Chapter Four
“Men,” she snorted to herself. “So predictable.”
Eat. Fight. Sleep. This was all they wanted to do.
She rested against a tree, the forest’s loamy soil seeping into a hole in her boot. Gathering firewood wasn’t bad. No one bothered her, and walking through tranquil woods was a kind of heaven. Slipping off her ankle boot, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder. This was the first moment of peace since she was stolen. To be in Rurik’s watchful sphere was a comfort.
Shaking out her shoe, she watched the camp. Thorvald’s voice pitched high like a woman’s while his paws cupped his chest, mimicking huge breasts. The smash-faced giant bent forward, and whatever he said, loud guffaws followed.
Of course, there was sex. How could she forget?
Eat. Fight. Sleep. And have sex.
Men worshipped their baser needs, be they Viking or Frankish. Only one man worried her—the quiet, forceful Viking reclining against a rock with his men. Rurik relaxed by the campfire, one knee up, his other leg stretched out. He was handsome when he laughed, handsome when he didn’t. His manner confused her. Brutish one moment, heart-stoppingly gentle the next.
Slipping on the ankle boot, she acknowledged another truth. The Viking wanted her sex and her secrets.
He’d get neither.
The cool forest couldn’t stop warmth settling in her abdomen when she watched him. Rurik was untamed. At home in all this open land. The unforgiving line of his mouth should have made her shudder. But, no. Her pulse quickened. Even from this safe distance, standing under a canopy of spring-green trees. What Rurik had said about useful talents for her mouth was base. She’d grasped his meaning because her married sister had spoken freely of what men and women did in the dark.
She touched her lips. Would the Viking ask her to do that to him? It wouldn’t compromise her maidenhood.
A quiver rippled over her skin. The thought of her mouth on his flesh there...
Her sister had said men loved it, and women did such things for coin. She was no different, bartering for safe passage to Paris. This was survival. And the Viking required payment.
Her hand slid down the front of her tunic. Coarse cloth scratched her palm, but underneath it her body thrummed differently. She was better off quashing this curious hum. For the good of her family’s future, she needed to go home a virgin.
Looking to the camp, her gaze collided with storm-blue eyes. She stilled. Forest creatures rustled in the underbrush. The Viking’s head tilted a fine angle. He took in her hand resting below her navel. Her breasts tingled warm and heavy. Rurik had an odd power about him. It was easy to see why others followed his lead. His manner was strong and sure, quiet and constant.
“Safira. Come,” he beckoned, patting the ground beside him. “You have been gone long enough.”
There was no mistaking his tone. He gave a command, not a suggestion. She gathered scraps of wood at her feet, her collection from the last hour, and wandered through the clearing under his watchful eye. The rest of the Sons ignored her. She was baggage to these men—except for the Viking leader sharpening his knife. A quick glance showed an empty road. Long shadows crept across the land.
Night was coming. Rurik would demand his due.
How could she stop him?
She set her load by the fire and threaded through the circle of men, their wet hair combed and Erik and Gunnar with clean-shaven jaws. All but Rurik had taken turns at the river, and now they settled down for the evening, a loose circle around the campfire. Thorfinn polished an axe head. Thorvald conversed with Bjorn while shearing a branch for Erik to cook their meat.
To a passerby, the simple gathering could be friendly. She smirked. Imagine...friendly Vikings.
Rurik sprinkled water on a whetstone, not bothering to look up. “We will go to the river later.”
We. Her heart sank.
“You won’t let me go alone?”
“No.”
“Why? I am not a captive.” She picked up her neatly folded cloak off the rock he used as a back rest. Someone had shaken it free of dust. Rurik?
He dragged his bone-handled knife over the whetstone from hilt to curving tip. “You are a thrall in my protection. Wolves roam these woods at night.” His eyes slanted to her. “I won’t explain myself again.”
She sat beside him, folding her legs beneath her. “How could I forget? Your word is law.”
His smile was pure male satisfaction. “Good. We understand each other.”
The Viking lost himself in the cadence of his work. Veins roped under sun-burnished hands sliding the knife up and down the whetstone. An ugly, jagged scar marred his right hand, the slash disappearing under his arm brace at the wrist and showing on the other end by his elbow. The same hands had wielded a sword with ferocious skill. She’d seen it when he and his men had practiced sword play their first night at Sothram’s outpost. He was artful with his sword, wielding it like a wicked extension of his arm and his will.
She smoothed her nape, pulling free hair she’d tucked into her tunic. What manner of things had Rurik done to get a scar like the one on his arm?
Iron scraped stone beside her, the crackle strange and hypnotic. Her flesh pebbled. There was intimacy in sitting with him while he labored. Folding her cloak around her, she tried to hide every inch of exposed skin. She needed this measure of control. To think. But the Viking filled her senses. Under her lashes, she traced his long leg stretched casually in the grass, starting from the big boot, going past his knee to a powerful thigh clothed in black.
The same thigh had pinned her to his bed this morning.
Would Rurik drag her off into the woods and pin her to the forest floor? She swallowed dryness in her throat. The Viking didn’t act like a man anxious to ravage her.
Wraiths of smoke drifted between them, the haze floating over palm-sized leather pouches by her hip. “Are these goods for trade?”
The knife sharpening stopped mid-swipe. “Some. Others are things I’ve carried too long.”
“May I look inside?”
“As you wish.”
Glad for the diversion, she unloosed the first pouch and sniffed. “Yarrow. Good for aches and pains common to the ague.” Her thumb and forefinger dipped inside and pinched dried bits. “I hope you did not pay for this since the plant grows abundantly here.”
Rurik wiped his knife across his trousers. “I paid three deniers.”
“Three deniers? For these weeds?” Her voice pitched high with disbelief. “You were cheated, Viking, and all this time I thought your people were wily traders.”
“Some might argue I wield my sword better than my trading purse.”
“I cannot picture it. The mighty Viking fleeced by a sly merchant.”
He sheathed the knife, a grin breaking his rugged profile. “You’ll be doubly amused to hear the sly merchant was an old beggar woman.”
The Viking faced her and her heart stuttered. Was it his easy smile? Or the gruff warrior laughing at himself because he fell prey to an old woman’s ploy? Her mouth opened for a retort, but the words crumbled on her tongue.
No. It was neither.
Canny light danced in Rurik’s eyes. There was a challenge in their depths.
Look deeper.
Thick smoke floated sylph-like and mysterious between them. She could almost picture Rurik at her father’s table, but a light breeze cleared the air and the gleaming sword and battle-gouged shield on the ground beside him ruined the image.
Brows furrowing, she knotted the leather bag. “You would have me believe you meant to give the woman your coins? Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Which one is harder to believe? That there is goodness in my heart? Or that I gave coins to an old woman?” His smile was heart-melting. “Women usually like me.”
“Is that before or after you burn down their house?”
Laughter rolled up his chest. “Depends on the woman. Some, I protect. Some, I steal their gold.” His smile curved higher on one side. “Some, I steal their secrets.”
Ohhhh... A dangerous spangle warmed her inner thighs. With his rough good looks and quiet quality, it was easy to believe women sought the Viking leader for safety and for sex. She set the pouch in the grass and pulled her cloak tighter. Rurik was toying with her. She should have a care. He was older than the rest of his men and by sheer fact of survival, likely smarter. It would not do to underestimate him.
“Stopping so soon?” Rurik nodded at the untouched bags. “What about those?”
“I don’t know...”
“Afraid of what you’ll find?” he taunted.
“Nothing about you frightens me, Viking.” She licked her lips, unable to name the turmoil spinning inside her.
What if she uncovered pleasant things? Likable things. Her mind had neatly placed Rurik on a shelf labeled Pagan. Violence, cruelty, and death cluttered there. But the man beside her brought to light new, fascinating words such as orderly, kind, and—heaven help her—sensual.
“They’re small leather pouches,” he said dryly, his smile fading. “And you are afraid.”
Firelight bounced off iron hobnails encircling the wolf on his chest. Specks of dried blood stuck to the creature—Rurik’s blood from this morning. He lived by the sword, yet she squirmed as if she’d committed a grave error. What was the greater wrong in his eyes?
Her dismissing him as a heartless warrior? Or her hesitation to learn of him?
She snatched up another sack. “Fine. If you want me to keep touching your things, so be it.”
Rurik’s brows arched.
Jerking the ties free, she bent her head, aware she let the Viking goad her. She shut her eyes and lifted the pouch to her nose, all the better to block out the man beside her. Breathing in the contents tickled her senses.
“This is...soap. It smells of...honey—” her eyes opened wide “—and you.”
A flush spread up her cheeks. She’d caught his scent when he’d lain on top of her. Was it only this morning she’d climbed into his bed box, bartering for safe passage home?
He studied her as if entertained by the talent of her nose. “Very good. The soap was milled with honey.”
“Made by a woman.” She hesitated. “Your wife, perhaps?”
Why did her voice strain over the last word? His answer shouldn’t matter, yet the wait was like holding on to thin threads on a loom. Hard eyes searched her, the firelight catching the gold tips of Rurik’s brown lashes.
“I have no wife.”
She retied the soap pouch and set it down, shaken at her gladness in hearing Rurik was unmarried. Facing the campfire, a breeze blew strands of hair across her eyes. The men passed around a flask of wine, laughing and talking. She didn’t know what to do with this ease sitting amongst Vikings. Never had she mixed with coarse soldiers, much less pagans. King Rudolph forbade large numbers of foreign warriors inside the gates of Paris. Visiting leaders entered with a modest honor guard, their remaining fighters staying on the banks of the Seine by colorful tents. Those men had gathered around fires, their bold eyes marking her as she studied them from the safety of her litter when crossing the Paris bridge.
Being with the Forgotten Sons broke her comfortable boundaries. The Viking leader knew it. Each time he looked at her was a dare.
“We could go to the river now. I’ll share my soap,” Rurik said in good humor. “I thought you would prefer less light—”
“Because you will watch me,” she snapped.
“Because I will protect you.” His predator’s gleam was back.
“Watch, protect, possess. It is all the same with you.” She gripped her cloak tightly under her chin. What if it had been Rurik brazenly tracing her exit from Paris?
“I wouldn’t want you hurt before I return you safely to your master.” His voice was steel and silk.
The Viking was dangerous, coming at her again for information. She had her doubts about the beggar woman cheating him out of three deniers for yarrow. But the alternative—a fierce Northman showing goodwill to an old beggar?—was too much to grasp.
Resting an arm on his upraised knee, he laughed easily. “You will tell me what I want to know soon enough. How else can I see you safely home?”
“Take me to the gates of Paris. I will find my way from there.”
“And leave you unguarded?” Mocking humor threaded his voice...the predator having fun with his prey.
“I have lived all my life in Paris.” She leaned close, her words rushing together. “The only thing we fear is Vikings not staying on their side of the Epte River.”
“Yet you asked a Viking to save you.”
“It is only because—” She stopped short.
“Because what?” he prompted softly.
Rurik was a wolf circling. Twilight blackened trees behind him, the dark silhouettes a reminder: night was coming. Though they sat calmly in the grass, threats came at her like unseen arrows from all sides. She’d almost spilled her secrets. If the Viking knew who she was, it’d be disaster. She hugged herself and sat back against the rock she shared with him.
Take first. Ask later. It was his way. She would do well to remember that.
“I’m a patient man.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. “You will tell me everything. Who you are, why you were at the Saxon’s outpost, and who waits for you in Paris.”
Everything. The word echoed in her mind. He said it confidently, as if women poured out their deepest thoughts to him all the time. Forceful one moment, gentle the next, Rurik of Birka baffled her.
“Then you wait for nothing,” she said, giving him a Gallic shrug.
“I have a feeling someone will pay for your return.”
“Is that what concerns you, Viking? Claiming a reward?” She glared at Rurik, wanting him to deny his lust for gold. “Fine. Take me to the back of my master’s house in Paris. I promise there will be a small reward for my safe return.”
“Such assurance,” he scoffed. “A slave spending her master’s wealth.” His gaze ranged over her hair. “Nor do you look like a woman who labors in the back of anyone’s house.”
“Rurik. Safira.” Gunnar cut in, raising an ampoule of wine. “Want a drink?”
She shook her head. She needed to keep a clear mind. Rurik waved off the wine, gathering the small pouches. In the clean-up, a pouch fell out of his saddle bag. She reached for the untied bag, and pieces of amber tumbled across her palm.
“Stop.” His fist closed fast over her hand.
She tried to pull away, but long fingers held strong. “You don’t want me to see these?”
Fire lit half of Rurik’s face. He was stone-like and mute, unmoving save a tic in his jaw. This was an unexpected turn. For all her goading, she loathed disturbing the beast. Rurik’s snaps and snarls were manageable, even his confusing gentle side. Not this remote silence.
“I think you do not.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
A lull fell over the camp. The men’s heads turned one by one to her, their scrutiny boring holes in her profile. She was the outsider, a fact none would let her forget. The Viking trapped her hand in his grip, the same as he had that morning. This time, a whisper as old as time warned her, there was wisdom in yielding.
“I cannot give them back, if you do not let go.”
Rurik’s eyes narrowed and his big hand released her. “Take your fill.”
Smooth amber rolled onto her lap. Rurik reordered his leather bag to murmured conversations filling the camp. Bjorn’s scrutiny bounced between Rurik and her as she held both pieces up to the firelight. Shades of gold and honeyed-brown shined through polished stones with half-done sketches. The amber was noteworthy. The artwork was not.
“Pretty. They’d be worth more if they were finished.” She squinted at the half-done image, trying to figure out what the picture was meant to be.
Rurik snatched the stones. “That’s enough.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. The artwork is fair, but unfinished carvings rarely fetch a good price.”
He dropped the pieces in the bag. “I’ll never sell them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I won’t.” He jammed the pouch in his saddle bag. “Not everything has a price.”
A low laugh escaped her. “Everything and everyone has a price.”
“Spoken like one who knows?”
“Women especially.” Bitterness tinged her words. If he meant to goad her, it wouldn’t work. She’d long ago accepted a certain truth—a woman, free or slave, was currency.
Rurik’s mouth slanted at her wisdom, and he passed over a hudfat. “As a thrall, you would be familiar with this.”
Her fingers dug into the Viking sleeping fur, the one she would share with him to pay for her passage home.
“Not. Yet,” she said, passing it back.
He chuckled at the hudfat dumped in his lap. Her brows knit at a single, vexing fact. Rurik had not forced himself on her. She was as comfortable sitting on the grass with him as she would be sitting at home. Safe. At ease...some of the time. And she’d touched his belongings.
One last pouch lay forgotten on the ground. She picked it up, and the contents moved like tiny pebbles inside.
“You left this one in the grass.”
“Aren’t you going to see what’s in it? Tell me if I traded well or not?”
She slipped two fingers into the opening and sniffed. “Peppercorns.”
“Half are worthless. I need to toss out the bad pods.”
“You cook? This I would want to see.”
His crooked smile made him boyish. “As a last measure if no one else can. Erik is the best with food.”
Her spine rested against the rock. “You are unusual for a leader of warriors. Your word is final, yet you serve your men as if you all stand equal.”
If he answered, she didn’t hear him. She upended the pouch, drawn to the shriveled pods in her palm. Half were red and the other half were black peppercorns, all worth their weight in gold. A spiced lemon aroma wafted from the red-brown pieces. No. Those red pods were worth more than their weight in gold.
“You traded well, Viking.” Hand under her nose, she breathed in the spices. “Red peppercorns. They are tantalizing, no?”
“They’re rotten. I should’ve dumped them long ago.”
She gasped. “These are not rotten.”
“Peppercorns should be black. Those pods are obviously bad.”
“No!” Her fist curled protectively over the uncracked spices. “You must listen to me. Red peppercorns—”
“Rurik,” Erik’s voice rose in the camp. “Take a look. Our provisions.”
The dark-haired Viking upended a leather bag. A lumpy apple bounced past her feet. Blackened beets and slimy, worm-covered meat tumbled after it.
Thorvald picked up molded bread, his face twisting. “The Saxon wench gave us bad food.”
Erik emptied the second bag. Mashed berries, gouged spring plums, and rotten cheese dropped onto the grass, bringing an awful, pungent odor.
Thorvald kicked a bad onion into the fire. “Sothram’s wife got revenge on us after all.”
“We could ride back,” Erik suggested. “Get fresh provisions...and then we burn Sothram’s hall to the ground.”
Safira hugged herself, warding off an unholy shiver. Murmurs of agreement circled the camp. This was how they lived. Violence and vengeance were their watchwords.
Rurik shook his head. “We’ve made too much ground. We need to reach Rouen by the first of Midsumarblot.”
“A point you have made often, but we need food.” Bjorn took measure of Rurik, his mouth a firm line. “Revenge on the Saxon makes sense.”
Rurik rose to full height. “So does getting to Rouen. The ermine will fetch the best price on the first day of the feast.”
“Rurik is right.” Erik wiped his hands. “The wealthiest merchants never stay long.”
“What are we going to eat?” Thorvald tossed molded bread into the fire.
“We could go to the village,” Gunnar said, pushing off the ground.
“For trading?” Bjorn fingered his polished hammer. “Or raiding?”
Safira scrambled to her feet, a chill scraping her spine. She inched closer to Rurik. How quickly the men shifted from friendly travelers to wolfish warriors. She’d believed she could find common ground with the Forgotten Sons—a fool’s errand when this veneer of savagery lurked under the surface.
There had to be a better solution than pillaging the peaceful people of Abbod village.
“No raids. We’re guests in Longsword’s land,” Rurik said to the men. “I have a few peppercorns I can trade, though half are rotten.”
She touched his elbow. “These red peppercorns. They are not bad.”
“Then keep them for your food.”
Head shaking, she couldn’t believe she was helping him again. She sifted through the pods, dumping only black peppercorns into the pouch. “No. You will take me to the village, Viking. I will do the trading.”
Gunnar coughed into his balled hand, and Erik’s surly visage darkened. Even gentle Thorfinn scowled at her. She closed her hand around the red pieces and took a step back.
“Why do you all look at me so?”
“Rurik gives the orders,” Bjorn said in the manner of a patient teacher. “He doesn’t take them. Least of all from you.”
Five hard-eyed glares could be a wall closing in on her. She shrank back and took a deep breath. She was the interloper here. It would be wise to heed their ways.
“Forgive me.” She turned to Rurik, raising her hood. “For the good of everyone, I ask that you let me trade for food in the village with you.”
“With rotten peppercorns?”
She sighed. “They are not rotten.”
“I warn you,” Rurik said, grabbing his sheathed sword off the ground. “If some merchant’s wife cries foul...”
She held up a staying hand. “I will be the soul of good manners.”
“The same as when you kicked Sothram?”
The men laughed, and Rurik strapped the sword onto his back. She scanned the circle, all of them on their feet, tall and skeptical at the small-boned foreign woman in their midst. Their smiles ranged from Erik and Thorvald’s grim show of teeth to Gunnar and Thorfinn’s mild friendliness.
“Laugh now, but all of you will sing my praises...even you, Thorvald.”
The giant snorted and lobbed a beet into the trees. “Whatever you do, do it quickly. A beast growls in my stomach.” He retreated to the camp’s perimeter, a bearded war axe over his shoulder. “I’ve got first watch.”
“I know how to trade.” Voice firm, she eyed Rurik. “Better than you, I’d wager.”
Massive arms folded across his chest. “You think you’re that good.”
“I know I am.” She gave him what had to be her first confident smile since leaving the Saxon outpost. “But it will come at a price.”
“I have heard that before.”
“I have learned hard lessons, Viking.” She took a step closer, speaking to Rurik alone. “We are all bought and sold in one manner or another...a truth ingrained in me the moment I sprouted breasts.”
She winced at the admission. It wasn’t meant to be said aloud, but her tongue got the best of her. To his credit, Rurik held her gaze, not once perusing her substantial breasts draped by an ugly cloak.
“Harsh words from a young woman who, if I’m guessing right, has never toiled a day in her life.” Strong hands, the nails clean and trimmed, fastened the sheath’s buckle. “Tell me, what is your price this time?”
She stood toe to toe with the Northman, enlivened. Free. The day, fraught with danger and fast riding, thrilled her. The trees, the sun and wild, open land, and yes, this Viking. Fierce and complex, Rurik made her blood hum. Nagging disquiet at being in a camp with six Vikings she’d met the night before faded to nothing...especially the leader with his harsh, beautiful mouth that curved into the most endearing smile.
Men strapped on weapons as if going to battle, not to barter...small axes tied to long thighs, knives set in sheathes and boots, vicious swords gleaming. Living by the force of their hands was their domain. Spice trade was hers.
“I propose a challenge.”
Rurik’s hands slowed on the buckle. “Name it.”
“Whoever makes the better trade, wins.”
He slid the leather strap through metal, his stare meeting hers. “And who determines the winner?”
She glanced at his men restless for food. “Why, the Forgotten Sons will.”
Rurik shook his head, his mouth turning in a humored, confident line. No doubt the Viking leader assumed victory was his. The pods were pebble-like in her hand. Tiny gifts. They’d saved her. She pressed her fist against her breastbone, relief making the ground light underfoot.
“And your prize?” he asked.
“If you will allow, I will name mine after I win.”
“Done.” Snapping his fingers, he called out, “Erik. Gunnar. Escort Safira to the village and see to her safety. She will conduct her trade on one side of Abbod while I conduct mine on the other. And men, we walk into Abbod, weapons sheathed.” He glanced at Bjorn. “You go with me. Thorfinn will stay with Thorvald.”
She nearly twirled with happiness. She would keep the wolf at bay.
Rurik of Birka was sure of victory. So was she. This battle roused her. That it pitched her against the Viking leader made the match all the better. With Thorvald watching over the camp from a tree, the men prepared to leave. Horses snickered from their places tethered to the rope. Erik tossed another piece of wood on the fire. Sparks fanned high, bits of gold flaring against indigo skies.
“Now it is for you to name your prize, Viking.”
Rurik donned his helmet, firelight rimming his iron eye rings. His gaze swept to the rock he’d used as a back rest. Coils of cloth sat there, shorn strips she hadn’t seen before.
A smile ghosted his mouth. “Like you, I’ll wait.”
She studied him, the folds of her hood grazing her cheek. They shared a private contest, and Rurik fed on it as much as she did. This fierce warrior leader demanded obedience, yet he craved her spirit. That truth lit up his face.
“I think you like our game,” she said.
His nod was noble. “You think right.”
Humming, she marched across the clearing, red peppercorns in her fist. Her certain victory emboldened her. On the road, she turned to the camp, where the men stared dumb-founded as if she were some unknown creature.
Laughing, she eyed Rurik and waved at darkening skies. “Come, Viking. Our game is upon us.”