by Sandra Hill
Last night, after taking his bath and flaunting his nude body before her in an infuriating manner, Selik had surprisingly left her alone. When she’d completed her private ablutions and the servants removed the tub and wet linens, Selik still hadn’t returned. Tired after the long day of traveling and the emotional upheaval over Selik’s betrothal—oh, Lord, she had forgotten about that—Rain had lain down on the cot, just to rest for a moment, and slept through the night.
But where had Selik slept? More important, with whom? And why had he locked her in?
Despite the early hour—it couldn’t be much past daybreak—Rain began to pound on the wooden door, yelling for Selik. After a short time, Gyda answered the door with a clucking sound of disapproval at Rain’s behavior.
“Tsk, tsk! All of Jorvik surely hears your caterwauling.”
“I’m sorry, Gyda. I didn’t mean to awaken you.”
“Hah! I have long been about the day’s chores.”
“Why was I locked in this room?”
“You were confined to your bedchamber because you tried to escape yesterday. You cannot be trusted, and Selik could not spare any more men to stand at your door.”
“So, I’m a prisoner now?”
“Were you ever other than that?” Gyda asked, peering up at her through very intelligent, discerning eyes. “Methought Selik referred to you as a hostage from the first.”
Rain felt her face flush. “Yes, but I did save his life at Brunanburh and—”
Gyda let out a whooshing sound of dismay and sank down onto the bench opposite her. “You did?”
Rain explained and Gyda listened intently.
“Do you love him?” Gyda asked bluntly when she finished.
Surprised, Rain hesitated, not sure if she could even express her feelings. “I think so. But God help me, there was never a more mismatched, doomed-to-failure relationship in the world. Selik’s life is a total contradiction of everything I value. The jerk makes me so mad I could spit. He says the most hateful things to me, tears my heart apart, then puts it back together again with one simple little smile over something as stupid as a piece of cherry candy.”
Gyda studied Rain’s face intently, seeming to understand her conflicting emotions. “Yea, sounds like love to me,” Gyda finally concluded, then rubbed her hands together enthusiastically. “Now, we must needs decide what to do about it.”
Rain tilted her head questioningly, curious as to why Tyra’s mother would want to help her, but her question was halted by Gyda’s next words.
“Didst know that he intends to leave shortly for Saxon lands? Steven of Gravely has let it be known that he is in Winchester. The demon earl hopes to lure Selik into his death trap. I fear Selik’s hatred will blind him to Gravely’s devious tactics.”
Rain gasped and put a hand to her chest in dismay, recognizing the name of the vicious man responsible for the death of Selik’s wife and baby. “No!”
“Yea, and well you should be concerned. Selik may not return alive this time.”
Foreboding turned Rain cold with fear. Selik couldn’t travel endlessly on this road of revenge and remain unscathed. Someday he would surely die, and she sensed it would be soon.
“I think you may be able to stop him. I have an idea,” Gyda offered tentatively.
“Oh, Gyda, anything. I would do anything to help him.”
Gyda’s face brightened and she leaned forward, grasping Rain’s hands. “This is what I think you need to do…”
After hearing Gyda’s lengthy plot, Rain stared at her incredulously. “Are you crazy? Kidnap Selik! Restrain him for several weeks until Gravely is gone into hiding once again! Why me? Why not your daughter?”
“Hah! She is too small and fainthearted to handle such a task.”
Small! That was all Rain needed—another reminder of her size and deficiencies.
“Were you expecting I could wrestle him to the ground and rope him up? I may be tall, but Selik has more than a hundred pounds on me.”
“Your sarcasm ill becomes you. Really, you should try to curb such unfeminine traits.”
Rain could barely hold back the sneer that wanted to curl her lips. “Bottom line—even if I agreed to your insane plot, I am physically incapable of kidnapping Selik.”
“Perchance you know of some herbs that could put him to sleep ’til he could be restrained,” Gyda suggested slyly.
Rain shut her eyes wearily for a second, then stared directly at the elderly woman’s questioning face. “Maybe I do, but I must be going mad to even consider such an outrageous thing. Where would he be kept, by the way? Here?”
“Oh, nay!” Gyda exclaimed, putting a hand to her cheek in horror. “’Tis dangerous for Selik to be here even now. I fear that the king’s men watch my house.”
“I’m sure you have some ideas, though, on where I could imprison him. Oh, Lord, I can’t believe I even said that.”
“Yea, I was thinking mayhap that Ella would help you.”
“Ella?”
“She was a friend of your mother’s. She is a prosperous merchant now in the city, due to your mother’s help. We shall go see her later today.”
“Tell me, Gyda, do you want me to do the dirty work so I can hand Selik over to Tyra on a silver platter?” Rain asked suspiciously, not sure she could trust the woman entirely.
“Mayhap,” Gyda said, “but then, if you love him, I think you will do whate’er you can to save him, regardless.” She eyed Rain expectantly for several long moments. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think you would have made a wonderful politician.”
For the next few hours, Rain cooled her heels under the close guard of two surly men who shadowed her every move, even when she went to the privy to relieve herself. It was that or go back to her locked bedchamber, Gyda informed her firmly.
With absolutely nothing to do, Rain solved the Rubik’s Cube twenty-seven times, walked from one end of the hall to the other sixty-three times, and recited the Hippocratic oath silently sixteen times. Bored stiff, her mood progressively worsened.
So when Selik and Tyra came sashaying merrily through the front door, laughing at some shared joke, Rain forgot all the directives Gyda had given her for the great master plan to save Selik. They looked so blasted beautiful together—Selik in a midnight-blue tunic over black leggings, his narrow waist accented by a gold-linked chain, and Tyra in a green silk, belted, pinafore-type garment worn over a cream-colored chemise that perfectly set off her luscious, wind-blown, strawberry hair.
An unreasonable fury took over, and Rain picked up the nearest object—an apple sitting in a bowl of fruit. Taking careful aim, she threw it directly at Selik’s head. But he saw her at the last moment and ducked; the apple splattered against the door directly behind him.
Incredulous, Selik looked first at her, then back to the apple which had barely missed him, then back to her again. His eyes narrowed angrily as he advanced on her.
“I do not believe you are a pacifist at all,” he snarled. “What if you had hit Tyra with that apple? She could have been hurt.”
“Or you could have ruined my new tunic,” Tyra complained, primping prettily before a square of polished metal that hung on the wall.
“Or maybe I could have hit you square in the middle of your cocky Viking face,” Rain snapped at Selik while she backed away, on the opposite side of the table from him.
His eyes glittered with anger and his fingers flexed at his sides, probably itching to strangle her. “This ‘cocky’ has a sound to it I mislike. I take it ‘cocky’ is not a compliment.” Selik continued to walk down the other side of the table in a predatory fashion, keeping exact pace with her, his alert eyes watching her every move, waiting for her first slip. “What bee flew up your arse this morn to turn you shrewish? I thought I had taught you a lesson good and well yestereve. Are you perchance taunting me into another demonstration of my mastery?”
Rain’s face flushed at his vulgarity and his reminder of the intimat
e manner in which he’d chosen to punish her. She didn’t think she could withstand another such demonstration of his superior skills in that arena. “Save it for your fiancée, Tyra.”
“Fiancée?” Tyra interrupted. “What is that?”
“Betrothed, you dumb twit,” Rain retorted. “When is the wedding anyway? Maybe I can be the maid-of-honor.” Rain couldn’t believe her loose tongue. Where was the self-control that helped her survive the awkward adolescence of ridicule, the stringent academic regimen of medical school, failed love relationships, a lifetime of insecurity?
Selik grinned.
She began to retrace her steps in the direction she’d just come.
“Me? Betrothed to Selik?” Tyra laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Rain asked, suddenly alert.
“You. Selik is like my brother, you dumb twit. ’Tis what you called me, is it not?”
But then Tyra’s words sunk in. Selik and Tyra are not engaged.
She looked at Selik.
He shrugged with an unapologetic grin.
“Stop teasing her, you lackwit,” Tyra retorted quickly. “You have no interest whatsoever in me that way and never have. In fact, you have bored me into a stupor these past two hours at the harbor whilst you did naught but talk of the beautiful wench from the future.”
Rain’s mouth dropped open, and she stared incredulously at the young woman—the wonderful young woman for whom she’d suddenly developed a great fondness—but her lapse in alertness gave Selik the opportunity to leap onto and over the tabletop. He grabbed her and pinned her body painfully against the wall, demanding, “Apologize.”
“I’m sorry I threw the apple at you.” Too bad I missed.
“Now Tyra.”
“What?”
“You will apologize to Tyra for your lack of graciousness. Do you forget you are a guest in her home?”
After a long pause, Rain said, “I’m sorry if I offended you, Tyra” If you believe that, there’s a bridge…
“Next time, think afore you react, wench,” Selik cautioned as he released her with a swat on the behind. “’Tis a lesson any warrior knows well.”
“You shouldn’t have locked me in my room.”
“Where you are not, incidentally. Who thwarted my orders by releasing you?”
“Gyda, but she assigned these two guards to watch my every move,” she said, pointing to the two men who sat at a nearby table watching the entire, ludicrous scene with interest. “I can’t even pee without them standing at the privy door counting every drop.”
Selik shook his head disbelievingly from side to side. “I am certainly pleased you shared that information with me.”
“I begin to see what you mean, Selik,” Tyra said. “She does spout some intriguing words. But I can hardly credit that she is a supporter of that nonviolent creed you mentioned—pac…pacifism. Why, she is surely more violent than any woman I have ever met.”
Rain groaned, beginning to think Tyra might be right.
“Will you still take the shrewish wench to the hospitium, as you had planned?” Tyra asked.
“Nay, methinks she regards herself too highly. ’Twas foolish of me to think a captive would appreciate such consideration.”
“You were going to take me to the hospitium?” she asked, totally surprised.
“Yea, ’twas a lackwit idea.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yea, I have decided I do not care to share your shrewish company this morn. My head is aching.”
“I’ll give you an aspirin.”
“Praise the gods! You finally speak a truth.”
Rain furrowed her brow. “What truth?”
“You give me an arse burn.”
Her lips curling with disgust, Rain tried to control her temper because she really wanted to see the primitive medical facility. Very calmly, she explained. “Aspirin is a modern pill, a painkiller.”
“Hah! You name your pills as well as your perfume. See, Tyra, is she not an odd bird? And she criticizes us Norsemen for naming our swords.”
Rain was finding it harder and harder to stop herself from clouting him over the head. She clenched her fists so tightly that her fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her palm.
Selik’s eyes glittered knowingly.
Tyra glanced back and forth between Rain and Selik as they exchanged insults, seeming confused. “Selik, methought she was a hostage. Why do you allow her to speak so? Should you not cut out her tongue?”
“’Tis an interesting thought.”
“I know you think to barter her for your freedom from King Athelstan, if e’er he captures you, God forbid, but mayhap you should rid yourself of the crone now. Save yourself the bother. Dost think a slave trader would buy her for one of the Eastern harems? ’Tis said they seek the oddity on occasion, and mayhap her size would not be such a disadvantage.”
Rain was beginning to dislike the Norse girl once again.
Selik tilted his head and seemed to seriously consider Tyra’s suggestion. “Yea, now that you call it to my attention, I could see her in naught more than a few wispy veils. Mayhap lying on silken pillows beside a marble pool awaiting her master’s whim. Perchance she could even—”
“Argh!” Rain growled through gritted teeth, finding it increasingly difficult to curb her tongue, especially when she knew Selik was just goading her. She put her hands to her ears to shut out his teasing words.
“So, Selik, do you return to the harbor to sell her?”
He looked Rain directly in the eye. “Tell me, wench, do you promise to mend your shrewish ways?”
Rain bit her tongue and nodded.
“Will you promise, if I take you to the hospitium, that you will speak only when I allow and obey my every command?”
Rain hesitated but finally agreed with another short nod.
“So be it. But first, come with me. I must bind your breasts.”
Rain stared after his departing back. He had grabbed a length of brown fabric from a bench and was already halfway up the stairs before the his words registered.
Bind my breasts?
Chapter Twelve
When Rain caught up with Selik, he was standing in the middle of the bedchamber pulling the brown fabric over his head. Once the cloth had settled into place and he had tied a rope belt about his narrow waist, Rain realized that Selik had donned a monk’s robe, complete with hooded cowl.
“Shut your mouth, Rain. ’Tis uncomely to show me your throat—from the inside.”
Rain snapped her teeth shut. “What are you up to now?”
Selik turned slowly to demonstrate the full picture of his costume. “I bought this at the harbor this morn when I delivered the captives to the slave trader.” Rain winced at his casual mention of selling slaves. “I must needs be more careful in public. A large number of Saxon soldiers patrol the streets and even now may be watching Gyda’s house.”
“Oh, Selik. How I wish you would leave Britain and go to some land where you could start over and be free!”
His jaw jutting forward stubbornly, Selik declared sharply, “No coward am I to run from my enemies. And freedom ever eludes those who hide in foreign lands.”
Rain wanted to argue with him, but she could see by the steely glaze of his eyes that he wouldn’t be convinced. At least, not now. She decided to change the subject. “Will you really take me to the hospitium?”
“I promised, did I not?”
“Yes, but…” Rain gave up the argument and smiled with exaggerated sweetness, willing to do just about anything to visit the tenth century hospital. She saluted smartly.
“Anything you say, master.” You big galoot!
Selik arched a brow and smiled wryly, his anger fading. “’Tis about time you recognized who is in authority here, wench. And, if you must know, I take you to the hospitium so you may find work to fill your days when I leave Jorvik. I suspect you would make Gyda’s life miserable confined to your chamber or helping her clean privies. Or as lady
’s maid to Tyra.”
She started to tell him what she thought of her being lady’s maid to the spoiled Viking brat, but Selik put up a hand to halt her words before she had a chance to speak them. “Your prattling annoys me, and we linger overlong. Take off your shert so I can bind your breasts and put you in disguise.”
Rain made a sort of gurgling sound deep in her throat. “Why do I have to—”
“Nay, no more questions. ’Tis already late. You cannot go into the hospitium claiming to one and all that you are a woman doctor. Never would they grant you admittance.”
“Oh.”
Selik folded his arms across his chest, tapping his leather shoe impatiently as he waited for her to obey his orders.
Her face heated as she weighed her options—take off her blouse and let him bind her breasts so she could pretend to be a male, or stay imprisoned in Gyda’s home and miss seeing the hospitium. Deciding quickly, she began unbuttoning.
“What will you use for binding?”
Selik leaned down to a small wooden chest on the floor and rummaged around, finally pulling out a long, scarf-like strip of silk.
She turned her back on him and removed her blouse and bra, waiting. Her amber beads felt cool against her heated flesh.
“Hold out your arms.”
Selik took hold of both her hands and demonstrated how he wanted her to raise her arms to shoulder height. Feeling the air on her exposed breasts and the light touch of Selik’s fingers under her elbows, Rain almost let her knees buckle with the sudden rush of intense eroticism that rolled over her in waves. She closed her eyes briefly until she regained control of her emotions.
“Do not move,” Selik said huskily, then surprised her by stepping in front of her body.
She started to protest, but he seemed to be concentrating on his task, not her traitorous breasts, which had peaked at his first glance. In fact, he barely looked at her body as he deftly placed one end of the strip high up under her left arm, across and above the top of her breasts and around behind, never moving from his spot in front of her.