Loki's Daughters (17 page)

Ronan felt the ship rocking as Egil grasped the larboard side, and he lunged and grabbed the starboard side to maintain the balance. He threw his body aboard, landing roughly on the planked deck. With a huge sigh of relief, he lay for a moment on his back, feeling the change of the water as the Black Swan caught the river's current in the estuary and slowly pivoted toward the sea.

"A small problem," said Egil, who sat up on the deck, still breathing hard.

"What? All we've got to do is row back."

"No oars."

Perhaps he should resign himself to his fate. The gods had joined forces with a small band of Celtic women and were determined to thwart his dreams.

Nay. Not as long as he drew breath would he let a bunch of women defeat him. He leaped to his feet.

"The deck. Rip a plank off the deck."

"Aye." Egil leapt to the task, as the graceful ship glided in the current. Iron nails and wooden pegs squealed like mice as they pried and ripped up two long boards.

 
Ronan grabbed one and dashed to larboard, while Egil took starboard. They dipped their planks into the water, paddling the way an Irish Celt paddled a round coracle. The Black Swan slowed in her wayward journey toward the sea, but they made almost no progress against the current. And if both of them had to paddle against the current, who would steer? Despite its keel, the Black Swan was unbelievably awkward when used as a giant canoe.

"Try to head for shore. Any shore."

"Good idea. If we can move at all." Egil cocked his head toward the stream mouth. "Look. Help's coming."

Ahead of them, two small boats entered the estuary from the stream, Bjorn and Olav, and other men, rowing hard. The small boats bristled like hedgehogs.

The oars.

The little vessels pulled alongside. Men jumped aboard. Egil sighed as hard as Ronan.

"Thought you could use these," Olav said, as blandly as if he were loaning a knife, and passed the oars aboard. "At least, the imps didn't get a chance to hide them, too."

Ronan glared. There wasn't an awful lot left of his sense of humor. He barely spoke as he directed the replacement of the oars and joined the men in rowing back upstream to the Black Swan's berth.

"Loki's Daughters," he grumbled. Ronan jumped down into the water and used the last of his strength to help shoulder the longship onto the bank. It could not have been an easy task for a few women to have shoved her out into the flowing water. Particularly when most of them were being carted back to their homes in sacks. They had to have planned it carefully, and worse, figured out what the men were going to do.

"What's that?" Egil asked, looking about as exhausted as Ronan felt.

"Loki's birthed a whole tribe of women, solely for the purpose of driving us crazy."

***

The women gathered around Arienh's cottage hearth gabbed excitedly as she stirred the coals and added an extra faggot to ward off the early evening chill. She joined their laughter. But it worried her. They were having entirely too much fun.

"It was funny," Mildread said. "I wish you could have seen it."

"Took too long to get out of the sack," Arienh replied. For some reason, everyone thought that was funny.

Selma sighed, perhaps wistful, perhaps satisfied. "But how did you know they'd come looking for us? How could they have known we'd be there?"

"They probably didn't," said Arienh. "But we became very predictable. We've done something every night, after all. Wouldn't you think they'd figure that out?"

Birgit sniffed. "First time I go with you, and look what happens. Why do you have all the fun?"

Arienh laughed. "I thought you did rather well," she said. "Of course, I didn't think they would sack us."

"As long as I had your skirt to hang on to, I did all right. But then, when that sack came down over my head, I thought I'd lost my sight entirely."

Selma joined Elli in a fit of giggles.

"Never mind, Birgit," replied Elli, when she finished laughing. "I'm sure we can find something more to amuse you."

Birgit’s eyes sparkled with pale green devilment. "Actually, I did overhear something yesterday."

All heads turned in Birgit's direction, surprised. Mischief was not a usual part of Birgit's solemn disposition.

"They're looking for a place to bathe. Where the water is clear. Away from us."

"Oh?" sang the chorus.

"The Bride's Well," Birgit announced triumphantly.

"Good choice," Arienh agreed. "Meets all their requirements. Of course, the water's cold, coming off the falls, but they probably don't care."

"They're Northmen," Elli said with scorn. "They're used to the cold. Imagine how much could disappear while they're gone."

Birgit shook her head."Nay, they're onto that. They'll have a guard. The picking would be better right under their noses."

"Hmm." Mildread stood, rubbing her hands together. "I wonder if it's true, what they say about the Northmen's organs."

"I'll wager they're no bigger than any other man's," Elli said.

Arienh didn't like the turn of things. She'd have to proceed cautiously if she didn't want to lose control.

"Oh, I don't know, Mildread," Elli countered. "From what I've seen so far, they're of a fair size."

Mildread laughed. "And I think their breeches are stuffed."

Arienh knew better. She'd already had a good look. But this was taking a dangerous turn. And it wasn't a good time to try to issue orders. Every day, it seemed, the women listened to her less. She tried a less direct approach. "That’s not what you said before."

Mildread sneered. "A week's washing says they're stuffed."
 
"Can it really be worth that much to you?"she asked.

Birgit's green eyes took on an evil gleam. Her smile had faded away. "Can it matter? They say cold shrinks things. And they'll be cold enough when we're finished with them."

Selma stood, clasping hands together and grinning. "It would be worth that much just to watch them walking back without their clothes."

Arienh was aghast. "You cannot mean it."

"Done, then," said Mildread, matching Selma for wicked glee.

"And this time," said Birgit with a cunning smile, "you will watch the children, Mildread. I am going."

"You think so? I wouldn't miss this for a year's baked bread."

Arienh folded her arms. "Have none of you any sense? These are Vikings we're dealing with."

As if she had said nothing, Mildread turned back to Elli, Selma, and Birgit. "All right then, when we take their clothes, what'll we do with them?"

"Hang them up," said Birgit with a very sweet smile.

Arienh groaned. Even Birgit? What was the matter with them?

One by one, the women left the cottage, each peering around the door frame to check for Vikings. Arienh huffed to herself. If the men hadn't suspected their adversaries were up to something before, they certainly would know now. They were blockheads, all of them. But she might as well join them. How else could she avert disaster?

The bleating of the lambs drew Arienh to the door. Stepping out into the twilight, she saw the mixed flock of Celtic sheep and the ones the Vikings called black-faces coming down from the upper valley.

Furtively, she scanned about, seeking out the Viking who was her bane. She found him quickly, near the ash grove, bare-backed even in the chilly air, with a sheen of sweat over lightly golden skin. He gave one more healthy swing of his adze at the beam he was shaping, and straightened, looking straight at her as if he had known she was watching him. She snapped her head around to concentrate on the incoming flock, but she knew he wasn’t fooled.

She watched in fascination as the little black and white dogs culled out the white-faced Celtic sheep from the flock and, following the sharp whistles of their herder, sent the ewes and their lambs scurrying for her paddock.

Without a word, she threw a glare at the shepherd, whose name was Tanni. Well, at least they had returned the sheep as he had said. But that didn’t mean much. She closed the gate and began examining hooves and checking lambs for cuts and wounds.

Arienh didn’t like Birgit’s plot. In fact, she didn’t like the way anything was going. The women were having entirely too much fun, and that was not the aim, at all.

She herself had stolen the hoes from the shed and hidden them in the forest, only to find them standing heads up in the stream the next day. And every time she looked at Selma, the girl quickly looked away.

She had the sinking feeling she was losing control.

It would be funny, she had to admit, to see those grown men having to run about without their clothes. She had thought it a much better idea to get rid of the clothes entirely, or at least dump them into the pit where they had hidden the food they had stolen, but everyone else liked Birgit’s plan better.

The truth was, she was as cowardly as the rest of them, unwilling to provoke the Vikings' outrage completely. But if they did nothing, they would be stuck with these men forever. And that one in particular, who had vowed to make her his wife.

"I told you they would come back."

The very air sizzled with his words, like the wild sea spray from heavy waves against the sea cliffs.

She made no answer. She hated him. Hated the way he commanded her attention. It was as if she couldn’t help searching him out, the moment she stepped outside her cottage. And he always seemed to be there. Even now, she could not stop her eyes from seeking him out.

Of its own volition, her gaze skimmed over him in a way that brought heat to her face, studying the sheen of perspiration that collected in rivulets and gathered the sprinkling of dark hairs into a waving trek down the center of his chest. She knew where the trail led as it narrowed to a line that broke, then picked up again, to gather around the organ of which he was clearly so proud. It seemed to be in its usual state, she noticed. Some unruly thought in her kept wishing she had touched it when she had had the chance, just to see if it felt anything like what it looked. She gritted her teeth, willing the errant thought away, the way she chased away all thoughts of wanting to touch him. Then her gaze flitted to the scar, ugly and still dark. The stitches were gone. She winced, recalling his pain.

Nay, she should not care.

"It does not hurt," he replied as if she had spoken her guilt aloud, and a wide grin crossed his face.

"You seem almost to have forgotten it," she grumbled back.

He laughed. "It is not something I will ever forget," he said. "They will not let me."

"They will not?"

"Nay. Nor will they let Olav forget that he lost his way in the woods, trying to catch up to a laughing Celtic imp."

"They laugh at you?"

"Of course. I was stunned by a pair of beautiful green eyes, and let down my guard. They think it’s funny."

A Viking would let others laugh at him? She could not imagine it. Yet the first time she had seen him, she had noticed the laughing lines around his eyes. Even then he had tried to tease her into laughing with him.

She recalled what she had thought then, not of making jokes with him, but the tugging of regret at her heart that wished somehow this impossible man might live.