The Pagan's Prize

by Miriam Minger

  "Would you care to wash your hands, my lady? My lord?"

  As Rurik frowned at the interruption, Zora looked up in surprise at the young female slave bearing a large copper bowl. Nodding, she was so disconcerted by what Rurik had just said that her fingers were trembling as she dipped them into the water.

  "Is the meal soon to be served?" she asked, her voice strangely breathless as she accepted a soft towel and dried her hands.

  "I believe so, my lady," said the slave woman, although she really didn't look quite sure.

  "This waiting cannot go on," Zora murmured in agitation due not so much to the meal but to the way Rurik was still looking at her. Eager for a reprieve, if only long enough to gather her fraying emotions, she added, "If I may, husband, I'd like to see what is causing the delay."

  Rurik's first impulse was to say no, her sudden disquiet reminding him of her suspicious behavior at their wedding feast, but Arne's none-too-subtle jab to the ribs swayed him. Damn if that old Varangian hadn't been listening to their entire conversation!

  "You need not request my permission to see to the things that rest in your domain," said Rurik, noting the pink color appearing upon Zora's cheeks. He hoped her blush meant his answer had pleased her. "All I ask, Princess, is that you do not rail overmuch at the cooks. They're a temperamental lot and may choose to retaliate by overseasoning the food."

  "I promise to be diplomatic," she replied, granting him a smile as she arose that made him all the more loathe to allow her to leave his side for how much he would miss her. Yet knowing that this would be a good test of trust for them both, however uneasy it made him, Rurik nodded to an entranceway across the hall.

  "The cooking house is just beyond those doors."

  As she began to wend her way gracefully through the tables, Rurik was about to gesture for her guards to follow but he changed his mind. Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and twirled his goblet restlessly before taking a long draught.

  "She'll be back, my lord."

  He turned to Arne, who was raising his cup of mead to him as if in salute.

  "Maybe this time, friend, but the battle is far from won."

  The warrior snorted, yet not unkindly. "I never said it would be in a day, or two, or even twenty. But at least now you have a chance, whereas before you would have chased her from your arms with your anger."

  Rurik didn't answer but took another draft of wine, his eyes fixed upon the doors through which Zora had disappeared.

  He could not deny that with her gone the very air seemed to be lacking in excitement, the torchlight grown dim, the buzzing conversation of his retainers grating upon his nerves, and the imported vintage flat and tasteless upon his tongue. He wanted her beside him, in this high seat with him where she belonged, just as surely as he knew now that he loved her.

  Loki take him, he had been a fool to deny it to himself for so long, perhaps since the first moment she had looked into his eyes at the trading camp, pleading for his help. But that didn't make him fool enough to admit how he felt about her! Not yet. Not until he was sure that she might feel the same for him.

  Call him a coward, but he had been burned once from rushing headlong into the flame and scarred for life by the misery of others to whom love had not been kind. This time, he would wait and watch and though he wasn't the most patient of men—evidenced by the reckless things he had already said to Zora—he would hope that the warmth he had seen shining in her eyes today would one day blaze into a fire.

  "You see, my lord, your Rus bride did not run away. Already she comes and look, she has eyes only for you."

  It was true, Rurik thought, leaning forward as Zora walked into the hall with a pleased smile upon her face, her gaze meeting his across the vast room as if to assure him that yes, supper was on its way. An instant later, a long line of slaves bearing steaming platters of food began to troop through the doors, only to fan out among the tables of hungry, cheering diners.

  "Did the cooks threaten a revolt?" Rurik asked as Zora retook her seat beside him. He knew that his smile was as broad as any green youth's at his sweetheart, but he didn't care.

  "Not at all," she answered lightly. Her cobalt-blue eyes sparkled with mischief, her earlier agitation all but vanished. "The food was ready. They only needed a few words of encouragement to load everything onto the platters."

  "Dare I ask?"

  Smiling, she shrugged. "I told them that great lords deserved great cooks who didn't keep them waiting . . . or else greater cooks could easily be found."

  "Very diplomatic."

  "I thought so."

  As she turned from him to survey the goings on in the hall, Rurik could tell from the heightened rose of her cheeks that she knew he was watching her. And he liked her to be aware of him. He wanted her to be aware of him all the time!

  Suddenly an idea came to him, something he had not thought to ask her until now.

  "Zora?"

  She met his eyes and for a fleeting moment he forgot what he was going to say, she was so beautiful.

  "Yes?"

  He cleared his throat, yet even then his voice was slightly hoarse. He was not used to tripping over himself when it came to women, yet Zora wasn't just any woman. "Did you have a favorite perfume among those you made?"

  "White jasmine," she murmured softly. "But in Tmutorokan, the flowers were very rare. They had to be brought all the way from Persia."

  No more rare than you, Rurik thought. He was determined that if there was a gift he could give her, it would be one that he hoped would remind her of him whenever she wore it.

  Chapter 23

  "Aye, the threads are much straighter, my lady," Nellwyn said encouragingly as she surveyed the crooked piece of blue cloth hanging from the standing loom. "As I told you when we first started your lessons, it takes a fair amount of practice to learn to wield the weaving sword properly. But I'm sure you'll have it mastered in another week or so."

  "You're not a very good liar, Nellwyn," Zora replied with a small laugh. She sank onto a stool set to one side of the loom. "A whole year of practice would make little difference, let alone a few weeks. It's plain that weaving is not one of my strengths."

  "I don't know, mayhaps if I took this cloth down and you started all over on a new one—"

  "No, no, leave it." Sighing, Zora rubbed the nubbly fabric between her thumb and forefinger. She knew that it didn't look like much, but this length of woolen cloth meant something to her all the same.

  During the past two weeks it was to this loom that she had always come to think, every lopsided row, every thread recalling the struggle she had waged in her heart. A struggle that she had finally admitted to herself had been won before it was even begun . . . love having proved the victor.

  "I'd like to finish this piece," she added quietly, not surprised to find when she looked up that Nellwyn's expression held familiar empathy.

  "As you wish, my lady. Would you like me to fetch you something to eat? It's almost midday and I've need of a bite or two myself." The slave woman grinned as she spread her hands over her growing stomach. "My Vasili swears the babe will be a brawny boy for how much I've been eating of late."

  "Yes, that would be nice, Nellwyn, then I should meet Yakov at the main storehouse. He wants to go over our lists one last time. We'll be leaving early for the market." Zora smiled, grateful for the bond of friendship that had grown between them. Nellwyn had forgiven her deceit the day of the fire. "Are you sure there isn't something I could bring you? Some ribbon? A bit of lace? You've been so good to me."

  "For the last time, you don't have to buy me any presents," Nellwyn insisted, sobering. "I've thanks enough in seeing that you took my words about Lord Rurik to heart. I've never seen him so happy in all my years here, and you've made him so."

  "Do you really think he's happy?" asked Zora, niggling doubts crowding in upon her. "He hasn't said a word to me yet about how he feels . . ." She shook her head. "What if it's as he told me that first night, Nellwyn, w
hen he said all would go back to what it had been after he has his fill of me? What if I've misread everything?"

  "That cannot be, my lady. The new longhouses were finished days ago, but you still sleep in Lord Rurik's bed. He hasn't sent you away. And though I wasn't going to say anything until I knew more, I did hear talk this morning that he visited each of his concubines yesterday, yet I see this as a good thing—"

  "He went to visit them?" Zora had never known her heart could ache so painfully.

  "Only to speak to them for a few moments, don't fear. I wish to God I could tell you what was said, but he swore each of his women and their slaves to silence and no one has dared break it."

  His women, Zora thought unhappily. She hated those words! She wanted to be the woman in Rurik's life, the only woman.

  "How can this be a good thing, Nellwyn?" Zora rose from the stool to pace the floor in distraction. "To visit his . . . his women without saying a word to me, then to swear them to silence . . . ?"

  "Perhaps he has come to some decision about them that he wants you to hear from his lips alone, my lady. Something that may please you."

  Stunned, Zora stopped to stare at the slave woman. "You mean that he might be planning to give up his concubines? How can he when some of those women have borne him children? I cannot believe that he would ever separate mothers from their babes and I wouldn't want him to!"

  Now Nellwyn looked nonplussed as if she hadn't considered that issue, while Zora began to pace again.

  "No, if my husband went to see his concubines, it had nothing to do with me and why would it? If he hasn't yet said anything to me about whether he cares—"

  "Give Lord Rurik some time, my lady," interrupted Nellwyn, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "I'm sure all your questions will find an answer and as for why he hasn't shared his feelings with you, perhaps he is yet shielding his heart. I don't know what he suffered in his past, but it is well known that he swore never to marry. Yet you changed that, my lady, and I have no doubt that one day you will free him of that shield." Nellwyn fell silent for a moment, then asked gently, "Have you told him what lies hidden in your heart?"

  Almost to the window, Zora came to a halt but she didn't turn around.

  "No, not yet," she admitted, a sudden raw tightness in her throat. "I . . . I don't know if he would believe me. I don't know if he fully trusts me—"

  "Aye, but that will change tomorrow. By your going into Novgorod without him, Lord Rurik has given you a chance to show that he can trust you . . . and for you to prove your love. Just think of the joy you'll both share when all the barriers have fallen between you, my lady. After tomorrow, one more will be gone."

  "Yes, the joy," Zora said softly to herself as Nellwyn left to fetch her meal. But it was hard to think of such happiness when those barriers sometimes seemed so high.

  Faith and trust were precious things not so easily won. She had already done everything she knew these past weeks to prove to Rurik that she could be trusted, that he had no reason to doubt her, but obviously it wasn't enough. She supposed she couldn't blame him after her attempts to thwart him in the past, and he probably still held Kjell's death against her. But if he cared, wouldn't he have forgiven her?

  Sighing as she moved to the window, Zora leaned upon the sill and turned her face upward to the warm, soothing sunlight.

  Funny. If she chose to crawl out of this window right now, she wouldn't be greeted by a guard as she would have when she first came to the compound. Since the night she had gone to chastise Rurik's cooks, he had allowed her to walk about freely with no escort at all.

  She would never forget her elation when she realized that he had not sent guards after her, another good sign that he was willing to trust her. She could come and go as she pleased, and tomorrow she would be journeying to Novgorod with Yakov and a handful of warriors sent along not to watch her but to carry her purchases.

  Nor had Rurik ever questioned her again about her interest in his household. It was as if he had simply accepted it, taking almost as much delight in how smoothly everything was running, especially the evening meals, as she derived in pleasing him.

  And she wanted to please him! It was amazing how quickly her plan had fallen by the wayside—practically as soon as she had conceived it!—but all she had to do was look in Rurik's eyes to know that she could no more betray him than leave him. Not now. Not when she knew that she loved him as she had never thought possible.

  "Yet you betray your father," Zora whispered, unable to make that sharp pang of guilt fade. What would Mstislav say if he knew she had fallen in love with one of his enemies and wished to remain here in Novgorod? One of his hated brother's most famed warriors, the very man she had been forced to wed?

  No, don't think of it! she told herself firmly, rubbing her aching temples. Nor did she want to think about the battle that was looming ever closer, although that specter was much more difficult to chase from her mind.

  The air seemed forever to be ringing with the ominous sounds of Rurik and his men hard at their training, from dawn to dusk, every day no matter the weather. He had already told her that they would be sailing for Chernigov as soon as Varangian reinforcements arrived from the north, surprising her that he would trust her with such information. And three nights out of the last seven he had spent at the kreml in Novgorod, summoned by her uncle to councils of war.

  Those were the worst times. Lying alone in that huge bed, her fears seemed to run away with her, the same awful questions tumbling over and over in her mind.

  What was the future going to bring? Would her father win, or Yaroslav? She felt herself a traitor for even thinking that her father might lose, but what if he didn't? What if Rurik was captured and taken prisoner, or, even worse, killed during the battle?

  "No, no, no!" Zora spun from the window, her heart slamming like a battering ram against her breast. Suddenly she was breathing so hard, she thought she might faint.

  Groping for a nearby chair, she sat down and dropped her head to her hands, waiting dazedly for the sensation to pass. She thought she heard a door open but she couldn't be sure, and she felt too dizzy to raise her head.

  "Nellwyn?"

  Now she heard footsteps rushing toward her, but they weren't those of a woman. She did not have to look up to know it was Rurik who sank to his haunches beside her.

  "Zora, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing . . . I'm fine," she murmured, daring to lift her head and meet his eyes that were filled with as much concern as his voice. To her relief, the sensation of dizziness was rapidly fading. "I felt a little light-headed . . . but it's almost gone."

  "By Thor, woman, you've been working yourself too hard!" said Rurik with more vehemence than he had intended, but unable to help himself for how pale she was. His reaction to this alone only reinforced the depth of his love for her. To see her so was like a sword thrust to his heart. "I was thinking only this morn that you've taken on too many duties, too fast. Usually you wake when I leave the bed but today you slept on as if one dead."

  "Perhaps that was due more to how late you kept me awake with your demands, husband," she said softly, sitting up straight in the chair as if to show him that she was feeling better. "I would swear you possess the appetite of ten men, or at least five very greedy ones."

  Reassured as much by the sparkle returning to her eyes as her teasing tone, Rurik felt a swell of emotion in his chest that was very difficult to contain. It was all he could do to tell himself that he had only to wait one more day, just one more day, before he could allow himself to believe that she harbored no desire to escape.

  "I heard no complaints last night, Princess," he countered huskily, thinking that if not for his wretched past, he might have already surrendered to the heated emotion he had glimpsed time and again in those stunning blue depths. Yet some small part of himself still had to be convinced. He had refused for so long to put faith in any woman that his fear of betrayal was almost as strong as the love he carried in his heart.<
br />
  "In fact if memory serves," he added, reassured further by the saucy tilt of her chin, "I think it was you who coerced me into another—"

  "Coerced?" Zora broke in, grateful to be feeling more like herself with each passing moment. Nor was it hard to push all troubling thoughts to the furthest recesses of her mind with Rurik now smiling at her so roguishly. "I only kissed you where you told me you liked to be kissed . . . oh!"

  Rurik had risen to his feet and pulled her into his arms so suddenly that her head spun all over again. Yet this time it was wonderfully different.

  "If our conversation continues on its present course, lady, I may forget why I came here and seek some other diversion than the one I had intended."

  "Why did you come here?" asked Zora, delighting in the sheer strength of his arms as he held her close and the masculine smell of him. "You're usually with your men at this hour."

  "I decided to leave Nils in charge for the rest of the afternoon. It's a beautiful day, the warmest one yet, and I thought you might enjoy a swim. I know I'd like one."

  "A swim?" Zora pulled back a bit to eye him suspiciously. "If you're planning to get me into that tub of yours again—"

  His resonant laughter silenced her and she stared at him in confusion, wondering what he might be plotting.

  "Not the tub, Princess. I've a favorite place I'd like to show you outside the compound, especially now after finding you as I did. Fresh air and a break from your labors will do you good."

  "But I don't know how to swim," she said, a niggling of fear pressing in upon her. "The one time I tried, Hermione held me under by the hair . . ." She shuddered. "If I hadn't scratched her legs, I wouldn't be here today."

  "By Odin, if I ever meet that woman," swore Rurik, having heard enough tales of Hermione's jealous abuses in the last two weeks to turn his stomach at the slightest mention of her name. Sensing Zora's apprehension, he hugged her more tightly.