The man’s hand hit her bottom again, this time much harder and she sucked in her breath.
“Quiet now, sweeting,” he said aloud, all jovial and loving. “Don’t give laughter to these good people at your own expense. Or do you do it because you like the feel of my hand on your sweet buttocks?”
He was through the market then, and he walked faster. “I will make you pay for that,” she said quietly.
“You think so, do you? Well, we will see, won’t we?” She tried to jerk away from him, and he laughed. “I don’t know if my poor master will enjoy you,” he said. He broke into a trot, bouncing her up and down until her stomach knotted with cramps and nausea.
Then he was carrying her across a wooden ramp onto a large trading ship. He lowered her to her feet and she would have fallen had he not held her arm.
“Come along,” he said, and dragged her along solid pine planks between the rowing spaces. At the stern of the ship was a large covered area for sleeping and cargo. He shoved her into the area. There was a man there, seated on a chair, which was so silly she would have laughed if she wasn’t still trying to swallow the wretched nausea, for his head brushed the top of the leather canvas.
Aye, he was seated there in the shadows as if he were in a throne room and not aboard a trading ship beneath a sheltering canvas.
“She looks like a slut,” the man said. “She looks like a slave.” Chessa froze. Surely life couldn’t be this unfair. By all the gods, she’d rather be off to Normandy and marry this William Longsword.
“Aye,” Kerek said, “but at least she was alone and I had not a bit of trouble with her.”
“I don’t believe you. She would fight the forces of the Christian’s devil before she would meekly give in to any man, despite his size.”
“Very well,” Kerek said, and there was admiration in his voice. “I did have to think quickly, but I won, for she is here.”
“Aye, and in my power at last. Hello, Chessa. Didn’t you think you would see me again?”
5
CHESSA STARED ATRagnor of York.
“Aye, I’ve got you now, you little bitch, and you’ll not escape me.”
“What do you want, you miserable piece of swamp weed?”
Ragnor stood slowly, took two steps toward her, and slapped her hard. She fell to the rug-covered wooden planks. Pain seared through her hip. He stood over her, his hands on his narrow hips, looking down at her. He was quite pleased with himself. He was smiling down at her.
“I like you at my feet, your face down. It becomes you. You will never again speak to me with any words save modest ones. Do you understand, Chessa?”
She looked up at him, standing there over her. She swallowed words she knew would only lead to more pain, though she wanted to shriek at him, tell him what she thought of him, throw herself on him, and pound that smirk off his silly face.
“I asked you a question, Chessa. Answer me.”
Still, she couldn’t get her throat to work, couldn’t seem to make meek words come out of her mouth.
He kicked her in the ribs. She jerked at the pain and pulled in on herself, hugging her arms around her.
“Answer me,” he said, his voice shrill now.
Kerek said, “You don’t want to risk killing her, my lord. Perhaps she has no breath to answer you, perhaps—”
“Keep your opinion in your throat, Kerek. She’s willful, stubborn, and has more pride than any hundred women. I will enjoy breaking that pride of hers. Aye, and I will. She fed me poison. She would have killed me if I hadn’t been so strong.”
She got herself to her knees, her palms on the floor, the pain in her ribs pulling and prodding at her, but she managed to draw her breath. She looked up at him then and said, “Why did you bring me here?”
He raised his foot, but Kerek grasped his arm, saying urgently, “It is a modest question. She doesn’t realize why you have taken her. If you tell her, the knowledge will make her even more modest, even more sweetly meek.”
Kerek was blind. She would never be meek and Ragnor knew it, but he did slowly lower his foot. When he’d raised it, she’d flinched, and that had pleased him. Perhaps Kerek was right. Perhaps he’d shown her that she would come to accept him as her master. “Attend me, then,” he said, and sat himself again in his chair. She was on her hands and knees in front of him, her hair loose from its thick braid, all that sinful black hair, as black as the hair of the heathen Picts who lived northward in that savage land of Scotland, the damned feral beasts who stole sheep and cattle and women from the outer farmsteads. At least her hair was shiny and clean, unlike the greasy matted hair of the Picts. He supposed she was comely enough. Her eyes were an odd green, near moss green, and that made her more acceptable to him as a wife. He’d wanted to bed her, but that hadn’t happened, and in instances of rare honesty, he knew it had been foolish of him to try to seduce her. She was a princess and even the future ruler of the Danelaw didn’t bed a princess and walk away.
But he didn’t want to marry her. He wanted Inelda, the daughter of a Norwegian jewelry merchant in York, her hair so blond it was nearly white, her eyes the palest blue. By Freya, he wanted her, but his father demanded that he wed Chessa, that damned bitch who’d turned him down, who’d poisoned him, who’d made him puke up his guts. Inelda only turned him down because she was so very innocent, so shy. And she really hadn’t said nay to him, only whispered that she was afraid, not of him, oh, never of him, but of what would happen if he got her with child. What would she do? Ah, she was so very afraid. He adored her for her fear, knew that once he’d wedded Chessa, he would return to Inelda and make her his wife in everything but name. He would take care of her. She could breed a dozen children, he didn’t care. He just wanted her.
“Attend me,” he said again when Chessa raised her head to look at him. To lookupat him. “You asked why I had you brought to me. I’m taking you back to York. You will wed with me. You will be the future queen of the Danelaw.”
