Surrender My Love (7 page)

She didn’t look appeased. She stood still now, those azure eyes glaring at him. “And I am to believe that? And you would also have me believe you are a Norse Viking? A Viking doing a
Saxon
king’s bidding? By Odin—!”

“By Odin, I swear ’tis so,” he cut in before she worked herself into a lather. “That I associate with Saxons is due to circumstance, in that my sister has wed one, no small feat, since she had been his captive slave first, and my father had already rescued her.”

Erika was ready to scream with frustration.
His other tales were bad enough, utter nonsense, but this last? Slaves marrying their captors? Did he think her a complete idiot?

She refrained from commenting on what he had just told her, too vexed to do so without losing her temper completely, strained as it was. “If you will not give me a name, mayhap I will send word to your King Alfred.”

“Nay, you will not, for
your
king, newly made Christian that he is, would not like it when Alfred lodges his complaint, that one of his emissaries has been falsely accused and treated so.”

“
Falsely
accused?” she repeated dryly. “When all you have to tell us are lies? If there is no one to ransom you, merely say so.”

Selig had no more strength for this. The dizziness was coming on again, and he was not even moving to cause it this time. He feared the fever he had sensed earlier was returning also. Nor was he sure who his antagonist was from one moment to the next, just that she was so lovely—and he hadn’t tried her yet.

He could barely concentrate to say, “You and I are not enemies, could never be enemies. Release me, wench. I am in need of a bed, yours if you like.”

Erika’s temper exploded this time, for him to be so crudely insulting, and in front of her men. “You dare! Mayhap a lashing will give you a civil tongue by the time I question you
again,
if
I question you again. I am more of a mind to let you rot in here!”

He didn’t notice the shadow that followed her out of his prison. All he saw was the malicious smile of the captain of the guard before he gave in to the pain and let the blessed blackness claim him once more.

Chapter 8

E
RIKA HAD MARCHED
no more than twenty paces when the horror of what she had just done broke through her fury and she stopped abruptly. Turgeis would have run into her if he didn’t know her so well. But he had hung back, expecting her to reverse her decision.

She was not cruel. Had the insult been dealt another of her station, she would have let the decision stand—it was warranted. But for herself she would turn the other cheek, just as she would take the blame unto herself. He wished she wouldn’t do that also, but she would.

He was correct. She was appalled by her actions. She had lost control.

The prisoner had made her lose it, but still, she was ultimately at fault for letting him. Yet no one had ever offended her like that Celt had done, and done so repeatedly. He deserved a lashing for that, truly he did, but she would swallow her gall and reverse her order. Nor would she hand him or anyone else over to Wulnoth for punishment. Even when a lashing was necessary, she ordered that another administer it. Wulnoth simply took too much pleasure in inflicting pain.

She turned to have Turgeis see to the matter, for she didn’t trust herself to deal with the Celt again. Her emotions turned to mush in his presence, her reactions beyond the norm, and that was unacceptable for someone in her position. But a shout from the hall drew her attention there first.

“Milady, come quick! ’Tis Thurston. He took a fall and I fear broke his arm.”

All else was instantly forgotten. Her nephew had been hers to care for since he was a babe of only two winters. Her motherly instincts took over, had her running toward the hall and through the doors, her heart slamming against her ribs, her complexion gone white, and whiter still when she heard the boy’s screams as she neared the bedchamber that was his.

He was on the bed. Two of the servants were trying to still his thrashing about. Their healer was already at his side, trying to soothe him. But this was Thurston’s first experience with serious pain. He continued to scream, holding the arm that was bent oddly, and Erika wished fervently that she could take the pain unto herself for him, but she couldn’t. All she could do was ease his fear of it, and she went immediately to his side to do that.

“Hush, now, my lad,” she said softly, cupping his dear face, a miniature of her brother’s, in her hands. “It hurts now, but in a few days you will be showing it off to your friends and telling them how brave you were.”

“But—but I am not!” Thurston wailed.

“But you will be now that you know
Elfwina will fix it good as new.” She turned to the healer. “Is that not so?” Her tone and expression positively dared the old woman to deny it.

“I will splint it—” Elfwina began.

“You will straighten it first,” Erika snapped at the woman. “’Tis his sword arm—will be his sword arm. He must have full use of it, and I have seen it done. Do it.”

The healer shook her head fearfully. “But I have never. I have not the strength—”

“Turgeis!”

Erika didn’t look to see if he was there. He was always there. And he came to the opposite side of the bed and, without being told, took hold of Thurston’s wrist.

“Hold him,” was all he said to her.

She did, gathering the boy up gently into her arms and whispering against his cheek, “This may hurt a bit more, dear heart, before it gets better. ’Tis all right for you to scream once more.”

He did, right in her ear, before he slumped in her arms, unconscious. She carefully laid him back down, wiping the tears from his cheeks, ignoring her own, glad he had fainted for the while. She caught Turgeis’s eye, was about to thank him, but remembered instead. The prisoner. And again the color drained from her face.

“Go!” she gasped out, praying she wasn’t too late. “Stop Wulnoth from hurting the Celt, and mayhap
you
can get a name out of him so we can be rid of him.”

Turgeis had only waited for her permission. He ran now, and the rafters shook down dust motes in his wake, the servants amazed to see a man his size moving so fast. But Turgeis was also afraid too much time had passed, and when he arrived at the pit, he wasn’t pleased to be proved right.

Wulnoth didn’t hear him enter, too intent on what he was doing. Turgeis caught his upraised arm before it could descend again, and used it to hurl the man across the room, where he slammed into the wall.

“She did not tell you to kill him,” Turgeis growled.

There wasn’t a man alive, Wulnoth was sure, who wouldn’t be terrified of this Viking if that man earned his fury. “I had barely begun,” he protested, though he said no more. Turgeis imagined that was so, that Wulnoth would have continued for several hours if he had had his way. Turgeis ignored him for the moment to see what damage had been done, and was relieved to see it was not serious.

The prisoner had been twisted around so he faced the wall, his tunic cut from his body and now lying at his feet. More than two dozen vivid welts were raised across the man’s back and tender sides, where the lash had curled around him. A goodly number dripped blood. But at least Wulnoth had not deviated from what he had been told. Erika had said a lashing, and he had used the short, multi-stripped lash rather than his skin-mutilating whip. The cuts didn’t
look deep enough to scar, as long as they didn’t fester, but the whole would cause considerable pain for a while.

Yet it was plain to see the man was unconscious. That, of course, wouldn’t have stopped Wulnoth. But it shouldn’t be so, not after so few strokes, and Turgeis could not credit that a man this size had so little tolerance for pain, when he knew what he himself was capable of withstanding.

Something was not right. He had thought so earlier, watching the prisoner wax repeatedly between seeming drunkenness that slowed his words and sharp clarity, between bemused confusion and perfect understanding wherein he had ready answers for each charge. And he had to be crazy to insult Erika as he had done, when his fate rested in her hands. That, or he had a death wish.

If Turgeis had thought those insults had been intentional, he would have challenged the man himself. But he didn’t think so. They seemed more a slip of the tongue, or a natural response to a woman. Either way, the prisoner hadn’t seemed surprised by the slips, hadn’t asked pardon for them, and hadn’t even realized he was giving offense.

Turgeis had also wondered why, with the kind of muscle that was capable of it, the man hadn’t yanked the hooked spike that his chains were attached to right out of the wall. Even if he had been biding his time for the best advantage, surely he would have prevented the lashing if
he were able. Only Wulnoth had remained to administer it. The man calling himself Selig the Blessed could have easily escaped. Yet he hung there against the wall, unconscious, his back crisscrossed with blistering stripes that would make movement extremely painful now.

Turgeis suddenly cast a suspicious look at Wulnoth, who hadn’t moved from where he had been hurled. “Was he even awake when you began this?”

“I did not notice,” Wulnoth replied belligerently, beginning to resent the Viking’s interference, since nothing more had come of it.

Turgeis grunted, a sound Erika would have recognized clearly to mean “You lie.” And in fact, he doubted the prisoner had felt any of the lashing yet. He also suspected Wulnoth had not bothered to rouse him because he had known full well his lady would recant her decision, and he did not want to lose a moment of wielding that lash while he had the opportunity. Wulnoth might prefer his victims to experience their torture fully, but in this case, he would settle for the pain that would be felt afterward.

Turgeis proved now what a simple matter it was to yank that spike from the wall if you had the strength for it, which he certainly did. He caught the man before he fell, surprised, even though he had expected it, that he was so heavy, despite a marked leanness across his torso that made the muscles stand out even more.

Turgeis carefully lowered him to the floor, laying him on his stomach, positioning his head on a bent arm. Holding him, he had felt the heat of fever, and now, the lump on the back of his head.

Again the Viking’s eyes pinned Wulnoth, with enough accusation in them that the captain of the guard started backing toward the door. “You lied to her,” Turgeis said low. “He has the injury he claimed to have.”

Wulnoth still lied, though his lack of color proclaimed it loudly. “I felt naught.”

“What you
will
feel—!”

Turgeis didn’t finish, unaccustomed to being this angry and showing it. He had learned at a tender age to control all emotion. His size demanded it. His one lapse had nearly killed his own brother, which was never forgotten, and why his brother had plotted to be rid of him.

He turned his back on Wulnoth, adding only, “Come near him again and I will kill you.”

A simple statement. He was a simple man of few words. In fact, he had said more this eventide than he had in the past month. And he had no idea what to do now. Illness and injuries were beyond his ken. But he couldn’t send for the healer yet. She would be busy still with Thurston. Erika knew the ways of healing also, but she would not leave the boy now either, and besides, he wasn’t going to tell her of this if he could avoid it. Which still did not tell him what to do for Selig the Blessed now.

He thought to move him to a cleaner place, but he didn’t think the man would notice much of his surroundings when he woke—if he woke. So he went out to summon one of the guards to him.

“Find a servant to fetch a pallet, blankets, candles, water—and food. Lots of food. Bring them to the pit, then wait outside the young lord’s chamber. The moment the healer leaves him, bring her to me.” The guard knew Turgeis well, sat near him at table each day, and was amazed to hear so much out of him. And he was not done. “Lady Erika is to know naught of this, especially that I need the healer.”

Turgeis returned to the pit, in time to hear the prisoner’s groan and a hissed “Thor’s teeth cannot be this sharp.”

He moved to squat beside him. The man hadn’t stirred other than to utter those words. He had spoken in Turgeis’s native Norse, and it had been sweet indeed to hear. As unlikely as it seemed, he was afraid everything the man had claimed was true. Wulnoth, that miserable slime, had accused him simply because he was a stranger to them, when they should have given him the aid he had been seeking.

The man’s eyes were squeezed shut, his fists clenched. Another groan escaped him. Turgeis could only guess at the headache that lump was causing.

Turgeis spoke Norwegian himself for the first time in many years. “I would suggest you do not move.”

A half moan, half chuckle. “I do not think I care to try. What ails me, that my back is afire?”

He had no memory of the lashing? That was good, yet shame stirred in Turgeis that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He could have prevented it. Erika should not have ordered it, and wouldn’t have if she hadn’t lost her temper. He decided not to answer that question.

“Give me the name of someone who will aid you.”

It seemed to Selig that he had waited forever to hear those words. It was what he had been seeking. Aid. Word sent to his sister so she would come for him. And he had found a fellow Norseman, someone he could trust.

“My sister, Kristen, wed to Royce of Wyndhurst, near Winchester. He will—”

He had moved slightly, unaware that it would send the nerves screaming across his back. That he instinctively tensed against the pain only made it worse. Air hissed out of him. Coherent thought fled.

“Be easy,” Turgeis said. “The healer will attend you shortly.”

Selig didn’t hear, for it had come to him why he was in so much agony. “She…beat…me. She actually…”

He could not retain the thought. It floated away with all the others, leaving nothing to explain what plagued him—until much later, when the laughter came, and with it, she.