At that she did look up. She said mildly, “If I had my knife with me, I should show you how I can slice you nicely without much pain. Shall I thank you, Rorik? Is that what you want? You want me to kiss your hands for whipping me in front of your men? For proving to me that you are the stronger? For humiliating me? That final move of sprawling me to the ground was well done of you, Rorik, and I doubt not it was also important for your men to witness.”
He wasn’t about to admit to the truth of her words, and said firmly, “ ’Twas your own fault. All you had to do was bend that damnable pride of yours just a bit and say the truth—for I am your lord, damn you. All yo
u had to do was say it. I can even hear the words on your tongue now, all dripping with hatred and scorn and contempt. If you’d but said them I wouldn’t have been forced to whip you. I wouldn’t have been forced to do any of the other. Your fault, not mine.”
She wondered if he truly believed that. Her fault? Of course, Einar whipped women or slapped them or hit them with his fists whenever he wished to. It never required much provocation. He also beat those men who were weaker than he was, and slaves of both sexes whenever the urge claimed him. He’d whipped her several times. He’d tied her to a pole because she’d fought him the last time he’d whipped her. She’d even hurt him, though he would never have admitted it. He’d swung the whip with great relish, slicing open her back with the strength of his blows. He’d said to her when he’d tired of wielding the whip, “Now, my girl, you won’t ever try to protect someone from me again. I gave you a good lesson, don’t you think? Aye, you should thank me for this valuable lesson, but I won’t force you to. I know you won’t, and I have no wish to kill you. My men wouldn’t be pleased, though only the gods know why you have their loyalty.”
Mirana clearly remembered the young man, a boy, really, who had displeased Einar. She couldn’t remember what he’d done to anger Einar, if indeed she’d ever known. But it couldn’t have been anything severe, nothing all that bad. She’d taken the boy’s side and hidden him. That’s what had provoked Einar’s fury. He’d had her whipped and as she lay on her belly, gritting her teeth against the pain in her back, she was told the boy was dead. Einar had come in then and looked at her bare back, at the ugly welts, and said, “Aye, ’tis a pity.” She never knew if he was speaking of the dead boy or of her back.
“What are you thinking? You are silent too long. I don’t like it, for your thoughts are dangerous even though you are but a woman and ungoverned.”
She shrugged. “Bad memories, nothing more.”
“Is that all?”
“Very well. I was remembering that first day in the warship when you put your foot on my neck and I bit your ankle. You yowled, I hurt you so badly. I saw my teeth marks there for two days.”
“Aye, you hurt me well enough,” Rorik said, remembering mainly the shock of her act. She’d been screaming at him that he was naught but a vicious animal, that she should have plunged her knife through his neck. Aye, she’d still had her fury and her strength to sustain her that first day out of Clontarf. To punish her, he’d pressed her face to the plank and held her down with his foot on her neck. She’d turned red with rage. The bite had hurt. He said only, “I can’t see that it would be a bad memory for you. That memory would make you laugh with pleasure. Thus, you are lying to me. Tell me the truth now, what were you thinking?”
“If you would know, I was also wondering if it really bothered you to whip me. I doubt it. Men are violent. They enjoy hurting those weaker than themselves. I was thinking of the times Einar whipped me. And now you did. Both of you said it was my fault.”
He grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. The tunic slid to the ground. He shook her. “Don’t compare me to your brother, ever again. You gave me no choice but to whip you and you know I stayed my strength. You know well enough that I could not allow my men to see me as bending to a woman’s wishes, particularly after I’ve been played the ass by the women since our return to Hawkfell Island. I am their lord and their leader and I cannot be seen to be weak or irresolute. I had no choice. Damn you, admit it!”
He’d done it again, given her an order. She stared up at him, fury banking in her eyes, and this time, he just shook his head at himself.
“Finish your mending.” He released her, leaned to pick up the tunic and threw it at her. He shoved her down onto the bed. She made no move to escape him.
Her hands were quiet in her lap. She stared up at him, and said, “Were you unfaithful to Inga?”
His face, deeply bronzed from the sun, paled at her words. His hands fisted at his sides. He raised his right arm, and she knew he wanted to strike her. She knew too that he would control himself. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. She had no doubts at all. He did. He turned on his heel and strode away from her. She called out, “I think you must have been, for you threatened to beat the women just because they don’t want their husbands to be unfaithful to them. What power do they have save ruining your meals? Were you my husband and you bedded another woman, I would kill you, not just give you belly pains from eating swill.”
He jerked, then strode from the sleeping chamber, never looking back.
Rorik drank deeply of the mead. His belly was full and now his mind was fast dulling with the drink. He heard his men laughing, bragging of their victory over the women, and, indeed, it was truly a victory, for the meal had been the best any of them had eaten in a very long time. The boar steaks had been broiled over the pit fire, wrapped in oiled tartar leaves. The herring and bass, both baked to tenderness, turning to tender flakes in the mouth, had made them groan with pleasure.
Rorik finished the mead in his cup. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The woman was chained in his sleeping chamber. He’d refused to have food sent to her. Let her suffer as he and his men had, damn her. She’d already eaten enough—given to her by those damnable treacherous women—to hold her steady for a good week.
She’d dared to demand if he’d been unfaithful to Inga. He’d wanted to kill her, at least to strike her at the sound of Inga’s name on her lips.
He heard someone approach, and slit open his right eye. It was Entti, and she was holding out a pitcher of mead. He allowed her to fill his cup again.
She was smiling at him, a very sweet smile that added warmth to the near vacant expression in her eyes. She was simple, this girl he’d captured on a raid the previous summer in the Rhineland, but kind. She harbored ill will toward no one. There was no malice in her. That she was a slave to a Viking seemed not to bother her at all. She seemed to enjoy the men who had bedded her here on Hawkfell Island. She’d not drawn away or screamed and pleaded. Even the women were kind to her despite the men’s lust for her. Their revenge had been against the men, not against Entti. Rorik thanked her. Her smile widened, showing dimples, and he realized that she wanted him to bed her. She was really quite pretty, with her thick rich brown hair and her brown eyes, but those eyes were too childlike for him to appreciate, too blank in their intent, for him to consider bedding her. She was tall and slender, full-breasted, really quite lovely, but still, he couldn’t bring himself to want her. It would be like taking advantage of a child even though she was a woman grown, all of eighteen, he was certain. Hafter had taken her first upon her capture. Rorik wondered if she’d been a virgin.
He said quietly, his voice low and gentle, “Nay, Entti, not tonight. I must attend our prisoner.”
Another female would have shown displeasure, but not Entti. She said, looking down at his empty plate, “The food is delicious. I am so glad.”
He laughed at that. “Aye, all of us are glad. Seek out your bed, Entti, you have labored enough. I am sorry. I had not realized the women had fed you the swill they’d given to us.”
She lowered her eyes and her fingers began plucking at her gown sleeve. He realized that she didn’t wish to sleep. She wanted a man. He saw Hafter looking at Entti with more interest than a man should show a woman who wasn’t his wife, and said, “Hafter looks unhappy. I release you from your work. You may see to him.”
She nodded happily, and left him.
Rorik rose, felt the chamber spin around him, shook his head as would a mongrel hound caught in the rain, and walked toward his sleeping chamber, Kerzog at his heels.
Ottar called out, “Lord Rorik, do you go to whip the prisoner again?”
Hafter laughed and called out, “Oh nay, Ottar, he’ll plow her belly, that’s his thought.”