The Pagan's Prize (Captive Brides Collection)

by Miriam Minger

  “One of my sharp-eyed men spied you lying in the grass,” Thordar explained, anticipating her question as he waded into the water. “You’re a fortunate young woman to have lived to tell what happened to your friends.”

  Before Zora could reply, she was lifted into waiting arms and deposited on deck, then Thordar and his companion heaved themselves aboard. As orders were given to lower all oars and push off from the bank, Thordar led her to a rowing bench where he gestured for her to sit. But she remained rooted where she stood, noticing for the first time that farther out in the river another warship was passing them, a long line of ships following as far as she could see.

  Grand Prince Yaroslav’s army! Surely it couldn’t be any later than midmorning, which meant that they had been less than a day’s journey behind Ivan’s boat, probably advancing upon them with each mile. If only they had come faster, Ivan and his men might still be alive—

  So he could then fight Rurik to the death? Zora remembered, shivering. She would never have wished such a violent end upon anyone, yet she couldn’t deny that she was relieved Rurik had one less enemy to face.

  She sank upon the bench. Simply recalling the events of the past day made her knees feel weak. Or was it because she knew that she would soon see Rurik again?

  “Where is my husband?” she asked.

  Thordar watched her closely. “Probably not to the second portage. There are many ships, Lady Zora. I’m only glad that we came upon the trail first and buried what was left of the dead. It wouldn’t have been a welcome sight for a man anxious about his wife. What happened?”

  “We were attacked.” Zora shuddered, finding it difficult even to speak about it. “When they were pushing the boat back into the water. If I hadn’t been on board…”

  She couldn’t finish, her memories still horribly vivid of what had almost happened to her during that first attack when Kjell was killed and Rurik had saved her just in time. And here she was talking with Kjell’s father! Yet Thordar didn’t seem half so forbidding now, despite his shaved scalp and the topknot that lent him the fierce look of a steppe nomad.

  “Forgive me,” he said, clearly sensing her disquiet. “You owe me no explanations. We’ll be stopping in Smolensk within a few hours for food and supplies. You’ll have to wait for your husband’s ship, but you’ll be reunited with him there.”

  Mere hours! Zora could hardly believe it. Yet she felt a sudden surge of nervousness. She could imagine too well what Rurik must think of her, and there was only one thing she could do to remedy it. Surely he would believe her. He had to!

  “You have my thanks, Lord Thordar,” Zora said softly, his eyes at this moment reminding her so much of Kjell’s. “I speak also for my husband.”

  “For your sake, I hope that is true,” the warrior answered. Heaving a sigh, he walked away.

  ***

  “She awaits you in that storehouse, Rurik. And now since my ships are loaded, my forces must sail. We’ll meet again in Liubech.”

  Rurik nodded at Thordar, his throat so tight that he could scarcely bring himself to speak. He had never known such a moment as when the warrior had met his ship to tell him that Zora was found, and what had happened to the men who had helped her escape. He knew, too, that they hadn’t been monks but fighting men, giving rise to more questions for which he would soon demand answers.

  “She wanted to wait for you on the wharf,” added Thordar as he turned to go, “but I thought it better this way…”

  “So you were right,” Rurik gritted out, looking from the nearby door to the warrior’s somber face. “My thanks, friend.” They clasped wrists and then Thordar was gone, striding back to the docks where at least fifty warships were moored.

  Still more vessels were arriving at the crowded wharf while others, loaded with fresh cooked meat and supplies, were heading downriver on the second leg of their journey, no longer in single formation but four or five abreast upon the great Dnieper River. Soon Rurik’s six ships would be loaded and ready to sail, but first he must attend to Zora. With his jaw clenched so hard that it hurt, he opened the door to the storehouse and stepped inside, grimacing at the acrid smell of pickling brine.

  It took him an instant to adjust to the hazy lamplight. He spied her sitting upon a barrel, her eyes as wide as he had ever seen them, her hands clasped nervously in her lap. His relief was stabbing and immediate, yet he forced himself to think not of how close he had come to losing her but of how she had betrayed him.

  “Thordar told me what little you shared with him, wife,” he said tersely, wasting no time on a greeting. “Now I want your explanation.”

  Zora shivered, Rurik’s tone as cold and forbidding as his gaze. It was just as bad as she had feared, maybe worse. She rose, her legs half asleep from sitting so long, and nervously smoothed the linen tunic Thordar had bought for her.

  “I—I know what you must be thinking, Rurik…that I purposely deceived you, but it’s not as it may seem. If it hadn’t been for the lies Ivan told me—”

  “Ivan? Your betrothed?”

  Rurik had interrupted her so harshly that Zora felt as if her heart had leapt to pound in her throat.

  “Y-yes. He and eight of his men came disguised as monks to rescue me. He found me in the market and convinced me to leave with him—”

  “Convinced you?” Rurik cut in again, his fury boiling all the hotter. How quickly and expertly she was spinning her tale, no doubt fearing his wrath as well she should! “I imagine that you rejoiced at the chance, Princess.”

  “No, that’s not true!” she blurted, taking a few steps toward him. “I told Ivan that I wanted to stay with you, but he said that if I went with him I would be able to plead for your life if you were captured in battle. I was so worried about you, Rurik, and…and it made sense. I couldn’t have done anything to help you if I had stayed in Novgorod! It was only later when Ivan admitted he had lied to me, that he planned to kill you…” She stopped, her expression stricken. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “That it was Ivan, yes, for Thordar told me the dead men had not been clergy, but warriors,” Rurik replied, steeling his heart against her no matter that her words echoed what Nellwyn had told him days ago. There could be an explanation easily enough for that. Leave it to his cunning wife to fill her slave woman’s head with the same lies just to add credence to her tale!

  “But what of the rest?” she asked plaintively. “I swear on my life that it is true.”

  “You also swore to me once that you wouldn’t stop trying to escape until you were free of me.” Rurik’s bitterness almost choked him.

  “That was weeks ago!” she countered, her eyes pleading with him. “How could I have said anything different? I didn’t know you for the man that you are. I didn’t love you then, but I love you now, Rurik! I love you!”

  Rurik suddenly felt as if everything had gone very still inside him, what he had yearned for so long to hear ringing in his ears. By Odin, he wanted to believe her, yet how could he? She had left him!

  “I was going to tell you in the market,” Zora rushed on, hope flaring that she might have finally reached him. “I thought you might come there to meet me. I wanted so much to prove to you that you could trust me, Rurik, and then Ivan—”

  “Persuaded you within a moment’s time to leave your beloved home and husband,” he interrupted sarcastically, his expression as hard as granite. “Spare me your woman’s ploy, Zora. If you love anything, it was only the thought of freedom. And don’t tell me next that you’re not grieving for Ivan, because I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’m not grieving!” Desperation seized Zora as she moved closer. “How could I mourn someone who wanted to kill the man I love? Who threatened to drown my baby at the moment of its birth?”

  Stunned, Rurik stared at her. “A babe?”

  “Yes. I didn’t realize it until I became sick on the river. I was miserable.”

  “I imagine you were,” Rurik muttered though deeply shaken. Days a
go, such news might have completed his happiness, but now it only heightened his pain. “You must have been wretched knowing you carried my child, not only for your sake but for Ivan’s.”

  “No, you’re wrong!”

  “I’m right, Zora, so spare me your denials! At least now I know you can produce heirs. I was beginning to wonder how long it would take before you’d be breeding and I could return to my concubines, but I see that once we’re home in Novgorod, my life will finally be as it was before I wed!”

  Incredulous, Zora’s eyes filled with tears. How could he be so blind? How could he say such terrible things? Then another, more chilling thought struck her.

  Perhaps she had been the fool all along to believe it might be possible that he loved her. If he cared, he would never treat her this cruelly. Surely he could see that she was telling him the truth.

  “Do you love me, Rurik?” she demanded, her voice hoarse with pain. By God, she would know! “Do you love me?”

  He didn’t answer for the longest time, but when he finally spoke, her heart sank, his tone as biting as the smell in the room.

  “I told you once before that the word holds no meaning for me, Princess, and nothing has changed. You’ve become confused by lust.”

  “No…” Zora breathed, shaking her head. “No!” Rushing at him so suddenly that she caught him by surprise, she struck him across the face with such force that her palm stung, but she didn’t care. Nor did she care when he grabbed her by the wrists and shook her hard. “You deceived me!” she cried, anguished tears coursing down her face. “You put trust in me…led me to think…Monster! You hard, unfeeling—”

  “Pagan? Brute? Barbarian?” he finished for her as he swept her fighting and kicking into his arms. “We’ve come full circle, haven’t we, wife? Yet if anyone here has been deceived, it was me and not you!”

  “Release me!” Zora demanded through her wracking sobs, her world crumbling around her. How could she ever have thought she could warm this man’s cold heart? Fool!

  “Release you?” mocked Rurik, easily subduing her struggles by holding her so tightly that she couldn’t move. “I should send you under guarded escort back to Novgorod but I’m not going to let you out of my sight. I’ll not grant you another opportunity to escape me, Princess. I’ve learned my lesson too well.”

  As Rurik kicked open the storehouse door so violently that it flew with the splitting of wood from its hinges, Zora knew then that he was taking her with him. And despite never having felt so desolate, her heartache a raw bleeding wound, she could not deny that she wanted to be with him even as she swore that she would never forgive him for his cruelty. God help her, that made her twice the fool.

  Chapter 28

  Zora refused to speak to Rurik for the entire journey to Liubech, turning her face away from him whenever he addressed her. At first it hadn’t seemed to affect him, but by her third day of silence, he could not hide his displeasure, his angry scowl there for everyone to see.

  Yet if he had wanted to rail at her, it was impossible on the warship that lacked any privacy, crowded as it was with fifty odd warriors, weapons, and all manner of provisions. She had no tent where they could be alone either, only an open lean-to thrown together with blankets where she slept while everyone else, including Rurik, took shifts sleeping under the stars.

  Even when she became ill, which thankfully had been less frequent upon the larger vessel, she refused to answer Rurik’s brusque queries about her health. That seemed to anger him the most, yet she stubbornly held her tongue. After the horrible things he had said to her in Smolensk, he didn’t deserve to know and what did he care anyway?

  Whenever she asked herself that question, she always felt a niggling that maybe, just maybe he might care, despite what he had claimed. But all she had to do was remember how callously he had denounced her, and the flicker of hope that refused to die would fade back into nothing. Nor did she trust any longer her memories of what they had shared, resigning herself that she must have misread everything no matter Nellwyn’s assurances.

  By the morning of the fifth day they arrived in Liubech and if Zora had tried not to dwell upon the approaching battle, there was no way to avoid it now.

  As Rurik’s ships drew into the bustling dock, she overheard him telling Arne that the imposing timber palisade that had been newly erected around the trading town would serve as a line of defense if Grand Prince Yaroslav’s troops were forced to retreat. The ominous specter of war was brought that much closer when a senior warrior met them to announce that the grand prince had ordered an immediate march to a point more than halfway between Liubech and Chernigov where they would make camp.

  “Why there?” Her growing anxiety caused her to break her silence as Rurik lifted her from the ship. If he was surprised that she had finally spoken to him, he gave no sign of it, his expression remaining as hard as before.

  “You didn’t think your father would be fool enough to allow us to march to his gates, did you?” he replied, signaling for two strapping warriors to follow as he led her to a place out of the way of the ships being unloaded. “The location of our encampment will ensure ten miles between our armies, unless Mstislav decides to attack during the night. But I doubt he’ll stray that far from his precious city for fear he might lose it.”

  Zora wasn’t given a chance to reply as Rurik left her with the two guards while he went to oversee his men. Although the wharf at first appeared a mass of chaos, in less than an hour not only his warriors but all those whose ships had recently arrived had begun to march, slaves and hired freemen bringing up the rear with the provisions.

  For a moment, Zora wondered why she and her guards hadn’t joined them. Then Rurik rode up on a spirited gray stallion that matched him for size and power.

  She tried not to notice how magnificent he looked atop the huge animal, his thick blond hair swept back from his forehead and shining as brightly as the silver mail-shirt he had donned, but she couldn’t help it. No matter what had happened between them, he still remained to her the most handsome of men.

  “Take my hand,” he commanded, his eyes appearing a deep crystal blue in the warm sunlight.

  “Perhaps I prefer to walk,” she countered, bristling at his harsh tone that reminded her all too unhappily of how cruel he had been to her in Smolensk.

  “You have no choice, wife. Do not force me to humiliate you before your uncle’s troops.”

  Thinking that he would probably relish embarrassing her much as he had the time he threw her over his shoulder, Zora accepted his hand with reluctance and he hoisted her up behind him.

  “Hold on tight,” he ordered. “I don’t want to risk your falling off.”

  You mean you don’t want me to threaten your heir with any of my foolishness, Zora thought resentfully, although she couldn’t deny that it felt wonderful to wrap her arms around him again.

  They had scarcely touched since he had carried her to the ship days ago, yet she hadn’t allowed herself to admit how much she had missed it until now. As they galloped to the front of the formation to join Grand Prince Yaroslav and other senior warriors, she could feel the sinewed strength of Rurik’s body with his every movement, and she wondered if he was affected in the slightest by having her so close…

  Rurik cursed to himself. It was all he could do to keep his mind on the grave matters at hand with Zora hugging him so tightly, her womanly softness a seductive warmth against his back.

  By Odin, despite her treachery she inflamed his senses like no other! How could one female so sorely tempt him and try him at the same time?

  With great effort, he reminded himself of her deceit, which helped to put matters in perspective, if not as much as he would have liked. It seemed the harder he tried to bury his feelings for her, the more impossible the task became, and he had already given up trying to suppress the memory of what had happened in Smolensk.

  He still couldn’t believe that she had struck him. Perhaps that had stunned him more than anyth
ing she had said. Words were easy to discount but actions not so easily. He had never seen such hurt in her eyes, such pain, as if he had broken her heart—

  More likely it was despair that her attempt to escape him had failed, Rurik amended bitterly, thinking back on how she had refused to talk to him since that day. She had spurned his every attention, his every query about her welfare, no longer bothering to hide the fact that she wanted to have nothing to do with him or to pretend that she might care.

  Yet the moment they had landed in Liubech, he had sensed her agitation and had surmised at once that she was plotting all over again. He would wager a thousand gold grivna upon it! Why else would her first words to him have been a question about where they were bound?

  That had sealed his decision to take her with him rather than leave her at the trading town. He wanted to keep her from the battle, but the thought of leaving her somewhere less secure seemed a worse evil.

  If Zora was left well guarded at the camp, she would still be there waiting for him when the victory was won, although he imagined that she would try anything she could to return to her father. He would have to warn the men he entrusted with her care to be especially vigilant, for she would outwit them if given half a chance.

  “And she said she wanted to walk,” he muttered, wondering if Zora really thought him that much of a fool. So she could have escaped into the woods?

  “Did you say something?” Her breath was a soft, stiffing warmth upon his neck.

  “No!”

  Rurik heard her sigh but he ignored it, forcing his mind to what lay ahead.

  ***

  Once a tent had been constructed for her and she had been ushered unceremoniously inside, Zora didn’t see Rurik again for hours. When it grew dark, she began to believe that he wasn’t planning to come back at all, which wouldn’t surprise her.

  He had said little else to her during the long ride to the camp other than his last outburst, and she had sensed in him an irritation that she could only suppose was directed at her. Although she didn’t know what she had done to deserve this latest display of temper, it really didn’t matter. It seemed that hurt was only piling upon hurt between them and there wasn’t any way to stop it.