“Aye, my men thought that amusing.”
“So you didn’t tell them how I held my knife to your throat, and when you displeased me, I eased it through your tender skin?”
No, she saw, he hadn’t told them that. A man’s pride could only suffer so much. His hand went to his throat, to the healing ridge of flesh where her knife point had gone deep enough to draw his blood.
He realized what he was doing and dropped his hand. There was fury in his eyes, but he said quite calmly, “Can you walk without me supporting you now?”
“Of course.”
He released her and she promptly collapsed.
He stood over her, watching her rub her legs through the filthy wool of her gown. He grunted, leaned down, and hefted her like a haunch of beef over his shoulder.
She jerked upward, and he said, “Lie still else I’ll drag you by all that hair of yours.”
She tried to lie still, she truly did. He walked up a narrow snaking path that was paved with quarried stones. Her stomach clenched and heaved at the constant jostling. She closed her eyes against the pain, only to hear bird cries, more cries and calls and shrieks than she’d ever heard at Clontarf. She opened her eyes. From upside down, she saw several birds scurrying about just off the trail—ah, so many. An oystercatcher, a half-dozen dunlin, and a pair of curlews. She liked birds, she always had, since she was a child. Birds, she thought, gritting her teeth against a wave of intense nausea. Only someone losing their mind would think of birds at a time like this. She saw a ringed plover nestled down in the thick loam beside the trail, admired it, and knew she must be nearly dead.
He continued to climb. She counted ten more steps up the deep-set quarried stones. By the eleventh, she was trying to rear up on his shoulder to relieve the pressure on her belly. He slapped her buttocks.
There was no hope for it. She yelled, “Let me down! I’m going to vomit!”
With no hesitation he dropped her on the sloping side of the path into a low scrub bush that scraped across her exposed arms. Mirana rolled over, feeling the pain from the harsh scrub needles, to come up onto her bruised and torn hands and knees. She retched and retched. There was no food in her belly to come up, thank the gods for that. She felt sicker than she’d ever felt in her life. She hugged her stomach and continued to retch, dry heaving that felt like her belly was being ripped apart. Her throat was dry, and hurt so badly she didn’t want to breathe. At least he couldn’t see her face for her hair hung like a filthy black curtain to the ground.
She felt him behind her then, saw the slant of his shadow over her left shoulder through the matted strands of hair.
“There’s nothing in your belly,” he said, and she wished she had her knife. She would have stuck it deep into his groin.
“What’s wrong with her, Rorik?”
It was Hafter who had come up to stand nearby. Some six other warriors were behind him, all standing there, all staring down at her. She could hear women talking too, even a child saying loudly, “Who is she, Papa? Is she a new slave? What is wrong with her? Will she die?”
They were all looking at her and she wished both for their deaths and for her own.
Rorik said to Hafter, “I was carrying her over my shoulder. She’s weak, being a woman, and couldn’t walk by herself. Now this—puking her guts all over my island. Perhaps it’s all an act to gain sympathy. I should have let the men throw her overboard.” He sounded like a man put upon, a man upon whom the gods had visited the worst of punishments.
She looked up at him and said clearly, “I hope your man’s parts rot off. I hope this wretched island sinks into the sea and you with it.”
There was dead silence, then he threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rich laugh filled with malice and fury, a laugh that should have warned her.
“I hate you,” she said, unwarned, then leaned over and retched again. “You’re naught but a brutal animal. You chain me like a wretched dog for three days, use me to rest your filthy feet upon, then expect me to dance about when I’m finally allowed to walk.”
He grasped her beneath her arms and half dragged, half carried her back to the wooden dock. He swung her off the ground and flung her far out into the water. The shock of the cold water drove her breath from her body and sent her under. Her mouth was open on a scream and water rushed down her throat. The water was cold, too cold for the warmth of the day, the mildness of the spring air. She flapped her arms with her little remaining strength, but it did no good. Her efforts did nothing. Her wool skirts dragged her down. It was then she decided she preferred to sink like a stone to the bottom. He would kill her anyway. This way was quicker, easier. She ceased struggling and fell cleanly downward.
The men were laughing. That was the last sound she heard as she went under the water—that gleeful laughter of theirs. Rorik was massaging his shoulder, looking at the rippling water where she’d gone under. Time passed, too much time. She didn’t come up.
He cursed and jumped forward to the edge of the dock. Then her head cleared the water, bobbing up as if pushed from below. She was choking, thrashing the water with her arms, and he realized then that she couldn’t swim, that or she was too far gone to keep herself afloat.
“You damnable witch!” he yelled at her. “I might have known you’d do this to me!” and jumped into the water beside her. He grabbed her, but she flailed at him, striking his face, his bandaged shoulder, choking and coughing up the water. Pain from her blow to the shoulder nearly sent the breath from him. He struck her jaw and she sagged unconscious against him.
He cursed again and towed her back to the pier. “Hafter, take her!”
Rorik cursed all the way to the farmstead, through the thick wooden gates, into the longhouse built by his grandfather. He cursed even as Kerzog, a huge mongrel of a hound, barked madly int
o his face then leapt up against his chest. He cursed even as he calmed Kerzog, cursed even as he took her from Hafter and carried her into his sleeping chamber. He started to lay her on his bed, then shook his head. He leaned her against him, and stripped off her sodden gown. He ripped the shift off her, laid her on her back on the box bed and untied the leather straps and pulled off her shoes. He drew a blanket over her and left the chamber. Immediately, he cursed again, turned back, and strode to the bed. He pulled the blanket down, jerked her over onto her belly, and splayed his hands across her narrow back. By the gods, her skin was nearly blue with cold. He straddled her and pumped the rest of the water from her body.
She sputtered and coughed and vomited up sea water, too much water. He was surprised she had survived. At least he had the presence of mind to pull her to the side of the bed so that the sea water didn’t end up soaking the feather mattress. Kerzog sat there, staring at the vomiting, heaving woman, just staring, not barking, just looking thoughtful at this stranger.
“She’s a witch,” he said to his dog, and Kerzog looked at him for a very long time, his tongue lolling from his mouth. “I should have let her drown. Keep your distance from her,” Rorik continued, “she just might bite you.”