Viking Passion by Flora Speer Read Free Book Online

a
bundle of folded clothes in her arms.
    “So, you are awake at last,” Erik said. “It
is past midday. I let you sleep because I knew you were tired.”
    “Thank you,” Lenora whispered, embarrassed to
have Erik and the blond woman watching her so closely when she was
undressed.
    “This is my sister Freydis,” Erik went on.
“She will explain your duties. You are to obey her in
everything.”
    “Are you -” Lenora’s voice squeaked in
fright. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Are you giving me to
her?”
    “No,” he replied. “I require a woman to
attend me. One of Thorkell’s women has been serving me. Now you
will do that.”
    “Will I continue to sleep here?”
    “You will. But I will not touch you, so have
no fear of me.” His expression clearly showed his disgust at the
thought of taking what had once been Snorri’s. “I warn you on pain
of death not to tell anyone. I cannot insult my father by rejecting
his gift to me, so no one must know we do not lie together. No one,
not even Thorkell’s slave who was your friend. Let people think
what they will.”
    “Very well, if you promise not to give me
away. I do not want to be given back to Snorri.”
    He frowned at her. “You are my thrall,” he
reminded her. “I need not promise a slave anything. But I tell you
that if I give you away or sell you, it will not be to Snorri. I
will give him nothing.”
    Freydis had been listening to this
conversation, which was conducted in a mixture of English and
Latin, with a puzzled expression. Now she spoke sharply to Erik. He
nodded.
    “One thing more,” he said to Lenora. “You
must learn to speak our tongue. I will not always be with you to
translate for you.”
    “I will try.” She would have promised almost
anything out of sheer gratitude at not being returned to
Snorri.
    “Now you must bathe.”
    “I washed last night.”
    Erik grinned at her. The smile lit up his
face and made him look like a young boy. His sea-green eyes
sparkled with humor, dazzling her.
    “I do not like dirty women. Bathing often is
a custom I learned in Miklagard, although it is not unknown here,
especially in summer. We Danes are cleaner than you Saxons.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “No?” His eyebrows went up, and she realized
he was teasing her.
    “I won’t bathe,” she declared. “It’s
unhealthy.”
    “Since you were given to me,” he replied,
“you have said little else to me but no . If you say no one more time, I will beat you. I will not live with a
dirty woman.”
    Lenora’s chin went up defiantly. She started
to speak, but the look in his eye silenced her. He took the gown
from her and gave her the rough woolen blanket under which she had
slept.
    “Wrap yourself in this and follow Freydis,”
he said. “And from this moment, you will speak only Norse.”
    There was nothing to do but follow his
orders. Lenora covered her nakedness as best she could and left the
cottage.
    The mist and rain of the previous day were
gone and the sun was warm on her head and shoulders. Lenora looked
upon a landscape surprisingly like the one she had known all her
life. Undulating green fields surrounded Thorkellshavn. Lenora,
accustomed to living in a farming community, surveyed the fields
with a practiced eye, recognizing a large strip of barley, another
of rye, and noticing a herd of cattle grazing contentedly in the
distance. The flat countryside beyond the farmlands was heavily
forested. Looking in the opposite direction from the farm, she saw
Snorri’s longship drawn up onto a narrow ledge of sand at the
river’s edge. Beyond, along the far western horizon, she could
glimpse between the sand dunes the blue shimmer of the North Sea.
Over that sea lay her home, or what had been her home.
    “Come,” Freydis called over her shoulder.
“You are too slow.”
    Lenora took a deep breath and straightened
her back and shoulders in a gesture that was becoming habitual with
her. Then she followed Freydis.
    Some distance