Maidensong

by Mia Marlowe

A shape wavered in her mind, but refused to come into sharp focus. She frowned and shook her head.

  “I'm sorry. I can’t see anything. What were you thinking?”

  His hands rested possessively on her waist and pulled her closer. “Just that I want to kiss you more than I want to take my next breath.”

  “Oh.” Her heart did a strange little jig in her chest. “Maybe you should close your eyes and think a little harder.”

  A smile spread across his face as he followed her instruction, squeezing his eyes shut. “If you think that will help.” His grip tightened on her waist.

  Rika tried to steady herself. During his recuperation, they’d been as close as this many times, but just knowing that he wanted to kiss her now made her insides quiver. She realized with a guilty twinge that it was a shiver of anticipation.

  Since the accident, she’d struggled with her growing tenderness toward Bjorn. It was just the natural result of nursing someone, she tried to convince herself. Pleasure at seeing her patient recover. Now, looking down at his handsome face, she wasn’t so sure. She was drawn to him with a force as strong as a surging tide.

  This man had led the raid when her father died. He’d totally destroyed her world. She should despise him with every bit of her being. There were so many reasons to hold herself from him, but at this moment, Bjorn was simply a man who wanted to kiss her.

  And she wanted to kiss him back.

  She lowered her mouth to his. They fit together with a naturalness that fell like a homecoming. His lips were firm and warm and lightly tinged with the sweet aftertaste of mead. His mouth moved over hers, setting her senses spinning, drawing her into him. After a few moments, she pulled back gasping.

  “I think sending you a picture of what I want is working,” he said softly. He leaned forward and took her mouth again. He kissed her simply, gently, as though the slightest pressure might damage her. Unhurried, he tasted her as if he found her indescribably sweet.

  When he started to draw back, Rika shocked herself by groaning into him, urging him to stay. In response, he began an exploration of her mouth with his tongue. She draped her arms around his neck.

  His mouth was a wonder, a chamber of delights she’d only just begun to discover. When she timidly slid her tongue into it, he gripped her tighter. She peeked at him, and found his expression almost pained. Did it hurt him to want her so?

  At last, he released her lips and pulled her close against him. “Rika,” he breathed into her ear, his lips charting a course along its curve until he took the soft lobe gently between his teeth.

  A small gasp escaped her lips and she surrendered herself to his mouth. He traced a row of feather-light kisses down her neck as his hands worked the clasps of her brooches. Before she knew it, the kyrtle slid off her shoulders and down to the plank floor. Rika couldn’t find a reason to care. The longing for his touch was fast becoming unbearable. His hands found her breasts, stroking them with light circles through the soft fabric of her tunic. She arched her back instinctively, like a cat demanding a more thorough petting, straining against the thin cloth that separated them.

  He stood, tugging up her tunic, and she lifted her arms so he could pull it over her head. He dropped it in a heap on the floor behind her. It seemed so natural and yet her bare skin prickled.

  She reflexively cradled her breasts with one arm while she cupped her sex with the other hand, partly to shield herself from his hot gaze and partly to comfort the bewildering ache.

  “No, my Rika.” His voice was husky, as he teased her hands away and placed them on his own shoulders. “It pleases me so just to look at you. There’s a picture I won't mind having stuck in my head at all. You’re all fair, and fine and . . .” He cupped one of her breasts, thrumming the tip with his thumb, sending a jolt from her nipple to her womb. “So soft.”

  Bjorn settled back on the edge of the bed and pulled her close. He buried his face between her breasts, then one by one, claimed the hardened tips with his mouth. His broad hands roamed over her bare skin, his callused palms inducing shivers.

  Rika could scarcely draw breath. Words were her life, but none came to her mind just then. Only a swirl of sensation. Only white-hot need.

  When his hand found the cleft between her legs, the thundering ache surprised her and she cried out. “No, please.”

  “You’re right.” His breathing was ragged, but he managed to stand. “We should be equal.” He tugged down his leggings and stepped out of them. “All I am is yours, Rika.”

  He took her hand and guided it to his thick, swollen shaft for her to explore. She let the smooth skin slide through her palm, hard and hot. He swayed toward her, eyes closed, chest heaving. She gently cupped the bag of his seed, now drawn up tight under her touch. She stroked the twin lumps with her fingers, before returning to his hardness. When she gripped him firmly, a shuddering groan slipped from his mouth as if she’d clearly tested the limits of his endurance and he could stand no more. Bjorn’s arms swung around her, clasping her to him.

  He found her mouth and plundered it this time, taking her with a fierceness tinged by desperation. She answered his kiss, hot and hungry, letting her hands slide down his muscled back and clasp his tight buttocks.

  He lowered her to the waiting bedding and eased down beside her. His mouth was everywhere, nipping and licking, stoking the fire in her till she burned. She heard someone moaning. It took a moment to realize it was her.

  He ran his fingers over her flat belly and down into the moist depth of her. She shuddered as his fingertip grazed a point of exquisite pleasure.

  “Beg me, Rika,” he urged. “Release me from my vow. Beg me to bed you.” He lowered his body onto hers. His lips trailed upward, hopping over the iron circle around her neck to find her mouth again.

  Suddenly a word leaped into Rika’s mind. Bed-slave. The iron collar burned her skin. What was she thinking? He had said they were equal, but that was a lie. They’d never be equals as long as the iron weighted her neck. She couldn’t allow him to take her willingly. Not as long as she wore that hateful symbol of her thralldom.

  She clamped her legs together and crossed her ankles, struggling under him. Finally he realized that she wasn’t answering his kiss and released her mouth.

  “No.” She shoved against his chest. “No, I will not beg. I will never beg you for anything, Bjorn the Black.”

  He stared down at her, not believing what he was hearing. She wanted him. He knew it for a certainty. But she wouldn’t have him, not even when her body was screaming for release as loudly as his. Stunned, he rolled off her.

  She sidled quickly to the far wall and curled up, making herself as small as possible. He still ached for her, a low throbbing that would rob him of sleep till it wore itself and him out. Her arousal hadn’t been feigned. Why had she stopped him? Could she really cast aside desire that quickly?

  He stared at her for a long time in the flickering lamp light. So, she despised him still.

  “Rika, will you never forgive me?” he whispered, then blew out the lamp.

  Chapter 11

  The wood wouldn’t cooperate. Bjorn had sanded all day and still it warped the wrong way when he tried to fit the strake to the crosspiece.

  “You may as well admit it,” Jorand said. “You’re a good captain. You can make a new field dance and sing with a bountiful crop. And there’s no one I’d rather have at my back in a tight spot, but you’re no shipwright.” He grinned smugly. Jorand was fast becoming a master woodworker. The fact that Bjorn never would be in no way dimmed his captain’s worth in the young man’s eyes. “A man can’t be good at everything.”

  “And sometimes, he’s good at nothing,” Bjorn said with disgust, his gaze following Rika’s swinging strides back to the longhouse. She’d brought him water and changed the bandage on his thigh. Then she scolded him for standing too long, as though he were an errant three-year-old. He sensed no tenderness in her concern, just irritation that he’d aggravate the wound and furthe
r slow his healing, making more work for her.

  “Well, we all have a knack for something,” Jorand continued cheerfully as he rasped the adze over a long piece of oak.

  A knack? Was that what it took to make a woman love a man? Bjorn treated her kindly. He kept his vow not to take her unwillingly, though only the gods knew what it cost him. Lying beside her in the darkness, listening to the sweet sigh of her breathing, awash in her scent, brushing up against her softness, the ache of not bedding her was fast becoming nightly torture. He even took a wound the Fates had meant for her brother. How many different ways could he show her how he felt about her?

  He’d done everything but come right out and say it.

  Bjorn plopped down on an upturned cask.

  Was this love he felt? It was certainly a hopeless burning that left the shallow lusts of his past pale by comparison. More than simply bedding her, he wanted Rika’s heart, her mind. He wanted to fill her as completely as she consumed him. He wanted all of her.

  Inn matki munr—the mighty passion. Bjorn had heard of it, of course. The madness that could take a man’s mind and turn it into a bowl of mush over a woman. He just never expected it would happen to him.

  He watched as Torvald, a respected karl and one of his father’s oldest friends, stopped Rika and spoke a few words to her. Her laughter floated down the steep path and grated on Bjorn’s ear. What had that old man said to her?

  Why doesn’t she laugh like that for me?

  Torvald ambled toward him, down to the beach where the ships were lined up in various stages of completion. Some would be sturdy broad-breasted knorrs, destined to haul livestock and settlers to new farmsteads in the Hebrides or the Faroes. Some would become the lithe, shorter trade ships used to navigate the shallow inland rivers, easily ported, yet strong enough to survive white water and haul goods to far away Miklagard, the great city of the south.

  And some would be drakars, the warships that left death in their wake and brought riches to the men bold enough to go viking in the shallow-drafting vessels. But Bjorn knew Gunnar didn’t intend the new dragonships for raiding. No, the jarl would use the drakars for his personal war, his own dream of uniting the fjords and carving out a kingdom for himself.

  The world was changing, Gunnar had said, and perhaps he was right. The time might come when the fjords would need to unite to stay strong, but Gunnar was not a strong leader. The way he had mismanaged and depleted Sognefjord had proven to Bjorn that his brother was not the man to hold all Northmen in his thrall. Such thinking was a violation of Bjorn’s oath of fealty, but it niggled at his brain anyway, a disloyal thought as persistent in the daytime as the recurring nightmare dogging his dreams in the dark.

  Bjorn didn’t think the fjords needed a king. The Christians were ruled by kings, but Northmen had the law. The law made them free. It settled disputes. It demanded justice, meting out prescribed punishment that suited the offense. From what little Bjorn had heard of kings, the justice they dispensed was far from even-handed. A bribe here, a favor there, and a king could elevate or destroy his subjects at his whim.

  Bjorn could accept whatever fate dealt out for him. He felt less sanguine about the will of a king, especially if that king were his brother.

  “Bjorn the Black,” Torvald said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “And I’m looking for a reason to stop working, so I’m glad to see you.” Bjorn clapped his hands to brush off the sawdust. “No doubt Jorand will be happy to see me elsewhere since I’m no good to him here. Walk with me, Torvald. My leg is stiffening up.”

  A sharp embankment rose to Bjorn’s right, the sparkling water of the fjord rippling on his left. He limped down the rocky beach, using his staff more as a walking stick than a crutch. He carried it only because Rika insisted. And besides, he didn’t want to fall in public if the leg should give way again.

  “Why did you seek me?” Bjorn asked.

  The old man paused for a moment as if unsure how to begin. “I want to make a trade with you,” Torvald said. “A young man like you can always find a use for silver and I’ve a stash buried on my farm from back when I went viking with your father. The hoard is big as a head of cabbage and all finely worked. No hack silver.”

  “The Sea-Snake isn’t for sale,” Bjorn said. His ship was his only possession worth that much, though why Torvald would even want her was a mystery. The old man was still strong of limb, but his remaining days of raiding were certainly few. Perhaps Torvald was seeking a battle death, like old Einar Blood-Eagle who had ringed his neck with gold to tempt an attack. The ploy was successful, and the ancient warrior died with his sword singing. While Bjorn could appreciate the reasoning, he didn’t want to see the Snake go down in a reckless quest for Valhalla. “I won’t part with her.”

  “It’s not the Sea-Snake I’m after,” Torvald said. “It’s your skald. I’ve a mind to buy her.”

  An echo of Rika’s laughter resounded in Bjorn’s mind, and he glared at Torvald. “She’s not for sale either.”

  “I know the silver is at least ten times her wergild, were she a free woman,” Torvald said. “You needn’t worry for her. I’d treat her well.”

  So that’s how it was. The old man wanted a young body for his sagging bed. Bjorn’s eyes burned in their sockets at the thought of Rika with another man.

  “No,” Bjorn said evenly, trying to keep his anger in check for his dead father’s sake. But part of him wondered why Harald had ever claimed this randy old goat as a friend.

  Torvald stopped walking but Bjorn plowed on.

  “My holding,” Torvald called after him. “Would you take my land for her?”

  Bjorn froze. Torvald’s land was some of the richest in the fjord, fecund and level, easily worked. The old man offered him his dearest dream. At least it had been before Bjorn met that green-eyed, redheaded elf-maiden disguised as a mortal.

  “No,” he said forcefully and walked on.

  “She’s too good to be your bed-slave.” Torvald’s voice was edged with frustration.

  Bjorn rounded on him, crowding up to stand eye to eye with the lanky karl. “But not too good to be yours, old man?”

  Torvald made a noise of disgust and his pale face reddened. “You mistake me. I don’t intend on taking her to my bed. I would free her. She isn’t meant for thralldom. Rika belongs to herself.”

  “You’re right in that,” Bjorn admitted, a little of the steam of his anger dissipating. The way Rika carried herself, the way she served without submission, there was no question of his actually owning her. In the legal sense, he supposed he did. He could take her body if he chose; beat her for any reason or no reason. A master could even kill his slave and no punishment would fall on him. When he captured her in Hordaland, he might’ve taken power over her body, but Bjorn wanted her heart. And that he’d have to earn.

  “I will not part with her.” Bjorn was adamant.

  “But you dishonor her.” Torvald's gray eyes blazed with smoldering fury and he balled his fists at his sides.

  Bjorn frowned at the man. “What I do with my own is none of your business. I don’t know why it should matter to you, old man, but I do her no disservice. Rika is yet a maiden.” He turned and stalked away, calling back over his shoulder. “Ask her yourself if you wish, but trouble me no more. I will not sell her to you.”

  * * *

  On the embankment above Bjorn and Torvald, Gunnar and Ornolf listened to the exchange below. Gunnar shook his head and spat on the ground.

  “Hmph!” Gunnar said. “Makes you wonder just who is thrall and who is master, doesn’t it?”

  Ornolf looked down the beach after Bjorn. Gunnar thought he detected a combination of approval and sympathy in his uncle’s sharp eyes. “Your brother seems to have lost his heart.”

  “Or his head. Torvald better not offer his land to me in exchange for Astryd unless he’s prepared to take the carping witch. I’d make that trade in a heartbeat,” Gunnar said. “My little brother is a fool to was
te time and energy over so trivial a thing as a woman, and a thrall at that.”

  Rika’s refusal still stung, and Gunnar wasn’t one to forget a slight. Part of him was mollified by the fact that the infuriating woman had rebuffed his brother too, but Gunnar was a strong-willed man. Opposition to his will raised his hackles like the hair on a dog’s back. Male or female, he was determined to dominate.

  “Speaking of women,” Ornolf said, passing a hand over the back of his neck. “The Arab has a request.”

  “He isn’t trying to sever our trade agreement, is he?”

  “No, Farouk is more than pleased with our goods. Furs and amber are considered quite exotic in the south, and he can’t get enough walrus ivory.”

  Gunnar chuckled. It amazed him how distance and novelty made such ordinary things desirable. “It was a good day for Sogna when you and father made that first trip to Miklagard all those years ago, even if the great city is halfway to Niflheim.”

  “Some have ventured farther,” Uncle Ornolf said. “Sven Long-Bow of Birka claims to have seen a city of marvels in the midst of a vast wasteland where a man might find all the wealth of Midgard. He called the place Baghdad. But he had to make a long journey on the back of a cursed camel to get there.” Ornolf’s lip curled, showing how he detested any mode of travel but by ship. “Constantinople—Miklagard, I mean to say—boasts a fine port. It’s rich enough for my blood. It was another good day for Sogna near a dozen years ago, when I met Farouk-Azziz there and struck a pact with him. Each time I return, you find yourself a richer man, nephew. This last trip doubled your wealth in silver and brought Sogna much gold.”

  “So what does Farouk-Azziz want?”

  “He wants a more permanent alliance with Sogna,” Ornolf said. “One cemented by marriage, after the custom of his people. He wants you to send him a Norse wife.”

  “I thought he had a wife,” Gunnar said.

  “To speak the truth, I think he has half a dozen, but in that respect, the Arabs are more civilized than we.” Ornolf smiled slyly. “Our women may tolerate a concubine in the house, but not another wife willingly. Farouk’s little harem is aflutter with dark beauties who won’t have any say in the matter if another is added to their ranks.”