“I will decide soon what I will do.” He paused a moment, looking beyond Mirana to the weapons fastened to the wall of the longhouse. His grandfather’s sword hung there, still gleaming, its silver bright, for Gurd’s father had fashioned it and Gurd cared for it. He looked away, thinking now about Kron, a man who’d just come home today, the man who had been his eyes and ears for six months in the king’s garrison in Dublin. What he’d told Rorik made him realize he had to act, at least he had to do something about Mirana, and quickly. He’d been very surprised to learn the nature of King Sitric’s dealings with Einar, surprised and disgusted. Aye, he had to act soon. Should he tell her? He nearly shook his head, but kept himself still. No, now wasn’t the time.
He said, staring again at his grandfather’s beautifully wrought sword, not looking at her, “I have told you the truth. I can do no more. Can I trust you now? Will you remain here with me?”
Mirana rose from the chair and stood beside him, lightly touching her fingertips to his forearm. It forced him to look at her. She said very matter-of-factly, “You kidnapped me. You treated me like you’d treat a frenzied dog. You showed me no mercy. You forced me to remain chained in your sleeping chamber. You whipped me. You set your foot upon my neck.”
He was silent. It was all true, except perhaps for his lack of mercy. He would have to ask her to be specific about that.
“However,” she continued after a moment, her v
oice clear and low, “had I been you, I would have done the same.”
This was unexpected. And to hear such words from a woman’s mouth was beyond Rorik’s experience. It sounded odd, but somehow, it sounded true and he realized it and accepted it as well, and knew he was pleased with his acceptance. He felt the strength of her in those words, felt the honesty of her. Fidelity from her would mean something very rare, something valuable, something, he realized, he wanted very much.
He said again, “Will you remain here? Can I trust you?”
14
IT WAS MIRANA’S turn to look away. She looked at Entti, who was still seated on the bench, mending the hem of the gown, seemingly paying no heed to them now. She was even humming to herself. It didn’t matter. Mirana drew a deep breath, and said, looking at Rorik’s left ear, “If I say that you can trust me, if I promise I won’t try to escape you—”
“You mean try to escape me again.”
“Aye, again. Well, what will you do? Will I still be your slave? Your prisoner, your hostage?” Even as she spoke, he was shaking his head, but she couldn’t prevent the questions, for they welled up in her. “Will I remain an outsider, to be despised and hated by all your men? Will you chain me to your bed? In the warship, will you set your foot on my neck? If I refuse to call you lord will you whip me and fling me to the ground?”
“Nay,” he said, and nothing more.
She waited, but he remained quiet.
“I do not understand you,” she said at last. “You say you won’t hurt me again, but what will you do?”
“I would have you wed with me.”
The words, completely unplanned, lay heavy between them. Rorik sucked in his breath, but no more words came out. By the gods, he’d said it, asked her to be his wife—surely he’d known he would have to take another wife again before he was too old to beget sons and daughters. Nay, but with her that wasn’t all there was to it. He wanted a family again—the warmth, the giving, the joy and the pain. He wanted all of it. It had been so damned long, too long. He hadn’t realized until the words had come out of his mouth how very much alone he’d been, how inward he’d grown, how empty he felt. But to take to wife this woman who’d come to him in such a way? This woman he’d stolen? This woman whose half-brother was his sworn enemy?
Well, he’d said it, and he knew himself well enough to realize that somewhere deep inside him, perhaps very deep, buried under layer upon layer of cold logic, he must, for some important reason, want her for his wife. He wanted her for himself. It was a mystery. He waited. He refused to think about the Danish king in Dublin, that jowly vein-handed old King Sitric, and what he wanted and what he was prepared to pay Einar to gain.
Mirana didn’t move either. She knew he would say no more. To wed with him . . . He’d shown no caring for her, not really. He’d not even shown lust for her, for when he’d caressed her breasts, it had been his man’s punishment, not for any pleasure either of them would get out of it, not to appease his man’s appetites. She didn’t understand him, but she knew that he was a man she could trust. Looked at from that attitude, it was really quite simple. There was nothing for her back at Clontarf, save Einar, and the thought of being with him again curdled her belly.
Rorik Haraldsson was a man to trust, a man to depend on. She also admitted to herself that he was a handsome animal, lean and strong and powerful. He wasn’t stupid, and he was brave. And he was smarter than other men, despite what Entti had said. He didn’t ever count the cost to himself. He was a man she could admire. His bad habits, his likes and dislikes, weren’t yet all that clear to her. If she married him she would learn them soon enough, as he would hers.
Still, to wed a man she’d only known as her enemy. Was there nothing left to her in Ireland? Was her home irrevocably gone from her? She felt tears building, felt the knot in her throat. She willed the tears away and swallowed the knot.
Rorik understood her confusion, her wariness. He also saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, but he didn’t touch her, didn’t try to comfort her. She was a woman who despised weakness in herself. He wouldn’t shame her by calling attention to what she would see as a fault in herself. She didn’t know him, not really, and Hawkfell Island wasn’t her home. She was a stranger here, and in her mind, how then could she belong?
He wanted to keep quiet, he didn’t want her fear to bring her to acceptance of him, or her seeming lack of choices, but he realized suddenly that he wanted her very much to agree to wed him, he wanted to take no chances. He supposed that he didn’t mind not being certain why she agreed, only that she would agree.
Thus, he said, “My man, Kron, just returned from Dublin. He was my eyes and ears at the court there. I knew that the king had dealings with your half-brother, but I didn’t understand the nature of them. I wanted very much to know.”
Rorik drew a deep breath. “Kron told me that King Sitric has negotiated with Einar to buy you, to make you his wife. If you return to Clontarf, you will be given over to the king and Einar will gain even more silver and slaves and power, and you will be abused by an old man.” She would still be a queen, but Rorik knew that such a thing would not sway her. Strange, but he knew it to be true.
She stared up at him, surprised and horrified, yet it wasn’t so unlike Einar to betray her or anyone else for that matter. But to sell his own half-sister to King Sitric, to that paunchy old man she’d met only once some six months before? He’d smelled of sickness and of age, and any pity she might have had for him vanished when he’d looked at her as would a hungry man at a honey-sweetened almond. He was old enough to be her grandfather; he was old enough to have been dead for many years. She’d borne his fulsome flattery, his old man’s touches on her cheek and on her arm, though she’d hated it. She’d remained polite to him, she’d remained respectful, she’d kept her eyes down whenever possible so he couldn’t see the distaste she felt for him.
There had been the other old man with him, his advisor, Hormuze, an old man with a long gray beard and brilliant dark eyes that seemed to regard the world with deep cynicism, and a belly as paunchy as that of the old king, who never left his side. Did he have a part in this? By the gods, she would never have dreamed that the king could want her for his wife. Why her? She was not a princess of significant holdings, not a daughter of a great household to woo and hopefully gain in an alliance. It made no sense to her.
“I would protect you,” Rorik said, once again speaking when he wanted to keep his mouth shut, but the words just kept rolling out of him. “You would be my wife and safe from both Einar’s plotting and the king’s lust.” He was pleading his case—though he sounded only calm and reasonable—like a lovesick swain, which was ridiculous, but still he didn’t like seeing himself in the role of supplicant to a damned woman. He shut his mouth. He’d said enough, more than enough.
She looked up at Rorik, recognized the tension in him, and wondered at it. She also recognized a basic truth deep inside herself. What Einar had done hadn’t really pushed her toward wedding with Rorik. No, she’d already decided.
Rorik was indeed a handsome man. She’d seen him naked and found him interesting, more than interesting, truth be told, fascinating. His body was intriguing, so very different from hers, all bronzed and lightly furred with golden hair, his body lean, his strength exciting as it was deadly, aye, those differences were dazzling, they made her eager to know more, to learn things she’d never really considered significant before. He was dangerous and that made her want to test those boundaries as well, for she imagined that it was all tied up in his warrior’s essence. He was dangerous and he was vital and she wanted to learn about him, all of him. She smiled at him and watched his eyes widen just a bit. Surely he couldn’t know what she’d been thinking.