Ivar: A Time Travel Romance (Mists of Albion Book 3)

by Joanna Bell

  Paige and Emma looked at each other, little smiles playing at their lips, and then Paige turned to me. "The Vikings are not as brutal to their women as you might believe," she said. "Some of them, maybe, but not Eirik – and not Ragnar. Our men won't be happy, but we'll be fine."

  It was funny, sitting there in the woods as the sun shone through the branches and small, blue-winged butterflies flitted from flower to bush to branch. As soon as there was a plan – a real, solid plan – to escape back to 2018, Emma's words about the place sneaking up on me came back to mind. We lay down at one point and had short nap after the bread and butter and ale settled into our bellies. And it didn't even feel odd or gross, sleeping on the bare ground – I wasn't worried about getting dirty. The earth was dry and warm, and strewn with dried leaves. Before I drifted off I thought to myself that I would never think to do such a thing – to curl up on the ground in the middle of the woods and go to sleep – in 2018. But there, with Paige and Emma and Heather, it felt entirely natural.

  Sixteen

  Sophie

  I woke first, and rolled over onto my back. The forest canopy lay above me, dappling my face with sunshine and shadow, and the only sounds were the soft summer breeze in the trees, Paige Renner snoring gently in her sleep and the soft whirr of the blue butterflies' wings when they got close enough to hear. The roar of traffic didn't exist there, because traffic didn't exist. No airplanes cut their way across the clear blue sky because there were no airplanes. There were no machines, no clocks, no deadlines. I wasn't sure, as I lay there with my sleeping companions all around me – that I had ever experienced such a sense of peace in my life. If someone could have waved a magic wand at that moment, and transported my daughter and my mom to be with me, I might have considered staying.

  But there were no magic wands. When we were all awake, and given that there was nothing else to do – Paige suggested a swim to cool off. It was a hot day and everyone immediately agreed that a swim would be wonderful. Paige herself led the way through the woods and it wasn't long before the trees opened and I audibly gasped.

  A wide, slow-moving river, its water a deep, almost golden green, flowed through the forest. Trees bent low, dipping their branches into the eddies at the water's edge and already my companions were stripping off their tunics.

  Emma turned to me a few seconds later, buck naked.

  "It's beautiful, isn't it? Don't be shy, no one cares about naked bodies here."

  But I held back. There was some discomfort at the idea of being unclothed in front of relative strangers – and in a place where it seemed just about anyone could come up on us – but it wasn't just that. I couldn't take my eyes off the idyllic scene and my heart ached for knowing that Ashley was never going to see it. Eventually, though, I did as the others had done. I pulled my tunic off over my head and let my hair, braided and pinned to my head by one of the women in camp, down. And then I dipped my toes into the water.

  "Oh!" I exclaimed, because the first sensation was one of cold. It wasn't too cold, though. Given a minute or two to get used to it I realized it wasn't actually cold at all. I took a couple more steps, holding my arms up in delight as the sun warmed my bare skin, and then fell forward, allowing the river to swallow me in its cool, dark embrace.

  I opened my eyes underwater and watched my hair trailing through the green depths, smiling to myself with what may have been pure joy. When I came up again, pushing my wet locks off my face and grinning helplessly, Paige was standing beside me.

  "See?" She said, and I didn't need to ask what she was referring to.

  I watched as she bent and scooped a handful of sand from the bank and began to rub it gently over her skin.

  "It's better than soap," she told me, anticipating my question. "Here, try it – you probably need it after a week! Just grab some sand and rub it on your skin. Not too hard. When we get back to camp I have some walnut oil you can use if you like."

  I dug up a little sand and copied Paige's movements. Within seconds, the dead outer layer of my skin was sloughing off.

  "Ugh!" I cried, horrified by how dirty it looked. "That's disgusting!"

  "Not really," Emma chuckled, joining us – along with Heather – to sit in the shallows and wash. "This is probably the least dirty dirt you've ever had on you. There's no pollution in this river, no chemicals or solvents or anything – it's all natural."

  We stayed at the river for over an hour. There was no rush, nothing calling us away from our leisure. And when we dressed to go back to the Ivar's camp, sun-baked and smiling at each other like happy drunks – drunk on fresh air and sunshine – I was filled with a sensation of wistfulness as I realized that I had been a child the last time I felt so carefree.

  I determined, as we rounded a corner and my belly rumbled for dinner, to make the time, when I got home, for things like swimming in rivers. It seemed madness, that afternoon, to fill my life to the bursting point with chores and errands and work. I had to do the same for Ashley, too. She didn't need to be signed up for so many clubs and teams at school. What she needed was some time to be a child, to play and dream and lie on her back, watching the clouds pass over her head.

  We were so happy, laughing and talking, that I think we forgot ourselves a little. Forgot where we were, anyway. Forgot when we were. The men grabbed us without warning, more than eight of them appearing suddenly out of the trees like malevolent shadows. I felt a hand around my throat and then, before I could scream, another over my mouth. Whoever's hand it was stood behind me, dragging me off the path. I thrashed hard, kicking out and clawing at the hand – to no avail. The others did the same, one of us even managed a short scream before it was abruptly cut off.

  A cloth bag was yanked down over my head not a minute later, and my wrists bound in front of me. When someone lifted me off my feet and I struggled, a hard blow landed on the side of my face and I stopped at once. Was I alone? Where were the others? Where were Heather and Emma and Paige? I couldn't hear them anymore. I could only hear commotion, men talking in low, urgent voices to each other.

  The next time someone lifted me, I did not fight back. And soon I was placed in a saddle, with a man behind me, and the sound of galloping hooves in my ears.

  "Stop it," my captor commanded, when I began to work my wrists back and forth, testing the tightness of the rope. "Stop it, ye Northern whore, or I'll cut your bloody hands right off."

  I stopped. The longer the ride lasted, the more terrified I felt, and the more remote the possibility of rescue, or of escape and finding our way back to camp became. A Northern whore. That's what he's called me. It seemed to be the term for Vikings. So it was not a Viking taking me away from my route home. It was one of the East Angles, probably one from the town Jarl Ivar and his people meant to take – Thetford.

  "It's us!" I heard another male voice shout, when the horses slowed and I suddenly became aware of the sounds of people and activity all around me. "Open the gates, we've taken four Northern women – on of the Jarl's pregnant wives among them!"

  Screeching metal, and then a thud loud enough to shake the ground beneath the horses feet. Wherever we were, they knew who Jarl Eirik was – and that his wife was pregnant.

  The next moment we were on the move again, presumably through the gate. Wherever we were, it smelled terrible. Like shit and barnyard and rot.

  "Northerners?" A voice, sounding like a child's rang out. "Northwomen?"

  "Aye!" My captor replied. "Northern whores. We took them in the forest, when they were far from the safety of their camp."

  Something hit me on the shoulder, then, and I shrank away. My captor immediately set me straight back up in my seat. I was hit again, on the thigh, and harder the second time. One of the other women shrieked at the same time as I was hit with another burst of small rocks or whatever it was I was having thrown at me.

  "Will we hang them this evening?" Another voice – female – enquired.

  "We might! Go and bid the Lord to come to the prisoner's
boxes, so he may see what bounty we've brought him."

  It wasn't a joke. It wasn't an elaborate prank. I was beyond all such thoughts, and I had been even before I'd been snatched off the path by hostile East Angles. And now they were talking casually, in the way the people of the past seemed to talk of such things, of hanging us. My body tingled and stung with adrenaline as it surged uselessly through my veins, but I kept still. I needed to talk to the other women. I needed to see, I needed to get a look at my surroundings.

  A moment later I got what I wanted when I was pulled roughly off the back of the horse and the bag was ripped off my head hard enough to catch a tangle of my wet hair and near tear it out by the roots. I did not cry out or complain.

  I lowered my head and looked out of the corners of my eyes, watching, as Paige, Emma and Heather were lined up beside me. In front of us lay a series of wooden boxes, twelve or more, measuring about 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet. The ground beneath our feet was wet and foul with – well, with shit. We were on a road of sorts, a pathway, and on either side stood small houses made of wood and dried mud and topped with roofs of straw. And everywhere the people watched us, their eyes emotionless except when one of the four of us were hit or kicked, at which point they would set up a loud cheer.

  Thetford. It had to be Thetford.

  "In you go!" A man said behind me, flipping open the top of one of the boxes and lifting me up under the arms.

  It didn't even dawn on me that I was meant to go into the box until Emma, to my left, kicked at the edge of it with her foot as another man – and then two men – forced her inside.

  "NO!" She screamed, still struggling and kicking, until I spotted a third man, with what looked like a wooden cudgel in his hand, approaching at a rapid pace.

  "Stop it," I whispered urgently. "Emma – stop –"

  But it was too late. I watched, sickened, as the cudgel landed on the side of her head and her limp body was stuffed into the box. When it was my turn, I didn't fight. I acquiesced, ducking my head low when the top was slammed shut over me.

  The wooden boxes were filthy inside, smeared on all sides with shit and, I soon realized, blood. The townspeople stood outside, still with that same look of dull curiosity in their eyes, staring at us and nudging each other, talking and commenting.

  "Don't fight them," I whispered to Paige, who was two cages away from me, with a still-unconscious Emma in between us and Heather on the far end. "Don't give them a –"

  "Eirik is going to gut these people like fish," she whispered back, so angry her words were barely making it out of her throat.

  I did not feel angry. I felt afraid. So afraid that there was no room for anything else. If Eirik and Ragnar and Ivar and all the Jarls were to gut these barely-interested onlookers like fish I couldn't say that I would be sorry. But first, they had to notice we were missing, and somehow find who had taken us, and where they had taken us to, and then they had to get into the town itself and...

  I sat back against the back of the cage, already needing to stretch my legs, and tried not to think about what kind of mess I was sitting in. The cages were made of wood, and lashed together with chains. I couldn't break chains, and I didn't have an axe.

  For the rest of the day, while the light remained, people from the town came to stare at us. And even with us kept in cages and unarmed, they were jumpy. Little kids would screech and hide behind their mothers tunics when any of us made the slightest move or sound. The adults eyed us suspiciously as they walked by, as if they half expected to be grabbed or assaulted, even though we clearly weren't in any position to do anything to them.

  They'd been told about the Vikings. Told stories of their savagery and cunning. There was no other explanation. When Emma came to, whimpering and running the tips of her fingers over the spot on her head where she'd been hit, a mother with two young children jerked them away from the cage, her face a mask of fear. It wasn't going to be any use asking any of the townsfolk for help, I knew that much.

  "Are you OK?" I whispered to Emma, when we had a moment free of gawkers.

  "I don't know," she replied, working her jaw, checking to see if anything was broken. "My head hurts like hell."

  "Just stay still," I told her. "Sit still. Does anyone have a – a weapon? A dagger? Even a sharp piece of jewelry?"

  "I've a dagger," Heather replied, as quietly as she could and still have me hear her. "But it's too thin to cut through wood, if that's what you're thinking. And if I held it behind my back, and stabbed the next person to open this cage, how long do you think any of us would stay alive after that?"

  She was right. A single dagger wasn't going to help.

  "Eirik will come," Paige said, looking through the wooden bars of two cages at me. She sounded so certain, so confident. And I really, really wanted her confidence to be warranted.

  But by the time darkness fell, no rescuers had appeared. And not long after that, a couple of the Thetfordian soldiers came to look us over, the firelight from the torches lighting their unshaven faces.

  "This one's pregnant," one said, laughing and kicking at Paige's enclosure. She was awake, I could see her eyes shining in the torchlight as she looked up at them. I wanted to tell her stop it, to look down, that she was inviting confrontation. But it was too late.

  "So angry," one of the soldiers commented, noting the defiance on the captive's face. "Do you want me to give something to be angry about, girl? Do you want me to fuck that baby right out of your belly and send your savage husband the remains?"

  "Fuck you!" Paige spat. "My husband is going to cut your heart right out of –"

  Before she could finish her sentence, one of the guards reached through the top of the cage and cuffed her. And then he did it again when she opened her mouth to continue speaking.

  "Be quiet, girl!" Heather urged, looking at Paige like she thought her mad.

  "Aye, you should listen to your friend," the guard advised, before his partner began to walk the length of the cages, peering inside.

  "Old," he said, as he passed Heather. "Too much trouble," he said of Paige, before stopping in front of Emma. "This one's pretty – and young. You don't have a baby in your belly, do you?" He asked, leaning down so he could leer in at Emma as she shrank away. "How about I put one in there? How would your Northman like that?"

  I was next. I knew I was next. I felt it when the soldier turned his attention to me, but I didn't see it because I was looking away, trying my best not to give him any reason to pay attention to me.

  "This one's pretty too," he commented to his friend. "We're truly spoiled for choice tonight, are we not?"

  I begged the universe to send something – a bolt of lightning, a flood, something, to put a halt to the scenario that was playing out in front of me. I knew where it ended, and I did not know if I could keep up my act of nonchalance when I had the Angles' filthy hands on me.

  You have to. You have to stay calm. Don't give these men a reason to hurt you. Think of Ashley. Think of her face. All that matters is seeing her again. There is nothing you wouldn't endure for that. There is nothing you wouldn't–

  In the midst of my panicked entreaties to myself, I heard the chains on Emma's cage rattling as the men went to take her out. And then the chains on my cage started, too. I did not look up. I did not scream when two hands reached in and hauled me out, and one of them immediately found its way up under my tunic, squeezing one of my breasts so hard I knew it would leave bruises.

  I clenched my teeth together as a feeling of grim determination came over me. I had to get back to my daughter. Whatever was about to happen to me – and I had a pretty good idea what was about to happen to me – was going to end. I just had to get through it. I had to not give either of the men a reason to want to hurt me – or worse.

  And then, just as I was preparing to suppress the urge to fight and kick and howl when it really kicked in, Emma herself lashed out. I heard a grunt from the man who had her by the back of her tunic and looked up to see him d
oubled over. She'd kicked him or hit him, in the stomach maybe – or the balls. At once, I was let go as my would-be rapist went to his friend's aid, shoving Emma to the ground and then kicking her in the belly when she fell. She screamed. Paige and Heather, in their cages, began screaming too – begging the soldiers to stop, to take them instead.

  Run.

  There was no thought process happening, no rationality in my mind. There was only the instinct that sends an animal over the edge of a cliff rather than staying to face the predator's jaws. My eyes flicked briefly to the other cages, and I saw that Paige was watching me. When she my face she gave me a quick nod. That was all I needed. I turned away from where the men were beating poor Emma and began to run. I didn't know what direction I was running in, nor did I know how to escape the town – I just knew that literally anywhere else was preferable to where I was.

  And then I ran head-first into a wall. I thought it was a wall, anyway, until it spoke.

  "And where do you think you're going, girl? It's the middle of the –"

  A cry arose, then, from behind me. It was one of the guards, having just discovered that I'd fled. The man in front of me – short, but built like a tank and with a bushy beard that smelled of old food – immediately grasped my wrists.

  "Hold her!" Came the shout, much closer now. "Hold her! She's a prisoner!"

  And then suddenly I found myself being dragged back to the cages, tears streaming silently down my cheeks as I still refused to scream. It didn't take long, I hadn't had time to get far. And when I opened my eyes I saw the worst thing I have ever seen in my life – Emma, splayed on her back and held there as one of the guards forced his body between her legs to keep them open and ripped at her tunic. I looked away but the man who'd just caught me grabbed my jaw and forced me to face the scene.

  "Watch," he whispered in my ear. "Watch what we do to Northern whores. Watch what I'm going to do to you next."