“Aye, I know it well. You must keep your nose on watch, Roran, for I have to see to the boy here. I don’t remember any savage tribes along this stretch of the Dnieper, do you?”
Roran shook his head, saying, “I will sniff them out if they are stupid enough to think of attack.” He looked toward Old Firren, a master trader as well as a master rudderman. Old Firren shook his head. “Nay, ’tis safe enough. We’re drawing close to Chernigov though, and that filthy place is filled with savages.”
“Aye, I know.”
“We are b
ut one longboat, though only a fool would attack us. Since you have the children, though, we’ll take care where we go ashore.”
Merrik merely held her until they pulled the longboat ashore on a narrow strip of beach, not a beach really, just a shoreline littered with black rocks and driftwood. Tightly packed fir trees and pine trees pressed toward the water, and the gods knew what or who could be hiding in that dense forest.
He leaned down and said, “I will lift you over my shoulder now and we will go ashore. Don’t fight me. Say nothing.”
She was limp over his shoulder and he wondered if she were unconscious again. He gave Taby over to Oleg and watched Cleve pace back and forth along the narrow strip of rocky land until Merrik strode to him, the girl still over his shoulder.
“Help the men raise the tents, then spread covers and furs inside mine. The men will build a fire and we will eat. I will see to her. What is her name, do you know?”
“Laren.”
“A strange name, as is her accent. Do you know where she comes from?”
“I am not dead,” she said, rearing up slightly, and he could hear the pain mixed with a natural arrogance in her voice. “Cleve knows nothing. Leave him alone. Let me down. I don’t want your heavy hands on me.”
“You aren’t strong enough to fight me,” Merrik said mildly, “at least not enough to make me fall to my knees, so it’s best you shut your mouth.”
“Let me down.”
“I will as soon as there is a fur to let you down upon.”
She said nothing more. He imagined it wasn’t because she didn’t want to but because she wasn’t able to. He winked at Taby but realized the boy couldn’t see him for the light from the stars wasn’t as bright here as it had been on the water. The heavy dark fir trees seemed to steal all the light.
When the furs and wool blankets were spread inside his tent, he bent his head and walked inside and laid her onto her stomach. “Don’t move,” he said shortly, rose, and helped fetch firewood. He wanted to bathe her as well. Her stench was as heady as his brother’s dog, Kerzog, in the early summer, after a long winter. So was Taby’s.
It was Cleve who fed her the bits of flatbread soaked in hot water and a handful of pecans and hazelnuts. It was Cleve who bathed Taby and black-eyed Roran who collected an assortment of odd clothes to cover the child.
But it was Merrik who decided he would care for the girl. He looked at each of his men in turn as they sat around the campfire, eating cheesy curds, dried beef, flatbread, and nuts. He nodded as if to himself, and said, “This boy here was beaten badly by Thrasco. He isn’t a boy, he’s a girl. There is no reason not to tell you. Her name is Laren and I know nothing more about her save that Taby is her little brother. I will tend her. She is very young, no older than your little sisters, so you will not think rutting thoughts about her. Eat now, drink only a cup of ale, and get some sleep. Roran, bend that nose of yours to the night sounds. Begin the first watch.”
Merrik had heard Cleve suck in his breath when he’d spoken, but now he turned to him and said, “They would find out soon enough. There was no reason not to tell them. They are all good men. I trust them with my life.”
They were still Vikings, men who were raw and violent, and Cleve wasn’t sure how good that made them, but he said only, “She told me she’d been a boy for a long time and I said that the people where she’d been were stupid. She has no look of a boy.”
“No,” Merrik agreed.
He walked back into the tent and stared down at her raw back. He said matter-of-factly, “You will think of me as your father or your brother or even your mother, if it pleases your modesty. I am going to take off these rags and bathe you, then I will cover your back with some clean cloths. I have a clean tunic you will wear and Eller, my smallest man, will give you some breeches. Oleg, the man you bit, will even give you some cord to keep the breeches at your waist.”
“I don’t want you to. I want you to go away. I will take care of myself.”
“Your mouth lies even to you. Close it. If you fight me, I will leave you here and take Taby. You will never see him again. Your escape to save him will have proved worth naught. Do you understand me, girl?”
She said nothing.
He frowned. “I have no intention of ravishing you, if that is your worry, if that is what makes you vicious as a snake. Have you looked at yourself? You’re about as tempting as a field of trampled onions. You are thinner than a starved goat. How old are you, twelve? I have no taste for children, none of my men do either. Rest easy now. Rest your mouth as well. This will hurt but I will be as gentle as I can.”
Merrik realized his mistake when he pulled the ragged breeches down her legs, off her feet, and threw them outside the tent. She was on her belly, her legs slightly spread. He stared at the long legs, very thin, true enough, but shaped well enough to give promise to what they would look like when she’d gained flesh, and the hips that surely weren’t a boy’s hips, he’d known that, but these hips weren’t a girl’s hips either. These hips hadn’t been twelve years old in a long time. Too long a time. They were a woman’s hips.
Merrik cursed.
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