Lord of Hawkfell Island (Viking Era 2)

“Take him to the storage hut. Anyone who wants to use him may use him, my women included. Do not beat him. I will see to him later. Ah, give him a blanket, I do not wish him to become cold.”

Sira was rubbing her throat. She looked at Einar now, and said, her voice and manner remote as a queen’s, “I would have killed him.”

“Aye, I believe you.” He touched her face, the smooth cheek, the soft hair at her temple.

“What of me, my lord?” she asked now.

Einar was staring at her breasts, then at her belly. “I haven’t made up my mind,” he said, “but I will. There is much to consider here,” and he walked from the longhouse.

Mirana knew she had to escape, tonight. She didn’t care about the risk. She didn’t want to die, but she knew well enough that if Einar found her again she would yell out the truth to him and he would kill her, that or humiliate her first, and he would do it more brutally than he had Lella. Ah, but perhaps death was preferable to the madness that festered here.

Hormuze was furious—with himself. He’d believed that once the king had managed to spend his passion with the young girl he, Hormuze, had found in the slave market and had personally trained, that the king would be content to wait now until the exact day and the exact month Hormuze knew from all his studies was the first fall month, and the first day of the fall month. Not before, not after.

But now Sitric wanted to fetch Mirana immediately. He didn’t want to wait to be transformed again into a young man, vigorous and potent, a man who would once more be able to take a woman as many times a night as he had three decades before. He wanted it now, despite the risks, despite the dangers Hormuze had cautioned him about.

Hormuze wanted to stick his dagger in the old man’s ribs. He tried to reason with him, even threatened that his youth would probably slip away like a fragment of a dream were he not to wait until the time exactly foretold by all the signs, but such lyrical reason was beyond the old man’s mind. No, Sitric wanted it now, he would risk all the dangers, the failure that could result by not listening to Hormuze.

He drew a deep breath and ceased his pacing. Very well. It was not far from the first day of the first fall month. It lacked but another cycle of the moon. It couldn’t really matter, could it? But no matter how he rationalized it, Hormuze knew deep down that his studies and his conclusions drawn from stellar signs hadn’t lied to him.

He was taking a big risk to fetch Mirana sooner, that moon cycle was critical, and deep down, he knew it.

But he also knew he had no choice. He couldn’t afford to lose the king’s trust, or he would lose everything. If he refused, Sitric would simply go fetch Mirana himself. No, he had to accept the risks. He would overcome the obstacles fate would doubtless place in his path. He always had.

He had heard rumors that Einar had lost his half-sister, that some Viking marauder had stolen her away, but then the rumors ceased and so he discounted them. The king’s court was always rife with rumors. Still, it worried him. Einar wasn’t a man of any honor to speak of. He trusted him only because Einar knew what riches lay in store for him if he delivered up his sister to Sitric. And she had to be a virgin; she had to be pure. She had to be clean of mind and spirit to be worthy.

Thus it was that the king, fifty of his warriors, and Hormuze left at first light the following morning for Clontarf, the Danish fortress held by Einar, son of Thorsson.

* * *

“They’ve left, Rorik.”

Kron was out of breath. Rorik waited a moment, then said, “Aye, I know it. Did you learn why?”

Kron nodded, then calmed his breathing. “I spoke to Aylla, the woman who owes her loyalty to Hormuze, the woman who nightly holds the king and chants her incantations to him. She said the king wanted Mirana now. He refused to wait longer. He wants his youth and his vigor returned to him now. Hormuze is displeased, but he had no choice but to obey the king’s wishes.”

Rorik turned away from Kron and looked down at the glowing embers of their fire. They were close to Dublin, camped in a pine thicket whose branches overhung the shallow tidal river, Liffey. It rained all the time, or so it seemed to Rorik. The air was many times so thick and heavy that it was difficult to breathe; the land was too green, too lush for Rorik’s tastes. It choked a man. The pine trees were crowded close by thick-branched strawberry trees and yew bushes and strange bloodred flowers that grew wild in the hedgerows.

He looked toward their two flat-bottomed longboats that had easily navigated the shallow muddy river and were now hidden beneath layers of pine branches not many yards away.

Rorik turned back when the embers suddenly sparked, striking each other loudly, and exploding small volcanoes of fire upward. He drew a deep breath and rose. He kicked sand onto the embers. Then he turned to his men who were waiting silently.

“We get the daughter now.”

It was easy, too easy, and Rorik worried about that. Hormuze’s daughter, Eze, was alone with her servant, an old woman with failing eyes. Kron lightly tapped the old woman against her head, caught

her when she crumbled, and laid her gently onto a floor mat.

The girl just stared at the big men who filled her room, all of them staring at her.

Rorik knelt beside her. He took her hand and held it gently. “I won’t hurt you, Eze. My name is Rorik. I will take you to see your father. He wants to take something that belongs to me and I must have you to trade. I intend you no harm. I know your father loves you. He won’t endanger you. All I want is what is mine. Do you understand?”

Eze nodded. Her papa was above all men and he would see that she was all right. She looked at this man, younger than her father, stronger perhaps, larger. But he didn’t frighten her.

“I understand you,” she said.

“You are a brave girl,” Rorik said and rose to his feet. “We must be away.” He stared down at the girl as she watched Hafter fetch her cloak from the trunk at the foot of her bed. She looked thoughtful, studious, a serious child. Then suddenly she smiled and something froze within him. He stared at her hard, then came down on his knees in front of her again. He turned her face to his. “Bring the light closer, Raki.” When it shone directly on the child’s face, Rorik felt his heart slow and his breath shorten. “By all the gods,” he said slowly, wanting to disbelieve but unable to. “This is a mystery beyond any I had ever expected.”

He took the cloak from Hafter and wrapped it around her. They were away from Hormuze’s spartan chambers within minutes. They were in the longboat and rowing down the Liffey by late afternoon.