Two other men were dragging an enormous dead log down from the forest to be chopped into their never-ending supply of firewood. The hearth fires required vast amounts of fuel for meals and for heat during the long winter months.

The air of cooperation was misleading, but not to Medana. It was the lull before the storm that was sure to come.

She finished eating her small repast as she approached the area where Solveig was building a new longship. Well, attempting to build it.

This was a project they worked on only in spare time. They were learning as they went. No one wanted to go out in a boat that might very well leak due to poor construction.

Solveig came up and sat next to her on a pile of sanded boards.

"What is he doing there?" Medana asked, pointing to the center of some new activity. "And what is that thing? The animals do not come over here."

Thork was working with some women who carried wooden buckets of water to fill a long trough that must have been recently built. A dozen cows could have stood withers to withers to drink there with room left over.

"Even though he is not a shipwright, that Viking knows more about building sea vessels than we do. All those planks we had prepared for the stern and bow must needs be kept wet for a period of time so that they can be easily bent to the curves we need. I should have known. Now that Thork called it to my attention, I remember my father doing such." She shook her head with disgust.

Medana made a tsking sound. "Solveig! You do the best you can, and look how well you maintain Pirate Lady. Without you we would never be able to leave the island."

Solveig was clearly not convinced. "All that sanded wood wasted!" She looked pointedly at the stack they were sitting on.

Well, at least it could be used as firewood, or possibly some other building purpose, like fencing, or outbuildings.

Today Solveig wore a belted, knee-length tunic with no leggings, and sleeves that had been torn off at the shoulders to accommodate her hard labor in the midday heat. She used a forearm to wipe the sweat from her forehead.

In fact, Thork was attired the same way. Somehow, he looked a lot more tantalizing with the muscles of his arms and legs exposed as he worked. His dark blond hair was pulled back off his face and tied with a leather thong at his nape. The hair on his arms and legs was so fine it appeared almost nonexistent. Truly, he was a fine specimen of a man. Healthy, sun-bronzed, well-muscled.

She glanced away quickly before he could catch her ogling him. Her lascivious interest would amuse him, no doubt. Actually, the man had been avoiding her since the night he'd accosted her and invited her on a "walk." She wondered if all the men were so easily resistant to the women. Just then, her question was answered, without words.

As Solveig turned her head this way and that to ease a muscle cramp, a bruise mark stood out on the flesh where her neck met her shoulders, the kind men were wont to make when engaged in bedsport. A suck kiss, some called it. Boylings did it apurpose with young maids to show their prowess. Grown men did it because . . . because they were boylings at heart.

"Solveig!" Medana teased. "Dare I guess how you have been spending your nights?"

Solveig put a hand to the spot where Medana was staring and rubbed it with a prideful grin on her face. "You should see Lilli. She has suck marks up one side and down the other on her body from that Henry. Even one here." She pointed to an area low on the belly. Very low.

Medana gawked and could not stop staring at that spot, even though she could, of course, not see through the cloth. "Your capturing the men has been successful then? I cannot countenance your methods, but if the end result is more babes next spring, well"-Medana shrugged-"it was worth it, I suppose."

"Hah! First of all, not all the men are having s.e.x. Some still resist. And those that do succ.u.mb are following some practice suggested by yon oaf." She motioned with a jerk of her head toward Thork, who was carrying some long, narrow planks over his shoulder and laying them in the bottom of the trough, which was still being filled bucket by bucket.

"Practice?" Medana frowned with confusion.

"Yea. A method for preventing male seed from sprouting inside a woman's womb."

Medana was still confused.

"Spilling the seed outside the body at the last moment," Solveig explained.

"Really? And the men still get their grunting relief that way?"

"Must be, though most men would not inconvenience themselves thus. These men, though . . . especially that one"-Solveig gave Thork a glower of disgust-"are determined not to leave any children behind. Have you ever heard of such?"

"I cannot say that I have," Medana answered, though she was unsure if Solveig referred to the method or the reasons behind it.

Thork noticed their regard and gave them a little wave, seeming to be amused by Solveig's disdain. He must know why Solveig was irritated with him.

"Of course there are other methods to prevent a seed from taking root," Solveig went on.

Medana shouldn't be surprised at Solveig's claim. With her background in a brothel, Solveig was often a font of information for the women.

"Other methods?" Medana couldn't help asking.

"Yea. In fact, that smaller Viking, Henry, wanted to put a pig intestine on his c.o.c.k and have s.e.x with Lilli, but she was having none of that."

"Like sausage casings," Medana deduced.

"Exactly. In any case, Lilli refused. So they did it the spilling way."

There were mind pictures here that Medana really did not want to have.

"But we women are not giving up," Solveig said with determination, standing to return to work. "Freyja is teaching us how to belly dance."

"Freyja? You cannot be serious. Freyja is more than forty and she has no belly to speak of."

"You would be surprised. Freyja learned the dance many years ago when she was in a sultan's harem, afore being sold as a slave to your father. Didst know that belly dancers have better peakings?"

Peakings? What is that? "Why did she never tell me about belly dancing? She was my nursemaid, you know."

"The subject never came up, I suppose. In any case, I am having trouble jiggling my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and undulating my stomach folds at the same time. But I will learn!"

Medana sat, dumbfounded for a moment, then shook her head like a wet dog to rid her mind of those images. Just then, the young boy, Samuel, came rushing up, a rolled parchment held tightly in his little hands.

"Mistress, mistress! I have a message for you." He came to a sliding stop in front of her, panting for breath.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, taking the scroll in hand.

"It was left in the message slot by the pond last night."

"Thank you, Samuel. You may go back to the kitchen and tell Olga that I said you could have an oatcake."

Samuel looked conflicted, gaping at the huge trough being filled with water, no doubt envisioning himself taking a leap inside, and salivating at the prospect of a sweet treat dripping with honey. His growling stomach won over. He skipped, then ran off, back to Olga's domain.

Medana looked down at the scroll with a dragon seal on it, then tore it open, and read the brief message inside.

To the Sea Scourge: Keep him!

Tykir Thorksson, father of the loathsome lout Dismay must have shown on her face because Solveig, still standing before her, inquired, "What is amiss, m'lady?" Despite them all being mistress of this or that, the women could not seem to forget her higher social status in regular society.

Medana read the message to her.

Solveig gasped. "How sad for Thork! But what does it mean?"

"Clearly, the father will not be coming to the rescue."

"I do not understand why."

"Perchance Thork's father has no high regard for him."

"Or he might think it is a jest," Solveig suggested.

Medana shrugged. "Perchance."

"Actually, now that I think on it . . ." Solveig let her words trail off, and her face turned red.

"What?"

"Just a tiny memory I recall. Naught of importance. Time for me to go sweat some more," Solveig said, having a sudden need to go back to work.

"What?" Medana insisted.

"The young boy traveling with the Vikings said that Thork was headed back to Dragonstead to make peace with his father after a life misspent. Before we captured him, of course."

"He's not that old to have a misspent life."

"Apparently, he crammed a lot of misspending in those few years," Solveig commented with a jiggle of her eyebrows.

"Oh my G.o.ds!" Medana realized in that instant that, if what Solveig said was true, Thork was going to be furious with her for having caused further problems with his father.

Just her luck that Thork approached them then.

"Mistress of Shipwrighting," Thork said with a nod of greeting to Solveig, and "Mistress of Every Other Thing," to Medana. The oaf got an inordinate amount of pleasure over the t.i.tles the women had a.s.signed themselves here. Personally, she did not think it was so funny.

Solveig, the traitor, smiled at Thork and scurried off, giving Medana a moue of apology over her shoulder.

Before Medana had a chance to scurry off herself, Thork dipped a ladle into a bucket of water he was carrying and took a long drink. Then he dumped the whole bucket over his head and shivered, whether from the cold or the delight, she wasn't sure. In truth, she sat frozen in place watching with fascination as droplets traced interesting paths down his neck, over the exposed section of his chest, before blazing a trail down, down, down.

He chuckled, then winked at her.

Mortified, Medana realized that she'd been practically drooling.

"Do you mind?" he asked, but sat down beside her on the stack of boards without waiting for her permission.

Regaining her senses, she quickly laid the parchment on her other side. "Thank you for a.s.sisting Solveig. You were of great help to her."

"I really do not know much, just what I have observed in pa.s.sing. How long have they been working on this boat, anyway?"

"Three years."

"What?" He started to laugh.

"You may find mirth in our struggle, but believe me, it is the way we have accomplished everything here. If we do not know how to do something, we try, and try again, until we get it right."

He shook his head at her, as if she and her women were hopeless. They weren't.

"What was that you were reading?"

"Nothing."

"It could not have been nothing by the expression on your face and the guilty manner in which Solveig hurried away."

"Um . . . naught of importance," she said.

He tilted his head to the side. "You are blushing and your eyelids are fluttering. What is it?" He reached across her lap for the missive.

She did the only thing she could think of. She lifted her rump and slid the parchment under her.

He arched his brows with amus.e.m.e.nt and before she had a chance to rethink her position, saw his hand pressing against her chest, tipping her backward. While she found herself on her back on the ground behind the pile of planks, he grinned and picked up the parchment.

She scrambled to her feet and tried to grab the d.a.m.ning letter. "Give that to me. It's private."

He held it high over his head. "What is it? A love missive?" Suddenly, furrows of confusion deepened on his brow as he stared at something on the back of the parchment. "What?" He yelled out his question, the ice in his voice ominous.

She dusted off the backside of her braies, trying to give herself time to come up with an explanation. None came.

"This is my father's seal." He tapped the red wax and cut her with a sharp glance. Then he turned it over and read the short message.

For a brief flicker of a moment, she saw hurt in his green eyes, but it was immediately replaced with an anger that turned his skin livid from the neck upward to his forehead. "What . . . have . . . you . . . done?"

She started to back away.

"Answer me," he shouted, coming forward menacingly.

"I sent a letter. Naught to be in such a temper about." She stood her ground, deciding it was useless to keep backing up.

He came up to her, almost nose to nose. "Tell me."

"I . . . we . . . the women of Thrudr . . . asked for a little reward for taking such good care of you. Rather, putting up with your annoying ways."

"Reward?" He arched a brow.

"One hundred mancuses of gold for your release."

"Is that all? My father is a wealthy man. Why not ask for a thousand? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! You could have asked for a longship, seeing as how it's taking you so long to build one yourself."

She wavered uncertainly for a moment. Was he jesting, or being sarcastic, or serious? "Should I have asked for more?"

"Aaarggh!"

That was dumb of me. Why would I ask for more if his father wouldn't even give a hundred for him?

"You lackbrained, lying witch. All this time you claimed regret for your women taking us captive. All this time you played the innocent. All this time you promised to return us to Hedeby, no harm done. Now I find out there was a reason behind your madness the whole time." He grabbed her by the upper arms, lifting her off the ground, and shook her so hard her teeth clattered.