He seemed about to toss back some nasty retort, but they were interrupted. Off on a nearby hillock, she heard Murdoc pick up his bagpipes and begin a plaintive tune. Thanks to all his battle wounds, Murdoc was an unattractive man physically, but, oh, the music he played was rapturous. Tears welled in her eyes, as they always did when she heard the pipes.
Bolthor exclaimed to Rurik, “Is that not the most wondrous sound you have ever heard?”
“Huh?” Rurik said.
The dolt!
Bolthor turned to Old John. “Dost think I could learn how to play the pipes like that?”
“Oh, no! No, no, no!” Rurik was quick to interject.
But Old John ignored Rurik and patted Bolthor on the sleeve with his good hand. “I canna see why not.”
Rurik and the remainder of his group groaned. Obviously, they were ignorant men who could not appreciate good music.
Bolthor addressed Rurik, “Can you not see the possibilities, Rurik? Mayhap I could teach Stigand to say the words to my sagas whilst I accompany him with the bagpipes.”
“Me? Why me?” Stigand sputtered. “Be damned if I will be caught spouting any bloody poetry.”
“Not only will I be a skald, but I will be a bard, as well,” Bolthor said with an elated sigh.
“Or one might say, a skaldic bard,” Toste offered with a chuckle.
“Or a bardic skald,” Vagn added, also chuckling.
“How about a bald?” Stigand put in with dry humor. He was not chuckling.
“Now, Bolthor, slow down a bit and think on this,” Rurik advised. “When have you ever heard of a bag-piping Norseman?”
Bolthor lifted his chin and smiled broadly. “That is the best part. I will be the first.”
“This is all your fault,” Rurik yelled up at her, surprising her so much that she jumped, causing her cage to sway. Promptly, he added, “Why are you looking cross-eyed?”
“She is no doubt centering herself,” Young John answered for her, as if that explained everything. “Perchance her bars will now part of their own volition.” He seemed unable to control a snicker. “Then again, perchance not.”
Rurik glanced about and realized that, for some reason, he had an amused audience. He turned to Stigand. “Go up to the ramparts and use your ax to chop off that plank that’s holding the cage.”
Stigand frowned. “But the cage will drop to the ground.”
“Yea,” Rurik agreed with a sly smile. “That is the point. The witch deserves a good shaking up and the cage is not so high that she will be harmed.”
“Nooo!” Maire screamed.
Everyone’s head jerked upward, and they all gawked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Would you look at what’s in that pit down there, you stupid, thickheaded, pompous, jackass Viking?”
“Tsk-tsk! Calling me vile names is no way to endear yourself to your rescuer, Maire.” Rurik alighted from his horse and glared up at her, hands on hips. “What pit?”
“Aaarrgh!” she screeched, pointing at the ground below her. “Look, damn you. Look!”
“You have a tart tongue on you, Maire. Best you learn to curb it in my presence, or you will feel my wrath. And it won’t be with a tongue-lashing, that I assure you.” He sauntered over to the area under her hanging cage, and seemed to notice for the first time the large, circular woven mat. His men followed him.
He lifted up the edge of the mat with the tip of his boot, peeked underneath, and went wide-eyed with shock. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he cursed loudly. Like many Vikings, Rurik had probably been baptized in the Christian rites, whilst still practicing the old Norse religion. On some occasions, however… like now … naught sufficed but a good Christian expletive.
“Snakes!” his Norse comrades yelped as one, scurrying back toward their horses and safety. You’d never know they were hardened warriors.
“Someone is going to pay for this atrocity,” Rurik vowed, his frosty blue eyes taking in the cage and snake pit in one sweeping glance.
Maire’s heart lurched at his fierce promise. Was he actually outraged on her behalf? Despite all her inner warnings to the contrary, Maire couldn’t stop herself from remembering Nessa’s words: What you need, me bonnie lass, is a brave knight in shining armor to champion your cause.
Could Rurik possibly be that knight?
“A knight in shining armor? Me?” Rurik laughed uproariously at Maire, who was sitting at the trestle table next to him, having just finished sewing up the gash in his forearm.
At the far end of the great hall, the maid Nessa was wrapping tight linen strips about Jostein’s forearm, which was sprained, but not broken. Bolthor had declined any treatment, other than a washing of the small hole, once Stigand had pulled the arrow from his thigh. A little limp was nothing to the giant skald.
“I did not say precisely that I wanted you for a knight in shining armor,” she said defensively, a blush rising on her cheeks and neck.
So, you can still blush, wench? Hmmm. That is a surprise, though now that I think on it, you blushed prettily back then, too… the first time I bared your breasts… or touched your thigh. Nay, I should not recall nice things about you. ’Tis best to remember you are my hated enemy. “When I wear armor, it is sometimes metal, but just as often, leather. And I would never call myself a knight. ’Tis a Saxon word. I prefer to be named warrior, and—”
“My knight in shining leather, then,” Maire suggested with a sad attempt at humor. “Or, my warrior in leather.” She pretended to swoon.
But Rurik took her seriously. “I will not be your knight in armor, leather, pladd, or any other form.”
“Do you deliberately misunderstand my words? I merely said that I am in need of a … oh, never mind. You would not understand.” She took another stitch to distract him.
He yelped with pain, “Oooww! Did you do that a-purpose?”
“Nay, my needle slipped.”
You lie, wench. And you do it with such ease. What other lies do you tell? What secrets do you hide here in your mucky keep? I would have to be a simpleton not to notice the way your clan members shift their gazes whene’er I approach… and you, most especially. Any man … or woman… who will not look a person directly in the eye is hiding something. What could it be?
“I told you to find someone else to mend your wounds, Viking.”
“Yea, but you owe me more than any other. I intend to exact my payments one deed at a time. For instance, how soon can you remove this mark?”
“How soon can you rid my lands of the MacNabs?”
He took hold of both her wrists and hauled her forward so that she was nigh nose-to-nose with him. The needle and thread dangled from the skin of his arm, but he did not care. “You will not play your games with me, wench.”
Suddenly, he was assailed by the not-unpleasant scent of the hard soap she’d used to bathe her body and wash her hair … hair the rich dark red color of an autumn sunset. Green eyes flashed at him through their framework of thick lashes. Her skin was like an ell of ivory silk he’d seen one time in a Birka trading stall, and her face was a perfectly sculpted heart shape. Her clean, but shabby, arisaid with its braided belt, hid her figure, but he knew … oh, Lord, he knew … exactly what treasures lay beneath. His memory was perfect in that regard.
And she was looking even better these days.
“Do you threaten me now, Rurik?” she inquired with a wince, and he realized that his hold on her wrists was unnecessarily harsh. He released her and saw that his fingers would leave bruises on her delicate skin. Ah, well, ’twas only just. His mark on her in exchange for her mark on him.
“Are threats necessary, Maire?” He had calmed down somewhat, and his voice did not betray his inner turmoil. “Do not tempt me, for I have many means at my disposal to bend you to my will.”
Was there sexual innuendo in his words? He had not meant it so. Or had he? For the love of Odin, the woman really must be a witch. She was ensorcelling him.
Fire leap
ed in her green eyes, but only momentarily. With a long sigh, she tied a knot in the stitches and carefully put the needle back in its special silver case that hung from the key ring at her waist. “Threats are not necessary. I will do everything I can to remove your mark. In truth, our situation is so dire that I would sleep with the devil if it would save my people.”
He could see by her deepening blush that she immediately regretted her poorly chosen words.
“Sleep with the devil, eh?” He smiled lazily at her. “Now there’s an idea I hadn’t considered afore.” He was only teasing, of course… until he heard her barely murmured response.
“To think I hoped for a knight in shining armor! And what do I get… a devil in a blue tattoo. As if I would ever want you in my bed again!”
“Maire, Maire, Maire,” he chided her. “Didst never hear that it’s plain folly to issue a challenge to a Norseman?”
Rurik was not generally a deep-thinking man; he was more a man of action. But he was thinking now. Thinking, thinking, thinking. And the answers to all the puzzling questions that thrummed at his brain were slow in coming.
He wondered idly why he had not seen the boy … Maire’s son … since their return to the castle. Was he off doing little-boy things … the sorts of things he’d never experienced as a child? And wasn’t it strange, he pondered now, that Maire would entrust her son’s well-being to a straggly band of guardsmen who could not manage to keep their own body parts intact, let alone those of a small person?
By the time everyone was settled in and had eaten a cold repast of bannock and sliced mutton, it was well past nightfall. Midnight approached and still Rurik sat by himself in the great hall, thinking, whilst others around him, men and women alike, slept soundly on benches that pulled down from the wall to form sleeping pallets. The soft and loud snores, the snuffling sounds of slumber, and the occasional rustling of clothing were comforting somehow to Rurik. All was peaceful. For now. ’Twas a good feeling.
How odd that he should think that way! For years he had craved excitement. Fighting the battles of one greedy king after another. Visiting far-off, sometimes exotic lands. A-Viking. Trading. Treasure hunting for amber in the Baltics.
Making new conquests in the bed furs.
And now … what? Was he developing a longing for peace, of all things? Did he yearn for the tamer life of hearth and family?
’Twas perplexing to Rurik, really, that such strange emotions should assail him. He was filled to overflowing with rage and frustration and dissatisfaction, and at the same time his heart… his entire being… seemed to swell and ache for some unknown thing.
No doubt, it was the uisge-beatha affecting him. He had been sipping for an hour and more at a cup of the potent, amber-hued beverage the Scots called “water of life.” Although Rurik preferred plain mead or ale, he decided he could cultivate a taste for this drink.
Rurik stood suddenly and fought light-headedness as he stretched and yawned widely. All of the Campbell castle was abed. ’Twas where he should head now.
Guards from Maire’s clan and Rurik’s retinue had been posted about the grounds, ensuring the security of Beinne Breagha, at least for now. Beinne Breagha. ’Twas Gaelic for Beautiful Mountain. Now wasn’t that a pretty misname for such a sorry estate? The rampart walls were crumbling down in places for lack of maintenance. Dirty rushes covered the castle floors. The fireplaces had not been cleaned for years and downdrafts of black smoke wafted into the various chambers. The roof surely leaked in a heavy rain; here and there, he could see through to the night sky. The only thing that could be said in Beinne Breagha’s defense was that it was, in fact, surrounded by blankets of beautiful flowering plants.
Wearily, he picked up a candle in a soapstone holder, using the hand of his healthy right arm, and climbed the stone steps to the second floor, where there was one bedchamber and a solar… testament to some long-ago inhabitants who’d lived a finer life than these present Campbells did. Wincing, he tested his left arm for weakness as he walked, extending it out, then folding it back at the elbow, over and over. It hurt mightily to exercise the arm so, especially since the stitches were still tight and the wound raw, but he hated with a passion any weakness of body.
In the corridor outside Maire’s chamber, he came across Toste, who had been assigned guard duty over the witch.
“I’ll relieve you now,” he told Toste.
Toste nodded. “I’m away to bed then,” he said and headed toward the stairway and a waiting pallet in the great hall.
With a loud, jaw-cracking yawn, Rurik opened the heavy oaken door to the left. The master chamber was austere, which suited the dour Scottish personality. Rushes lay thickly over the floor… sweeter than those belowstairs, he noted… and pegs dotted the walls with clothing hung on them. In one corner was a large, unfinished tapestry on a wooden frame. There were several chests for bed linens and such and one higher chest on which rested a pitcher and bowl and a polished metal in an ivory holder for looking at one’s visage.
He set the candle down and picked up the vanity device by its ivory handle. Examining himself closely, he saw a man of mature years—twenty and eight—with a day’s growth of beard and stern features. When had he turned so bleak of face? Soon he would be as sour-countenanced as any Scotsman.
And he saw the blue mark, of course. Always the blue mark.
It was vain of him to care so much about the mark, he supposed. But somehow it had come to represent all that he had hated about his youth. Despite everything he had accomplished in his life, the mark had become a humbling symbol to him of how little he really was.
He glanced over at the large, raised bedstead situated in the center of the room, its high head frame set against one wall. The room was dark, except for the flickering candle and the little moonlight that entered the room through the two arrow-slit windows.
With a glare, he surveyed the woman who occupied the bed. Should he shake the witch awake and demand that she cast her removing spells now? Or should he wait till the light of day?
He decided with a sigh of exhaustion to wait. Putting the looking-metal down, he began to remove his garments. With luck, by this time on the morrow, his face would be free of the mark, he thought, as he unpinned his mantle brooch and set it down carefully. It had been a betrothal gift from Theta.
Sitting on the edge of the straw-filled mattress, he toed off his boots, then stood and dropped his braies and small clothes to the floor. Turning, he contemplated the wench. Since it was late summertime, bed furs were unneeded. Maire lay on her side in a thin chemise, hugging a pillow to her chest, like a lover.
He felt a lurch of lust in his loins, which caused him to frown some more. He did not want to desire this traitorous witch.
Walking to the other side of the bed, he slipped down onto the mattress. For several moments he just lay on his back, his hands behind his back. Then, with a muttered curse of, “Oh, bloody hell, why not?” he rolled to his side, right up against the backside of the witch. Carefully, he arranged his wounded arm on the mattress above her head, but his right arm he wrapped around her waist so that his palm rested on her flat stomach.
As sleep soon began to overcome him, he grinned. There would be sweet dreams this night. And wet, he would warrant.
He couldn’t wait.
Maire’s body was accustomed to awakening each morning before dawn, and this day was no different.
There was a difference, however.
In her hazy half-asleep state, with her eyes still closed and her senses not yet fully alert, Maire mulled over the events that had transpired the previous day and what she must do on this new day. She was free of her cage and the MacNab… for now… but there were plans to make to ensure their continued safety here at Beinne Breagha. First, she wanted to seek out Wee-Jamie and spend some time with him… simple but important mother/son activities, like combing his silky black hair, or playing run-run-catch in the heather, or skimming rocks in a favorite trout stream. Jamie was her li
fe, and she missed him desperately.
On her back, she yawned and started to stretch out the nighttime kinks.
That was when she noticed another difference about this morning … the most significant difference. There was a man sharing her bed … a naked man, she realized with a startled yelp. And she wasn’t much better, with her thin chemise hiked up practically to her… well, hips, and one shoulder strap having slipped down to a bare breast.
It was that horrid Viking … Rurik.
Even worse, he was wide awake and staring at her… hotly. Well, that wasn’t precisely correct. He was staring at her exposed breast as if he were considering whether to lick it or not.
Lick it? Lick it? Where do I get these ideas?
Despite all the reasons she had to hate Rurik, Maire felt an intense ache begin in her breasts, which caused their traitorous nipples to bead for his appreciative scrutiny.
“Maire,” he groaned, as if she were deliberately torturing him.
Hah! He wasn’t the one being tortured. She was.
He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, as if they were dry.
They didn’t look dry to her. In truth, his generous lips appeared slick and warm and inviting. Oh, blessed St. Blathmac… his lips are not inviting. They are not, not, not, she insisted to herself. She was losing her mind. In fact, she had to restrain herself from arching her chest upward toward said lips, which would definitely be a brainless thing to do.
And if Maire’s day wasn’t starting out badly enough, she observed another even worse thing. She realized belatedly that not only did she have a naked Viking in her bed, but she was lying flat on her back whilst he lay on his side, with his left arm resting on the pillow above her head, a hairy leg resting over her thighs, a hand resting possessively on her stomach, and something hard not resting at all, but pressing insistently against her hip.
Oh, Maire knew all about men and their morning erections. In truth, it was the only time her husband had been able to bear making love with her. Then, and when he was falling-over drunk from imbibing too much uisge-beatha.
She tried to roll over and shove the big brute away, but he was immovable … like a stone wall. Besides that, her hair was caught under his arm, and her legs trapped under his thigh.
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