They huddled together as the storm raged overhead. The thick oak leaves did provide protection, but they were both soaked to the skin and there was naught they could do about it.
“We cannot become ill,” Mirana said as she and Entti pressed as close together as possible. “We cannot.”
The rain slowed to a drizzle in the early afternoon. The leaves overhead dripped on them, but it wasn’t bad.
“I’m very hungry, Mirana,” Entti said.
“I too. We will have to eat berries and roots. I know what things are safe to eat, so you do
n’t have to worry that I will poison us.”
Entti gave a rich laugh. “Aye, you believed my fiction as well as everyone else. I cook very well, for I was the daughter of a jeweler who loves his food as much as his silver. It’s possible I know more than you since I am a bit older than you. Let us get on with our hunting.”
They found strawberries and blueberries, not terribly ripe, but ripe enough. They also dug up some cadmus roots. Without its tough skin, the cadmus was mushy pulp that tasted like bland porridge.
In the middle of the afternoon, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. It grew warm and soon their gowns were dry.
“I would like to sleep for a full day,” Entti said, on a sigh, stretching. She felt her arms, stiff and sore. “How long will it take us to reach this fortress of yours?”
“With just the two of us rowing? I don’t know.”
“Then we’d best get to it.”
They were just on the point of pushing the longboat back into the water, when there was a bloodcurdling yell. Two men were running down the beach toward them. They were wearing leggings and woolen trousers, and leather tunics. They were local Danes, and they’d seen two women and were doubtlessly overwhelmed with their unexpected find.
“Can you use a weapon as well as you cook?” Mirana asked.
“Nay, but I imagine that my fear will sharpen my skills. Give me the sword. I will have a better chance with something bigger.”
“But let us try to fool them first,” Mirana said. “Aye, let us be simple helpless females.”
She slipped the knife back into the pocket of her gown. Entti held the sword in the folds of her gown. Both women waited, not moving.
The two men stopped some ten feet from them. They were young, well formed, and there were huge smiles on their faces.
They called out a greeting.
Mirana, looking as frightened as a young virgin, backed up a step, her face pale, her left hand fluttering helplessly in front of her.
“We mean no harm,” the taller of the young men called out. “We’ve come to help you. We will take you with us.”
“And the boat,” said the other man, short and muscular as a bull. “Aye, we’ll take the boat.”
They walked toward the women, swaggering now, still smiling, their teeth gleaming white in the sunlight, as happy as two men could be having two lone women and a warship thrust into their waiting hands.
“Hold yourself ready,” Mirana said, still shrinking back in fright, her face creditably pale.
12
“BY ALL THE blessed gods, what do you two women here? You are alone?”
The older man’s eyes darted behind them, suddenly suspicious. There was a magnificent warship dragged out of the water onto the beach, but no men to have pulled it to safety from the storm, no men to have rowed it, no men in sight, that was.
Mirana, who thought them heedless fools, nonetheless trembled as violently as a leaf tossed about in the wind, and shook her head. “We’re alone,” she whispered. “We have been so afraid.”
An unseen enemy was forgotten at her soft words. The man grinned and walked to Mirana. No, it was more like a swagger, she thought, the ass. She made no move when he clasped her chin in his callused palm and lifted her face. He brought his face close to hers and she could see the pock marks on his skin. She doubted he was as old as those ugly marks made him look. He said in a tender voice, “Aye, little bird, you’re safe now. I’ll take you. I am called Odom and my younger brother yon is Erm. You’re quite beautiful. I have never before seen such hair—ah, the color, it’s as black as a raven’s belly. Is she your sister?”
Entti wore the same frightened look as Mirana. She stuttered and trembled, and nodded as Mirana said yes. She and Mirana looked nothing alike, for Entti’s hair was a rich deep brown, her eyes an even darker brown—certainly not the green of Mirana’s—and she was tall for a woman, as tall as the man who was in front of her, certainly much taller than Mirana. But the men didn’t seem to notice all these differences, at least Mirana prayed they wouldn’t until it was too late. The man Odom, who was holding her, was built like a bull. He was clutching her to him now as if she were a treasure he feared losing. She gave him no resistance. She was limp and submissive.