“Sister.” The woman whose fault it was she was here, turned her dark eyes on her. Quite why she persisted in calling Malice a sister when she wasn’t was beyond her, unless she was charitable that way. “We can do this. Let us do this together. I will not be afraid. Here. Take the knife.”
Malice stared at the blade glinting beneath her nose. What? Hack off her mouth and nose? What a horrible proposition. Of course she appreciated the Vikings were coming—they must be, for the women at the front of the crowd to gouge at their faces like that—but she would sooner swallow a crocodile, its Aunt Sally and its aged grandmother, plus its aged grandmother’s reticule.
An image drifted into her mind from an engraving she had seen in one of Aunt Carter’s library of books. A spot of pillage wouldn’t go amiss, would it, with a man as nicely formed as that—taut biceps, fair hair blowing about his chiselled face. If she did something silly, like hacking off her own face, he wouldn’t exactly find her very attractive. As it was she struggled to get men. Why make it harder?
She shook her head. “No. If you don’t mind . . .”
“Mind?” The woman nearly nicked the tip of Malice’s nose. “Take it. Sister, I cannot do this alone.”
Really? Well Malice couldn’t do it at all. A step backwards was in order, only her heel rested against something. Something . . . hard. Something . . . large. Someone’s toes. Her sole trod on them too.
“Viking!”
The ragged shriek assaulted her ears. A Viking, like the one in the picture would be nice, only she had a horrible prescience there wasn’t one in here. That people somehow thought she was a Viking. Why hadn’t she at least paid lip-service to taking the knife? It was an awful lot better than being murdered.
“No.” She tried to squirm sideways. “I’m not. I’m a woman, just like you are,”
“Well, you don’t look like no woman I’ve ever seen.”
A beast of a woman, a woman who should have no fear whatsoever of any Viking touching her unless he was a blind Viking, breathed such rancid ale fumes over her, Malice thought she would collapse. Weren’t nuns from good families? This ox was rougher looking than an Irish navvy. As for her cheek in asserting Malice didn’t look like any woman she’d ever seen, how could she? What this behemoth must mainly have seen in mirrors was herself?
“Look at her dress, your Holy Mothership,” she cried, grabbing a handful of the sleeve.
Malice tried tweaking her bodice back into place. “That’s because I am not from here.” My God, these lies she’d learned to tell years ago stood her in good stead now. “Because I came here to escape the Vikings. Because I, like you—”
“She’s one of them!”
“No, no, no.” Her lies even allowed her to smile—sort of anyway—as she tried edging away.
“A Viking.”
“Not at all. Just because I wear these clothes, it doesn’t make me one of them. Gracious, no, Mothership, I have come all the way from London. From the court of the king himself.” It seemed wise not to mention what king this was. “Yes, he has sent you a—”
“My arse!”
Blessing was what she’d been about to say, but now, at the centre of this jostling, shrieking mob, the blessing was she stood upright, with the hair still intact on her head.
“Gentle . . . Gentle . . .”
It was a waste of an exhortation. At least Mother Bede waded into the melee. At least she didn’t just stand there letting Malice be torn to shreds by this savage pack of wolves, baying and howling in her ears, dragging at her clothes, clogging her nostrils with their damp, peaty smell. Nuns? She had seen tamer pit bull terriers.
“Let her go, Gentle. I am ashamed of you. We cannot harm the king’s servant.”
“Oh. And how’s he going to know? Look around you. He ain’t here, is he? Hang her I say.”
“Gentle . . .”
Malice’s heart skidded across several beats. Gentle? The woman bawling in Mother Bede’s face, fine spraying it with spittle too, was called Gentle? Amazing. Aunt Carter had assured her that people in olden times were named for their virtues. A practice Malice had thanked God had stopped. At least she’d hoped it had stopped. Very well, her own name probably was indicative of her. She just . . . didn’t want to admit it. How could anyone have saddled her with a name like that? And worse than that, now Gentle’s finger stabbed into her collarbone sending her staggering backwards, she’d given this rhinoceros the advantage by thinking about it.
“No, Mothership. If she’s who she says, then she’ll do the same as the rest of us. Won’t she, ladies?” Not content with almost killing her with her fingertip, Gentle won a chorus of ayes by bellowing. “That’s chop off her nose. Now. If she won’t, I’ll do it for her.”
Oh God, what was she going to do here? Bolt for the door and throw her lot in with the Vikings? Why hadn’t she at least made pretence of taking the knife? Covering her nose with her gown or something? It wasn’t as if any of this could be real.
“But, it may be she isn’t a sister, Gentle.” Mother Bede’s voice washed over her. “Would you have her disfigure herself to remain chaste?”
Malice shook her head fervently. “I have a husband.” It was true, wasn’t it? Even if that husband was Cyril and he wasn’t up to much.
Vikings? If indeed they were about, couldn’t they hurry up and save her from this?
“Then where is he?”
“Well—”
A good question. One she hadn’t considered. She was the first to admit Cyril and the Vikings wouldn’t be a good idea. He’d be sure to offer them a drink and her knowledge of them was it was the worst thing to offer a Viking—short of offering them a woman anyway. But just suppose he was about? Was she meant to believe she was the only one blighted by the intensity of that kiss? That he wasn’t about somewhere? Again, her mother crept into her head. It had been very strange behaviour for someone on their death bed. And now, she came to think of it, there hadn’t actually been a funeral, more a sort of memory planted by Aunt Carter eventually. Suppose—oh God—it was a family thing?
“See! She don’t have no husband because she’s one of them. Liar! Liar!”
Malice’s throat constricted. Once again she was the object of ridicule, the unloved child, the freak other children called names, pointed at because she was that tiny bit different and the world she inhabited was one they didn’t understand.
She would rather face the Vikings than this. Only that wasn’t an option. As for Cyril, he wasn’t an option either, whether he was here, or not. Nor could he very well raise any alarm about her disappearance when he didn’t even know it was her in that bedroom. There was only one thing she could do with her back against the wall like this even if she’d sooner swallow a crocodile, its Aunt Sally, its aged grandmother and the aged grandmother’s Uncle Herbert. It would be a hideous disfigurement.
What other choice did she have? If she didn’t they would kill her.
Very well.” She extended her hand. “Give me that knife.”
Chapter 3
What tortuous logic had decreed that Malice should huddle here on scorched, blackened earth, beneath a grey sky, emptied of birdsong, emptied of everything? Even the sun’s rays? Her body shivering in the wind gusting up from the silver river? The ground hard underneath her? Every pore, every inch of skin not just covered in a film of grime, but smelling of smoke? She sighed, gathering her knees tighter against her forehead. A logic that obviously wanted to punish her for all her misdeeds by visiting thunderbolts, smoking earth and Vikings upon her. Agnes should be bringing her hot tea and burnt, buttered crumpets by now. That she wasn’t didn’t mean Malice couldn’t conjure it. Melting butter droplets. Smooth and golden. And the tea, her sworn start to the day. Hot and heady with a dash of orange zest and tangy lemon, served in her favourite bone china rose-leaf pa
tterned cup.
“Water? Frog’s piss more like. Oh . . . all right, I’ll drink it.”
She shrunk down further. Oh God, oh God. Obviously she was in hell. She might as well stop kidding herself and face it. But when the ropes on her wrists bit through her skin and blood trickled down her neck from the gash on her forehead, must Gentle be her extra special present from the gods? After all, not all the women whose marriages she’d wrecked were nice women. Some were quite horrible. Like this one.
At least the whey-faced hippopotamus hadn’t spotted her and started on her again. Of course she’d prefer hot tea and crumpets served on her favourite bone china plate but one must be thankful for any mercy, even one so pitiful and miniscule, her eyes stung to consider it. Although her arms felt as if they’d been shattered in twenty six places, she hugged her knees even tighter, trying to mask the trembling that shook her body from head to toe.
Chopping off her hair last night had been a stroke of absolute genius on her part. Of course she’d have sooner swallowed a river of crocodiles than do it, but it had its advantages. Yes, the Vikings may have burst into the infirmary—another stroke of genius to hack off her skirt and petticoat in the blind confusion, find a tunic to bundle on herself. Yes, they may have done all the things Vikings do—at least, she supposed they had, she’d been too busy making out she was one of them to notice—they hadn’t done them to her. Everything else perhaps, from tying her hands, to dragging her across the burning grass and throwing her down here with such force she’d sobbed as she’d crawled out of their way, but not that.
So? Why on earth was she shedding tears? Gentle, slurping whatever it was she was slurping, from whatever it was she slurped it from, didn’t recognize her. Small mercies. Heaven sent. Her sacrifice had not been in vain even if she was almost bald.
It was especially worth it now the smoking, blackened turf resounded with heavy footfalls and shadows lengthened beneath the coiling mist rolling up from the river because the last thing she wanted was Gentle piping up and saying she was a woman.
Ignoring the cold claw of cramp encircling her stomach, she inched her gaze higher. Then she huddled behind her aching knees again. Not just shadows. Silver helmeted shadows trampling the charcoaled ground of what had been the church floor last night.
Women and some men, farmers who had been rounded up, their children too, huddled together for warmth on the dank ground, their cries and murmurs audible despite her attempts to blot out the sounds. Last night was so real to her. Now these Vikings approached. Shouldn’t she stop kidding herself she was in hell?
If it was somehow possible—and let’s face it, her palms were black from pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming—she had landed in Viking times, then it must also be somehow possible to land back in her time. After all, while there was no sign of Cyril what on earth could he do about the fact she must have vanished from beneath his nose? A kiss could not possibly control this. Yes. She had sometimes seen her mother kissing different men but she hadn’t always vanished. There must be some kind of portal, hallowed spot in Cyril’s bedroom that she’d passed through. Well?
“The pick of the crop, Drottin. Just what you ordered.”
Malice’s jaw dropped open. Just when she didn’t need it to, when what she needed was to consider the well, consider not just the well but the how, how could it? So that stupid gasp escaped her too? But unlike their other guards who’d muttered things she didn’t understand, this one spoke English. Like a native. Dear Lord. There were people like her here? People who did anything to make money?
“Just what I ordered? What’s this? And this? A crop of crows? I’ve seen better looking cows, you maggot-faced weasel. You’ve sold us short.”
Malice’s heart thudded as she flicked her gaze upwards. All right. Even if there were people like her, acting as guards, even if there were others whose gritted undertone, their quite attractive gritted undertone, said they weren’t exactly thrilled with their services, she needed to focus. The place she arrived in must be here somewhere. To the right? To the left? By what remained of the church maybe?
When she saw it and she could not afford to be mistaken, she must make a break for it. Difficult with men who held knives under their informant’s nose—dear God—as if they were going to slice that off next. Yanked them off the ground by their tunic too. To think she had imagined a spot of pillage might not go amiss, especially with a Viking as attractive as the one in that picture in Aunt Carter’s book.
Malice shuddered. She was not for being pillaged. No. Kissing Cyril had raised unfortunate things in her, or she wouldn’t have considered being pillaged for a second.
“P-please Drottin, don’t hurt me, I beg you. They cut off their noses before. Before any of us here could stop them.”
“Horse piss!”
Malice’s shoulders tightened as the man’s scrawny feet thudded back onto the ground. A heap of glinting baubles lay three or four yards to her left. Was that the spot? This Drottin was dragging up chins nearby. She hadn’t taken the trouble to disguise herself as a boy to be thought useful because she had a mouth. And a nose.
“Faen take it, Rasshol, this one hasn’t even got a mouth.”
“True. They cannot all be perfect, Drottin. But think of the bliss. No nagging. And so long as they have other places to put it . . . On a dark night . . . Who is to care . . . ?”
“Is that what you think, Faen take it and you? Sell them, you troll-toothed poker? I can’t sell them. Who’s going to want to buy a useless bunch of fire-faggots with faces like that? Well? They’re worthless and you know what that means.”
“Bioa.” Another man spoke. In what? Norse? She hoped not. It was very inconsiderate. Footsteps thudded towards her. “Hverr of sa—”
“Anglo-Norse, Ari, so these rat-faced dogs can understand us. And know when we’re going to slit their lying throats.”
“Sorry, Sin. What about that one?”
As her heart somersaulted in her chest, Malice fought not to glance upwards. Sin? For that matter maybe Aunt Carter was right and she should have paid far more attention to the important things in these books, things like what the English was for Drottin, instead of admiring the illustrated Viking and his biceps. Then she wouldn’t be distracted wondering whether Drottin was called Sin, or vice-versa, especially now his shadow lengthened across her hastily lowered vision. Unless Drottin meant something like your bossy boots majesty? And Sin was his name?
“What one?”
“This one here. Look . . .”
She froze, a cold claw of dread clamping around her throat like a gauntlet, one that sent particles of fear spiralling through her. She had never been religious especially, so it was absurd to pray, yet she formed the words against her knees. Not me.
“Troll’s teeth, Ari . . .”
Unless he thought she was nice.
“Are you mad? She’s a cart horse.”
She swallowed the sound that came from the back of her throat and fixed her gaze on the dewdrop beading the single unscathed daisy pushing through the smoking moss, just visible between her knees. He meant Gentle of course. Although that didn’t mean she was in the clear. But if she ran, if she ran now, when she didn’t know where she was running to and she could only hope whatever force had brought her here, spirited her away again, what would happen if it didn’t?
Whatever this man was called his patience was hardly that of a saint. Then there was the cart horse sitting next to her. Discretion was not a word to apply to her.
“Oh, some men like big women, Drottin.” The maggot-faced weasel was all crawling deference. “Think of all that’s to be gotten hold of in the dark, especially by a fine War-Lord like you.”
“Are you meaning the pitch dark?”
“Better the pitch dark than with some pitiful virgin in the light. Think of spari
ng your bride by slaking your lusts . . . On this ‘un, D-drottin.”
“I’d sooner be celibate.”
“But Ari now . . . wouldn’t Ari be interested?”
“Ari?”
Malice could understand the total astonishment lacing Sin’s rich, dark voice. A bed with Ari and Gentle in it would need reinforcing. He was a rolled mass of blubber. And she, not that now was the time to think it, but she was a behemoth.
“Ari noticed her, didn’t he? Out of all them women here. His eyes were driven straight to her. Cupid’s arrow I’d ven—”
“I’m a very good cook, sir. All plain food but very, very good.”
Gentle was not only standing up remarkably well to this exchange, she did not seem even remotely fazed by it. But perhaps she wanted to go with the Vikings?
“Poisoned by your own fat hand? Is that it? No. I’d sooner feast on Maggot—”
“Sin, what about this one?
She had only thought to protect herself from these men. It would be no protection at all if she now screamed because Ari dug his sausage fingers into her jaw and dragged her head up, almost pulling it off her neck.
“Look at these teeth, will you? Think of the gold we’ll get for him at auction.”
Auction? Her? Like a common slave? A pony? She didn’t have to fight to muffle the squeal, she couldn’t actually squeal. Ari had swapped looking at her teeth for checking their attachment to her gums.
“Shit!”
She winced, almost falling flat on the ground. Snapping her jaw shut on his fingers was perhaps not the brightest thing to do in the circumstances. Would Ari have preferred that she vomited on him? She was right on the verge. Only now, if she let them go, what would he do? Why, when so much depended on her getting out of here, couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut? Preferably not on his fingers, which she was going to have to release.
THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN Page 4
