Chapter 4 #2
She just looked up at him. He knew she wanted to refuse him, but she didn’t. She kept her mouth shut. She was learning; she was showing control. He supposed he knew she had to have some control, else she never would have survived any time at all as a slave.
He gently turned her onto her belly over his thighs and drew the tunic over her head. He looked up briefly to see that all his men were at their oars, faced away from him. He scooped up river water and set to work. Her makeshift hat fell off but he didn’t retrieve it just yet.
How could anyone have ever believed her a boy?
Her hair, as red as an early fall sunset over Vestfold, nearly as bright as the bolt of bloodred silk he’d seen from Baghdad two years before, curled in ragged clumps around her face and down her neck.
A pretty face, he thought, never a boy’s face.
But so very thin. He still feared she would die.
Not from the beating Thrasco had given her, but from knowing hunger for too long.
After he’d bathed her back, he dressed her again in Eller’s tunic.
She slept again. He gave her over to Cleve and took his turn at the oars, for he was restless.
Taby still sat on Oleg’s thighs and when Merrik looked toward him, he saw fear, not so much now, but it was still enough to make him want to clutch the child to him and protect him forever.
He smiled painfully and said, “Your sister is sleeping. I bathed her again and tended her back. The fever is nearly gone.”
He hoped it was the truth. He could do no more for her.
He nodded to the child, and bent back to the oars.
The day remained calm and hot, with scarcely a breeze to cool the men.
They let the longboat drift close to shore in the mid-afternoon to rest and drink ale from the barrel Roran had dangled from a rope overboard to cool in the river water.
The silence was absolute, save for the soft slapping of the water against the sides of the longboat and their low conversation.
They were well beyond Chernigov now and drawing to within a half day of Gnezdovo and Smolensk where the Dnieper ended just beyond, curling eastward.
They would sail to the far shore at roughly the mid-distance between the two towns before the sun set tonight, then early tomorrow morning, they would drag the longboat ashore to begin the portage overland to the river Dvina.
The portage wasn’t overly difficult, the ground was mostly flat, a wide road worn down over the years by hundreds of traders.
Viking traders in the past years had killed most of the savages who had attacked trading vessels, or taken them as slaves, but if there were still some of the savages nearby, Merrik didn’t want to alert them, and that was odd of him, for he always relished a good fight.
But now he wanted no trouble and it was because of the small boy and the girl who were helpless and in his charge.
When she awoke again and yawned deeply, it was Merrik’s face above her.
He smiled at her and stuffed some bread into her mouth.
She chewed silently, then opened her mouth again.
He fed her until once again she shook her head, a look of pleased amazement on her thin face.
He gave her cool ale to drink. Then she said, “I wish to go ashore for a moment.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“I wish to go ashore.”
“You cannot. There could be danger. We will continue northward for three more hours, then we will go ashore and camp for the night.”
“You are a coward then.”
He shook his head at her. “Were you truly a boy, you would surely be dead by now. You forget again that you are alive only because I decided to intervene.”
She winced. He didn’t know whether it was from pain in her back or from the reminder of what she owed him.
She looked at him straight on and said, “I must relieve myself.”
He said matter-of-factly, “You have seen the men relieve themselves. It is more difficult for you, a female, but nonetheless, you must do it. I will stand in front of you to give you some privacy. Do you wish to do it now?”
She nodded.
Once she was finished, he helped her sit down beside him. “That wasn’t so very bad, was it?”
“It was bad,” she said, not looking at him.
“It’s always been bad. At first I couldn’t bear it, it was more humiliation than I thought one could endure.
Then I realized that all regarded it with indifference, save for those who enjoyed shaming the slaves.
They enjoyed watching closely and laughing.
When I became a boy it was all the more difficult.
” She sighed, then grinned. “I became quite good at aping the boys. I would turn my back, position my arms just so, and all would think it a boy relieving himself. It was an act, of course, to lull any suspicions.”
“How long were you a female before you changed to a boy’s garb?”
“Not long, it was too dangerous. I didn’t wish to be ravished. Being a boy was safer.”
“Not in Kiev and to the south,” he said.
“Then I was lucky not to be in the south,” she said, and her voice was cool and he wondered if she were lying. He couldn’t tell.
He said, “If ever I intend to humiliate you, it will not be in that fashion. I gave you what privacy I could. I could do no more for you.”
“I know.”
“How do you feel?”
She looked surprised, then said, “Much better.”
She squared her skinny shoulders, winced, and let them relax again. “Perhaps not all that ready to kill your enemies,” he said.
“No, not quite.”
She was different, from her red hair and white flesh to the natural arrogance in her that should have been beaten out of her a long time ago. “How old are you?”
“I am eighteen.”
“How old is Taby?”
“He is nearly six now.”
“How long were both of you slaves?”
“Nearly two years—nay, I forget. It isn’t important. There is no reason for you to know, no reason for you to be interested.”
“It matters not that you told me. Had it been longer than two years, you would probably be dead, at least Taby would. It is amazing that you managed to keep him alive for two years. He was naught but a baby. Where do you come from?”
She shook her head and said, “I am from a place much like the place you come from. It is a place I will return to, in my own time, when I am ready to return. And I meant it, Viking, I want to buy the three of us from you.” She drew a deep breath.
“I will pay you for the clothes, I will pay you for what you paid for Taby, for—”
He wanted to cuff her. Instead he grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. “My name is Merrik. You will use it. You will also learn to mind that tongue of yours. No wonder Thrasco beat you. How many other masters have flayed the hide off you for your insolence?”
She shook her head, looking at him straight in his eyes. “Only one, the first one. I kept quiet after that. But I did win, for she bought Taby as well.”
“And why has your learning failed you now? Do you believe me too soft to beat you?”
Her eyes shifted and she looked over his left shoulder, toward Cleve, who was holding Taby’s hand, looking down at him and listening to him speak.
“You aren’t like the others,” she said. “You are not soft, but you are different. I don’t fear you, at least I don’t fear that you will beat me or Taby. ”
“You should fear me only if you find obedience to me difficult.”
She shook away his words. “You are different, aren’t you? You won’t sell us or hurt us or give us to your friends? When I asked you before, you mocked me.”
“I will think about it. Perhaps one of those choices you named will suit me. I will eventually determine some gain the three of you will bring me, but I will have to think about it, perhaps discuss it with Oleg, whose hand you nearly chewed off. In any case, I must fatten you up first, for now no man would want to grind his body against a woman with more bones than soft flesh.”
She said matter-of-factly, “I have learned that men will grind themselves against any female who is not dead. I became a boy after I saw a man rape a girl. He cuffed her until there was blood streaming from her nose and mouth and then he tore off her clothes and raped her. I don’t know if she lived.
When he was finished with her, she was bloody everywhere.
If I’d had a knife I would have killed him.
If you decide to sell me to a man who would do that, I would kill him. ”
“Then perhaps you should consider more gentleness of word and manner toward me.” He supposed it pleased him that she didn’t consider the possibility that he would rape her.
But he could if he wished to, surely she knew that.
Surely she knew he could do whatever he wished to her.
On past trading voyages, he’d been given slave girls to pleasure him, thus making him more apt to spend his silver and trade his goods with the men providing the girls.
Would she believe he had raped the girls?
They’d never fought him or cried out. He’d never raised his fist to any one of them.
He’d never hurt any of them. Or had he? And hadn’t he simply left that merchant’s house in Kiev when he’d seen Thrasco plowing that girl?
Aye, he’d left, disgusted with what he’d seen.
Still, a female slave was for the use of her masters, wasn’t she?
He frowned, disliking the way of his thoughts.
He dragged his hand through the fresh, cool water, wondering yet again why he had rescued these three from Kiev.
Surely he had been struck by a madness, a strange sort of malady that would leave him soon enough.
His hand fisted in the water, spewing a light rain upward to his chest and throat.
“Why did you stare at me at the slave market?”