She pursed her lips, and slanted her eyes at her audience. “For tonight, Odin has doings in Niflheim, where ice-bonds lock the limbs and all lust is stilled in nothingness.”
Cold fire flashed in her eyes as she thrust her hands toward them. “Hear the sayings of Odin as he hung upon the World Tree, Yggdrasil’s frozen root in the dark domain of eternal winter. Hear the words of the Wise One as he plundered Niflheim to bring us mortals the secret of runes. I give you," she paused, "the Havamal."
Every eye in the hall was trained upon her, transported to the misty realm of Niflheim, that accursed place of ice and shadows.
“On the windswept Tree, did I hang for nine nights.”
She started softly, wringing every drop of meaning from each syllable, each percussive consonant and sibilance. Rika’s lips moved, but the crowd seemed to hear Odin, the All-Father describing his own sacrifice in order to bring the secret of runes to his people.
“With spear was I pierced
And offered to Odin
Myself to myself
On that Tree
Whose roots
No man can know.”
Her voice grew stronger, rasping with agony, the tension in her arms showing how the frigid bonds had held the Wise One fast.
“No bread was I given. No drink from the horn.”
Her audience shifted in their seats guiltily. Every full belly in the hall churned at the thought of Odin’s hunger and thirst.
“Into the depths I peered…”
Rika’s eyes widened in terror. She seemed to actually see Niflheim and the runic symbols etched on icy slabs before her, enshrouded with ghostly phantoms of mist. She heard several gasps around the hall as her listeners caught the same horrific image.
“The runes, I grasped ...”
She clutched at the invisible lettering, her voice edged with hysteria.
“Screaming, did I grasp them—”
She jerked violently and stutter-stepped backward half a pace, as if toppling from a branch on the World Tree in that icy realm far away.
“And then to Midgard bearing treasure for men, did I tumble back.”
She whisked her audience with her along the gnarled trunk of Yggdrasil, back to warmth and light in one blinding moment. Rika finished in a whisper that circled the hall and echoed off the hardened leather shields hanging on the walls.
Silence hovered over the hall so potent that no one wanted to break the spell. Rika had taken them on a dizzying sojourn through the nine worlds, to Niflheim and back, and her listeners could scarcely draw a breath.
“By all the gods,” Bjorn swore softly. “Rika, you are a skald.”
She turned to Bjorn and gave him the first real smile that had graced her lips since she’d discovered Magnus face down in the straw.
“Rika, Rika.” Jorand started the chant and a couple of the nearby fighting men joined in. The cry was taken up around the hall, accompanied by scores of fists pounding on the benches. “Rika, Rika.”
She raised her hand to silence them before starting on the Saga of Sigurd. The joy of her art sang in her veins, flooding her with power and charging her body with so much energy, it seemed to flash from her fingertips as she gestured.
Bjorn leaned forward, the better to watch her face. He’d never seen the like. And to think he’d believed he could take this woman captive. As he listened to her weave another spell with words, he realized that he was the one who was in real danger of being captured.
Chapter 6
He was drowning. Again and again, the waves closed over his head, dragging him down. He gulped for air, but got a mouthful of brackish water instead. Yanking off the mail shirt, he kicked back to the surface. The tips of his fingers bumped something solid. Ice. Panic rose like bile in the back of his throat.
Bubbles escaped his lips and skittered along the underside of the ice sheet, seeking a way to the world of light and air. He followed them; searching for the opening he must have slipped through. The freezing water stung his eyes. He pounded the ice with his fist, but it was too thick.
His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen. They threatened to burst out of his chest, red and pulsing like a gory blood-eagle. He’d seen done it once, a man’s lungs ripped through his ribs and spread out like spongy wings across his dying back. A vicious death reserved for the vicious crime of patricide. Now he knew what it felt like.
He began to sink, his sodden clothing pulling him into oblivion. The frigid water slowed his movements and lack of air disconnected his mind from his flailing limbs. He was bound for Hel, with no chance of Valhalla. An ignominious death by drowning would not lure the Valkyries to bear him to glory. His eyes closed as he stopped struggling and accepted his fate.
Suddenly, he twirled in the water and he snapped open his eyes to see what had disturbed the current around him. A flash of green scales and cold, reptilian eyes swished by him. Jormungand, the World Serpent. The monster turned in the dark water and headed straight for him, gigantic maw gaping, ridged with a thousand flesh-tearing teeth.
He used the last bit of air in his lungs to scream.
* * *
The strangled cry woke Rika from a deep sleep, and in the dark, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Bjorn the Black’s bed. But surely the piteous sound she’d heard couldn’t have come from that beast.
“No!” He thrashed about, tearing through the furs and blankets that made up his bedding. One of his hands found her at the far edge and pulled her in close.
Rika realized he was still asleep and she shook him with no gentleness at all. “Wake up,” she said sharply. “You’re dreaming.”
Bjorn jerked, chest heaving, holding her as tightly as if she were a life rope. He inhaled deeply. Rika felt his heart galloping in his chest.
There was nothing amorous in his embrace, so Rika didn’t struggle. His body shuddered once. The fearsome raider was more like a small, frightened boy now, and she wondered what phantasmal image could’ve reduced him to this weakened state.
“A dream,” he repeated. “It was just a dream.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No,” he said with force. “I don’t need to relive it again.”
She felt his barely suppressed tremble and, for just a moment, she pitied him. “Sometimes, when Ketil has a bad dream, it helps him to tell me about it,” she rasped.
“That’s all I need,” Bjorn muttered. “Now you rank me with a half-wit.”
Rika pulled away from him and sat up. “My brother is a kind and gentle person, a pure spirit who wouldn’t hurt anyone. The day hasn’t dawned when you’re good enough to be ‘ranked’ with him.” Her voice had a raw edge to it.
“I suspect you don’t like me. You’ve been subtle about it, but it’s beginning to sink in.” He sounded weary. “What’s the matter with your voice?”
“It’s just tired. I’ve never told so many tales in one night before, but they wouldn’t let me stop.”
She had recited for hours, sagas and eddas one after the other, the long room alternately ringing with laughter or gone silent with hushed expectancy. Bjorn must have seen her sway on her feet from exhaustion because he’d finally stopped the storytelling by lifting her over his shoulder and carrying her bottom first out of the great hall.
Once they were in the privacy of his small room, she’d protested that she wouldn’t stay with him. She’d be no man’s bed-slave. He pointed out that her only other recourse as a thrall was to sleep in the main hall with all of Gunnar’s retainers. When she realized that her choice was fighting off fifty men or just one, Bjorn won the argument.
“A drink would help,” she said, massaging the soft skin at her throat. Rika pushed back the bedclothes and started to get up, feeling her way.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Bjorn swung his long legs over the side. Rika heard him grope for his fire-steel, flint and tinder. He struck a spark and lit the wick of a small clay lamp. The faint light glowed on his face as he turned back to her. “Not dressed as you are now, anyway.”
The scratchy tunic Astryd had forced on her made her skin miserable, so he’d given her one of his own. It was soft and spacious, and even though the cloth retained a bit of his scent, she was grateful to have it. But it hung only to her mid-thigh. Rika caught him eyeing her bare calves, so she pulled her long legs up under the fabric and hugged her knees to her chest. Bjorn was right. If she ventured into the hall where the men were sleeping dressed like this, no one would believe her if she cried rape.
“I’ll fetch you some ale,” Bjorn offered as he tugged up his leggings. He took the lamp to light his way and slipped out of the small room.
Huddled in the dark, she tried to puzzle out this bewildering man. Bjorn was a contradiction with feet. He was gruff and tender, fearsome and frightened, swaggering bully and willing servant. How was she to make sense of someone who blew so hot and cold? She never knew from one moment to the next which face he’d present to her. He made her feel strangely off-balance.
It was easy for her to hate the hardened warrior. The small frightened boy was something else altogether.
He came back with a long horn, brimming with the dark liquid that Rika thought tasted like warm bread.
“Oh, you’ve brought far too much,” she protested. There was a small clay night jar in the corner of his room, but she couldn’t bring herself to use it, and a trip to the privy was out for the same reason that she couldn’t get her own ale. She’d have to wait till morning.
“Drink what you can, and I’ll finish the rest. Maybe the ale will help me sleep.” He held the horn out to her. “Please gods, a sleep without dreams,” he said under his breath.
She took a small sip and let the familiar bite of the ale steal down her throat. It soothed her inflamed vocal cords and warmed her belly.
“Thank you. That helps.” She sipped once more and handed the horn back to him.
He took a large gulp, his dark eyes never leaving hers. “We’re both wide awake,” he said, lifting the horn slightly. “We need to finish this before I can lay it down. How shall we pass the time, I wonder?” He arched a brow at her as he sipped the ale this time.
Rika slid over and leaned against the wall, tucking her legs under her. Whatever he had in mind, she was sure she wouldn’t like it.
“I know.” His voice was a soft rumble that reminded her of a great cat’s purr. “You can tell me more about your travels with Magnus Silver-Throat.”
“You wouldn’t believe me when I did try to tell you.”
“I’m inclined to believe you now. I’ve never heard a more powerful skald than you, Rika.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to know any more about me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’d just use the knowledge for your own ends.”
“You’re probably right about that.” He chuckled. “How about a story, then?”
“Another story?” Her shoulders sagged with weariness.
“Not as a skald, Rika. You’ve performed enough for one night.” Bjorn offered her the horn again, but this time she declined with a shake of her head, “Just a simple tale told between friends when one of them has had a bad dream.”