Maidensong Read Online Free PDF Page B

and could carve them with skill in wood or stone. The lilting tunes she coaxed from her little bone flute were admired in many a hall.
      But now, she was only a drudge. And Astryd seemed intent on foisting all the worst jobs of the household on her during her first day of servitude. She caught the woman glaring at her more than once, but Rika schooled her features into a bland mask. If the Lady of Sogna thought to break her spirit with drudgery, Rika was determined Astryd would fail. She would not allow the Dragon to see the pain in her blistered palms.
      Or her blistered heart.
      Besides, she knew the real villain wasn’t Astryd. Oh, the Lady of Sogna was unpleasant and bossy , but she wasn’t the one to blame for Rika’s misery.
      That honor belonged to the man who’d dropped her into Astryd’s grasping clutches. That toad-eating, louse-bitten, unfeeling waste of skin—Bjorn the Black.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
     
     
    Rika clamped a hand over her mouth, not believing her eyes. The Dragon of Sogna had dressed for nattmal in Rika’s fawn-colored tunic. It’d been scrubbed clean, but every seam in the fine garment bulged. Perhaps the heir to Sogna growing in her belly was to blame, but Rika thought Astryd looked like too much sausage meat stuffed into too small a bladder.
    The lady stopped in front of her. “You have something to say?”
    “No, my lady.” Rika forced the smirk from her face. “Except . . . that color suits you.” She guessed the Lady of Sogna must be desperate indeed if she thought dressing in Rika’s clothing would turn her husband’s wandering eye back to her. Rika could almost pity As tryd, if not for her shorn head and throbbing hands. But Magnus had always said desperate people are dan gerous people and the Lady of Sogna was clearly desperate for her husband’s attention. Rika expelled all the air from her lungs in relief when Astryd moved on.
    She sent Ketil into the great hall with Surt, a thrall he’d worked with all day. Slaves were allowed to eat after the fighting men had been served, but Rika couldn’t think of food. All she wanted was to wash the reek of privies and cow urine from her tired body. She decided there’d be no better time to sneak into the steam bath than when everyone else was feasting in the long main hall.
      After slipping into the bathhouse and lighting the fire to warm the stones, she stripped off the scratchy tunic. Rika scrubbed it while the room filled with heat. She might have to put it back on damp, but at least it would be clean.
      When the stones for the steam bath were hot enough, she poured a dipperful of pine-oil water on them, releasing a soothing cloud of steam. She kept adding water till the small room was filled with milky- white moisture. Then she felt her way to the smooth wooden benches.
      Every pore in her body opened. When she was cov ered with a glistening sheen, she fingered along the wall and found the birch switches left there. Rika used one to scrape off the sweat and dirt. She was ready to dash into the next room where a cool bath barrel waited for her to rinse in, when she heard the stamp of booted feet at the threshold. She skittered back up the benches, climbing into the farthest corner.
      “Someone has started the bath for us already.”
      Rika recognized Bjorn’s rumbling bass through the pine-scented cloud. Another dipper of water hissed on the heated stones. She pulled her knees to her chest and made herself as small as possible, trusting the thick steam to hide her.
      “ That’s the story of my life, little brother. Everything is always handed to the Jarl of Sogna on a new trencher.”
      Rika heard the swish of clothing being peeled from the two men’s bodies, the scrape of leather boots toed off against the stone floor. She made out hazy flesh-toned forms and realized they’d see her too, if they happened to glance her way. She could only hope they wouldn’t notice her if she kept still.
      “Come