Maidensong Read Online Free PDF Page A

son.”
    “ When I’m ready for a wife, I’ll find one myself.” Bjorn folded his arms across his chest. “Besides, I’ve grown attached to the muddy little thing.” His crew chuckled. “My men and I risked ourselves and our ships in the service of Sogna. Shall it be said that such a simple request was denied?”
    Rika glanced from the jarl to his wife. An undercur rent of frustration and rage crackled between the noble couple. Astryd seemed to follow her husband’s gaze, and her face hardened as she caught the look the jarl cast toward Rika. The matter was decided.
    “Very well, you shall have her by night, Bjorn,” Astryd said. “But there’s no reason why she can't work for me by day. Come along, all of you,” she ordered the entire group of thralls. “No one eats here unless they earn their bread with hard labor.”
    She clamped a firm grip on Rika’s wrist and dragged her from the hall. When Rika cast a glance back over her shoulder at Bjorn, an infuriating smile was on his lips.
    Jorand was wrong, she guessed. Bjorn the Black didn’t like her at all. He certainly hadn’t lifted a finger to save her from the Dragon of Sogna.
    “My lady, please stop.” Rika trotted to keep up with Astryd’s swinging strides. “There’s been a mistake, a terrible miscarriage of justice, which I’m sure you’ll set right.”
      Whenthey burst out of the longhouse into the mid- morning sunlight , Astryd wheeled around to face Rika, hands fisted on her hips. “What are you babbling about?”
      “Just that there’s been a misunderstanding.” Rika gulped a quick breath. “My brother and I were taken because your men thought we belonged to the settle ment at Hordaland. We don’t, you see. We are traveling skalds, and as such, we aren’t subject to capture and enthrallment.”
      Astryd cocked a pale eyebrow at Ketil, her cold gaze sweeping over the young man’s pleasant, vacant ex pression. “Oh, ja, I can see that your brother is much in demand, no doubt. Recite for us, you great towering slug,” she ordered.
      Ketil’s half-smile changed to panic and he backed several steps away. “I don’t ... no, it’s not me. Rika’s the skald. Father always said so.”
      “ Very well.” Astryd turned back to Rika, crisscross ing her arms over her chest. “Let’s hear the skald. What shall it be, I wonder? Thor and the Frost Gi ants? Freya and the Brisingamen necklace, perhaps? That’s one I understand quite well, being overly fond of jewelry, myself.”
      She eyed the silver brooches holding up Rika’s kyr tle. The craftsmanship was finer and the design more subtle than the gaudy ones at her own broad shoulders. Astryd circled Rika, running a jeweled finger over the fine quality of the cloth beneath the caked mud. Rika froze like a hare that sees the shadow of a hawk hovering overhead.
      “No,” Astryd decided. “How about something easy? Let’s have a bit from the Havamal.”
      Inwardly, Rika groaned, but she straightened her spine and took her stance. Breathe, she ordered herself. At first, no words tickled her tongue, and then, like wa ter pouring over a precipice, they all came at once.
      “A flame leaps to another. Fire kindles fire. A man listens, thus he learns,” she rattled off all in one breath. “The shy . . . stay shallow.” Rika’s voice trailed away. Her eyes flitted from left to right, but no more of the sayings of Odin appeared in her mind.
      Astryd’s lip curled. “Not your finest moment, was it?”
      “Please, you don’t understand. I’m a very fine skald. I know all the sagas, truly I do.” Even to her own ears, Rika didn’t sound very convincing. “I’ve been working on the Havamal, but I just don’t know it all yet.”
      Was that Magnus’s gentle laughter she heard in the back of her mind?
      “I believe you are a very clever girl with a quick tongue and possibly a decent memory.” Astryd squinted at her in frank appraisal. “But you’re no