‘Draw your dagger,’ the Norseman commanded without looking back at her. The whisper of his own twin blades being pulled from their leather sheaths accompanied his words.
She drew it slowly, as guilt once more made itself known. He didn’t know. He was bent on protecting her still, not even realising that she was about to betray him.
‘These men are not friends of that man at the tavern,’ she said.
He turned his head partially towards her while keeping them in his sight. ‘Thieves, then?’
She slipped away before he could react, moving towards the group. ‘Not thieves,’ she said, turning to face him.
He understood then. For one moment before the fury took over, the hurt of betrayal flashed in his eyes.
Alder took advantage of his distraction and cracked him across the back of his skull with the hilt of his blade. The Norseman crumbled to a heap on the stones.
Despite the fact that she told herself she did this to protect them all from him, watching him fall very nearly broke her heart.
Chapter Two
Rurik opened his eyes to blackness. The complete absence of light was like waking up in the dark, rank depths of the earth. He blinked, wondering briefly if he had gone blind, but it did not help. The air was heavy and still, the silence so complete that it gave rise to a roaring in his ears. Had he died and been condemned to this fate of nothing? The idea brought with it a swell of panic that tightened his lungs and made the air too heavy to breathe.
He tightened his fists and the tips of his short fingernails bit into the heel of his hand, the pain bringing back rational thought. No, he was not dead. Captured, but not dead. He had awakened several times in the back of a wagon, but had almost immediately fallen back into unconsciousness. Anger at the turn of events threatened to overtake him, but he managed to keep a hold on it. Fear and rash impulses would not help him. His father’s blood ran strong in his veins and it often urged him to act on his fury. He’d had years to practise keeping it contained and he would continue to control it in death if need be.
Taking several deep breaths, he dared not move until he knew exactly what he was up against. Subtle shapes and shadows incrementally revealed themselves to him as he lay still. The sweet scent of fresh straw met his nose while he became aware of a few pieces poking him in his back. The pleasing smell could not, however, cover up the rank and stagnant air of the mysterious place. There was no way to be certain of how long he had lain there, but already a chill had settled deep into his bones. Now that the panic and roaring had subsided somewhat, he could hear that there was a constant dripping of water in the near distance. He must be underground.
Had the Saxons buried him alive in the depths of a crypt?
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the near absence of light, the craggy nooks and jagged points of the stone wall at his side came into focus and he knew that he was right. This was not one of the wattle-and-daub buildings he had seen in the village. He was underground.
He sat up and lifted a hand to the pounding at the back of his head. The clanging of the chain registered almost as quickly as the weight of the cuff pulling at his wrist. Letting out a low curse that seemed overly loud in the deathly silence of the chamber, he switched to his other hand. The place where he had been struck on his head was tender, but thank the gods his fingers did not come back sticky with blood. There was no open wound to contend with.
Reasonably certain that he would live, though for how long he had no idea, Rurik rose. His bare feet encountered the cold floor as a wave of dizziness overcame him, so he put a hand out to the slimy wall to keep himself upright. His stomach churned and his mouth tasted bitter. In the moments before he had been attacked, he had felt off balance and nearly giddy. Some part of him had worried that those reactions had been because of the woman. Now he understood that he had been poisoned. The sweet and bitter taste of the ale had included an elixir meant to unsettle him.
It had made him lower his guard so well that he had nearly kissed the wench against the wall where anyone could have overtaken him—and had. It was a relief to know that it wasn’t she who had made him forget himself, but the potion. The knowledge still rankled, but it was better than the alternative. Rurik was not Danr, who had a habit of forgetting himself where women were concerned.
There came a scraping sound, like iron being dragged over stone, followed by the brisk scrape of a boot. He immediately reached for his knife, habit overcoming the knowledge that it had been taken from him. He cursed inwardly at its absence. The bone-handled knife had been handed down to him from his mother, the only remnant of his Irish heritage he had. Drawing himself up, Rurik waited for his jailer to approach, even his toes tensed in anticipation against the cold floor. Though the large clasps holding his fur to his tunic at the shoulders were missing, his fur had been left for him. He soundlessly dropped it to the ground, wanting his arms and hands free should
