Page 14 of The Blue Viking

“Nooo!” Maire screamed.

Everyone’s head jerked upward, and they all gawked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Would you look at what’s in that pit down there, you stupid, thickheaded, pompous, jackass Viking?”

“Tsk-tsk! Calling me vile names is no way to endear yourself to your rescuer, Maire.” Rurik alighted from his horse and glared up at her, hands on hips. “What pit?”

“Aaarrgh!” she screeched, pointing at the ground below her. “Look, damn you. Look!”

“You have a tart tongue on you, Maire. Best you learn to curb it in my presence, or you will feel my wrath. And it won’t be with a tongue-lashing, that I assure you.” He sauntered over to the area under her hanging cage, and seemed to notice for the first time the large, circular woven mat. His men followed him.

He lifted up the edge of the mat with the tip of his boot, peeked underneath, and went wide-eyed with shock. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he cursed loudly. Like many Vikings, Rurik had probably been baptized in the Christian rites, whilst still practicing the old Norse religion. On some occasions, however… like now … naught sufficed but a good Christian expletive.

“Snakes!” his Norse comrades yelped as one, scurrying back toward their horses and safety. You’d never know they were hardened warriors.

“Someone is going to pay for this atrocity,” Rurik vowed, his frosty blue eyes taking in the cage and snake pit in one sweeping glance.

Maire’s heart lurched at his fierce promise. Was he actually outraged on her behalf? Despite all her inner warnings to the contrary, Maire couldn’t stop herself from remembering Nessa’s words: What you need, me bonnie lass, is a brave knight in shining armor to champion your cause.

Could Rurik possibly be that knight?

“A knight in shining armor? Me?” Rurik laughed uproariously at Maire, who was sitting at the trestle table next to him, having just finished sewing up the gash in his forearm.

At the far end of the great hall, the maid Nessa was wrapping tight linen strips about Jostein’s forearm, which was sprained, but not broken. Bolthor had declined any treatment, other than a washing of the small hole, once Stigand had pulled the arrow from his thigh. A little limp was nothing to the giant skald.

“I did not say precisely that I wanted you for a knight in shining armor,” she said defensively, a blush rising on her cheeks and neck.

So, you can still blush, wench? Hmmm. That is a surprise, though now that I think on it, you blushed prettily back then, too… the first time I bared your breasts… or touched your thigh. Nay, I should not recall nice things about you. ’Tis best to remember you are my hated enemy. “When I wear armor, it is sometimes metal, but just as often, leather. And I would never call myself a knight. ’Tis a Saxon word. I prefer to be named warrior, and—”

“My knight in shining leather, then,” Maire suggested with a sad attempt at humor. “Or, my warrior in leather.” She pretended to swoon.

But Rurik took her seriously. “I will not be your knight in armor, leather, pladd, or any other form.”

“Do you deliberately misunderstand my words? I merely said that I am in need of a … oh, never mind. You would not understand.” She took another stitch to distract him.

He yelped with pain, “Oooww! Did you do that a-purpose?”

“Nay, my needle slipped.”

You lie, wench. And you do it with such ease. What other lies do you tell? What secrets do you hide here in your mucky keep? I would have to be a simpleton not to notice the way your clan members shift their gazes whene’er I approach… and you, most especially. Any man … or woman… who will not look a person directly in the eye is hiding something. What could it be?

“I told you to find someone else to mend your wounds, Viking.”

“Yea, but you owe me more than any other. I intend to exact my payments one deed at a time. For instance, how soon can you remove this mark?”

“How soon can you rid my lands of the MacNabs?”

He took hold of both her wrists and hauled her forward so that she was nigh nose-to-nose with him. The needle and thread dangled from the skin of his arm, but he did not care. “You will not play your games with me, wench.”

Suddenly, he was assailed by the not-unpleasant scent of the hard soap she’d used to bathe her body and wash her hair … hair the rich dark red color of an autumn sunset. Green eyes flashed at him through their framework of thick lashes. Her skin was like an ell of ivory silk he’d seen one time in a Birka trading stall, and her face was a perfectly sculpted heart shape. Her clean, but shabby, arisaid with its braided belt, hid her figure, but he knew … oh, Lord, he knew … exactly what treasures lay beneath. His memory was perfect in that regard.

And she was looking even better these days.

“Do you threaten me now, Rurik?” she inquired with a wince, and he realized that his hold on her wrists was unnecessarily harsh. He released her and saw that his fingers would leave bruises on her delicate skin. Ah, well, ’twas only just. His mark on her in exchange for her mark on him.

“Are threats necessary, Maire?” He had calmed down somewhat, and his voice did not betray his inner turmoil. “Do not tempt me, for I have many means at my disposal to bend you to my will.”

Was there sexual innuendo in his words? He had not meant it so. Or had he? For the love of Odin, the woman really must be a witch. She was ensorcelling him.