Lord of Hawkfell Island (Viking Era 2)

Rorik motioned for her to sit down. She watched him scale the bass with a small knife as sharp as the one she’d lightly speared into his throat. Then he lifted an iron pan he’d obviously brought from the longhouse, smeared the bass with thick sweet butter, and laid all three of them with near reverence into the pan. He set it over the fire, sat down cross-legged and stared at the pan, as if willing it to heat quickly and cook that fish.

She laughed, she couldn’t help it.

“I’m starving,” he said matter-of-factly. He continued looking at the fish, now beginning to bubble and spit, and said, “I’ll give you one of them.”

“It seems fair. I did feed you in your captivity.”

“Aye, and you tried to gullet me.”

“Had I wanted to kill you, I could have, easily. You were as helpless as that gutted bass.”

“I am tired of your swaggering. Be quiet. Watch the fish. Do you think this one in the middle is nearly done?”

It was hissing in the thick butter, darkening nicely, looking quite delicious.

“No, it is still raw on the inside. Must you feed yourself every night?”

He grunted. A fat half-moon shone down overhead. The night was clear, the stars vivid in the black sky. The air was warm and still. The birds had quieted for the night. It was so quiet, the water lapping against the rocks sounded faintly in the distance. She saw him quite clearly, the planes and shadows of his face in the firelight. He was staring as hard as he could at the frying fish.

It was difficult to hate a man who looked as if he’d cry if something happened to that frying fish.

“Will you chain me again tonight?”

“Probably. I cannot trust you to keep your word—you are Einar’s sister, after all, and he is a murderer, and much worse. I will chain you, aye.” He stuck his knife into each of the fish and flipped them over.

She watched them sizzle and brown for several minutes, then said, “What did he do to you? I have never heard him say your name.”

“The fish is cooked.” He picked up a wooden plate, realized he had only one, then shrugged. He knifed each of the fish onto the plate, then set it between them. “You will use your fingers. I have only one knife. Take that fish nearest you. It’s the smallest.”

She simply nodded, but made no move as yet. She was blessedly full. She watched him slice the bass, carefully cut it, and spear it. He eased it into his mouth as one would present a gift to a god. He chewed, the expression on his face blissful. He said nothing, just ate, one bite after another, until all that was left on the plate was the smallest bass he’d said was hers and a half of another.

He looked at that half of bass. Then he looked at his dog and sighed. To her astonishment, he offered the remaining half to Kerzog. To her further astonishment, after Kerzog sniffed at it, he wuffed softly, and refused it, looking at Rorik as he rested his head on his front paws. Rorik frowned at him but said nothing.

She said, “There is something strange going on here. I was fed all day, the most delicious porridge and fresh bread with butter and honey, and then there was stewed beans in onions and eggs, all delicious. Yet you bring that horrid swill for dinner. You are starving. What is happening here?”

He continued to stare at that half fish and at the small one that was hers. He said, more to himself than to her, “So Aslak was right.” He cursed. “By all the gods, my damned dog is full bellied! That’s why he disdains the bass I offered him. It is only the men the women are torturing. Even Kerzog is blissfully full.”

“Eat the rest of the bass. I am very full, perhaps even more so than your dog. As I said, the women fed me all day.”

He did, saying nothing until he’d wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, wiped his knife on an oak leaf, and tossed the leaf into the embers of the small fire.

“Aslak said the women are punishing us because Entti beds the men. The women don’t care if the men aren’t married, but married men are seeking her out as well and that makes them very angry.”

She stared at him. This was the man who’d tried to kill her brother, who had fought over a dozen men with naught but a sword and a knife? This was the man who’d borne the wound in his shoulder like the warrior he was, contemptuous of weakness and pain, until, finally, he’d escaped, taking her with him? He’d been cruel, treating her like an animal, abusing her endlessly, yet saving her from drowning, even though at that moment she’d wanted to drown, to end it. She was thankful now that he’d saved her. But all of it came down to this—he and his men were being punished by the women for their faithlessness.

He’d caught his own dinner and cooked it.

“I don’t know why the women fed you,” he said absently. “You’re their enemy since you’re also my enemy.”

He sat back against the palisade wall and sighed in contentment, lacing his hands over his belly.

“Aye,” he said, filling the silence, for Mirana said nothing, “aye, I must do it, there is none other. I will stop this women’s rebellion. My men said I should put a halt to it and I will, though in all truth, I don’t think they believe me able to succeed. But I will succeed. If a man wishes to bed a woman, it is his right to do so.”

“Even if he is wed?”

He looked into the fire, his blue eyes gleaming brighter than the flames. “The man rules. It is he who protects the woman, he who provides shelter and food for her. It is his right to bed with a bear if he wishes to. It is I who am the lord here and all obey me. I will endure no more.”

It was in that instant that Mirana decided to take a hand. His words, spoken with such arrogance, made her want to strike him. So, he believed a man could be unfaithful to his wife, did he? She wished now she’d known the reason for the inedible cooking before speaking to him, for she’d been too frank in her words to him, and now he planned to retaliate. She would do something, she had to.