When their horses came to a halt and they dismounted, Thork addressed Selik. “Two dead, two escaped.”
“Any information?”
“Not yet. They will talk afore morning, though, that I promise.” Thork’s steel-blue eyes blazed with a cold-blooded fury that frightened Ruby. These enemies of Thork’s would get no compassion.
“Will they die?” Ruby asked Gyda fearfully.
“That they will and not too soon, I wager. Mayhap they will torture them with the blood-eagle.”
Oddly, Ruby saw no womanly distaste on Gyda’s face for this barbaric behavior. True, the men had done a horrendous thing by kidnapping Dar and might have harmed him, but the threat of death did not fit the crime.
“What is a blood-eagle?”
“Have you heard naught of it?” a surprised Gyda asked. “Well, is not practiced so much anymore. ‘Tis what the three great Danish brothers, Halfdan of the Wide Embrace, Ubbi and Ivar the Boneless, did to King Aella some fifty years back to avenge their father Ragnar’s death. ‘Twas Aella who threw Ragnar into a snake pit and watched gleefully while the vipers stung him to death.
” ‘Tis said Aella bragged thus, ‘The piglings would be grunting if they knew the plight of the boar.’ Well, Ragnar’s sons proved Aella right, because the piglings did truly avenge their father boat’s death with the blood-eagle on him.”
“What exactly is a blood-eagle?” Ruby choked out.
” ‘Tis the slowest and most tortuous death of all. The Vikings tie the enemy to a tree and split his backbone so the ribs spring apart like wings, exposing the heart. The breathing air bags are pulled out to lay across his back, also like eagle wings,” Gyda explained in gruesome detail. ” ‘Tis considered a noble sacrifice to Odin.”
“And you think Thork would do that?” Ruby asked, gagging at the image.
Gyda’s forehead’ creased in confusion over Ruby’s question. “Why would you doubt it? He is a Jomsviking, but any man would do as much or more to protect his family.”
Ruby tried not to dwell on the grotesque images called up by Gyda. She noticed that Thork ignored her still. In fact, Dar’s near-fatal experience seemed to have reinforced some determination in Thork, which Ruby didn’t understand but sensed had implications for her.
Because of the delays, dusk already shadowed the land when they rode onto Dar’s huge estate which lay in the midst of the fields and fells famous for its Yorkshire wool. Shepherds with crooks in hand and yapping border collies at their feet worked efficiently to herd bands of sheep into a distant pasture. It was still light enough to see bonders and freedmen who seemed well fed and happy as they came in from carefully tended fields, waving to their jarl.
Gyda had explained to Ruby earlier the Viking class system: high-kings; petty kings or noblemen; rural aristocracy of jarls or earls; lesser nobles called hesirs; bonders or farmers; freedmen or cottagers; and finally, at the bottom, thralls. At first, Ruby had trouble sorting it all out until she learned to connect names with titles. King Harald, was, of course, high-king; Dar and Thork were jarls, even though Thork disdained the title; Olaf and Selik were hesirs.
The houses in the village they passed through were of the Viking style—long, rectangular buildings of neatly interwoven wattle and daub from forty to one hundred feet long, topped with thatch roofs. The dwellings lay in an orderly street pattern near a small river. Barns and other outbuildings stood outside the village perimeter.
Leaving the village, they approached the manor on a flat-topped hill Gyda referred to as a motte and entered the gates of a high, stockade-style, wood fence where many Viking hesirs stood guard, watching diligently over the countryside. It resembled a palisaded western fort, rather than the castle-and-moat-style, stone castle Ruby had envisioned.
Inside the bailey or courtyard were scattered stables, fowlhouses, kennels, smithy, armorer’s shed, bakehouse, a separate kitchen, storerooms, open hearths and other assorted buildings, while the two-story manor house held stately prominence, resembling a small castle. The newer sections of the manor were stone, attached stylelessly to the older wood parts.
A number of well-dressed men and women stood on the steps of the keep awaiting the arrival of the weary group. The gray-haired Aud stepped forward first to greet her husband, Dar, with a warm clasp of the shoulders and a quick hug. Then she turned to Thork and embraced him as well.