The Pagan's Prize (35 page)

***

Rurik had never known
such impatience as he was forced to slow his horse to a walk, the bridge so
jammed with people and carts coming and going from the market that he had to
wend his way carefully or risk trampling someone.

Thor's blood, he hoped
he hadn't missed Zora! The council of war had ended early enough that there was
still a chance he would find her at the market; he didn't want to have to wait
until he returned to the estate to tell her what he should have said days ago.
It was amazing that he felt so exhilarated after being awake all night, but he
supposed love could do that to a man.

"Now if that isn't
an odd sight," Rurik suddenly overheard someone say as he threaded his
mount through the milling throng. "A boat manned entirely by monks, not a
sailor among them."

"Aye, must be
headed south on some pilgrimage, probably to the cathedral of St. Sophia in
Kiev," commented another man as Rurik glanced over to see two merchants
eating their morning meal against the railing as they watched the river traffic
below.

Looking beyond them,
Rurik spied the boat already well in the distance, its white sail billowing in
the wind as hooded monks moved about on deck. A curious thing, he had to agree,
then he turned his attention back to the busy pedestrian traffic and the market
that lay ahead.

Damn, he couldn't wait
to find Zora! Had she already gone to the perfumer's section? Maybe if he was
fortunate, Yakov had kept her busy elsewhere and Rurik would have the chance to
see her face when his gift was placed in her hands. If not, at least he knew
that she was thinking about him, perhaps even wearing the white jasmine perfume
he couldn't wait to smell upon her skin.

As for himself, Zora had
never been far from his thoughts, nor had their exchange at the stream that had
finally convinced him that he had been acting the fool. Why did he need to test
her when he could see shining from her beautiful eyes how much she cared? If
she hadn't admitted anything to him yet, he had himself to blame. He had only
to remember the callous things he had said to her to understand that she might
be afraid. By Odin, he would make amends!

She would realize how
much he loved her, especially now that Grand Prince Yaroslav's forces would be
sailing south within two days. He hoped the battle would prove quick and
decisive so he could soon return to her and even more, he hoped that her father's
downfall would not drive a wedge between them. If she knew his heart, it might
be enough to heal any wounds—

"Lord Rurik!"

Rising in his saddle,
Rurik spied Yakov running toward him from the market square and he felt a
sudden hard knot in the pit of his stomach. He urged his horse into a trot as
he cleared the bridge.

"Lord Rurik! God
help us, it is you!"

"What? Why are you
shouting?" he demanded, although from the stricken look upon the steward's
face, he already knew.

"She is gone, my
lord. Your wife! Nowhere to be found!"

Rurik had never known
such a terrible moment, but he could not bring himself to believe it. Not yet.

"Did you look
everywhere?"

"Yes, yes, and your
men are still looking. We've searched each section of the market, even the
surrounding churches, but no one has seen her. The merchant at the spice stall
where I left her claimed one moment she was talking with a monk, although in
such low voices that he heard nothing of what was said, then she was gone!"

"A monk?"

"Yes, my lord, in
brown sacking and a hood."

Stung by glaring
intuition, Rurik glanced over his shoulder to the river. The boat he had
glimpsed from the bridge had vanished. Not even a speck of the sails to be
seen.

By Odin, had Zora
somehow enlisted the aid of the clergy to see her back to Chernigov? A priest
had come to the compound only a few days ago to visit the wife of one of his
warriors who was ill with childbed fever. Was it possible that Zora had
convinced him to help her, being the daughter of the man who ruled the leading
see of the Orthodox Church? She could have told him to have everything prepared
for when she came to the market . . .

"Send one of my men
back to the estate," Rurik ordered in a voice so ominously quiet that the
steward paled. "I want two hundred warriors here within the hour to search
every inch of this city. Meanwhile you and the others continue looking, and
hire as many men as you can to help. Do you understand?"

Yakov nodded vigorously.

"Then why do you
delay?"

"I . . . I didn't
get to tell you yet, Lord Rurik, but we did find something she left behind. The
gift you gave her, the perfume . . . she must have dropped it. We found the
bottle shattered into a thousand pieces . . ."

As his heart was
breaking, Rurik thought, finding it hard to breathe for the gut-wrenching pain
that was ripping him apart. Yet he willed himself to keep his emotions tightly
under control. He had a wife to hunt down.

"Go, Yakov. See to
my commands."

"V-very well, my
lord. But what of you?"

Rurik didn't answer, veering his horse around so
sharply that the startled animal reared, its front legs pawing at the air. This
time he thundered across the bridge, giving little thought to the people who
had to scatter out of his way or even jump into the river to avoid his mount's
pounding hooves.

His mind was upon Zora. By the gods, he would find her,
whether she was somewhere in the city or upon that accursed boat heading south!
As soon as the grand prince knew that he was taking a ship after her, Rurik
would be hard upon her trail.

"And when we're together again, Princess," he
vowed fiercely, racing his mount toward the
kreml
,
"you'll wish that you had never deceived me."

Chapter 26

Sitting alone in a makeshift tent, Zora suspected she
had made a grave mistake.

Ivan had thrust her in here so cruelly, threatening to
bind her hands and feet if she made a move to step outside, that she wondered
how she could have trusted him. She had thought he made sense at the market,
but now that she had had more time to consider his words, it made as much sense
that he would have promised her anything just to get her to come with him.

"You're such a gullible fool," she muttered
to herself, growing more sick at heart with each moment.

She didn't feel well either, her stomach pitching and
churning as it had never done the last time she was aboard a vessel. She felt
so nauseous that she might have to peek her head outside the tent whether Ivan
liked it or not and ask for a bucket. They must have been sailing for an hour
already and he still hadn't come back to check on her or explain

"You can come out if you wish," Ivan suddenly
called to her, something that she was now only too eager to do.

Feeling as if at any instant she would retch, Zora
clamped her hand over her mouth and burst through the flaps, making it to the
railing just in time. When she was finished, she wet her trembling hands in the
river and patted her face, never having felt so miserable.

"I'd like to think that you're only seasick, but
my guess is that you're probably bearing that bastard's spawn in your belly. Am
I correct?"

Stunned, Zora gaped at Ivan, still feeling so queasy
that she feared she might be sick again.

Could she be with child? She had considered it
fleetingly when she had missed her monthly flow, which should have come a few
days after her marriage to Rurik. Yet she had been late before, her body
sometimes playing strange tricks with her at times when she was more anxious
than others. Those first weeks with Rurik would certainly qualify. But how,
then, would she explain her dizziness yesterday and her sudden bout of tears at
the stream?

"I suppose I could be," she admitted,
wondering if such news would have made Rurik happy. "I was never sick last
time I was on the river."

Zora jumped as Ivan slammed his fist down upon the
railing and she took a few steps backward, fearing he might strike her. His
angular face that before she had always thought handsome was mottled and made
ugly with fury, and she remembered suddenly how her father had once described
Ivan as an exacting man who anyone would be a fool to cross. Yet until now, she
had never seen this side of him.

"By God, woman, I will not foster that Varangian's
whelp!"

"No—no one said you must," she said shakily. "I
am another man's wife, Ivan. My husband and I will rear our child in Novgorod."

"If I have any say, the child will be taken from
you at its birth and drowned," he countered harshly, moving toward her. "You
will not be another man's wife for long, Zora, for as soon as we arrive in Chernigov
your marriage will be annulled. Your father promised you to me and I will have
you for my bride, spoiled goods or no."

"You cannot annul my marriage without my consent,"
she breathed, horrified by his threat to the innocent babe she carried.

"No? Once your father learns that you fancy
yourself in love with his enemy, your word to him will mean nothing. He will be
only too eager to end a marriage that never should have been. If you hadn't
been kidnapped from the caravan by Yaroslav's spies—"

"Is that what you think happened?" Zora
interrupted, startled.

"Why else would my men and I risk a journey to
Novgorod if we didn't believe we would find you there?" Ivan shouted as he
gestured to the other eight warriors aboard who like him were still garbed as
monks. "After hundreds of your father's troops searched every trading camp
along the Desna and as far south as Kiev to find no trace of you, it was the
only thing left that made any sense. Princess Hermione was the one who
suggested your abduction was the work of spies through the messengers she sent
to Chernigov."

"Hermione?" Incredulous, Zora shook her head.
"Of course. She believed I was being taken to Constantinople, so she
thought it safe to encourage you to search to the north . . . except now her
plan has miscarried. She not only engineered my abduction, but without knowing
it, she led you to find me."

"You speak nonsense! Your half sister was
distraught when she reached Chernigov."

"Hardly distraught! Hermione paid slave merchants
to abduct me from the caravan, believing they would cut out my tongue and sell
me in Constantinople. It was only because Rurik found me in a trading camp and
thought that he could use me to gain military information from my father that I
escaped such a fate." As Ivan listened impatiently, his expression
incredulous, Zora quickly recounted the story up to her marriage.

"I would never have believed it at the time,"
she said more to herself than Ivan after she had finished, "but I've
Hermione to thank for leading me to Rurik."

"A sentiment as misguided as your half sister's
actions," Ivan said acidly. "Yet I cannot believe simple jealousy
could have fueled such a crime. There had to be another reason, something that
pushed her. . ."

"Rurik asked me the same thing one night after—-"

Ivan glared at her and Zora felt her face reddening.
Hastily she added, "We talked about Hermione and when I told him that no
matter what she believed, our father had treated us equally, he asked me if
there was anything I had been given that Hermione had not."

"Was there?"

Zora nodded. "You, Ivan. News of my father's
decision that I would become your bride upon our arrival in Chernigov reached
us just before we left Tmutorokan, but Hermione never said a word to me about
it until the night she drugged me and I was abducted. I can only believe that
she's in love with you and wanted me out of the way so she could become your
wife—"

"But Hermione has been thwarted for I have found
you." Ivan swept Zora with a possessive look that filled her with dread. "I've
no doubt your father will punish her soundly for her treachery."

"Didn't you hear me?" Sensing his intent as
he began to advance upon her, Zora backed away nervously. "Hermione loves
you! Surely you could be just as content with her as your bride! She is a
trueborn princess, not a bastard daughter—"

"It is not Hermione I want. You're the woman I
chose, the woman I will have."

"But . . . but you never explained how you knew to
find me in the market," she blurted, desperate to distract him as he drew
closer. "Nor how you learned that Rurik was my husband."

"Simple. After my men and I arrived last night in
Novgorod, I had only to mention your name to hear what had happened to you. The
common folk of that city seemed to know a great deal about their most famed
warrior and his recent marriage, yet it was by pure chance that I spied you in
the marketplace when I went to buy food. Obviously you were meant to be
returned to me, Zora."

Ivan seized her so suddenly that she had no chance to
elude him, his mouth brutal as it covered hers. As he forced open her lips with
his tongue, she tried to fight him but he was a strong man, and her struggles
were futile. All she could do was endure his loathsome kiss, cursing herself
for having been so foolish as to trust him.

"You will be my bride, Zora of Tmutorokan,"
he said when at last he released her and so abruptly that she fell against the
railing. "And don't think that an annulment will be enough to satisfy me.
If your Lord Rurik doesn't fall in battle, he will find his death upon my sword,
for I'll take no chance that you will ever be reunited."