Page 95 of The Outlaw Viking

Finally, unable to dislodge the little leech, he peered down and saw her eyes fluttering sleepily. Once, before they closed completely, she whispered adoringly, “Da,” and snuggled closer.

Holy bloody hell! The girl thinks I am her father.

The smell of her baby skin enveloped his senses, recalling better days and happier times in his life, and Selik felt tears well in his eyes. He blinked rapidly to stem their flow, cursing Rain once again for torturing him so. He lay as stiff as a board for more than an hour while the child slept soundly on his chest.

“Adela! Adela! Where are you?”

Selik’s eyes popped open. He must have fallen asleep.

Footsteps pounded on the ladder leading to the loft, followed by the grimy face of the boy he had met on the minster steps.

“What are ye doin’ with me sister, ye bloody weasel?”

“Adam…” the girl said, awakening slowly from her deep sleep. She sat up and gazed at her brother, reaching out her arms to him, then immediately plugging her mouth with the inevitable thumb when he picked her up. Holy Thor! The boy practically staggered under the weight of his sister, who had wrapped her legs around his waist.

“If ye hurt me sister, ye stinkin’ outlaw, I swear—”

“Shut up,” Selik snapped, having had enough of children for one day. “Both of you get out of my sight and do not come back.”

“Adela, did he touch yer private places?” Adam asked her, and the little girl shook her head vehemently from side to side.

Touched her…? “You had best get your filthy body out of here, you gutter rat,” Selik snapped. “And if you ever make such an accusation again, I swear I will—”

“What?” the little bugger challenged, putting Adela to the floor and strutting up close to the bed like an arrogant rooster. His brown hair—Selik assumed it was brown under all the filth—stood out in fifty different directions, being of many lengths due to a bad haircutting. Months’ worth of dirt and scabs covered his face and arms, and his tunic and braies were stiff with grease and God only knew what other substances. “What will ye do to me, trussed up so? Ye are not such a fearsome warrior now, are ye, me brave knight?”

Selik would have laughed if he was not so angry. “Move away, you bloody little mole.”

“Hah! Mayhap ye would like to try and make me, bein’ such a fierce soldier and all,” he taunted.

His face flaming with anger, Selik bucked against his ropes. I will kill Rain for this. I swear I will. “I will not always be restrained, lackwit, and when I am free, you had best be long gone, for I intend to blister your hide so you cannot sit for a sennight.”

Adela tugged on her brother’s sleeve, pointing to Selik. “Da,” she said, and Adam snorted with disgust. “That scurvy outlaw is not yer father, Adela. Our father was a fiercesome soldier, not a helpless—”

“Ubbi!” Selik shouted, pushed beyond his limits by the coarse-mouthed, filthy excuse for a boy.

His loyal—nay, disloyal—servant scurried up the ladder as quickly as his short legs would carry him. Immediately taking in the situation with the children, he apologized. “Beggin’ yer pardon, master, I had to do sum errands fer the mistress, and what a job it was, too, with a dozen young ones trailing after me, and—”

“A dozen?” Selik choked out. “You have a dozen orphans in my barn, on my property, against my wishes? Rain said there were only six.”

“Well, that was two days ago,” Ubbi admitted sheepishly. “More and more of the poor wee ones keep comin’ every day when they hear of our orphanage.”

Selik groaned, then ordered, “Get these two bothersome whelps out of here. Now! And make sure they do not return.”

“Yea, master, whate’er ye say,” Ubbi agreed solicitously, shooing the youngsters down the ladder. Then he turned back to Selik. “Were ye mayhap needin’ the bed pan?”

“Argh-h-h-h!”

“I wuz jist askin’,” Ubbi grumbled as he, too, went down the ladder.

Rain deliberately stayed away from Selik for the next two days, unable to cope with his continual demands that she release him, followed by his ghoulish recanting of all the fiendish things he intended to do to her once he was free. Conflicting emotions tore at her—guilt over having betrayed his wishes by kidnapping him and a continuing fear for his safety.

So now she just avoided him and let Ubbi take care of all his physical needs, including bathing and feeding. The children were ordered to stay below.

And the children! Oh, Lord! Their numbers just kept growing and growing. Rain knew she would have to start turning some of them away soon, having already depleted the supply of money Gyda and Ella had given her. She went into the hospitium every day to work, and the monks, in payment, reluctantly handed over cloth bags full of food for her orphans. But they did it in a most uncharitable manner, and many times, when Rain got home, she discovered that the meat was rancid and the bread moldy.

She was sitting in the doorway of the barn, watching the children play, when she spied Adam. Slowly, she stood up and approached the edge of the clearing where the children played a primitive form of Simon-Says. The filthy Adam had eluded her for days, refusing to bathe, and Rain had had enough of his vulgar mouth as well. Once she got hold of him, she intended to scrub him inside and out.

Adam was ordering the other children about in his usual fashion, even those older and bigger than he, when Rain snuck up behind him and grabbed the smelly wretch by the back of the tunic.