Page 12 of A Viking's Captive

After Ilona had prepared their sleeping pallet on the floor, one of the wee bairns continued to cry. His mother was tired in caring for the fretful child. Ilona asked to hold the baby, and he instantly calmed, to the mother’s amazement. Ilona sang a Scottish lullaby her mother and grandmother had sung to her and rocked the baby in her arms until he fell asleep.

The women were surprised by Ilona’s sweet and beautiful voice. The men wondered who sang but were grateful the crying bairn had gone to sleep and wouldn’t keep them awake. Grateful for her aid, the bairn’s mother thanked Ilona.

Rathnon said as they got comfortable to sleep, “You have a lovely voice, Ilona, and you soothed the little baby. I look forward to you singing for me one day soon.” Ilona rested her head in the crook of Rathnon’s neck and smelled his scent ofspruce and the sea. She couldn’t help but notice his sculpted muscles, and she unconsciously ran her fingers through the soft curls of hair across his chest, caressing him.

Although an innocent touch, it triggered an immediate response in his body. Rathnon heated in all the wrong places. He didn’t want to push Ilona away, but he didn’t want to endure the same torture last night had been.

Rathnon hadn’t spoken to Sigrid after he returned from hunting. Before they left for fishing and the women worked in the gardens tomorrow, he would remedy that.

He tried to turn his tormented thoughts to other things and the list of tasks in his mind. Nothing worked. He slowly eased away from Ilona’s sleeping form, stood up, and grabbed a linen cloth from a hook on the wall. Barefoot, he walked across the hall and slipped outside. Rathnon undressed and hung up his pants. He stood naked by the horse trough and poured buckets of cold water over himself.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to get his breathing under control. Rathnon turned his thoughts to raging seas with ice-cold winds he had experienced in the past and would never forget. He couldn’t get the images of Ilona out of his mind and resorted to pouring ice-cold water from the well over his raging erection.

Grateful for the warmer weather, Rathnon wouldn’t have been able to engage in similar behavior in the winter. He dried and put his pants back on. Soundlessly, Rathnon walked across the earthen floor to his sleeping space. Ilona had turned on her side, and he slipped into the space behind her and spooned with her. Mercifully, he fell asleep until before dawn.

In the morning, he dressed and placed a couple of knives in his belt and strode outside, where other men joined him. They walked through the forest and down the hills to the coast, where their boats hid from view. The men took two boats, heaving them into the sea before jumping on board. The boat plunged through the surf with fast, powerful strokes from the men’s oars.

The men remained close to shore and set their nets into the water. Later, they heaved the heavy nets on board the ships and collected the flopping fish into barrels. They threw the nets again and rowed until the nets were heavy with fish. The men pulled in the nets, collected the fish, and rowed back to shore.

They heaved the sleek sailing vessels into the forest, hiding them from view but keeping them easy to access if they needed to make a fast departure. The men from the village emptied buckets of fresh water over the decks to clean any residue from their fishing expedition. Then, late in the morning, they hefted the barrels over their shoulders and carried their catch on their shoulders to walk back home.

The women cooked a portion of the fish. The rest they hung in a smokehouse, stringing the fish over a smoky fire. The men ate a meal and then strode into the forest and strategically began chopping trees. After the trees were felled, the men removed the branches, leaving long wooden poles. They attached ropes to the logs, and their horses hauled the logs back to the longhouse. In front of the longhouse, some men took turns chopping the wood into smaller logs, while others worked to stack the chopped wood against the bottom stones of the longhouse.

The primary carpenter selected the best logs. The men carried those into the building that held lumber for making boats and furniture. The men labored until just before twilight.

While the men fished, the women toiled in the fields. Ilona studied the fertile soil, then hoed the ground and picked up rocks and laid them on the outer edge of the field. She carried a bucket of water to the field with her sowing bag slung across her chest, not wanting to waste the seeds.

She dug and turned over the earth until ready for planting. Ilona dragged the hoe in the row in which to sow her seeds, hacking at the weeds in the dirt and along the periphery. When that was done, she sowed her seeds and then covered the rows with dirt before pouring cups of water over the rows she had planted.

Seeing another section of land that appeared promising for planting, Ilona asked Sigrid if she could dig there.

Sigrid said, “Aye, ye can plant there if ye toil the land. The other women already have their hands full with their responsibilities and cannae help ye. Ye can ask the lads or lassies to help ye. The women with bairns won’t mind their digging in the dirt to help ye. But ye may nae be able to count on their help for very long.”

“Takk. I will work there to plant more.” Accustomed to hard work and long hours, Ilona was in her element. She could forget what had happened to her and pretend she was home. Spotting a hive of honey up in a tree, Ilona kent how to get the bairns to help her. At a young age, she had learned how to climb a tree and retrieve honeycomb and honey without getting stung.

First, she dug the outline of the garden she imagined. Ilona couldn’t wait until Rathnon took her into the woods to search for herbs for healing, but in the meantime, she worked on getting the honey. Wild sage grew at the edge of the forest. Using her dirk, she cut it and bound the leaves together with a strip of bark.

Ilona stood below the tree with a long branch. She bound the sage to it with pine resin and strips of bark. Kneeling down and taking a flint from her sack, she gathered dried leaves and started a small fire. The children gathered to watch her work. Ilona lit the sage, held it under the hive, and waved it until the smoke curled up and encompassed the hive. Then she climbed the tree with the dirk in her teeth and held the sage torch closer to the honeycomb.

After what she judged to be a suitable amount of time, she carefully and slowly cut away a large section of the honeycomb, dripping with honey. Sigrid held a pot and held it out to Ilona, who placed the honeycomb inside. The Viking women held new admiration for the fearless Scottish woman.

Ilona told Sigrid that if their mothers agreed and their children helped her clear and dig in the field, she would prepare a special treat for them. They would eat a sweet dessert of honey and oatmeal before they slept. Sigrid told the women, and they agreed. They told their bairns what Ilona expected and what their reward would be if they helped. The children eagerly agreed. Sigrid returned to the longhouse with the honey while the men were hard at work chopping wood.

Rathnon asked Sigrid when Ilona’s bridal clothes would be ready.

“You are in a hurry to wed the lass. You might tell her you are too hot to sleep in the longhouse and you can sleep outside. She has only half your tunic half woven and partially embroidered. She has nae started on hers yet. Today, she will be exhausted from working the garden and climbing up the tree.”

Before he asked why she climbed up a tree, Sigrid left, and Rathnon returned to chopping and stacking wood.

The children were good workers and excited to help. Although they would be filthy from their digging, the women did nae have to worry about their wandering away. The children were busily occupied digging and pulling up weeds or stacking small stones. Ilona smiled at each of them, and through her young helpers, she enriched her vocabulary a great deal. She learned from the children, and they learned from her.

They didn’t find it strange that she couldn’t speak their language. Ilona transformed work into play for them. She praised each child for their accomplishments and made them understand they had made an important contribution. The children looked forward to telling their fathers about their work when they returned home later this evening. To enable them to work longer, the women had brought meat, cheese, and bread with ale to the fields.

Late in the afternoon, the women organized cleaning the children. With copious buckets of water, their mothers washed the dirt off with a cloth and rinsed them before they returned to the longhouse. Bone weary from her hard work in the fields, digging and weeding, Ilona followed the women back to the longhouse. She washed her face, hands, and arms, and the cold water soothed her heated skin.

Ilona hoped she could go to the loch to bathe and wash her clothes. The women fed the children early, fatigued with their own physical labors. Ilona made the oatmeal over the fire and drizzled honey over the cups with milk and oatmeal. The children gobbled it up with huge grins on their faces. Tired from their work, the excitement of the day, and full tummies, they didn’t even argue about trying to stay up later. When the men joined the women for the evening meal, they were surprised to see all the young children already asleep.

After the elder’s blessings, they ate fried fish and vegetables for dinner with mead. The women who worked in the fields shared the story of Ilona bravely climbing the tree to get the honey as well as the children’s work in the fields. They talked about the oatmeal with milk and honey she had made that put the children to sleep.