Edin's embrace (24 page)

"A Rus will have sexual intercourse with a slave girl while his fellows look on. Sometimes whole bands come together in that fashion, one seeming to make the others wild with lust. A merchant such as myself trying to buy a particular slave may need to wait and look on as the Rus completes his act with her."

Thoryn recalled the sounds coming from behind the curtain in the slave trader's booth. "Things aren't much different here."

For once the Arab refrained from comment. His dark eyes were slumberous. A lazy, thoughtful smile hovered about his lips and about his prominent cheekbones.

Thoryn felt moved to defend his kind. "But you Arabs are like grandmothers; you tremble at the facts of life. And you seem to set yourself above us, yet you're nothing but a slave trader yourself."

"That I am. Slavery is one fact of life I am not prone to run from, especially not if I can profit from it. But I pride myself on being civilized about it."

Thoryn grunted. The man made him feel naive, provincial. For a moment he was lost in that feeling of impotence again. He gestured to the wine seller and raised his refreshed bowl to the Muslim. "May your heart keep youth and your Muslim mouth grow full of good Norse music."

Muqqadasi laughed.

"Tell me about your precious Constantinople, which we Norsemen call
Miklagardur
, the Great City."

The Muslim's gaze seemed to wander away in the immensity of the task. "The Great City. But that is an understatement. It is the greatest city.

"Its original name was Byzantium, the most magic of names, until in 300 A.D. the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire there and renamed it in his own honor." He shrugged. "Whatever you call it, it is memorably beautiful, with its domes and basilicas and pinnacles and towers gleaming in the sun. And also memorably shocking, for power and religion sit on twin thrones; courtesy and cruelty stroll hand in hand. There is wealth to be got there past the dreams of peasant Viking greed. Constantinople is the mecca for every merchant and mercenary from every known corner of the world. It teems with half a million people. It is not hard to imagine the effect it would have on a sea voyager accustomed to rough living—that heady blend of opulence and corruption, of bartering and brawling, of West and East."

What Thoryn heard seemed a legend for the saga-sayers. It ill compared with the rugged life on an isolated steading where men wrestled their livings from stingy earth that was rock-sown and frequently frost-bound.

They ranged through many subjects in the course of the next few hours. The clever Muslim drew Thoryn out about himself, until he admitted he was not married.

"And yet it is clear to me that you are a man smitten with love."

Thoryn bristled. "I know nothing of love, Arab."

Muqqadasi chuckled into his wine bowl.

"You find that amusing?"

"I find you amusing, Viking. Vastly amusing. You are a walking example of the platitude that great love makes wise men become fools. You suffer, Viking, you are distraught. Your mind is full of sharp impulses. Who could help but mark it? And the only attitude I can take toward suffering of that sort is sympathy and boundless patience."

Thoryn's hand went a second time to his sword haft.

"To change the subject," the Muslim said smoothly, "do you realize that you Norse have a natural resource that could bring you wealth beyond measure in my land? You have access to pine and birch forests where many a warm-coated animal scuttles and burrows and swims —and I know whole markets that would buy as many as you could deliver."

Thoryn's hand relaxed.

"There are men the world over who can never get enough furs to flaunt their wealth and magnificence." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "Even the high clergy of the holy Christian church clamor for furs. Such a deadly poison of pride. To their shame they hanker after a lynx-skin robe as much as for eternal salvation. And they care not whether they gain either by means fair or foul." He sighed. "An able man could get rich satisfying such unsated and insatiable appetites."

Thoryn lingered, listening, until the moon had risen, pale and full. It was Rolf who came to find him, Rolf, whose fine red cloak was torn. Thoryn refrained from asking who had won the argument between the Norsemen and the market woman. Unlike the Muslim, he knew when to keep his thoughts to himself.

***

Thoryn was not sleeping well in his guest bed. Olaf was unhappy with him for staying away the whole day, for letting Hanne slip away to her bower instead of demanding her attention. Thoryn was hard pressed not to tell the man outright:
Your daughter is not the wife for me; I would have so little trouble mastering her, young as she is, shy as she is, that soon I would make her my thrall. I need a stronger woman, a woman who will stand up to the dragon in me, a woman like . . .

Edin.

That made no sense! How could a woman who already was a thrall be stronger, more independent, less slavish than a woman who was free?

And how could he, a free Norseman, be so mastered by his own slave? Frustration flamed out of him into the dark. He was like an ox wearing an iron ring, his tonnage tamed to the pull of a frail Saxon female. All he could see in his mind day and night was Edin. Edin's silky hair spread over his bed pillows, a lush coverlet; Edin's shoulders and breasts; Edin's voluptuous body.

Enough! He had to school his thoughts. By force of will he imagined Hanne in his bed, sweet-smelling, virginal. She was small, she was female . . .

But she wasn't Edin.

"Sheepsdung!"

His curse sounded loud in the silence of his chamber. He groaned as luxuriant images of Edin crowded out the chaste little Hanne. Edin, who was beautiful where Hanne was only pretty; Edin, who challenged him even while she feared him, who ever made him feel he should be a better man, who had given him more, much more, than mere pleasure, who had given him
hope.

Thus he fought with himself. He'd just re-plumped his pillow and thrown himself into a new position when he heard his door quietly open. He saw a feminine shape standing there, half in and half out of the narrow opening. His eyes made out a white night shift, a lock of yellow hair lying over a shoulder.

If this was more of Olaf's doing, he thought grimly, he'd chosen the moment poorly, for in an instant Thoryn was out of bed and catching Hanne's arm. She gasped as he yanked her into the room. He shut the door quickly and pulled her off her feet, up into his arms.

"Thoryn!" she whispered.

He took her to the bed and tossed her down, irritated beyond words by her cloying sweetness and her girlish bashfulness and her father's relentless pushing.

"Oh!" She turned her head away quickly. Her hands fluttered with an air of not knowing what she was to do or where to go. "You're naked."

What had she expected? What was her game? He climbed onto the bed with her and pulled her half beneath him.

Still she kept her protests to sibilant whispers. "Let me go!"

But he was not about to let her go. "You were sent here for this," he growled. "You were sent to act the whore, as if your honor was not a thing some women would give their very lives for." In his rakish mood, he willfully placed his hands over her breasts.

They were small and maidenly, and beneath them her heart was fluttering like a captured bird's. She was hardly more than a little girl. He found his anger and frustration vanishing, though he tried hard to keep both hot.

"Lie still now. I'm not going to take you —I'm not the fool your father thinks I am. But I don't mind toying awhile." One hand he placed beneath her nightshift's wide neckline, on the upper mound of one little breast. "Be still. This is new to you. Let me show you how it's done."

"Thoryn-"

"Stop squirming! You think you want to be my wife —this is part of what being a wife means."

Suddenly she began to cry. "I
don't
want to be your wife! I don't! That's what I came to tell you!"

That put him up on his elbows. He eased off her and sat up, finding enough blanket to cover the important parts of himself. She curled beside him, still weeping softly.

"You don't want to marry me?" He smoothed his beard. "Well, I must admit I wasn't expecting that."

A pin and a comb were falling out of her hair. He plucked them free and fingered them idly. At his touch, she got onto her knees and quickly put the length of the bed between them. Kneeling at the footboard, she faced him —almost. She was so shy, and embarrassed of course, and thoroughly afraid of him now. "Cousin," she said.

"
Cousin
, is it?"

She made a miserable sound. "This was a mistake. Please accept my apology. I'll go."

He tossed the comb and pin aside and caught her hand. It had that slightly sticky-damp bonelessness of an infant's. He put a warning in his voice: "You will go nowhere —cousin —until you explain this visit to me."

She stopped, checked the determination in his eyes, and sat on her heels again. She didn't fight his hold on her hand; she was as submissive as he'd known she would be.

"Now," he began, "you don't want to marry me?"

Her head made faint movements, as if the monosyllables no! no! no! were making a lie out of what she said: "Marrying you would be very nice, I suppose." She dared to peep at him. "It is just that, well, I'd rather marry someone else."

"Anyone in particular? Or just anyone rather than me?"

She looked close to tears again.

"Who is he?"

She shook her head helplessly. "My father is very determined that I should marry you."

Thoryn was thinking. So the girl was infatuated with someone else. He should have read the signs, but he'd been blinded by his own appeal — and assumed Hanne found him as acceptable as he found himself.

She was gently twisting her hand, trying to free herself. When he dropped his hold, she whispered, "Thoryn, are you very determined to marry me?"

He said roughly, "I'm not a bit interested in taking a little slaughter lamb to wife."

She bowed her head and sniffed.

"Go. If you're to be another man's, it better not look as if you've already been mine."

She climbed down off the bed. "You won't tell anyone I was here?"

"I owe you no promises."

Another sniff.

"By the gods, girl, get out of here before I — "

No need to finish the threat; she was already gone.

Thoryn borrowed a mount from Olaf to go riding the next day. Several men from the
Blood Wing
and from Olafs hall rode out with him into an eye-whipping wind. Once away from the town, they rode through an avenue of walnut trees, which formed a shady tunnel of moving light and shadow. The men talked of battles and falcons. Ottar launched into a tale of wenching that soon had everyone laughing.

Thoryn asked the Black Dane, whose name was Far Reginn, about the tide of Christianity lapping at the Danevirke on Denmark’s edges. The man shrugged and told how he’d cheerfully submitted to provisional baptism as a condition for being allowed to work as a mercenary in a Christian community. "It is a common custom, yet a Norseman keeps whatever faith is most pleasant to him."

Without thought, Jamsgar said to Thoryn, "And how goes it with fair Cousin Hanne?"

Thoryn put on a little smile. "The girl understands me now.

It took no more than that to draw the Black Dane out. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Thoryn let his eyelids close and open again lazily. "I was growing tired of her hesitancy. She smelled vulnerable last night, and I took the chance I had."

Far's black brows knotted, and he seemed to chew the inside of his cheek. His confident manner had deserted him. "What are you saying?"

"I thought it was plain enough, Far Reginn."

"And I say it wasn't, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

Thoryn shrugged and scratched his fingernails through his beard. The Dane's eyes darkened as his anger grew. He was strung so tight he would draw his sword any moment. Thoryn said, "She strayed a little too near my chamber door and I . . . invited her in."

Far laughed uncomfortably. "Of course you did — we're all great tellers of stories."

Casually Thoryn drew out from his belt a hairpin and a comb. He showed them with a little smile.

The man went white. Stopping his horse, he said in a shocked voice, "You dishonored her?"

Thoryn halted his own mount. "You seem to feel an unnatural amount of interest for a man who is unconcerned in the matter. Or who
should
be unconcerned."

Far's glare threatened to catch Thoryn's tunic afire.

"Mayhap," he added, "she has wandered too close to your door in the past?"

Far drew his sword.

Thoryn's hand went to his own sword; he loosened it in its scabbard as he slid off his horse. "A challenge, Far? One can only wonder why?"

The Dane's black eyes gleamed. "You took her —no doubt hurt her!" He swallowed his rising emotions and said more quietly, "For that I will send you out on the long voyage that ends in Valholl, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

The wind took his words off, leaving a breezy, but nonetheless dangerous, silence. Thoryn said, "If you want a fight, a fight you shall have. But I would know exactly what we are fighting for."

"For Hanne Olafsdaughter's honor."

"I think not. I've suspected for several days that she had a fondness for another. I told the truth in that I did pull her into my bedchamber last night, and even into my bed. I know well how her breasts feel —but I didn't take her. She struggled a little too desperately, and wept, until I was half inclined to be angered. I want no wife who weeps for another when she should only be thinking of me. So I decided to find out who might be scenting after her —and now it seems I know. Olaf's hard-eyed mercenary has an odd romantic fleck."

The man stood stiff with pride, saying nothing. The wind billowed under his cloak. One day he would be formidable; the arched staves of his rib cage were like the frames of a longship. But for now he was still young enough that his body was mainly hulking bones and nerves with little meat to hide them. Still, he already had a certain reputation as a fighter. Thoryn glowered at him. "You are poor, Far Reginn, forced to eat another man's meat. Such a thing is not above the ability of a man to set right —but let's see if you have any real skill with that sword you're so quick to draw. This I swear: If you can best me here today, I'll sail home on the first east wind —without Hanne Olafsdaughter."

He signaled to Rolf, who spread his rather tattered, square red cloak on the ground and said formally: "He who steps off the cloak loses."

Those from the fjord ranged about Thoryn, their eyes on him trustingly. Drawing
Raunija
, he said, "Aye now, see that each stroke meets its mark, Far Reginn, and none of that silly flailing of the sword you Danish men are given to. Every thrust must bite if you expect to father the children of my tender-breasted little cousin."

Far gave a little jogging dance, as though to work up his boldness.

An over eager puggy!
Thoryn thought. For his part, he stood still, with his longsword poised before him, until at last Far struck.

Sparks rained from the length of their longswords. Thoryn pressed to the reaches of the Dane's strength and skill—-but did not press beyond. Far sustained a cut to his neck —but did not lose his head. He snarled a curse and tried to surge forward, hammering for Thoryn's skull. Thoryn was defter, however; his longsword leaped, caught Far's blow, and turned it.

It was a thing that went against the grain to hold back, yet hold back he did. The Dane hacked at him from the left and then the right. Thoryn took each blow with
Raunija
; sparks spat over his forearms. And then came a moment that seemed right. He let his longsword be caught.
Raunija
held the light; she glowed evilly as Far's blade struck more fire off her. Then Thoryn let his heel step back off the spread cloak.

There was an unbelieving silence among the men. Without speaking, without giving any hint of how much this forfeit cost him, Thoryn swung onto his horse and rode for town.

By nightfall, word of the event was sown all through Olaf's house. Olaf himself was in a fury when he came to Thoryn's chamber. "Far Reginn has asked for Hanne."

Thoryn knew what was not being said. His uncle wanted a landed jarl for a son-in-law, but there was a matter of honor involved now, Thoryn's and Far's —and Hanne's as well, since her visit to Thoryn's bed, however unwilling, was whispered about everywhere. Thoryn's open admission of that placed Olaf in a cleft stick. And Olaf was not a man who liked cleft sticks. Just now he was radiating a barely tethered, ruthless power. There was something primary and dangerous about him, a hint of what he must have been in his youth.

"Thoryn, by Odin, they say that raw boy belted you! What is the truth?"

Thoryn had to unclench his jaw to speak. He forced the words out against vast aversion: "Far struck, and I stepped off the cloak."

Olaf raged silently. "I don't believe it! There's more to this than meets the eye and ear. But if I don't give her to one of you now, there will be thunder."

"Aye." Thoryn felt his pride stinging. "Well, the oath I made was that if Far won the challenge I would sail home alone."

Olaf's rage went cold. "I could demand that you wed her —you told one and all that you took her to your bed."

"It was the impulse of the moment, Uncle. You have my word that as far as I know the girl is still a maiden. The Dane believes that or he wouldn't have asked for her."

"Aye. But I swear I would not give her to him if ... I can't believe he bested you, Thoryn! Is this the man they say makes the earth shake, the one they call the Hammer of Dainjerfjord? The Dane is a fine swordsman, mayhap my best, but he doesn't have your lack of mercy."

***

Thoryn avoided seeing anyone else until the Blood Wing was ready to sail. Then, as he was packing the last of his belongings into his sea chest, a knock came at his door. It was Hanne. When he said nothing, she came in and shut the door behind her.

"This is not wise," he said shortly.

"I know. But I had to tell you —thank you, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

She was fairer than ever he'd seen her. She was radiant. He squinted down at her a moment and couldn't help giving her a faint smile.

Her responding smile was brilliant. Suddenly she went up on her tiptoes and pecked his lips with her own. "Cousin, you must find someone to love you."

He backed away to look at her down his bearded cheeks.

She hesitated, then said all in a rush, "You should, Thoryn! But first you must learn to be less fierce! If I weren't half-frightened of you most of the time, I would have liked to speak with you. I've oft thought I would like to be your friend."

He said nothing. He saw her eyes searching his, as if for some sign.

***

It was a day of swift clouds when Inga drove her horse-drawn cart along the cunning zigzag of indented sheep paths to Soren Gudbrodsson's hut. Soren had once sailed with Kirkyn on his raiding expeditions, until the old man received an injury to his head. That was long ago. Now he lived alone. He often sat for hours beside the fjord, stroking his old dented helmet with his gnarled hands. Thoryn let him stay on a corner of the steading, knowing he had nowhere else to go.

When Inga knocked on the door of his one-room hut, he opened it with a really dreadful expression on his face. For an instant she was alarmed, but then said, "It is Inga Thorsdaughter, Kirkyn's wife."

"Kirkyn's . . . ?
Inga!
Come in, come in!" He bowed as low as his stiff old frame would allow as he backed into the hut. He was of large build, even in his old age, and still strong and muscular; but he seemed more befuddled than Inga had expected. His voice was gruff, and his beard was threaded with grey and in need of care. His eyes were as colorless as a blindman's. But really, none of that mattered; indeed, it all served Inga's purpose well.

"I am honored" he was muttering, "honored."

He offered her a stool near the little fire. From there she took in the dark room. It smelled of dung, for a cow lowed at the back end. The hut had been built with his own hands, out of rocks and turf and driftwood. Brown swamp reeds made the thatch for the roof. It was a rough home, with drafts coming up beneath the door. A weak fire burned in the stone-lined pit, and a thin broth bubbled beneath the lid of an iron pot. She saw he'd been greasing a pair of ancient leather leggings by the hearth.

"How do you fare, Soren?" She was aware of a little pulse in her cheek, ticking.

He smiled doggishly and shrugged. "I have no longship, no crewmates — but I have a home and a fire and food. I do well enough."

"Well enough to refuse to embark on one last adventure for your jarl? I grasp your sadness and your burden, Soren. Your talents have not given you the patience or the experience for niggling country life. You must die a hero or else die unsung."

He straightened his old back as if to say,
I may be a feeble-minded old man, ignored by my kin, scolded by cooks and thrall-girls, but Norse fires still burn in Soren Gudbrodsson!

"Here is the thing, then," Inga said. "The jarl has a cold foreign witch working spells beneath his roof . . "

He listened attentively, his eyes unmoving. When she was done, he was silent for a moment. The fire made soft, taffetalike sounds; the broth bubbled. He said, "And this is what the jarl wants done?"

"He sent me to ask it of you. The ties of kinship impose fearful demands, even on a woman."

"Aye. Well then, what else can I do? If I have to kill, I will kill, and if I have to die, I will die well, laughing at death. After all, I owe the jarl. He's a good man. Once we swept through a place, there was little left, not enough for a mouse to eat. It was he himself who carried me out of that burning Christ-church in the Orkney's when I got that head wound. You should have seen the stains on his arms that day, as if he'd been picking blackberries!"

"That was Kirkyn," Inga said. A draft seemed to creep under the door and chill her back. "Kirkyn is dead. I am a widow woman and my son Thoryn is jarl now."

"Thoryn? Oh, aye, young Thoryn!"

"Are you sure you understand what is to be done?"

"Aye." Clasping his big hands together and resting his elbows on his knees, he repeated it back to her.

"You feel you're strong enough?" she asked.

He seemed to look at his hands. "I used to be the best wild-horse trainer on the fjord. And quick as a cat with a broad-axe." His eyes opened, bright with incipient tears. His poor mouth quivered.

"I remember," she said.

"Then you know what this means to me. One last deed." He suddenly threw back his rough head and guffawed. "Ha! An adventure!" His bravado vanished under her stare and stony silence, and he finished more soberly, "I will do as the jarl says, Inga Thorsdaughter."

That burst of laughter more than anything else satisfied her that she'd chosen well. Dazed and grey as this main had become, there was still enough iron in him for her purposes. She left him some cheeses and cold smoked trout to build up his strength a little, then went out into the grey, dry afternoon. The fjord was as slate as the clouds. Lightning flickered low on the horizon, as though armies were locked in battle far to the east. She would have to hurry her cart horse if she wanted to get back to the longhouse before nightfall.

***

Standing at the single, huge rudder-oar to the right of the
Blood Wings
raised stern
lypting
, Thoryn wore a thick frieze cloak and a catskin cap. His dandy clothes were put away in his sea chest. If it hadn't been for his sword's golden handle, no one could have told he was a sea lord.

He looked at the water, which rippled like the back of a dusky, slowly swimming serpent, but his mind saw something else entirely: hair like a sheaf of amber wheat stirred by the wind. He felt a yearning to caress that wheaten spill. . . .

He shook himself and came awake to the sea again. The dream was sweet, but he had to mind his steering. They were sailing along a serrated stretch of coastline where there were known to be nests of marauders. Every fjord was the private principality of some self-styled sea king, living well by preying on the lucrative trade that tried to sail past his lair.

Nonetheless, only a moment later his mind was off dreaming again: When she saw him coming home, would she pick up her skirts and rush down the sea path to meet him? No. And that was all right. Much of her charm was her reserve, because it challenged him to break it down. He had in his chest the promised bronze mirror, and also a new pouch filled with large beads of amber, which he planned to use to weaken that reserve of hers, granting her no mercy or quarter, as soon as he had her alone. The thought made the blood sparkle in his veins.