Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

silver, and your jewels,” Eirik responded, internally relieved that his
training with the monks had paid off. He could understand their strange tongue,
and they could apparently make sense of his speech as well.
    His crew fanned out
around him, moving to the walls and toward the back of the chapel. They
stripped everything of value they found, to the horrified murmurs of the crowd
of cowering men and women.
    As Eirik watched, he
noticed something else strange about this monastery. In addition to women, he
also observed that everyone he laid his eyes on was old. The youngest he saw
couldn’t be less than fifty or so in years—all except the one whom Grimar had
claimed, but Eirik hadn’t gotten a good look at her yet.
    His crew deposited the
loot in the middle of the chapel.
    “Is there aught else of
value here?” Eirik asked the woman who’d first spoken.
    “Nay,” she said,
glaring at him. “Take the Devil’s child with you and be gone from here,
heathens!”
    Eirik narrowed his eyes
at the woman’s haughty tone. By the gods, she acted as if they were
inconveniencing her!
    A yelp from behind him
drew his attention before he could respond to the woman. To his surprise, the
noise had come from Grimar. His cousin was holding his ear, blood streaming
between his fingers. The girl he’d hoisted over his shoulder earlier now lay in
a heap at his feet but was trying to scramble upright and away from Grimar.
    With a curse, Grimar
raised his bloodied hand from his mangled ear and struck the new thrall across
the face. The girl went spinning, landing on the hard stone floors. Yet instead
of cowering, she raised her head to look up with utter hatred at Grimar.
Grimar’s blood left a red handprint on her cheek.
    To Eirik’s complete
surprise, the girl then lashed out with her foot, kicking at Grimar’s shins.
Grimar cursed again and raised his hand to hit the girl once more, but Eirik
bolted between them.
    “First you draw monks’
blood, and now you’ll beat your thrall to death,” Eirik ground out. “You
dishonor yourself in front of the gods.”
    “She bit me! Besides,
she’s mine to do with as I will!” Grimar shot back, though a look of
uncertainty flitted across his face at the mention of the gods.
    Eirik felt the eyes of
the rest of his crew on him. They all knew how he felt about thralls. Though it
was an accepted practice to have slaves in the Northlands, Eirik believed it
was a sign of weakness to force others to do his work for him. What was the
worth of a man who needed slaves to run his farm, tend his home, or warm his
bed?
    But Grimar was right.
According to custom and law, a thrall was no more than an animal, to be put to
whatever use its master saw fit. The thought of the blood-smeared, defiant
little sprite being forced by Grimar turned Eirik’s stomach, however.
    Just then the old
woman’s words came back to him, and he turned to face the girl in question. She
was on her feet and panting from fright, yet her eyes locked on him with a dark
defiance.
    He had guessed right
that she was young, but more a woman than a girl, as he’d initially thought.
Unlike the other women, she wore no head covering. The dark, thick braid that
ran down her back looked to be damp. Despite her chestnut hair, however, her
skin was as pale as fresh snow on the mountains surrounding Dalgaard. Most of
the women back home were pale-skinned as well, but he’d never seen the
combination of such rich hair with such fair skin.
    Her eyes, which
continued to bore into him, were as dark as her hair, almost black in the low
candlelight, and seemingly depthless. Her lips were rosy and slightly parted,
her breath coming fast. Eirik let his eyes travel further down her form, across
her slim shoulders and over the shapeless brown woolen dress, which appeared
wet like her hair. She was so small, so vulnerable looking, and yet something
about her stirred him.
    “Is this the one you
call Devil’s child?” he said over the girl’s