He heaved and jerked. She felt the box bed moving in his frenzy. She came up onto her knees. He was thrashing, moaning, in the throes of a nightmare.
“Rorik! Wake up!”
He cried out again and again, softly, cries of great pain, of helplessness and misery too deep to bear.
“Rorik!”
He jerked upright in the bed, gasping for breath. She could make out his outline, but not the expression on his face.
“You had a nightmare,” she said calmly, leaning forward so she could see him better. The chain rattled as it struck against the wooden bed frame.
He looked over at her, kneeling up so she could see him, the chain dangling from her left wrist. The sound of that damnable chain clinking against the wooden bed. He shook his head. The nightmare . . . always there, the horror of it, the pain of it, always there in the back of his mind, freed at night to sneak in unchecked and hurt him and make him relive it again and again. He hated it and he couldn’t seem to escape it.
He said nothing to her. He hated her for hearing him relive the monstrous memory, for sounding defenseless as a child, hated her too for waking him from it even though he knew he should be grateful to her because she’d kept the dream from continuing to its terrible end, an end that didn’t always come because he hadn’t been there to see it. He had arrived too late, too late to do anything, save witness the misery and breathe in the acrid stench of death, and he’d felt it deep within him even as he’d fallen on his knees and keened his own agony and cursed his impotence, cursing himself because he hadn’t been there. He rose, realized he was naked save for the white bandage around his shoulder, and jerked a tunic over his head.
He drew a deep breath. His hands were shaking. He hated that too.
“Are you all right?”
“Aye,” he said shortly. “Go back to sleep. Attend to your own dreams and leave mine to me.”
He left the sleeping chamber without a backward glance.
Mirana eased back down and wrapped herself securely in the blanket. Who was Inga?
The next morning Old Alna came to release the chain. Rorik hadn’t returned to the sleeping chamber for the rest of the night. It was well after dawn now. She handed Mirana the gown and tunic she’d washed the night before.
“It was an excellent plan,” Old Alna said, “but it didn’t work. I had hoped he would wait, but he didn’t. Lord Rorik is speaking right now—before he or the men have had a chance to eat the wonderful porridge and flatbread. The gods have frowned on us.” The old woman sighed. “Come along, we might as well hear what he has to say. Perhaps you will have another idea.”
She led Mirana into the long hall, where at least three score people stood about or sat on the benches around the wall. But no one as yet had eaten, curse the fates. Rorik was speaking, his voice firm, but she heard the deep anger and wondered if the rest of them did. He was standing in their midst, his hands on his hips. He looked like the ruler he was; he looked determined. He also looked calm as a Christian priest and, at the same time,
primed for violence. It was odd, but it was true.
“ . . . I have had enough of this, as have all the men. You women will cease this cruel game with our meals. No more. It is ended. If there is one more foul stew presented, one more pot of cabbage mixed with oak bark, one more dish of anything that isn’t at the very least ordinary to eat, I will personally whip the woman or women who cooked it. Then each of my men will whip one of the women in turn. The only woman who won’t be punished is Entti. She will be spared, for it is not her fault that she has no skills with food. It is not her fault that you have forced her to continue, if it is indeed all her own efforts, which I strongly doubt. All of you understand me, for I do not spout these words for my own hearing. There will be no more of this, or the whippings will take place. I am the master here and I have spoken.”
He turned on his heel and left the hall.
Mirana wondered if there was an equal number of men to women. If there weren’t, then some women might escape the whipping, or if there were more men, then some . . . her brain stopped. Once Rorik left the hall, there was a babble of protest from the women. They’d moved away from the men, and were huddled into groups, shrieking, moaning, clearly unnerved. Old Alna merely stood to one side and grinned, showing her three remaining teeth. It was a pitiful grin indeed.
Most of the men were laughing and cheering, some were even rubbing their hands together in anticipation. The blacksmith, Gurd, bellowed, “Asta, bring your buttocks here, my fine wife! Aye, come or I will whip you now, with our lord’s good wishes, nay, his orders! Aye, he is not a man to disobey. You heard him, he is the master here.”
Asta shrieked, “I will see you rot in a salt marsh, you miserable unfaithful sod!”
Gurd, whose upper body was massive, the muscles bulging in his arms and chest, swaggered to his wife, grabbed her hand, and hauled her against him. He took her chin in his smoke-blackened hand, and said aloud, for all the men to hear, “I’ll plow Entti’s belly or any other woman’s belly whenever I wish it and you’ll not say me nay. Aye, you’ll feel the flat of my hand on your plump buttocks if you gainsay me ever again. Nor will you whine or goad me with tears or plaints. Get thee to the chores and bleat not with those other sheep. Aye, and bring me porridge. It had better be tasty or you will feel my anger.”
Mirana said nothing. She saw flashes of fear on some of the women’s faces, on others’, outrage, and utter defiance, and challenge. She saw the little girl Utta look at her father and frown. Amma looked defeated, but only for a moment. She was a determined woman, and very soon, her shoulders were squared and she was staring first at her husband, Sculla, then at the other women. Mirana knew there would be a meeting as soon as the men had left for the day to hunt. She wondered if the women would include her. She’d done them not a whit of good as of yet. She cursed quietly.
She left the longhouse. They would tell her if they wished her to be involved further. She hoped they would. She would enjoy teaching them the use of weapons. The prick of a knife was a more lasting memory than a pot of bark-filled stew. Aye, a man who knew that a woman could slice up his manhood with skill and no hesitation, that was a man who wouldn’t be so eager to brag about his rights and his power. Ah, but she was naught but a prisoner. How could she have forgotten that, even briefly the previous evening? There was nothing she could do for herself, let alone the other women.
It was a bright warm morning, the smell of the sea strong on the gentle breeze that was blowing from the east. Gray plovers, redshanks, and curlews flew overhead, dipping low, then soaring toward the white clouds. She smiled at their antics, identifying each one, savoring each one’s existence. There were so many of them, some she didn’t recognize. She drew a deep breath and looked for Rorik. He was at the palisade gates, speaking to several men. Probably telling them to fetch out their whips, she thought. She wondered how they would like it to have a whip slash across their backs. Kerzog sat beside Rorik, looking up at him, his fur ruffling in the breeze.
Mirana combed her fingers through her hair, then tied it back at the nape of her neck with a string Old Alna had given her. She wanted to bathe; she wanted to relieve herself. But more than that, she wanted to know what Rorik planned, if he truly meant he would whip the women if the food continued badly prepared. And why had he acted so quickly, even before he’d eaten the morning porridge? It didn’t seem right to her.
She walked to where Rorik was standing and stopped not two feet from him, her arms crossed over her breasts. Kerzog looked at her and wuffed softly. He didn’t move from Rorik’s side, but he began to wag his tail.
“Thanks be to Frey,” one of the men said gratefully. “They’ll obey you, my lord, aye, the women know you can only be pushed so far.” He grinned, then added in a wistful voice, “I wish I could have been there to hear you, to watch their sly expressions turn fearful.”
Rorik didn’t say anything to that, but remarked instead, “Yet I look at Kerzog here and he’s not suffered a bit. They fed the animals, themselves, and the children good food, and us, they gave swill.”