by Speer, Flora
The slaves stood to one side, dirty, bedraggled, and hopeless, eight of them, including Maud, tied together by hide ropes. Lenora and Edwina, unbound, but no less dirty and no more hopeful than their comrades, had been separated from the others.
The Vikings began dividing their loot, each member of the ship’s crew claiming his share. There was much discussion, and some noisy argument among the sailors, as to who got which prize, but Lenora could not understand what was being said. Only a word here and there was intelligible to her.
Unable to decipher the conversation of the Vikings, Lenora continued her examination of her surroundings. In the center of the hall, set between two pillars and close to the firepit, was an ornately carved wooden settle, big enough to hold two people. Its intricate interlacing patterns were highlighted by paint applied in gaudy shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. In this wide chair sat an old man. He was tall, still well muscled and strong, but his hair and his luxuriant beard were almost completely white. Fine lines radiated from his pale blue eyes. He wore a robe of wine red made of a fabric such as Lenora had never seen before. The embroidered gold bands at its hem and the edges of its wide sleeves glittered and the dark wine cloth shimmered as he leaned to one side to speak to the man standing next to him.
This second man was very tall, muscular but slender, lacking the heavy, bulky appearance of many of the Northmen. He was dark. Tanned skin stretched smoothly over high cheek bones, over a firm, clean-shaven jaw and a long straight nose. His wide mouth turned up at the corners, as though he knew some private joke. There was a thin scar running from the outer edge of his left eyebrow straight up until it ended in a streak of pure white hair, startling against the inky blackness of the rest of his mane. His shoulder-length hair was confined by a gold-embroidered ribbon wrapped across his forehead and tied behind his head. He wore a knee-length blue jerkin of fine Frisian wool and tight brown breeches. A heavy gold chain lay close about his throat. His leather belt was decorated with gold bosses and his sword hilt was jeweled. On it one long, tapering hand rested gracefully, a gold ring on his little finger winking in the torchlight.
He stood at an odd angle. Something about his tense stance struck Lenora as not quite normal. He watched the proceedings intently as the goods were divided. Once, Lenora had the sensation that he was looking at her closely, but then he bent over and said something to the old man in the chair, and she decided she was mistaken.
At last the plunder was divided to everyone’s satisfaction. One by one the captured women were freed of their bonds and handed over to Snorri’s crew in exchange for a portion of each man’s share of the loot. Finally, a pile of the best goods was placed before the old man, who nodded his approval and said something to Snorri. Lenora decided it must have been a compliment, for Snorri grinned broadly and his friends, Bjarni and Hrolf, clapped him on the back.
“Thorkell,” Snorri said, and continued to speak in a language tantalizingly similar to her own, but in her distressed condition, not intelligible to Lenora. Snorri motioned to Lenora and Edwina, and a crew member who had been standing beside the two young women pushed them forward.
They stood before Thorkell, their arms about each other, eyes wide with fear. When Snorri finished speaking, Thorkell looked them over, one gnarled hand stroking his beard. Then he spoke.
At first Snorri looked angry. Then he burst into laughter, stained teeth showing behind his blond beard and mustache. He nodded vigorously and replied in a scornful tone.
Lenora heard the other Vikings laugh behind her. She saw the dark man beside Thorkell flush, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword, before he relaxed, lifted his head to meet Snorri’s eyes, and responded in a quiet, low-pitched voice. There was a murmur of approval throughout the hall, and in that moment Lenora understood that Snorri and the dark man were enemies.
Snorri took Edwina by the elbow and led her to Thorkell’s side.
“Lenora,” Edwina cried, looking around anxiously.
Confused, uncertain what was happening, Lenora followed her friend closely. Snorri pushed her back with his free hand, snarling something in his harsh voice.
Lenora started to protest. Snorri ignored her. He was speaking to Thorkell again. It was by now clear to Lenora that Snorri was giving Edwina to Thorkell. She could see Edwina trembling as Thorkell’s hand ran lightly up and down her bare arm.
“No,” Lenora exclaimed, again moving toward her friend.
She was stopped by the voice of the dark man. His tone was low and urgent. It took a moment for his words to sink into her mind.
“Be still,” he said. “Do not interfere, or you both die.”
Lenora stared at him in amazement. He had spoken Latin, the language her father had once attempted to teach her, which since his death she had heard only in Father Egbert’s church -services. How could this Viking know Latin?
As she met the full intensity of his gaze, Lenora caught her breath. His eyes were a clear, beautiful green fringed by thick dark lashes. Like two emeralds set in his tanned face, they bore into her, seeming to reach into her very soul. Stunned, she looked back at him in silent wonder.
“Your friend will be treated kindly by Thorkell,” the dark man said. “She is safer with him than with Snorri.”
At that moment Snorri caught Lenora’s shoulder and pushed her at the dark man.
“Erik,” Snorri said, and then continued in a rush of words Lenora did not comprehend.
Again there was laughter in the hall. The dark man’s eyes narrowed, becoming cold green pools, but he made no response to what was obviously another insult from Snorri. He looked down at Lenora.
“You also were intended for Thorkell, but at his order you have been given to me,” he said, still speaking in Latin, “along with a few suggestions as to what I should do with you.”
There was no doubt about it this time; he was examining her. His eyes filled with admiration and something else that made Lenora go hot and then cold under her tattered gown as he looked her over, beginning with her tangled and none-too-clean curls and her dirt-smudged face. His glance slowed for a leisurely inspection of her full, rounded breasts. One dark eyebrow arched upward; a corner of his mouth tilted in a half smile. Lenora felt her face flaming. He seemed not to notice. He was too busy visually measuring the slenderness of her waist and then proceeding to a cool appraisal of her well-rounded hips •and the curves of long, slender legs, just visible where the seam of her skirt had split. At last he raised his eyes to her face again, contemplating her features with a bemused expression.
“For once,” he said softly, “I agree with my brother.”
“Snorri is your brother?” Lenora, shaking with helpless anger at being subjected to such close scrutiny, spoke in her own language, which this strange man seemed to understand, although he replied once more in Latin.
“I am Erik, called the Far- traveler,” he said. “Snorri and I are both the sons of Thorkell the Fair-speaker.” He indicated the white-haired man who was rising from his chair.
Thorkell spoke, and two men came forward to carry away his share of the goods from Snorri’s voyage. Thorkell took Edwina by the arm and said something to Snorri, who gave a wolfish grin in response. Still holding Edwina, Thorkell moved toward a door at one side of the hall. Edwina cast a pleading glance backward at Lenora.
“No.” Lenora started forward again. Erik’s hand grasped hers.
“You cannot stop that. Don’t even try,” he said.
“She is my best friend. She was to marry my brother. What will your father do to her?”
Erik’s expression did not soften. “He will take her to his bed,” he said. “You must understand, your friend belongs to Thorkell, and you belong to me now.”
Once more his sea-green eyes lingered on her trembling lips and slid lower, along the slender column of her throat, to dwell on the full swell of her breasts, heaving in agitation beneath the blue wool gown.
Lenora glared up at him. This man was undoubtedly
as cruel and heartless as his brother, and already she hated him almost as much as she hated Snorri, but she would not let him see how frightened she was.
“And will you take me to your bed?” she asked, her voice quavering in spite of her best efforts to control it.
A glint of humor softened the expression of those remarkable eyes.
“You may be certain of it,” he told her.
Chapter 5
Erik made her sit on a bench opposite Thorkell’s chair. He sat beside her, the length of his thigh pressed firmly against her own. When she tried to move away, he put one arm about her waist and pulled her back against him.
“Stay here,” he commanded, “or I will give you back to Snorri.”
Outraged and furious, Lenora dared not defy him.
Snorri sat next to Erik on a carved and painted seat similar to Thorkell’s chair directly across the firepit. A dark-haired woman sat at Snorri’s side, his great coarse hand fondling one of her heavy breasts. Snorri disgusted Lenora. She could not bear to look at him. She vowed again that she would never forget what he had done to her family. She wished with all her heart it was not necessary to eat at the same table with him.
Trestle tables were quickly set up before them as Snorri’s homecoming feast began. Lenora and Erik shared a wooden plate and a silver cup. The serving women handed around huge wooden platters of boiled meat or fish, cabbage and turnips, and dark rye bread. Ale and mead were poured freely.
“Here.” Erik handed her their cup.
“No,” she said.
“Drink it,” he ordered.
She put her lips to the cup and swallowed, Erik watching her closely. She swallowed again, greedily. On the voyage from Anglia the Vikings had given food to their captives, but Lenora, sick at heart, had been unable to do more than take a few bites. Nor had she been able to sleep. Now the sweet, fiery warmth of the mead went quickly to her head, enveloping her in misty lassitude. She was too exhausted, too drained of energy to fight against her fate any longer. Meekly she ate and drank as Erik told her to do. Her weary mind could not think beyond the immediate moment.
Erik sliced off a piece of meat from a nearby platter, picked it up on the tip of his dagger, and handed it to her. She took it in her fingers, noticing as she did so that the knife had a finely wrought gold handle inlaid with blue and green enamel, and a thin, sharp blade of some shiny blue-gray metal. She wondered how Erik had come to possess such a strange, beautiful instrument. She had never seen one like it before.
She glanced up at him. He was talking to a brawny, brown-haired man who had sat down on Lenora’s other side. She studied her new owner, noticing the crinkled skin about his eyes, the tight lines from nose to mouth. The scar above his left eyebrow was a thin red line, the swath of white hair beyond it an eye-catching contrast to the man’s general darkness.
She had learned one important thing about him. When he left his position beside Thorkell’s chair, Lenora had learned the reason for his odd posture. Erik limped. It was not a pronounced defect, but it was clear there was something wrong with his left leg. She wondered if the same injury that had scarred his handsome face had also wounded his leg.
He looked down at her, seeing her still holding the piece of greasy boiled meat in her fingers.
“Eat it,” he said.
She bit off a piece and began to chew. He handed her the silver cup again, and once more she drank deeply of the mead, tasting the honey from which it was made. The room began to swim around her, and she blinked to keep her eyes open. Erik was speaking to her again.
“I do not know your name.”
“Alienor.”
“That is not a Saxon name.”
“My mother was Frankish. My father named me for her. He loved her very much.”
Erik looked faintly surprised.
“So was my mother Frankish,” he said, “But my father loved her not at all. And Snorri’s mother saw to it that she did not live long.”
Chilled, she stared at him, not knowing what to say. In spite of her hatred of all the Norse, she felt a thin, tenuous thread of circumstance beginning to bind them together. This man had also suffered because of Snorri, or at least because of Snorri ‘s mother, which was close enough for Lenora.
“She was a slave,” Erik went on, “and Thorkell was too proud of me. Snorri’s mother was jealous.”
“Where is Snorri’s mother now?” Lenora asked.
“She died while I was away in Miklagard. Let Odin be thanked for that.” He drained his cup and motioned a serving woman to refill it. “Your friend called you something other than Alienor.” he remarked.
“I am called Lenora.”
“Lenora.” He said the name softly, bending his dark head toward her. His leg pressed more closely against hers, and his left hand stroked her thigh in a sensuous rhythm.
Exhausted, her head reeling from the mead, Lenora had just begun to relax. She was startled by the pleasant sensation of his hand on her. She could feel its warmth through her woolen skirt. She tilted her head up to look at him again and met his clear green eyes. For just a moment her fate did not seem as horrible as it had when she had first come into Thorkell’s hall.
Then Snorri laughed, and she remembered all that had happened to her recently. Straightening her back, she pushed Erik’s hand away. He grinned with a self-confident air that told her more clearly than threats or violence could have done that when he was ready to take her she would have no choice in the matter.
I hate them, she thought despairingly. I hate them all.
The Viking feast ground slowly on. Vast quantities of food, mead, and ale were consumed. The noise level increased rapidly. A fight or two broke out, the participants leaving to settle their differences elsewhere. Several serving girls were despoiled on the benches or on the raised earthen platform that ran down both sides of the hall, depending on the preferences of the men involved. No one paid much attention. Placing bets on the wrestling match going on beside the firepit was more interesting.
Among the women sitting at the feast Lenora saw Maud and two others who had been with her on Snorri’s ship.
“What will happen to them?” she asked Erik.
“After the feast is over most of them will go home. Some, like that fellow,” he indicated the man with Maud, “live several days’ journey from here. If the women please their owners, the men might keep them. Otherwise, they will probably be sold in the slave market at Hedeby.”
“Where is Hedeby?”
“East of here, near the Baltic Sea,” he replied shortly, and then proceeded to ignore her as he ate and drank.
Thorkell returned to the hall, laughing at the boisterous welcome he was given and the shouted jokes directed at him. He was alone.
“Where is Edwina?” Lenora asked Erik.
“Probably asleep,” he replied, with no sign of concern.
She decided she hated him more than she hated his brother.
Shortly after Thorkell’s return, a woman appeared and seated herself next to him on the carved settle. She was not much older than Lenora, but taller, and big-boned. She had silver-blond hair and dark blue eyes that seemed to be fixed on Lenora. It was not until she heard a sigh from the brown-haired man seated on her left that Lenora realized the newcomer was staring at him, not at her. She turned to look at this man more closely and was surprised to find he was extremely handsome. He wore no beard, but an enormous brown mustache curled almost to his chin on either side of a firm mouth. Blue eyes twinkled and white teeth flashed as he smiled at her. It was an expression of pure friendliness, with not the slightest tinge of the lecherous looks with which nearly all the other Vikings had met her. Lenora felt her own mouth curving into a smile in response to his warmth.
The Viking touched his chest.
“Halfdan,” he said. “Erik’s friend.”
“Lenora,” she replied, indicating herself.
Halfdan nodded, and then began talking over her head to Erik. Lenora noticed that his
eyes frequently strayed across the firepit to the blond woman, who, in spite of her cool demeanor, often returned his looks.
Now a skald, the traditional entertainer at Viking feasts, took up his harp and began to sing, a long, strange-sounding song Lenora could not begin to understand. Listening to the music, Snorri wept into his cup of mead and then fell asleep, his head resting on the table. Lenora looked at him with contempt.
Finally, much later, when Lenora thought she would collapse with weariness, Erik rose.
“Come,” he said quietly.
She nearly fell trying to rise from the bench, and he swept her up into his arms as though she weighed nothing. He held her close to him, his eyes entrancing her, his mouth so close to hers that hear heart almost stopped. Then he stood her on her feet beside him.
He’d not had as much to drink as the other men. Despite his lameness, he moved easily beside Lenora, guiding her out the door that Thorkell had used earlier. He led her along a sandy path to a small building set a little apart from the others at the back of Thorkell’s hall. It was built of logs and mud, a single room lacking the wood paneling of the great hall, with a firepit at one end and a raised platform along one wall. Piled on the platform, which served as both bed and sitting space, were woolen blankets, a straw-filled mattress, a few furs, and several pillows covered with the same lustrous cloth that had made Thorkell’s robe. These were blue and green, bright spots of color in the drab room. On the tamped earth floor sat three ornately carved wooden chests. On top of one was a small oil lamp, its light, when Erik lit it, casting flickering shadows along the wall.
“This is my home. Here they leave me in peace,” Erik told her. He bolted the door and turned to her, his sea-green eyes gleaming in the light of the oil lamp.
“Do you live here alone?” Lenora asked, trying to order her swirling thoughts. She wished he would go away and let her sleep, but she feared he would not.
