Page 94 of The Outlaw Viking

“Ubbi! Now, you turn my loyal friend against me, too.”

“It wasn’t like that, Selik.”

“I have to piss,” he said with sudden bluntness. “Untie me so that I can relieve myself.”

“Oh, I should have thought…” Rain rushed quickly to the other side of the loft and brought a pottery urn to his side and was about to untie the cord of his braies.

“Do not even think it,” he warned icily.

“Now, Selik, I’m a doctor. I do these things all the time for my patients—”

“I would rather soak my braies like a babe than have you minister to my needs. Truly, you pass the bounds of all that is seemly in a woman. And what were you planning for my other…needs?”

“A bed pan,” Rain said matter-of-factly. “I fashioned it from one of Gyda’s old baking pans.”

“A bed…a bed pan,” Selik sputtered out. “If you ever dare to approach me with such, I swear—do you hear me, you halfwitted bitch—I will make you sorry you were ever born.”

She had the good sense, at least, to back away from him then, sensing rightly that she’d pushed him beyond his limits of tolerance for one day.

“Ubbi!” he shouted then and heard the laughter and shrill voices below come to an abrupt halt. “Ubbi! Get your bloody hide up here! Now! I have to piss!”

To Rain he said in a voice thick with loathing, “Best you get out of my sight, wench, for I find the sight of you makes me retch.”

She recoiled at his harsh words, and hurt flashed across her face, turning her golden eyes misty and her lips trembling, but she followed his orders and left. He did not care. The woman unmanned him, then expected him to be thankful.

He turned his eyes upward, suddenly suspicious. Is this your idea of a jest, God? If so, please note, I am not laughing.

You will.

Selik sensed someone standing at the foot of his bed, but he kept his eyes closed. Lord, he was tired of arguing for the past five days with Rain about releasing him. If he heard her say one more time that she did it because she loved him, he thought he would vomit. And Ubbi—the dimwit—believed God had sent him a personal message calling for an orphanage.

The barn was surprisingly quiet, even though it was not yet noon. Rain had, no doubt, gone off to the hospitium in Jorvik, where she performed her good deeds among the culdees. Hah! He would show her a few good deeds when his hands were free—ones he would wager she never read in her bloody medical manuals. And Ubbi, who had been caring for his bodily needs, much to Selik’s humiliation, would have a few more kinks in his gnarled muscles when he finished with him.

Finally, still sensing a presence in the room, Selik’s curiosity got the best of him and he slitted one eye just enough to see who dared to disturb his peace, meager though it was. Christ’s bones! It was one of the orphans Rain had welcomed onto his property—the little girl they had seen outside the hospitium days ago.

Although the girl’s clothes hung in rags from her scrawny frame, Rain had somehow managed to scrub the urchin clean so he could even see the freckles dotting her ridiculously small nose. And she had braided her blond hair into a long queue down her back.

Selik furrowed his brow, trying to remember what the child’s lackwit brother had told them that day. Ah, now he remembered, something about the slave trader, Aslam, wanting the brother and sister for some Eastern sultan. Yea, in his travels he had heard of many men who practiced such perversions. ’Twould be a shame to see this innocent child subjected to such, but it was not his concern. Many horrors filled the world, and he refused to be the crusader Rain would have him be, to right all the world’s wrongs.

Inching closer, the barefooted child, who could be no more than four years old, stared at him with wide, sky-blue eyes, her little thumb stuck in her mouth the entire time.

“Go away,” he growled, opening both eyes.

The child jerked with surprise at his gruff voice, but instead of running away with fright, she moved even closer. The only sign of her nervousness was that she began to suck rhythmically on her thumb. The girl climbed up onto the bed and sat near his waist, staring at him with a look that could only be called longing.

Selik closed his eyes for a moment, bracing himself against the onslaught of emotions that began to assail him. His skin broke out in a cold sweat, and his heart beat a doleful dirge as it always did in the proximity of young children and the reminder of all that he had lost. He could not allow himself to think of his dead babe and how Thorkel might have looked at the age of every bloody child who passed his way.

He felt a small hand, no bigger than his palm, press gently against his chest, and his eyes shot open with dismay. The bothersome twit still had her thumb stuck between her pouting lips, but she had laid her other hand on his chest.

“Have a caution, lackwit, I bite little whelps like you. Chomp them up and spit them out for bird feed.” He forced his voice to sound deep and ferocious.

Instead of backing away with fright, she giggled. She actually giggled.

Lord, my life is turning into a nightmare. I pride myself on my wordfame as a brave warrior, but I can no longer even scare a troublesome little mite.

“Rain! Ubbi!” he shouted. “Get this verminous damned bloody child away from me!”

Silently, the child moved closer, placing her cheek high up on his chest, sucking loudly now. He rocked from side to side, trying to knock her off, but she just clutched his tunic tightly in one fist and held on for dear life. He thought he heard her laugh softly. No doubt she thought he played a game with her.