Page 80 of The Outlaw Viking

If he only knew how she restrained herself! Rain wanted to loop her arm with his and rest her head on his shoulder. All her new feelings for him bubbled inside her, threatening to overflow each time she accidentally brushed against him or saw some particularly interesting sight in the fascinating city.

“And I warn you, Rain, do not interfere with aught you see at the hospitium. I care not if they have better healing methods in your country. You are not to tell the culdees how to heal. At the least hint of unnatural talents, the priests could imprison you for practicing black arts.”

“Selik, I’m here to learn, but if I can help—”

“One other thing—many of the clergy have a contempt for womanhood. Even if you are the best healer in the world, they would spit in the face of any advice a female would give them. To them, women are the gates leading good men to hell.”

Rain couldn’t remain silent now. “The gates—oh, that’s so unfair! As if women have the power to lead men anywhere! And who’s responsible, in the priests’ eyes, for a woman’s downfall?”

Selik grinned. “No one, I presume, since women—the daughters of Eve—are born with the sin of seduction bred in them.”

Rain shoved Selik in the arm with disgust, uncaring if any passersby saw one priest touching another in an intimate fashion. He made her so mad.

“Do not take your ill humors out on me. I merely relate what the priests preach from their pulpits.”

“But you love it, don’t you?”

“Me?” Selik said with a widespread palm to his chest and exaggerated affront in his voice.

Rain turned away from him in disgust. Once again, she’d reacted to his baiting just as he’d planned. She decided to ignore him and take in all the amazing sights instead.

But soon Rain’s initial wonder over the bustling market city faded as she began to see the wanton destruction caused by the Saxon assaults and the resulting squalor. Part of the city walls had been battered down and homes burnt to the ground. Worse, a large number of people seemed to be homeless, begging for food or coins.

“Selik, why are there so many children on the streets?”

His jaw tensed at her question. “They are orphans, by-products of the Saxon carnage.”

“But why aren’t they being helped?”

“By whom?” he scoffed.

“Other people who’ve survived.”

“Many of them have trouble enough surviving themselves.”

“And the churches—”

“—are too busy feeding their bloated coffers. Bloody hell! There is enough gold in one of their fine chalices to feed the city for a week.”

“How about the government?”

“There is none now. The Norse king was exiled, as you know, and Athelstan has not yet appointed a new Saxon ruler.” He shrugged. “Even so, the government would not help such worthless curs.” He pointed to some nearby children huddled in an alley.

Rain cringed at his unfeeling words. “Because they’re Viking children?”

“Partly. But any poor children—those of the common folk—are of little value. Plenty more where they come from.”

“Oh, how cruel!” But really, Rain asked herself, were things any better in her time, when homelessness and child abuse had reached all-time high proportions, when children of third-world countries starved to death, and abortion far exceeded the million mark each year?

“’Tis life. For certain, ’tis one reason why I have vowed to bring no more children into this world.”

No more children? Rain’s heart melted at Selik’s soft-spoken words.

I will never make love with Rain, Selik vowed as he looked at the city and the pitiful orphans. Now that I understand the dangers she spelled out to me so clearly, I will never take the gamble of breeding another babe. Especially not on her. Nay, I could not bear the pain of bringing another child into this cruel cesspit of a world. But a babe of my blood, and hers—oh, sweet Lord, the prospect nigh brings me to my knees.

Selik felt racked with both intense pleasure and torment at the forbidden thought.

“Selik, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”