Ice Maiden

George laughed. “She is unlike any woman I have known.”

“That is not surprising.”

He recalled the first moment he saw her, there on the beach looming over him. “Explain to me why a woman would don a helm and a suit of mail—here of all places, on an island where there is little threat of danger.”

Lawmaker sighed. “There is more danger than you know—for Rika, in particular. Her life has not been easy. She’s fought her own battles and bears the scars of such experience.”

He remembered one such scar, and imagined tracing it along the curve of her neck.

“And we did not know, when first we saw you lying still on the beach, were you friend or foe, if you lived or nay. Rika is hotheaded, reckless even—save where men are concerned. There she tends to be overcautious.”

He looked at the old man’s face in the dark.

“And with good reason,” Lawmaker said.

George would know that reason, and that unsettled him. Why should he care?

“It’s her brother’s battle gear, not hers.”

“Brother?” No one had said anything about a brother. “Where is he? Why have I no met him?”

Lawmaker didn’t respond.

“Will he no have something to say about—”

“He is gone,” Lawmaker snapped. “No one knows where.”

The old man was irritated, but why? There was more to all of this than he let on. An estranged father. A lost brother. An absent jarl. Whisperings among the women, and tension among the men.

There was a mystery here, and Lawmaker held the answers. George knew the elder would not reveal all to him in this night. Still he pressed for more.

“This Brodir, your jarl,” he began. “Rika is…” How had Ingolf put it? “She belongs to him?”

“Who told you that?”

George shrugged. Lawmaker knew exactly who had told him.

“Rika belongs to no man. Not yet,” the old man added, and shot him a wry look.

He took Lawmaker’s meaning, and the presumption annoyed him. “Why me? There are plenty of men here. If all she wants is her coin, why no wed one of her own? Someone who’s willing?”

“Nay, that would be too…complicated. You are the perfect choice. You have no interest in the dowry or her. Am I right?”

He snorted. “Too right.”

“Well then. What say you?”

George rose from the bench and kicked at the thin veil of snow under his boots. What choice did he have? He shook his head, unwilling to give in. There must be another way.

“Do not answer yet,” Lawmaker said, and stood.

“You’re tense, and still angered over your situation. Angry men make poor choices.”

The old man had a point.

“Go,” Lawmaker said. “Have a soak in the bathhouse.” He pushed George toward the small hut at the end of the courtyard. A fire was lit within, and a warm glow spilled from under the closed door.

Aye, mayhap a hot soak would do him some good. At least ’twould warm his icy flesh. “Ye shall have my answer later,” he called back over his shoulder, and tripped the bathhouse door latch.

’Twas hot and close inside. Steam curled from under the inner door leading to what the islanders called a sauna. George had never seen such a thing before. He noticed that the bathing tubs in the outer chamber were empty. Strange. Lawmaker had said a soak would be good for him.

No matter. He would try this sauna. George peeled off his garments and laid them on a bench next to a coarsely woven cloak. Someone else was within. One of the other men, by the look of the garment. He sought solitude, but there was damned little of it to be had anywhere in the village.

To hell with it. The heat felt good. Already he could feel the tension drain from his body. He pulled open the inner door, stepped into the cloud of steam, and drew a cleansing breath of moist air tinged with herbs.

Ah, heavenly.

There would be a bench somewhere. A place to rest. Cautiously he took a step. Another. The heat grew intense, and a healthy sweat broke across his skin. Christ, he couldn’t see a thing. Where was the bench? It should be right—

A vision materialized in the vapor. A woman. She sat with her back to him, long damp hair clinging to her nude body.

George swallowed hard. How long since he’d had a woman? Too long. In one languid motion, the vision drew a ladle of water from a bucket at her feet and poured it over her head.

She turned, and the rise of one perfect breast came into view. Water sluiced over her skin. One shimmering droplet clung like honey to the pebbled tip of her breast.

He wet his lips.

As the vapor cleared, their eyes met.

“Rika.”

She gasped, but did not cover herself, nor did she look away.

He was aware of his heart dancing in his chest, of the heat, and the closeness of her. He fisted his hands at his sides because he didn’t know what else to do.

Her eyes roved over him in an entirely different manner than they had that first day when she’d stripped him naked like a beast in the courtyard. Finally she turned away.

He breathed at last.

Seconds later he was dressed and stumbling out the door into the courtyard. The cold air hit him like a hundredweight stone. He felt drugged, hungover. Not himself at all.

A shape stepped out of the shadows and Lawmaker’s peppered beard glistened in the starlight. “What say you, Scotsman? Will you wed her?”

Time stood still for a moment, a day, a lifetime, as the sound of the sea filled his ears.

“Aye,” he heard himself say. “I will.”

A sliver of moon rose over the water, and in the pearly light Lawmaker smiled.