A roar rose like thunder through the crowd. Good grief! Who ever heard of a T-shirt causing a war? Ruby tried to express her opinion on their mistaken notions, but Olaf clamped a smelly palm over her mouth. She stomped on his soft leather shoes, and, to her chagrin, he didn’t budge an inch. Looking over her shoulder, she saw his smirk as he stated with smug self-satisfaction, “Not Oaf. Olaf.”
Maybe the guy wasn’t as dumb as she’d thought.
“We must bring this spy to King Sigtrygg,” Thork said. “Let him decide the fate of the thrall and whether or not we go to war with Ivar.” Another roar of approval went through the crowd.
“Now ya done it,” Rhoda whispered in her ear. “Sigtrygg One-Eye be a mean buzzard. Prob’ly lop off yer head. Or pluck out yer eyes. Or—”
“Give me a break, Rhoda. You’ve been reading too many tabloids again.”
“Come, thrall,” Jack commanded. “The other slaves stay.”
“Just who do you think you’re calling a thrall?” Ruby protested, finally squirming out of the giant’s grasp. “I’m no more a slave than… than you are.”
Jack had the gall to grin down at her. He was really enjoying her discomfort. Then he surprised her by putting a protective arm around her shoulder and saying, “Hold your tongue if you have a fondness for your fair head, sweetling. This crowd smells blood.”
Sweetling! Ruby smiled, hopeful for the first time that day of a possible reconciliation between her and Jack. But she had only a moment to enjoy Jack’s quaint endearment.
“Chop off ‘er head here ‘n now,” one man shouted with perfect timing. “Send it to Ivar in that shirt she wears.” Ruby looked over at a nodding Rhoda, whose expression said, “I told you so.”
Another person yelled, “Why wait? Chop off ‘er head now. She be a spy. Mebbe even Ivar’s woman. What better way to send a message!” If the roar of the crowd was any indication, a lot of people liked that idea.
Instinctively, Ruby moved closer to Jack. Why wasn’t he revolted at the idea of beheading her? She’d been on enough camping trips with him to know he couldn’t even gut a trout without gagging. He should be her knight in shining armor. He should gallantly rescue her so they could ride off into the sunset. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to happen in dreams?
Instead, Jack asserted loudly, “Nay, the king must decide. Mayhap he will await a vote of the Althing when it meets next month.” Then he turned abruptly and confided to a well-dressed man standing beside him, “Selik, we malinger overlong whilst I carry important messages for Sigtrygg from King Athelstan in Wessex—more important than a mere thrall.”
Jack turned to Ruby once again and grabbed her arm, pulling her through the people who stepped back to make a path for them. “I will take this spy to my bedchamber later for a private examination,” he disclosed suggestively with a wink to those companions closest to him. “Mayhap the women of Ivar’s land have metal parts also.”
The men laughed at his words, and someone suggested lewdly that he make his examination then and there. Jack stopped, his arm still resting possessively on her shoulder, and he actually seemed to consider the prospect of a public stripping.
Humiliated, Ruby tried to kick Thork’s bare legs. She no longer thought of him as Jack. Jack would never be so cruel.
Thork laughed as Ruby hammered his immovable chest with clenched fists, then picked up her struggling, screaming body and deftly slung it over his shoulder, giving the crowd more fodder for laughter. He ordered one man to go ahead to the castle to inform King Sigtrygg of their arrival and another to ride to his grandfather’s home in Northumbria and tell him he would be there late the next day. He told yet another man to supervise the unloading of his ships and to report to him that night.
When he settled her in place like a sack of flour, Ruby bit his shoulder to get his attention. With a gleeful chuckle, Thork whacked her with an open palm across her bottom which arched provocatively across his shoulder, and then he kept the widespread fingers there familiarly, rubbing her with an intimate circular motion. Ruby could feel her face flush, and not just because she hung upside down.