Lord of Hawkfell Island (Viking Era 2)

Obediently she took the bowl of stew from him, the stew now long cold. She took a bite, and gagged. It tasted like congealed grease and strangely sour. The bits of meat were stringy, the sauce filled with lumps as

nasty as rye root. She was hungry but she wasn’t starving. She forced down another bite, then set the bowl aside. Any more of it and she’d vomit again. Her stomach was knotting and unknotting in painful spasms.

Rorik looked at her, his frown building. “Finish it.”

She looked up at him, holding the blanket tightly over her breasts. “It tastes like pig swill. There is so much grease on the top that it has hardened.”

She thought he would burst with rage but she didn’t care. If he struck her, perhaps he would kill her. At the moment, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered.

He seemed to get control of himself. He lifted the bowl and took a bite. It was bad, he thought, very bad. Worse than it usually was, though that was usually bad enough of late. Even the women who prepared food well seemed to have forgotten over the past weeks. It was Entti, he thought, the women had given the task again to Entti. He sighed, but he didn’t give in, he was still too furious with her. She was his prisoner, less than a slave, and yet she dared to speak her mind as if she were the mistress here. She dared to show her disgust for him and for his farmstead. She dared to scorn the food that only a halfwit would eat. She dared to allow Kerzog, the dog he’d raised from a pup, a very small pup, just watch her but make no threatening growls or moves. He said, “You will consume it as you would a feast. Every bite. If you don’t, then you may go hungry, I care not. You can starve.”

“I can’t eat it,” she said, and knew immediately that he would indeed not give her anything else to eat. “I won’t eat it.” For how long? Would he let her starve to death? “No one could eat it.” She looked at him, at the closed expression, at the anger in his eyes. She didn’t want to starve. She fancied it wouldn’t be a very pleasant way to die. It would be far too slow even though she was already so hungry she’d believed she could eat anything. She’d been wrong.

Drowning would have been better. She would simply have to escape, that was all, and then when he caught her, as she was certain he would, for it was an island, after all, he would kill her. It would be over.

She smiled at him. “Give me the comb.”

He tossed it at her, then left the chamber without another word.

Mirana knew it was late at night because the loud voices that had filled the silence for hour upon hour were now silent. Nearly everyone must be asleep. She’d slept most of the afternoon, but she’d awakened, hungry and alone, and laid there. Her stomach churned and clenched and growled. No one had come. She’d had no desire to rise and go into the huge outer room.

She wondered where he was. This was his sleeping chamber, she was sure of it. Where was he?

As if conjured up by her mind, he came into the room. There was a fresh bandage of soft white linen wrapped around his shoulder. He was clean and dressed in a fresh tunic belted at his waist. He was big and powerful, his hair thick and blond on his head, his eyes the light blue of a Viking whose blood wasn’t tainted, as was hers. He was clean shaven. He was a magnificent animal, she supposed, but she didn’t care. She wished she’d killed him. Her fingers itched for her knife.

He held a rush torch light in his right hand. He held it high and looked at her. “You’re awake, are you?”

She said nothing.

“Good. Now I shan’t have to rouse you and listen to your endless complaints. At least I had the foresight to have you bathe.”

He was going to ravish her. She held perfectly still, preparing herself for his attack. She wouldn’t give in to him easily. She would fight him until he was forced to strike her, perhaps kill her. She waited, her muscles tensed, ready. If only she had her knife, if only.

He doused the rush torch light. She heard him removing his clothing. He sat on the far side of the bed, so close to her really, and she pictured him taking off his boots.

Then he rose and she knew he was coming to the other side of the bed, to her. Her heart thudded hard and heavy. She tasted fear in her mouth. Fear and hatred of him and resolve that her rape wouldn’t be easy for him, that she would hurt him badly if she could. She heard him brush against his trunk that sat at the foot of the bed. She was ready for him, she had to be.

He was standing next to her, bending down over her, saying nothing, but she heard his breathing. Suddenly, he grabbed the blanket and wrapped it tightly around her, trapping her arms. He lifted her and tossed her onto the floor beside the bed.

She landed on her side, stunned and winded.

He threw another blanket on top of her.

He said nothing more. She heard him ease down onto the bed, heard him draw in a deep breath, then he was silent.

Then he laughed, and it was a rich mocking laugh.

A knife, she thought, if only she had a knife.

“You thought I would rape you,” he said, and laughed again. “Rape you? Even though you’re clean and more sweet-smelling than otherwise, I doubt I could have forced myself to take you, you who are nothing more than an ill-tempered witch. I’d rather be forced to plow an old crone than to plow your belly. You’re so fond of your brother, you who would do anything for Einar, a swine who deserves the cruelest of deaths. Do you lust after him, your own kin? Is that why you’re still unwed? Perhaps he has already bedded you. You aren’t young, after all. Does he hold you above his other whores?”

It was odd, she thought, as she rose silently to her feet. So very odd that it would happen now, that he would taunt her beyond what she could bear. She wrapped the blanket around her and walked to the entrance. She pulled the hide aside. A small sliver of light shone in. She wondered where Kerzog was and what he would do. Would he kill her, his fangs buried in her throat?

It was then that Rorik heard her. He said loud and clear, “Do not leave this chamber, damn you. Get back here or it will go badly for you.”

She ignored him, something she knew had never happened to him in his life, and walked into the outer room, still filled with the dying warmth from the fire pit. She breathed in the light smell of smoke, thinning out now, until the morrow when the fire pit was lit again, the room filling once more with smoke turning the air a pale blue. There was snoring coming from all the benches along the walls. She saw Kerzog sleeping by the fire pit. He raised his head and looked at her. Then he lowered his head and went back to sleep. He was indeed a ferocious animal, she thought as she kept walking. Then she broke into a run, for he was behind her now.

She dashed to the doors, and heaved up the heavy wooden cross-beam. She couldn’t manage it.