He raised a brow. “You are now a slave,” he said. “You are a relative to Rorik Haraldsson. Ingolf captured you on this Hawkfell Island, both he and Emund told me of it.”
“Aye, it is true enough that your men did capture me, but do I look like a slave to you, my lord?”
Mirana watched her with some detachment, as Einar weighed Sira, assessed her endowments. What would he do? She looked over at his two mistresses to see their reactions, but their heads were bent over their plates.
Einar did nothing for the moment, merely shrugged. “You will eat. I will decide other matters soon. Sit down, Sira.”
The slaves served her. Einar cuffed one small girl for no reason that Mirana could tell. She bit down on her tongue. She wouldn’t argue with him, not yet. Time passed. She ate and listened.
There was loud and boisterous talk and jesting. Men were always men and always the same, she thought, staring about the smoke-hazed large hall. The women drank as well, but they sat apart from the men, speaking quietly, occasionally giggling. The children were asleep long before.
Gunleik sat in the center of his men, but he was silent, eating slowly and methodically. Mirana had to speak to him alone. After Ingolf had struck him down, he had taken command of the longboat. It was only when they hit the storm that Ingolf realized he must recognize Gunleik’s authority, for he didn’t want to die. Gunleik looked better now, though his head still hurt him severely. She had to speak to him alone. Mayhap she could see him later when all were asleep.
Even after the long meal Einar wasn’t drunk, but most of the men were. Ingolf came to his lord and said, his voice slurred with too much mead, “I have come for the woman, my lord. I captured her. I want her. I would have her now.”
Einar spared a glance toward his minion. He steepled his fingers in front of him.
“I want her,” Ingolf said again, his jaw thrust forward, and this time he sounded more belligerent in his drunkenness.
“Mayhap I want her too,” Einar said slowly. “Surely she would not prefer your ugly face to mine, Ingolf. What say you to that? Would you still insist in the face of your lord’s spoken desires?”
Ingolf began to laugh. Mirana saw that the mead he’d drunk had not only given him more confidence than was wise but that it also loosened his tongue. He said, “I’ve seen you with your new slave, my lord. Aye, a pretty one this time, so very pretty.” He laughed louder when Einar merely looked at him, a brow raised in question. Ingolf belched. “Nay, it isn’t Sira you want,” he said again, and Mirana knew that his drunkenness had made him forget who and what his master was. He looked over at a beautiful young girl, sitting quietly and alone, pointing a shaking finger at her, and laughed and laughed.
It was the last sound he made. Einar rose in a single fluid movement, quickly unsheathed his knife and slipped it into Ingolf’s heart. Just one swift movement inward then a slight twist upward. Ingolf stared at him, then sighed softly, and sank to the floor.
No one said a word. The air in the vast room seemed to have been sucked out. There was no sound, even the dogs were quiet. It was a terrifying silence, a disbelieving silence.
Mirana had despised Ingolf, had come to fear him on the four-day journey back to Clontarf, but to see him struck down as if he were naught more than a rabid animal, of no account at all, made her gag. If nothing else, he was loyal to Einar. He’d drunk too much mead, spoken too much, and now he was dead. Simply dead. He’d said something about a new slave, nothing more. He’d laughed. Why had Einar killed him? Just because Ingolf had laughed at him? Just because he knew Einar had another new mistress? She looked at her half-brother’s serene expression, aye, serene save for his green eyes that gleamed with a ferocious light. She was frightened, very frightened. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
Einar said, “Get him out of here. We don’t wish his spirit to remain with us. He was foul in thought and his spirit would be no different.”
She didn’t watch the men remove Ingolf’s body. She looked at Sira. To her astonishment, there was a smile on her mouth. She was staring at Einar and she was smiling. She leaned slightly forward so that her radiant hair fell over her breast.
The men went back to their drinking. The women couldn’t seek out their beds until the men stopped their drinking, which it didn’t seem they would do for a good many hours yet.
It was some time later when Einar called out, “All of you, my brave men, the best warriors in all Ireland, listen to me. Some of you know my wondrous news, others don’t. I said nothing until my dear sister was returned to me. Now all of you will learn of it. Our King Sitric wishes to wed her. Aye, our family will be allied with the royal family. Her sons will rule Ireland. It will be done soon now, the first day of fall. We will all benefit from this alliance, doubt it not. We will all add riches to our coffers.”
It was done. She wasn’t surprised. She looked at Gunleik. He looked pale and ill. He would help her, he had to. She realized suddenly—with a clarity and certainty that left no room for doubt in her mind—that if she told Einar she didn’t want to marry that old man, that she was already married, that she wasn’t a virgin, he would stick his knife into her heart.
He’d killed Ingolf with no hesitation, and the man had really done naught to anger him. But if she told Einar the truth, she couldn’t begin to imagine the depths of his rage, or his disappointment. He would surely kill her for ruining his grand plans. She didn’t doubt him capable of it for a moment.
She held her tongue. She couldn’t plead or beg, although she imagined he would be amused by it.
There was much toasting and cheering. She noticed the women looking at her. They weren’t cheering.
Sira was smiling and drinking the sweet mead Mirana had made the previous summer.
Einar continued speaking to his men, his closer friends, those men who hadn’t drawn back when
he’d so swiftly and easily killed Ingolf. Those same men were now drawn close, listening avidly to his plans of greater wealth and power and how they would all profit. For the most part, they were simple men, strong men, fighters all of them, but wealth and power and slaves beckoned to the most honorable of them.
Finally, Einar turned to her. He clasped her hand tightly in his and drew it up to his mouth. He kissed her fingers. She didn’t move, didn’t draw back, remained still as a statue.
“I trust this will please you,” he said, looking at her directly.
“Nay,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
The flash of rage was in his eyes, then gone so quickly she wondered if it had ever been there at all, but she knew that it had. She had to go carefully. She’d tested the waters and escaped, this time at least.