Page 52 of Her Viking Guardian

“She’s an archaeologist, apparently.”

I kept my eyes lowered, but not so low that I couldn’t see shoes, ankles, the hems of dresses, the bare calves of girls in cuffs, the polished leather of men’s loafers. One pair of stiletto heels paused near me, and a woman’s voice, amused and soft, said in accented English, “Poor little bottom. She’s obviously been used nicely.”

Laughter, not cruel exactly, but not kind either.

Giovanna brought me to an open place near the wall where a low leather mat had been laid out. Beside it stood two bowls of dark ceramic on the floor, smelling of delicious food, and a third smaller one with the distinct scent of water full of minerals. A folded cloth napkin lay nearby on a little wooden stand, inaccessible except by permission, I presumed.

“This section is for new columbae,” Giovanna said, loud enough for the nearby girls to hear. “Girls who still need their defiant, wild instincts corrected.”

My throat tightened. She gave a small, efficient tug on the leash and I settled where she wanted me, my knees on the mat, my hands just in front of them.

One of the bowls held a thick stew with beans and chunks of meat in it. The other contained torn bread, olives, and slices of orange. The smell made me sway very slightly.

“Eat,” said Giovanna.

I looked up before I could stop myself. “Without…”

Her gaze sharpened.

I swallowed. “Yes, Mistress.”

I bent down toward the bowl. The position itself was enough to make my face burn: collar at my throat, wrists cuffed, breasts hanging, hair threatening to dip into the food. I tried to manage it with as much dignity as possible, which turned out to be very little. I took the stew first, because hunger overrode strategy, and discovered almost at once that there was no graceful way to lap from a bowl on the floor.

My lips and tongue found the broth. A piece of bean touched my chin and I pulled back, mortified. I heard one of the girls nearby make a tiny sympathetic noise.

“More slowly,” Giovanna said. “You are being fed, not eating from a trough.”

Another pulse of laughter moved around a nearby table.

I wanted the earth to open beneath this hidden sanctuary and swallow me into some deeper archaeological layer where no one would ever find me. Instead I lowered my face again and obeyed.

The water came next. I lapped it from the small bowl and understood, with a strange jolt, why animals drank the way they did: because there was no alternative, and because thirst made questions of self-image seem strangely secondary.

Giovanna stood over me while I ate, one hand keeping a light tension on the leash.

“You have intelligence,” she said. Her voice had gone into the instructive register I had begun to fear almost more than outright anger. “That is obvious. But intelligence in an untamed woman is not civilization. It is merely energy. Cleverness. Restlessness. The same is true of desire.”

I lapped at the broth and tried to keep my breathing even.

“The Guard civilizes women by teaching them their place within order. Men rule. Women serve. A trained woman does not become less herself under discipline. She becomes useful. Legible. Beautiful in the ancient Roman taste—shaped, contained, refined.”

I reached for a piece of bread with my mouth and nearly lost it to the floor before catching it awkwardly between my lips. More murmurs. My cheeks ached with blushing.

“You came here wild,” Giovanna continued. “Not in the childish sense. In the more dangerous sense. A woman with a powerful mind who believed that her naturally submissive instincts must be repressed… that she must seek a way out of hierarchy. A way to escape from the obedience her very nature yearns for. Such women become feral under stress. They bite the hand that gives them shelter and call it independence.”

I chewed.

“I imagine you think the North understands you because it flatters your wildness. Perhaps it does. But even your Viking master values taming. Do not imagine otherwise.” A slight pause. “Your Herra speaks of claiming the wildness in you. We speak of disciplining it. The practical result is not so different as either side likes to pretend.”

That, annoyingly, sounded true enough to lodge in my mind immediately.

I drank again, carefully this time.

“To wear your leathers in your heart,” she said, “means that eventually I should be able to remove every visible sign of your bondage and still trust your behavior. You should kneel because kneeling is correct, not because a strap compels it. You should lower your eyes because you understand rank, not because you fear being struck. Fear is useful in beginners. It is not the final product.”

I thought about the leash. About the bench. About how quickly my body had learned to seek instruction in the tone of her voice and Herra Henrik’s. About the fact that none of this felt abstract anymore.

“Do you understand me, columba?” she asked.