Maidensong by Mia Marlowe Page B

inside the door. Then she helped Evja scrub the large soapstone kettle at the cen tral fire and hauled water from the stream to fill it.
      Jorand came out of the room once. He glanced Rika’s way, a grim set to his lips, but he didn’t say a word. He drew out a leather pail full of the boiling liq uid, still refusing to meet her eyes, and disappeared back into Bjorn’s room.
      Finally, Astryd’s bulging belly filled the doorway. “He asked for you,” she said with disdain.
      Rika scurried past her. Bjorn was stretched out on the bedding; his leg bandaged tightly, a red stain still seeping through the cloth. His eyes were completely closed now, in what might have passed for natural slumber except for his pallid complexion. His chest rose and fell shallowly. The lump on the side of his head was turning a royal shade of purple with yellowish undertones.
      “Bjorn,” Rika whispered as she knelt by his bedside and took one of his callused hands in her own. His hand was cool and his fingers didn’t respond to her grip.
      “ He’ll not answer you,” Astryd said. “He came round for a moment, but he’s slipped away again. He may wake up. He may not. Only the Norns know.”
      The Norns, the three weavers of all human lives had undoubtedly calculated the length of Bjorn’s skein and decided his fate long ago. If he’d reached the end, and the Norns were determined to snip him off, nothing could stop it.
      “I’ve done all I can for him.” Astryd shook her head. “Pity that he should meet such a death. A war rior like Bjorn should go out with glory, not shriveling in his bed.”
      Rika wanted to say that Bjorn had done something glorious. No one else of noble blood she’d ever met would’ve risked himself for the life of a thrall, but she couldn’t voice the words. Astryd would not believe saving Ketil from his own blunder was a heroic act, and if the reason for Bjorn’s accident ever came to the lady’s sharp ears, it would only endanger her brother.
      “ Jorand, undress him,” Astryd ordered. Then she turned to Rika. “Bathe him and dose all the small punctures with this.” Astryd handed her a small bowl filled with noxious-smelling paste.
      “And then what?” Rika’s eyes widened. She’d never been in a sickroom before, let alone nursed someone who’d been grievously wounded.
      “Sit with him and tend to his needs,” Astryd said.
      Jorand cut away Bjorn’s clothing to avoid moving him any more than necessary. Then the young man spread a thin blanket over his captain to cover his nakedness. Without a word, he gathered up the scraps of fabric from Bjorn’s tunic and leggings and filed out after the Lady of Sogna. Rika was left alone with Bjorn.
      She lathered up a small cloth and began washing the spatters of dried blood from Bjorn’s arms and chest. His tunic had offered little protection from the scrapes and jabs, but she patiently removed slivers of wood and gently cleansed the abraded skin. The ointment Astryd had ordered her to doctor him with was pun gent with ammonia. It made her eyes water and she al most envied Bjorn his oblivion as she dabbed some on each scrape and puncture wound.
      When she reached his waist, her gaze was drawn to the narrow ribbon of dark hair that started at his navel and spread downward. What if he were damaged in his most sensitive male part? Holding her breath, she drew the blankets down.
      He seemed to be intact, with no injury she could see. She stood there for a moment just looking at him, the mysteries of a man becoming clear to her. What an odd combination of strength and vulnerability Bjorn was, and nowhere more obviously than in the tangled thicket of dark hair between his legs.
      She’d seen him fully engorged and aroused, and the disturbing image had flashed through her mind unbid den several times since. It was hard to believe this soft, limp tissue was the same organ. Something that might have been tenderness swelled in