Chapter One #2
She shook her head at him. She was calm now, he could see, now that she had a weapon in her hand.
And, by Odin, she was magnificent, standing there stark naked with water glistening all over her, her breasts taunting him with their fullness, her soft, flat belly above that thatch of tawny gold hair between her legs.
And she was daring him, daring him to make the slightest move toward her, and holding the knife as if she knew exactly how to wield it.
“I think your mother taught you more than to love her God.” Bitterness rose in his voice.
“Your father and brothers would never have taught you skill with that toy, nor condoned your learning, for it would be a slight to their ability to be able to protect you. The Lady Brenna taught you her Celtic tricks, did she? After all these years she should have learned her Celtic skill is no match for a Viking’s. What else did she teach you, Kristen?”
“I know the use of every weapon save the axe, for that is a clumsy instrument of death that requires no skill to wield,” she answered proudly.
“Clumsy only because you have not the strength to wield it,” he replied sourly. “And what would your father say if he knew? I wager he would take a strap to you and your mother both.”
“Will you tell him?” she taunted.
He glowered at her. Of course he wouldn’t tell her father, for then he would have to explain how he came to know.
And the curving grin on her lips said she understood that.
And thinking of Garrick Haardrad, who was half a foot taller than he and still a fine figure of a man even at two score and six years, cooled some of Dirk’s ardor—but not all of it.
His brown eyes probed hers. “What is wrong with me, Kristen, that you will not have me?”
This question took her by surprise, coming as it did with a note of confusion and softly uttered.
He was as bare to the eye as she was, standing in stiff pride before her, and her eyes hesitantly moved over his long body.
She was not unnerved by what she saw, for she had seen grown men naked when she and her best friend, Tyra, had snuck into her uncle’s bathhouse and hidden behind the water barrel to watch several of her cousins bathing.
Of course, this was more than ten years ago, and there was yet another difference now from then.
She had never before seen a man’s instrument of pleasure standing so straight and proud as Dirk’s was.
Kristen answered him truthfully, for what it was worth. “There is nothing wrong with you, Dirk. You have a very fine body and are pleasing to look upon. Your father has a rich farmstead, and you are his heir. A woman would be pleased to have you for husband.”
She didn’t add that Tyra would make a pact with the gods to have him and this was why Kristen wouldn’t consider him. Tyra had been in love with this man for the last five years, but he didn’t know that. And Kristen had sworn never to tell her friend’s secret to anyone, least of all to Dirk.
“You are simply not for me, Dirk Gerhardsen,” she finished firmly.
“Why?”
“You do not make my heart beat faster.”
He stared incredulously at her, demanding, “What has that to do with marriage?”
Everything, she told herself. To him, she said, “I am sorry, Dirk. I do not want you for my husband. I have already told you so.”
“Is it true you will marry Sheldon?”
She could lie and use that excuse to get out of this predicament, but she didn’t like lying just to make things easy.
“Sheldon is like a brother to me. I have considered him, since my parents would like me to wed him, but I will reject his suit, too.” And he will be delighted, she added to herself, for he thinks of me as a sister, too, and feels just as uncomfortable with the thought of a marriage between us as I do.
“You will have to choose someone, Kristen. Every man along the fjord has asked for you at one time or another. You should have been wed long ago.”
This was not a pleasant subject for Kristen, since she knew her situation better than anyone, and there was not a single man along the river that she wanted to marry.
She wanted a love like her parents had, but knew that eventually she would have to settle for less than that.
She had been postponing it for several years now by rejecting all suits, and her parents had let her because they loved her.
But she could not continue to do so indefinitely.
She became angry with Dirk for reminding her of her plight, which had been ever present in her mind for the last year. “Whom I choose will not concern you, Dirk, for it will not be you. Turn your mind to finding another, and please do not bother me again.”
“I could take you, Kristen, and force you to wed me,” he warned her softly. “Because you have turned down so many offers, your father could well give you to me after I ruin you for another. It has been done before this way.”
It was a possibility. Of course her father would beat him near to death first. But if Dirk still lived after that, she just might be given to him to wed. The fact that she would no longer be a maiden would have to be considered.
Kristen scowled at him. “If my father did not kill you, then I would. Do not be a fool, Dirk. I would never forgive such a foul trick.”
“But you would be mine.”
“I tell you I would kill you!”
“I think not,” he said with too much confidence for her liking. “I think the risk would be worth it.”
His eyes were on her breasts as he said this. Kristen stiffened. She should never have stood here talking to him. She should have leaped on Torden and ridden straight away instead of grabbing her dagger to face him.
“Then try it now, curse your eyes, and I will kill you beforehand!” Kristen hissed.
Dirk eyed her weapon again and saw her raise it in just such a way that it would surely find a mark before he could get it away from her. If only she weren’t nearly as tall as he was, and had the strength to go with the height…
His own anger rose again, but it was directed now at her mother for being crazy enough to teach her daughter a warrior’s skill. He growled low. “You will not always have that toy in your hand, Kristen.”
Her chin rose a notch. “You are a fool to warn me. Now I will be sure never to be caught alone again by you.”
He seethed at that. “Then be sure you lock your door while you sleep, too, for somehow, one day soon, I will manage to have you.”
Kristen didn’t deign to answer that threat, but stooped to pick up the clothes at her feet and toss them over her shoulder.
Without taking her eyes from Dirk, she reached behind her for Torden’s reins and backed away with her horse.
When she was several feet away, she gripped Torden’s silky white mane and leaped onto his back, setting him to heel instantly.
Behind her she could hear Dirk’s angry curses, but she gave no thought to that, worrying now only about wiggling into her clothes without slowing the steed, before she reached the Haardrad settlement and someone saw her.
She would never be able to explain, and the truth would find her with severe restrictions placed on her freedom, and Dirk Gerhardsen in a heap of trouble.
If it weren’t for those restrictions she would confess what had happened, but she valued her freedom too much.
Her father worried about her enough as it was.
Her mother didn’t, for Brenna had taught her well to protect herself all those many summers when her father had sailed to trade his goods, taking her brothers with him.
Brenna had taught Kristen in secret all that she had learned from her own father: the skill and cunning necessary to wield a weapon against a mightier foe, the cunning because even though Kristen was nearly half a foot taller than her mother, and her strength was greater than that of most women, she still lacked the strength of a man.
Kristen was proud of her ability to protect herself, but this was the first time she had ever had need to test that ability.
She could not openly wear weapons the way a man did, for her father would be furious if he knew what her mother had taught her.
She did not want to wear weapons anyway, for she was just as proud of her femininity.
Kristen was loved and cherished and protected by her family.
Besides her brother Selig, who was two years older than she, there was Eric, who had seen sixteen winters now, and Thorall, who had seen fourteen, and they were both nearly as big as their formidable father already.
She also had her cousin Athol, who was only a few months older than Selig, and dozens of other second and third cousins from her father’s side of the family who would fight to the death at even the slightest insult to her.
No, she was well protected and did not need to prove herself as her mother had felt the need to do when she was Kristen’s age.
Until today. If only she were sailing with Selig and his friends next week to the market towns in the East, then she wouldn’t have to worry about Dirk again—at least, not until she returned at the end of the summer.
By then he could well have found himself a wife and lost the inclination to bother her again.
Alas, she had already asked to go on this trading voyage and had been refused.
She was too old now to sail with so many young men, even if it was one of her father’s ships, with Selig in charge.
If Garrick wasn’t going, then she wasn’t going and that was that.
Even her teasing hint that she might meet another merchant prince like him in Birka or Hedeby and bring home a husband, had not swayed him.
If he couldn’t be there to look after her as he had done the three times he had let Kristen and her mother sail with him, then, by Odin, she was staying home.
Garrick had not sailed these last eight years, preferring to spend the warm summer months with Brenna, letting his friend Perrin command his ship, or Selig, now that he was old enough.
Kristen’s parents would ride north, alone, and not return until summer waned.
They hunted together, explored, and loved, and Kristen dreamed of a relationship like theirs for herself.
But where was there a man like Garrick, who could be gentle with those he loved, but oh so dangerous and threatening to those he did not, who could make her heart beat faster the way Brenna’s did when she simply looked at Garrick?
Kristen sighed and rode for home. There wasn’t such a man, not here.
Oh, there were a few gentle men, but not many, though there were many who could be and were quite dangerous.
The northlands raised a hardy lot of men, fine specimens of men, but no one she had met had stirred her young heart yet.
If only she could sail east with Selig. Somewhere surely there was a man fated for her, mayhap a merchant or sailor like her father—a Dane, perhaps, or a Swede, or even a Norseman from the South.
They all traded in the great market towns of the East. She only had to find him.