Following her gaze, Marjory saw nothing.
Only sheets of blowing mist, the dark cliffs beyond, and a glint of pewter-gray sea. To her relief, she didn’t glimpse a deceased lord or any hint of the realm of the dead.
Still, the older woman’s deep-set eyes glittered menacingly. She didn’t look like someone to be thwarted. “You have been chosen.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “Your fate is writ.”
“I think not—” Marjory broke off when the mist parted to reveal a slim young woman at the far end of the strand. No more than a wisp, she wouldn’t reach Marjory’s chin if they stood side by side. She had a regal air, her back as straight as if she’d swallowed a spear. A high lady, indeed, she clearly knew her status.
She wasn’t Viking.
Her skin was a beautiful dusky shade. And her long ebony hair flowed free. The glistening strands rippled in the wind, the ends swinging about her hips. She wore a gown of cream linen and a blood-red cloak, edged with rich embroidery. Two large oval brooches winked from beneath her cape, each one glittering with inset gemstones. A golden torque gleamed at her neck, its ends shaped like serpent heads. Bands of bright silver and gold arm-rings lined her wrists and jeweled rings flashed on her fingers.
She was the most elegant woman Marjory had ever seen.
She supposed she was a Saracen.
Whoever she was, her grace was spoiled by arrogance.
It poured off her, thick as the sea haar drifting along the strand. Marjory couldn’t tear her gaze from the tiny, raven-haired beauty. The kind of female her grandfather used to say should never have been born, for all the torment they caused good men. Until this moment, Marjory had never truly believed such she-devils existed.
When the Saracen turned her way, she knew her grandfather had spoken true. The woman’s jet eyes could’ve been shards of frozen ice. More than a glacial stare, the look she gave Marjory was one of triumph.
And she was sure, pure unadulterated meanness.
Bristling, Marjory narrowed her own eyes, aware that her blue stare could frost the wintriest glare the Saracen might turn on her.
She wasn’t called Lady Norn for naught.
So she straightened her shoulders, embraced the hint of color she felt blooming on her cheeks. She looked the other woman up and down, appraising her openly.
“Thon woman is capable of meeting her gods herself.” Marjory turned back to the matron, making her tone as cold as the day.
The older woman’s lips tightened to a thin line.
“You speak of Lady Sarina.” She put a hand on Marjory’s arm, gripping. “She is the second wife of our much-mourned lord, Rorik the Generous, who you will accompany into the Otherworld. Lady Sarina loved him greatly.”
“Then why doesn’t she go with him?” Marjory jerked free of the woman’s grasp. She saw no need for tact. “I have no love for your lord.”
The matron ignored her, looking past her to the exotic lovely in her cream-colored gown and blood-red cape. “Lord Rorik prized Lady Sarina above all else, even his fame and riches. As great-hearted as his name, he wished to spare her an end of cinder and ash, however noble.”
Marjory didn’t curb her tongue. “She looks most grateful.”
Lady Sarina did appear appreciative. But in a wickedly feral way, as if she were a sleek black feline who’d just savored a bowl of cream.
Or—Marjory shuddered—as if she’d just been pleasured by a strapping, well-lusted man who cared only for seeing to her carnal needs.
The woman was a wanton.
Marjory was sure of it.
And she wasn’t of a mind to journey anywhere with the vixen’s departed husband.
“Lady Sarina is grateful,” the matron hissed. “She’s prepared a basket of the finest grave goods for you. You’ll have bolts of wool, silk, and linen, along with finely patterned belts and furred rugs to warm you. She also selected the richest-woven eiderdown and feather pillows, combs, trinkets, and silver rings and brooches, even a jewel-rimmed drinking horn. You will enter the Otherworld with everything a lady—”
Marjory tossed back her hair. “I have no need of Lady Sarina’s gifts.”
The older woman sniffed. “The gods do not like mortals who scoff at honors bestowed on them.”
“Then they must despise your lady.” Annoyance began to pump in Marjory’s blood.
The tall, large-boned matron glared at her. Marjory returned the woman’s stare, refusing to be harassed.
“You speak of gods.” She used her iciest tone. “I believe they do not know this place.”
“Spleen will serve you naught. Destiny cannot be changed.” The words spoken, the matron again looked to the Saracen. This time when their gazes met, Lady Sarina inclined her head ever so slightly.
The approaching women surged forward then, circling Marjory and the older woman. They pressed near, joining hands to form a ring of cold-eyed foes.
Marjory ignored their hostility.
But for all her bravura, threads of fear were beginning to coil deep inside her. They unfurled and spread, snaking round her chest and squeezing ever tighter until even the simplest breath burned her lungs.
Despite the pain, she inhaled deeply of the cold, salt-laced air.
Mackintoshes quaked before no man.
They certainly wouldn’t quiver in the face of jeering women and girls.
Unfortunately, the band of women weren’t the reason for Marjory’s growing ill ease.
It was how the swirling mist parted just enough for her to catch glimpses of grim-faced Norsemen advancing out of the fog. Huge, bearded spearmen, they also wore swords or axes at their hips and carried colorfully painted shields. Behind them, fires burned brightly, showers of sparks leaping high to turn the day red.
Marjory swallowed, her heart hammering even more when the fog shifted again, this time revealing the burning mast of a Viking longship.
Her eyes rounded and a bead of moisture trickled between her breasts.
Everyone at Nought—loving Norse heritage and tradition as Mackintoshes did—knew the meaning of a torched Viking ship.
Such burnings had one purpose.
They were funeral pyres.
Steeling herself, she took a long, deep breath. Pride alone kept her from struggling against the matron’s grasp, bursting through the crush of women, and sprinting down the beach. The approaching warriors were now calling on Odin and Thor, urging the gods to speed their lord’s journey to the Otherworld.
As one, they chanted, beating their spear shafts against their shields as they came closer. Marjory knew with sickening surety that they were coming for her. As she stared, they formed two flanking lines, standing just far enough apart so the women could drag her past their ranks to the burning ship and the fate they’d planned for her.
She blinked hard, fisted her hands against her hips.
She would not show fear.
But her palms were dampening and she was fairly sure her knees shook. She couldn’t tell because her pulse drummed so loudly, dulling her perception.
Or maybe she was just hearing the din of so many spears clashing on shields.
“See you”—the matron nodded once, her voice full of satisfaction—“even our hardest warriors do you honor this day.”
A strange silence fell across the strand as the ranks of spear-carrying warriors parted to allow one tall, stern-faced man to stride into view.
It was Alasdair.
Marjory’s breath caught, her heart slamming against her ribs. Not since the Glen of Many Legend’s trial by combat had he looked so fierce. Every inch a great warlord and hero, his hand rested on his sword hilt and he scowled his displeasure as he looked up and down the phalanx of Northmen. He’d clearly come to challenge them.
He’d slung his plaid over his broad, muscled shoulders and the day’s pale light glanced off the amber pommel stone of his sword. He appeared as much a lover of battle as Kendrew, his cold eyes and hard-set jaw warning he wasn’t a man to show mercy if
pushed too far.
And this appeared to be such a time.
“Erred a bit far from your Highlands, eh?” One of the spearmen stepped forward, pointing at Alasdair with the tip of his spear.
“Or”—the man tossed a grin at the other warriors—“are you wishing to visit Valhalla?”
“Neither.” Alasdair drew his sword with a terrible scrape of steel, thrusting her high so the blade flashed bright. “If one hair on my lady’s head is harmed, I own your souls.”
Then he brought Mist-Chaser down, thrusting her sword point deep into the sand.
“Bloodletting as you have ne’er seen will turn this land red.” He grabbed the other man’s spear shaft, gripping tight as his voice hardened. “Eternity wouldn’t be long enough to still your screams.”
Jerking the spear from the Norseman’s grasp, he swung it round, leveling the spearhead at the two lines of warriors. “That I swear to you, in the name of my God and yours.”
Beside Marjory, the matron sneered. “Scots bastard.”
The other women and girls muttered their own curses and crowded around her, pressing in until she could no longer see Alasdair.
“Norn!” His voice swelled, ringing clear.
Marjory blinked. His words came from a great distance, hollow and fading away as the beating of spear shafts against shields resumed. And now another, more terrifying sound filled her ears.
It was the roar of a great, raging fire, its heat scorching the air.
The women began cheering, drawing back to again reveal the two lines of warriors, their spearheads and mail glittering red in the firelight. They raised the spears as Marjory looked on, thrusting the shafts point-to-point to form a long, deathly tunnel.
Lady Sarina waited at its end, her raven tresses lifting in the wind.
Marjory drew a breath, her gaze going past the Saracen to the circle of fire burning so bright behind her. The blaze was almost blinding, its leaping flares shooting heavenward, turning the sky a horrible flaming orange. Showers of soot and ash swirled everywhere, adding a pall of eerie blackness to the scene.
Alasdair was gone.
At the far end of the warrior line, Lady Sarina began working a silver arm ring from her wrist. The sight made Marjory’s stomach clench, for she knew the bangle was meant as a parting gift.
Token thanks for taking the beauty’s place on the burning longship.
The death pyre.
Marjory shivered. “No.” She shook her head, vowing to shove the silver ring back on the Saracen’s wrist if she dared thrust it at her.
For a moment, she remembered how Alasdair’s eyes had burned into her own. The steel edge to his voice when he’d warned the Vikings against hurting her.
How could he have vanished so quickly? She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling ill. She yearned for him, needing him so badly that her heart ached. The loss of him struck her like a physical blow.
Drawing on all the strength of her name, she glanced back at Lady Sarina, straightening her shoulders when the woman’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. The silver arm ring dangled from her fingers, waiting.
A cold smile curved her delicate lips and she held out the bangle, wriggling it at Marjory.
It was the wriggling that unleashed Marjory’s own Berserker blood. Fury rose inside her and heat raced through her veins. She felt its power, the terrible strength surging, deadly and ancient.
Lady Sarina jiggled the arm ring again.
“No-o-o!” Marjory stomped down on the older woman’s foot, twisting free when her captor yelped. Taking advantage, she kicked the woman in the shins and then leaped back, bloodying one young woman’s nose with a swift, hard-fisted punch when she tried to grab her.
“Come near me at your peril.” She kept her fists raised, glaring at the gaping women. Beyond them, the spearmen eyed her, some with amusement, most with cold, impassive faces. None of them moved, as if they knew she had nowhere to run. She did straighten to her full height, summoned her haughtiest tone. “I’ll not be part of such madness.”
“The gods have chosen you.” One of the women started forward, her steps slow and measured. “Your fear dishonors them.”
“I’m angry, not afraid.” Marjory wheeled, ramming her elbow into another woman’s ribs when she tried to sneak up on her from behind.
Another lunged at her, earning a cracked lip from Marjory’s other elbow. A wicked backswing she’d learned while hiding in Nought’s bailey shadows as a child and watching Kendrew and their cousins train to fight.
Setting her hands on her hips, she tossed back her hair and glared round. “I’ll be leaving here now.” She spoke as levelly as she could, hoping that only she heard the pounding of her heart. She abhorred fighting. But she loved living more. “Your lord can make his death journey without me. One step and I’ll bite off the nose of anyone foolish enough to stop me.” She’d do no such thing. But the threat appeared to stay her enemies. She let her eyes flash, knowing she looked like a Valkyrie. “I might try an ear as well, be warned.”
“You will save your spirit to amuse Lord Rorik in Niflheim.” A deep voice spoke behind her, one of the spearmen.
His words chilled her, proving they meant to send her into the Viking realm of death, a cold and misty place full of darkness, where those who died of age or illness were sent to languish, away from the warriors’ mead halls of Valhalla.
“My spirit is not your concern.” Marjory spun about to face a huge man with a plaited yellow beard.
He just looked at her, not seeming to hear.
He grabbed her by the arms, hauling her off the ground and returning her to the hard-faced matron. “She needs your herbs and charms to quiet her.”
He set her on her feet before the woman and then frowned when she dusted down her skirts. “The gods chose unwisely.”
“Leave her to me.” The woman spoke to the spearman but locked her gaze on Marjory, her face unsmiling. “The fires have turned the minds of others, when they know they’ll soon bathe in them.”
The older woman grasped Marjory firmly by the jaw. “Flames of glory will speed you past the pain. Drink this”—she pressed a cold metal cup against Marjory’s lips—“and you’ll be whisked straight to Niflheim with the master. Open your mouth and accept—”
A great cheer cut off her wheedling.
Marjory pressed her lips tightly together, refusing the foul-smelling brew. She also narrowed her gaze, as much to stop the smoke from burning her eyes as to show her tormentor that she wasn’t afraid.
Regrettably, she was. A sick feeling spread inside her. All around her, the smoke thickened as the fires raged, terrifying now with hot bursts of flame and burning ash. Yet the cold was equally biting. Bone deep and more arctic than any chill she’d ever known, it made Nought’s worst winter feel like a spring morning.
Her fingers and toes were numb. She could no longer feel the tops of her ears. And they hurt from the roars of a crowd as the thunder of spears clashing against shields worsened, the sound now deafening.
“They do you tribute.” The matron clamped her fingers around Marjory’s chin, forcing the cup between her lips. “Drink and find courage.”
“Pah!” Marjory refused to swallow.
The woman hissed something, but her words were lost in the din.
Marjory pulled away from her when the woman again tried to tip the drink into her mouth.
She’d had enough.
Her patience was grinding to an end.
She took a deep breath, her fists clenched. She wasn’t called Lady Norn for nothing. When the good men of Nought believed she wouldn’t hear, they swore she was as formidable as a Norse frost giant. Others praised her wit, boasting that she wielded her tongue as deftly as Mackintosh men swung their axes.
She took those observations as compliments, priding herself on standing tall, always.
Mackintosh women were bold.
Daring ran in their veins, letting them fear nothing.
Even so, she
didn’t believe her courage needed testing by flames.
Death by fire didn’t appeal to her.
Yet the women crowded round her, bustling her past the twin rows of fierce-eyed spearmen until the Viking longboat loomed before her, its proud length pulled up on the strand. A dragonship, it was huge, terrible, and every bit as awe-inspiring beached as riding the waves. Festively dressed scaffolding rose along the ship’s sides, hiding the great bonfires set beneath and within its hull.
Marjory’s breath caught, her pulse racing. The women pushed and pulled at her, driving her onward, closer to the waiting ship. She knew it would burn.
Other, smaller craft already stood in flames. Their presence signaled the status of Rorik the Generous, whose mortal remains rested in honor upon a high bed of furs inside the dragonship.
Like the lesser ships, the warship would soon blaze, carrying the noble in style to the Otherworld. Beyond the spearmen, other men held fiery torches, ready to ignite the bonfires that would guide their lord’s departing soul from the mortal realm.
On Marjory’s approach, the men began tossing their brands into the dragonship, the crowd cheering when the huge sailcloth burst into flame. The serpent-headed prow glowed red, orange-black sheets of fire swiftly engulfing its proud curving neck.
“No-o-o!” Marjory twisted and turned, fighting the hands that held her so tightly.
The infernos’ roar filled her ears and smoke stung her eyes. Her throat closed, the ash-filled air choking her. Terrible heat leaped at her, tongues of fire to scorch her flesh and char her soul. Wind whipped the flames closer, sending them higher until even her hair caught fire. Sparks whirled around her, lighting on her skin, burning and marring her, hinting at what was yet to come.
She bit down hard on her lower lip, refusing to scream.
Dignity was all that remained to her.
Behind her, the clashing of spears on shields grew louder, a dreadful rhythm that echoed through her like the death knell it was. Then the women poking and prodding her toward the burning ship stopped for a moment, once again urging her to sip from the cold, metal cup.
“The flames won’t bite as hard if you drink.” The matron pinched Marjory’s chin, prying her mouth open. “One sip—”
Seduction Of A Highland Warrior Page 7
