“Then,” answered Fin, “we begin to throw some of them overboard.” He smiled, amused by her horrified shock when she turned to Wolf.
“Is that true?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“What is the matter, Chief?” Fin sped up his horse a bit so he could see Wolf and smirk at him. “Why do you use caution with her?”
“Fin,” Wolf told him slowly. “For the sake of our blood, I will not bound over these horses and remind you who asks the questions here.”
“Understood, Chief.” Fin lowered his gaze and slowed his pace, then finally broke off and rode with the others.
“I do not want to hear your womanly sensibilities about how I was too hard on him,” he told her. “Fin is fortunate I did not kill him. I must command the respect of every man, or woman here. If just one of them thinks I am weak, it could become disastrous.”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’re the leader. That means they must follow you. I get it. Plus, that one needs to be brought down a peg or two.”
He nodded, then stopped, unsure what he was nodding at.
“He must be told that you are mine, Camelee.” He expected her to be angry. She was bolder than any female he knew. But he didn’t expect her to laugh.
“Okay, okay. Chastise me. I didn’t take you seriously in public. I’m sorry, but only delusional men talk like that where I come from.”
“Well, we are where I come from now,” he told her angrily. “If you prefer to be alone for the remainder of your journey. I can arrange it.”
He had been hard on people before. It didn’t usually trouble him. But it did now. Still, he said nothing. He led a thousand men at times. He wasn’t about to let some woman turn him soft.
“Well?” he put to her. “What will you have?”
“I’ll stick with you,” she said after a few moments in which he thought she would foolishly tell him she wanted to be alone.
There. He felt pleased with himself for a moment. And then pleased with her for using good judgment, though she was clearly angry. It was the sign of strength, the sign of a leader.
“Tell me again what you did in this other life of yours?” he asked her, keeping close while they rode.
“I am an actor.”
“But what do you do?”
“I…” she paused and looked off to the side a little as if something had just occurred to her. “I pretend. I get a script, I memorize my part. I, along with the rest of the cast, rehearse it and then we perform it as perfectly as we can, and it’s recorded and edited for the movies. There’s a lot more I’m leaving out because you’re looking kind of lost, but that’s the gist of it. I don’t usually have to lift a finger for myself.”
He blinked and kept riding, regretting that he had asked.
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you do when you’re not raiding? And what are you fighting to claim now, Viking?
“We fight to hold our claim over England and King Cnut’s throne. As for when I am home, I farm my land. We grow wheat and oats and barley. I built my own longhouse and am trying to add to it. I tend to my animals and livestock. It is a hard but satisfying life.”
She nodded. “So, England is in the hands of the Danes?”
“That is correct. The Danes are unbeatable.”
“That is because you’re all so barbaric,” she told him with distaste tainting her voice.
“Civilized people aren’t prepared for the likes of you.”
“It is war, Camelee,” he defended, not understanding why he did. “We do what must be done to win and to stay alive.”
