Page 96 of The Outlaw Viking

“Let me go, ye bloody witch,” he shrieked.

Rain shifted her hold and wrapped her arms around his chest in a pincerlike grip. Though he kicked and called her every crude name in his vulgar vocabulary, she would not release him.

“Ubbi, get me some soap and linen cloths and clean clothes for the dirty little snot.”

Approaching the horse trough, which had filled with rain the day before, she dropped Adam, then held him underwater for a moment to make sure his greasy hair got wet. He came sputtering up out of the water with more foul names for her than a seasoned sailor. Ubbi handed her a chunk of hard soap, and she told him to help her undress the slippery urchin and hold him still.

After a half hour that seemed like half a day, they finally released the sparkling-clean child from the frigid water. He shook his wet hair off his face, then put his hands on his slim hips and glared up at her, totally unselfconscious about his nudity.

Rain and Ubbi both stared at the little boy in amazement, turning to each other at the same time. “He’s beautiful,” Rain whispered in surprise.

“Ye are a cod-sucking, arse-licking, no-tit, ugly crone of a bitch,” Adam exclaimed, shoving Rain in the chest, “and I—”

“Saxon soldiers are comin’! Saxon soldiers are comin’!” one of the children cried out, rushing toward them from the road. “Bjorn saw ’em from atop the hill.”

Rain and Ubbi exchanged quick looks of dismay, but then immediately told the children to follow the plan they’d practiced over and over for just such an emergency. Adam quickly drew on his dry clothes and herded the children inside the barn like a drill sergeant, spitting out orders right and left. Thank goodness Selik’s men and horses were still in Jorvik. They would never have been able to hide them all.

Rain and Ubbi rushed upstairs.

“Selik,” Rain shouted as she and Ubbi began to pull bales of hay over near the bed to cover it. “Saxon soldiers are coming,” she said breathlessly. “We have to cover you up while they’re here.”

“Release me,” he demanded.

When she just continued to pile the hay over the bed, he bared his teeth and snarled, “Release me, damn you. At least give me the dignity of defending myself if they uncover me.”

Rain hesitated only a moment and nodded toward Ubbi, who pulled a knife from the scabbard on his belt and cut Selik free.

“Please lie down and let us cover you, though, Selik,” Rain pleaded. “Please.”

He shot a look of contempt her way but, surprisingly, complied, telling Ubbi, “Take no chances of antagonizing the bastards. Especially I do not want you taking extra measures to protect me. Do you understand me, Ubbi? I do not care if you get a bloody message from the Pope.”

Ubbi nodded.

“Go back downstairs, Adela,” Selik said gently with an odd catch in his voice. He was looking behind Rain.

Rain turned to see the little girl staring at Selik with wide, frightened eyes, her thumb stuck in her mouth as usual.

“Get her out of here,” Selik ordered Rain, but the child whimpered and rushed past her, arms outstretched toward Selik.

“Bloody hell!” Selik cursed, then lifted Adela up. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, refusing to let go, even when he told her it would be safer to go downstairs with Rain and Ubbi.

The clatter of horses’ hooves resounded from the nearby road, almost approaching the yard below, and Selik repeated, “Bloody hell!” Resigned, he lay down on the cot with Adela across his chest, her face burrowed in his neck. Rain and Ubbi quickly raked the rest of the hay over the cot, being careful to lay it loosely over their faces.

When the soldiers stormed into the barn a short time later, all the children were seated at a long trestle table eating bowls of porridge and brown bread. That rascal Adam had done an excellent job getting the youngsters to obey his commands.

The ferocious-looking soldiers, in battle raiment with drawn swords, came to an abrupt halt at the doorway of the barn. Apparently, they hadn’t expected such a domestic scene.

The commander, a grizzled, red-haired man, stepped forward. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Rain asked politely.

“Selik. The Outlaw. Who else?” he snapped, coming closer. “This is his property, is it not?”

Rain shrugged. “I know no one by that name. The barn was abandoned, and all these homeless orphans had no place to go, so…”

“They are naught but the worthless get of the heathen Danes.” He spat on the newly swept floor at Rain’s feet, and she bit her bottom lip to stop herself from giving the slob a piece of her mind. “Who are you?” he asked menacingly, stepping closer and grabbing the front of her tunic with a jerk so that she tripped and fell against his barrel chest.

Rain shoved hard against him, pulling out of his grasp. “I’m Rain Jordan, and you have no right to barge into our home like this.”