Viking Passion (4 page)

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.

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.