Lord of Raven's Peak by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page B

him. “What are you? Why are you pretending to be gentle with me and Taby? What is it you want? Will you give me to your men or to a friend to gain you something? Thrasco was going to give me to the prince of Kiev’s sister, who likes young boys. What will you do?”
    â€œYou must get well again to find that out,” he said as he rinsed her as quickly as he could, then covered her even more quickly, drawing the thick soft wool to her chin. He said instead, “Does it hurt you too much to lie on your back?”
    â€œAye, it does.”
    He helped her to turn onto her stomach. He patted her back with more hot water, then laid clean linen cloths over it. He pulled the wool cover to her neck. Her hair was thick, curly, short, and very ragged.
    â€œWhat color is your hair?”
    â€œRed.”
    He sat on his haunches and frowned down at the back of her head. Her voice was arrogant again, just that one simple word and yet it sounded like a royal announcement from a royal mouth. He said, “The light is dim and I could not tell, and before it was so dirty, it couldhave been green. So it is red. I do not like that color, and our women at home don’t have it.”
    â€œDo you think I care, Viking?”
    He smiled more widely at the back of her head, adding, “It is too strong a color for a woman, it is perhaps indecent, not quite civilized. No, it is a color I do not like. How do you know I am a Viking?”
    â€œYou are from Norway. Are you so witless you remember not what you say? Also, you have blond hair and blue eyes. You are larger than the men I’ve seen in other lands. All Vikings are big. All Vikings look alike. There is nothing about you that sets you apart from any other man of your country. You are common.”
    He laughed. “And where you come from, do all women have red hair, red hair so dark it looks nearly black in the dim night?”
    â€œNay.”
    â€œI did not think so. All the women from your land don’t have skin as dead white as a new snowfall in Vestfold either, do they?”
    â€œNay, but more than a few do, if one looks closely, which the Vikings don’t, since all they do is raid and kill and steal whatever they can carry, including people.”
    He ignored that, saying, “Ah, you are even different from those in your own land. I thought as much. Red hair and white flesh, surely the Christian devil’s curse on a female, one that bespeaks a god’s punishment.”
    â€œIt wasn’t a god or a devil who cursed me,” she said, and he heard the pain in her voice and the utter weariness, and something else, rage, banked but still there, so deep it would remain with her the rest of her life, hard and strong.
    He frowned again at the back of her head, only thistime there was no mockery in his voice as he said, “Do you wish for more bread?”
    â€œNay, but Taby is always hungry, always more hungry than I. He would want more bread.”
    â€œCleve is seeing to the boy, both he and Oleg—the man whose hand you bit—are tending to him. They will feed him until he can’t move. There is enough food for both of you. Neither of you will starve.”
    â€œYou will then sell him?”
    â€œI can’t believe Taby would bring me much silver,” Merrik said, his voice thoughtful even as he felt anger at her for her deep distrust. By all the gods, hadn’t he saved her? “He is only a small child, of little account. Aye, I should probably sell him.”
    â€œI will buy us from you. Cleve too.”
    â€œAre you hiding your silver somewhere I haven’t looked? Surely not, for I was thorough in my bathing of you.”
    She was quiet as a stone.
    â€œYourself as well?”
    â€œAye, all three of us.”
    He laughed, marveling at her. “You are flat on your belly, my girl, with naught to cover you but the clothing I and my men give you. The food in that skinny stomach of yours is