“Hah! Since last week, you mean?”
His face flushed with embarrassment.
She continued to glare at him and said under her breath, “One more thing: yank that chain again, and I’m going to shove it down your throat.”
“Ah, I thought you might shove it the same place as Oslac’s sword.”
“Good idea.”
“Do not issue threats to me. You will not win.”
“So, you want me to agree with everything you say. Should I bow down on my knees and beg for permission to speak at all?”
“You may go to your knees, especially if it is to do what you did last night.”
She gasped and then went red with mortification when she realized that there had been a momentary lull in conversation, and practically everyone at the table had heard his disclosure.
“I did not mean to—” he started to say.
“Shut up!”
He flinched as if she’d hit him. It was probably the first time anyone had ever cut him off so rudely. At this point, she didn’t care.
“I will let you get away with that just once, and that is all. I should not have said what I did in front of others, but that is no excuse for insolence.”
Blah, blah, blah. “Was that an apology?”
“Do not push me, wench.”
“Wench now. You’ve gotta make up your mind, Steven. Lady or wench.”
He smiled, probably figuring that all was forgiven. “Both.”
Inhaling and exhaling to tamp down her temper, she finally said, “We’ve got to come to an understanding here. You are bigger and stronger than me. I am in your enemy territory. Therefore you can put a chain around my neck or flog me or even kill me. But there are some things you cannot dictate.”
She could almost see his brain grinding as he considered her declaration. In the end, he just arched his brows at her to continue.
“Sweetheart,” she said with exaggerated sweetness, “you got lucky last night. You are not getting lucky with me again.”
“Sweetling,” he replied with equal exaggerated sweetness, obviously understanding the modern meaning of getting lucky, “every man makes his own luck. And I am far-famed for my woman-luck.”
“Not this woman. You cut all your bridges when you put this around my neck.” She tapped the leather collar with distaste.
“We shall see,” he said, then added, “And, by the by, I am not your enemy.” Yet.
Chapter 13
Some men are dumber than dirt . . .
Steven enjoyed having Rita with him, even in her sullen mood. And that was unusual for him. He enjoyed women . . . their comeliness, their softness, the wooing, the eventual and inevitable bedding . . . but he rarely had an interest in them beyond the bedsport. What sane man did?
Rita was maintaining a stubborn silence, refusing to react to his good-intentioned remarks or to their surroundings, except on those occasions when she felt compelled to speak. Like right now, with the second case before his jarl court, where Karr Half-Ear, one of his farmers from Amberstead, was asking for permission to set aside his first wife, Frida, so he could take on a third wife, Halla, perfectly acceptable under the rules of more Danico. In this case, however, he suspected that the first wife, who had no living parents, would be abandoned to Steven’s household, where he would be required to give her work or find her a new husband. Sitting behind the standing Karr were the two women, one not unattractive but clearly having seen close to forty winters, the other young, blonde, and very buxom.
Karr was a total dunderhead, in Steven’s opinion. While he could see the need for one wife to gain legitimate heirs, two was asking for trouble. Three was more than excessive; it was insanity. But that was beside the point of this petition.
“Why would you set aside Frida?” Steven asked. “Has she been unfaithful?”
Karr’s jaw clenched before he admitted, “Nay!”
“Has she slandered your good name?”
Karr shook his head slowly, not at all happy to be questioned thus.
“Has she voiced a desire to end the marriage?”
“Nay, but what has that to do with aught? I have a right to take another wife if I want to.”
“That you do, Karr, but our laws also say you cannot set aside a wife without good reason. She is your responsibility from the day you said your vows.”
“Good reason? Good reason? I will give you good reason. I cannot support three wives, eight children, and another on the way.”
All eyes turned to a preening Halla, who must be with child, although she showed no bump yet. The second wife was not present.
By the huffing noises coming from his side, he could tell that Rita was about to break her vow of silence. She had an opinion she would like to express. Surprise, surprise!
“What say you about this case, Ree-tah?” he asked. “Perchance you could give us a woman’s view.”
Karr sputtered his protest, and a number of men around the hall raised their heads from whatever they had been doing. Women were rarely given a voice in court, especially not a slave woman.
With deliberate care, Steven unwound his end of the chain from around his wrist and laid it on the table, indicating Rita was free . . . for the moment, leastways. He did not detach the chain from her leather collar, though. Fool he may be, but not that much of a fool.
She stood and addressed Karr’s first wife. “Frida, how old are you?”
Startled, Frida sputtered out, “Thirty and nine, m’lady.”
Odd how his people were unsure how to place Rita in their society, so they mostly opted for “lady,” even with the thrall collar.
“And how long have you been married to this . . .” Rita’s lips curled with distaste . . . lips that were still swollen from his endless kisses “. . . this man?”
“Twenty-four years. Since I was fifteen.”
It was Rita who was startled now. And enraged. “Perfect!” she muttered.
“Fifteen is a perfectly suitable age for a girl to wed, with many childbearing years ahead of her.”
“Why not ten or eleven?” she asked, her voice reeking with condemnation.
“That would be ridiculous. Girls do not have their courses yet and are therefore unable to get pregnant.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? Stallions are put to mares to breed, but only when the mares are of proper age and able to come into standing heat. Only a foolish horse breeder would put a stallion and young filly in the same pen. A waste of the horse’s man seed. ’Tis the same with human mating.”
He thought he had made a perfectly logical explanation, but apparently not to his stubborn Rita. She shook her head at him as if he were hopeless and turned back to Frida. “How many children do you and Karr have?”
“Ten. Five boys and five girls.”
“Some men should be castrated,” Rita said under her breath.
“Because we are virile?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“It takes only one male sperm to make a child. It takes a real man to be a father. Do you want to be defined by your sperm, Steven?”
He had no idea what she had just said, but he was fairly certain it was a slur on his manhood.
“Are any children still at home with you?” Rita was back to grilling Frida. “I mean, are there any young ones still needing parental care?”
Frida nodded. “Three. Ota, who is ten. Maerta, who is eight, and Gunnora, who is five.”
“All girlings!” Karr spat out. “What good are they to a farming man?”
“Karr, do you feel no obligation to care for your first wife and three remaining children?” Rita asked the question with as much civility as she could manage, considering her fists were clenched and her teeth gritted.
“I do not have to answer any questions from the likes of you,” Karr spat out. At the glare from Steven, he added, “But, nay, I do not. A man has the need to ease himself on a young body betimes. Frida ne’er regained her strength after birthing
Gunnora. She can scarce push a plow these days.”
Push a plow? The dimwitted sluggard. A real man would never admit to such. Putting his wife to the plow. Shameful! But he has a point about young women. They have more energy for the bedsport.
At the rough sounds Rita was emitting through lips puffing like a blowfish, Steven figured it was best he intercede. “Karr, you may set aside Frida and your three daughters. Take another wife or twenty, for all this court cares, but Frida is due a wergild for loss of a husband, same as if you died in my service. Frida and your daughters may come to Norstead where they will be given work, if they choose, but you will set aside one-tenth of your fall harvest for their upkeep, in addition to the one-tenth that comes to me. That will continue until the three girlings are grown and wed, at which time your payment to Frida will be reduced to one-twentieth, unless she has remarried. That is my judgment.”
Steven’s aide indicated to an angry Karr that he should leave now. His young bride-to-be was none too happy, either. Steven predicted that she would not be exchanging vows with this older man. She would be looking for greener fields to plow. And Frida, she was staring at Rita as if she was an angel come to earth. In fact, she walked up to the dais. Standing on the lower level she looked up to Rita, who still stood, and said, “Thank you, m’lady. If not for you, me and me daughters would be beggared. If there is aught I can do fer you, I am yer servant fer life.”
Interesting that she was thanking Rita and not him.
“Sorry I am to see any man reward fidelity in this manner, Frida,” he said. “Mayhap I should have ordered him to keep you as wife.”
Frida looked horrified. “With all due respect, m’lord, are ye daft? I have been sick of that old fart fer a long time.”
On those wise words, Frida swaggered away, giving a gloating sneer as she passed Karr and the weeping Halla, who was moaning out something about not wanting to plow.
When they were gone, and the next case was being brought forth, Steven turned to Rita, who was staring at him in an odd way. “You intended to rule in that way the entire time, didn’t you?”
He shrugged as if that were a possibility. “Impressed, are you?” When she declined to answer, he remarked, “I am not as insensitive or lackwitted as you thought, am I?”
Finally, she nodded, but was quick to add, “You are still not getting lucky again.”
They weren’t Reva and Josh, but there was a guiding light . . .
The more PO’ed Rita got, the more Steven enjoyed her jibes. And the more he dug in his deep Viking heels.
He didn’t even react when she taunted him with all the things she would have done for him in bed if he hadn’t been such an ass. Things that only modern women would know about. The Butterfly. The Popsicle. The Swing. The Backbend. Diving for Treasure. The Double-Jointed Twist.
The twitch beside his flattened lips and the movement of his Adam’s apple were the only betrayals of his being affected by her taunts. She had to give him credit for his quick comeback. “Ah, well, I guess I will have to satisfy myself with Rocking the Longboat, Scissoring the Sword, and Whiskering the Nether Lands.”
Her jaw had dropped open, which she’d quickly clicked shut, but not before he waggled his eyebrows at her. The dolt!
She had stumbled along after him all morning, to the amusement of every living soul at Norstead, until he had committed the ultimate sin. So he could practice military maneuvers with his men, he’d attached her chain to a hitching post on the sidelines. She couldn’t move more than eight feet away. The final indignity had been the big cup of water he’d left with her.
A dog . . . that’s all she was to him.
Or a pet.
An amusing sexual toy to be taken out or put aside as the mood hit him.
He was across the field from her now, bare-chested, as were many of the men, wearing only boots and braies. They were engaged in sword practice, but not like any fencing demonstration she’d ever seen. No thrust and parry of rapiers. Nope, the broadswords were so big and heavy that all these men, strong as they were, could do was swing in a wide arc, right to left or left to right, hoping to cleave shields or the enemy by either lopping off a head or limb, or better yet, cut the enemy in the vulnerable area between neck and groin known as the fat line, where all the vital organs were located.
Others were practicing lance throwing, mace swinging, and archery. Still others used daggers to come up behind an enemy and give him a blood ring about the neck. No one said the Vikings weren’t bloodthirsty fighters. In fact, it was considered a great honor to die in battle, rather than a straw death.
In the midst of it all, some soldiers rode destriers, huge warhorses, zigzagging through the melee, training them to be acclimated to the sounds and smells of battle, she supposed.
Some of the boys Rita had been teaching the other day asked Steven if she could give them more instructions. Steven had seemed to consider the request, but then refused, saying they could get instruction enough from his own archers.
Another black mark in her book of Steven crimes against her.
When the younger children crept slowly toward her, hoping for more stories, Arnstein, the steward, yelled for them to come back to the keep and help their mothers. Probably on orders from Steven the Meany.
At first, the kids pretended not to hear Arnstein.
“I can’t tell you any stories right now, but I can teach you a trick.”
That got their interest.
“Can you all stand on your heads?”
The older ones said yes, but the little ones just stared at her dumbly.
So, being careful of her chain and already barefooted, she stood on her hands, and not just that, she proceeded to walk around the pole. It was something she’d learned to do as a child, probably one of the early indicators that she had an athletic bent.
The children were giggling and laughing, rolling in the dirt, as they tried unsuccessfully to do the same.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Because she was surprised by the sharp voice behind her, she lost her balance and fell, almost choking herself in the process.
Steven stood, hands braced on hips, glaring at her as if she’d committed some great crime. Meanwhile, the kids had scattered like scared chickens.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she complained, rubbing her neck where the chain had yanked at her collar.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“No, but I’m bored just sitting here pretending to admire your studliness. What’s so wrong with playing with the children?”
“Studliness?” he sputtered. “You are being punished. You are not supposed to be enjoying yourself. And stop looking at me like you are a cat and I am the bowl of milk you cannot wait to lap. Much more, and you will find I am luckier than you think I can be.”
She shook her head like a wet dog, realizing that she had been gaping at his bare chest. “You stink,” she blurted out.
“Of course I stink. I have been sweating like a boar in heat.”
“Did I tell you I am going to discover deodorant?”
“Huh?”
“In my time, men and women wear deodorant under their arms so that they don’t smell. My witch friends gave me a bunch of ingredients to experiment with.”
He put his face in both hands and appeared to be counting. When he glanced up again, he said, “Please, I beg you, do not be going around telling people that they stink.”
“You mean, like your King Olaf when he arrives?” she asked sweetly.
His eyes widened with alarm. “Do not dare! Or you will find that collar and chain a permanent fixture.”
Talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. So she turned her back on him and lay down on the ground, curling herself carefully around the pole.
“Now what are you doing?”
“Taking a nap.”
There was silence behind her for a moment before he said, “Mayhap we should both go indoors and take a nap. I am feeling l
ucky.”
She thought of so many rejoinders, cute ones, insulting ones, but she decided to settle on just giving him the cold shoulder. Expecting him to stomp off, she waited.
Instead, he said, “I like your arse.”
“What?” She jerked, hitting her forehead on the pole.
“In those braies, your form is clearly delineated, especially your plump arse. Very nice!”
If he thought that he was going to gain himself points by saying she had a fat behind, he had another think coming. Coming back to a sitting position with her back against the pole, she said, “You’ve got a pretty nice butt yourself. Too bad you’re such an ass.”
Chuckling, he went off to play more of his war games.
She soon had another visitor. Sigvid, who was well into another bout of hiccuping. “Can you—hiccup—help me—hiccup?”
“Me? I don’t know anything about hiccups. Maybe when Sigge comes back tomorrow, she can get a remedy from her aunts.”
“Her aunts—hiccup—the witches—hiccup?”
Rita nodded.
“I would rather—hiccup—take my chances with you—hiccup.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“Please. Lady Thora banished me—hiccup—from the keep. Says I am annoying . . . hiccup.”
She was about to say that Lady Thora had no authority to banish anyone but decided it would be wiser not to enrage Lady Thora while she had a chain attached to her neck. “Okay, here’s one thing that I’ve heard works.” She handed her cup of water to Sigvid. “Bend over from the waist and drink this water, but wait, you need to drink from the opposite side of the cup, so that your chin is inside. And take one long sip after another. Maybe six total.”
Sigvid was unable to drink and keep her balance at the same time. She fell forward, the cup flying, and her gown flipping up to expose a pair of red wool panties covering a pair of very ample buttocks, accented by purple bows on each hip. She was still hiccuping, but instead of being angry or engaging in her usual sobbing, her back was lifting rhythmically. She was laughing.