Page 1 of The Viking’s Captive

PROLOGUE

JORVIK,A.D. 937

The way they were …

It was alms day in the market town, and hundreds of people, many of them children, crowded the minster steps, screaming and pushing for the loaves of dark bread to be handed out by the clerics.

Among the poor who lined up for their weekly pittance of food were seven-year-old Adam and his four-year-old sister, Adela.

“Don’t be afeared, Adela,” Adam said. “No one can hurt ye … leastways, not whilst I’m here to protect ye.”

Adela stared up at him adoringly, her thumb planted firmly in her mouth, as it always was. Despite her being covered with filth from bare feet to lice-infested head, as he was, too, Adam thought she was more comely than a harem princess … not that he’d ever seen a harem princess, but he’d heard sailors speak of such as they strolled the city. Adela was the only family he had since their mother had died a year past and left the two of them to roam the wharfside streets on their own. Adela meant more to him than anything. He promised himself in that instant that someday he would replace her threadbare garments with jewel-studded silks. And she would take a bath sometimes, too. Most of all, he would always, always be there to protect her.

“Now, ye mus’ stand right here, Adela, whilst I try to get us some bread. Do ye promise not to move?”

“Yea, Adam.” She nodded her head up and down, eyes wide with fright as she watched him make his way craftily to the front of the mob, pinching a buttock here, darting between legs there, finally pulling a small loaf out of the priest’s fingers just as he was about to hand it to an old woman in rags.

“Come back, ye bloody toad,” the woman screeched, to no avail. Many in the crowd turned to watch his progress, some trying to snatch his precious booty. But there was no way he would give up his hard-won food. He shoved it down the front of his dirty tunic and ran for his life toward his sister.

Reaching Adela, Adam quickly broke the loaf in half, and the two of them gobbled the moldy bread ravenously. It was the first they’d eaten in a day or more, but more important, the food was safer in their stomachs than in their little hands where those larger than they would think nothing of killing them for the crumbs.

While his mind had wandered, a lady had hunkered down on her haunches in front of Adela. She was a tall lady, but not so big as the man who stood behind her … the size of a warhorse, he was, and mean, would be Adam’s guess, by the scowl on his face. Both of them had pale blond hair, which probably meant they were Vikings … not surprising, since this was the Norse capital of Britain. The place was flooded with the bloody sea pirates.

“What’s your name, little girl?” The woman reached out to brush some lank strands of hair off Adela’s face as she spoke.

Although the woman looked harmless enough, there were evil folks lurking about the city, and Adela recoiled. “Adam,” she whimpered, reaching for him with one hand, while the thumb of the other shot immediately into her mouth.

“Why do ye want to know?” Adam demanded, narrowing his eyes and putting his hands belligerently on his hips.

“You two shouldn’t be out on the streets like this. Where are your parents?”

“Got none.”

“Did they … die?”

“Yea, our mother died. What matters it to you?”

The lady inhaled sharply. “When was that?”

“Last winter.”

“A year! And who do you live with now? Your father?”

“Huh?”

“Rain, we have lingered here overlong,” the blond man interrupted, taking her arm.

Rain, he had called her. What an odd name.

“Just a moment, Selik,” the lady insisted.

“Remember the woman in childbirth,” Selik reminded her.

“Oh, I forgot,” she said, shooting a look of apology at another man standing beside the Norseman. It was Uhtred, a resident of Jorvik that Adam had seen about on occasion. His wife was big—very big—with child these days. She was nowhere around now. No doubt she was off somewhere in a pile of straw, popping out her latest bratling.

The lady Rain was addressing Adam again. “Who did you say was taking care of you?”

He raised his head defiantly and snarled, “I take care of me sister and meself.”