Sandra Hill (3 page)

She saw surprise on his face before he masked it. “That matters not to me. I have whelps aplenty. What does matter is all your soldiers and housecarls who escaped our battle-axes. They must come back and pledge fealty to my banner. Otherwise, they will be like pesty gnats.”

She hated the fact that she was carrying on a conversation naked whilst everyone else was clothed. But she understood Steinolf’s reasoning. He hoped to shame her into compliance. It would not work. Madrene valued Norstead and her people more than her pride. She knew without a doubt that her people would be slain once they returned. There was no dishonor at being paraded naked before one and all. The dishonor was on Steinolf and his men for subjecting her, a lady of noble birth, to such humiliation. In fact, she saw some of them turn their gazes away in guilt. Not Steinolf, though.

“I ask you again. Will you wed with me?” The warrior’s impatience was evidenced by his mottled face and clenched fists.

“When all the fjords in the Norselands freeze over,” she answered tiredly.

Apparently, this final insult was the last straw for him. He leaned down and backhanded her across her face.

She flinched, and tears welled in her eyes at the pain, but she held her ground, still kneeling upright. “Coward!” she gritted out through the blood that seeped from her cut lip.

“So be it,” he said then and motioned for a man to come forward. She recognized Toki the Trader. The poor man, who had oftimes been a guest of her father, Magnus Ericsson, tried his best to avert his eyes from her nakedness. “Take her as far away from here as possible. To the Arab lands. Yea, that is it. Take her to the slave marts and sell her to some lustsome caliph for his harem. Far from her home and the trouble she would surely brew.”

The trader gazed with sympathy on Madrene.

Noticing that stare, Steinolf told Toki, “Heed me well, Toki. If I find that you have helped this woman to escape, I will skin you alive and hang your carcass on the ramparts for all to see.”

“I will do as you demand,” Toki said, and he meant it.

Madrene’s spirits sank. As long as she was here, there was hope that she could escape and regain her rightful lands. An appeal to the high king or a gathering of warriors might have been successful. But
separated from the Norselands by vast seas, she would be lost.

Should I agree to wed the beast in order to stay here?

Nay, I would rather be dead. Leastways then I can join my much-missed family in the afterworld.

As Toki led her off, she decided that she had only one recourse now. She began to pray.

Are we having fun yet? …

Ian and his SEAL squad were flying in a C-130 over the night skies of northern Iraq. It would soon be daylight.

In the next fifteen minutes they would HALO jump into their insertion point, a small, flat area in the midst of a very hilly region. High-altitude, low-opening exercises always carried some measure of risk, especially in a mountainous region like this, but they were all experienced jumpers. Geek was the only one who hadn’t been “blooded,” but he’d been as well trained as any of them. A piece of cake!

Even so, there were eight collective sphincter muscles that were tight right now. The pucker factor was sky high. Some people likened it to riding a bucking horse in a rodeo. It took balls to get on the freakin’ horse, but then all a cowboy had to do was just hang on. In skydiving, it took a leap of faith to go out that door, but then the ride took over.

A superstitious lot, SEALs did the oddest things for good luck … odd to civilians, that is. Instead of a rabbit’s foot, Cage carried an alligator tooth in his pocket. Omar did this odd chanting thing under his breath. Pretty Boy ate oatmeal and only oatmeal the morning of a jump. JAM, of course, had a crucifix hanging from his neck, despite regulations that SEALs wear no jewelry, including dog tags; at the last minute he would stash it in his boot. Sly, who swore a blue streak on most occasions … effin this and effin that … abstained till his feet hit the ground. Slick chewed gum … spearmint only. Ian personally insisted that he always be the last guy off the stick.

They wore helmets, breathing masks, night-vision goggles, fingerless Kevlar gloves and jump suits, some of which would be discarded once they completed their insertion. Those items would be hidden from sight till the extraction a day or two from now when a chopper would come and lower rappeling ropes to them. Under their suits, they wore camouflage, and they would cammie up their faces, too.

The oxygen was needed because they would be free-falling through the atmosphere, starting at 25,000 feet and not opening their stealth chutes till they were at about 2,500 feet from the ground. The greatest advantage of HALOs was that they allowed the plane and the teams to pass below the enemy radar.

In full combat ruck, they each carried roughly seventy-five pounds of provisions, everything from top-of-the-line weapons to radio equipment to GPS (Global Positioning System) locators to NVGs (night-vision goggles) to MREs (meals ready to eat).

The noise of the engines precluded any conversation, so, they mostly communicated with hand signals or through headsets fixed to an inter-team channel. Two minutes before they hit the drop zone, the jump master mouthed and at the same time signaled by raising his arm, “Stand up.” Then, “Hook up.”

The eight of them hooked up to the static line, a cable running the length of the cargo bay. Some of them made the sign of the cross, even those who were not Catholic. They stood practically ass to belly, wanting to go out and land as close as possible to each other.

“Stand in the door!” was the next order. The whole stick shuffled forward and the point man, Cage, stood with palms on the outside edge of the open doorway, feet slightly apart, one foot a little behind the other, legs bent slightly. When the jump master yelled “Go,” Cage went out with a wild whoop, immediately followed by Pretty Boy, JAM, Geek, Omar, Sly, Slick and then Ian, who was always the tail.

The plane’s engine droned off into the distance. They were on their own now.

Belly dancing was not her thing …

After two years and nine different harems, Madrene knew, even if the various caliphs and sultans did not, that she was not cut out to be a houri. And, truth to tell, her belly button wouldn’t hold a jewel no matter what they tried.

Women of the harems were supposed to be sweet and beautiful and compliant, none of which
described Madrene. And she certainly did not know how to dance, or want to learn, with or without a bloody ruby stuck in her navel.
Yech!
It was silly, really, and she’d told the eunuch teachers so, earning her the first of many switchings with an olive branch. At least those didn’t leave scars as Steinolf’s leather whips and rope ties had.

She should be insulted that she’d been discarded by one Arab potentate after another. Not so! Although being sold a sennight ago to this bedouin tribe in the Arab mountains after two years of swallowing sand in the Baghdad region was a bit of a blow to her pride. Especially since the men … and women … here smelled ripe betimes, like the back end of a camel, an animal she had come to loathe. Sheikh Fakhir’s large tribe did not follow the Norse practice of frequent bathing; in fact, she’d yet to see one of them set soap to skin. Not like the city Arabs who bathed and perfumed themselves daily, men and women alike. She was less than aromatic herself, being forced to follow the nomadic tribe’s practices.

“Tell me again how you came to be here,” demanded Zena, Fakhir’s fourteen-year-old third wife. Madrene was only his fourth concubine, which meant that Zena could order her about. The little half-brained maggot!

When she’d first arrived in this land, Madrene had been able to speak bits of the Arab language because of the trading she’d done as mistress of Norstead. After living here for two years, she’d become proficient. Thus, she was able to understand Zena’s words.

Right now, Zena … short and very plump … was admiring herself in a piece of polished brass that
Fakhir had given her when she’d pleased him particularly well in his bed rugs. Madrene knew he was pleased because they all slept on rugs in the same tent, all seventeen of the family and workers, and everyone got to hear all of Fakhir’s grunts and Zena’s squeals of pleasure.
Holy Frigg! You would think a pig was being stuck.

Instead of obeying Zena’s order, Madrene said, “I cannot understand how you can bear to have Fakhir slake his lust on you. What any man needs with three wives and four concubines is beyond my comprehension.”

“It is a sign of his wealth,” Zena said in her usual condescending manner. If she only knew how ridiculous she looked when she turned up that hooked nose of hers. “You envy me, that is why you speak so disparagingly of my husband.”

Oh, yea, I envy sharing bed furs with an old man who has seen at least fifty summers. A repulsive, hairy man who has stomach problems which cause him to break wind at the most inappropriate times. Like during prayers … or lovemaking … or riding his favorite camel.
That was what Madrene thought, but she did not dare share those sentiments with Zena, who would report back to her beloved spouse. Fakhir was already angry with Madrene, feeling that he had been duped in his purchase of an accomplished concubine … her.
Ha, ha, ha!

Zena picked up a date from a wooden bowl and popped it into her mouth. “Entertain me, or I will tell my husband that you displease me. He will have you beaten … or something.”

It was the “or something” that worried Madrene. While she pondered the threat, she continued to
work the wooden churn which would eventually, after great strain to her arms, turn the camel’s milk into a loathsome form of butter. Better this than the curdled camel’s milk she’d made yesterday, which hung inside the tent in a large leather pouch. To the Arabs’ delight and her dismay, one camel, even without drinking any water, could produce five buckets of milk per day.

You’d never know that she was supposed to be a pampered concubine, not that the leisurely life mattered a whit to her. Madrene had run her father’s large farmstead for years, and milking a cow had always given her an earthy feeling of satisfaction. Milking a stubborn, spitting camel was a whole other matter!

“Did you hear me, you lazy wench?” Zena whined. “I want to be amused.”

Madrene gave Zena a sweeping look that clearly showed which one of them was the lazy wench. Zena totally mistook her survey, and preened as if Madrene had been admiring her.

Madrene sighed at the uselessness of insulting the silly girl. “I come from a noble family in the Norselands,” she said, even though she’d told Zena this story in one version or another several times before. “My holding was invaded and I was taken to your Arab lands.”

“Why did your family not come to rescue you?”

“They are all dead.”

“Ahhhh,” Zena said with as much honest sympathy as the empty-headed girl could garner.

“Toki the Trader sold me to Caliph Abdul Abba in the Baghdad marketplace.”
An experience I would not want to repeat … ever.

“I have heard of him. Why would such an important caliph be interested in such as you?”

Zena’s incredulity should have been insulting, but Madrene was beyond caring about such trivial concerns. All she cared about was escaping, something she’d been unable to do thus far. Besides, her appearance probably
was
dreadful. Her blond hair hung in a single, disheveled braid down her back, not having been washed or combed since she’d left Baghdad. She wore an ankle-length, hooded gunna of coarse linen with a rope belt. She could hardly remember the times when she’d worn embroidered silk and jewels. Well, this garb was better than the transparent garments she’d been forced to wear before coming here. “To answer your question as to why any man of importance would want me, it could be because Toki, the traitor, told everyone in the slave mart that I was a Norse princess, accomplished in the bed arts.”
Blather, blather, blather. Betimes my tongue outruns my good sense.

Zena’s little mouth formed a circle of surprise. She did not question Madrene’s lineage, having more interest in other matters … like sex. “Do you have such talents?”

“Hah! I never noticed any art in the bed furs of Karl, my former husband, and he is the only man with whom I ever coupled. To further enhance my desirability, Toki claimed I could do exquisite things with my mouth, whatever that meant. Needless to say, the bidding was enthusiastic.”

Zena frowned with confusion. “You said your former husband was the only man you have lain with. How can that be? Did the caliph not purchase you for his harem?”

“Yea, he did. The slimy weasel! As did the other seven caliphs and sultans who purchased me after that, including your husband, who brought me here.”

Zena’s dark eyes went wide at that number. Then she resumed frowning. “Does my husband know this?”

“He did not when he purchased me. He does now.” Madrene now knew how a man could holler and break wind at the same time.

“Why did those men not use your body? Are you diseased?”

Madrene smiled to herself in remembrance. She had never been one to believe in luck, but that was the only way she could describe all that she had escaped. Oh, her capture by Steinolf had been unlucky, but she had not suffered too badly these two years since. Except that she wanted her freedom. She wanted to return to Norstead. And she would do so … somehow, someday. Mayhap she should pray to the Christian Mary, mother of the One-God, and Freyja, the Norse goddess, to deliver her from this wretched land.

“Why are you smiling?” Zena whined. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Nay, I am not laughing at you.”
Leastways, not on the outside.
“And, nay, I am not diseased.”

“Then continue with your life story … and cover that smelly butter. It turns my stomach.”

I would like to give you a life story … one about a dimwitted maid being knocked over onto her fat buttocks.
“That first night I was pampered in Abdul’s luxurious home. Abdul’s harem girls bathed and perfumed my body and forced me to wear a garment
which was so sheer my nipples and nether hair were visible to one and all. I would have run away, but there were always guards about to make sure no one escaped from his harem.”