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Authors: Nadine Crenshaw
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his chest and his allotted section called his "room."
One or two had climbed into their sleeping bags. Ottar Magnusson and Jamsgar Herjulsson, called the Copper-eye, were playing chess. A few others watched the game, trading coarse jibes. Several men were seeing to their weapons. Time at sea was often filled with wiping weapons dry against rust, and touching blades to whetstones.
Hauk, Jamsgar, and Ottar were among those in Thoryn's private hire. They lived on Thorynsteading in the longhouse in return for acting as his personal men-of-arms. They were men built to feast on other men, so brisk and strong and well armed that they had no enemies, men made of iron true enough to hold an edge. Sweyn the Berserk had been one of them.
Thoryn sighed. The darkening sky was full of enough high clouds that the breeze should last the night. That would put them nearly a third of the way home.
His ever-shifting gaze moved to the Saxons. He'd waited to feed them until he was sure none of them was going to hang miserably over the gunwales retching up his meal. The boy, lying by the shield-wall making little marks on the deck planks with a wet finger, would make a good shepherd. When he grew, he'd do for a field worker. The three servant women were for Inga, who needed more help in the longhouse as she got older. The man was a thin weedy type, and Thoryn wouldn't have brought him except that he was obviously a carpenter. Thoryn had a notion in his mind that was going to require carpenters.
One spear of rosy light picked out the maiden. Now, there was a prize. She was tilting the waterskin to drink and caught his stare with a sideways look —and nearly choked. He averted his face and schooled himself not to scowl.
He'd finally quelled her. One of his strengths was his unerring nose for frailty in others, and at first he'd been amused to see how thoroughly he'd ferreted out hers; but now the joke palled. She was too frightened. Her eyes burned for sleep, and her face was as pale as a linen shroud. He resisted the idea, yet felt mayhap he had done wrong.
Don't think about wrong. I have enough troubles without taking on "wrong" I don't even understand "wrong!"
After all, what had he done but show her the reality of her situation —that he had the power of life and death over her, right down to the power to decide what the quality of that life or death might be? She was sound, not harmed in any way except for that lump on her head; she could bear a well-deserved lesson in discipline.
But disciplined or not, with that hair like amber seaweed, and that skin as fresh and soft as a babe's, and those eyes, wide-set —and green!—and that mouth with its lilt at the corners that gave her a seductive expression capable of melting any man's metal, aye, even undisciplined he would get his price for her. He imagined her on the block, her shift stripped from her shoulders. . . .
Blood Wing
tugged hard on the steering oar and surged ahead. It was as though the dragonship had spoken aloud:
Keep awake and steer, Northman!
Thoryn felt the overlapped planks of the hull twist. She was like a live beast bucking the waves.
But even the dragonship couldn't keep all his attention right now. He soon fell back to thinking about the woman.
Mayhap it would be a mistake to sell her in Kaupang. It was the closest big mart to Thorynsteading, but he might get a much better price for her in Hedeby, where sometimes Rus traders visited in search of new faces and bodies to take down the Volga for the Arabian harems. The Arabs were said to crave fair women, and this one was certainly fair.
"You gloat, Thoryn?" Rolf Kali clapped him on the back as he joined him on the steering platform. The evening was cooling, and Rolf had his grey cloak on, held to his chest by twin gilt-bronze brooches.
Thoryn raised his brows in question, though he knew exactly what Rolf thought he was gloating about.
Besides that rusty-red hair and beard, Rolf sported a widespread, unrefined
One or two had climbed into their sleeping bags. Ottar Magnusson and Jamsgar Herjulsson, called the Copper-eye, were playing chess. A few others watched the game, trading coarse jibes. Several men were seeing to their weapons. Time at sea was often filled with wiping weapons dry against rust, and touching blades to whetstones.
Hauk, Jamsgar, and Ottar were among those in Thoryn's private hire. They lived on Thorynsteading in the longhouse in return for acting as his personal men-of-arms. They were men built to feast on other men, so brisk and strong and well armed that they had no enemies, men made of iron true enough to hold an edge. Sweyn the Berserk had been one of them.
Thoryn sighed. The darkening sky was full of enough high clouds that the breeze should last the night. That would put them nearly a third of the way home.
His ever-shifting gaze moved to the Saxons. He'd waited to feed them until he was sure none of them was going to hang miserably over the gunwales retching up his meal. The boy, lying by the shield-wall making little marks on the deck planks with a wet finger, would make a good shepherd. When he grew, he'd do for a field worker. The three servant women were for Inga, who needed more help in the longhouse as she got older. The man was a thin weedy type, and Thoryn wouldn't have brought him except that he was obviously a carpenter. Thoryn had a notion in his mind that was going to require carpenters.
One spear of rosy light picked out the maiden. Now, there was a prize. She was tilting the waterskin to drink and caught his stare with a sideways look —and nearly choked. He averted his face and schooled himself not to scowl.
He'd finally quelled her. One of his strengths was his unerring nose for frailty in others, and at first he'd been amused to see how thoroughly he'd ferreted out hers; but now the joke palled. She was too frightened. Her eyes burned for sleep, and her face was as pale as a linen shroud. He resisted the idea, yet felt mayhap he had done wrong.
Don't think about wrong. I have enough troubles without taking on "wrong" I don't even understand "wrong!"
After all, what had he done but show her the reality of her situation —that he had the power of life and death over her, right down to the power to decide what the quality of that life or death might be? She was sound, not harmed in any way except for that lump on her head; she could bear a well-deserved lesson in discipline.
But disciplined or not, with that hair like amber seaweed, and that skin as fresh and soft as a babe's, and those eyes, wide-set —and green!—and that mouth with its lilt at the corners that gave her a seductive expression capable of melting any man's metal, aye, even undisciplined he would get his price for her. He imagined her on the block, her shift stripped from her shoulders. . . .
Blood Wing
tugged hard on the steering oar and surged ahead. It was as though the dragonship had spoken aloud:
Keep awake and steer, Northman!
Thoryn felt the overlapped planks of the hull twist. She was like a live beast bucking the waves.
But even the dragonship couldn't keep all his attention right now. He soon fell back to thinking about the woman.
Mayhap it would be a mistake to sell her in Kaupang. It was the closest big mart to Thorynsteading, but he might get a much better price for her in Hedeby, where sometimes Rus traders visited in search of new faces and bodies to take down the Volga for the Arabian harems. The Arabs were said to crave fair women, and this one was certainly fair.
"You gloat, Thoryn?" Rolf Kali clapped him on the back as he joined him on the steering platform. The evening was cooling, and Rolf had his grey cloak on, held to his chest by twin gilt-bronze brooches.
Thoryn raised his brows in question, though he knew exactly what Rolf thought he was gloating about.
Besides that rusty-red hair and beard, Rolf sported a widespread, unrefined
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