Page 23 of To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse #2)

He wanted to answer her, but his throat refused to work. Sousse… the booming seaport with its scorching sand roads had blistered his bare feet and was the beginning of stealing him body and soul. Her question probed the deepest, tenderest part of his wounds.

Overheard serrated raven caws cut the silence.

Did Odin demand he give his due of truth and revelation to a slave woman?

Shirin-am. Eshgh-am.

Persian words for an Odin-bestowed gift. Sestra. The scheming All-Father favored courage over status. Men and women could be slaves or kings, Odin didn’t care. It was their boldness and cunning that counted.

Sestra . His head tipped to azure skies above.

He’d swear a breeze blew her name into the ravine.

The earthen wall she’d climbed last night bore signs of her struggle.

Claw marks striped the dirt above the broken root where she’d fought for her life.

He’d fought for his life more than once, living the outward battle to survive.

His hand settled over his heart where fresh pain threatened to crack him like an egg. In a strange way, he was fighting for his life on this island.

“Sousse was the beginning of my misery,” he began, his voice hoarse. “It’s where Ibn Dawla bought me. My size and black hair suited his needs.”

“For…for…” she covered her mouth, her eyes rounding with horror.

He fathomed her meaning. Slave markets bustled with men buying women to sate baser needs. Few men met such a fate.

“No. Ibn Dawla preferred women, had a harem full at his fortress on the Tigris River.”

The Tigris, The Fast One , the people called her, yet a poor man’s shallow vessel could navigate her well. Standing in the island’s stream pulled him back to the days of wading in the Tigris.

“I lived near the river far north of Baghdad. Trained in stealth, scouting, and fighting; a weapon the general used in rising tensions between Persian and Seljuk Turks.”

“I’ve heard of this Baghdad.”

“A place teeming with people, more than the sands of the sea.”

He could see the aged beggars, their sad lined faces and outstretched hands. Bodies packed streets where small children scurried in and out of narrow alleys taught to steal before they lost their first tooth.

“You hated it.” Sestra grasped his forearm with both hands, her face tipped high to his.

“Hot, dry, no real forests such as we have here.”

Filled with a thousand scheming men and women who never touched a weapon, yet they cut down swaths of innocents in their hunger for wealth and power, using skilled fighting men like him.

“You yearned to be free.”

Harsh laughter rattled him. “More than you can ever imagine. I was desperate for the Northlands. Thought of them every day.”

“You’re here now.” Sestra’s voice was softer than silk.

Her touch sought to drag him back from the dark place, but he was lost. Long suppressed memories demanded their due. He couldn’t stop this tide. His lashes masked his eyes. If Sestra tried to see him, she’d see a dead man.

“Ten years I did his bidding. The general’s favorite. I learned Persian and Arabic, spoke it like it was my mother tongue.” He stared at the water rushing past, lost in those vivid final days…

Swords clanked in the fight yard. Sheets of sweat poured over his skin. Oppressive heat bore down enough to send horse flies to the shade. He knocked the newest bahadur on his back, sending up throat-clogging dust clouds.

“Uhhh,” the man groaned, his body curling in a tight ball.

Brandr nudged him with his foot. “Get up, Armenian.”

A bahadur was stripped of his name, called only by his birthplace.

“Viking.” The general’s voice cracked loud across the yard. “Come.”

His bronze-headed mace landed with a thud on the ground.

A slave boy scurried forward and snatched the club.

No one approached the general with a weapon.

Men grunted around him locked in battle.

None ceased fighting as his leather-soled sandals sunk deep in soft sand on his walk to the general.

Every new moon the overseer had fresh sand brought to the yard to strengthen men’s legs.

He stood before ibn Dawla’s shaded canopy in a blood and dirt-stained loin cloth…a prized animal.

“Sit.” The general waved his hand at a red silk pillow. He dipped a morsel of lamb in murri, the brown sauce the old man favored.

Brandr’s mouth watered at the tangy aroma. A feast of baked fish, bowls of rice, grapes, and lentil stew all filled brightly colored dishes on a red-embroidered table cloth. The old man often ate cross-legged at his low table while watching the men practice their battle skills.

Feet rooted to the ground, Brandr tore his attention off the food.

Ibn Dawla’s shrewd eyes narrowed. “You’re hungry, but you never accept food at my table.”

“I eat when the others eat.”

“Yet, you partake of my harem when I throw open the lattice doors.” A crusty laugh floated across the table. “You’re a stubborn one.”

“What do you want?”

The old man pointed a bony finger. “Don’t be rude.” He paused when a housemaid set an ampoule of wine on the table and two silver chalices. Her black gaze flickered Brandr’s way before she poured the wine.

“I give you too many freedoms, Viking. Too many. But you are my best fighter.” Ibn Dawla sighed and raised his full chalice. “You can have a day in your treasured mountains if…”

A day to roam the spring green mountains near Kirkuk, the spoils of a job well-done. Better than a night in the harem. The general only bestowed the reward of a day in the mountains after he accomplished the toughest tasks.

A dozen soldiers would camp in the valley below while he breathed cool mountain air, and the same men would take him back in chains the next morning.

The general talked, and he nodded without listening. This would be his time. This would be his escape.

Brandr met Sestra’s questioning gaze. “I ran away and it nearly killed me.”

“That’s why you want me to buy my freedom.”

There was more. The wish for her not to be satisfied with enslavement, the wish for her to fight for what else could be hers. The wish…

He scowled, facing the waterfall. “The Henrikkson’s won’t do to you what ibn Dawla did to me when I was caught running, but if you ran away, you’d forever be looking over your shoulder.”

Her hand slid up his body and settled over his heart. “What did he do to you?”

“Beat me. Badly. Before I passed through Hel’s door, the general sold me. I went to the Balearic Islands and served a Moorish pirate…as a galley slave.”

Sestra covered her mouth. “Oh, Brandr.”

He was glad she didn’t spout meaningless words. Nothing could soothe this agony. A galley slave’s life was nothing and worth less than nothing.

Wrists tethered to their seats, galley slaves rarely left the cramped, low-ceilinged hold.

Men rowed day and night, eating, sleeping, heeding bodily needs through a hole in the bench.

The wood stank of piss and death. Overseers cracked whips on all bare backs if one man slumped in exhaustion.

Overseers cracked whips if they thought a slave wasn’t working hard enough.

Overseers cracked whips for the cruel joy of destroying defeated men.

Insolent to the core, his stubborn defiance nearly cost him his life.

He didn’t have to give more to Sestra. He’d wrapped his vicious animal past into the tightest coil and let it fester in deep places, but tender brown eyes read him well.

She grasped his roaring pain and dared to unravel it.

The ruthless beast stirred inside him, unwinding within, lured by the flame-haired Sif .

His mouth twitched at Sestra’s talent for loosening his tongue. “One day I heard grapple hooks, men shouting. Our ship was attacked. The overseer came below and cut free all the slaves.” His voice cracked. “Except for me.”

“You were left to die?”

Wet curls stuck to Sestra’s quivering bottom lip.

He brushed them away, finding solace in the small act.

Above her more ravens gathered on the ridge.

Wings flapping, the birds lunged and pecked at each other, jostling for a place on the cliff.

Bits of dirt and grass fell in the stream behind Sestra.

Air nipped his lungs. His body wracked with agony in this telling, but jaw set, he’d finish this.

He turned his right forearm over and began to untie his arm brace. “The overseer wanted me to die with my hands tied to the sinking ship. I yelled for help. Tried to free myself.” His breath came in gusts. “I yanked hard enough the leather straps tore my skin.”

The brace slackened, showing the white scars. His teeth grinded. “I hate having my hands bound.”

“How did you get out?”

“Hakan.” Chin tipped high, his body relived the sinking ship, the screams of men dying, the choppy sea water creeping up his neck, and splashing his mouth. He’d swear he could taste the ocean’s brine on his tongue.

“He heard me cursing Odin and came below.” Gulping air, he blinked at blue skies, yet all he could see was the hold’s low ceiling. “Water came up to my mouth. I jammed my cheek against the ceiling for air.”

“That’s when Hakan came.”

He nodded slowly. “I saw his blond head dive under water. He cut me free and dragged me back to his ship.”

Dead men had floated in stewing seas. The Moor’s round-hulled galley ship sunk before his eyes, its lateen sail swamped by waves as strong hands hauled him onto Hakan’s Dragon ship.

He collapsed, vomiting sea water wearing nothing more than a tattered loin cloth.

Viking warriors gathered around, their Norse music to his ears.

Thunder cracked— Did Thor rage at his cursing Odin?

—and men parted for Hakan the Tall. Rain pelted the chieftain’s head as he waved off the warriors.

“And Hakan brought you to Uppsala.”

“Yes,” he said, laughing without humor. “To be his slave.”