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Athelstan took the frayed rope from around his neck, and dropped it in the shallow water that lapped at the river's edge.
Ragnar Lothbrok had led him by that rope, like a farmer would lead a donkey. The memory burned like coals in the pit of his stomach. The villagers watching, indifferent to the sight of a man reduced to the status of goods.
He moved without restraints, now. It seemed that Ragnar had deemed the lead rope no longer necessary, but Athelstan felt no less a slave for being rid of it. He watched as the rope bobbed in the current, caught on the rocks for a moment, then floated slowly out of sight.
High above, an eagle soared free, its screech echoing between the steep sides of the fjord.
Scooping water in his hands, Athelstan splashed his face. His fingers touched days of stubble on his cheeks, his scalp, and his hands shook. Of the life Athelstan had led not days before, only two things remained.
The first - the Gospel of St John - lay in Ragnar Lothbrok's house, wrapped in Athelstan's cloak in the corner he had been given to sleep in. The second, his cross, lay warm and solid against his chest. But Athelstan was a slave, now; another man's property. Even these things might be taken away from him at any time, at the whim of the northman Ragnar Lothbrok.
Athelstan had not cried, until now. Not at Lindisfarne, hearing the screams of his dying brothers; nor looking back on the priory while his home burned. He had shed no tears on the northmen's boat, as grey-faced, dispossessed men shivered around him in terror and despair; nor even when Ragnar and his companion, Leif, had hauled poor Brother Cenwulf from where his head had lain against Athelstan's shoulder and tossed his body into the river - while the one they called Floki whooped and crowed, charcoal-rimmed eyes glittering in mad delight.
Now, with nobody but God to see, Athelstan squeezed his eyes shut and felt the burn of tears behind his eyelids.
His life was gone. He was alone among men who laughed at death and gloried in destruction.
You are not alone, he reminded himself, hearing the thought as Father Cuthbert's voice admonishing him. God is with you always. Athelstan pressed his cross to his lips and murmured a prayer.
"What is that you're saying, Priest?"
The soft voice was inches from his ear, and a sudden shadow at his side blocked the morning light. Athelstan jumped, startled, and spinning around, landed on his backside in the riverbank with a tear halfway down his cheek, his heart pounding.
Ragnar Lothbrok stood above Athelstan with a smile that made his blue eyes narrow into chips of ice. The man had come as quietly as a cat.
"I was praying," Athelstan said, brushing the stray tear with the sleeve of his robe.
Ragnar's smile grew deeper, wolfish, and the northman raised his eyebrows. He stood over Athelstan, thrusting out his hips so that his groin pointed at Athelstan's face. "Not crying?"
"No." The answer was not a falsehood, Athelstan thought. One tear could hardly be called crying. He looked away from Ragnar's crotch, heard the northman give a soft laugh. Athelstan felt his face flush as he got to his knees.
Ragnar straightened his hips, held out a hand to help him up. Athelstan frowned, puzzled at the conciliatory gesture, sensing a trap. But Ragnar nodded, urging him. "Come on," he said, as though to a shy child, and Athelstan took his offered hand.
Grasping Athelstan's elbow, then his upper arm, Ragnar pulled him to his feet and brought him close. Blue eyes smirked down at him. They were close enough for Athelstan to feel warmth on his cheeks and throat from the northman's body, and to see every hair around his mouth, every scar and smudge of dirt. Ragnar held him for a long moment, eyes filled with predatory amusement. Athelstan's robe was wet through all down the back, and he felt it sticking to his body, cold and clammy, dripping down from his shoulders to his ankles. He shivered.
"Praying," Ragnar said quietly, still holding him.
"Praying," Athelstan repeated, his voice strong, lifting his chin as he found his feet. He held Ragnar's gaze with more steadiness than he'd thought he possessed.
Ragnar grinned, and Athelstan was struck by an odd sense that he had pleased the man, somehow.
"Do you pray for my death, Athelstan?" The northman's voice was soft, that deceptive, gentle tone that already Athelstan had come to link with danger.
"No," Athelstan said honestly.
"Why not?" Ragnar ran his free hand over Athelstan's head, fingers brushing the day-old stubble of his tonsured scalp. "Because your dead god cannot harm me?" He hooked three blunt-nailed fingers under the leather strip that held Athelstan's cross, and for a moment Athelstan was convinced Ragnar would pull it, would twist the leather until the thin strap cut into his throat and Athelstan choked.
Conserva me Domine, he thought, closing his eyes.
Only when Ragnar laughed softly and released him with a clap between damp shoulder-blades did Athelstan realise he had said the words aloud.
He swallowed and breathed hard, blood pounding in his ears.
"Come back to the house with me," Ragnar said, draping a heavy arm around his shoulders. His tone was light, friendly, making it sound like a suggestion, but Athelstan knew it for what it was: a command.
"Lagertha has gone to the market," Ragnar said as they walked. "She left with the dawn." Ragnar paused, then turned his head, his lips brushing the edge of Athelstan's ear. "We did not have sex this morning," he whispered.
Athelstan shivered, fighting the urge to pull away. He said nothing to this, but felt heat rise to his face once more. He had found the night long and sleepless, his thoughts in a chattering crowd. Everything had been mixed together - memories of Lindisfarne, chaos and smoke; Ragnar and Lagertha's "invitation"; and then, the sounds of them coupling. After Lagertha had led her husband back to bed, Athelstan had recited from the Gospel of St John well into the night, struggling not to listen to their moans and cries and thumps. But their sounds were impossible not to hear.
No wonder they had not done the same thing this morning. It was a wonder either of them had been able to rise from bed at all.
Ragnar strolled along the beach towards the farmhouse, a thumb in his belt, one hand on the back of Athelstan's neck. His gait was cocky, self-satisfied. From the corner of his eye, Athelstan could see him smiling as they walked. Athelstan wondered what scheme was running through the northman's mind, now that the plundered treasures from the priory were in the hands of the earl.
The sloped roof of the farmhouse came suddenly into view from behind a cluster of dark, slowly-swaying trees, the mountains rising in a backdrop of darkest green. This land could be cold, and harsh, but it was also beautiful. The farmhouse seemed part of the land itself, its straight lines softened by wood and thatch and stiff cloth.
At the door, two shaggy grey heads with pricked ears rose alertly as the hounds recognized Ragnar's footsteps. Their tails wagged eagerly as they stood up, tall as small ponies, to greet their master. Ragnar gave the older one's ears an affectionate scratch as he passed. "Good dog," Ragnar said, palming Athelstan's stubbled head and pushing him ahead through the door.
Inside, it was dark and warm. Every space was occupied by the tools and products of farm life; hides, herbs and furs; Lagertha's tall loom with Gyda's half-completed cloth; fibrous rope and leather strips; a woven basket full of eggs. Athelstan could imagine it feeling like home. If he were free.
The fire snapped in the central room, where Ragnar led him and indicated with a squeeze of his arm that he should remain. He tugged the front of Athelstan's robe. "This is wet," he said. "Take it off."
"Here?"
"Yes, Athelstan," Ragnar said. "Here."
"I'll get my cloak," Athelstan tried.
"No." Ragnar shook his head, and leaned back against a thick oak beam to watch, a slow grin spreading across his face. His eyes glittered with humor. "It's warm in here. You don't need it."
Athelstan untied the simple rope belt around his waist, and pulled the wet robe over his head. He folded it, then let it drop to the rushes in a neat pile.
Naked, he stared at a tapestry on the wall, his mind choosing that absurd point in time to admire its fine construction and the geometric pattern formed by the colours of its design. He stared at the tapestry, feeling dizzy as Ragnar looked over him.
"You are not weak," Ragnar said. "You are young. Your body is strong." He glanced downwards, a smirk in his eyes. For no reason he could discern, Athelstan was half-hard, and growing harder by the moment. "And there is no doubt you are a man. Why did you not fight at Lindisfarne? Why do you not fight me now? Would you rather live as a slave than die with honour?"
"I'm not a warrior," Athelstan said. "I am a man of God."
"I am a man of the gods," said Ragnar, with a playful shrug. He stripped off his shirt, stretched out his arms. Athelstan swallowed and looked away, but his eyes were drawn back to Ragnar, as though compelled by the sheer force of his presence.
Scars patterned Ragnar's lean body. Athelstan could not help but let his gaze drift from Ragnar's chest, with its swell of muscle and tightly-curled fair hair, to the ripple of his flat, hard belly. Athelstan had met bigger men, and had seen taller, especially among Ragnar's kin; but never one so physically imposing as this smiling, icy-eyed northman. Ragnar Lothbrok was unmistakeably a warrior. He had been born to this life.
Ragnar paced around Athelstan, observing him from all angles, curious eyes raking over his naked body. He closed in with a sudden lunging step towards Athelstan, bringing their faces barely an inch apart, smiling again when Athelstan did not flinch. Their eyes met and locked. Ragnar gave him a long, considering look, head tilting, as though reading an obscure text.
"Somewhere in you is a fighter," Ragnar said, taking Athelstan's hand. Ragnar's thumb circled the bone of his wrist.
"Why would you say that?" Athelstan frowned, willing himself not to pull away.
"I don't know why," Ragnar said. "But I know it is true."
Athelstan swallowed hard and, finally, dropped his gaze from Ragnar's eyes to his body. All that lean, hard warmth, so close. He could almost feel the pulse of hot blood through the veins that ran along Ragnar's arms and neck. The rough, scarred skin of his arms, the clean, strong lines of his shoulders and collarbone. The smell of Ragnar Lothbrok was earth, and salt, and sweat. Ragnar guided Athelstan's fingers and pressed them against a long scar across his ribs. The ridge of tissue was soft but knobbled under his fingertips.
"Go on," Ragnar whispered, sly eyes glinting. "You can touch."
Athelstan let his fingers drift across the scar to the trail of darkening hair down the centre of Ragnar's flat belly, his heart pounding.
"Yes," Ragnar urged him, leaning into the touch, his breath now coming quickly. He let go of Athelstan's hand, sensing that he would not fight.
Ragnar stroked Athelstan's cheek. His blunt fingernails were not dirty, exactly, but stained, from farming and fighting, working and traveling, like a permanent imprint of the earth on his body. Strong fingers found their way to the back of Athelstan's neck, kneading gently for a few moments. Then Ragnar cupped his head in the palm of his hand to keep Athelstan still, and pressed their lips together.
The tip of Ragnar's tongue entered his mouth; gentle, but very firm. Ragnar's lips were warm. His beard and the hair above his mouth were coarse, scratching Athelstan's face. Athelstan shut his eyes. He didn't bother trying to pull away, knowing Ragnar would not permit it. This was a man who knew what he wanted, and took it.
It was not awful, Athelstan realised, as Ragnar laid a thumb across his cheekbone and tilted his head back to kiss him deeper. Ragnar's mouth tasted of salt, his tongue was hot and searching. It was terrifying, breathless, paralysing, but it wasn't awful. God, why could it not have been awful?
Ragnar's hands slid to his hips, and Athelstan found himself pulled close. The first real clench of fear rose in his stomach as, now fully hard, he pressed against the matching bulge in the front of Ragnar's trousers.
"You are less afraid of what I will do to you, Athelstan," Ragnar murmured into his ear, "than that you will enjoy it." His beard scratched and tickled. Sharp, even teeth scraped the rim of his ear, took his earlobe in a gentle bite. Athelstan shivered, a sudden chill running down his throat at the soft scrape of hair and teeth.
"I'm not afraid." Athelstan frowned in confusion. "But I took vows."
Warm laughter puffed against his throat. Ragnar mouthed the skin of his neck, nuzzling and nipping with gentle teeth. "I too, took vows," he said. "I vowed to live as a free man. As a fighter." Hands drifted down Athelstan's back and settled on his hips. "To take all of the good things that the gods have placed before me." A light finger traced the cleft of his arse, running up and down between his buttocks. "To honour their gifts to me."
"This is sin," Athelstan murmured against Ragnar's lips, as the northman kissed his mouth again.
"There are almost as many ways to please a god as to displease him," Ragnar said, turning him by his shoulders. One firm hand squeezed the back of his neck, while the other grasped his elbow. "Later, you will make an offering."
"That's not - it doesn't work that way," Athelstan insisted, even as Ragnar began to twist his elbow with slow, but unrelenting force.
Gently but inexorably, Athelstan found himself bent over the low table in the centre of the room, until his chest and cheek were pressed to warm wood. He tried to rise, but Ragnar smoothly pinned his arm and shoulder so that movement became impossible without dislocating the joint. In the same motion, Ragnar's hard thigh spread his legs.
The northman leaned over him, his chest warm against Athelstan's back, pinning him immobile against the table with his body weight. Ragnar let go of Athelstan's arm to stroke his hair, smoothing the loose brown curls around the stubble of his tonsured scalp. Again his lips touched the rim of Athelstan's ear. "It won't be as bad as you think," Ragnar murmured. His body weight shifted as Ragnar unbuckled his belt and let his trousers drop to the floor.
Athelstan's fingertips began to ache, and he realised he was gripping the table top like a drowning man would cling to a raft, fingernails digging into the wood.
"I can't," he said, the words echoing uselessly in his mind.
Another shift of body weight, another rustle and shuffle, and Athelstan's arse was parted firmly by strong fingers. He gasped at the sensation of air against sensitive skin, and stifled a cry when he felt Ragnar's hard length press against his hole. As well as hot skin, there was something soft and slick - butter, or perhaps tallow - which must have been ready to hand.
He planned this, Athelstan thought. He planned it.
Athelstan was not being punished, he realised, so much as instructed; the lesson being that to reject an invitation from Ragnar Lothbrok was only to postpone his getting what he wanted, not to deny it.
Ragnar tilted his hips, the tip of his shaft pressing hard against the tight ring of Athelstan's arsehole, and pushed slowly. Athelstan could not stop his voice. He cried out as Ragnar eased inside, his tight passage forced open, taken, penetrated. It was the strangest sensation, the exquisite pain of intrusion, Ragnar inside him, deeper and deeper, folded over him, skin on skin, naked and hot.
"It's all right," Ragnar whispered, fingers running over his scalp, lips pressing kisses to his forehead, his ear, his throat. "I'm not trying to hurt you."
I don't care about pain, you barbarian, Athelstan wanted to say. From his position forced down on the table top, he could see the hearthfire, burning bright in the dim interior of the farmhouse. He stared into it as Ragnar hissed in pleasure, burying himself deep. Athelstan felt the heat of the fire against his face, heard his own low, long moan as Ragnar's full, thick length slid home. His pulse thudded in his ears like the sound of drums.
Gently, Ragnar began to school him. Only his hips moved, his chest still pressing against Athelstan's back, holding him against the table. Ragnar eased his cock out until only the tip remained, then in again, over and over in slow, full strokes. It hurt, at first, an intense, intimate pain that seemed to reach the core of his being. Athelstan felt himself tense all over, even as he knew he couldn't resist, as though his body refused to acknowledge that this was happening.
"Don't fight," Ragnar told him, laughter in his voice. "It's too late for that." He slid his hands along Athelstan's arms, found his wrists and pinned them firmly against smooth wood. "Far too late."
He was right. It was too late. The sharpness of the pain subsided into a deep, dull ache with the gentle, rhythmic motion of Ragnar's hips. There was a place inside Athelstan's body that Ragnar would nudge with his cock, a place that made Athelstan's head spin and drew gasps of pleasure whenever the northman found it. Guided by these pleasured sounds, Ragnar eased into the angle, hitting that spot, his own moans of delight joining Athelstan's.
Athelstan felt his back arch and his body flex of its own accord, pushing back to meet Ragnar's thrusts.
"Yes," Ragnar whispered. "Oh, yes, Athelstan." The northman's grip shifted, taking both of Athelstan's wrists in his left hand, knowing he no longer needed to restrain him. Ragnar's right hand was freed, and he reached to cup Athelstan's cock, now fully erect, in the palm of his hand. Athelstan groaned in pleasure, feeling Ragnar's hand close around him, wet with sweat.
"Good," Ragnar said against his ear. His thumb brushed the wetness at the head of Athelstan's cock, smearing it over the head. "That's good."
Ragnar buried his coarse-bearded face against Athelstan's throat, murmurs of approval interspersed with kisses and soft nips, with groans of pleasure and grunts of effort. His hips moved faster, and his fist around Athelstan's cock began to pump in earnest, drawing him closer and closer to his peak.
The northman's heavy chest rose from Athelstan's back and Ragnar took him by both hips. In this more upright position, Ragnar was still controlled, but now there was no gentleness in the motion of his body as it slammed against Athelstan's. The strokes came hard and fast. It should have hurt, but by now the pain had become a deep, sweet burn. Fucking, Athelstan thought, the filthy word rising in his mind. Ragnar was fucking him. He was owned, a slave, fucked by his master.
He cried out, throwing his head back, a kind of freedom in the realisation, his body crumpling in sweet release. He heard Ragnar's moans in response as the northman's strong fingers dug into his hips. Ragnar gave a deep, roughthrust, his cry like a crow of victory. Athelstan felt hot seed fill him, trickling down between his thighs as Ragnar gave a few final, possessive shoves and spent his last.
Athelstan slumped to the table, Ragnar's heavy, sweat-slick body collapsing on his back.
The northman was shaking. It took Athelstan a few moments to realise he was laughing.
"What would your dead god think of that, Priest?"
A shuddering breath was Athelstan's only response. Somehow he guessed that he would find out before long.