"Ah, well, we will save water then by bathing together this night."

That caused her to go silent. He was silent, too, as the strain of carrying her up the inclined path began to take a toll. When he finally got to the clearing before the hunters' hut, he was panting for breath and at first didn't recognize the rustling sound as he lowered Medana to the ground. But then he did.

"What is that?" he asked.

"What?"

"That rustling sound when the placket of your braies rubbed against me as I lowered you."

"Oh. Naught of importance." She slapped a hand over the side flap while her eyelids went afluttering and color bloomed on her cheeks, even more than had been caused by blood rushing to her head when upside down.

He reached out a hand. "Show me."

"It's not my fault."

He arched his brows. Now that sounded like guilt, pure and simple.

She pulled a folded parchment out of her placket.

And he saw red stars dancing in front of his blazing eyes when he noticed the wax seal. "You wrote another letter!" he accused her.

"Nay, nay, nay!" she said, backing away from him. " 'Tis just that there were apparently two responses to my one missive. The other was . . . um, misplaced for a short time."

"Two responses from my father?" Thork couldn't help himself. A hope came unbidden in his sorry self that his father had changed his mind and was coming to rescue him. Not that Thork needed rescuing, not any longer-well, not ever-but it would be nice to know that his father cared, that he trusted him to have changed.

"Nay, not from your father. From"-she hesitated-"your mother."

At first he couldn't believe what he'd heard. In fact, he hit the side of his head with the heel of his hand to clear his ears. "My mother?"

She nodded.

He let out a growl that startled even himself, and Medana backed up more.

"Do not be alarmed, Thork. It is actually a very nice letter," Medana said, placing it on a wood stump that stood between them.

A nice letter? This ought to be good. He unfolded the parchment and began to read.

Dear Sea Scourge: Pay no mind to my husband. The loathsome lout is too proud by half. Much as he loves his son, Tykir has been hurt by Thork's actions of late. He will regret his hasty reply, in time.

I notice that you refer to Thork as a "loathsome lout." How interesting! That has become an endearment of sorts in my family. 'Tis what I call my lackwit husband when he behaves badly, as all Nors.e.m.e.n are wont to do without the greater wisdom of their women to guide them. Is it possible that . . . well, pay no heed to this mother who wants only the best for her son.

I look forward to meeting you. Please send me news of my son. Does he still grind his teeth when upset? Is he sleeping well? Make sure he changes his smallclothes regularly. Some men need prodding in that regard. Well, Thork's problem is not changing smallclothes but not wearing any to begin with. Can you imagine? His favorite sweetmeat is figs dipped in honey.

Give Thork my love and tell him that I miss him sorely.

Yours till we meet, Lady Alinor of Dragonstead Thork ground his teeth before he caught himself and would have been amused if he weren't so outraged. His life had been on the slippery slope to Muspell even since he had come into the clutches of "the Sea Scourge."

His men came up then and noticed the parchment in his hands and the new anger flooding his face.

"Uh-oh!" Alrek said.

"Someone is in big trouble," Jamie added, and looked pointedly at Medana.

"Take the wench and tie her to the bedpost," Thork ordered.

"You are a bullheaded, lackbrained dolt," Medana said. "Threats will gain you naught."

"Naked?" Jamie asked Thork hopefully.

Thork shrugged. "Why not?"

The struggling Medana fought the men's arms that attempted to restrain her, protesting to one and all that she was innocent. Mostly.

When her gaze locked with his, pleading, he was unmoved. "You will make a very nice prow head on my longship . . . the one previously called Pirate Lady, which I have decided to rename Viking's Revenge."

"You cannot take our longship. Without Pirate Lady, we could not survive," she protested.

"You should have thought of that afore taking us captive," he said. "I intend to put her out to sea on the morrow."

Her shrieks could no doubt be heard all the way to the village, or out to Small Island.

He did not care. Not even when she threatened, foolishly, "Wait 'til I tell your mother."

There was an ancient saying that revenge was a bitter brew not worth its aftertaste, but the old one who coined that phrase had clearly not been a Viking.

Chapter Eleven.

Hunger games can be effective . . .

Medana was not naked, but she wished she were. By late that evening, tethered by ankle and bound hands to the bed frame in the tiny, dark, stuffy, windowless room, she was sickened by the smell of her own sweating body, and she'd been well on her way to needing a bath before this monstrous event had commenced.

Finally, after what must have been six or more hours of having been locked inside the addition to the hunters' longhouse, the door opened and Thork sauntered in, big as he b.l.o.o.d.y well pleased, carrying a torch that he stuck into a wall bracket.

"Good eventide, Mistress of Pirates."

"Go to Muspell, Master of Toads!"

"Tsk, tsk! Someone is not happy."

"You would not be happy, either, if you were bound and kept in a close s.p.a.ce with no water or way to relieve yourself."

"Oh? You mean like the hold of a ship? Except you are spared the company of an angry bull."

She hadn't thought about that. Still . . .

The lout grinned as he approached her.

She eyed him warily. 'Twas always best for a woman to be on her guard when a man grinned like that.

"Frigg's foot! It smells like a sheep pen in here," he exclaimed when he got closer.

"Well, Frigg's foot! You do not smell like a flower, either. Not that I care!" She noticed the stains on his tunic, and continued, "Your blood could gush out 'til you are bone dry inside and I would not lift a finger to help you. You could have blood seeping from your eyeb.a.l.l.s, and nose, and ears, and I would just call others to come observe the wondrous sight."

"You are a heartless wench," he declared with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Fortunately, it is not my blood. I was skinning a boar that Jostein killed for our dinner." He pinched the fabric of his leather tunic to hold it away from his chest and examined the various stains with distaste.

"That is another thing. I have not eaten since breaking fast this morning. Do you intend to starve me, too?"

"There's an idea." He went down on one knee and began undoing the ties about her ankles. "Come," he said, taking hold of the rope about her wrists and tugging her off the bed.

"Where are we going?"

"To the pond. To bathe."

Uh-oh!

Noticing the expression of dismay on her face, he informed her, gleefully, "Your secrets are uncovered. We know all about the pond and the tunnel."

"Oh." She stared at him for a moment, trying to figure if this was an attempt to trick her. Eventually, she shrugged. He had been bound to find out sometime. "Then you know that the pond will be draining soon. Do you relish a mud bath?"

He chucked her under the chin. "Nay, though I would not mind seeing you swathed in slimy mud. I might even pelt you with a few mud b.a.l.l.s."

She made a decidedly unfeminine snort of disgust.

And brute that he was, he just laughed.

"Do not be surprised if I pelt you right back."

"I would be surprised if you did not. Not to worry, though. I intend to be at the pond early enough to witness the draining. Whilst it's still deep enough for us to bathe."

She made another snorting sound of disgust, but inside she quailed at his reference to "us" in bathing.

He took the torch from the wall holder, tugging her along behind him by the tether. Almost tripping as she tried to keep up, she muttered under her breath.

"Did you just call me a loathsome lout? According to my mother, it must mean you are smitten with me." He batted his ridiculously long lashes at her. No doubt, he thought she was enthralled by his pretty green eyes.

"I'll never call you a loathsome lout again. Odious oaf better suits you, anyway."

He laughed.

She was getting tired of being a source of mirth for the loath- odious oaf.

Two of the men were sleeping on pallets about the main room of the hunters' hut. Outside in the clearing, a fire smoldered in the middle of a stone ring, over which a half-eaten suckling boar still spit and sputtered on its makeshift roasting spear.

Her stomach growled at the sight of several slices of blackened pork sitting on a wooden platter, along with chunks of manchet sopping up the juices.

"Wait," she said, digging in her heels. Leaning down, with her wrists still bound, she grabbed a piece of bread and wrapped it around a slice of blackened pork. Taking pity on her, he undid the rope binding her wrists and shoved her down to sit on a log that served as a bench before the fire. "Stay here until I return, wench," he said, and started back toward the longhouse.

"Do not call me wench. It's disrespectful."

"Stay here until I return, M'Lady Wench," he amended.

She made a scowly face to his back, but he paid her no never mind, just went off on some ch.o.r.e or other that was apparently more important than she was. How Medana had gone from captor to captive in such a short time was a puzzle to her. Actually, she did not consider herself a captive exactly since she had agreed to offer herself up in exchange for the longship, but everyone else seemed to.

In fact, his men, some standing guard and two of them sitting before the fire, watched her with interest.

Immediately, she gulped the food down, ravenously. The meat was undercooked inside and tough, but she did not care, so great was her hunger.

"You should not rile him so," advised Bolthor, the giant who claimed to be a skald as well as a warrior.

"Who?"

"Thork." The answer came from Finn, the vain Viking, who was cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails with the tip of a short blade. If reports were true, Finn had been having incomplete s.e.x with one of the women every night this sennight. Incomplete as in no seed entering the field where it needed to be planted. Thork's idea, she had heard.

"And why should I not rile him?" she asked, the question directed at both men.

"Your contacting his family was cruel, especially since the boy was on his way home to make peace with his father." Bolthor's craggy face was stern with admonition.

"Boy? Thork is hardly a boy."

"I have seen more than fifty winters. I fought aside his father at Ripon. Carried him from the battlefield, even. To me, Thork will always seem a boy."

Duly chastised, Medana kept her silence.

"Thork is a good boy who may have been wild in the past, and who may have made an irresponsible mistake or two," Bolthor continued.

"Wild is an understatement for what I have heard of his reputation."

Frowning at her interruption, Bolthor went on, "But the boy reached a bend in his life path. He took a vow to be good. And now it is all for naught. He may never reconcile with his father, and it is all your fault."

"That is unfair. You cannot-"

"Furthermore, you have probably lost him his bride," Finn interjected.

"Huh?"

"Thork had just picked out a bride in Hedeby afore you captured him," Finn explained. "Another effort on his part to please his father. Which was going too far, if you ask me. I would have bought the old man a longboat or several barrels of fine Frisian wine, for G.o.ds' sake. Not anch.o.r.ed myself to a wench to make amends."

"Dost forget Isobel?" Bolthor reminded Finn. "You would have wed the Saxon lady in a trice if she'd been willing."

"That was different," a disgruntled Finn replied. "And do not dare compose another saga about it, either."

"You do not like my poems?" Bolthor asked.