Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [23]
She looked back and saw men now lining the shore, waving spears and rocks at them, yelling. They didn’t look friendly. Still, how could they have harmed the Viking longboat?
She leaned back her head and breathed in the clean air. She felt he was toying with her, and doubtless he was, but she wouldn’t tell him more, she couldn’t afford to. He was too close to the truth and she was too afraid. No, what would happen in the future would be what she would make happen. She would be responsible, she alone. Still, as she felt the river breeze cool her forehead and make her eyelids droop, she knew again something of the taste of freedom. Perhaps, at last, she was free. Both she and Taby.
She looked at her little brother, sitting on Cleve’s knee, pressed against his chest. She looked at the hideous scar on Cleve’s face and wondered what vicious mistress had ordered this done to him and why. What offense could warrant this? Ah, but without the scar, he would be a handsome man, with his thick golden hair and bronze flesh. And his smile was full and laughing, his teeth as straight and white as the Viking’s.
She frowned and looked at Merrik’s back. The wind had slackened and the men were rowing again. He was big and obviously he was very strong. He was bare to his waist, his tunic lying over his legs, his flesh deeply tanned, and the muscles in his back and arms worked with the strength of youth and health, deep firm muscles that glistened with sweat beneath the sun. She’d seen many men in the past two years—men old enough to die, men too young for the power they held, men who were broken in their spirits and bodies, men who were so fat like Thrasco they wheezed just getting a spoon to their mouths.
This Merrik was a beautiful man, she would give him that. His body was splendid in its vigor and shape, his very leanness purifying the lines of him. His face was well looking, strong in its features, his jaw showing his boldness and determination. He could be as stubborn as a pig, she didn’t doubt that, not a bad thing if one wanted to survive.
But he was a Viking, like all other Vikings, and she didn’t know the sort of man Norway bred. She’d told him he was different and so he was. She’d never met a man like him, but that didn’t mean she could trust him. That was something the past two years had taught her well. She’d quickly come to know perfidy and treachery and the smell of lies. Her nose was as good as Eller’s when it came to recognizing the cruelty and selfishness of people, and thus she now well understood the need for caution. Trust was something for fools. She was no longer a fool.
Ah, but he had saved her and Taby and Cleve. But he wouldn’t say what it was he intended to do with them.
He was a trader before he was a warrior. He now had three human beings to trade. Surely he didn’t intend to keep them for himself, and if he did, what would that mean? His reasons for saving her and Taby sounded true to her, but still she couldn’t credit it—just this look at Taby and he’d been compelled to save both of them? Men didn’t behave like that. Vikings would impale a child on their swords before they’d consider saving them, being burdened with them.
She was shaking her head even as she watched him quit the oars, rise and stretch, and walk back to where she sat, the crooked cloth-covered wooden bowl on her head. He was wearing only a loincloth, and it rode low on his lean belly. The hair on his chest and belly was golden, crisp, and thick. She looked away from him. He was too big, too intimidating.
He sat down beside her as he pulled his tunic over his head and she smelled his sweat and the scent of him that was dark and pleasant. He said something to Old Firren, who just spat into the river, and then turned to her. He just looked at her for a very long time, at the exhaustion that still blurred her eyes, lining them beneath with