Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05] by The Blue Viking

good Christian expletive.
    “Snakes!” his Norse comrades yelped as one, scurrying back toward their horses and safety. You’d never know they were hardened warriors.
    “Someone is going to pay for this atrocity,” Rurikvowed, his frosty blue eyes taking in the cage and snake pit in one sweeping glance.
    Maire’s heart lurched at his fierce promise. Was he actually outraged on her behalf? Despite all her inner warnings to the contrary, Maire couldn’t stop herself from remembering Nessa’s words:
What you need, me bonnie lass, is a brave knight in shining armor to champion your cause
.
    Could Rurik possibly be that knight?
    “A knight in shining armor? Me?” Rurik laughed uproariously at Maire, who was sitting at the trestle table next to him, having just finished sewing up the gash in his forearm.
    At the far end of the great hall, the maid Nessa was wrapping tight linen strips about Jostein’s forearm, which was sprained, but not broken. Bolthor had declined any treatment, other than a washing of the small hole, once Stigand had pulled the arrow from his thigh. A little limp was nothing to the giant skald.
    “I did not say precisely that I wanted
you
for a knight in shining armor,” she said defensively, a blush rising on her cheeks and neck.
    So, you can still blush, wench? Hmmm. That is a surprise, though now that I think on it, you blushed prettily back then, too… the first time I bared your breasts… or touched your thigh. Nay, I should not recall nice things about you. ’Tis best to remember you are my hated enemy
. “When I wear armor, it is sometimes metal, but just as often, leather. And I would never call myself a knight. ’Tis a Saxon word. I prefer to be named warrior, and—”
    “My knight in shining leather, then,” Maire suggestedwith a sad attempt at humor. “Or, my warrior in leather.” She pretended to swoon.
    But Rurik took her seriously. “I will not be your knight in armor, leather,
pladd
, or any other form.”
    “Do you deliberately misunderstand my words? I merely said that I am in need of a … oh, never mind. You would not understand.” She took another stitch to distract him.
    He yelped with pain, “Oooww! Did you do that a-purpose?”
    “Nay, my needle slipped.”
    You lie, wench. And you do it with such ease. What other lies do you tell? What secrets do you hide here in your mucky keep? I would have to be a simpleton not to notice the way your clan members shift their gazes whene’er I approach… and you, most especially. Any man … or woman… who will not look a person directly in the eye is hiding something. What could it be?
    “I told you to find someone else to mend your wounds, Viking.”
    “Yea, but you owe me more than any other. I intend to exact my payments one deed at a time. For instance, how soon can you remove this mark?”
    “How soon can you rid my lands of the MacNabs?”
    He took hold of both her wrists and hauled her forward so that she was nigh nose-to-nose with him. The needle and thread dangled from the skin of his arm, but he did not care. “You will not play your games with me, wench.”
    Suddenly, he was assailed by the not-unpleasant scent of the hard soap she’d used to bathe her body and wash her hair … hair the rich dark red color ofan autumn sunset. Green eyes flashed at him through their framework of thick lashes. Her skin was like an ell of ivory silk he’d seen one time in a Birka trading stall, and her face was a perfectly sculpted heart shape. Her clean, but shabby,
arisaid
with its braided belt, hid her figure, but he knew … oh, Lord, he
knew
… exactly what treasures lay beneath. His memory was perfect in that regard.
    And she was looking even better these days.
    “Do you threaten me now, Rurik?” she inquired with a wince, and he realized that his hold on her wrists was unnecessarily harsh. He released her and saw that his fingers would leave bruises on her delicate skin. Ah, well, ’twas only just. His mark on her