Edin's embrace (3 page)

In a moment, a third Viking entered, big, as evidently were all their breed, showing reddish hair beneath an iron helmet decorated with copper and red rubies. He looked about him, his roving gaze ending with the Viking on the floor. The two spoke; their jaws seemed to chew the unintelligible Norse words like gristle. Then the newcomer looked at Edin. A droll little grin escaped his mouth.

Cedric's murderer approached her. She tried to scramble away, but he caught her arm in a grim grip and pulled her up. She raised her hands over her face, anticipating a blow, but he only spun her around so that her back was to him, and wrapped his arm around her rib cage beneath her breasts. Thus he lifted her right off her feet. She was held with her back to his chest. She struggled again, tore at his arm, kicked. Since her feet were bare, she knew he hardly felt her heels beating against his legging-wrapped shins, yet he growled at her, in Saxon again, "Don't take on so."

She
would
take on. She must. If she surrendered, her vulnerability and helplessness would rush at her.

He gave her ribs a squeeze. "Still you don't learn! A man would be dead and stark already for what you've done."

She gasped for breath — then went on writhing under his forearm. His hold, and her straining, served little by little to draw up her shift, so that the whiteness of her upper legs flashed. She heard his icy voice again, speaking in Norse to the redheaded Viking who stood watching with that grin dancing around his face. The giant seemed to be issuing an order, something severe and unsparing—then he paused, as if listening. The redheaded man turned a little, also listening. Among the garrulous, loud voices coming up from the hall, Edin now heard a terrible battle laugh.

The two men looked at one another. They spoke again, briefly, while Edin went back to twisting in the giant's grip. His arm didn't give a bit, though she was becoming exhausted; her movements were jerky, puppetlike.

Then suddenly her wriggles brought her breast into the palm of his hand. Her heart jumped up into her throat and nearly throttled her. As if he too felt something akin to an uprushing flame, the Viking all but threw her at the man he called Rolf.

Rolf let her put her bare feet on the floor before he pulled her from the room. After the dimness of her chamber, the sudden torchlight was strong. When her sight adjusted, she beheld the ruin of the manor hall.

The place was all alight. The big double doors, thick and ironbound, the manor house's strongest defense, had been broken wide open. Many of the wall tapestries had been pulled down. One tremendously fat man was stuffing all the edibles he could reach into his mouth, and in a corner two men were breaching a cask of the pale yellow wine meant for her wedding feast.

Edin was pushed down the narrow stairs. She saw the king's man; Ceolwulf, lying dead among the thyme-and lavender-scented rushes. His darkly brooding eyes stood open in what seemed great surprise. He'd brought a dark cloud of ominous news to sunny Fair Hope, and now it seemed he'd been caught by an unnatural justice.

Arneld, white-faced, dashed by the foot of the stairs, chased by a terrible-looking savage. The boy dodged this way and that as the savage tried to scoop him up. The scene resembled a gruesome game of tag. When the lad spied Edin, he cried out, as if he thought she could save him. He was mistaken, as the Viking proved by catching him, hooking his squealing body under one huge arm, and starting for the splintered door with him. The wine drinkers in the corner cheered their man— for his courage in taking so fierce a captive? The savage tried to swallow a grin, but it got away and slipped across his face.

What was he going to do with Arneld?

What was this Rolf going to do with her?

A frantic urge to escape stiffened Edin. She stopped. The Viking gave her a push to get her going again, and when that didn't move her, he stepped past her and tugged her wrist. She took him by surprise when she planted her feet and twisted her arm to break his grasp. It was easier than she could have hoped. His fingers slipped; in fact, he nearly fell down the stairs. Heart pounding, not with exertion but at her own audacity, she ran back up the stairs.

The whole manor house had the bizarre air of disaster, of things badly out of kilter. Seeing room after room being looted and no place to hide, Edin zigzagged in a frenzy. But then the redheaded Viking blocked her way. When she tried to dodge by him, he threw his leg out and tripped her. She fell full-length right at the feet of another warrior.

This one wore no helmet; he had a shaggy head of long blond hair that hung over his ashy blue eyes. He started to speak, to crow by the sound of his voice, and dropped his ornately inlaid battle-axe into a loop on his belt. He drew her up off the floor, up onto his chest, placing her breasts at the level of his face, which he rubbed against them.

The redheaded Rolf spoke a warning of some sort. Edin's shaggy-haired captor left off nuzzling her to glance about in an exaggerated, scornful way. His blue eyes sparkled with strange fire.

Edin's arms were caught in his clutch around her hips. He laughed as she tried to squirm free. She reclaimed one of her fists, however, and rapped his eye with her sharp knuckles. He jerked his head to the side. Her courage whetted, she bent and sank her teeth into his ear.

He yelped and threw her backward. She hit the wall, hard. Her head struck it with a dull thud. Stunned, she slid down until she was sitting on the floor.

It seemed someone had thrown a spider-lace black shawl over her eyes. Through it she saw the Viking glaring at her, his face white, going whiter. He smiled, but the smile was unpleasant. A froth appeared on his lips. She was too stunned to move, but her heart clenched as he took his axe from his belt. With a scream, he raised it over his head in both hands . . . only to lower it slowly as he felt the edge of another ornate blade against his neck. Nightmarishly, Edin recognized Cedric's killer once more, recognized those grey eyes and that bloodstained, damascened sword.

"You ill-handle my property, Sweyn." Thoryn looked levelly at his sworn man.

Sweyn laughed. That laugh had struck terror into many hearts this night. He swept his axe,
Death Kiss,
in a round scything motion. Only he could say how many times its biting edge had taken its meal. He said, "I sought only an amber-haired maid to light me to bed."

"Were you not told the woman is mine?"

"I told him, Thoryn," Rolf said, shrugging, "but the Berserk doesn't listen when his battle craze is on him."

The maiden was sitting with her legs sprawled, her short shift riding up above her knees, exposing her silken thighs. Thoryn watched as Rolf gathered her and lifted her to her feet, where he supported her. Thoryn saw her peculiar emotionless stare, the ashen color of her face. But then she blinked, and her hands lifted, like cup handles, to her head. The motion reassured him that she would recover.

He turned back to Sweyn, now with a cold, dry smile. Other Norse were gathering, as though some instinct had told them trouble was brewing. They muttered from one to the other as Sweyn said, "What makes her yours, Jarl?" Trouble indeed. A clear challenge to Thoryn's authority. The Norsemen shifted on their feet as they waited, tense and restless, reckoning to see blood spill and to feel the earth shake to the weapon strokes of their two mightiest warriors: their jarl and the strongest of their jarl's elect.

Thoryn said: "I see the Berserk needs to be reminded why I am called 'jarl.' " He backed away from Sweyn, his face set. He placed himself, left foot forward. His motions were deliberate, and Sweyn recognized that Thoryn had accepted his challenge. His own ashy blue eyes went huge and wild, and he laughed again, laughed as though he owned the skies. Then, abruptly, the laughter faded to an ugly grin, and he lifted his axe. With a yell, he rushed at Thoryn, swinging his great weapon.

Thoryn's shield was made of thick wood with a heavy iron boss in the center. Sweyn's first mighty blow splintered the top right off. Thoryn retreated, discarding the wreck.

Sweyn struck again — swung his axe up then brought it down toward Thoryn's head. Thoryn stood still as a stone as the blow came, then stepped to the side and with a two-handed grip used his sword to catch the axe shaft. His father's blade still carried the old magic; the sharp edge of it penetrated the heavy handle of Sweyn's axe to the depth of half an inch.

Sweyn had to pry the axe free. The cords of his neck stood out; a vein pulsed in his forehead. Once again he attacked, and once more Thoryn thrust out his sword and parried the blow.

Sweyn made to lift his weapon yet again, but now Thoryn sliced, so swiftly that Sweyn had to suck in his stomach and curve his back in order to avoid a slit in his belly. Sweat beaded his brow. Seldom did it take him more than one or two blows to finish a man. But then, seldom did he face Thoryn. He stood uncertain a moment, clearly wondering how best to proceed. Meanwhile, Thoryn gave a bellowing cry and leapt forward. Sweyn lifted up his axe to fend off the sword-sweep, but Thoryn's attack was too shrewd. His sword was raised in two hands, swinging back over his shoulder; his left foot stepped as he braced himself to pull down the blow; his blade crunched right through Sweyn's mesh armor and into the joint of his shoulder.

Had it not been for that armor, his arm would have been severed. A Norse sword could take off a man's arm, or his head, in one smooth blow. As it was, his grip loosened; his axe clunked to the floor. He stooped, disbelieving, tried to regain his weapon, but found his fingers would not close on the handle. He sagged forward onto one knee. Blood spilled down his useless limb to pool on the floor.

The onlookers stood with their weapons lowered, their eyes full of wonder and fear to see Sweyn the Berserk's arm streaming with the hot crimson wine of war. Sweyn lifted his own gaze from the exposed, pulsating veins in his wound, and looked from face to face, ending with Thoryn. "The hour of departure arrives and we go our paths, I to die, and you to live. Which is better only Odin knows." His lips drew upward so that Thoryn could see his yellow teeth clenched in a smile of fatality. "Finish it!"

Thoryn lifted his sword and stepped forward grimly. The Norsemen stood by wordless, their faces showing nothing of what they might feel.

To his credit, Sweyn faced his death with seeming stoicism, with his lips still pulled back from his tarnished teeth.

But into the silence of that moment the maiden spoke:
"Don't, Viking! Please!"
Three words in Saxon which no one but he understood. His head moved imperceptibly. He saw her eyes . . . green, eyes the silver-green color of sea swirl. A man could willingly wade neck-deep in such threshing froth. He felt an appeal to something inside himself, a knowing somewhere deep, but failed to comprehend it.

He looked back at Sweyn, then moved in on him, leading with his left leg again, ready for the closing blow. His sword, gleaming red in the torchlight, swept around.

But in the last inches he turned it, so that the flat of the weapon, and not its edge, struck Sweyn's neck with a smacking sound.

There was a moment of confusion among the Norse. They had seen their jarl poised for the death blow that would have ended Sweyn.

But Thoryn had heard those faint, foreign, feminine words, and now, to his own surprise, he was stepping back from his victim.

Sweyn's face changed. "Finish it, Jarl! I wish to feast this night with Odin in Valholl, on benches covered with the corselets of my brothers!"

Thoryn looked at the man unpityingly, then at the maiden. She stood in Rolf's hold, nearly naked except for that thin shift, wrapped in her hair, rampantly feminine, motionless. He felt like a man between two horses, being pulled two ways at once. The feeling made him angry.

He said, "The fair Saxon pleaded for you, Berserk. Mayhap she wants you to live to bed her after all. Come up with enough gold and I'll sell her to you. Then you can smother her beneath you anytime you wish."

Sweyn's face, deathly wan, swiveled to the maiden. "Aye, I would smother her. How much?" he growled.

"Eight half-marks of pure gold." Thoryn knew the price was far beyond anything Sweyn could afford, yet it was close to the price he expected to get for her.

He signaled the others to help the wounded man before he turned away. Sweyn snarled, "
Barknakarl!
You insult your namesake Thor. I broke my oath to you! Deal me my punishment, Jarl! Is Sweyn Elendsson so much your underling you can't stoop to give him the death he deserves? You've crippled me —now do you leave me to endure pity?"

But Thoryn, his eyes hooded against all outsiders, only gave his sundered shield a kick as he stalked off to oversee the looting.

Beware, a voice chimed in his ear, beware, Thoryn, this maiden with sea eyes and hair like tangled, amber water weed!

Redheaded Rolf pulled Edin away from the scene. She didn't resist. Her head throbbed; she still felt dazed —and sick. The blood of too many spectacles had been offered to her undiluted.

On the staircase, where now the air was heavy with the smell of spilled wine, one of the last battles was taking place. An ill-armed housecarl was being backed up the stairs by a great fellow with a barrel chest and four long yellow plaits bound with copper wire. The viking's bare arms, from fingernails to neck, were tattooed with pictures of trees and other things. The iron of his weapon rang like a bell against the housecarl's shortsword. Edin could hear the young man's raw panting. Then to her dismay, he was distracted by the sight of her. He turned his head slightly.

That was all his golden-bearded attacker needed. The viking swept the man's feet out from under him. As he fell, he spat a perfectly comprehensible profanity . At the same time, the Viking threw his batte-axe back over his head, and with uninhibited cruelty the broad blade came down, swiftly, exact as a drawn line —without feeling, without charity —and clawed the man's skull.

Edin cried out. The surprise drove her backward. The dead man's legs twitched, then he was quite still. A clinging grayness surrounded Edin, a ringing void came rushing into her brain. Rolf's grip on her arm tightened. Just as she felt her knees turn to water, he bent and put his shoulder into her waist. As her upper body fell over his back, he lifted her, head down, hair hanging. She felt him carrying her roughly until she lost her senses once more.

The next time she woke it was to find herself lying in dewy grass. She reached to feel her head and found her wrists were bound with a rope of plaited hide thongs. The lump on her head was almost the size of a man's fist. Wincing, she got to her knees and discovered she was on the ancient mound just outside the village. A bearded Viking wearing a conical battle helmet frowned down at her. She looked past him to what could only be the blazing of Hell.

She moaned. They were burning Fair Hope. Vikings jostled out the splintered doors even as flames licked up from the rushes behind them. Fair Hope, where she was to have fulfilled her womanhood in marriage and maternity. Fair Hope, her future. The manor house seemed to freely, wantonly, yield to the fire. It seemed to long to burn.

"My lady," a young voice came from behind her, "thank the saints! When he brought you, we thought for sure you must be dead."

She twisted on her knees to see first a pair of sheep grazing, tied together as if the Vikings meant to take them, then several of her folk, blessedly alive, but bound like herself; and who knew what that meant? She tried to cudgel her tired wits. The voice had come from Arneld, whom she'd last seen chased down in the hall. Beside him was Juliana, the dark-haired servant girl. And there was plump Udith, the cook, and her husband, Lothere, a lank, knuckly man, his neck stretched and his head turning this way and that. There were two field serfs as well, who had nothing on but their linen underpants and short-sleeved linen shirts. One of these inquired, hesitantly, "Lord Cedric?"

"They —" Her voice broke as memory drenched her. "They murdered him!"

"Don't cry, my lady." It was the boy again; she felt his small warm hands on her arm.

When she saw the tears in his eyes, and saw Udith digging her knuckles into her eyes, Edin stopped herself, realizing she must set the example. If she had her way, these Vikings would never see any of them cry. She looked into the faces that were looking back at her so expectantly. "We must be brave."

Her words brought an exchange of weak, hopeless glances. Then the boy said, "Here they come!"

Edin heard feet thumping the ground and turned. Tears were forgotten as fear took its place. Her folk huddled behind her. She saw the dull gleam of metal mesh armor in the flamelight, and her eye tallied more than a dozen men with blades and axes. So many of them! Three new captives were being herded along. The Vikings towered above these poor Saxons, laughing and swinging their great axes like shepherds' pipes, so that they hissed with every sweep and kept the gentle folk moving in a trot.

As the newcomers were tied like the others, more Vikings came to the mound, all laden with stolen valuables. Two of them staggered past with an iron-strapped chest — Cedric's chest, the great coffer he'd kept in his room as Uncle Edward had kept it before him. The lid was split across and wrecked, and the cups and coins inside glimmered in the flickering light.

Leaving the guard again, the pirates made final forays into the cluster of thatched cottages. By now the sky was all vermillion smoke. In that light, Edin made out two villagers lying lifeless outside their doors, two unfortunates probably caught by the first deadly charge.

The Vikings dashed in and out of the cottages, yowling. Edin cringed to hear their voices, high and reedy and cruel. More of her people were dragged from their hiding places. More cottages were set ablaze, until flames painted the night the color of copper.

When all of value had been garnished, the Vikings reassembled. As the red flamelight rose and dwindled, their faces alternately shone, then shadowed, then shone again. Some of them pranced like war horses, drunk on Edin's wedding wine. One blood-spattered youth stumbled off into the dark with his treasure sack and had to be brought back.

Two others were too wounded to stumble anywhere. The one called Rolf was half-leading, half-carrying the man who had nearly cracked Edin's head open. And the grey-eyed giant's outline was visible against the background of fire as he helped carry someone who hung limp between him and another man. When they put this one down, she recognized him as the man who had murdered the housecarl. He looked nearer death than life, lying on his back with his face to the heavens, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth.

One or two others walked slowly to the mound, like men who had come a long distance and were nigh exhausted. Edin herself was swaying on her knees. All the captives were kneeling, most with their palms together beneath their chins and their lips moving in prayer.

Cedric's murderer shouldered through to them. He nodded to the burly man guarding them. This one, spear in one hand, shield in the other, barked something strange and heathen at the Saxons. Naturally the Norse words made no sense to them, yet a shimmer of apprehension passed through them.

The Viking repeated his order, this time using his spear point to urge Lothere to his feet. They were being told to stand, and they obeyed, Edin included. They bunched together, rubbing against one another like deer that had caught a sudden, pungent whiff of wolf scent. Edin, dressed in nothing but her flimsy under-shift, had no modesty left at this point, and what good would it have done her anyway?

The Viking lined them up, and now the grey-eyed one, as if resigned to a distasteful job, slid his sword into its scabbard, lifted off his helmet and flung it down. He had a truly magnificent head of yellow hair. His golden arm ring and the one big bead he wore as an amulet winked in the firelight. He started at the far end and made his way along, looking each Saxon over. He examined hands, felt arms and legs, looked into mouths and at the straightness of backs. Many were rejected by him: the dairy woman, who was getting along in years; a field serf who looked as if he'd been pressed for decades between the pages of a heavy book; and many others.

When he got to Edin, he blinked slowly. She saw malice beneath his heavy eyelids. She stared back at him with what she hoped was frigid haughtiness. In return, he gripped her upper arm with a mighty hand, pushed her back and looked her over sharply — not her face, as one person looks at another, but her body. He turned her around, as if turning an inanimate object, presumably to look at her backside. When he turned her to face him again, she didn't resist. He reached for her hands. Her chest gave two sharp heaves. He couldn't help but notice, but there was no change in his expression. He was the tallest man she'd ever beheld, tall and muscular in his mail war shirt, and dangerous. His hard, battle-stained fingers turned her palms up. Unlike the other captives, she had no calluses, and for that she felt suddenly vulnerable. She clenched her fingers shut. His eyes lifted and met hers at last, his expression still grim.

He felt her head. At first she thought he meant to take it between those strong capable hands and crush it, but he only found the place where her skull had met the wall so hard. His fingers measured the size of the lump, drawing a small sound of pain from her. He left off, yet his touch hesitated in her hair an instant longer, finally lifting a few strands and letting them fall from his fingertips.

Squatting, he felt under the hem of her shift with one rough palm. There was snickering among the men surrounding them, and Edin realized why: This was not the same examination he'd given the others. He wasn't looking for strength of muscle. His palm was open. He was testing the smoothness of her skin rather than the strength of her limbs. A flood of ugly visions swamped her mind, and as his hand rose and slipped between her thighs, she flinched and tried to step away. He dropped her skirt and caught her hips.

He kept this hold on her as he stood again. She stared into his face, trying to read him in the flamelight, trying to gain some notion of his intent.

He spoke, again in Saxon, again softly: "Silken thighs and a rippling fall of amber hair somehow doesn't make me forget the sight of your pretty dagger in Ragnarr's throat. And there is Sweyn, my best warrior, whom I was forced to cripple in the axe arm. You have caused me a deal of trouble, Saxon."

"I'm surprised you don't blame me for that other man who's hurt, too."

Despite his big frame, his movements could be sudden. He let go of her hips and gripped her arms. Her hands automatically pressed against his chest. He was so close she could feel his great beating heart beneath his mail shirt, and the breath behind his half-whispered threats: "Don't speak imprudently. Think what you are —soft, a maid untouched, with skin like silk —and think what my power over you is. I could see that the man who buys you is old. Not so old his quiver isn't full, not so old he wouldn't be able to enjoy your fine, lovely thighs —but still, a man not young anymore, mayhap rotten-toothed, mayhap not given to bathing."

Though her knees threatened to give way, she defied him. "I am not cowed by a wild dog given over to every mean and filthy vice." She would have said more . . . but he had such fearfully pale eyes, eyes the color of ashes from a forge where the fire has gone out.

There was an awful quietness, during which she had time to wonder if she'd already said too much. She heard the huge fire writhing and shivering behind her. And then the Viking said, "I will see you cowed. I'll see you on your knees —all the more satisfying since they lack grease for deep bending. But you will bend them, like a proper Christian, and clasp your soft palms beneath your chin. Aye. I would see it now, but the tide is turning, and I can't spare the minute it would take. I warn you again, though, you are my thrall, mine as I please. Don't drive me to extremes, Saxon; I can be rough."

He stepped away to finish his inspection of the others. Edin risked a look elsewhere and found pairs and pairs of pale blue eyes staring down at her.

At last the giant gave orders to his men. Six captives were separated with tears and wails from those to be left behind, who were stripped naked while the invaders hooted. The chosen six were driven down the path to the river. They went like beasts to a knacker's shed, fearful yet hurrying, each oddly anxious to keep up with the others.

They came out of the riverside growth onto the bank, and Edin saw what she first thought was a monster risen out of the sea. A grinning dragon bounced on the urgent tide. It struck such fear in her heart she hardly noticed being shoved out of the way while the booty was brought down, while the pair of captured sheep were slaughtered and gutted almost at her feet, while her people clung to her mutely.

The Vikings, their shields slung on their backs, trooped with their pickings down the path, each laden with silver, utensils, and cloth.

Gathering her wits, Edin saw that though the sky was silvering, the darkness of deep night lingered in the riverside growth. She wondered if she might slip into it. She took a sidling step, then another. No one seemed to notice, so she took two more. The woods were near enough that one more step might save her. That was when the big Viking threw his sword with a swift underhanded heave. It stabbed the earth a hand's-breadth from the hem of her shift.

He came at her then, so enormous and ferocious. She felt a compulsion to run, but wisely checked it. He pulled his weapon out of the soil, wiped it on his trouser-leg, and sheathed it. He said, "Now you have been warned twice."

The dragonship in the river wrestled with its ropes; the ebb tide was sucking greedily at the current. The booty had been loaded, and now it was the captives' turn. The Viking swung Edin off her feet and waded with her out into the water. Sounds of panic squeaked through her closed throat. She clutched the Viking with her bound hands, hiding her eyes against his shoulder. When they reached the side of the sinister, dragonheaded ship, still she clutched at him, fearing the water, if not more than she feared that monstrous vessel, if not more than she feared him, then certainly more unreasonably. With an impatient frown, he tore her from his chest, lifted her over the gunwales, and dropped her unceremoniously to the deck.

There, another Viking, this one with unusual copper-colored eyes, used his feet to tamp her into a corner where she and the other captives would be out of the way.

She kept her head down. As long as she didn't have to see the water, she could fool herself that she was all right.

The wounded men were brought aboard. The shaggy-headed one walked to his place on the arm of a companion, stumbling only a little, silently bearing his injury, yet curiously blank-eyed and twitching at the mouth and muttering. He sat by the shield-gunwales, unnoticing of the friend who bandaged and braced his shoulder with rags.