by Sandra Hill
“Frigg’s foot! It smells like a sheep pen in here,” he exclaimed when he got closer.
“Well, Frigg’s foot! You do not smell like a flower, either. Not that I care!” She noticed the stains on his tunic, and continued, “Your blood could gush out ’til you are bone dry inside and I would not lift a finger to help you. You could have blood seeping from your eyeballs, and nose, and ears, and I would just call others to come observe the wondrous sight.”
“You are a heartless wench,” he declared with amusement. “Fortunately, it is not my blood. I was skinning a boar that Jostein killed for our dinner.” He pinched the fabric of his leather tunic to hold it away from his chest and examined the various stains with distaste.
“That is another thing. I have not eaten since breaking fast this morning. Do you intend to starve me, too?”
“There’s an idea.” He went down on one knee and began undoing the ties about her ankles. “Come,” he said, taking hold of the rope about her wrists and tugging her off the bed.
“Where are we going?”
“To the pond. To bathe.”
Uh-oh!
Noticing the expression of dismay on her face, he informed her, gleefully, “Your secrets are uncovered. We know all about the pond and the tunnel.”
“Oh.” She stared at him for a moment, trying to figure if this was an attempt to trick her. Eventually, she shrugged. He had been bound to find out sometime. “Then you know that the pond will be draining soon. Do you relish a mud bath?”
He chucked her under the chin. “Nay, though I would not mind seeing you swathed in slimy mud. I might even pelt you with a few mud balls.”
She made a decidedly unfeminine snort of disgust.
And brute that he was, he just laughed.
“Do not be surprised if I pelt you right back.”
“I would be surprised if you did not. Not to worry, though. I intend to be at the pond early enough to witness the draining. Whilst it’s still deep enough for us to bathe.”
She made another snorting sound of disgust, but inside she quailed at his reference to “us” in bathing.
He took the torch from the wall holder, tugging her along behind him by the tether. Almost tripping as she tried to keep up, she muttered under her breath.
“Did you just call me a loathsome lout? According to my mother, it must mean you are smitten with me.” He batted his ridiculously long lashes at her. No doubt, he thought she was enthralled by his pretty green eyes.
“I’ll never call you a loathsome lout again. Odious oaf better suits you, anyway.”
He laughed.
She was getting tired of being a source of mirth for the loath— odious oaf.
Two of the men were sleeping on pallets about the main room of the hunters’ hut. Outside in the clearing, a fire smoldered in the middle of a stone ring, over which a half-eaten suckling boar still spit and sputtered on its makeshift roasting spear.
Her stomach growled at the sight of several slices of blackened pork sitting on a wooden platter, along with chunks of manchet sopping up the juices.
“Wait,” she said, digging in her heels. Leaning down, with her wrists still bound, she grabbed a piece of bread and wrapped it around a slice of blackened pork. Taking pity on her, he undid the rope binding her wrists and shoved her down to sit on a log that served as a bench before the fire. “Stay here until I return, wench,” he said, and started back toward the longhouse.
“Do not call me wench. It’s disrespectful.”
“Stay here until I return, M’Lady Wench,” he amended.
She made a scowly face to his back, but he paid her no never mind, just went off on some chore or other that was apparently more important than she was. How Medana had gone from captor to captive in such a short time was a puzzle to her. Actually, she did not consider herself a captive exactly since she had agreed to offer herself up in exchange for the longship, but everyone else seemed to.
In fact, his men, some standing guard and two of them sitting before the fire, watched her with interest.
Immediately, she gulped the food down, ravenously. The meat was undercooked inside and tough, but she did not care, so great was her hunger.
“You should not rile him so,” advised Bolthor, the giant who claimed to be a skald as well as a warrior.
“Who?”
“Thork.” The answer came from Finn, the vain Viking, who was cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails with the tip of a short blade. If reports were true, Finn had been having incomplete sex with one of the women every night this sennight. Incomplete as in no seed entering the field where it needed to be planted. Thork’s idea, she had heard.
“And why should I not rile him?” she asked, the question directed at both men.
“Your contacting his family was cruel, especially since the boy was on his way home to make peace with his father.” Bolthor’s craggy face was stern with admonition.
“Boy? Thork is hardly a boy.”
“I have seen more than fifty winters. I fought aside his father at Ripon. Carried him from the battlefield, even. To me, Thork will always seem a boy.”
Duly chastised, Medana kept her silence.
“Thork is a good boy who may have been wild in the past, and who may have made an irresponsible mistake or two,” Bolthor continued.
“Wild is an understatement for what I have heard of his reputation.”
Frowning at her interruption, Bolthor went on, “But the boy reached a bend in his life path. He took a vow to be good. And now it is all for naught. He may never reconcile with his father, and it is all your fault.”
“That is unfair. You cannot—”
“Furthermore, you have probably lost him his bride,” Finn interjected.
“Huh?”
“Thork had just picked out a bride in Hedeby afore you captured him,” Finn explained. “Another effort on his part to please his father. Which was going too far, if you ask me. I would have bought the old man a longboat or several barrels of fine Frisian wine, for gods’ sake. Not anchored myself to a wench to make amends.”
“Dost forget Isobel?” Bolthor reminded Finn. “You would have wed the Saxon lady in a trice if she’d been willing.”
“That was different,” a disgruntled Finn replied. “And do not dare compose another saga about it, either.”
“You do not like my poems?” Bolthor asked.
“That is beside the point,” Finn evaded. “Mayhap I will be like you. Marry late in life and breed a horde of bratlings.”
“I did not breed a horde. I was married as a young man and lost both my wife and two daughters. Katherine already had four children when we wed, and we had only one babe betwixt us.”
“Five children? Five? Shouldn’t you be home caring for your large family?” Medana asked.
“Yea, I should,” Bolthor replied, slicing her a glare with his one good eye, “except someone waylaid us. Someone prevented Thork from going home and getting himself a bride. Someone delayed me from returning to my home and a wife who will have my head on a silver trencher.”
So the brute is betrothed. Why that seemingly irrelevant fact should matter to her was a puzzle, but somehow it did. “ ’Twas not I who captured you men,” she said defensively. Her excuse sounded weak even to her own ears, and both men arched their brows at her mincing words.
“ ’Twas you who demanded ransom for him,” Finn pointed out.
To hide her discomfort and to feed her continuing hunger, she made quick work of eating another piece of bread and meat.
When she’d finished her short meal, Bolthor handed her a ladle of water. That, too, she gulped down. When he inquired, “More?” she nodded, and he refilled the ladle from a nearby rain barrel that they must have dragged up the mountain.
Bolthor and Finn watched her intently.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you tired, m’lady?” Finn asked.
What an odd question! “Nay. Why should I be tired? I have done n
aught but lie about for half a day.” Something occurred to her. “You are worried that I might have tainted the drinking water with sleep herbs, aren’t you?” She yawned widely and loudly. “Perchance I am ready for bed, after all. Suddenly, I feel like I could melt down to the ground in a puddle and sleep like a hibernating bear.”
“Why are your eyes blinking?” Bolthor asked.
“Because she is lying,” Thork said in passing. He’d already amassed a pile of clothing and linen cloths. To Finn, he asked, “Did you bring any soap?”
Finn nodded. “In the sack under the sleeping bench on the far side of the hearthstone.”
Thork began to leave again, never once asking if she needed anything. Like more food, or an opportunity to relieve herself. He did stop to address Bolthor, though. “Keep an eye on the sly witch lest she slip away afore I can torture her secrets out of her.”
He’d already said he knew about the pond. What else did he think she was hiding? “You already know all my secrets,” she griped.
“I doubt that mightily. Besides, I need to practice one of my best torture methods. Pulling out toenails with my teeth.”
Bolthor and Finn barely stifled their chuckles.
She shivered inwardly but raised her chin. “Put your mouth anywhere near my feet and you will get a knee in your most precious body part. And I do not mean your winsome face.”
Thork let out a hoot of laughter and tipped his head at her as if giving her credit for a good response. But what he said was “You like my face? And that is not even my best feature.”
How he could make jest in the midst of such dire circumstances—dire for her, leastways—was indicative of his still wild character, in her opinion. Not that she would voice it, or that anyone would care. The grin on his too-pretty face boded ill for her. And, yea, the lout was pretty with that silky blond hair, sun-bronzed face, finely sculpted nose and chin, high cheekbones, and the best feature of all, his green eyes. Not that she took notice of such things. Usually.
Once he was gone, she remarked to no one in particular, “He really is a loathsome lout.” And she did not mean that in a nice way.
Chapter Twelve
Rub-a-dub-dub, baby . . .
The level of the pond had already dropped the length of a big man’s foot by the time Thork arrived there with Medana. Bolthor and Finn stood guard a short distance away, keeping an eye on the women warriors who attempted to approach.
“Tell your women to go back. Tell them you are safe,” he demanded.
“Am I safe?”
He shrugged. “As safe as you can be, as long as you obey orders.”
“You seem to be under the mistaken notion that you are in charge. This is our island.”
“Believe me, M’Lady Pirate, I am in charge. And you would do best not to rile me further.”
“Blather, blather, blather,” she muttered.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” She turned to address the dozen or so worried women who hovered a short distance away. “Go back to the village. Take them back, Gudron. All will be aright by morning.”
“An optimist, are you?” Thork inquired once they were alone again.
“A realist. I cannot see how keeping me for an extended time would be to your advantage.”
“Do you not?”
They’d arrived at the pond, and Thork dropped his pile to the ground. While he began to remove his belt, he asked, “How long does it take for the pond to drain?”
“About two hours. At its full depth, it is the height of four men, standing atop each other, feet to shoulders. About four fathoms. And about thirty paces across, if one could walk on water, as you can see.”
Thork studied the steep-sided pond as he began to disrobe. Because the pool was not slanted along the sides, the depth was the same throughout. Thork figured that he would have more than an hour of a good depth for swimming . . . or bathing.
“What are you doing?” She gaped at him.
“Taking off my braies.” He’d already toed off his boots and pulled his tunic over his head. “It defeats the purpose of bathing if one does so fully clothed. Besides, I need a clean tunic and braies if I want to survive my own stink. Same goes for you, by the by.”
She was staring at a particular part of his body and therefore didn’t respond, at first.
“That . . . that . . .” she sputtered, pointing to his cock, bared now that he’d shimmied out of his braies; it was already halfway enthusiastic. Much more staring by her, and he would be into a full-blown cockstand.
“Do not take it personally. My fifth limb salutes at the least thing. Once, I got aroused watching a bowl of leavened dough rise. Resembled a woman’s buttock, it did.”
He could see her by the full moon, but not too clearly. He would bet his best sword she was blushing, though.
Abruptly, she spun on her heels, away from him, gazing at nothing in particular.
“Take off your garments, Medana, whilst the water level is still high.”
“Um, methinks I will bathe later.”
“Um, methinks you will bathe now. Fully clothed or naked, I care not, but you will be in that pond forthwith.”
“Can you not leave me my dignity?”
“Like you left me mine? I seem to recall male body parts being held over a ship’s rail to piss.”
She waved a hand airily. “Men are not so squeamish about such things.”
“Mayhap so, but a man’s male part has difficulty distinguishing between sex and pissing when a female hand is holding it. Lots of cockstands were visible during the ship’s sailing, you must admit.”
She looked at him as if he’d said something particularly vulgar. Hah! If she thought that was vulgar . . . Enough! Picking her up from behind, by the waist, he tossed her into the pond and jumped in after her.
The water was cool and refreshing, and, yea, slightly salty. When he rose to the surface and shook his hair off his face, he observed Medana struggling, her arms flailing as she tried to swim toward the edge.
“Can you not swim? A pirate who cannot swim?” He pulled her up, and her arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. Her hair was wet and stringing about her face, her garments a sodden mess.
“Yea, I can swim, you loathsome lout, but not with the weight of wet clothing and boots to pull me down.”
“You called me a loathsome lout,” he pointed out, meanwhile liking the feel of the slim woman in his arms. A particular body part liked her particular body part as well, as evidenced by a continual rising of enthusiasm that pressed against her thighs. Thus far, she hadn’t taken note of that fact; when she did, she would probably have a screaming fit. “Must be you like me, as my mother inferred.”
“Like? Like? At this moment, my sentiments are just the opposite, you . . . you . . .”
“Odious oaf?” he offered, and pushed her back against the far side of the pond and extended her arms to each side to hold her up. He didn’t hear her response because he’d ducked under water and yanked off one of her half boots, then the other, not an easy feat when she was attempting to kick him. He rose to the surface, gave her a quick kiss—why, he had no idea; because he could, he supposed, or mayhap just to halt her harangue—and went under again where he commenced to tug down her braies, baring her lower body, which he could unfortunately not see. He would later, though, he promised himself. Just because he knew it would annoy her. Or so he told himself.
“You took off my braies and smallclothes, both of them at once,” she charged, as if he didn’t know what he had done.
“Yea, a talented fellow I am at removing female clothes, though I cannot say I have taken breeches off a woman afore.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” and before she could fathom his next step, he grabbed the hem of her tunic and raised it up and over her head and off her arms. Arms that immediately returned by necessity to the pond’s edge to maintain her balance or risk sinking under water again.
Which left her breasts and upper body exposed to his scrutiny.
And scrutinize her, he did.
Her breasts were not too big, and not too small. Just right. Round like plump peaches, with tiny berry nipples. He fancied small nipples, truth to tell, no doubt due to the time he got a rash from being with a woman who had nipples the size of candle stubs. Not that the two things were related, but still, men tended to make associations like that. And there was not a bit of sag in Medana’s breasts, considering her age, though that might be because of her position, arms stretched out, causing her back to arch.
She was beautiful. And it wasn’t just her breasts.
How could he have not noticed afore? Oh, he’d not considered her witch ugly, but on the other hand, he would not have considered her more than passable in appearance, especially for a female so long in the tooth, prone to wearing men’s garments. Even with her hair plastered about her face and the frowning expression she cast his way, even with the sheep smell that still lingered on her body, she was the most tempting morsel of femininity he’d viewed in a long time. If ever.
And that was alarming.
“Lecherous lout!” she said, noticing his regard, and turned, trying to lever her arms and crawl up the side.
Which gave him a view of her arse. Two rounded globes of white ivory, like an inverted heart, the point being her narrow waist.
A sharp jab of lust shot through his body.
She glanced back at him over her shoulder and couldn’t help but see what he was admiring. Which caused her to scramble even more to get away from him.
“Nay, nay, nay!” he said with a joyous laugh. “You are not getting away from me so easily.” She was out of the water up to her knees and attempting to crawl forward, but he grabbed her legs and pulled sharply, causing them both to fall backward and into the pond. He heard Bolthor and Finn laughing in the distance.
He still had a hold on her, by the waist now, when they both came up in the center of the pond.
She was sputtering and spitting out water. So it took a moment for her to realize that they were treading water, front to front. Her breasts pressed against his shoulders. His cock was a lance between her knees. For a moment, he feared that he might shoot his enthusiasm out like an untried youthling, unable to control his passions.
