Page 6 of Hungry Like a Wolf
“It is not a cathedral, that is true. But why would they need one?” A pang of guilt hit her. It really was in a bedraggled state for a holy building.
He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. It instantly fell messily around his face again. His jawline was smooth and strong and his nose dead straight.
“How come you speak my language?” she asked suddenly.
“Joseph.”
“Who is Joseph? And not the one from the Bible—I know who he is.”
“I only know one Joseph.” Orm shrugged again. “A thrall my father took from a monastery during one of his first sailings west. He has been with our family for many years.” He drew a circle like a halo over the top of his head. “His hair grew back and he learned our ways, even became a fighter when he had to be.”
“He went… Your father took him toyourlands?” Was this true?
“Ja, he captured him the way I have captured you. Which meant that Joseph was no longer a free man. He had to go where my father, King of Drangar, wanted him to go. And that was to serve our family for the rest of his days.”
Her mouth fell open. Was that to be her fate? Serving this wicked, excitable, unpredictable Viking until she was an old lady? And if so, would he bundle her onto a boat and take her across the seas to lands unknown?
She kissed the cross at her neck and stepped away from him, toward the church door. If ever there was a time she needed her prayers to be heard, it was now. She would kneel before whatever meager altar there was and pray for her father’s soul and for her own future.
“Hey, Orm.” A deep voice to her right.
“Ja?” her capturer answered.
“We are preparing Egil’s pyre at the beach. Come and help us.”
Carmel hurried toward the church as best she could, her heart thumping. Would he stop her going to pray? It was the only thing she could do right now to soothe her soul.
“Princess,” he called at her back.
She didn’t pause. The church was only a few steps away. It was a refuge, a house of safety. At least in her mind, it felt that way.
“I will return for you here. Do not try and escape. The good people of Tillicoulty will not allow you through the fort entrance, but if you did slip through, know that the wolves would eat you alive. The scent of blood on the battlefield has brought them from the forest, salivating, stomachs rumbling, hunting for leftover guts and brains. Your god will not save you from their jaws and you have no hope of running away from them.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed into the small, dark church and dashed at the tears slipping wetly down her cheeks.
The silence wrapped around her like a heavy cloak and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.
A single tallow candle was lit on a table beneath the cross window. Next to it, a crude, wooden cross sat on a piece of clean linen. There was no Bible to read, no gold or incense. It was a truly humble church with little of the spoils of wealth she’d heard filled the house of God in Rome.
But it was a church, and she was alone for the first time in days.
She moved past the pews, rubbing her hands together against the cold, then came to a halt at the altar. A small, dusty red rug was on the floor and she folded down onto it, hands in prayer, eyes closed.
Her father’s face was the first thing that came to mind and she thanked God it was an image of him smiling and not beheaded. But still, the tears fell. Still, her heart broke.
She thought of her mother. She wouldn’t know her husband’s fate yet. That she was a widow, a queen without a king. It would take days for any survivors of the battle to journey west with news. And poor Alfred, her young brother, he was now fatherless and a king at such a young age.
And then, she prayed, rescue would come. Surely, her mother would gather a group of brave soldiers to rescue her only daughter from the heinous Vikings who had invaded their land.
“God Almighty, please hear my prayers and deliver me from this barbaric monster. Either save me and send me swiftly home or take me in my sleep before he rapes and murders me.” She paused to sniff and swipe her upper lip. “I trust in you. My faith is unwavering, oh, mighty—”
“They are not all bad, you know.”
She startled and spun around.
An older man with a long, white beard stood in the entrance. He held what appeared to be a Bible.
“Who are you?”
