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“It is good that you are a woman with a quick mind and decisive wits. I will speak to Olav the Vain and we will settle on a brideprice and then—”
“I won’t wed with you!”
He frowned down at her. “Why not? You just said that you would.”
“I said nothing of the sort. I don’t know you. I have never seen you before in my life until but minutes ago. You made me lose my pail. Now, what is this all about?”
“I am a farmer merchant. I have come to York to trade, as I do several times a year. I saw you two days ago and I’ve been watching you. I have decided you will do nicely as my wife. You will suit me. You will bring me pleasure and bear my children and you will warm my hearth and prepare my meals and sew my tunics.”
Zarabeth, once charmed by his brazenness, was off-put by his arrogance, a commodity of which he had aplenty. She was no longer amused by him, for she realized at last that he was utterly serious. And a serious Northman, she’d heard all her life, wasn’t to be trifled with. But it made no sense. It sounded as if he needed a slave, after the list he’d made of his expectations of her. She felt a tingling of alarm, for his eyes had narrowed and he no longer had the look of a man of easy nature and ready laugh. Still, she wouldn’t back down, she wouldn’t show her ill-ease with him.
“And that’s all you have to say, Magnus Haraldsson? You believe I would suit you? You make it sound like I would be your drudge. No, no, let me finish. Too, I might be an awful creature for all you know of me, a shrew of loud and vicious tongue perhaps. As for you, perhaps you beat women? Perhaps you don’t bathe and smell sour as the rotted innards of a weasel? Perhaps—”
“That is quite enough, Zarabeth.” He paused a moment, as if the sound of her name surprised him. Then he grasped her upper arms in his large hands. She froze, then forced herself to relax. They were standing in the middle of the Coppergate square and there were dozens of people she knew around them, some of them even now staring toward her at this moment. She needn’t worry. She smiled at him again, but it was a nervous, uncertain smile, and he recognized it.
“I don’t mean to frighten you, but when I make up my mind it is done. I bathe often, as is the custom in my country, and I don’t smell sour. Sniff me now if you will. I have all my teeth and I don’t carry fat on my belly. Men cannot fight to their best ability if they carry fat on their bodies. I never will. I don’t beat women.” He paused, frowning, then shrugged. “I do have a slave, Cyra, who much enjoys a belt on her thighs and buttocks, but I give it to her sparingly, for I do not wish to spoil her.”
Zarabeth could but stare at him, all else forgotten. “You have a slave who likes you to beat her? In those . . . places? That is absurd! I do not believe you. Why?”
Magnus shrugged again. “It is as I said. She is a woman of strong and ardent passions, and the pain on her buttocks adds to her pleasure when I finally take her.” His eyes narrowed on her stunned face. “Why would you disbelieve me? I speak the truth, Zarabeth. You will soon learn that I don’t lie.”
“I don’t disbelieve you, but perhaps you should temper this extreme truth of yours with judicious omission. The thought of anyone striking me in those places . . . well, it isn’t at all to my liking.”
“Then I won’t. If you don’t wish it, I shan’t ever strike you, even if you eventually say you want it.”
“I don’t desire it,” she said, fascinated anew by him despite herself. “I won’t ever want that.” He was looking down at her, and the look in those blue eyes of his had changed, shifting subtly, and she knew with a knowledge she hadn’t realized was already within her that he was thinking of her without her clothing on. “Would you please release me now, Magnus?”
“No. I like the feel of your flesh beneath my fingers. You are warm and soft and I can smell your woman’s scent.”
“Then will you at least ease your hold? I am easily bruised.”
He frowned at that and his fingers quickly became gentle as sunlight on her upper arms and as warm as the middle-summer sun, though it was still early spring.
He continued to stare down at her, his look thoughtful and intent. “You will tell me what it is that gives you enjoyment. I’m accounted a man who does well with a woman. I am not selfish in the giving of pleasure. And you would be my wife. I should like to please you, to give you the delight of my body and yours. It would be your right to be pleased by me, your husband.”
His words were quiet and deep and confident. She continued looking up at him, so absorbed by him that she didn’t consider turning away. She said in a small, soft voice, without hesitation, “I don’t know what pleases me.”
His face changed with the smile that suddenly appeared, and pleasure radiated from him. “Ah, that is good. We shall learn together, then. I will try not to disappoint you.” He paused then, and he looked at his long fingers that were even now lightly kneading her upper arms. “I wanted to see you closely. You are as fair as I had thought. Your flesh is very white. I’ve been watching you now for two days.”
“My skin is very fair. More so than yours.”
“Aye, ’tis because you’re Irish. Am I not right?”
She nodded and he saw the pain flash in her eyes and wondered at it.
“Both your mother and father were Irish? Are they both dead, even your mother?” At her slow nod, he said, “When did she die?”
“Three years ago. Her name was Mara. Olav, my stepfather, met her in Limerick and wedded her when I was only eight years old. My father had died but a year before, and living was not easy for her, a woman alone with a child. We came here.”
“The little girl I saw you with yesterday, she is Olav’s child?”
Her chin went up and he was pleased at this unconscious arrogance in her, but it also puzzled him. What had he said to put her on guard? “Aye,” she said finally, “Lotti is my little sister. Who her father is matters not to me.”
“Then Olav is her father.”
“Aye, but I love her and she is mine.”
“Nay, she is your stepfather’s.”
