Viking Heat (15 page)
Authors: Sandra Hill
And here she was shivering in a thin nightgown. She grabbed for the poker leaning against the small fireplace, which was stone cold, the embers having died out hours ago.
He eyed the “weapon” in her hand as if it were a lollipop, nothing to fear, then scanned the room. “You’ve been busy, I see.”
Bed furs and feather-stuffed pillows were scattered about, broken pottery was on the floor, and she’d stomped on a drinking horn, a bone comb, and a wooden chair.
“You had no business locking me in.”
“My sister is in distress. I suspect she is wanting you.”
“Well, let me go to her then.”
“Dress first. Then clean up this mess.” He tossed a garment at her with a piece of rope and a pair of leather slippers. When she declined to catch, they landed on the bed. With a snort of disgust, he went down on his haunches to restart the fire.
“What the hell is this?” She was staring at the fabric on the bed. “It looks like a burlap sack.”
“A gunna.”
“A gunna, huh? I’m
gunna
kill you, first chance I get.”
gunna
kill you, first chance I get.”
He was blowing on the embers, tossing little sticks onto the sparks. “A gunna is a gown. That is a thrall gown. Put the damn thing on.”
“Now I get it. I put on the gown and the rope belt, and that denotes my accepting that I’m a slave.”
His silence said everything as he continued to build up the fire.
“Will you chop off my hair, too?”
He didn’t even smile at what she’d meant as sarcasm. “Not today. Mayhap later.”
“Exactly what would my duties be?” She folded her arms over her chest, as much to stop shivering with cold as to protect her modesty.
“Help my sister. Serve meals. Work in the scullery. Wherever you are needed.”
“And as a soldier?”
“Absolutely not! You are a wench . . . a thrall. Possibly the enemy. Ne’er would I allow you near a weapon.” He eyed the poker in her hand. “Try to strike me with that thing, and you will find yourself stripped and whipped down in the great hall afore one and all.”
“You despicable, lousy, slimy, sonofabitch! No.”
“Insults ill suit you, milady slave.” He stood, dusting off his hands. “No?”
“No, I won’t put on that stinking gown. No, I am not a slave. No, I won’t help your sister if I’m regarded as a slave. And, by the way, where are my bra and panties?”
“If I knew what a bra and panties were, I could tell you.”
“Never mind.” She quivered, despite her best efforts.
“You are cold. Step over to the fire, and put on the gown. There is food and drink down in the scullery for you, and, nay, you do not eat in the great hall with free men and women.”
“Why not just place a dish on the floor, and I can eat and drink like a dog?”
His jaw clenched with consternation. “We do not ill-treat our slaves.”
She rolled her eyes at his ignorance.
He picked up the gown and rope, handing them to her.
She slapped them away, letting them fall to the floor.
“I could make you.”
“Then it would miss the point. My acceptance.”
“When you are ready to comply, knock on the door. A guard will be posted outside. Otherwise, no food or drink will be brought for you. And clean up this filthy mess.”
He opened the door and paused. “I would treat you well.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Slavery in itself is ill-treatment at its highest level.”
“You will have to give in eventually.”
“We shall see.” She perceived in that moment that she had not been taking her captivity seriously enough. Despite the unreality of her situation, she was a POW as much as one taken in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like other military, especially Special Forces, she’d gone through weeks of SERE training . . . Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, designed specifically for survival during captivity.
Every captivity was different, and she’d not been tortured . . . yet. Brandr had already hinted at other captive techniques that would be used on her, such as prolonged isolation, forced nakedness, sexual humiliation, subjection to extreme cold, deprivation of food and water. She had to treat this as the threat it was.
“The Geneva Convention demands you to abide by certain rules when treating me as a prisoner of war.”
“Huh? What war? And what is a Geneva Convention?”
“Playing dumb again, huh?” She began to recite the military Code of Conduct: “I am an American, fighting forces which guard my country and our way of life . . . I will never surrender of my own free will . . . When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give only name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the best of my ability—”
“Oh, good gods!” Brandr slammed and locked the door after him, but even through the thick wood, Joy heard him grumble, “Bloody barmy bullheaded lackwit!”
She was a brick wall . . .Brandr was fuming.
But he could not let anyone know, or they would regard him as a weak-willed, sorry excuse for a man. No true Norsemen allowed a woman to lead him in a merry chase. Leastways they did not admit such in public.
Two whole days the wench had stayed in his bedchamber. His men probably thought he tired her out with swiving all night long. Hah! He should be so lucky!
No food or drink had been given her, though he suspected she ate snow and morning dew off the windowsill. She slept nude beside him at night, but only because he’d ripped the night rail to shreds. He had to admit that he was sleeping like a baby with a mead teat, despite his cock standing at attention night and day. He was frustrated and should seek out some woman on his estate, but he did not want anyone else, untenable as that was to him.
During the day she sat before the fire wrapped in a bed fur, her nose raised haughtily to the ceiling. She would not speak to him, except when spouting some nonsense about military codes of conduct and giving him, over and over, her name, rank, and some long number of identification. Apparently her army gave its warriors numbers instead of names. How odd!
And then there was his sister Liv, who wept incessantly, for want of the wench’s company. You would think they had been lifelong friends instead of new acquaintances. He was finding it hard to deny his sister anything. Still, Joy had to be taught her proper place.
All this chaos over a simple matter. A garment, no less.
Meanwhile, he worked dawn to late at night, mostly with Tork by his side. They assigned winter duties to every living body, male and female, freeman and thrall: spinning and weaving, sewing, cobbling, animal care, blacksmithing, carpentry, cooking, cleaning, and serving.
And a part of every day was spent on the exercise fields, honing battle skills. There was always the chance of attack, if not by any remaining Sigurdssons, then other villains who abounded in the north.
He also inventoried the storerooms and treasure chests. Bear’s Lair was slowly coming back to its old state, nowhere near as prosperous, of course, but still a far cry from what he’d seen when he’d first come back from Trelleborg. The walls were bare of tapestries or fancy weaponry. Most of the foodstuffs were basic, not fancy imported delicacies. But they would be warm and well-fed during the long winter. That was something.
A hird of men had been sent to the far north wearing snowshoes to hunt for seals. Their meat would feed plenty, and the skins could be traded for goods in the spring, especially those skins made into rope. Seabirds, both live and dead, also made for good food and trade. Animal skins of any beast—fox, bear, even rabbit—would be put to good use.
And of course they could go a-Viking once the snow thawed. Plunder was an honorable way for Norseman to make a living.
Still, the wench and her stubbornness nagged at him. Late that afternoon, he stomped up the steps and opened the door abruptly. She was sitting in the broken chair, wrapped in furs. It was damn cold in here, even with the small fire. She glanced up at him guiltily.
What would she have to be guilty of?
Hmmm. Best he should be wary.
He hitched one hip, then the other, not sure how to proceed. “Have you heard Liv crying?”
Her body stiffened with caution. “I have.”
“Methinks she wants your company, though I cannot see why. She only met you that once.”
Nice, Brandr. Tempt her to your urgings with insults!
Nice, Brandr. Tempt her to your urgings with insults!
“She recognized someone who could help her.”
“Mayhap,” he conceded, then swore under his breath when she did not take his concession for the compromise it was. “Come down to the hall and join us for dinner. There is roast chicken and smoked eel,” he coaxed.
“You told me I would have to eat in the scullery.”
“I could make an exception.”
She stared at him warily, and his heart softened a bit. Her face was gaunt with hunger, even after only two days, but who knows what and when she’d eaten afore that? “Bring me a gown . . . a gown like a Viking woman would wear, and take this amulet off my neck. Then I’ll come down.”
“You will wear the gunna I have given you, or not at all.”
She shrugged her answer. It was not a positive one.
“Why make things so hard on yourself? You will have to give in, in the end.”
“We shall see.”
He slammed and locked the door on his way out. He was getting very good at slamming doors.
Chapter 9
Joy had a plan.
Once she had accepted her POW status, she’d begun to recall all her SERE training. The most essential component was escape. She’d had survival training. She could cope once outside this strange fortress, or whatever it was. Cold and snow were going to be her biggest problems.
She’d picked the lock on the chest, a talent learned not in SERE but from her brothers, and closed it in a way that no one would suspect it had been opened. Already, she’d begun making a rope of clothing and bed linens she’d found in the chest. At the last minute, hopefully later today, she would also use the ropes that held up the mattress on the bed.
She should be able to fit through the arrow slit window, going sideways, at first. The rope could be anchored to almost anything, probably the bed. After that, rappelling down two stories should be a breeze.
She would wear Brandr’s clothing laid out in the chest. Too big for her, of course, but she could manage, and the most important thing was to stay warm.
The window was on the side of the fortress, and Brandr rarely came to his bedchamber until late at night, so she hoped to be able to gather some food, gloves, and snowshoes from one of the outbuildings, especially if she waited until nightfall.
She would follow the fjord out to the sea, then walk the shoreline in the general direction of Germany. Hopefully, she would find friendlies way before then or at least be able to phone in to the command center.
And, by the way, wasn’t it odd that the implanted microphone behind her ear hadn’t worked since before the explosion? So much for high-tech engineering!
Another thing was that Joy would miss Brandr. Crazy, that’s what it was, but Joy felt some odd connection with the brute. In another time and place, they might even have become lovers.
She laughed out loud at that ridiculous notion.
The best laid plans of mice and foolish wo-men . . .“You have got to see this,” Tork said, coming up to Brandr in the bathing house where he was trying to soak out the aches and stresses of another full day.
“I am busy,” Brandr said, sinking down in the hot spring-water until it covered him completely.
“Hurry. I mean it, Brandr. It is the wench. You would not believe what she is doing.”
Brandr went instantly alert. “What wench?” But he already knew before Tork grinned and said, “Your bed wench.”
A short time later, they had trudged through the deep snow in snowshoes to the other side of the keep where Joy was hanging out of the upper floor window. Nay, she was not hanging. She was expertly maneuvering a makeshift rope, which included, if he was not mistaken, his second best leather braies, torn into strips. With her feet braced against the wall, she was walking downward like a trained monkey he had once seen in the eastern lands.
“What are those garments she is wearing?” Tork asked him in all innocence, even though he knew very well they were his, rolled up and belted to fit her much smaller frame. Her red hair had been balled up into a wool cap.
The wench hadn’t yet registered that she was drawing a crowd. Brandr motioned for everyone to step back and remain silent. Only he moved forward.
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