Lord of Hawkfell Island (Viking Era 2)

She bided her time. He led her back to the longhouse, into the sleeping chamber, and again chained her wrist. Then he left her. Mirana waited. When she’d passed through the longhouse with Rorik, she’d looked directly at Old Alna, a look that conveyed a woman’s meaning that was instantly recognized and accepted. She waited now in his chamber, knowing the old woman would come if she were able.

Both Old Alna and Amma came only minutes later.

Old Alna said as she lit the rush light set in the wall, and pulled the bearskin down over the opening to the sleeping chamber to give them privacy, “Lord Rorik and the men are all drinking and braying like goats over their prowess on the mainland hunt today. Aye, on and on how brave Rorik was to face down the boar with his wounded shoulder. He will gain too much affection for himself if it continues. I also overheard Gurd telling the men that Rorik would stop the women’s rebellion and then he laughed and laughed, and poured mead down his throat in Rorik’s honor. Don’t you worry, Mirana, that Lord Rorik will come here to look in on you and thus surprise us. Nay, Lord Rorik won’t think about you, he’s too busy thinking about himself and how wonderful he is. We’re safe. This is Amma. It was her idea to punish the men until they learned to keep their men’s lusts at their own hearths.”

“I’m glad you came,” Mirana said. She looked at Amma, who nodded back to her. “I had wondered at the terrible food. Unfortunately I spoke of it to Lord Rorik. If only I’d known the reason for your actions, I wouldn’t have said anything. I’m very sorry. Amma, ’twas an excellent idea. Tonight Lord Rorik said he would stop it, that he would give you orders that Entti would no longer cook, that you would no longer play these games with the men’s bellies. It was Aslak who saw the truth immediately and he told the men, but Rorik didn’t want to believe it.”

“Rorik’s soft when it comes to the women,” Old Alna said and grinned at Mirana and Amma. “I wondered when one of the men would realize what we were doing and why. But Rorik is soft with women, as I said, all except with you. I don’t understand that, he is different with you, but with us, he won’t lift his voice or his hand.”

Mirana shook her head. “He is ready to order and command and yell. Perhaps he is even ready to do violence. Rorik is starving. He caught his own fish and cooked them himself tonight. I have never before seen a man look at food the way he did at that frying fish. He will do what is necessary and if that is terrorizing the women with threats and punishments, that is what he will do. That is why I looked toward you, Alna, when he brought me back inside.” Mirana drew a deep breath. “I want to help. I want to try to stop him if I can. I want you to gain what is right.”

Amma said, “I have pushed the women into this. Nay, Alna, don’t excuse me. I did think it was the best way to gain their attention. You see, Mirana, Sculla, my husband, doesn’t sleep with Entti. He is faithful, but the others, they are rutting stoats. There is something else. I wouldn’t have you fault Entti. None of the women do. She’s a simple-minded girl, sweet and gentle. ’Tis not her fault that she was captured and brought here as a slave and made to sleep with the men. We don’t blame her, even though she appears not to mind who plows her belly. It is those men who deserve punishment. ’Twas my idea to make them suffer with inedible food. What think you, Mirana?”

They’d recognized her as one of them, Mirana thought, relieved and pleased and strangely touched. They were including her, looking to her. “Aye, I do have an idea, but let me say first that yours is an excellent punishment. But now I think it is time to withdraw, just a bit, to make them guess, to make them uncertain and wonder about what we will do next. Men don’t realize that women can select a course of action and devise excellent strategy, and that is what we will do.”

Old Alna smiled at Amma, nodding. The prisoner, this girl whose brother was indeed Lord Rorik’s enemy and theirs, was one of them. She was smart and she had recognized what they wanted and agreed with it. There was something about her, perhaps a confidence, a determination, but both of them trusted her. Amma motioned Old Alna to sit on one side of the bed and she sat close to Mirana. “What do you think we should do? What do you m

ean, we should withdraw?”

Mirana sat forward, her eyes bright with plans and excitement. “Tomorrow, make the food sublime. Put no pine needles or black bark into the porridge. Don’t pour any smashed sour reeds or turnip roots and rotted oak leaves into the stew. Add no sour spices. Make all the food as sweet and delicious as if it were a gift to the gods themselves. All day tomorrow feed the men wondrous dishes, and give them fulsome smiles. Act like worshipful sheep.”

“But they don’t deserve it!” Amma said. She bounded to her feet and began pacing the small chamber. She was very tall and hardy and Mirana smiled as she watched her, this strong-willed woman who was a natural leader. “Sculla doesn’t approve of the men’s faithlessness, but he won’t chide them. He says naught, damn him! He, the man I’ve been married to for twelve years, doesn’t even realize that I talked the women into ruining all the men’s food.”

“I know,” Mirana said, “but men are different from us. Listen, Amma, we need to keep them off balance. Rorik won’t understand when everything suddenly changes on the morrow, none of the men will, and he won’t know what to do. He’ll have to think, but he won’t have any idea what are the right thoughts.”

“Ah, I see the way her ideas are stringing themselves,” Old Alna said. She cackled. “I like it, Amma. ’Twill make the louts wonder if they’re on their arses or on their heads! Aye, ’tis a good plan.”

Amma said slowly, “And then the next day, we’ll give them swill again?”

“First we will see what Rorik does. I doubt he will do anything. As Alna says, they won’t know what to make of what has happened, all without a word or an order from Rorik. Perhaps he will conclude that you’ve heard that he plans to break the rebellion and have submitted without a whimper.”

“Men reason that way,” Old Alna said. “When a woman is a submissive little sheep, he thinks it’s because she finally realizes he’s a prince and a god and is ready to worship at his feet. Dolts, all of them, even my perfect Rorik sometimes.” She gave Mirana a long thoughtful look. “You’re a bright sweeting,” she said suddenly. “Just like Rorik’s mother, Tora. Strong-willed too, and stubborn as a flea on a goat’s back.”

“Aye,” Amma said. “Tora is strong. Aye, and inventive. Her husband never knows which way to think when she weaves her web around him. I remember she always stands toe to toe to Harald, her husband. She shouts louder than he does, despite the level of his ire. He would never strike her or threaten her. Alna is right. You are fearless. You are like her.”

Mirana wondered about that, but said, pleased, even as she shook her head, “Well, we won’t shout as yet.”

“Ah, no, obedient sheep we’ll be,” said Amma and she gave Mirana a fat smile.

“Say nothing to Sculla,” Mirana told Amma. “Even though he is a faithful husband, he is still a man, and a man is more loyal to other men in many things than to his wife.”

“I’ll say not a word,” Amma said, then she laughed. “I will prepare a barley soup that will make the men weep with pleasure.”

“And what of Entti?” Mirana asked.

“Ah, that sweet little simpleton will do as she’s told,” Old Alna said. “She has cooked the swill, we’ve not lied about that. Asta hands her pine bark and she adds it to the stew. Amma gives her turnip root and she merrily grinds it into a paste to throw into a soup.”

“Aye, with a sweet empty smile on her face. Now we’ll let her watch,” Amma said.

8

SHE LAY ON her side on the floor, wrapped in a single blanket. Her left wrist was chained tonight because he’d looked at the bruises on her right wrist, said nothing at all, and chained her left.

He hadn’t fondled her again, had scarcely even looked at her once they’d returned to the longhouse. She thought about her meeting with Amma and Old Alna. She was doubtless a fool to involve herself with the women’s problems, but the urge had been strong inside her and she’d done it. She hoped her plan would work. She hoped Rorik would wait to make his threats to the women, just a day, just to see if perhaps their fear of him would better their cooking. Aye, and when it did, how he would preen. How all the men would strut about, feeling so pleased with themselves. But not for very long. She wished she didn’t like the women so very much, but she did. She felt kinship with them now.

She listened to Rorik’s deep even breathing. She closed her own eyes and tried to copy his rhythm. It didn’t work. She lay there wondering what would become of her, wondering what Einar was doing to find her, if he was doing anything. She might brag of her half-brother before Rorik, but to herself, she admitted the truth. No, she had no idea at all what Einar would do. He was a strange man; she’d never understood the way he thought, why he behaved as he did.

Suddenly, Rorik’s breathing hitched, his chest heaved, and he groaned deep in his throat. He cried out, and then moaned, his voice deep and raw and filled with pain, “Nay! By Thor, nay! Inga, don’t leave me! By all the gods, no!”