The Pagan's Prize (13 page)

The boat dipping and swaying beneath her like a flimsy
piece of flotsam wasn't helping her hollow stomach either. She had never
imagined a river could be so rough, but then again, she'd only traveled smaller
routes in the past. They were now on the great Dnieper, one of Rus Land's main
trade routes. When she had caught a glimpse of the vast river before she had
been whisked aboard late yesterday afternoon, appearing as wide as any three
she had ever seen, it was still swollen from the spring thaw, the currents fast
and dangerous.

Hearty male laughter erupted outside again. Zora frowned.
The Varangians certainly seemed relaxed now that they were a night's journey
from Liubech.

Before today the mood had been much darker. The tension
resulting from her screaming fit in the forest had been palpable enough to cut
and had lasted until well after they set sail. Although it had become clear
from eavesdropping on Rurik's low-spoken conversation with his men that the
small trading town posed no threat, he hadn't said more than a sentence to her.

He had thrust her inside this stuffy, hastily constructed
tent and roughly removed her gag with a terse threat that she had better remain
quiet or else. She had been tempted to fling at him, "Or else what?"
but had reluctantly held her tongue. His scowl had been fearsome. Obviously his
anger toward her had not abated.

Eventually she had fallen asleep, so exhausted from
their long ride that she couldn't keep her eyes open. At one point in the night
she had half awoken to the unsettling sensation of someone watching her, but
when she had rolled over to look, she was alone. She hadn't opened her eyes
again until a short while ago.

"Shall I take the wench some food, my lord?"
came an unknown male voice.
At last
someone had thought of her needs!
"She's probably awake by now and I
imagine she's hungry," the voice continued.

"You heard my orders, Kjell. If she wants
something to eat, she can come out here and fetch it. I don't want to see any
of you waiting upon her. She may be Grand Prince Yaroslav's niece, but I'll not
have you taking your minds off your duties to coddle some spoiled, overindulged
princess."

Spoiled!
Zora
thought, outraged.
Hardly!
Hermione
had always seen that she remembered her place in the
terem
whenever their warrior father wasn't around, which was much
of the time. And if she had known she was free to leave the tent without fear
of rebuke, she would have done so earlier!

Rising to her feet, Zora quickly smoothed her hair—the
shortened length of her braid blatant testimony to Rurik's cruelty—and adjusted
her rumpled clothes. Then she swept from the tent to stand blinking at the
bright morning sunshine.

"Ali, Princess Zora. So you've decided to join us."

She shielded her eyes to look in the direction of that
familiar mocking voice. Its rich, husky quality had strangely stirred her, she
realized to her annoyance. Immediately she skipped her gaze from Rurik, whose
wry half smile only fanned her resentment, to Arne, who eyed her suspiciously,
then she regarded the two Varangians whom she'd barely gotten a close look at
yesterday before that smelly blanket had been tossed over her head.

One of the men, his hand upon the helm, was nearly as
tall and immense about the shoulders as Rurik, with curly, flame-red hair and
beard, while the other was clearly the youngest of the group and very blond,
his youthful face sparsely bearded and quite handsome in a boyish sort of way.
He gazed upon her almost with awestruck shyness. This surprised her. She had
always heard that Varangians were brutal, bloodthirsty warriors, yet this one,
although he had the build of a fighter, possessed the expressive eyes of a
poet.

"Are you going to stand there gawking or come and
eat?"

With a start, Zora met Rurik's gaze and her heart
suddenly seemed to beat faster. His eyes were so devastatingly blue, the
sunlight glinting off his silver-blond hair as from a mirror, and there was
certainly no boyish youthfulness about him. He was all man, dangerous-looking,
powerful, from his arresting features to the hard, muscled lines of his body.
To think that she had lain in his arms, that he had touched her so intimately—

What in heaven's
name are you doing?
Zora berated herself, stunned and infuriated by her
thoughts. The rogue was her captor! He'd kidnapped her, gagged her, and
practically starved her. Doing her best to ignore his disconcerting appraisal,
ignoring all of them for that matter, she lifted her chin and went to the bench
where the food was laid out.

Entranced by the graceful way she moved, Rurik drank in
the sight of her. Despite his determined resolve to consider her only as a
pawn, he was relieved she was wearing baggy male garb. If she could look this
fetching in ill-fitting rags, he could well imagine how she might appear in a
luxurious full-length silk tunic cut to fit her temptress's form.

Apparently Kjell had noticed as well. The warrior was
fairly gaping. Rurik threw the younger man a stern warning glance, though he
could hardly blame him. Princess Zora seemed fashioned to turn any man's head.

"There's plenty of food so take as much as you
want." Zora merely glared at him.

Undaunted, Rurik added, "I suggest you take an
extra portion of boiled beef. You slept through supper last night, so it's
cold. But it tastes good, and we won't have fresh meat again for days."

She gave no reply, but quickly filled a wooden platter.
Then she turned away, and determinedly kept from looking at them while she
proceeded to the prow where she perched upon a water cask with her back to
them.

"Uppity little thing." Arne tore off another
generous chunk of rye bread. "Why don't you tell her something of
yourself, my lord? I don't see any harm in it. Mstislav's troops will never
catch us now. You said she already knows you're a spy, and if she knows your
high rank as well, maybe she'll feel herself in better company."

"I doubt anything I have to say will appease her,"
Rurik muttered, ignoring the sidelong glances his men cast each other.

He only hoped he could appease her uncle. He could
imagine the heated accusations that would fly when they reached Novgorod and he
presented his indignant captive to the grand prince. Yet he doubted Yaroslav
would fault his actions. Rurik trusted that the grand prince would understand
his motives, which had been fueled by Zora's misrepresented identity. In time
of war, such an excuse should suffice, even though Rurik knew it wasn't the
entire truth. Lust had played a part as well.

Since leaving Chernigov, the journey had become a Hel
for him. He kept recalling the sleek softness of her skin and the firm rounded
beauty of her breasts, the seductive way she had parted her lips to him and the
sweet, intoxicating taste of her mouth . . . the way she had moaned in ecstasy
beneath him. He had been tempted to caress her cheek last night when he had
gone to check on her, and only her sudden waking had sent him quickly from the tent.

"Women," Rurik said under his breath, rising.

"Aye, they're the plague of the world," Arne
answered with a grunt as Leif and Kjell looked on in silence. "You're
going to speak with her, then?"

Nodding, Rurik filled a wooden cup with honey mead.
After studying the distant shoreline for a moment and glancing upriver, he
ordered his men, "Keep alert for any trouble." Then he walked toward
her. If Zora heard him approaching, she gave no hint of it, not even deigning
to look in his direction, which irritated him further.

By Thor, he couldn't wait until they arrived in
Novgorod, where he could relinquish his charge of her to Grand Prince Yaroslav!
Surely having his six beautiful concubines around him again would chase this
all too bewitching woman from his mind!

"I brought you something to drink," he said,
holding out the brimming cup.

Flustered by how close he was standing, Zora shifted to
the very edge of the cask. "What is it?" she asked suspiciously.

"Mead. Have you ever tasted it before? We
Varangians highly favor it—"

"I don't want any," she cut him off, although
in truth she would have enjoyed the heady drink. But she refused to partake of
anything this man said he enjoyed. Her eyes returned to her meal.

Rurik sighed but he didn't leave. To Zora's annoyance,
he sat down on an opposite cask, facing her.

"It's not poisoned, Zora, or drugged, if that's
what you're thinking."

Swallowing a bit of beef and feeling that she was fast
losing her appetite, Zora met his gaze. It unnerved her to hear him utter her name
with such intimate familiarity. At least he could continue to address her
properly as "Princess Zora" or "my lady," but she doubted
he would even if she demanded it.

"What's on my mind is none of your concern—"

"It is my concern," he interrupted stiffly as
if bridling his temper. "You may be my prisoner, Zora, but you don't have
to fear for your life or your person. Contrary to what you probably believe, my
men and I do not prey upon women."

"Oh, no? After what I experienced at your hands,
Lord Rurik, I would have to disagree. If
rape
isn't preying upon women, then I must be misinformed."

His eyes took on a dark stormy hue as he leaned toward
her. "It was
no
rape, and this
is the last time I will tell you! How can you say that when you have no
recollection of what happened? You weren't yourself, woman! And you were not
unwilling. I believed that you were a boyar's concubine, familiar with the ways
of men and women and experienced in lovemaking," he stressed pointedly. "I
took you to my bed hoping you would call out your master's name in your
pleasure, then I could return you to the man—"

"In exchange for military information, am I not
right?" Zora's cheeks were ablaze from even hearing him talk of bedding
her. It did not matter what he said, she would never believe him. How could she
have given him so easily what she had wanted to preserve until her marriage to
Ivan? She was no wanton!

After a long moment, Rurik finally nodded, his
expression grave. "You are as perceptive as I had thought. Yes, I knew when
I learned of your value from the Slav merchant that my mission could profit
from assisting you."

"I could expect no more from my father's enemy,"
Zora spat.

"Aptly put, Princess. Enemies, with opposing
allegiances. Yours rests with your father and mine with Grand Prince Yaroslav.
Eight years ago, I pledged my loyalty to him and for my service, he rewarded me
with an honored position in his senior
druzhina
.
So you see, you're not in the hands of some ruthless mercenary. And although we're
enemies, it is my duty to protect you until we reach Novgorod. I'll honor that
pledge with my life if need be."

Despair swept Zora. Since Rurik was talking so freely
of his power and position, he must feel confident that her father's troops
would never rescue her. Clearly she would be on her own and with no hope of aid
if the chance to escape ever arose.

"Tell me something, Zora," he said,
interrupting her desperate musing.

She stared into his eyes, noticing the crinkles at the
corners and the light brown of his lashes for the first time.

"How did you come to be in that trading camp? The
slave merchant told me it was because you had fallen into disfavor with your
master's wife, but as you're no concubine, that cannot be true."

"My sister sold me into the slaver's hands,"
she replied tightly. "Hermione."

"Your own sister betrayed you?" Rurik's blond
brows knit into a frown. "Why?"

His question shattered the self-pitying reverie that
gripped her, and Zora tensed. She couldn't reveal to him the true story behind
her abduction! Then he would know she was a bastard daughter and maybe withdraw
his promise of protection.

"She hated me," Zora said bluntly, planning
to quickly skirt the topic. "She was jealous of me. It's as simple as
that."

"Jealousy? Hatred? Those are not simple emotions.
There had to be a cause."

"Hermione believed I held more than my share of
our father's affection and favor." Growing more agitated, Zora blurted, "I
don't want to talk about it anymore!" She raised her chin defiantly. "Now
I have a question for you, Lord Rurik. What made you help me in the trading
camp? You couldn't have known when Halfdan struck me down that I was worth
anything to your mission—"

"You asked me to help you."

Shocked, she stared at him. "That couldn't be
true."

"You did," he replied, his voice grown
somber. "You were fleeing from Halfdan and you stumbled into me as I
walked from a tent. Don't you remember? I caught you from falling, and you
begged me to help you. You even promised a reward."

"A reward . . . ?" Suddenly Zora did remember
him, not so much his face but the vivid blue of his eyes.

"Yes," he continued. "But when you
looked up at me, you cried out and pushed yourself away."

"All I saw was another Varangian trader . . .
another Halfdan." She shivered. "It was all so horrible . . . his
laughter, the stench of him, those awful serpent tattoos . . ."

"It's in the past," came Rurik's firm reply. "As
I told you, Halfdan is dead. I only wish I had been the one to kill him."

"You didn't kill Halfdan?" Zora asked,
startled. "If not your sword, then whose?"

"Arne's. He saved my life. I underestimated
Halfdan's skill and when he caught me under the chin with his knee, I went
down." Rurik shook his head, as if still angry at himself that the other
Varangian had bested him. "Arne was there, disobeying my orders, and thank
Odin he did that day." His expression grew hard as he regarded her, his
eyes angry. "If he hadn't, then you would have been justified to cry 'rape,'
Princess. Without Arne's help, I would have been dead and you. . .