by Sandra Hill
“Gawd! Be ye a bloomin’ halfwit?” The heavyset woman next to her moved as far away from her as the rope would allow.
“No, I’m a physician and—” The yellowish tone of the woman’s skin caught her attention then, and she asked with concern, “How long have you been feeling ill? I may be able to help you.” Rain knew the skin tone could be indicative of something as serious as a tumor or liver disease, or just a Vitamin k deficiency, easily correctable.
The woman’s eyes widened in shock. With a shriek, she tried to stand. “Git me away from her. A woman healer! Oh, Lord, she mus’ be a witch or a sorceress. Help! She prob’ly has the evil eye.”
Gorm stomped over and cuffed the woman across the head, causing her to drop weakly to the ground, where she moaned loudly.
Rain started to protest, but he wagged a filthy finger in her face. “Behave yerself, wench. Ye may pleasure the master ’til his cock falls off, but if ye do not shut yer teeth, I will truss you over the cookfire like the witch this hag accuses you of bein’.”
Ubbi was staring at her, wide-eyed with dismay. “Mistress, come back to the tent. The master will not like this.”
“No. If I’m a captive, I don’t want to be treated any differently than all the rest.”
Ubbi rolled his eyes skyward.
For about a half hour, Rain sat stiffly in sullen silence on the cold ground, shivering every time the wind blew. Even with Selik’s wool tunic thrown over her slacks and silk blouse, she began to feel a chill.
Finally, bored, her eyes began to roam among her fellow prisoners. She inhaled sharply when they came to one young Saxon man, who was slumped practically unconscious against the woman next to him. Blood oozed from a deep shoulder wound where his leather armor had been torn away.
“Ubbi, come and help this man,” she cried out in alarm. “His wound needs to be treated.”
Ubbi ignored her pointedly, continuing to saw away at the flesh of the dead rabbits. His red face betrayed the fact that he heard her and chose not to reply.
“Gorm, release that man from the rope and take him to the hospital tent for treatment.”
Gorm, the insolent bastard, flashed an ugly smile her way and spat on the ground near her feet.
Rain bit her bottom lip worriedly, unable to ignore a patient who needed her help so desperately. Finally, she stood, jarring the woman next to her, who still cowered in fear, and complained, “Well, if no one else is going to help him, I will.” She unbound the ropes at her ankles and went to the tent to retrieve her meager medical supplies.
Ubbi barely stifled a chuckle of amusement at her strange interpretation of captivity. She glared at him until he ducked his head, but not before he shook it in wonder at her antics.
Rain loosened the ropes on the young man, who looked like he was barely out of his teens, and helped him walk to the tent. Despite the protests of the hospital guard, she soon had the sword wound cleaned and stitched. It was not as bad as she had originally thought.
She tried to calm her patient by talking while she stitched the four-inch cut. “What’s your name?”
“Edwin.”
“Where are you from, Edwin?”
“Winchester,” he replied warily.
“Did you fight in the battle for King Athelstan?”
He nodded slowly, as if not sure if he could trust her.
“Why didn’t you return to Wessex with the king and his troops?”
“’Cause I was a bloody halfwit,” he grumbled. “I went back to the camp fer my woman, and she did not want ter travel in the dark. The dark! Hah! We got a heap more than dark to fear now.”
“I’m sure everything will be all right once Selik returns,” she assured him.
“Are ye The Outlaw’s wench?” he asked, edging away from her a bit.
“No, I helped him escape from the battlefield and—”
“Ye helped the beast escape?”
Rain stiffened. “Don’t call Selik a beast. I don’t like it.”
The man’s upper lip curled contemptuously.
“I mean it, Edwin. He is no more a beast than you or any other man.”
Edwin’s eyes narrowed speculatively as he studied her while she knotted the thread and covered his stitches with a clean linen bandage. “Have you ever seen a man after he’s been scalped by a heathen Viking? Only a beast would scalp a man. And I warrant a man as vicious as The Outlaw would be no different than any other bloody Norseman.”
At first, Rain couldn’t comprehend Edwin’s meaning. Then she gasped and tears welled in her eyes. “You’re lying. Selik would never do such a barbaric thing.”
“Am I?” Fury turned Edwin’s filthy face into an ugly mask. “Know this, my lady, the beast had best kill me, and soon, ’cause I would rather die than be a slave to him.”
The guard, already pushed past the limits of his tolerance, wouldn’t let the prisoner stay in the tent with the other injured men. In a daze, Rain led him back to his place in the rope chain. When she was about to retie him at Gorm’s command, Edwin grabbed her and twisted her body so that her arms were pulled behind her back and the fingers of his right hand held her throat in a strangle hold.
“Do not move, wench,” he warned, pinching her windpipe until her knees collapsed for lack of air. “I would not hesitate to kill you in a trice, but methinks yer lord holds ye in favor. Mayhap he would release me in exchange fer yer life.”
“And what about your woman?” she asked, glancing down at the young woman who was still bound near her feet, gazing up at her and Edwin with horror and fear.
“Blanche kin manage on her own. She be a crafty wench with a talent fer the bed sport. No doubt she will soon have another protector,” he said dismissively, ignoring Blanche’s cry of protest.
“And you call Selik a beast?”
Edwin squeezed again, and Rain lost consciousness for a second. A moment later, she heard a sharp cry behind her, and Edwin released his hold on her neck. But she had only a moment to wonder why when he fell forward against her back, knocking her onto the ground. When Rain finally shoved him off her and looked down, she saw a battle-ax imbedded in the back of Edwin’s head. Blood gushed from the wound, and it was obvious even before she checked his pulse that he had died immediately.
She cried out, “Oh, my God! I’ve landed in a Dark Age Bedlam.”
Looking behind her to see who had thrown the ax, she was surprised to see Ubbi standing with his legs spread in a battle stance and hands on his hips. The gentle little troll had been transformed into a fierce warrior. Fury clouded the little man’s face, but he inquired gently, “Mistress, be ye hurt?”
She shook her head, confused and disoriented by all that had happened in just a few short moments. Blood had been shed at her expense, and she needed to come to terms with that horrendous thought.
“’Tis her own damn fault,” Gorm told Ubbi angrily. “She never should have released the bastard. All Saxons be the same—deceitful to the core.”
“What did you expect him to do, you brute?” Rain lashed out. “He was desperate, and I was his only chance to escape.”
Gorm and Ubbi both looked at her as if she was crazy. “He would have killed you,” they both said at the same time.
“That’s no excuse,” Rain countered, the words sounding lame even to her.
“Well, thank the gods, ye be safe,” Ubbi said. “Why don’t ye go back to the tent now and rest from yer ordeal?”
Rain looked at the prisoners staring at her in awe and shook her head. “No, I can’t.”
To Ubbi’s chagrin, she sat back down and retied her bounds loosely at the ankles. Gorm mumbled, “Bloody bitch,” while he dragged Edwin’s body off to the trees, ordering some men to bury him “afore the stink of Saxon blood ruins me appetite.”
That reminded Rain that she hadn’t eaten since the day before. She looked at the motley group sharing her rope and realized that they probably hadn’t eaten for a much longer time.
“You have to feed
these people,” she shouted to Ubbi, who had returned to the cookfire. He stood whistling blithely while he performed his domestic chores as if he hadn’t just killed a man.
Without looking up, he called back to her, “The master left no instructions fer feedin’ his captives.”
“That’s ridiculous. What if he doesn’t come back?” Rain’s heart sank at the reminder of her earlier worries about Selik. She had a lot of complaints for him and many questions that needed answers, but she couldn’t imagine living without him. How unbelievable, she thought, tilting her head in wonder, that she would feel so intensely about a man she had just met. Forcing herself to concentrate on the present, she added, “I mean, what if he doesn’t come back until tonight?”
Ubbi shrugged disinterestedly.
Rain shook her head in disgust at her predicament, then mumbled an obscenity under her breath as she once again untied her bounds and stomped over to the cookfire.
Ubbi’s eyebrows lifted with amusement as he commented dryly. “Is that how they imprison people in yer lands? The captive gits ter tie and untie his own knots whenever the whim hits ’im?”
“Shut up, you fool.”
He chuckled and continued sawing away at the bony rabbits, which he then threw into a pile at his feet.
“Is this all you have?” she asked, her nose curling with disgust as she leaned over the cauldron.
“Yea,” he answered sheepishly. “I am not too good at cooking, but there be no one else to take on the chore. Perchance could ye—”
“No way! I do not cook.”
“Well, that is it then,” Ubbi said, pointing to the smelly pot of mush. “It sort of burned on the bottom when the fire got too hot.”
“It sort of smells like hell.”
He smiled. “Do ye perchance know how hell smells, comin’ as ye do from heaven?”
Rain made a vulgar sound of disgust.
“Just askin’. No need to be rude. Mayhap ye could give this gruel to the prisoners so I kin clean the pot fer the dinner meal.” He pointed to the pile of rabbit meat and bones at his feet.
Having no choice, Rain doled the contents of the pot into two wooden bowls and carried them back and forth to the captives who were forced to hold the bowls in their bound hands and drink from them. Not one of them complained about the ungodly mess, being too hungry to care and probably wondering if it might be their last meal.
When she finished, Rain helped Ubbi scour the cauldron near the pond with coarse sand. Then she returned to the captives and approached Blanche, the woman who had been with Edwin.
“Can you cook?” she asked gently, sensitive to the young woman’s bereavement. But Blanche didn’t seem all that concerned about her dead lover when she sensed the prospect of a reprieve from her imprisonment.
“Yea, I can, mistress,” she replied readily. “And rabbit is my specialty. If you let me gather some herbs in those trees, under guard, of course, I can make up a tasty stock pot that would please even a king.”
Rain doubted that heartily, but she preferred anything over Ubbi’s cooking. It took almost no convincing for Ubbi to agree to give Blanche a chance.
Rain was pleasantly surprised several hours later to find that Blanche hadn’t lied. The rabbit stew was thick and savory with wild onions and carrots and mushrooms, not to mention a few spices she did not recognize. Blanche preened, knowing that, at least for the time being, her hide was safe.
Gorm’s eyes gleamed with lascivious interest as Blanche bent over the cookfire. Rain shot him a look that said clearly, “Don’t you dare.” He smirked and countered with a contemptuous leer that challenged silently, “Try and stop me.”
Selik returned to camp late that night, weary in body and soul. Dodging the Saxon guards who patrolled the battlefield had taken an alertness that Selik and his exhausted comrades did not have, being still unrested since the battle.
They had buried as many of their friends or acquaintances as they could locate—a horrid enough chore under the best of circumstances; a torment of the mind when they had to fight the flesh-gorged vultures for their prey. The eyes of the dead went first—a particular delicacy for the beastly birds, no doubt—and Selik and his brave men stopped to vomit numerous times in the face of so many eyeless bodies. Not to mention the half-devoured flesh. Or the stench. Oh, God, the stench! The whole time, wolves and other predators circled the field, waiting for their departure.
So Selik was not in the best of moods when he entered his tent, removed his cross-gartered leather shoes and armor, then dropped to his bed furs without removing his tunic. It took him only a moment to realize that the strange wench who claimed to be his “guardian angel” had flown the coop.
“Ubbi!”
The little man opened the flap of his tent as soon as his little legs could carry him from across the campsite, where he had placed his bed furs.
“You called, master?”
Selik said a very foul word, and Ubbi cringed.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Ubbi shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and would not meet his questioning gaze.
“You know damn well who.”
“With the prisoners, m’lord. But ’twas not my doin’. Nor Gorm’s,” he added quickly.
Selik exhaled loudly and forced himself not to shake his faithful servant. Carefully, he spaced each word as he spoke. “Why is she with the prisoners?”
“She sez she be a pacifist—”
“Pacifist?”
“Yea, pacifists are against all fightin’, even—”
“Pacifist be damned!”
Ubbi slanted him a condemning look for the interruption and went on. “She sez she be a pacifist, and if me or Gorm would not release the captives, then she would become a captive, too.”
“She is a captive.”
Ubbi raised his chin in challenge. “Nay, she is a hostage. I told her so. And there is a difference, m’lord.”
“Yea, and a valuable hostage she is with her medical skills. I want her back in this tent, where I can guard her so she cannot escape.”
Ubbi raised an eyebrow in disbelief at his motives.
“I have not bedded the wench,” he said, oddly defensive.
“Have I said ye did?” Ubbi replied quickly, raising both hands in the air defensively.
“Well, I know what ye were thinking.”
“Hah! Does God speak to you as well? You are becoming as bad as the wench,” Ubbi said with a knowing grin, which annoyed Selik even more.
“Bring the wench here,” he snarled.
Ubbi backed away from him. “Nay, not me, master. She already threatened to clout me today. Best ye gather her yerself.”
Scowling, Selik headed toward the bound captives. “Why did she threaten you with bodily harm if she is such a pacifist?”
“’Cause I killed one of the prisoners, that surly lad who was making all the threats yestereve.”
Selik stopped and looked at his servant, who rarely entered the battle fray. He knew Ubbi must have had good reason to kill a valuable slave. “Why?”
“He was choking the mistress.”
“Rain?” Cold terror swept over Selik at Ubbi’s casually spoken words. Why would he feel bereft at the prospect of losing a mere wench he had met just the day before?
Ubbi nodded. “And best ye be prepared fer the tongue-lashin’ of yer life. She is sore angry with you.”
“Well, I am in no mood to hear her shrewish carping on the issue of captives tonight. Mayhap I should just stuff a rag in her waspish mouth and ease myself on her body ’til she is too tired to complain anymore.”
Ubbi made a clucking, skeptical sound that questioned the wisdom of such a plan.
A full moon and the campfire provided enough light for Selik to see the prisoners, who lay on the ground, most of them sleeping. A few stared up at him through wide, frightened eyes as he passed. He would have to find some warmer clothing for the mangy lot in the morn or they would never make the arduous tr
ip to Jorvik. And food—his men would have to find more game to fatten their scrawny frames, lest they bring naught from the slave traders.
Selik finally found his troublesome wench at the end of the line, curled into a ball, shivering with the cold even in her sleep. He noticed that she had purloined one of his wool tunics, not that it was any protection against the autumn winds. Instead of being angered by her thievery, he felt an odd satisfaction in knowing his garment caressed her flesh, like a poor substitute for his arms.
“Bloody hell!” he muttered aloud. “The wench is turning me as senseless as an untried boy yearning for his first mating.”
Rain’s eyes opened slowly as Selik’s voice seeped into her consciousness. Still sleep-disoriented, she didn’t protest, at first, when he leaned down and untied the loose knots at her ankles.
“God’s bones! Some captive you make when you can slip in and out of your bindings so easily.”
“It’s symbolic,” she said sleepily, then yawned widely, forgetting to cover her mouth daintily. But then she noticed his smile and frowned, trying to shove him away.
“Symbolic of what?” he asked, standing up and watching as she sat and rolled the kinks out of her shoulders. No doubt she had developed an ache or two sleeping on the hard ground. A well-deserved punishment for being so stubborn, he decided.
“My protest of your barbaric act.” Her face suddenly became hard as she seemed to come fully awake.
He raised an eyebrow in question and folded his arms across his chest. Even his tough flesh was beginning to feel the cold. “What barbaric act?”
“The taking of slaves,” she hissed. “How could you? As much as I hate violence, I understand how some people can justify it as self-defense. But taking captives when the heat of battle is over—well, it’s uncivilized.”
“I do not have to defend myself to you or any other person. And you do not understand civilization, shrew, if you think Norsemen are the only ones who consider captives part of the spoils of war. ’Tis universal. I know of no country or any people who condemn the practice.”
“But what do you know in your heart?”