by Sandra Hill
When he blew out the candle and slid in behind her, Rain moved as far away as she could so their bodies would not touch. Still, she felt the heat of his body and imagined that his warm breath tickled her shoulder blades.
She awakened some time before dawn and found that she had turned and lay willingly in his arms, her cheek pressed against the silken hairs of his chest; one of his legs draped intimately over both of hers. For several long moments, she lay still, feeling his steady heartbeat against her ear, and in her half-sleep she admitted something she could not when fully awake. She didn’t hate this man, no matter what he’d done or planned to do. She just couldn’t hate him.
She had to help him. But how?
When slivers of light began to creep through the opening in the tent, Rain carefully slipped out of Selik’s arms and out of the bed furs. She quickly donned Selik’s braies, uncaring of the fact that they were six inches too long and bagged at the ankles. His wool tunic was much too big, but it felt warm and smelled faintly of the not unpleasant masculine skin she had been inhaling all night.
Gorm sat stationed near the captives, sitting with his head leaning back drowsily against a tree trunk. He sat up straighter but didn’t stop her when she rummaged through the utensils near Ubbi’s cooking fire. When she finally found what she wanted, she turned stoically and headed toward the horses.
I ought to earn two sets of angel wings for this one, Lord.
Selik slept past dawn the next morning, the battering of his body and mind the last few days finally catching up with him. The troublesome wench was gone from his bed furs, but that did not really surprise him. The foolish witch paid no attention to his orders and blithely did just as she pleased.
Selik bristled as he thought about Rain’s harsh condemnation yestereve of his taking scalps. A beast, she had called him. Well, mayhap she was right.
But then, the wench was critical of everything he did. She acted as if he were a naughty kitten and she the mistress. Hah! Best she be careful or she would discover she had a tiger in her domain and she was the delectable morsel on which he would dine. Selik smiled at his own mind jest. Mayhap he would repeat it to her later, but he misdoubted she would see the humor. Especially if her mood had not improved overnight.
Selik rose from the warm furs, imagining he could still smell Rain’s enticing Passion. He shook his head in wonder at the strange woman who had come into his life—was it only three days ago? It seemed as if he had known her forever. And what a strange creature she was! Imagine, naming a perfume! Did she name her soaps as well? he wondered, smiling. Or her combs?
Selik yawned hugely and scratched his chest as he donned a clean pair of braies and a dark blue tunic. He cinched a wide, silver-linked belt at his waist and put the heavy armlets Astrid had once given him on his upper arms, caressing the fine etchwork lovingly with a forefinger.
He approached the cook fire where the young Saxon girl he had taken captive was stirring a pot. She pulled several loaves of flat bread out of the coals and laid them on a rock to cool. Having ignored the hunger cramps in his empty stomach too long, he grabbed one of the loaves and tossed it back and forth from hand to hand to cool it more quickly.
He never said a word to the quietly working maid. Nor did he comment on her release from the string of captives. He assumed Ubbi had gladly given up his cooking chores.
Breaking off a chunk of the manchet bread, he ate hungrily as he walked toward the horses, where Ubbi was doling out the precious feed he had brought back yestereve.
“Did ye find Sveinn?” Ubbi asked, looking up at him as he worked.
Selik nodded.
“And Ragnor?”
“Yea, and Tostig and Jogeir and Vigi, as well,” he answered wearily.
“All buried?”
“All buried. ’Twas the best we could do. The rite of fire would have brought too many Saxons down on our heads. As it was…” His words trailed off, but he did not need to finish. Ubbi had been with him long enough to know many Saxons had come and died at his hands once again.
“With all respect, my lord, it has to stop.”
“Foolish man, I am nobody’s lord. I am a bloody nithing.”
Ubbi inhaled sharply with shock at this extreme self-insult. And, good Lord, tears glittered in Selik’s eyes. Tears! Was everyone losing their senses?
“I care naught what ye say,” Ubbi said vehemently, “ye are as noble as the best of ’em. ’Tis jist that ye have stumbled on the bitter stones life has thrown in yer path. The way will git better, though. I jist know it.”
“Bitter stones! More like boulders!” He looked around then. “Where didst my guardian angel fly off to now?”
Ubbi darted him a guilty look, then avoided his eyes.
“Oh, Holy Thor! What now?”
“I think you’d best check Fury’s right foreleg, master. Seems a mite sore to me.”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“God’s handmaiden! Who the hell do you think?”
“Do you really think the Lord sent her to you?”
“Nay, I think Loki is playing a vast joke by sending Rain to bedevil me.”
Ubbi looked wounded, then glanced right and left to make sure they were not overheard before confiding in an awe-filled whisper, “I found a feather in yer bed furs yesterday when I straightened up yer tent.”
Selik furrowed his brow in thought. He could not see the connection between Ubbi’s discovery and Rain.
“Do you not see, master? It no doubt came from her wings which she hides from us earthy bodies.”
“Oh, for the love of Freya!” Selik hooted with laughter, unable to believe Ubbi’s gullibility.
As he was wiping the mirth from his eyes a few moments later, Selik noticed Rain kneeling beneath a tree on the other side of the small spring—digging a hole.
Ubbi put a hand on Selik’s arm as he prepared to go to her. “Master, do not be harsh with her. She does not understand our ways.”
Selik looked at his loyal servant’s worried face and tensed. Rain had brewed trouble once again, no doubt, and the foolish man tried to protect her from his wrath.
Without another word, Selik spun on his heel and made his way toward her kneeling body. When he got closer, he saw that her head was bowed in a prayerful attitude and she was mumbling some words aloud, something about her Lord being a shepherd and her lying down in pastures. A fresh mound of dirt lay in front of her.
Was it some kind of religious ritual? Or had she stolen some precious object from his tent to hide until her escape?
Exasperated, Selik grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her to her feet. The small shovel in her hands clattered to the ground with the abrupt motion.
Rain’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh! You scared me.” Then, as if recalling to mind her continuing anger towards him, she struggled to escape his grip.
“What in bloody hell are you doing?”
She raised her chin defiantly and refused to answer.
“I asked you a question,” he said coldly, tightening his hold on her upper arm to the point of pain. “Answer or I swear I will break your arm.”
He saw the tears well in her eyes, a mixture of pain and wounded pride, but he did not care. She had pushed him beyond his limits of endurance. “Are you planning to escape?”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “What?”
“Was it my gold coins you buried, or a sharp knife, to aid you in your escape?”
“No, you stupid brute, I was burying your dead.”
His breath whooshed out in a loud exhale, and Selik released her. His finger imprints had already bruised her soft flesh.
“What dead?” he choked out. “Surely my men buried the captive that Ubbi killed yesterday.”
She darted a look of disbelief at him. “You are the most thickheaded man I have ever met. Do you honestly think I could have dug a hole big enough to bury a man of Edwin’s size with this little shovel?”
He looke
d at the small digging implement and realized that, in truth, he had not been thinking clearly. Slow down, he told himself silently. Stop letting your emotions rule your head. Think.
“Tell me then,” he said more calmly.
She held his gaze, her honey eyes sparkling with challenge. “I was burying the—she swallowed hard several times before continuing—“the scalps you took yesterday.” Her eyes flashed defiantly as she awaited his usual angry outburst.
The scalps. The bloody witch is trying to counter the behaettie. God, she never ceases to amaze me.
“Oh, really, close your mouth, Selik. It’s quite unbecoming.”
He snapped his slack lips together in chagrin at being caught gawking. “Those words you were chanting—are they a charm?” he asked, still unconvinced.
At first, her brows furrowed in puzzlement. Then she laughed—a clear, surprisingly pleasant sound that carried across the clearing. He saw Ubbi look up hopefully from his work with the horses, as if thankful that he had not yet lopped off her head. Bloody hell.
“I was saying some prayers, Selik,” she finally explained gently. “Christian prayers for burial.”
“You would pray for the salvation of my enemies?” he asked icily.
“I would pray for anyone, Selik. Even you. Especially you.”
“Save your prayers. You had no right to take what belongs to me. Or bury it without my permission.” Holy Thor! The woman must have the mettle of a seasoned warrior to have handled the bloody objects. And to face his fearsome fury.
“I did what I had to do. Will you punish me?”
“Do you want to be punished?”
“Of course not. But I’ve had plenty of time to think this all through while you snored the night away—”
“I do not snore.” Do I? No one ever remarked on it afore.
Her beautiful lips twitched at the edges as she tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. “Like a bear.”
Moving away from the odd grave, Rain motioned Selik to follow her. Amazed that she would order him about, he was equally incredulous that he followed like a meek puppy. Next he would be licking her face. Aaah! Now that conjures up some interesting possibilities. He grinned, despite his annoyance. Next I will be wagging my tail. He burst out with a chuckle of self-derision at that prospect.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. Me. My life.”
Rain tilted her head questioningly and dropped down to the ground near the small pond. She pulled up her long legs—seductively outlined in all their glorious length by his braies—so that her chin rested on her knees and her arms were wrapped around her calves.
He had difficulty swallowing past his dry throat.
Sliding down beside her, he rested his back against a tree. Not too close. Her nearness disarmed him mightily and he must remain alert with the wily wench.
“Selik, I seem to have no choice about being here with you, but we have to come to an agreement.”
He waited for her to explain.
She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue as if to gather her thoughts, and he remembered how it had felt inside his mouth yestereve. Involuntarily, his traitorous body jolted to immediate awareness.
“I want you to promise to never, never scalp another person again.”
He sat straighter. “You have no right to make demands on me.”
“I wasn’t demanding,” she corrected him. “Notice that I asked. Rather nicely, I thought.”
“Why should I stop?”
“Well, I wish you would stop just because I asked you to, but it’s obvious that my opinion isn’t important enough to you.”
She blushed when he failed to correct that impression. In truth, she was becoming much too important.
“Selik, did you practice such barbarism when Astrid was alive?”
He shot immediately to his feel, hovering over her. She did not flinch a speck. “Nay, I did not, but I was a different man then. I had a soul. And a heart. I have neither now. Nor do I want them.”
She looked wounded at his words. Bloody hell! Why would she care so much?
“Selik, I would like to make bargain with you.”
“Pray tell. I cannot wait to hear what you have to offer.”
“If you will promise never to—to—well, do that awful thing again, I promise I will never try to escape.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “So, you were planning to escape?”
“No, that’s not what I said,” she snapped impatiently, “but I could if I wanted to. After all,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes, “I have God on my side.”
“I thought you denied being a angel.”
She averted her eyes guiltily. “Yes, well, you never know, do you?”
She was lying through her teeth. And so poorly that she could not look him in the eye or hide the flush of embarrassment from her fair cheeks.
“Ubbi found your feather in the bed furs,” he pointed out with dry humor.
“My feather?”
“He thinks ’tis from your wings. You know, the wings you can spread or hide under your skin at will.”
He grinned at the surprise on her intrigued face.
Then they both burst out laughing.
“Well, do you agree to my proposal?” she asked finally.
Actually, Selik hated the behaettie and always had. But even worse, he loathed his berserk rage yestermorn when he had seen the half-decayed, eyeless bodies of his good friends lying on the battlefield like refuse. “Mayhap. Exactly what do you promise?”
“I will never try to escape.”
“And if you disagree with something I do in the future?” he asked skeptically.
She raised her brow ruefully. “I will whack you on the head or give you a piece of my mind, but I won’t leave.”
“This is important to you, is it not?”
“Yes. Oh, yes,” she said, closing her eyes briefly before speaking. “When I was a young girl, my brother Eddie was a soldier. He was killed in a fight which even the government later admitted was pointless.”
“And that is when you became a paci…pacifist?”
She nodded. “Later I became a doctor and started working in an inner-city hospital. The murders and mutilations these young gang members inflict on each other is a powerful argument against violence.”
“But some fighting cannot be avoided,” he argued.
“You may be right about that. I don’t know. But back to the scalping thing—if you will do this for me, at least I’ll feel I’ve made one small step toward helping you. It’s important to me, Selik.”
“Then I agree. As long as you are with me, I will take no more behaettie.”
Rain pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “About the captives—”
“Do not press your luck.”
The outrageous wench just shrugged, as if he should not blame her for trying. “Well, we have a bargain then.” She smiled widely, and Selik’s heart lurched oddly in his chest, then seemed to expand with lightness. He did not like the feeling.
She stood and held out her hand to him sideways, palm open. He stared at it, confused. Did she want him to hold it?
She seemed to understand his bafflement and explained, “In my ti…my country, we shake hands when we finalize an agreement. Like this.” She placed his right palm against hers and closed both their fingers lightly in the clasp, then showed him how to shake briskly up and down. But all Selik could concentrate on was the intense shock of pleasure generated by her skin against his. He never wanted to let go.
He inhaled sharply and could not break contact with her luminous eyes, which showed too clearly that she was equally affected.
Quickly dropping her hand, as if his flesh had suddenly caught fire, he muttered under his breath, “The witch has cast a spell on me.”
But Rain heard his softly spoken words. “If there is a spell, then I’m in its thrall too,” she replied huskily.
Wonderful! We can both stagger through this nightmare li
fe I lead under the curse of that troublemaker god Loki. Or Rain’s own Christian God. Or the devil, for all I know. Bloody hell!
Feeling very pleased with herself the rest of the day, Rain hummed as she worked with the patients in the hospital tent. She wasn’t deluding herself that Selik had made any giant leaps toward sudden reformation. It was a small victory, but every journey begins with the first step, she reminded herself.
“Why are you smiling?” Tykir asked from where he lay propped up in his hospital pallet. He had been conscious the entire day and his health improved by the minute, to Rain’s delight. She would have so much to tell Dr. Lee on her return.
“I’m smiling because I won a small battle with Selik today. Actually, that’s not quite true. It was a compromise. We were both winners in this particular skirmish.”
Tykir raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Selik? I can hardly credit that he would bend to anyone’s will.” Then he winked lewdly. “The enticement must have been powerfully tempting.”
Rain slapped Tykir playfully on the arm. “Behave yourself, little brother. You are still weak, and I am in a position to make life very uncomfortable for you.”
“Ah ha, now the pacifist discloses her true colors.”
Rain smiled, knowing Tykir referred to the pacifism lectures she’d been delivering to him all day. “Oh, there are nonviolent means of punishment for an imaginative person. For instance, I could have Ubbi prepare all your meals.”
Tykir groaned in an exaggerated fashion. “Oh, please, not that. Better the water torture.”
Rain laughed at Tykir’s lighthearted attitude. It was so good to see him feeling better, acting much the same as his modern clone, her brother Dave.
“How soon ’til I can travel?” he asked, suddenly serious. “I must get back to Ravenshire afore the Saxons try to confiscate the property.”
“One week,” Selik said before Rain could answer. He had come up behind her without her noticing and stood watching the easy interchange between her and her brother with a bemused expression on his face.
“Oh, no, he’ll never be well enough by then,” Rain protested. “At least two weeks more. Maybe even three.”