That was something! If I might speak with his bride, she’d be sure to take pity on me—for I’d lost so much. Any person with a heart would feel my pain. I would ask about her, when I had the chance. But first, I wished to know more of my enemy, of the man who’d wrought destruction on all I loved.
“The Beast, they call him—Aifur,” said Ragerta. “Though his birthname is fearful enough.”
“The mountain of fire—that’s what it means, Eldberg.” Thirka dropped her voice low, as if saying it would conjure him in the room.
“And what has he done to earn this reputation?” I turned the soap over in my hands, pretending a nonchalance I did not feel.
Ragerta glanced at the door. “They say he was taken by berserkers as a boy and raised among them as a slave—but that his bravery earned him his freedom and he fought among them for a while.”
“You’ve heard of those men who are more like beasts?” added Thirka. “They wear only the pelt of bears or wolves and live like them, in the forest.”
“They can even jump through fire without being harmed.” Ragerta’s eyes were wide.
“He claims he can do that?”
“No. He never speaks of that life.” Ragerta shifted uneasily, her eyes darting away. “Only once did I hear a man mention this—a merchant, years ago, before Eldberg became jarl. He made some joke, about him going into the forest not to hunt wild animals but to mate with them.”
“What happened?” Part of me did not wish to know, but still I listened.
“It was as if he were possessed.” Her voice grew quieter. “His face grew hot and swollen, and he began to shake all over, so great was his rage—as if he meant to turn into a true beast before us.”
“And his teeth!” Thirka squeaked. “He bared his teeth as if to bite.”
“And the merchant?”
“I’ve never seen anyone more frightened. He froze, cowering, then came to his senses and fled. Eldberg followed him outside.” Thirka pushed her fist to her mouth, unable to continue.
I looked to Ragerta, encouraging her to finish the story.
She bit her lip, adding quickly. “When he came back, he was holding something small, which he threw to the dogs.”
I swallowed back a sudden taste of bile. It was a foul thing, to desecrate a body.
“His boat became Eldberg’s, of course,” said Thirka.
The next moment, I felt a draught upon my back, and the two women shrank away, their faces transformed by fear, a terrible fear.
* * *
Hugging my knees to my chest, I kept very still. Though I couldn’t see him, I heard the heaviness of his tread and felt his presence behind me.
Thirka and Ragertaboth scurried to depart, leaving me alone.
“Stand up.” That rasping voice again, the words spoken abruptly, expecting to be obeyed.
I didn’t reply, nor did I move.
It took but two steps for him to reach me, placing his hand against the nape of my neck, and my heart leapt in my chest. He was not merely a stranger touching my bare skin, but the man I’d watched murder my husband—a man I had every reason to hate.
I was too afraid to look at him, nor did I wish to comply, but what should I do? Could I reason with such a man?
Before I had the chance to decide, the pressure on my nape increased. Slowly, he raised me up. The realisation had me splashing, then spluttering in shock. My feet floundered to gain purchase while my hands flew to where he grasped me, but there was no fighting his strength. Water streamed from my hair and down my body.
Only when he had me standing did he let go, spinning me about to face him. My humiliation was immediate, and I brought my hands to cover myself, though the gesture was ridiculous. He grasped me by the chin, turning me to the firelight.
“You will look at me.”
I’d lowered my eyes out of shame, but I raised them now.
The room was warm with steam, yet I shivered.
As before, he studied me intensely—not my body, but my mouth, nose, and eyes. His brow drew tight in concentration. “You look like someone…” His voice trailed away. “Impossible, of course, for you are no Skálavík woman—nor even a woman of Svolvaen.”
“’Tis true,” I stated plainly, determined not to be cowed. “I come from Holtholm, far to the west, and would be there still had Eirik and his men not sought haven with us in a storm. I went willingly to Svolvaen, not as Eirik’s thrall, but as a free woman.” I held my chin a little higher. “Yesterday, he made me his wife.” As I said it, the memory of what had happened rose in a white-hot flash.
He said nothing.
“Is it your habit to kidnap women from your allies and burn their villages? What sort of man are you?”
I shook away from his grasp. He had no right to touch me.
“I saw you! You didn’t give Eirik a chance to stand. He didn’t even know who was attacking him.”
“It was no plan of mine to abduct you. That notion was Sweyn’s alone, and I believe he knew not who you were—only a woman who took his fancy. But the gods brought you to my hands, just as they brought the good fortune of my finding all Svolvaen gathered in one place, and your cur-of-a-husband to my feet. I wished him dead, and he is. I regret only that his passing was too swift. As to allies, I recognise no treaty!”
I drew back in horror, for I’d never heard a man speak without honour. “He was my husband. The man I loved!”
The right side of his mouth curled into a sneer. “You were his thrall, submissive—and to that of his brother, I hear, when this Eirik abandoned you.”
His statement shocked me into silence. Dropping my head, I felt the shame of those dark days. “Eirik loved me, and he returned. He wanted no other woman.” I stumbled over my explanation, knowing that nothing could excuse the choices I’d made. “I believed I was forsaken, but I was wrong.”
I had to live with my sins and, still, they wrenched my heart. Perhaps I was faithless, my will to survive stronger than my fidelity. Even becoming Eirik’s bride, I’d failed to speak honestly, making no confession of my fear that the child I carried was Gunnolf’s.
Yet, for all that, I needed honesty from this man. I needed to know why he’d attacked Svolvaen. Though I wished to spit in his face, I calmed myself. Curling my arms tighter about my body, I framed my question carefully. “You broke our treaty of peace. For what reason?”
Eldberg’s reply was pure ice. “You see my face, caused by the assassin your jarl sent to Skálavík.”
I didn’t understand. “Eirik wished for peace. He would never have—”
Eldberg cut me off before I could say more. “And yet my wife and unborn child are dead at your jarl, Gunnolf’s, order.”
His wife and child? Dead?
In his last days, a strange madness had overtaken our former jarl. He’d trusted no one. He’d been violent and cruel, even to those who wished to serve him. Could he have sanctioned some terrible deed?
But Eirik bore no guilt for his brother’s action.
I began to explain, but Eldberg lunged toward me.
“It changes nothing!” With each word, he shook me. “Your husband did naught to curb his brother’s evil—and for that, he deserved death. His kin took what I held most dear, and I shall repay in kind. His end was quick, but your punishment shall unfold at my leisure.”
I sobbed, for he was crushing me painfully.
“You are nothing now but my slave and shall serve in my bed—willing or not—until you call me your master, forsaking any allegiance you gave to your Svolvaen jarl.”
“Never!” I raised my hand to strike him, but he caught my wrist and twisted back my arm. I cried out, struggling.
My instinct was to escape his hold—to flee, though there was nowhere for me go. I was naked and friendless, and never more alone. But could I submit as he asked? Every beat of my heart protested. I was to be humiliated and kept in fear, knowing that any dissent would bring worse punishment.
I gasped through my t
ears. “I beg your mercy. Know that I plead not just for myself but for the child I carry. It is innocent and should not be punished.”
Releasing me, he stepped back and, this time, it was my body that received his appraisal by the firelight’s glow: my breasts, then my belly, lingering between my legs, and down their length.
With a mocking smile, he cupped beneath my breast, measuring its weight and smoothness, grazing my nipple with the coarse print of his thumb. His other hand, he laid across my womb. His touch was gentle, but I shuddered. Tears of shame pricked my eyes as I stood helpless.
I’d withstood much—marriage to my pig-of-a-husband in Holtholm, submission, even at Eirik’s hands in the earliest days; torment in the long months of his absence when Gunnolf had become my lover. Couldn’t I bear this, too?
There was a dark glint in Eldberg’s eyes as he moved his hand lower, brushing the curls of my cleft. His finger parted me, and I flinched. Slowly, he pushed one finger inside. I turned, not wishing him to see my face, but he growled, commanding me by that feral sound to meet his eyes. They were filled with shadows.
Impaling, merciless, they contained something far more consuming than lust.
An emptiness.
His voice was a cruel whisper, even as he curled his finger inside my flesh. “Perhaps in the spring, I’ll take you to Kaupang or Hedeby and sell you in the slave market. Some rich old man would buy you and the child—or one of the higher-class brothels. I might find a trader from one of the eastern harems; they prize a pale complexion, and hair such as yours.”
I could not hold back a strangled cry.
He wouldn’t!
But of course, he would. What did he care?
Withdrawing his hands, he brought them to my cheeks, commanding me again to look into his eyes. “Or in payment for my murdered child, should I not kill this baby when it’s born?”
God help me, and Freya, too.
Could I live with myself if I became his willing whore? Whether I allowed it or not, he would take what he wanted. Wasn’t it better to accept what I couldn’t fight? To stay alive? If I pleased him, might I gain favour? Perhaps even my freedom?
The fight left me. For now, I would say whatever was necessary. I would do what he asked. I would endure.
“I swear on the life of the child I carry, I shall serve you. I will be your thrall and submit to whatever you command.” I made myself hold his steely gaze.
There was a last flash within his eyes before he smiled, and I felt a wave of sickness. I knew not to what I’d agreed.
7
Eldberg
August 1st, 960AD
“Be quick about it.” Eldberg threw her a cloth. She clutched the linen to her chest as she rubbed herself dry, attempting to cover her nakedness.
Rather late for that. She was trying not to cry.
He watched as she stepped out of the washing barrel. It almost made him bark with laughter—her pleading mercy on account of carrying a child. The fact had only stirred his rage from a deeper place.
Three months had passed, and the pain was forever etched on his soul. He felt it constantly. The darkness. The despair.
He lived for only one purpose now.
Revenge.
He’d torched Svolvaen and cursed them all to Hel as they’d screamed. He’d seen the men responsible for Bretta’s death pay for it with their lives. He’d stood victorious over his enemies. And still the venom flowed through his veins.
Elswyth was fastening the brooches at her shoulders, elegant fingers working the pin. That dress! So very like Bretta’s had been on the day they’d wedded.
Something about her made him uneasy. Was this Loki’s trick? Some would believe it was the work of the gods. Their humour could be crueler than any man’s.
Sweyn must have seen the likeness. It was why he’d taken her, surely. The same silken hair, falling thick over her shoulders, the same upward tilt of her eyes, the same indented curve to her upper lip. More than that, the way she moved her hands and tilted her head.
She was an echo of the wife lost to him. Coming upon her in the watch house, seeing her in that half-light, just for a moment, he’d thought it was Bretta found again, not dead at all.
The reality of it had brought a hammer blow—as if he’d not suffered enough of those. Not his wife, but that of his enemy, delivered into his hands.
Ah, yes. Odin had presented him with the opportunity for a different sort of revenge. The possibilities were almost overwhelming.
She knew it, too.
His enemy’s most prized possession at his mercy, becoming his willing thrall. He could destroy her in a single night if he wished or in a single hour. But there were sweeter paths to the end he sought.
If Svolvaen’s jarl looked down from Valhalla at this scene, what would he see? His beloved flogged and raped?
Nay.
There was a better way.
Piece by piece, he would reduce her, until she submitted to him as she never had to her husband. Fearing the worst treatment, she’d be grateful for what she received, and he would offer not just the torment of anticipated pain, but pleasure, too.
She was standing in the wedding dress donned for his enemy, waiting for him, Eldberg, to command her. Given time, he would make her yearn and plead. He would make her beg for him. He would make her betray what she thought she believed.
This would be his true vengeance.
* * *
The air was thick with the smell of roasting boar; a feast for the returning men—in reward for a mission well-accomplished. Eldberg let them see his prize, leading her by the rope Sweyn had tied around her neck, though he left her hands free.
She walked steadily behind him, her footing sure and her head high, though she cast down her eyes. A hush had fallen amidst the revelry, as they watched their jarl compel his acquisition to the far end of the longhouse. Sweyn watched closest of all.
The partition was but a curtain. She would be aware of that, knowing that those on the other side would be able to hear all that passed between them. Would she know also that his men would be imagining what he was doing to her?
A new woman was always of interest. A new thrall always a possibility, and a temptation. He would make it clear that she was his— that, for the time being, he forbade any to touch her. But she would not know it. Let her fear and feel his mercy at the same time.
Out of sight, the noise from the feasting continued—laughter and lewd comments beyond the divide that separated his chamber from the rest of the hall.
Eldberg meant to begin immediately. How she spent her first hours would set the tone for what was to come.
He might let her spend the night upon the floor, her ankles and wrists bound, the noose tight around her neck, attached to a hook on the wall. The thought of seeing her like that sent a jolt to his groin, but there were other ways to make her suffer—not like a dog beaten and chained.
When he requested that she remove her clothing, it was without argument. Eldberg took a bolt of jade silk from his trunk. It was among the finery he’d traded on his last trip to Hedeby. Silk he’d bought as a gift for Bretta, that she’d never had the chance to sew into a gown—kept in Sigrid’s chamber.
He gestured to Elswyth that she might lay her clothing over the trunk. He’d remove it later, so that she’d know she had nothing with which to cover herself. That privilege would have to be earned.
She brought her arms about her breasts, as if to comfort herself, but did nothing to cover between her legs. He made a point of looking at that part of her as he tore the silk into strips. The fibres gave way easily, ripping along the weft—his destruction of something that had been beautiful.
He motioned with his head again for her to lay upon the bed, to stretch out her arms and legs, to expose herself to him, so that nothing was hidden.
His palm met hers briefly as he tied his first knot. Her hands, small and graceful, clenched into fists. She watched wide-eyed, disbelieving then resigned as he tie
d her with the silk—each wrist, each ankle—then cast her gaze to the rafters.
How pale she was. Her hair clung damp to her skin—tendrils over each breast. Her nipples, large discs of pink, made his mouth dry. If he took the rosebuds between his teeth, tongued it and suckled, would she moan in the same way as Bretta had done? Would she push forward, needing him to take her softness deeper into his mouth, needing him to take possession of her?
No. He knew the answer to that.
As his captive, she could do nothing to prevent him from taking her body, but she could withhold her mind. For his revenge to be complete, he wanted that, too.
There were many ways in which he could subdue her but, for now, he’d give her something to think about.
“Look at me.” He leaned close enough that she would feel his breath on her face—close enough that his leather jerkin brushed her breast. She would be aware of his weight—would know that he could crush her simply by shifting his body over hers.
Still, she looked at the timbers, but he guided her chin downward, until she permitted their eyes to meet. He spoke softly, letting each word unfurl. “One day, soon, you’ll give me everything.”
Showing her the last strip of silk, he wrapped it around his knuckle, drawing it tight, then placed the width over her eyes.
She pressed her lips together, saying nothing as he secured it. Only when he brought his hands to rest on her ribcage did she respond with a shuddering breath. Her pulse quickened. She trembled.
What was she imagining?
That he would fuck her?
In this position, lying open, she could be certain of it.
What if he told her something else?
That he would send his men; fingers greasy with meat, mouths eager upon her, raising up her hips to meet their thrusts—one by one, until he decided her punishment was enough.
Yes, she would believe it.
Her chest rose and fell, and she swallowed, worrying at her lips. She shifted, testing the bonds. They were not so firm that she couldn’t move. One foot flexed. She stretched her fingers, then curled them closed.
Viking Beast: Viking Warriors Series Page 4
