Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] (18 page)

All the pieces of the puzzle that constituted Selik’s torment came together with bloodcurdling understanding in Rain’s numbed brain. No wonder he had turned vicious, hellbent on revenge.

And she, who had always prided herself on her sensitivity as a doctor and a human being, had dared to judge him and find him wanting. How self-righteous of her! For a blinding moment, she questioned who was the beast in the scenario, and the answer was not Selik.

Ubbi walked into the primitive stable then, leading one of the soldier’s horses. He immediately started to turn away when he saw the look on her face.

“Don’t you dare leave,” she ordered, coming up and backing the little man against the wall of the building with a finger pressed against his chest. Nervously, Ubbi dropped the reins and the horse ambled back outside.

“M’lady, I have chores—”

“I know, Ubbi. I know about Selik.”

“Wha…what do ye mean?”

“I know about his wife and his baby. Now you are going to tell me the rest of the details.”

“The master told ye how Astrid died, and the babe…oh, Lord…he spoke of Thorkel, too?”

Rain nodded grimly.

“Oh, mistress, what did ye do to provoke him into revealing so much?” Ubbi sank down to the dirt floor and put his face in his knobby hands. When he finally looked back to her, his cloudy eyes had an additional misting of tears. He shook his head wearily. “’Tis not good news. Nay, it can only mean trouble if he be talkin’ ’bout the horrors in his past.”

Rain sank down next to Ubbi and took one of his deformed hands in her own. “Tell me.”

Ubbi swallowed visibly, “’Twas more than ten years past. Selik was no longer a Jomsviking knight, and he had been married to Astrid for two years. Ah, a sweet maid she was. Pretty as larkspur in the spring. And young—having seen no more than eighteen winters.”

Rain felt macabre jealousy shoot through her veins over the dead woman and her link with Selik.

“The two were inseparable. Always touchin’ each other. Wantin’ ter go off and be alone. Even when she was big with child, and then after the babe was born. You see, Selik never had a home or family ter speak of. So he cherished Astrid and their child all the more. But Selik finally had ter go on a tradin’ voyage to Hedeby. He left Astrid and Thorkel in the fine home he built fer them in Jorvik, thinkin’ them safe, but—”

“The Saxons came,” Rain finished for him.

Ubbi nodded, his kind face turning ugly with anger over the memories that seemed to hold him in thrall.

“Were you with Selik?” Rain asked softly as she caressed his tensely fisted hand.

“Yea.” The one horror-filled word said it all. He swallowed with great difficulty several times, then went on. “The house was burned to the ground, but we found Astrid’s body off beyond the orchard. Nekkid, she was, and her legs wuz covered with blood from the top of her thighs to her ankles. Blood and the seed of all the men who had raped her.”

Rain jammed a fist against her mouth to stifle her sobs.

“I will ne’er forget, to the day I die, the sight of me master drawing Astrid into his arms, brushing the blood-soaked strands from her face, crooning her name over and over. For a certainty, ’tis the last time I saw him give in to tears.”

Ubbi’s face darkened with a fierce anger as he seemed to remember something else. “When he laid Astrid’s body back down, then I saw—” Ubbi’s words trailed off as he tried to get his emotions under control. Finally, he added, “And the head of the Saxon band—Steven, Earl of Gravely—had carved his initials, one on each breast, S and G.”

Rain didn’t want to hear any more. She couldn’t comprehend a human being who would deliberately torture another person in such a manner. Then some of the other things Ubbi had said began to sink in. “Steven of Gravely? Wasn’t he the brother of Elwinus, the nobleman Selik killed at Brunanburh?”

Ubbi nodded. “And so the vendetta betwixt the two goes on and on.”

“How did it all start in the first place?”

“Steven of Gravely needs no excuse to practice his misdeeds. He truly is an evil man. But he blames Selik for the death of his father, the old lord.”

“And did Selik kill his father?”

“Mayhap. There was a battle. Many Saxons and Norsemen died that day. It could have been Selik, or
any other, but Steven needed a target for his hatred, and he chose Selik.”

“But what he did to Selik’s wife—Oh, Ubbi! No wonder Selik is so bitter!”

The little man turned on her then and stabbed her with his defiant eyes. “Yea, he is bitter and with good reason. For that is not all the bloody demon did that day. He left the crushed, headless body of the babe on the ground near his mother’s body. It took Selik weeks to discover where the head was.”

Rain remembered Selik’s words then. “This Earl of Gravely carried Thorkel’s skull on his pike, didn’t he?”

“Yea, he hoped ter lure Selik into the open, ter his death. We finally recovered the poor babe’s rotting head and buried it with the body, but Selik still tries to capture the elusive Steven—and any other bloody Saxon who crosses his path.”

Rain looked down and saw a dark patch on the front of her tunic—Selik’s tunic—and realized that she’d been crying and her tears made a steady, hot stream down to her breasts. Like blood, she thought.

Oh, sweet God. Now I understand why you have sent me here
.

“So now you know,” Ubbi said with finality as he stood and tried to straighten his back in challenge. “Will you be able to help the lad?”

“I don’t know, Ubbi. I just don’t know, but I’m going to try.”

He smiled then, a smile that didn’t reach his sad eyes. “You will, if anyone can, I warrant.” He watched as she stood and brushed the dirt off her clothing. “The master has gone to the pond. Find him, lass. Methinks he needs you.”

Selik was doing energetic laps from one end of the pond to the other—over and over and over. His face buried in the icy water, he moved his powerful arms expertly in a neat breast stroke, slicing through the calm surface with precision.

Rain sank to the ground near the edge of the pond and drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees. She waited patiently for him to vent his rage through the brutal exercise.

Rain’s heart went out to Selik, knowing that her words of love had somehow triggered painful memories of his horrid tragedy. She now understood fully the daily torment he suffered and how he’d been caught in a bloody spiral of violence. When the voice in her head referred to saving Selik, this must be what it referred to.

Finally, Selik sprang upward like a beautiful dolphin. He spat out a spray of water, then shook his
long hair back off his face. After he swam to lower water, he stood and his legs, weakened by the strenuous swim, almost buckled. Rain wanted to go forward to help him but bided her time, not wanting to startle her outlaw Viking. Her sweet, fierce soulmate.

He stumbled forward through the shallow depths, not yet seeing Rain. Wide shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist and hips, providing a perfect framework for finely formed genitals and long, sinewy thighs and calves.

Inner torment hazed his eyes, and his lips thinned into a hard line of determination. He was fighting his demons in his usual fashion. Alone.

This is the man I love
, Rain thought with a sense of certainty. Awe and pride filled her almost to overflowing as her eyes swept over him caressingly.

Selik stopped suddenly when he saw her, then leaned down to pick up his garments from the ground. Brazen and unashamed of his nudity, he dressed slowly in leggings and tunic. After he cinched his waist with a wide leather belt, he asked in a flat voice, “Why do you follow me?”

Rain just stared up at him, unsure how much to disclose, but sympathy must have shown in her face.

Selik exhaled sharply with disgust. “Who told you?”

“You did.”

Selik frowned, then seemed to realize that, in his furor, he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.

“And Ubbi filled in all the spaces.”

“I should cut out the man’s tongue,” Selik commented wearily as he dropped down to the ground next to her and began drying his hair with a shoulder mantle. Then he declared firmly, “I will not discuss my past with you, Rain. So for once, put a lock on your tongue.”

Rain started to speak, then decided he was right. Now was not the time. Selik had suffered enough that day. Later. For now, though, she wanted to brighten his life, not add to his misery. To help him forget some of the agony that must pound incessantly in his brain.

She began to tell him about all the mundane happenings at Ravenshire in his absence. When she finally got to Gorm and his pursuit of Blanche, she saw the muscles in his face begin to relax. He actually smiled when she told him of Bertha’s lovelorn advice to her and Blanche. He even laughed, his gray eyes glittering with amusement, when she related how Bertha likened him to a stallion and her a mare in heat.

“Are you in heat?” Selik asked finally, seemingly pleased with the blush his teasing words brought to her face.

“Hardly.”

“Ah, you persist in these claims of distaste for the bed sport, for a man’s touch? Nay, do not think to lift your haughty chin in defense of that lie. I have witnessed proof of your true lustiness.”

“I didn’t lie,” Rain protested. “And I never said I disliked sex. I just said I could take it or leave it.”
At least, I could in my other life
.

“’Twas not the impression I got when…” Selik let his words trail off, shrugging.

“It’s different with you, Selik.”

“Now who is throwing out
lines
?”

Rain smiled at his remembering her modern expression. “It
is
different with you. Oh, don’t go preening like a randy rooster,” she added, causing him to let out a hoot of laughter. “It’s not that you have such marvelous technique. It’s just that, well, it’s just because it’s
you
. There’s this sort of celestial rightness to us as a pair.”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” he asked dryly.

Thankfully, Selik’s dark mood had passed. Her mother had always said that the way to a man’s heart—to a lover’s heart, actually—was a woman’s ability to make him smile. And Selik didn’t smile nearly enough. She thought for a second, then brightened. She knew how to jar this arrogant male’s complacent ego and make him laugh in the process. Oh, yes, she did!

“You know, Selik…” she said in a voice of exaggerated sweetness, causing his face to tilt with alert suspicion.
Oh, yes, honey, you have every right to be suspicious
.

“…you know, if we ever made love…”

A grin twitched at his thinned lips.

That’s right, sweetheart. Smile. Relax your defenses
.

“
…if
we ever made love, I’ll bet I would finally find my G-spot.”
There! Put that in your macho pipe and smoke it!

“I know I will regret asking this, but I cannot resist. Pray tell, what in bloody hell is a G-spot?”

I thought you’d never ask
. “Well, there is some controversy over this in my time, but many sexual authorities—”

“Sexual authorities? Surely, there are not frauds who claim to be experts on such matters?”

Rain nodded with a smile.

“No doubt they are Franks,” he proclaimed with derision. “The men of Frankland have forever believed themselves to be the world’s best lovers. I wager they have written some of those books you keep quoting endlessly.”

“Hundreds.”

“Hah! I know as much as any of those self-proclaimed authorities, I warrant.”

No doubt, you do, babe
. “In any case, before you interrupted me, I was telling you that many sexual authorities disagree on the subject of whether a woman’s G-spot actually exists. Many women claim
to have them, though.” Rain went on to give Selik a very detailed lesson in female anatomy and a graphic description of a G-Spot and what it could do to enhance a woman’s pleasure.

At first, he just stared at her, stunned at the explicitness of her words. Then he burst out laughing.

“Truly, I have never met a woman like you afore. You know so many details about the mating betwixt the male and female. Like a damn book, you are. But methinks you know naught. Yea, you are as innocent as a virgin when it comes to the mating, I daresay.”

“I am not!”

He burst out laughing once again as he pulled her to her feet and drew her away from the pond, pinching her bottom once when she didn’t move quickly enough. As they walked back to the keep, he muttered over and over, between bursts of laughter, “G-Spot! Bloody hell! G-Spot!”

When Rain saw Ubbi watching anxiously for their return, the faithful servant looked from Selik’s laughing face to her annoyed one as she rubbed her sore bottom, and back again to Selik’s. Then he smiled widely and tipped his head in congratulations to her.

To Ubbi’s mind, Rain had, no doubt, performed another angelic miracle.

And Selik surprised her by turning her face toward him and whispering softly, “Thank you.” Apparently, he had understood her motives entirely in trying to lighten his mood.

Several days later, Selik threw his saddlebag over Fury’s back and vaulted into the saddle, preparing to leave Ravenshire.

Rain pulled up beside him on her ill-named horse, Godsend. He groaned inwardly, wondering what misdeed she wished to berate him for now.

“Thank you, Selik, for agreeing to take me with you to Jorvik.”

His eyes widened with surprise at her softly spoken words. No doubt she wanted a favor.

“The reason I begged you to take me to Jorvik was so that I might be able to better understand why I was sent here. If I can stand on the same spot where the museum will later be, maybe I will—”

Selik made a loud harrumphing sound of disbelief. “What? Get a message from God?”

“You’re impossible!”

He turned and looked at her, shaking his head incredulously. “Is that like the river calling the ocean wet?”

Rain laughed, and his heart seemed to expand in his chest, almost choking.

“Oh, Selik, I lo—”

He raised a hand to halt her next words, knowing that she was once again going to try to tell him that she loved him. And that Selik could not allow. He looked at the enticing wench, having a hard time resisting her tempting words. He had been successful thus far, since that day at the pond, in refusing to allow her to repeat the precious words. As long as he did not hear the words spoken aloud, somehow he could deny the growing bond between them, could pretend that he did not care. He closed his eyes wearily for just a moment.

Oh, God, or Odin, or whatever being is out there, please do not torture me so. I cannot bear to love again. And lose. ’Tis more than any man can bear
.

He straightened his shoulders with determination.

Trust in me
.

“What did you say?” Selik asked with alarm.

“When?”

“Just now? Something about trust.” Even as he spoke, Selik knew it had not been Rain’s voice in
his head. Oh, bloody hell! She truly was turning him inside out and senseless as a lackwit.

Her wonderful golden eyes widened and seemed to glitter with enchantment. “You heard the voice, too. Didn’t you?”

“Nay. I heard naught.”

“Liar.”

“Men have died for less insult than that.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.”

“Why?”

“Argh!”

“Selik, you really should be careful about losing your temper so much. Every time you get angry with me, a vein pops out on your forehead. You could have a stroke.”

He snarled. “The only stroke that is going to occur is that of my blade when I lop off your wagging tongue.”

Ubbi guided his horse forward. “M’lord, wouldst ye like me to gag the lady so she does not bother ye anymore?” Ubbi asked Selik with oily consideration. He had been practically dancing with glee ever since Selik had told him yestereve that he could accompany him to Jorvik.

Selik raised a brow at that enticing picture. “’Twould be worth a fortune in gold to see you try. And ’twould be worth a double fortune to have
both
your mouths sewed shut and give the world some blessed peace.”

Ubbi’s shoulders slumped and his lips turned down in dejection at the insult, but Selik could swear he saw the traitor wink conspiratorially at Rain.
Wonderful! The two halfwits are in collusion
.

“Everyone is ready to depart,” Ubbi announced then.

Selik looked about with dismay at the motley group of retainers and hangers-on he had managed
to accumulate. Even though he had ordered a half dozen hesirs to stay with Tykir, along with Bertha to do his cooking, Selik still had two dozen soldiers and six captives in his traveling party. Seven of the male slaves had opted to join the ranks of his followers. All rode on horseback, even Blanche. Somehow his men had found enough horses in the countryside to steal.

Selik was about to give the signal to move out of the bailey when his eyes froze on the last person in the entourage.
Persons
, rather, he immediately corrected himself. A young woman carrying a babe in her arms rode astride the last horse.

“Get them out of my sight,” Selik ordered Gorm through gritted teeth.

“But, master,” Ubbi intervened, “her husband was a Ravenshire churl fer many a year. He died yestermorn of the fever, and she must get to her family in Jorvik.”

“I care not if her husband was a bloody king. I want no ba…” His words trailed off for a moment as he sought to control the shakiness of his voice; then he amended, “I want no more blathering, shrewish, troublesome women in my company. I have more than enough with these two,” he said, waving a hand toward Rain and Blanche. “Thank the gods I will be done with them both when I reach Jorvik.”

“But, master, ’tis cruel ter leave her here without a mate ter protect her and give her sustenance.”

“Let her help Bertha in the kitchen. Or let her go to bloody hell. ’Tis not my concern.” Selik jerked his head at Gorm, who followed his orders by roughly pulling the woman and the squalling child off the horse. Selik ignored the tears streaming down the young woman’s face and turned his horse toward the gatehouse, leading the chain of horses over the bridge. Stiff-backed, he never once turned back to
look at the crying babe or its sobbing, forlorn mother.

And Selik refused to look at Rain, knowing the condemnation he would see on her face.

Did your own wife seek escape before the Saxons came? And was she refused aid, like this woman?
the voice said.

Selik swallowed hard over the lump in his throat. What was happening to him? A month ago, a year ago, he would not have hesitated to turn the woman and her bloody babe out to fend for themselves. In fact, he would have pulled them from the horse himself.

Without looking at Ubbi, who rode beside him, he reached into his tunic and withdrew a small sack of coins. Tossing it at the startled servant, he ordered in a gruff voice, “Give it to the maid and arrange for her later transport.”

Ubbi’s cloudy eyes brightened, and he turned his horse back toward Ravenshire, never once questioning which maid Selik referred to, nor his motives. But Selik thought he heard Ubbi mutter, “I knew ye would. I jist knew ye would.”

Selik did not like the turn his life had taken of late. It lacked control. Too many people were attaching themselves to him. He determined to rid himself of the whole bloody lot of leeches once he reached Jorvik. Then off he would go again on his quest of vengeance against his Saxon enemies. And Steven of Gravely.
Alone
. That was the path he had chosen long ago. There was no turning back, no fork in this life-road for him. He would not allow it.

Hah!
The single word echoed in response to his thoughts.

Selik sneered at the damned voice in his head. Bloody hell! If it was God, then he had an ungodly sarcastic tongue. He turned quickly to see if anyone had spoken nearby, but his companions stared
straight ahead, concentrating on the rough road. He shrugged, refusing to believe the impossible. No doubt he had spoken aloud. Yea, that was it. He could not accept that it might be that voice in his head again. Never would he believe that it was God—may all the saints preserve his sanity!