Viking Bride

  Viking Bride

  By Vivian Leigh

  Copyright 2013 - Vivian Leigh

  Smashwords Edition

  Chapter One

  Taken

  They took the women first. Burly, bearded men with round shields and gleaming blades poured through the village, a rising tide of destruction and mayhem. Eliza huddled in the hovel, listening to the roars and the screams. If she could only make herself small enough, only hide well enough, maybe they’d miss her.

  A faint hint of smoke hung in the air. It was heavier than the little cook fire where the fish stew she’d been preparing for her father hung in its pot. The pale skinned, blond raiders had been sailing further and further up the Seine. She hoped beyond hope that they’d overlook her. Well, that they’d overlook her and that they’d overlook her father’s fishing raft, wherever it was.

  The reed and mud door of the hut slammed open and a Viking strode inside. The wooden floor shook beneath him. He was big, blond and impossibly muscled.

  He poked through the crockery, but didn’t disturb the herbs stored inside. It felt like an eternity before he turned back to the door. Eliza held her breath afraid to even breathe. He took a single step toward the light, then stopped. He peered into the gloom of the hut, then approached the bed.

  Eliza held perfectly still, praying he wouldn’t see her.

  It didn’t work. “Up,” he said, in French.

  Eliza gulped, too scared to even move. Her knees rattled together.

  He tugged the pallet away, revealing her hiding place. Then he smiled. A rough hand grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to her feet.

  “Father!” she screamed, her face wild with terror. “Anyone! Help me!”

  He led her to the door, her struggles worthless against his strength. Outside in the light, she caught a better look of him. He was more handsome than she thought. And younger. Only a few years older than her.

  The village burned around her, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes. Two Vikings hauled a bearded man, Gruyere the Elder, she realized, toward the edge of the village. More of the blond devils dragged another woman, fire-headed Aldith. She didn’t fight, though Eliza soon saw the bloody splash matting the hair on the side of her head.

  The grip on her arm tightening, her captor moved faster, nearly pulling her off her feet. She had a feeling he wouldn’t have a problem dragging her like his fellow raider dragged Aldith.

  Where are the men? She looked between the huts, to the palisade, thinking someone would come. Her father would save her. They had to!

  They rounded the log wall on the far end of the village, and her heart stopped. Bodies lay scattered and bloody. The men of the village. Dead. A pall of smoke hung over them. Gruyere was on his knees before the bodies, the Viking behind him with an axe raised high.

  Eliza looked away, knowing what was coming. Gruyere’s pleading stopped abruptly.

  A great Viking ship with curved bow and square sails sat beached on the riverbank beyond. Two more ships floated behind it, their great oars slapping the water like waterbug legs. A cheer went up from one of the boats as it passed, making its way further up the Seine. Blond haired men lined the gunwales, shaking their shields and axes at her village.

  “So many of them,” she whispered. Her father had said their village was safe so far from the sea. The raiders had never come so far, nor in such numbers. The Seine was turning into an easy path of plunder, and she was the one being pillaged.

  Eliza shuffled forward, her bare feet squelching in the mud of the riverbank. She tripped, fell to her hands and knees, coating herself in the muck, but twisting away from the Viking in the process. Before she could clamber to her feet and try to run, strong arms wrapped under her, and lifted her free.

  He carried her then, like a maiden on her wedding day. The clammy hands of fear that gripped her heart had little resemblance to a maiden’s anticipation. She’d spent enough time with the women of the village to know that. No, those squeezing fingers, that crone’s grip, they were something altogether different. Something altogether more frightening. This man that carried her was taking her. Claiming her. And dragging to some far land from which no woman ever returned.

  Eliza let her terror take her then. Let the wails that that been building in her chest burst forth. She screamed, she begged, she pleaded. Her legs kicked and her nails scratched.

  It had no effect. Her captor was implacable, marching to his ship, his treasure in his arms.

  The Viking carried her up the plank and set her, still blubbering, on the far side of the ship alongside Aldith. More women were lined up along the gunwale, all bound together, a shivering mass of tears and snot and heaving backs. He stooped over her, his frightening sword dangling behind him, and bound her hands and feet, then secured her to the rope that held the rest.

  Eliza rubbed her hair from her eyes with her shoulder, and turned to the other girl. “Will anyone come for us?”

  “Who?” Aldith asked. “They’re dead. All them.” Her eyes had a vacant stare, as if she’d already given up any hope.

  “No one comes back,” a gray haired crone said. Cordith, her name was. Aldith’s aunt. “Never. The blond men come, they pillage, they take what they want.”

  “But why do they want…” Eliza trailed off.

  “Us?” Cordith asked.

  Eliza nodded.

  “Sea wives.” She looked Eliza over, eyes lingering on her full breasts. “Keep your head down, girl. Your best hope is that one of them claims you for himself.”

  “Or what?” Aldith asked.

  “Or they’ll all have you, and none too gentle I would think.”

  Eliza’s eyes grew wide. “They mean to wed us?”

  Cordith snorted, no trace of amusement reaching her eyes. “No, not wed us, child. To lay with us.”

  Eliza’s shoulders slumped. There it was. She’d known what Cordith would say. Known what the Vikings meant to do with her, but there was a vast river between knowing of a possibility and having one’s hands and feet tied to the gunwales of a longship. She let herself collapse forward until her forehead pressed against the rough wood, let the impossibility overwhelm her, let the tears flow. From the sounds of it, she wasn’t the only one.

  Chapter Two

  Captive

  The Vikings crowded back onto the ship, their weapons in their fists and their faces screwed up with anger. They set down blankets, and knives and cook pots. One of them even had Gruyere’s wooden chest, the lid hanging askew.

  “They didn’t find enough plunder,” Cordith whispered. “Better hope they don’t choose you.”

  Leather-booted men shoved the girls aside as they grabbed the oars stored alongside the gunwales. One of the biggest men, wrapped all in furs and metal, roared something in a strange language. Two of the others began untying the girls at the front of the line.

  “What are they doing?” Eliza asked.

  Cordith shrugged and hunkered down, her eyes not meeting any of the men’s.

  Eliza couldn’t help but watch. Part of her was hopeful. Hopeful that they were taking another girl and not her. Shame followed quickly on the hope. Her pa had taught her better than that.

  Thoughts of Pa brought a fresh round of tears to her eyes. He’d been on the river fishing. If the Vikings didn’t get him, he’d be coming home to find his village destroyed and his daughter taken. She wasn’t foolish enough to think her Pa would come rescue her. He was just a poor fisherman, about as far as a man could be from a warrior. Besides, no one ever came. No one ever got rescued.

  Her own mother had been taken from a village much like this one when she was but a babe. Somehow the raiders hadn’t seen Eliza sleeping in her basket. When her father returned from fishing that evening, he’d gathered his squallin
g babe and sailed inland, far from burned husk of his village, and far from the coast where the Vikings came to raid.

  He hadn’t sailed far enough.

  Her eyes followed the Vikings. They weren’t taking the girls for pleasure; they were just moving them to the middle of the boat. Tying them together between the masts. As the girls moved, men stepped into their places, slotted their oars through the side of the boat.

  A yellow toothed beast with furs that smelled like smoke stepped behind her. He grabbed a handful of her rump and gave it a squeeze. Eliza grit her teeth, tried not to give him any response. Anything to avoid being chosen. He untied her hands then dragged her half by her arm and half by her hair to the middle of the boat before looping a rope around her wrists and moving on to the next girl.

  Eliza huddled against Cordith, her bottom and her scalp both smarting from the mistreatment.

  Behind her, one of the crew members rumbled something in the guttural Viking tongue. Aldith screamed as he pawed her chest.

  “Don’t look, child,” Cordith said, bowing her head.

  “What?” Eliza turned back, watched Aldith being dragged upright. The yellow toothed man sliced the ropes from her ankles and hauled her toward the bow. “What’s he doing?”

  “Oh, don’t watch it. They’re going to take their pleasure with poor Aldith.” Cordith shuddered.

  Eliza couldn’t look away. She had never been good friends with the other girl, but they still knew each other. Yellow Tooth ripped her shift away, revealing the pale skin beneath.

  Aldith’s breasts bounced as she struggled, her cries going from fear to outright panic. Another Viking came over, a thick rope in his hands. He waited for Yellow Tooth to push her against the mast, then snaked the rope around her arms and up around her neck. He pulled it tight, cutting off her screams.

  Aldith’s eyes bulged as the rope bit into her neck. She kicked her bare legs, but it only made the Vikings laugh. The second man relaxed the rope, letting her suck in a breath, then he smashed his lips to hers, a kiss of conquest. He fumbled at his waist, untying his leather breeches. Yellow Tooth pulled Aldith’s ankle aside, and the other Viking stepped up between her legs.

  “Oh God,” Eliza whispered. She stared at her bound hands, unable to watch any longer. Aldith’s screams redoubled, then rose to a piercing shriek. Eliza collapsed forward, her back shuddering. That could have been me. It could still be me. The screaming cut off abruptly, but she was too afraid to look to see how.

  The Viking’s grunting mixed with the slap of the oars and the creak of the timbers. The longship pulled slowly down the river, taking Eliza deeper and deeper into hell.

  Chapter Three

  Helpless

  Over the coming days, each one of the other girls was taken to the mast, even Cordith. For some reason she couldn’t understand, Eliza wasn’t chosen. Aldith even had to go back a second time. Whatever their reasons for skipping her, Eliza thanked the Gods that she’d been left alone.

  When Cordith returned after her bout of pleasuring the crew, she collapsed on the deck, her body shaking. “Your turn will come, child.”

  Eliza couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “It’ll be all the worse for the waiting. When they come for you, take your mind away. Imagine you’re in the village cleaning fish. Picture yourself by the river mending nets. Don’t focus on what they do.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It’s for my benefit as much as yours.” Cordith rubbed her chest, wincing.

  “Are you well?”

  “No, I’m not well. I just lay with a dozen men. I ache, inside and out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Eliza whispered.

  “Aren’t we all.”

  The crew’s conversations took on a different tenor the morning of the eighth day. The weather had turned cooler, and they’d provided the captive women fur blankets to keep them from freezing in their thin dresses.

  Eliza spent her time trying to work out their language. To piece together a few words she might be able to use to communicate. It was precious little, but enough to have a vague idea what a few objects were. References to the captain picked up that eighth way, and she thought she’d puzzled out the word for home as well.

  The ship grinding onto a beach confirmed it. They had barely come to a stop when cheering rose from somewhere beyond the bow. The crew threw down their oars and rushed the front of the ship, cheering back at the people on the beach.

  Yellow Tooth came over to start untying the women as someone lowered the boarding plank. He kept his distance from her, but seemed to have a special eye on Aldith. It made Eliza’s stomach churn.

  One by one the women were led off the boat until Eliza was left alone, wrists still tied to the long rope that connected her to the mast. She sat on the deck, a blanket over her shoulders, and waited. Her time was soon. She could feel it.

  The biggest of the Vikings, the one that had originally captured her, strode into view. He stopped before her and watched her a moment. “Up,” he said, beckoning.

  Eliza rose, letting the blanket fall. He slid a knife from his belt and approached. She held out her wrists and let him slice the ropes that bound her. Fighting him wasn’t going to do much good, not surrounded by his countrymen in a place so far from everything she knew.

  “Come.” He beckoned her forward, toward the plank.

  At the top of the plank, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. A crowd of Vikings gathered below them. It was far larger than the crew, larger than a dozen crews. She looked down the shoreline, astonished. Two dozen or more ships were lined up on the banks. The crowd below her had to have hundreds of people. Behind them were enormous huts, as long as the ships. Dozens of them. It was like a barbarian Paris.

  The Viking behind her yelled something to his countrymen.

  They roared back.

  His hand moved, swept over her waist, and the next thing she knew, she was flung over his shoulder, her head hanging over his back. They strode down to the gangplank to cheering and the clanging of axes on shields.

  Men came up, clapped the Viking on the back. Some pinched her rump. One slipped a hand between her legs, goosing her painfully.

  The chieftain, she decided he had to be more important than a mere captain, carried her onward. A crowd of warriors followed, some of them leering at her. She let her head fall, her hair dangling. This is it then. Not a ship of them. Not for me. A whole village. She wanted to cry, but knot in her stomach hurt too much.

  They stopped outside one of the long huts, and the chief set her on her feet. The warriors stopped behind them.

  “Do not touch,” the chief admonished. He pushed through a door and into the longhouse.

  A tiny flicker of hope kindled within her. Maybe he didn’t intend the whole village to lay with her.

  Eliza shifted her feet, unsure what to do. She knew she couldn’t run. The warriors were all around her. Following didn’t seem right, either. If the chief wanted her, he’d have taken her with him. She swallowed, waited.

  The chief returned quickly, beckoned her to follow him inside.

  Eliza took two steps inside and stopped. The longhouse was huge. Two rows of posts ran down the center, disappearing into a hazy gloom beyond a large fire. Sections of tables and ornately carved beds were tucked into nooks on either wall. A thin, raven haired Viking woman tended the fire in the middle of the hut. Smoke swirled around her and up out the hole in the roof above her.

  The chief led Eliza to the other woman. He said something in words she didn’t understand. The woman studied her a moment. “Welcome to Kelnhall, Eliza. I have been waiting for you.”

  Eliza backed up a step, stopped when she collided with the chief’s chest. There hadn’t been time for the woman to talk to the other captured girls. Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong. “Who are you? How do you know me?”

  “I am Kelnar’s… advisor. As for how I know you.” She grinned, her eyes crinkling. “I have ways
.”

  “What does he want with me? They left me alone on the boat.”

  “Kelnar is chief of this village. He sought a bride. Someone that would elevate him in the eyes of the Gods.”

  “But why me?” Eliza whispered.

  “You’ll learn. In time. Come. I must prepare you.” She led Eliza deeper into the longhouse. The chief went back outside.

  “What do you mean prepare me? He intends to lay with, yes?”

  “Of course. But you must be purified.” She pointed to a bench near the fire. “Raise your dress.”

  Eliza stared at her, unwilling.

  “Girl, you’ll do it or you’ll suffer.” She threw a handful of herbs into the fire, causing a great cloud of smoke to rise. Instead of flowing up and out of the hole, it hung in the air, billowing before the woman. It twisted, shapes writhing within it. Stags and dragons and demons. They crawled through the air, circled Eliza’s head.

  “What are they doing?” Tiny voices whispered in her ear. Snippets of the Viking tongue, snippets of her own. She thought she heard her father’s voice, pleading to the gods to return his only daughter. “Make it stop.”

  “The dress.” The witch’s voice was hard.

  Eliza peeled off her dress. The smoke rose above her, but the shapes kept circling, as if they were waiting for her to disobey again. The witch came back with a stick daubed with paint. She pressed it to Eliza’s chest.

  “Ouch!” Eliza said. It burned something fierce, though she’d hardly said the words and it turned bitterly cold.

  “Quiet.” The witch painted elaborate shapes over her chest and back, making her rise to paint them across her rump and her legs. She took special care to inscribe delicate lines around Eliza’s woman parts. It tickled in a way that wasn’t at all disagreeable.

  “What are these?”

  “Runes. You must please Kelnar.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You die. Painfully.” She looked into Eliza’s eyes. “At the hands--and cock--of every man in the village.”