EXCERPT

Roamin’ Love
by
Luna Carrol
 

Chapter One

Around 850 A.D.

A large Danish man tossed, literally tossed, Groa to a pile of rough cloth in the corner of the boat. Her leg bled profusely. The wound needed to be closed or she’d bleed to death.

Gritting her teeth against the burn of her wound, and the salt of the sea falling into it, she pushed the gash together. Tightly wrapping some of the cloth around her leg, she didn’t have time to think of it long. Vilda, her best friend and now conquered princess, was below with the Captain of this vessel. Although she couldn’t be positive of what the Danish prince did to Vilda, Groa could imagine all too well.

The boat was filled with them! Danes scrambled everywhere. Many of them stared at her, their eyes revealing their vulgar thoughts. Alan, Prince of Denmark, told her what her fate would be just before claiming Vilda as his prize. She, Groa, would be married off to the first man who felt he could tame her.

The strapping on her thigh stung at her gashed leg. Her eyes, already pooling with tears, changed little as she watched her dead Viking crewmates thrown overboard. She pulled herself to a standing position as Olaf, one of her closest friends, was run through with a sword. He survived only to die in dishonor. Damn these Danes! May Loki take them all.

She tried to get to him. Olaf’s terror filled eyes met hers, then her leg binding snagged on the edge of the boat and she glanced down briefly out of pain. Lifting her eyes again, she found he was gone. Thrust overboard in that fleeting moment.

“He’s still alive!” She hobbled over to the edge where Olaf disappeared.

Extending her hand, trying to reach him, she felt the Danes pull her back. Olaf did not look to her anymore. Splashing frantically, he tried to get away from the creatures around him. The blood from his wound, and the dead bodies around him, attracted the sharks.

Groa screamed as the Danes laughed. One Dane called the other to stop pulling her. Collapsing on the side of the boat, she turned her back to the blood and tortured cries. She slid down the inside of the boat and cried.

“So, Viking women cry.” The Dane looked older than Olaf. He had to be. His gray hair and the wrinkles beside his eyes came from more than just a life at sea.

Groa sniffed and pulled her hand over her cheeks. Damn her show of weakness. The Danes should never see a Gotlander cry.

“Well, you cry your eyes out. Sigar said you are to be married.” He used his foot to move her wounded leg none too gently. “That will not make for a pretty bride. Still, a man doesn’t need to see it until he has wedded you.”

“I’ll not marry a Dane.” Groa threw the words at him.

The Dane laughed. “You’ll marry whoever the Prince says you’ll marry. It may even be…” he lowered himself to a squat position beside her, “an old Dane such as me.”

The bucket sat too close to resist. In one movement it was in her hand and crashing against the Dane’s face.

The ship erupted in laughter as he touched his bloodied nose. He released his face and grabbed her. His mouth sneered as the blood trickled down into his gray beard.

Groa used her good leg to kick him where no man wants to be kicked and caused him to release her. She would become food for the sharks first! Grabbing the railing just as two other men reached her, she tried in vain to pitch herself overboard.

“Asger! That’s enough!”

Groa was turned by the Danes to face Alan of Sigar, the prince that captured Vilda’s boat. If she could only kill him, then the Danes would kill her. Death would be a far better sentence. She struggled against the arms holding her.

Alan smiled. “It seems that you do not care for Asger.” He placed his hand on the shoulder of the still bleeding, taller man.

“I’ll not marry a Dane!” Groa stopped and stared. Vilda walked freely from below deck!

“Alan, do not force her to marry a Dane.”

Alan? Groa looked from the woman once her friend, her Captain and her princess, to the Dane Vilda now called by his name. No. She cannot be accepting him as her husband!

“Vilda?” She didn’t want to believe it. Could she betray her people, her oldest friend? No, please Freya, no.

“Groa, you are like a sister to me. And if my husband respects me in the least, he will not marry you to a Dane.”

Lowering herself to the deck once more Groa gave up. There was no fight in her now. This betrayal cut deeper than the sword had her leg. She would have died for Vilda, and still may if her wound wasn’t treated.

So many Vikings died to keep Vilda from being married to a Dane. Now Vilda accepts him? What did the Dane do to her below deck?

This Alan spoke now “She’s wild, Vilda. She will need a strong man to tame her.”

“Not a Dane. Groa will kill him…or herself.” Vilda placed her hand on Alan’s bicep.

Groa closed her eyes to the sight. Vilda was dead to her now. She would not acknowledge the presence of the dead.

“She is wild, but lovely enough to tempt most men. Perhaps a Celt?” A moment of silence fell.

How was a Celt better than a Dane? Alan of Sigar seemed determined to punish her. Sentencing a Viking to live among the Celts was no more than a death sentence.

“Alan.” Vilda’s voice sounded mixed between a sigh and plea.

“Yes. A Celt it will be. I know one. His people have wanted their chieftain to take a wife, but he has refused all offers of marriage.” Alan’s voice burned into Groa’s mind. She would never forget this moment.

“Why would he take her if he wouldn’t take one of his own?”

That is the voice of the dead. Groa would cover her ears if not for the fact that it would  acknowledge the fact  she could hear the dead.

“I’m not sure he will, but his people want him to marry. By taking a wife who doesn’t want him, he would still be free to live as he does now.”

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