Maidensong by Mia Marlowe Page B

What is our skald doing over there with that big thrall?” Gunnar asked. Rika had seated herself close to the blond giant and was patting his forearm.
      “ Oh, my lord, that’s her brother, Ketil,” Evja said. Gunnar tightened his grip on her wrist, signaling that he expected more information. “He’s a bit simple, but very sweet and a hard worker. Rika is devoted to him and he adores her. I’ve never seen a brother and sister so close.”
      “Have you not?” He released her wrist and ex tended his empty drinking horn to her, while he stud ied Rika and Ketil. How was it he’d missed the connection between the two of them? Gunnar nar rowed his eyes.
      There was no family resemblance between them, so that certainly explained his oversight. They sat with their heads together, sharing a joke that ended in the simpleton rocking with laughter. And by the look on the skald’s face, even though the big thrall was obvi ously a half-wit, she cared for her brother deeply.
      In teresting, and most definitely useful.
      “Just what I like to see. A close family always does the heart good, doesn’t it?” Gunnar said as he waved Evja on to fill his uncle’s horn.
    *    *    *
     
      In a dark corner in another part of the hall, another pair of eyes marked Rika as well. The sadness in them was matched only by regret.
      “Gudrid,” Torvald said softly. If Helge hadn’t warned him, he’d have been certain he was seeing the ghost of his beloved wife, instead of the daughter he’d abandoned long ago.
     
     

Chapter 10
     
     
     
      “I've never laughed so hard in my life,” Bjorn said as he collapsed back onto his bed. “The way you told that story about Thor and Loki—”
      “ Dressing up as women to get Thor’s hammer back from the frost giants?” Rika interrupted as she unfas tened the side buckles on his leather shoes and slid them off, her fingers brushing the tops of his feet. Yet another part of this man she found fair and appeal ing. Her gut clenched with guilt and another oddly unsettling emotion she couldn’t identify. She looked away.
      “It was better than a feast. Just thinking about it makes my ribs ache.” He chuckled again low in his belly.
      Rika smiled as she struck the fire steel to light the lamp. Once it was lit, she closed the door on the light and noise of carousing from the main hall.
      “I could see the whole thing,” he said. “And some of it I really didn’t want to see. I can’t imagine two uglier women than Thor and Loki in disguise and now I'm stuck with them in my head.” He shook his black mane as if that would expunge the horrific spectacle. “How in the world do you do it?”
      “Do what?” she asked.
      “ Put pictures in other people’s heads, whether they will it or no?”
      “Who knows? You might be able to do it if you tried,” Rika said. “It’s really quite simple. First, I see it clear and complete in my mind, and then I think it to my listeners. It just takes practice and a little some thing else.”
      “What’s that?” They’d developed a rhythm between them as she cared for his needs. He lifted his arms to assist her in eas ing him out of his tunic.
      “The gift. Magnus used to say that without the gift, it’s all just words.” She dipped into a deep mock curt sey. “That, Bjorn the Black, is why they call it art.”
      “ Let me try it then.” He caught her wrists and pulled her in close to stand between his knees. “Tell me if you can see the picture that I think to you.”
      She looked into his eyes and found herself caught by the intensity of his gaze. An image shimmered. What did she see? Desire? Certainly. Desire was always there when she caught him looking at her.
      A shape wavered in her mind, but refused to come into sharp focus. She frowned and shook her head.
      “ I'm sorry. I can’t see anything. What were you thinking?”
      His hands rested possessively on her waist and pulled her