Free Viking Passion by Flora Speer Page B

have done that. Go to the kitchen and
help with the cooking.”
    “I am afraid to go out. Halfdan told me to
stay here. Hrolf and Bjarni—”
    “Yes,” he interrupted. “Halfdan told me. It
seems you are entirely too alluring to men.”
    “I did not encourage them,” she declared, her
anger matching his own. “I hate them. And Snorri. I hate them
all.”
    “So you have repeatedly told me. What am I to
do with you, Lenora? Shall I sell you to remove you from the
vicinity of Snorri and his men? Would that please you?”
    “It would not. I don’t want to be sent away
from -” She stopped, unable to complete the sentence.
    “From?” He frowned at her, his dark brows
drawing together in a fierce line. “There is someone. Who don’t you
want to be separated from, Lenora?”
    “Edwina,” she said quickly. “It is Edwina, of
course.”
    “Ah. Of course.”
    “I worry about her, Erik.” Lenora dared not
stop to wonder why she felt it necessary to explain at length a
perfectly justified concern. “Edwina has not recovered from what
Snorri did to us. Her thoughts are disordered, and she is unlike
the Edwina I used to know. Her spirit is broken. I wish I could
help her, but I don’t know how.”
    “Lenora.” His hand moved as if to stroke her
hair, hesitated, and then, without touching her, withdrew. “There
are some sicknesses only time will heal, and there are others that
cannot be cured.”
    “Are you saying Edwina is mad?” She rose from
the bed platform to face him. “How dare you suggest such a thing?
If you had lived through the horrors she has known, lost what she
has lost, you would be unhappy too.”
    “I have known my own horrors and you have
lost the same things as Edwina, and neither of us is mad. The
difference, my fierce, loyal little slave, is that you and I are
strong, and Edwina is not. What a friend you are,” Erik went on,
smiling at her with an odd tenderness. “I won’t sell you, Lenora. I
could not send you away.”
    “You couldn’t?”
    “No. Never.”
    Green eyes lingered on her face, their
strange, spellbinding light pulling her closer, ever closer to him.
She sensed his arms reaching out to enfold her, felt her body
bending toward him.
    “We Danes value friendship and loyalty too,”
Erik told her, his matter-of-fact words breaking the spell that had
held her. “I won’t separate you from Edwina. I have an idea. I’ll
tell you about it soon.”
    He left her alone to wonder at his meaning.
Several days passed, during which time Erik said nothing more to
her than the few words necessary to give her an occasional order.
Lenora decided he had forgotten his idea, whatever it had been. He
avoided being alone with her, and since the afternoon he had caught
her reading his book, he had slept elsewhere. She had seen him with
a plump blond serving wench called Erna, who preened herself in
front of Lenora and proudly displayed a bronze bracelet and neck
ring. Wherever she looked in those days, Lenora’s eyes fell on
Snorri and his two friends, or on Erik with Erna only a step away,
or on Edwina with Thorkell.
    Edwina was becoming a complete stranger to
Lenora. She moved through each day’s duties like a sleepwalker, and
slept in Thorkell’s bed each night. She appeared to be totally
reconciled to her status as slave.
    Lenora was appalled to learn Edwina had hope
of becoming pregnant by Thorkell.
    “Then he might free me and marry me,” she
told Lenora. “It is one way to regain my freedom.”
    “Only to exchange it for another kind of
slavery,” Lenora replied, her heart aching at the change in her
friend. If only she could find a way to attain their freedom,
Edwina might become herself again. Freydis had told her that slaves
sometimes saved enough gold and silver to buy their freedom, but
Lenora had no possessions except her clothing. Erik had never given
her any jewelry, as some of the other men did for their slaves;
Lenora had nothing to sell for the coins that might have