Viking Bride (3 page)

A low noise rumbled outside the longhouse.
Eliza shifted in the carved chair and looked at her mother, the
village witch. “Is that thunder?”

“Too constant,” her mother said. She rose and
stood by the fire, listening, her ear cocked toward the smoke hole
in the ceiling. “Those are voices. Come.” She picked her way around
a pillar and went to the door. Eliza followed, her broaches
jingling as she moved.

“Kill the witch!”

“Kill the girl.”

“Burn them out.”

They stopped at the door. “They sound angry,”
Eliza said.

Her mother nodded, then pushed open the heavy
wooden door. Eliza peered over her shoulder. A crowd of Viking men
stood clustered outside, swords and axes in their hands. They were
a young bunch, only one with a real man’s beard.

Her mother said something in the Viking
language. Half threat, half question.

The bearded one screamed something at them in
the Viking language. The only word Eliza recognized was
Karna
, something she’d heard Kelnar call her mother.

“He’s calling me a witch and a traitor,” her
mother said. She responded to the crowd in the Viking language, and
the man’s face darkened further.

“What did you say?”

“I called him a motherless son of a goat
fucker and told him not to trouble his chief’s women.”

An axe flashed through the hair, slammed into
the wooden doorframe, the handle quivering. The crowd rushed
forward.

Karna yanked Eliza backward and slammed the
door. The bar thudded into place. “Come. Follow me.” She sounded
calm and determined, utterly unflappable.

They hurried down the length of the
longhouse. Eliza had to gather her long dress to avoid singeing it
as they passed the fire in the middle of the building. Her mother
shouldered through a hide divider and into a corner Eliza hadn’t
seen before. Axes and swords and bows hung from the walls. Colorful
round shields piled on the floor.

“Through there.” Karna pointed at another
door, then stooped for a weapon. “Go to the shore. Kelnar is at the
ships.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Eliza nodded once, then shoved through the
door and out into an empty grassy area. More longhouses hemmed her
into a courtyard area. The roar of voices rumbled around the far
end of the longhouse, and came into view. The crowd of angry
Vikings ran toward her, their swords and axes held high. Eliza
bolted the other direction, into a long channel between the other
houses. She glanced back, looking for her mother, but didn’t see
her.

Run, mother, run.

Her thin leather shoes pounded up clouds of
dust. The wood and sod walls of the longhouses flashed past. She
glanced back again, saw that the crowd was no closer.
Which way
to Kelnar and the ships?
She was all turned around, so far into
the village.

Something tangled her feet, sent her
sprawling. The ground leaped up, slammed into her palms, her knees,
knocked the wind out of her. She struggled to rise, then looked up.
A boy looked back at her. A big lad, but not a trace of hair on his
chin. Maybe thirteen or fourteen. He had a spear, a wretched tall
thing, half again as big as he was. He leveled it at her, the point
glinting a foot from her face.

“Don’t move.” She recognized those words,
alright.

Her pursuers rounded the building. Their
footsteps pounded ever closer. Eliza weighed her chances. Slap
aside the spear, make a break for the ships. Or wait to see what
happened. Surely those kids wouldn’t harm their chief’s woman.

She swatted at the spear, dove around the
kid. He moved faster, though. Let the tip swing away, the butt
swing around. Just as she got her feet under her, the butt caught
her across the side of the head with a meaty smack.

Lights exploded in Eliza’s vision. She
swayed. Heard the footsteps, suddenly distant. Collapsed.

***

Eliza opened her eyes, saw a patchy bearded
face inches from her own. Spittle flew from the mouth, sprayed her
face. Her cheek stung. The bearded man’s hand was cocked back,
ready for another blow. When he saw her blinking, he stepped back,
a satisfied smile on his face.

“Worthless French girl. Viking men not
approve of chief keep you.”

She glanced around. A dozen of the younger
Viking men surrounded them. A pair of them were patting a boy on
the back.

The bearded man wrenched her to her feet. Her
dress caught under her, tearing as he pulled her upright. The men
behind him laughed. They dragged her forward, torn dress trailing
in the dirt. Longhouses stretched past on either side, and after a
few minutes they came out into an open area with a large fire in
the middle.

Wooden benches circled the fire. Women sat at
looms, weaving cloth from wool threads. A few looked up,
disinterested. It was what was happening on the far side of the
fire that made Eliza’s blood run cold. A woman was bent over some
kind of wooden platform, her matted black hair hanging to the
ground. She lay there limply as the man behind her thrust against
her.

The bearded man dragged Eliza toward the
helpless girl. The sound of flesh slapping flesh mixed with a low
groaning. The Viking grunted, smiled, stepped away. His erect cock
swung before him, glistening. He wiped it on a scrap of cloth
beside the girl, then hitched his trousers up and tied them into
place. Another lad was unfastening a belt and stepping behind the
girl even as the first sauntered away.

The girl looked up, saw the crowd
approaching. Her face was expressionless, resigned. She crossed her
arms and rested her head on them, staring at the dirt again.

Eliza gulped. She recognized that face.
Aldith. A girl from her own village, captured just days ago. Her
mother’s warning echoed in her head. “Please the chief or please
the whole village.” She wondered if Aldith had even been given the
option of pleasing Kelnar first. Since she hadn’t seen the poor
girl in the longhouse in the last few days, she expected not.

She thought about screaming. Thought about
begging. No one seemed to care that Aldith was being used so
callously. The blonde women acted as if they didn’t even exist.
Just went about their weaving and their stitching. Better the
foreign girls than them, perhaps. It made bile rise in Eliza’s
throat.

The bearded man drove her forward, pushed her
against another wooden platform across from Aldith.

“Let go of me!”

He twisted her arm painfully behind her back.
“Quiet.”

“Help! Anyone? Help!”

A few of the women looked up, but none moved
to offer any assistance.

Eliza struggled as he bent her over the
platform and tied her wrists. He intoned some threat she couldn’t
understand, so she fought harder. Rough hands pinned her to the
wood. Rougher rope bit into her skin. Her heel connected with
something soft, and a man grunted in surprise. Someone cuffed her
across the head, then a knife appeared at her throat.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“You are village girl now,” the bearded one
said. “Not chief’s.” He said a lot more than that, but it was all
she could understand. The Norse language was so guttural, so
foreign. It had none of the easy flow of her native French.

The knife pricked the skin of her neck, a
sharp lance of pain and the feel of coolness as a line of blood
dripped toward the wood. She understood that well enough.
So I
lie here and take it and hope Kelnar comes?
It wasn’t a plan.
It was just survival.

She let herself collapse. Her heart still
pounded, but anything was better than getting her throat cut.

The knife touched her flesh again. Cold and
hard and at the back of her neck. It slid downward, but the pain
didn’t blossom. When they threw her dress open, she realized she’d
been cut out of her clothes. The wind bit into her bare bottom,
making her clench involuntarily. A distant part of her mind
realized that if she was going to walk in the next week she needed
to get relaxed and soon.

The bearded one said something and slapped
her ass. His hands were rough, strong. It stung worse than the
knife prick. The others roared approval. Eliza twisted around, saw
him untying the cord that held his trousers. His cock stood hard
before him, a broad smile on her face. He relished her
humiliation.

Rough hands swept over her hips, forced her
legs apart. She ground her teeth, tried to take her mind away. This
wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Not to her. She was
daddy’s little girl. Old enough to be married perhaps, but
still.

A finger pressed against her pucker, forced
its way into her ass. She knew it was a finger. Too small. Too
hard. It burned as it pushed inside her. The men laughed.

The finger pulled out, pushed against her
pussy. Pushed into her pussy. It burned too, just as bad. She
whimpered, tightened her grip on splintery edge of the
platform.

The finger disappeared, but a dick replaced
it. It pressed against her, hard and thick. Forced its way
inside.

Eliza groaned.

A distant roar echoed her groan. She paid it
no mind. Tried to focus on the dirt. The little clods of dirt.
Footprints. Anything but the dick that ploughed ever deeper inside
her.

Screams reached her ears. Her screams. It
burned so much. Her hands were turning purple from the ropes biting
into them.

Then she heard other screams. Not hers. Man
screams. The roaring grew closer. The sound of a man worked into a
great rage.
Kelnar.
She barely dared to hope.

The man behind her jerked himself free,
sending another bolt of agony through her. He yelled something.
Kelnar roared a response. Steel clanged on steel. Young voices
cried out in agony.

Kelnar swept in front of her, blood dripping
from sword to dirt. A casual slice cut the ropes that held her to
the platform. Crimson drops splattered the wood.

“Up,” the village chieftain rumbled.

Eliza pushed herself to her feet, gathering
her dress around her chest. She tried to hold the split posterior
closed, but couldn’t stop it gapping and exposing her to everyone
behind her. The thought they’d already seen it all wasn’t very
encouraging.

The bearded would-be abuser stood a dozen
feet away, his trousers around his ankles and his knees trembling.
His head hung down and he wouldn’t meet Kelnar’s eyes.

Behind him a pair of the younger Vikings
dragged a wounded warrior away. Blood seeped between his fingers
where he had a hand clasped to his shoulder. They very carefully
ignored Eliza until they were out of sight around one of the
longhouses that fenced in the common area.

A dreadful silence hung in the air. Eliza
glanced around. Everyone else was gone. The looms sat idle, threads
twisting in the wind.

Kelnar spoke, his voice low and dangerous.
She couldn’t understand everything, but the thrust of the speech
was: “If you ever touch my property again I’ll nail you to a wall
with spears and let wild dogs feast on your genitals.”

Beardy nodded, finally met Kelnar’s fierce
gaze. His chest shook. He didn’t say anything else, just pulled up
his trousers and stumbled away.

“You are hurt?” Kelnar said, taking a step
toward Eliza.

“I will live.”

“That is good. Come. You will not be troubled
again.”

He led her back across the village, letting
her support herself on his arm. Eventually they reached his
longhouse. Once inside, he took her to the rear of the building, to
the divider that closed off the armory. She held her dress closed
behind her and wondered when he’d give her a chance to fully cover
herself.

“A Viking woman should be armed.” He opened
an intricately carved chest and took out a dagger. A silver chain
wrapped around a leather sheath that itself was wrapped in fine
gold filigree. A single red ruby glistened in the hilt. He held the
weapon forth on both palms, an offering.

Eliza took it, slid the blade free,
mesmerized. Her dress fluttered open, forgotten.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“Test it,” he said.

She pressed her thumb to the steel, saw a
thin line of flesh part, but stopped before the blade could draw
blood. It required almost no pressure. “You could shave with
this.”

Kelnar smiled, nodded. “Perhaps. Keep
it.”

She clutched it in her hands. “And if Beardy
tries anything else?”

“His name is Angmar. Should he so much as
look at you funny, gut him like a fish.”

How many thousands of fish had she gutted on
the banks of the Seine? It was unknowable. She slid the blade back
into the sheath. “Fish I understand.”

“Very good.” He went back out into the main
part of the longhouse, waited for her to follow. “I must return to
the boats. We sail again in a week’s time. Everything must be
ready.”

He left her by the fire, and wasn’t even to
the door when her mother stepped from the shadows.

“You survived, I see,” the witch
observed.

Eliza glared at her. “No thanks to you. You
left me to run alone.”

“All thanks to me. How do you think Kelnar
knew to come for you?”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. Kelnar gave you a weapon?”

Eliza held up the sheathed blade.

“A ceremonial dagger. May I see it?” She took
it, unwrapped the chain. “The chain goes around your neck.” She let
the dagger hang over Eliza’s chest.

“I just let it hang here?”

“Usually you tuck into your dress. Keep it
out of sight. But I think, in your case, let everyone see it, at
least for a while.” She paused, stepped behind Eliza. “What
happened to your dress?”

“Angmar cut it off me.” Her voice
cracked.

“I see. Come. We’ll get you another.”

Eliza followed the witch, her mother, to her
little corner of the longhouse. She couldn’t help but admire the
woman’s perfect calm. She wished she could borrow a little of it
for herself.