Page 31 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

"No," Torstein agreed, and bought it anyway.

***

ON THE SECOND MORNING Samira set a wooden box on her father's desk.

"I have something to tell you and you will not like it."

Dawud looked up. "Then tell me quickly."

She opened it. Dark red threads, packed in linen. "Saffron. For two years I have been buying it myself. I set the price, I checked the weight, I sold it on through the spice row." Her chin lifted. "The day I was attacked, I was walking back from the last purchase."

Her father was quiet a long moment.

Then he laughed, and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Two years. Under my own roof." He turned a bundle over in his fingers. "Then listen to me. Saffron is worth more by weight than anything you can carry, and four times as much in the north, because nothing grows it there." He pushed the box back to her. "Take all of it. Waxed linen, inside the wool, in the pack that never leaves your saddle. It is not a gift. It is capital. If that cold country turns its back on you, you will not arrive with empty hands. I have also arranged your dowry with enough coin to help you survive in the new world."

"Father. No, you must keep wealth for yourself. You will need it, especially with no one to remain and care for you as you age."

"Do not worry about me, daughter. I have prepared well for both of us. You will keep your own coin and answer to no man for it. The saffron trade stays in this house. Zohra will hold the contracts, Tiziri will keep the ledger. Also take as many spices as you need. It will come in handy when you need to trade in the name of your husband."

They spoke at length yet neither wanted to address the most poignant issue in the room. They would soon have to say goodbye to one another, and perhaps never see one another again. That grief of separation was something Samira had to put aside in order to continue to function.

***

TORSTEIN FOUND HER on the roof that afternoon.

"May I come up?"

She nodded and moved along the parapet to make room. He sat an arm's length away.

"What was done yesterday was done so you could travel without shame," he said. "That is all it was. You owe me nothing. Though I desire you, I will not take anything you do not wish to willingly give. Not on the road, not on the ship, not back in my home. Not unless you ask, and if you never ask, then we share a roof and I count myself fortunate."

Samira studied the rooftops for a while.

"You do not expect me to be a real wife to you?"

Torstein wanted to grab her and show her exactly how much he wanted their marriage to be real. But he controlled himself.

"I expect only what you freely wish to give."

"I have a question," she said. "You may find it intrusive."

"Ask it."

"Is there another wife in your house? Or women you keep. Concubines." She made herself look at him. "I would rather know now than arrive and find out I am one of many."

"No." He said it before she had finished. "None. There has never been a wife, and I keep no one." He held her gaze. "And there will not be another. I will only ever take one woman to wife, and I have her."

The heat rose in her face and she looked away too late for him to miss it.

"What of you? Was there a betrothed you leave behind?" he asked.

"There has been no promised husband. My father turned away many suitors who sought my hand over the years."

Torstein stiffened and made a low growling sound. "I am glad he did, otherwise I would have murdered them myself."

Samira gasped at his words in shock.