Page 9 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3

When I woke, it was Helka who stood looking down at me. Faline and Eirik has risen. I was alone in the bed.

She touched my shoulder.

“You are well?” she asked, her brow furrowed in concern. “No pain?”

Even in the first days of being wedded to my husband I’d not, in a single day, had such a volume of fucking. There was a dull ache between my legs, but it was more discomfort than pain. When the three Northmen had taken me, I’d tried to relax my body. I’d learnt that well enough during my marriage. To resist, to be fearful of pain, was most likely to cause it.

I thought back to Eirik: his mouth, his cock. I’d not known that I could enjoy the act as well as any man. I was under no illusion of love. It was Eirik’s body that had given me pleasure, nothing else. No doubt he’d had many women, and would be between someone else’s legs tonight.

Helka sat down beside me.

“I told him not to hurt you,” she said.

I remembered her whispering in his ear. Her apologetic smile. I shrugged and looked away. I was angry with her.

“What about the other women. Go and speak to them.”

She sighed.

“Men are men. They like their sport. I cannot change them.”

I noticed then that she’d brought forward the washing barrel, and that the fire was lit.

“The water’s hot,” she said.

* * *

My body welcomed the warmth. I lent back, letting it cover my shoulders. Helka sat upon a rug, attempting to engage me in conversation.

Despite her apparent kindness, I no longer felt that I could trust Helka. Whatever pleasure I’d had from her brother, it was through little action of hers, that I could see. Her men behaved no better than animals, and she did nothing to stop them.

“How many other villages have you plundered?” I asked. “And how many have you killed? How many women taken against their wish? Will you put us in your boats when you leave, to be your slaves?”

I knew that the Northmen would take whatever they wanted once their sails were mended.

Helka lowered her eyes, giving no response.

“I won’t come with you.” I barked the words. “I won’t be someone’s slave.”

Helka looked up. “What if you belonged to Eirik?”

I glowered.

“To belong to him is not nothing,” she continued. “He’s…” she sought the right word. “He’s respected. A warrior. He can defeat any man. With him, you would have a place. You would not be nothing. You would be his bed companion, but more. You would have his children.”

“And how many bed companions does he have?” I flared. “I’m surprised there’s room for another. Are all your men the same? My husband’s blood stains the floor of our bedchamber, and I cannot shed a tear for it, but even he never brought another woman into our marriage bed while it remained warm from my body.”

“It is not men’s nature to love only one,” said Helka. “You know that, I’m sure... We, women, are obliged to be more steadfast, unless our husbands sanction us to behave otherwise.”

Her face was impassive, while my own burned with shame and resentment.

“Men are beasts. All they know is violence and fucking,” I retorted.

I dropped my head to my knees. If Eirik were to enter now and lift me from the water, were he to carry me back to the bed and ease himself between my legs, would I protest? Or would I wrap my arms about him, and draw him down to enter me, eager to lose myself in the heat of him again?

These men, these Northmen, were murderers, rapists, slavers. They took what they wanted. How many children had they fathered in their wake? I hated that some part of me was of their blood, that my true father had been like the men who killed my husband, like the three who forced me to take their cocks.

I looked up at Helka, into that face that was the mirror of my own.