“I know, I know. He’s an animal, a goat, he believes himself a stud, a stallion, a—”
“I don’t mean to bore you, Mirana,” Entti said, all stiff and cold. She rose and began to wring her hands. Mirana stared at those wringing hands and smiled.
“Listen, Entti. Why don’t you tell Hafter that if he pleads with you, if he shows sincerity and suitable adoration in his speech and in his voice, you will consider accepting him for a husband.”
“No.”
“Make it clear to him that you won’t let him take you until after you’re wed.”
“No.” Entti flung off the bed and began pacing. “I don’t believe what you are saying. We will escape, Mirana. You are nearly well. We will escape, perhaps tomorrow night. We will be free of all of them.”
Mirana felt a deep misery. She shook her head.
“You believe yourself safe now that you’ve been so ill? I hear things, Mirana, since I am a slave and of no account. Everyone speaks freely in front of me, all save Hafter, who just stares and broods and looks sour. I heard Merrik and all the other men talking, and his mother and father as well. None of them want you here. Perhaps they don’t want you dead, for surely that is too extreme a measure even for these cutthroats, but they want you gone. I think they fear you, fear that your half-brother will come for you, and thus it will begin again.
“As for Sira, that viper, the bitch would stick a knife in your ribs if she but has a chance. We must escape, Mirana, we must.”
“Do you want to, truly, Entti? Do you truly wish never to see Hafter again?”
“What choice do I have?” Her voice was low and dull and filled with despair. “I have no wish to remain and be made into a whore again. Aye, a few of the other men are looking more closely at me now since they realize that you can no longer protect me. Particularly Gurd. They will force me, Mirana, ’tis but a matter of time.”
Entti looked up to see Rorik standing in the doorway. He smiled suddenly, for he had heard her speak.
“Hafter is waiting for you, Entti. Go to him now.”
She shook her head, not moving.
“I gave you to him. You need have no fear of the other men. They won’t touch you. Hafter is now your master. Go to him now and do what it is he wishes you to do.”
“May you go to the Christians’ hell, Lord Rorik, and roast for all eternity.”
He paled. Anger wiped away the fear of her curse. He drew himself up. He had no intention of striking her. He had never struck a woman and he wouldn’t begin now. “You aren’t a whore, Entti. However, you are naught but a slave. You will do as I bid you.”
“She wasn’t a slave until you raided her town and stole her.”
“You will be quiet, Mirana,” he said. “As for you, Entti, it matters not that you weren’t a slave before. If your father or your husband or the other men couldn’t save what was theirs, they deserved to lose everything, including you. That is simply the way of things.”
Entti sa
id nothing more. She drew a deep breath, and walked past Rorik, head high.
Rorik rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Good. That is done, finally. Surely Hafter will tire of her by tomorrow, for he is sorely tried, and will plow her belly until the sunrise. Then he will see reason. Then he will agree to wed Sira and remove her from here.”
Mirana swung her legs over the side of the box bed and rose to stand nose to shoulder with him. “I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t have my friend abused just because you want Sira away from here.” She was wearing only her shift, a white linen garment that came only to her mid-thighs, but she didn’t seem to realize this. She walked from the sleeping chamber, her black hair in wild tangles down her back, her feet bare, her legs long and equally bare.
He stared at her, his brain at first refusing to work. Then he roared her name and ran after her.
He caught sight of her when she had reached the outer hall. She was in the midst of a knot of women and thus beyond his reach.
Erna was stroking Mirana’s hair with her one good hand, pulling it free of tangles.
Old Alna was clucking through her few teeth—it sounded like hissing—and was patting her bare arm.
Utta was standing back, merely staring at her, worship in her young eyes.
And Amma, that damned woman who had brought the other women to revolt, that woman who should have been a man, so solid was she and so filled with guile and cunning, why she held her hand over Mirana’s forehead, seeing if there was fever. Entti was nowhere to be seen. The other women just stood there, besotted looks on their faces. It galled him. Why did they give her their loyalty so quickly? Why had their loyalty escaped from him and flown to her?
Rorik gave it up for the moment. He went to Hafter, who was slouched on a bench against the far wall, a wooden mug of mead in his hand. He was staring at the floor between his feet. He did not have the look of a Viking warrior. He looked like a man beset, a man who had lost something dear and was at a loss as to how to retrieve it.