"Ah! I thought you meant real lashings."

"You do not think a leather whip against the bare back is real?"

His head jerked up with surprise.

"Broken skin, blood, and scars are not real?"

"What did you do to merit such ill treatment?"

She went lance stiff. How like a man to a.s.sume the woman must be at fault! "Breathe. Disagree with their profound wisdom. Hide the jewels my mother left me. Refuse to wed a vicious man." She could tell he didn't believe her. No matter!

"In any case, the lash is not the manner of torture I have in mind. I would much rather use a feather than a whip. My father taught me about the varied uses for feathers."

"Feathers?" She could not hide her curiosity.

He nodded. "First I will remove your clothing, tie your hands together, and attach them to a ceiling hook. After I examine your body . . . for blemishes and such . . . I'll use various feathers to stroke your skin, from your forehead to your toes and various spots in between."

"Why?"

"Why, why, why? You sound like that bothersome parrot my father gifted years ago to my aunt Eadyth. 'Tis said that such strokes are painful pleasure."

"Pfff! What nonsense!"

"After that I intend to lick you."

"Lick . . . lick?" she sputtered.

"Yea, but first you must be clean. I guess I will have to bathe you." He released an exaggerated sigh. "But the question is whether I should use soft scented soap in a bra.s.s tub to get you clean or whether I should just dangle you by your feet over the rail of my longship. I am leaning toward the latter." He smiled at her as if imparting some gift.

"You are wicked."

"Yea, it is one of my best traits."

"I thought you were trying to be good."

"Betimes a Viking must be bad to be good."

"That is the worst bit of male illogic I have ever heard." She started to walk away.

"Don't you want to know what happens next in my torture regimen?"

"Nay."

"I'm thinking about shaving your head. Nay, that is too gentle a punishment. Hmm. Yea, that is it! I will shave your nether hair."

She almost tripped over her own feet, but she kept walking. "Loathsome lout!" she muttered under her breath.

He chuckled, then added, "And you do not want to know what kind of sweet torture I can inflict with a candle. A big candle."

Everyone within hearing was laughing. Even her women.

Home, sweet home, it was not . . .

The men were still drooping against their seal ropes by late afternoon when they arrived at Thrudr. The ship dropped anchor near the sh.o.r.eline of a small, pretty island, known only as Small Island, one of thousands in the North Sea. This one drew seafarers who stopped on occasions, but only for short periods because it was mostly uninhabitable, with its wide, stony beaches, and it occasionally became submerged during heavy storms.

The only structure was a thatched hut and an attached lean-to under which were a small rowboat and fishing gear. Several large rain barrels sat outside the building.

Greeting them were the lone inhabitants, the mid-aged Salvana; her elderly mother, Sigrun; and a dog the size of a small bear. In fact, that was its name: Bear. Many a visitor with ill intent had been scared off by Bear, the lone survivor of a shipwreck off their sh.o.r.e some five years past.

During fair weather months, spring through fall, the two women preferred to dwell here, alone. Small Island was a stopping off place for distressed ships or traders, dropping off or picking up messages. Although it was not encouraged, the women of Thrudr sometimes wanted, or needed, to make contact with others back in Hordaland or Jutland or Norsemandy or even the Saxon lands. Traders were only too willing to provide the service for a small coin.

Any unwelcome visitors not put off by Bear were soon dissuaded by Salvana's bow; she was as tall as a man and as talented in archery. And by Sigrun, who was a scary image with her wild, flowing white hair, toothless smile, and the spiked club named Slow Death that she always carried with her.

Sailors ignored the much larger island, about thirty ship lengths away, because of its mountainous, impregnable terrain, with sharp cliffs and steep-faced forests leading right to the water's edge. This was Thrudr.

What most people did not know, and Medana and her women had discovered only by chance, was that Thrudr was a very large, bowl-shaped island with a flat, even valley in its middle. It was accessible only at low tide when a wide cave entrance became visible, connecting it via a narrow landma.s.s to the smaller island. At high tide, the earthen strip was hidden again and the cave filled with water that rushed into the base of the mountain, coming through the other side into a waterfall that filled a pond-a pool, really, with upright sides, like walls.

At this time of the year, they had only a few hours to unload the ship onto the smaller island, including the men and the bull, both of which proved equally stubborn. The bull because it was a stubborn animal at the best of times, and the Vikings because they were heavy as deadweight and had to be carried by four women, one at each limb, sometimes lifting, sometimes dragging. There would be more than a few bruises on Norse a.r.s.es come nightfall. Another reason for the men to enact revenge, Medana mused.

As soon as the landma.s.s emerged from the falling tides and the cavern drained, close to midnight, the women, including the large number that had stayed behind, worked efficiently to carry the cargo, the men, even the lightweight ship itself onto log rollers into the cave and through to the other side. When they were done, huge bushes were pushed to the entrance, just as a precautionary measure, though a person had to be searching specifically for an opening to notice it among the trees. It was not yet dawn when they were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

The women were smiling profusely, Medana noticed, and not just because they'd returned from a profitable voyage. The sleeping men were tied to various trees about the central clearing.

Olga, the short, rotund cook, was the first to voice what all the other women who'd been left behind must be thinking. "Now that is what I call plunder! Medana, Medana, Medana! Methinks I will go a-pirating with you next time." She pinched the arm of the giant Bolthor, as if checking the flesh on a side of boar.

"Hey, he is mine," proclaimed Gudron. "We are more of a size, him being so big and tall."

"There are not enough men to go around," another woman complained. "We must share them."

"Well, I get the first few tups from the big one, then," Gudron conceded with ill grace.

Medana could feel her face heat with color. "No need for you to go a-pirating, Olga. We did not get these men whilst a-pirating. We got them at the trading town."

Siobhan, a voluptuous, red-haired, mid-aged woman from the Irish lands, who was circling the prettily mustached one, laughed. "What did you trade for them?"

"We did not trade anything for them. We . . . um, borrowed them," Medana tried to explain. She couldn't believe she was using the same lackbrained excuse that her women had.

There was a rush then for the bathing hut and the salt pond as one by one more than one hundred women attempted to cleanse themselves and don new garments, wanting to appear at their best once the men awakened. Medana could not imagine what the men's reaction would be once they finally opened their eyes to their new surroundings.

She did not have long to wait.

Sitting on a low stool, having bathed herself-but not because she wanted to impress some fool man, but because lice were always a problem when they returned from a voyage-Medana chewed at a fingernail, contemplating the village that had grown here in this harsh valley.

A series of ten longhouses with steep-pitched thatch roofs and gabled ends were centered around a clearing, like the spokes of a wheel. Beyond them were outbuildings; small pastures for cows and the new bull, which was already at its merry work; neat vegetable gardens; even a new enterprise, shipbuilding. Like much of the Norselands, Thrudr did not contain many hides of arable land, but the women, day by day, sennight by sennight, month by month, then year by year, had managed to create ploughlands to eke a living out of the harsh, hidden environment. What they could not grow or build themselves, they stole via their pirate ventures, or gained by barter in the trading towns of Hedeby, Birka, and Kaupang, even occasionally the Saxon market city of Jorvik.

Usually, she felt a fierce sense of pride and peace when she returned from a voyage. But not today. Her mind was too unsettled.

She sensed Thork's piercing glare in the dawning light before she raised her head and met his fury. He was finally awake, and struggling against his tight bonds.

"The other torture I have planned for you," he said, as if his earlier conversation with her had never been interrupted, "is that your naked body is going to be the figurehead on the prow of one of my longships. I intend to rename it She Pirate. Or Fish Bait. Far and wide, roving Nors.e.m.e.n will want to nab their very own live female pirate figureheads." He glanced around his surroundings, taking in all the women moving about their various ch.o.r.es. "And I will guide them here."

It was a ludicrous threat, of course. She tried to laugh, but she could not.

Chapter Five.

In the end, men will be men . . .

"We are going to release you now," Medana told Thork.

And about time, too! He was hungry and thirsty and angrier by the minute at the indignity of his capture, including a second time of being rendered unconscious by sleeping herbs. Besides that, his a.r.s.e felt as if he'd slid down a hill of shale.

"Aren't you afraid I'll kill you once free?"

"What good would that do you?"

"It would feel d.a.m.n good."

"Then what? You would have no way to get off the isl-no way to get back to Hedeby."

"You are certain about that?"

"Absolutely. My women and I have an understanding. If any of us get taken by you men, no one is to attempt a rescue. There is no way your killing one of us, or threatening to kill one of us, would get you home. And we are sworn not to reveal our secrets, even under threat of torture."

"Have you ever been tortured?"

She stood there, just staring at him, then ignored his question and went back to contemplating just how to go about untying the ropes that restrained him. A dimwit, for sure. "Are you waiting for a 'Please, M'Lady Pirate,' or G.o.ds forbid, 'Thank you for your hospitality'?"

"There is no need for sarcasm," she sniped, and began to undo the knots that bound his hands behind his back and around a slim tree. Other women were doing the same for his men, who were restrained at various spots about the central clearing of what appeared to be a village of sorts. Some of the structures were rather lopsided. An indication of inept building skills that got better over time? The runic writing above the lintel of the largest longhouse was expertly carved, though, with the message: "Men Stay Out!" Still others carried similar, if not more blunt messages in the vein of: "If You Have a p.e.n.i.s, You Are Not Welcome."

This has got to be the strangest adventure of my misbegotten life. Even stranger than that time in Byzantium when . . . "I beg to differ, M'Lady Lackbrain. Sarcasm is the least I can do to protest your dimwitted audacity. You dosed us with sleeping herbs again, did you not? I told you after the first time how I felt about that act. I told you that a Viking man cannot be left incapacitated and weaponless, an open target for his enemies. I told you that if you ever did it again, you would be very, very sorry." He favored her with his third fiercest scowl to emphasize his point. He had a wide range of facial expression meant to scare his enemies.

She paused in unknotting the sealskin rope that was apparently giving her some difficulty, but the expression on her face was not one of apology or fear, more like irritation. In fact, he could swear she murmured, "Loathsome lout!"

You have no idea how loathsome I can be, M'Lady Pirate.

Before he could voice that thought, she continued, "Mayhap the problem is that you are always telling me what to do. Mayhap you should proffer your concerns rationally."

"Proffer? What kind of word is that for a pirate?" He crossed his eyes with frustration. "Why does it feel as if the skin has been peeled off my backside?"

A slight amount of color bloomed on her cheeks. Very slight. Not quite a blush. "Um. We had to drag you part of the way here," she said, a mite apologetically, but then she ruined the effect by stating, "I have met pregnant boars smaller than you."

"If I had been standing on my own two feet and not a deadweight to be dragged like a dead bear . . . or boar, it would not have been a problem. Women have no sense!"

"Women have no sense," she repeated after him in a growly male voice. "Those are the words men employ when they are losing an argument."

"Huh?"

She sighed deeply and revealed, "Rending you unconscious was our only choice. We could not let you know the location of our home."

He glanced around, studying the terrain. They were in a valley, surrounded by steep mountains, much like a deep bowl. The flat bottomland was not large, and they must have worked hard to clear it enough to build a number of longhouses and outbuildings, a few garden plots, and a small pasture for cows and the new bull, who was already happily occupied at what it did best. Chickens ranged freely and sheep and the two new goats could be seen romping about in the rocky hill area, needing only forest pannage to subsist.

It was not unlike his father's estate at Dragonstead, except on a much smaller scale. Except there were only women here, except for the odd boy child here and there.

His ropes were finally free, and reacting with the swift instincts of a soldier, he grabbed her by the forearms, lifted her high, and slammed her against the tree. "Who is in charge now, M'Lady of the Ropes? How does it feel to be helpless? Shall I begin your torture now, or let you stew in the juices of fearful antic.i.p.ation?"

She blinked at him with surprise, so fast had his moves on her been. As the haze of his anger began to clear, he saw up close how comely she was. Her skin, clear and sun-healthy, was mostly unlined, considering her age, except for a few lines bracketing her eyes when she frowned, as she was beginning to now. Her long blonde hair had loosened from its braid and was spilling about her shoulders. b.r.e.a.s.t.s, fuller than he'd expected, pressed against the tautened fabric of her tunic. Only two of them, thank G.o.ds! And her eyes . . . Holy Thor! Surely only a G.o.ddess would have eyes of such a beautiful shade of lavender. He inhaled sharply and caught her woman scent. Clean skin, with no perfumed soap residue, but a scent of its own, honed his senses to an erotic sharpness.

Although he still pinned her upper arms to the tree, she was able to bend her one arm at the elbow and raise a hand to her mouth. He thought she was going to sigh into her fingertips, as some women did when close to him-a feminine gesture of helplessness-but what she did instead was place two fingertips in her mouth and let loose with a shrill, very unfeminine whistle.

Immediately, they were surrounded by a dozen or more women with weapons raised. Archers with bows raised. Swords that should have been too heavy for the weaker s.e.x to carry. Crudely made wooden shovels and pitchforks. Even a long-handled soup ladle.

Beyond them, he saw his men begin to gather. They were weaponless but nonetheless able to fight, if he gave the order.

"Holy Thor!" he exclaimed, stepping back from her so quickly that her feet dropped to the ground and she fell onto her rump. "Are you trying to turn me deaf? I will be hearing an echo in my ears for hours to come."

She stood and began to dust off the backside of her braies, which caused him to notice for the first time that it was a very nice backside. Despite the seeming danger that surrounded them, he picked up the small leather thong that had been holding her braid in place, but instead of handing it to her, he tossed it to her other side. She bent over to pick it up, then glanced up over her shoulder as she noticed the direction of his gaze. Tsking her disapproval, she stood and said, "Lackbrain! You are surrounded by female warriors who would kill you without a second thought if I so ordered, and you stand there ogling my a.r.s.e?"

He grinned. He couldn't help himself. If they hesitated to kill monks when a-pirating, he doubted they would kill him. Unless he really provoked them. So, of course, he said, "And a very nice a.r.s.e it is, too."

His men laughed, and he could swear he heard a few giggles from her women. Bolthor would be composing a saga about it. "Female Pirates with Nice a.r.s.es," or some such.

Thork had no fears that she would order his death, considering the live and thriving monks. She'd already said that their capture was not her idea and that they would be returned safely to Hedeby in good time. Guilt . . . that was the difference between men and women. Women succ.u.mbed to it, and men knew how to ply a woman's guilt to their advantage.

She dismissed her women and told them to show the other men to their quarters.

"Should we lock them in?" one woman asked.

Medana shook her head. "They have nowhere to go."

We will see about that!

"Just stand guard." Turning to him, she said, "If you think to charm me with compliments on my private parts, you do not know as much about women as you think you do."

He knew plenty. And he could charm her if he wanted to, but he had more important things to do. Stifling the urge to grab her once again but this time shake some sense into her silly head, he inhaled sharply for patience and studied his surroundings. Something bothered him about what he saw. "I thought you said that Thrudr was an island."

"Um."

"I see no fjords." The only water he could see was a small pool against one hillside, and there were water barrels to catch rainwater outside a number of the dwellings. No well as far as he could see. "How do you access the seas?"

"Um. Did I say we lived on an island? Ha, ha, ha. You must have misheard me."

"Your eyes are blinking."