Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] by The Outlaw Viking Page B

“I loved Ruby, but she left afore I had a chance to tell her so. I was only eight years old at the time. Why did she desert us?”
    “She had no other choice. She was forced to return to her own world after Thork’s…our father’s…death. But she knew you loved her, Tykir. She spoke of it often.”
    “But Ruby and my father married only twelve years ago. How could they have a child your age?”
    “I don’t understand myself, but time must move faster in the future.” Rain had no other explanation for why thirty years in the future would equate with twelve in the past.
    “You must tell me more…but later…not now,” Tykir said, slurring his words slightly. “Your pellet truly is magic. I feel wonderful. I feel like…” A soft snore escaped his lips, and Rain smiled, brushing wisps of dark blond hair off his face with loving care.
    When she left the tent, Rain realized that more men had arrived during the night. About five hundred soldiers crowded the plain, and a meeting of some type was taking place. In the front, a half-dozen leaders addressed the assembly, each dressed so distinctly they had to represent different countries or cultures. Rain was too far away to hear their words, so she edged her way toward the cooking fires, where a group of women worked feverishly to prepare a meal.
    She stepped up to one of them, where a huge cauldron of some stew boiled, wafting delicious odors into the cool morning air.
    “What’s going on?” Rain asked the nearest woman, a middle-aged Viking woman with blond hair plaited and wound in a coronet atop her head. Her pinafore-style tunic worn over a pleated underdress was held together at the shoulders with two brass brooches. It was surprisingly neat and clean, considering her surroundings.
    The woman jumped back in surprise at Rain’s words. She dropped her ladle and exchanged a quick, guarded look with another, younger woman, dressed similarly but with reddish-blond braids hanging to her waist.
    Were they camp followers? Or wives to these fighting men?
    “My name is Rain Jordan.”
    “Sigrid, wife of Cnut,” the older woman said hesitantly, putting a palm to her chest, then pointing to the younger woman, “’Tis my daughter, Gunvor.”
    “I’m starved,” Rain said. “Could I have some of that stew?”
    The older woman offered her a wooden bowl of the thick broth in which swam chunks of meat along with onions and carrots. Rain took a tentative bite with a crude wooden spoon, then closed her eyes in ecstasy, her stomach rumbling with content. She had eaten practically nothing in more than twenty-four hours, and dishwater probably would have tasted like fine cuisine.
    Gunvor stared at her open-mouthed. “Didst thou truly mate with The Outlaw yestereve?” She shuddered visibly with horror at the thought.
    “Huh?”
    Rain had thought they were staring at her because of her height, although she didn’t stand out so much among these taller-than-average women, or because of her strange clothing, or even because of her unusual medical skills. But, no, it was her association with Selik that troubled them. Rain faintly recalled Selik, too, referring to himself as The Outlaw yesterday.
    Rain frowned in confusion, returning her empty bowl to Sigrid. Several more women had moved closer to eavesdrop on their conversation.
    “Yes, I slept beside Selik last night,” Rain admitted, refusing to explain more.
    “Oh, how could you bear to have the beast touch you?” Gunvor exclaimed. “’Tis said he is as berserk in the sleeping furs as he is in battle.”
    “Berserk?”
    “Crazed with lust.”
    Rain raised an eyebrow doubtfully. He certainly hadn’t been overcome with passion for her.
    “Just the sight of him turns the stomach,” another woman added with a shudder. “How could you abide looking at him? He is so ugly.”
    “Ugly? Selik?” Rain asked in disbelief. “We must be talking about different men. Selik is brutish and much too prone to killing and war,