, her fist mindlessly beating his shoulder. "I would have been a good mother. I would have done my best to make Cedric happy —I
would
have! But you . . .
why?
Why did you have to come? You're so ruthless and cruel. I
hate
you!"

She suddenly realized that even as she reviled him, she was pressed against him, he who was the cause of her misery, and her tears turned to venom.

"Let me go!" she hissed, scratching at his holding arms, trying to kick away from him.

He found her wrists and pushed them under her body, then lay over her, adding his weight to hers to keep them pinned.

"Let me go!

She heaved against him, moving beneath him like the sea surging against the headland. As his weight seemed to bear down all the more, she cursed him with more ferocity than she knew she owned.

But he was heavy and smothering, and gradually she exhausted herself and lay too spent to move. He lifted his weight guardedly. She continued to lay motionless, ignoring the power of his hand that stroked her hair so gently, that ran down her side to her thigh. Did he sense that anything might be done to her in that moment? If so, then why did he ask, "This Cedric, he was your friend —but not your lover."

She said spiritlessly, "He was my dearest friend."

"He went to Valholl, you know. The defeated join the champions in death."

"He wasn't defeated, he was murdered."

"I murdered no one," he said with patience. "Think, Shieldmaiden. I was looking at you, at the salmon-pink tip of your breast, when suddenly I heard someone behind me. I turned and saw a man with a weapon at my back."

"You didn't have to stab him again once he'd fallen!"

"A belly wound makes for a bad death. He was screaming. I did him the service I would do any man faced with that agony. I pierced his heart to give him quick peace."

Her memory saw him lower his head, as if he were concentrating on the dying boy before him. His sword reached out and touched Cedric's chest as if to say,
I give you death, boy
. She wondered if it could possibly be true, if he'd acted with mercy, this man who had no mercy in him.

Or did he? He'd pulled her up out of the fjord when he could as easily have let her drown. He'd seen she was well-tended, even warmed her with his own body. He'd not killed her as his law said he should, hadn't even beaten her for running away. He'd taken her maidenhead, yes, but with a consideration that was akin to mercy. He'd even let her keep her hair. And dressed her finely. And now was explaining himself to her. Why? What did he see in her? Why did he go to such lengths to claim her?

She let him take her head between his big hands. "Shieldmaiden." He began to kiss her, kissed her endlessly, long narcotic kisses that inevitably penetrated her reserve and shook the core of her being, kisses that urged her to want more, until, mindlessly, she turned into his arms. The instant she did, she felt his muscles leap. His strong arms closed about her, and a moan of pleasure escaped his throat. He took her again, and again made her want something more, something she couldn't even name.

***

Thoryn woke fully aroused. The Saxon was sleeping softly in the crook of his arm. He calculatedly set about invading her dreams. He touched and caressed her gently, brushing the very tips of her breasts, touching her eyebrows with the tip of his tongue, and the corners of her lips. "Shieldmaiden." He felt her begin to drift awake. He let his breath rustle against her mouth. "I want you."

She drew in a long quivering breath, and realizing what he was about, sighed, "Not again, Viking."

He felt himself smile. For years it had been a rarity with him, but lately. . . . "You can't say no to me." His lips descended. He kissed her softly, continued to handle her gently, and whispered endearments to her in Norse, things like, "I don't know myself anymore; I almost believe I could be like this."

She was too drowsy to get up any resistance. She allowed herself to be touched and caressed, but kept her eyes closed. And she didn't respond, not by a single moan. That bothered him, but he wanted her and would have her regardless. When he parted her thighs in the darkness, she made a sound at last —a whimper of protest —but then with one surge he made his possession too deep to refute.

Only a few hours later, he woke once more uncomfortably and undeniably aroused. It felt as if his manhood had been hewn out of wood. He pulled off her blankets and took her again in the dawn light. She didn't resist this time, either, but only sighed plaintively. Because he thought she might be sore, and because there was enough light in the room for him to enjoy the sight of her now, he took more time with her, opened her like a flowerbud, and entered her slowly, savoring each surge of delight until his proprietorship was again beyond proof.

She fell asleep again as soon as he was finished, sprawled as he'd left her, her knees apart, her upper body slightly turned, her hands open, and her skin washed by the dawn light. He covered her against the chill. He dressed quietly so as not to wake her. He felt . . . purged. He felt . . . good, himself, Thoryn as Thoryn should be, as his youth had seemed to promise he would be, untainted, unbrutal.

For a moment, considering this and the implications of it, he stood motionless, looking at the Saxon's incredibly innocent beauty. Then he went out into the hall to set Sweyn free before the household stirred.

The cripple had chewed the painted wood of the high-seat pillar like a savage wolf. When he started awake now and looked into Thoryn's face, he bent his head as though shamed beyond bearing. And Thoryn felt ashamed —for causing this in another man.

He cut the thong that held Sweyn's good wrist, and the cripple rose —though not to his full height, which had once been a threat in itself. Once the man had been a champion; once he'd been as strong as a granite runestone. Now he was grey and flaccid and pitiable, half a man, a cripple.

Thoryn was unused to feeling shame and pity; he hardly knew how to handle such sentiments. To cover them, he put on a severe look. "If I see you drinking like that again, I'll deliver peace to you suddenly, Sweyn Elendsson. Is that understood?"

"It's understood,
Jarl
, and I will abide by it, even if such treatment as you've given me is unmanly"

Thoryn reacted out of habit; he gave Sweyn a backhanded blow that nigh laid the man back down on the rushes. Sweyn regained his balance slowly. Thoryn said, "Jarl I am, and master of this steading, and I will not be criticized for any treatment I mete out to an oath-breaker. Now get you to your bed and snore off the rest of your drunkenness!"

Sweyn's eyes wavered ere they collide Thoryn's. He wiped his mouth on his wrist, but then he did as he was told.

Thoryn strode back toward his own chamber in a fume —yet, as soon as the door was closed behind him, he felt a mysterious sense of relief, of homecoming.

There she was, still sleeping, so peaceful, so beautiful, so moving. He sat carefully on the edge of the bed. And a thought that was violent in its unexpectedness rose in his mind:
If only she could learn to experience the pleasure I do; if only she could learn to feel safe with me.

Safe? With him?

Her eyes opened to look at him directly, unflinchingly. He experienced a dizzy vertigo, a bottomless falling-away.

She let him take her hand and study her fingers, responding with nothing but that stare, completely unaware that she was tempting him profoundly, not to take her again, not exactly, but to try to regain that fleeting feeling he got whenever he was taking her —of having what he really needed at last, of having it in his embrace, of possessing it, of holding it and occupying it and
being
a part of it.

He said, for lack of knowing what else to say, "You pleased me well last night, Saxon" He watched her eyes shift away. He felt dizzy again, with her innocence and the charm of knowing it and all else about her was his. It made his heart rise up; it made him want to laugh out loud. "Aye," he said, "you can sing a pretty song."

She looked back at him quickly her mouth forming a little
Oh!

He pretended surprise. "You thought I meant something else?"

"I must arise."

He wanted to say her name; he had an unlikely urge to engage in physical endearments and gentlenesses. Suddenly his position and his responsibilities seemed heavy anchors, as did the daily round of herding, farming, and fishing. "Aye," he said, denying all his instincts, "we still have guests. I'm taking some of the men hawking this morning —else I would still be abed, too." He tried to look wicked.

Evidently he succeeded beyond his intention, for with a sudden slithering movement she was off the bed and winding her woolen gowns about her. He was left to pull at his mustache pensively as she combed her hair until it flowed down her back and arms like a cascade, glistening flexuously in the growing light from the window.

Though he had emptied himself into her no less than three times in the night, he felt his manhood stiffen and throb again. A tremor passed through him. He rose and reached for her and turned her around, and while she was busy avoiding his kiss, he pulled up her hems and placed his fingers between her thighs.

At Thoryn’s first intimate touch, the Saxon moaned, as if with great sorrow this time.

"Why do you arch away?"

"You make me ashamed. Why are you so sinful?"

"Let me, my Shieldmaiden — how soft and warm you feel." With his eyes closed, his fingers explored her.

"It isn’t right."

"You’re nothing the worse," he said, trying to be soothing yet knowing he sounded savage. "Let me kiss you."

Moving her head so that he couldn’t capture her mouth, she murmured desperately, "What do you want from me?"

"What I want is very simple: merely that you be constantly and immediately accessible to me. Now kiss me!"

"You kissed me enough last night to serve for a year. Oh . . she moaned with his continued caress. Her head was hanging back on the stem of her silver-collared throat, her lips were slightly parted, and her breasts were rising and falling rapidly.

"By Odin, you’re too beautiful!" Never had a woman evoked such fierce desires in him. He drew her toward the low chest at the foot of the bed, where he sat and opened his own clothes. "Don’t," she said as he pulled her down onto him. At the same time he at last captured her mouth.

His tongue met hers. Fire filled his loins.

His palms went to her hipbones; his fingers splayed over her bottom, gripping; he rolled her hips. He'd never been so deep in her before; he gloried in the feeling of her shudder as he rolled her hips with his hands. And then she was moving of her own will. She pulled her mouth from his with a gasp, threw her head back, and undulated in his lap.

Given this sign of pleasure from her, the climax of his pleasure was not long in coming. The spasm took him so hard he could only hope his embrace wasn't hurting her. Behind his eyelids he saw nothing but thin, vibrating, golden light. When it faded, he found she'd fallen forward against him, limp, her head over his shoulder. He exposed her ear and planted a soft kiss there. "You please me, Saxon."

"You degrade me and make me ashamed." Her voice was full of unshed tears.

***

The hawking party was ready to set out on horseback. Thoryn's long green cloak was fashionably askew; his hands were coarsely jeweled. Upon his gauntleted wrist perched his fiercest, fastest hunting hawk, a frost-white falcon. The bird's head was covered with a little hood so it couldn't see. It was kept fast to his wrist by a silver chain attached to its leg.

From the midst of the restless horses and the pack of eager dogs, he looked back at the longhouse. Therein lay his treasure. Confident that from now on it would be there when he returned, he shrugged back his thick mane of hair and breathed the air deeply, hauling it in so his chest filled. The morning was so full of sound, so full of promise, it seemed to brim with unseen wild jubilance. He felt charged with the sheer fury of living as he set his heels to his stallion, and Dawnfire was glad to be off. Rolf and his mount started just behind them, then came Kol and his sons, and Leif the Tremendous. Their horses threw themselves into mighty gallops. The dogs followed with frenzied barking. The party left its prints in the dew as they rode up the slope toward the mountains, which were wrapped in wreaths of smokelike, summer-morning mist.

Thoryn was the first to spy a game bird. He quickly unhooded his hawk and turned it loose. The sharp-eyed bird soon saw its quarry. For an instant the air vibrated with excitement, then, with a swift spring, the hawk soared high, swooped over the bird, and brought it down. Thoryn blew into a little silver whistle. The hawk dropped the bird, then flew back to settle again upon his master's wrist. Its eyes held an excited glitter. The game bird was brought in by the dogs.

Later, at breakfast, Thoryn hardly tasted the goat's cheese and
fiskboller
, fishcakes. His thoughts took him off. He sipped his buttermilk, holding each sip in his mouth until it turned warm before remembering to swallow. When his guests would chat with him he cast off their comments as he would toss back small fish. He didn't want his mood tarnished by these men who clung to the grosser pleasures as greedily as sucklings to their mothers' teats.

He thought of the Saxon. She felt ashamed— because each time he took her, though she gave little, still it was more than she meant to give. And each time she gave a fraction more. He had no sympathy for her shame, for he meant to increase it until, like a bubble of brine foam, it burst and was no more. He formed a plan, and with it a new spaciousness invaded him. Why was it that with her he felt the possibility of a different way of life, a way that would take its time, that would stroll through whole sennights as if they were single days, that would allow the world to approach him instead of he having endlessly to launch himself upon it, armed for combat?

He watched as she helped with the breakfast serving, then disappeared with Red Jennie. What could she and that flame-haired minx be talking about? What else besides their masters? What would the Saxon say about him? He felt a bit uneasy —and a bit proud. Could Magnus manage to take his little redhead four times in one night? But would the Saxon complain about that, and tell Jennie she was being mistreated?

Whatever, at least he knew she was nearby. He could leave her alone for now. His plan would provide him the time he needed to overtake her. All the time in the world.

***

Inga sat next to the eldest man on the fjord, Finnier Forkbeard, whose head was heavy with grizzled hair, and whose long, full whiskers formed two points. She took no notice of him, however; instead, she watched the spell that was overtaking Thoryn. He was alight with that extraordinary, unreasoning happiness that only one who had suffered similarly could recognize. Happiness like the flame of a lamp, which burns down even as it glows, which is at its brightest the instant before it gutters out.

Inga was afraid. The thrall-woman was a demon, and what demons love they kill in the end. Her hand came up out of a fold of her gown, clenched, as if she meant to strike someone with her fist —or as if she held something, a dagger mayhap.

***

Thoryn imagined the Saxon watching him all that day, and he took the possibility into account wherever he went and whatever he did. A feast like this was a high-point in the life along the fjord. In the crowded hall, the ale still flowed freely; love blossomed among the young; men reminisced — and sometimes came to blows; heroic stories and exploits were remembered and repeated. Thoryn however, found his mind hurrying on ahead to when it would be over, regarding it and the present moment as an obstruction. Finally the sun threw huge shadows across the valley. He hastened his exhausted guests on their way with host gifts, amulets in the form of Tiny Thor's hammers, which he'd kept Eric No-breeches busy making this past sennight.

As he was seeing Hagna off, he got word that Hrut Beornwoldsson had taken it into his mind to challenge Jamsgar Copper-eye over the thrall, Juliana. The widow Gunnhild could not afford to lose her only son, but as Snorri told it, the lad would not back down. And everyone knew that Jamsgar loved a fight as much as he loved a woman and would not pass any opportunity to pierce one or the other.

When Thoryn came upon the three of them, the girl was watching anxiously while the Viking circled around the boy, a gawky youth of fifteen winters. Thoryn said, "Put away your axe, Jamsgar; he's but an excited pup."

Jamsgar's eyes never left Hrut as he retaliated in a low, savage tone, "The pup boasts like a man, and thinks to fondle my woman like a man, so let him hold an axe like a man. Come on, puppy, let's test your mettle!"

"Put your axe down, Hrut."

The boy was growing tall and just starting his first beard and no doubt feeling very dangerous. He bunched his tough body and delivered a rolling, blustering, intolerably bombastic speech: "I know how a Norseman should die, and I mean to go like my father, who was as great a Norseman as ever lived." He added, more boyishly, "Besides, she's not his woman. She's a thrall, anybody's woman."

"She's
my
woman, my thrall and my mother's best loom-woman," Thoryn quietly reminded them both, and with those words he drew his own weapon. "Now put down your axes." The two suddenly seemed to regain their wits. Thoryn didn't relent an inch. "Either challenge
me
for her, Hrut, or go to where your good mother waits to take her leave."

The boy naturally did the reasonable thing.

Thoryn turned his head, impaling Juliana with his gaze. She had a new trinket, a slender bronze chain that banded her brow and head. "Thrall," he warned softly, "several things about you displease me, and we will talk of them in detail soon; but right now your presence is a gall to my eyes."

She took a backward step, then turned and fled.

Thoryn turned to Jamsgar, who had a look of amused chagrin. Thoryn said, "That girl is trouble."

The man's copper eyes were alive with light. He pulled his helmet farther down over his nose, as if that could hide his grin. "Aye, but such pleasant trouble, Jarl."

"I won't have you fighting over her. If you want her so badly, make me an offer for her."

"What would I do with her if I owned her?"

"The same thing you do with her now!"

"Aye, you get my point exactly"

Any other day Thoryn might have reacted differently, but his night with the Saxon had left him feeling magnanimous. All he could seem to manage in the way of discipline was an ominous voice. "If you're very lucky, Jamsgar Herjulsson, you'll be able to stay out of my sight the rest of this day."

An hour later, Thoryn and his stallion came across Rolf rescuing a frantically bleating goat kid from a hollow of the stream that watered the valley. The place grew thick with rich grass, which had lured the kid, but also with birch and willows, which had caught its hair and kept it from following its dame >home for the night. The dusk was still; there was a sweet smell of fern, mud, and water reed here. The two men got the kid free, and Rolf tucked it under his arm and started back toward the longhouse on foot, traveling in the wheeltracks of the last carting of the harvest.

Thoryn, on Dawnfire, started off in a different direction, with the intention of inspecting a field soon to be planted with late rye. His land was farmed with care and hard work. The valley yielded grain and fragrant grass; sheep grazed the fells. This year it had not been necessary to take them up to the
saeter
for the summer, to fatten there till autumn.

At the thought of the unused
saeter
, Thoryn wheeled and cantored back. "Rolf," he said abruptly, "have you ever pleased a woman as well as you were pleased? What I mean is, well, had one, uh, erupt along with you?"

Rolf seemed thoughtful. "Aye —not often —but now and again. Mostly women are cold as the far northern ice, but, aye, there has been one now and again."

"So it has been with me." Thoryn's usual way with wenches was either a pretense of gallantry if she was Norse and freeborn, or a more honest disdain if she was not. Neither attitude seemed to make one female more pulsating than the other. Still, he'd considered himself pretty informed on the subject of beddings, but now he found his information inadequate. For the first time he considered that he might actually be ignorant. He said, "I wonder if a man can encourage such a thing. Coming home on
Blood Wing
, you said something about 'making a woman shudder . . .'?"

Rolf grunted. "Some do shudder prettily, don't they? Especially when you have the time to dally with them. Still, a man rarely knows the daylight desires of a woman, let alone her night desires. It's enough for a man to give his strength to protect his females. They can't expect more."

Thoryn felt his patience thinning. "Friend, you're ever-ready with advice when I'm not in need of it. Come, have you no thoughts at all on how a warrior can pleasure an untrained woman?"

"You're speaking of the Saxon, of course."

"Aye," he grated. "Whatever I do, I feel like an ogre. Though half my size, she struggles to be let go all the while I'm holding her. Or if she doesn't struggle, and only lies there and whimpers, I feel like an idiot. I know she thinks me a huge, tangle-haired savage, wild and rough and positively bloodthirsty— "

"It seems she knows you well enough then," Rolf put in, tilting his head teasingly to one side. "Why do you want to give her a false opinion?"

Thoryn's frustration reached an apex. "Odin, God of War! God of Guile in Action! I should have known better than come to you!"

Rolf chuckled. "I wish you luck, oath-brother, but I fear some things can't be captured: rainbows . . . reflections in water . . . women's pleasures. I doubt how much a man's will can accomplish along those lines."

Thoryn was sorry now that he'd ever brought the subject up. Yet he said grimly, "It remains to be seen what
my
will can accomplish, friend."

***

The fjord lay smooth and undisturbed, the steep fells were silent. Long, boney fingers of mist reached across the star-silvered sky. In the longhouse, the Viking gathered Edin into his arms. She trembled with sick anticipation. But he didn't take her. He pulled her onto her side facing him, so that her head was pillowed on his great shoulder and her palms lay open against his matted chest. His hands idled up and down her back. He seemed encompassed in the landscape of his own thoughts, hardly aware of her, until he said, "In the morning we're going away."

Her heart pounded. Into her head sprang the thought of a slave market. She'd never seen one, yet she could imagine it only too well. "Where?" she asked.

"My
saeter
. It's a hut on the upland plateau where we sometimes pasture sheep in the summer. Sometimes, when I was very young, my mother and father and I packed food and went up there for a few days. It made a break in the routine. Up there, in the Kolen, it's quiet and peaceful. I feel a need of quiet and peace just now. And there is something I want you to give me," he added cryptically, "a thing which needs all my attention, and yours, for a time."

"We're going alone?"

"Aye, but you will not complain of my company, I think." As he said this, his finger followed the rippling path of her spine down from her neck, making goosebumps rise. At the bottom his callused hand opened and stroked, idly again, with no particular purpose.