Page 50 of Her Viking Guardian

My master had begun to nod.

“To see if Ilsa’s encounter with the Chinese woman represents a real possibility. To see if vǫlur can somehow be together when they travel the trunk and the boughs, and at the same time to see if we should think of whoever is behind that girl—the man disciplining her and his comrades, if he has them—as a force that can send women to Yggdrasil as we do.”

Sven’s pale eyes moved to me briefly, and then back to Henrik. Then he nodded, and spoke musingly, going back over the facts.

“Ilsa described the Chinese woman as looking up at her from a lower branch, after her master had just taken her anus with his cock.” He let the silence hold for a moment. “So I want to know if she can see Mary, if they both go to the tree at the same time. We don’t know, from a scientific perspective, how it could possibly work. If it does work, though…”

Giovanna nodded, a look of grudging satisfaction in her eyes.

“We want to know about it.”

The silence that followed felt to me as if several people were doing arithmetic simultaneously and arriving at slightly different sums. The leo’s amber eyes moved between the screen and Henrik with the expression of a man being asked to accept a methodology he finds irregular. Giovanna’s dark gaze was on Sven’s face with a focus that was its own form of skepticism, despite her obvious interest.

“Very well,” Leo Aetnaeus said, finally, his voice decisive and his chin descending an inch or two for emphasis. “Bellatrix, you should feed and water your columba, and then perform the rite of deligature in front of your nymphobus, here in the mithraeum. After that, dress her and bring her to the office. We’ll have a car take the three of you to Capo Zafferano.”

“Deligature?” my Herra asked, frowning a little. I swallowed hard as I tried to piece together the etymology. Not from delegate: the leo’s Italian accent left no doubt about that, the i clear in the word’s center.

“Untying,” Giovanna told him. “When a columba goes forth without her leathers, she must be taught to wear them in her heart.”

Taught. I felt my forehead crease.

“Interesting,” Sven said from the monitor. “We have similar ideas about, shall we say, the dialectic of bondage and freedom, and its relationship to civilization. And as you know, my Mary is also a columba of your order. I find the leathers productive of a good deal of helpful reflection in her, whether she’s wearing them or not.”

Mary… the other bed thrall. What was she like? What had she been through? Would I see her, somehow on the tree? They all pronounced the name in its English form—was Mary British? American?

“Henrik, would you join us in the refectory after you shower and dress?” Giovanna asked. “Then you can see that your girl is well taken care of, as well as witness the rite of deligature, so that she knows you will hold her accountable for the lesson the nymphobus and I will deliver.”

“Of course,” my master responded. “I look forward to it.”

I had almost forgotten that unlike the four others present—the three in person and the virtual one on the screen—I alone lay naked and bound and spread open on a bench, listening to them decide how to dispose of my body. It came back in a rush as my master turned his full attention to me.

He came to stand next to the bench, looming over me in his red robe, a smile on his face high above me. My heart raced as he stooped, suddenly. My Herra put his left hand behind my neck, raising my face slightly from the cushion wedged there, while his right hand took gentle hold of my collar in his long fingers, as if to remind me of its presence. I whimpered into his mouth as he kissed me long and roughly, invading my mouth with his tongue, teaching me to acknowledge his ownership.

When he finally broke the kiss and drew back his own face, I saw a light in his eyes that brought helpless warmth to my chest even as my stomach lurched in fear of what it meant about me and my future.

“I’ll see you soon, lille en,” he told me. “Be a good girl for your mistress.”

CHAPTER 26

Henrik

I returned to the leo’s quarters Bruno had placed at my disposal and headed into the lavish bathroom, stripping off my robe as I entered. I felt some reluctance to admit it to myself, but I wanted to get to the refectory as soon as I could. I told myself it had more to do with my curiosity—and the need to build our knowledge of the Pretorian Guard’s customs—than with my growing interest in Ilsa. I knew the truth, though: I wanted to watch over my bed thrall, and I wanted to see how her mistress fed and watered her.

The chamber, like everything in the Palermo mithraeum, had been arranged to communicate both luxury and command: volcanic stone, severe lines, excellent fixtures, linen with a thread count that would have pleased any guest in a Mayfair hotel. I stood under the shower and let the hot water run over my shoulders and chest, washing away the last residues of sleep and the subtler residues of what I had done with Ilsa in the night.

I found myself thinking, as the water struck the back of my neck, about the way she had looked up at Sven’s image on the screen. The tears drying on her face. The stubborn, intelligent set of her mouth. The little flicker of pride she had not managed to conceal when she understood that the men in the room considered her unusual.

That pride would be useful in training her as a vǫlva and a bed thrall, and in the end, whatever the destiny of this affection for her that it seemed I couldn’t push down, it would help me bring her to her full potential.

A girl like Ilsa could not simply be overpowered. Of course she could be overpowered physically, but the more important issue lay at the conceptual level. I would have to persuade her mind to accept the hierarchy, and her submission to it, not as an interruption to her intellect, but as the proper frame for it.

The Guard understood the need to subjugate gifted young women in their Roman way. They sought to impose civilization upon feminine wildness. We understood it differently, but perhaps not so as to create real conflict. Giovanna’s methods had a rigor I respected, and the idea of Ilsa wearing her columba’s leathers in her heart intrigued me greatly.

Above all, my new kneppetøj’s Order of Ostia mistress had not a whit of sentimentality about her. In my judgment, honed by my service to the spirit of the North as a son of Odin, sentimentality was where many handlers of submissive young women failed.

I shut off the water, dried myself, and dressed with care. Dark trousers, soft enough to read as informal but tailored close. A pale shirt, open at the throat. A charcoal jacket with structure enough in the shoulders to flatter the body beneath it. Loafers. Watch. No tie. The effect, in the mirror, was exactly what I intended: a man at ease in expensive surroundings, who did not need formality to establish rank.

A knock came just as I finished buttoning my cuffs.