The Viking's Captive (2 page)

He swaggered over to Selik with as much confidence as he could display and announced, “Guess me and Adela will be going home with you tonight.” It wasn’t as if anyone had invited them, but sometimes Adam had found it was best to take the first step.

Selik looked as if he’d swallowed a frog. Actually, his scowling face turned a shade of green.

But he didn’t say no, which Adam took for a good sign.

It appeared he and Adela would have a home of sorts … for a while.

And then his dreams crashed to an end…

Adela was dead.

Adam the Healer dropped to his knees and beat his breast. Muttering to himself rather than to anyone who might hear in the crowded hospitium at Rainstead, he berated himself, “Two life missions I have had—only two; to protect Adela and to be a healer. I have failed at both.”

For the first time in Adam’s thirty years, he cried. In fact, he wailed his grief to the high heavens and pulled at his hair. “I should join my beloved sister in death. The pain is more than I can bear.”

“Nay, master, do not speak such sacrilege. Only Allah, or your Christian God, should make such destiny-decisions,” his assistant Rashid cautioned softly, putting a comforting hand on Adam’s shoulder.

But there was no comfort to be had this day.

Adam leaned forward over the pallet and pressed a soft kiss on his sister’s already cool cheek. Death wasted no time once the last breath was stilled. Soon the body stiffening would take place, and the skin color would change. He was a physician; he knew these things too well. “Good-bye, sweet Adela,” he whispered. “Forgive me for coming too late.”

A monk from the minster in Jorvik knelt on her other side and started to speak the last rites over her. It was a routine the priest must have played out over and over. Did his faith ever falter? Did he ever wonder why his God would take so many innocent people?

With a sigh, Adam rose to his feet and let Rashid lead him down the rows of pallets where dozens of people lay sick and dying of the wasting disease that had hit Jorvik with such devastation these past months. The toll in lives thus far was horrible to contemplate.

“Healer, help me,” one dying man called out to Adam.

“Master Adam, Master Adam …” another entreated.

“I hurt,” a child’s weak voice whimpered.

Over and over, the sufferers called for Adam and his healing skills, but he had nothing left to give. If he had not been able to save his sister, how could he help them?

Adam followed Rashid outdoors where the fresh air was at first a balm to his raw lungs. It was a momentary ease, however, for as his eyes scanned Rainstead for the first time in five years, he did not see the manor house, the orphanstead, the weaving sheds, stables and outbuildings, the hospitium … all that Rain and Selik had
built over the years to aid the homeless of Jorvik. What he saw was the grave mound being dug for his sister.

Grieving mightily were Selik, who had adopted him and Adela all those years ago … and his wife, Rain, who had been more than adoptive mother to him. Rain, a far-famed healer, had taught him all she knew of medicine and encouraged him to study further in the Eastlands, where the Arab physicians were at the forefront of research amongst all those in the world. Rain and Selik had passed many winters together, having seen more than fifty good years. Today they looked every one of those years, while Adela had been a relatively young woman … only twenty-seven.

If only he had not stayed away so long!

He’d received the missive a month ago from Rain, informing him of the epidemic and how it was hitting so many in Jorvik and at her orphanage. “Come home, Adam. You are needed here.”

Adela had not been afflicted then, but he had made all possible haste at the summons. Immediately after receiving the letter, he’d left the caliph’s palace in Baghdad, where he’d been conferring with physicians who’d gathered from all sectors of the Eastlands to share their knowledge, but his longship had had to be prepared for the journey and then they had been delayed by sea storms for a sennight and more. He’d arrived two days past to find Adela near death.

“You came,” Adela had whispered on first seeing him, raising a hand weakly to caress his face. Already, the death rattle had been in her voice.

Then, “Thank you, dear brother, for caring for me all those years.”

And finally, “I love you, Adam. Be happy.”

He’d tried frantically to save her … everything Rain had taught him, everything the world’s best physicians
had taught him … but nothing had worked. She’d died in his arms an hour ago.

“What will we … what will
you
do now?” Rashid asked.

Adam shook his head with indecision. “I must stay for the burial. Viking funerals are elaborate, drawn-out affairs. After that, I do not know. Mayhap I will go to Hawkshire … that small estate Selik and Rain gifted me in Northumbria years ago. Mayhap I will return with you to the Eastlands.”

A long silence settled over them as they walked aimlessly about the grounds.

Finally Adam said, “One thing is certain. No longer will I answer to the name of healer. I am forswearing medicine.”

T
he Viking warrior was a warrioress…

“With all due respect, Master Adam, you need a harem.”

“No harems, Rashid.”

“Just one.”

“Not even one.”

“Dancing girls?”

“Nay!”

“A Nubian concubine?”

“Nay!”

“Triplets from Cordoba who could give a man thrice the pleasure?”

“Nay, nay, nay!”

“Hmph! Man was not intended to live this way. Truly, I do not understand how you can be content to live as a … a … hermit. ‘Tis unnatural.”

“No harems,” Adam repeated.

Rashid muttered one of his usual proverbs, in this case, “Even paradise is no fun without people.” With a grunt of disgust, he gave up, for the moment, and returned to his work.

Adam, on the other hand, stared off into space, realizing with some amazement that he actually
was
a contented
man, just as his faithful assistant had inferred. That realization came to him with such suddenness that Adam, rather stunned, set his quill down and smiled to himself. Despite all the misery and grief—and, yes, self-pity—peace had somehow crept up on him. Mayhap his inner wounds were finally healing.

But wasn’t that an irony in itself … that a man who had been renowned for his adventuresome spirit, wicked sense of humor, and wanton ways now took great comfort in
contentment?
It was a graybeard’s word. Next he would be calling for a hot posset and a cane.

Before he had a chance to catch himself, Adam sighed aloud.

“There are harems, and then there are
harems,”
offered Rashid, misinterpreting Adam’s sigh. “I’m especially fond of women who can dance the Ritual of the Veils. Or those who are double-jointed. Or those with an ample set of buttocks. Or those with breasts like pomegranates. Or those—”

“Pfff!” was Adam’s only response.

Rashid’s biggest complaint about the Saxon lands was its dearth of women … especially
talented
women. He was of the firm conviction that the answer to any male difficulty could be found between the thighs of a comely woman, with or without talents, and he did not mind sharing that conviction with one and all. ‘Twas best to ignore him betimes.

Adam picked his quill up, dipped it in the ink pot’s treacly
encaustum,
and resumed scratching on the parchment pages of his herb journal. In some ways, this two-year respite from medical practice had helped Adam become a better doctor. He was assimilating all his thoughts and research from the past ten years or more and putting them on parchment.

Some physicians studied the human body, head to
toe. Others believed in the theory of humors … that everything that happened to the body was related to bile, blood, phlegm, or water. Adam had come to believe that there was much more he did
not
know about the body than what he did know, so he limited his studies to herbs and their medicinal uses. Even then, it was complicated. The same plants grown in different geographical areas displayed different properties. The time of year an herb was picked could be important. And, of course, the roots, seeds, leaves, spores, pollen, and flowers all served different purposes … not to mention how they were preserved or prepared.

Rashid continued to fill small pottery containers with
propolis,
the reddish resin produced by honeybees. Adam’s stepaunt by marriage, Eadyth, one of England’s most famous beekeepers, had sent him a goodly supply last sennight. He used the base substance as a balm in treating wounds, while scenting the rest with lavender, rose, and sandalwood for gifting on occasion to his women friends. It was an excellent unguent for softening hands and other body parts. Not that he had all that many women friends of late. Adam also used honey as a dressing for wounds or, mixed with salt, as a cleansing agent.

He and Rashid worked in companionable silence in the round tower room overlooking the courtyard. Its eighteen arrow slit windows gave more light for his studies than any other chamber in this dreary keep. While many men measured their wealth in gold and land, Adam prized the rare books that filled a shelf on the far wall. An amazing six in all. Few kings had as many. They were worth a fortune.
Bald’s Leechbook;
Pliny the Elder’s
Natural History
; Hippocrates’s medical observations; the works of Galen, surgeon to the Roman gladiators; the notebooks of the revered Arab
doctor, Rhazes; and, of course, his stepmother Rain’s journal.

The books had been translated from their original languages into English, most often by monks, but ofttimes by Adam himself, who was fluent in five tongues. Of course, he hadn’t translated Rain’s journal—the one he consulted most—because it had been in English to begin with.

There was valuable information in all the books, but much to be scoffed at as well, such as Pliny’s advice to eat a mouse a day to prevent tooth decay.

“If this lowly servant could be so bold,” Rashid said, breaking the silence, “a harem could be just the spark you need to fire up your life again.”

By the rood! Is Rashid still on that selfsame subject?
“A harem? A harem in Saxon lands? I’d like to see that. Better yet, my dour-faced neighbors, far distant as they are, would love to see it.”

“You could start a trend. Lucky for you, I know just where to gather a harem.”

“I’d wager a camel’s hump you do, you conniving scoundrel.”

“In Baghdad.”

“Aaaahhh! So that’s where this conversation is headed … as always. Home to the desert.”

“Truly, it is past time that we return to the warmer climes, oh, wise one.”

Rashid always threw in “oh, wise one” when he wanted something. His machinations were as transparent as Lady Eadyth’s wispy beekeeping garments.

“It is so cold and damp in this land that I swear I found mold betwixt my toes this morn. And there was frost on my nose, yea, there was, and it is only September. Mayhap you could accept the sultan’s offer of a small palace in Cairo in return for becoming his personal physician.
And, of course, there would be a harem.” Rashid smiled widely, as if he’d just said something brilliant.

Adam glanced up from his work to see if Rashid was serious.

He was.

“I do not need a woman. I sure as bloody hell do not need a harem. And how many times do I have to tell you, I am not your master, Rashid?”

“As you say, master.”

“And we are not going back to the Eastlands anytime soon.”

Rashid scowled at being thwarted, but then tried a different approach. “A thousand pardons, master. Perchance you would not be so ill-tempered if your body humors were leveled out. Everyone knows that a man must empty his sacred vessel on occasion lest the biles rise in his body.”

Adam shook his head at Rashid’s persistence. He had a fair idea of what “sacred vessel” Rashid referred to, but, being a physician, he had to ask, “Which biles would those be?”

Rashid brightened, no doubt thinking that he was making some progress. He wasn’t. “The biles that create dark moods.”

“Rashid,” Adam said with a weary sigh, “I am not in a dark mood … especially not a dark mood caused by sexual deprivation.”

“Hah! You are always in a dark mood. The grooves betwixt your eyebrows have become a permanent fixture. You have set aside your fine apparel. The coins you earned on one battlefield or another have been stored away, along with the treasures given for your great medical achievements. And this home given to you by your adoptive father Selik is certainly dark and gloomy,” he
said, waving a hand at their surroundings. “There is no gaiety in your life. What you need is gaiety.”

Adam’s lips twitched with suppressed mirth. “And that gaiety would come from … let me guess … a harem?”

“I knew you would agree with me.” Rashid puffed his chest out with self-satisfaction.