Page 52 of The Reluctant Viking

All clues pointed to her as the informant, but he could not believe she would deliberately harm his father or the boys she likened to her own sons. Mayhap the plan had gone beyond her control. Mayhap Ivar’s men had been directed to kidnap Thork but had been unable to do so. Then they had chosen Dar instead, without Ruby knowing of the change of plans. But that would mean that Ruby plotted his own downfall. Thork’s spirits plummeted. Could Ruby care so little for him? Truly, he upbraided himself, why was he surprised by the ever-constant duplicity of women?

Dar and Olaf wanted her tortured for information, goaded on by Linette’s claim that Ruby had entered his chamber that morn, intent on murdering him. She told a convincing story.

Then Thork and Dar had gone up to Ruby’s chamber to confront her with their suspicions and found her rolling back and forth on the pallet in a troubled sleep. The words that had spewed from her mouth in sleep condemned her even more, “Dead! They killed those poor men! Oh, my God! The cruel barbarians! So much blood! So unnecessary! Forgive them, God. Please…please…make them stop!” In truth, the wench had condemned herself.

Thork and Dar had let her sleep, exiting the room silently to discuss this new information in private.

“I mislike this whole affair,” Dar had said. “All clues point to the wench, and yet I am not convinced.”

“Nor I.”

“It seems so reasonable, and yet I still doubt she is a spy.”

A part of Thork wanted to believe Ruby innocent. Had she flummoxed them all? His head pounded with all the conflicting information it had been fed that day.

During the evening meal, Thork’s eyes shifted to Ruby often, taking in her fine attire, highlighted by his own jewelry. He smiled wryly. The bold wench waded neck-deep in the most serious danger, and she brazenly flaunted his borrowed ornaments, like a bloody queen. Sitting at the bottom of the table, she waxed more regal than the proudest royalty.

“Will you torture her?” Linette whined, hanging on his arm. “Will you, Thork? Will you?”

Thork shrugged her clinging hands off distastefully. He’d slept with Linette the night before and made good use of her body, but something rankled. Already he’d lost interest, as he did with all women. Her irritating mewling hastened the process.

“’Tis my decision to make, not yours,” Thork snapped. “Halt thy waspish tongue! No more do I wish to hear.” Linette turned peevishly to the hesir on her other side.

When the tables were dismantled and folded neatly away into their wall enclosures, Ruby stood alone, ignored by those around her who made rude remarks loud enough for all to overhear. Thork ground his teeth at his fellow Vikings’ ill treatment of Ruby. A part of him wanted to jump to her side so she would not be so defenseless. He restrained himself with a reminder of the maid’s hypocrisy.

“Shall we call her forth and interrogate?” Dar asked.

“Nay, I will handle this myself,” Thork answered with resigned foreboding.

All eyes followed Thork as he walked purposely toward Ruby. He held her haughty eyes the entire time, challenging her to bolt in fright or crumble in fear. To her credit, she did neither.

“Come,” he ordered when he stood in front of her. His heart slammed miserably against his chest at the wide, hopeful eyes she turned on him like a damned doe. Bloody hell! What did she expect of him? Forgiveness? Angrily, he took her arm and led her toward the courtyard door, turning once to those who would follow, commanding, “Alone. We go alone.”

Outside, Thork drew Ruby toward the two dead prisoners who still lay on the ground, their lifeblood already soaked into the ground. Ruby scuffed her feet in reluctance.

“We are surely watched from the windows. Do naught to shame me or yourself,” Thork advised through gritted teeth.

He dragged her toward the bodies and told her to look at the men. When she refused, he took her chin in pincerlike fingers and made her look down. The eyes of the two men bulged wide open in horrified agony, even in death.

Ruby gagged and vomited at his feet, spattering both of their leather shoes. Still Thork would not let her go.

“Do you know these men?” he grilled her, forcing her to look down again.

Ruby pulled her face out of his grip and glared at him coldly, her green eyes glazed with contempt. She refused to answer his question. Instead, she asked softly, as if afraid of what he might answer, “Did you do this, Thork?”

“What? Kill them?” he asked in surprise. “Yea, I did. They were trying to escape.”

She blanched at his words and retched again.

“Do you sicken over the fate of your friends? Or were they your lovers?” Thork tasted bile in his throat. Somehow he could not stomach the thought of Ruby with another man. Holy Freya! he chastised himself. The woman was making him weak.

“No, I’m just revolted that you would do such a barbaric thing,” Ruby replied, regarding him sadly as she wiped spittle from her lips with the back of her hand.

“Barbaric?” Thork exclaimed. “These are my enemies. They tried to kidnap my grandfather. They would have, no doubt, killed him.”

“They are human beings first, Thork. For you to do this”—she indicated with a wave of her hand the two corpses—“makes you less human.”

Coldly, defensively, Thork told her, “No man threatens my family and goes unpunished. It is the Viking way. I would be less the man to do otherwise.”