Page 119 of The Outlaw Viking

He probably could, but no way would she leave a seven-year-old boy to supervise a dozen children, some of them a lot older than he.

“Ubbi, you have to stay. Be realistic. Your arthritis is so bad these days, with the damp weather, that some mornings you can barely get out of bed. How could you ride a horse for that length of time?”

Reluctantly, he finally agreed. “I would hold ye back. I must think of what be best fer the master.”

She hugged him in thanks and went up to the loft to pack her few belongings. Fashioning a sort of fanny pack around her waist, she put in her amber necklace, the dragon brooch she hadn’t worn since her arrival, and the rest of the coins Selik had left with her. Over that, she wore two pair of Selik’s wool braies and two long tunics, a fur mantle, gloves, and the monk’s robe.

Three days later, just outside Winchester, Rain and Blanche and Gorm were apprehended trying to enter the walled city after nightfall. The Saxon soldiers came up out of nowhere, surprising them. When Gorm raised his pike to fight them off, one soldier killed him in one fell swoop of his sword. It happened so quickly that it took a moment for Rain to realize that Gorm lay on the ground with a sword stuck through his chest, his eyes staring up at them in deathly horror. Blanche sobbed loudly on the horse next to hers.

Rain made the mistake then of turning angrily on the vicious soldiers. “I demand to see King Athelstan immediately. We have come to plead the case of the captive, Selik.”

“The Outlaw!” they all exclaimed at once, and at just that mention of an association with Selik, the Saxon guards forced them from their horses, which they immediately confiscated, bound their arms behind their backs, and marched them with pikes jabbing into their backs to their leader.

“Master Herbert, these two came skulking about the castle gates seeking The Outlaw. Another be dead outside the walls,” one of the guards explained.

“We were not skulking,” Rain corrected, and the guard shoved her and Blanche into the barracks-style room where a mean-looking man sat leaning against the wall in a bored fashion drinking mead from a wooden goblet. He was better dressed than the other soldiers who sat about the trestle tables drinking and playing dice. Several women sat on the laps of some men, who fondled them openly.

“Shall we inform the king?” their guard asked Herbert, whom Rain assumed was the castellan, the head of the king’s troops at Winchester.

Suddenly alert, Herbert ignored the guard’s question as he insolently studied their dirty attire, their hands still tied behind their backs. They’d been riding for two days, rarely stopping, and personal hygiene hadn’t been a top priority. The haughty Herbert leaned back casually and took another long swig of his mead. He’d probably assessed and labeled them as of no importance, based on their appearance.

“Yes, tell the king. I need to talk to King Athelstan immediately,” Rain said with an urgency that turned her voice higher than usual.

Herbert’s brow shot upward and he stood abruptly, knocking over the bench, then walked toward her. She heard several soldiers snicker.

“A priest speaking on behalf of the heathen Dane? Now that is an oddity,” he said silkily as he walked toward Rain. She could barely stop herself from backing away. When he stood in front of Rain, his head coming only to her nose, his hand darted out and flipped back the cowl on her head, revealing her long blond braid. Reaching out, he tugged hard on the end of her hair, then used the small knife in his waist scabbard to cut the leather thong. Her hair billowed out around her in a wispy cloud of static.

Herbert gave a low whistle, and some of the soldiers inhaled sharply, then made vulgar remarks. “I think I could even bugger a monk if he had hair like that,” one young man exclaimed, then immediately ducked his head when his comrades began teasing him about his sexual preferences.

With a quick flash of his knife once again, Herbert slashed her monk’s robe from neck to hem and shoulder to wrist. As the drab brown fabric fell to the rush-covered floor, Herbert looked over her double layers of tunics and braies, which made her look heavy, then up and down what he must have considered a massive height for a woman. His upper lip curled with distaste.

Herbert eyed Blanche then, and she slanted her eyes at him seductively and jutted her breasts out in blatant invitation. With disgust, Rain saw Herbert’s mouth go slack and spittle pool at the edges.

She was beginning to think she’d better act quickly. For sure, she was not going to seduce this soldier into leading her to the king with her good looks. “Listen,” she interrupted his lascivious perusal of Blanche’s charms, “I’m a physician—a surgeon in my country. Your king will want to speak with me.”

Herbert said a vulgar word, and his fellow soldiers laughed snidely. “A woman physician? I think not. The only wits a woman has are betwixt her legs.” The soldiers guffawed in agreement.

Rain stiffened her shoulders angrily. “And the only intelligence you have is—”

Before Rain had a chance to finish, Herbert’s fist shot out and hit her chin. With a snap, her neck went back and she fell to the ground, her head striking the timber wall with a loud thud.

Rain didn’t awaken until the next morning, when she found herself lying on a hard dirt floor that smelled strongly of stale urine, dampness, and other horrid odors. Her arms had been untied and she sat up with a wince, putting a hand first to the goose egg on the back of her head and then to her aching chin. Moving her jaw from side to side, she decided the brute hadn’t broken it, but not for lack of trying.

Hearing a squeaking sound behind her, she sat up sharply, causing her jaw to throb even more painfully. Rats, she realized immediately. They had put her in a damp underground room, and there were rats in the vicinity.

Rain stood to get her bearings. The cell was no more than eight-by-eight feet and bare, except for a bench under the lone narrow window slit, a slop bucket in the corner, and, on the floor near the thick wooden door, a pottery jug of water and a trencher with a piece of moldy flat bread and a hunk of meat. A rat nibbled on the meat.

Rain’s survival instincts kicked in. She was alive. Selik was alive. That was all that was important now. She still had hope.

With determination, she braced herself and walked over to kick the rat away, picking up the bread. The squealing rodent could come back later for the grayish meat, but she might need the stale bread for sustenance. And the water, of course.

By late afternoon, Rain’s hopeful spirits flagged. The screams and moans coming from nearby cubicles told her of other prisoners being held in the underground dungeon. No one had come to her cell in the many hours she’d been there, and she faced the frightening prospect of sleeping in this rat-infested hole.

She stood on the bench for what must have been the hundredth time and peered out the small window, which was on a level with the outer bailey. She had screamed for help endless times to the soldiers and servants who passed by, but to no avail. This time she just leaned her aching chin on the window ledge and stared out hopelessly.

Two well-dressed men were approaching from off to the left. One of them, a tall, dark-haired man in his early twenties, walked briskly, arguing loudly with his companion. His fur-lined mantle swished open to reveal a beautiful blue tunic with a silver linked belt, worn over dark braies and fine leather boots. As he turned his face, Rain gasped. Oh, my God! He looked just like her brother Eddie, who had died in Lebanon.

The fine hairs stood up all over Rain’s body as her eyes riveted on the dragon brooch holding his shoulder mantle in place. Quickly, Rain lifted her two tunics and burrowed beneath the waistband of her braies. Thank God, the soldiers hadn’t yet discovered her waist pack. She pulled out the brooch, then looked back at the man, who drew closer. The two brooches matched exactly.