Eleanor Ch. 06

All Characters engaging in sexual activity are over 18.

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Waking with a start, Eleanor bolted upright from the furs, unable to distinguish her surroundings from her dream. Feeling a gentle hand on her shoulder, she bolted for the tent opening only to feel his arms tighten around her, pulling her back to him. Panicking in the dim morning light, Eleanor swung round, catching her attacker in the eye. Instantly regretting her action when she saw the poor giant lain on his back cradling his eye with tears falling down his face. Christ, she hadn't made the man cry?!

Feeling instantly contrite, Eleanor reached for him.

"Bruni, I'm sorry, let me see." Eleanor moved closer, worried she may have caused him serious damage; the giant's shoulders were shaking so much.

When the brute let free his laughter, Eleanor fought the urge to punch him in the other eye, as his deep throaty laugh filled the tent, tears streaming with his merriment. Pushing him away from her, Eleanor folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.

"Remind me never to annoy you woman." Bruni chuckled, as his sight came back to him. A sight indeed she was, tousled from her sleep after the wives had tidied her after her ordeal, the flush of her anger staining her cheeks, taking away the stark contrast of her bruises from the MacLean. And the push of her breasts beneath her tunic from her folded arms. By Freya, she was beautiful.

Pulling the blankets over his waist, he hoped she had not seen the reaction her poise provoked. He could not think of her thus, it was dangerous territory, Ragnar's father would demand the contract be fulfilled. Ragnar's Da was a stubborn man.

"We had best be getting ready, we leave soon." Bruni said, desperate to tear his eyes from her soft gaze.

This was dangerous territory indeed.

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Bergen

"Anika! Get away from that window, you will catch cold!" Matilda called, to the ever disobedient eight year old.

"Yes Mamma." Anika trilled, yet still unable to pull herself away from the window. "When is Ragnar coming home Mamma?"

"Soon child, soon, now get down." Matilda begged, her little daughter had a terrible habit of climbing the tapestries and settling into the wide window ledge to view the port.

"Do you think he will bring Kate back this time?" Anika asked, silently praying that her Brother would drag the female back, she had wanted a sister for so long, and it almost hurt. Her Mamma was not always around, like today, she would be leaving for the Dane's north lands to visit family, leaving the Auden Keep in the hands of Matilda's sister Sibbe. Nearly fifty, the stern woman was mean in Anika's opinion. Mean, and smelly. Anika knew not to beg for her Mamma to stay, yet she could only refuse to go with her in case she missed Ragnar.

Anika could smell Sibbe before the hag entered the room, and Matilda could barely stifle her laugh at Anika's comical expression.

"Matilda, I thought you would have left by now." Sibbe sneered; she had been waiting nearly a year for the chance to govern here once more. It was luxury, waited on, rich food, and a full purse. As Matilda moved from the head chair at the dais, Sibbe squeezed her massive frame into her svelte sister's space no sooner than she had vacated it. Anika wondered whether her poor Mamma would have survived that event if she had by chance forgotten something and been a second later.

"Varin, please get Anika out of the window." Matilda whispered to her head guard.

"Anika...ready....steady.........JUMP!" Varin spoke.

Anika leapt into the guards arms, laughing all the way down into the tickling guard's arms. The furious shout of Sibbe make short work of their revelry.

"I swear Matilda, you have ruined that child! She wont make a good wife." Sibbe paused long enough to bite a large chunk from the chicken leg before continuing, mouth full. "She has too much of a mind, she is not disciplined enough."

Taking a long draw on the wine, Sibbe glared at her sister with envy and anger, as the slim woman picked Anika from Varin's arms and tickled her some more.

"Sibbe, I do not expect to come home to a morose child this time. If I do, I will feed you to the dogs." Matilda spoke in old Norse, knowing Sibbe would understand, but all Anika would hear was the gentle tinkle of her usual voice.

"Well how dare you...!"

"Oh do be quiet Sibbe. You enjoy spending my coin more than your stupidity, so be quiet. I will be back in two weeks." Matilda dropped a kiss to Anika's head. "Watch over Anika Varin." She whispered.

Leaving the keep, Matilda sighed as she walked with her maid to the waiting boat. Sibbe was not the person to leave in charge of the keep, turning back to look, too intent on making her staff her slaves.

"By Loki, Vera best be very ill when I reach her." Matilda told the boat as she stepped aboard.

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"Anika, you will be staying in the North room, Inga will be staying in your room while I'm here." Sibbe snorted.

"But Aunt Sibbe, I can only see the port from my room, I cant see it from the nor.."

Anika's face crumpled with tears as the red mark from Sibbe's strike rose on her pale face. Running into her room, Anika pulled her box all the way down to the North room, refusing to leave anything of value to her in her room with Sibbe's awful daughter Inga.

She was ugly too, Anika thought, her black eyes clouding with anger at the pain on her cheek. Overweight, dowdy, unwashed skin and hair, and she was only seventeen!! Anika hated the thought of the rude creature sleeping in her mother's bed, let alone its spawn sleeping in her own. Pulling her box to the window, Anika let the tapestry fall across the window, with her behind it. Folding a small pillow from the tick, she tucked it under her head, and squeezed right into the corner, she could just see the point of Bergen, she could see the boats for a fraction before they made port. Anger spiraled in her once more as she heard Sibbe's voice outside her door.

"She is not to get dinner, she is being punished. Is that clear Varin?" Sibbe demanded.

"Yes Ma'm."

Determination steeled her, as she kept her eye on the horizon, begging with every hour that passed, that Ragnar or her mother would come home soon.

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Lifting Eleanor over the edge of the boat, Ragnar took her from Bruni and set her on her feet next to Kate. Setting his arm over the edge, he hauled Bruni over the side, and pushed off with the heavy oars. The wind was set at the right angle to get them to the East of Scotland, Ragnar could only hope their luck would stick with them, and set them on a quick path to Nikolas, and then home.

"Eleanor, Kate, come below, I will show you the boat." Bruni offered the limping Eleanor his hand, and waited what seemed an eternity before she took it, her eyes still glaring lightly at his laughter at her earlier. His eye still throbbing from her forceful punch. He would wager it was less than he deserved, Eleanor would have most likely flogged him if she had known he had cradled her against him all night.

Ducking beneath the feather white sails, and past the score of men on their head boat, Eleanor followed her giant beneath the deck, the area spacious; there was a private room at the bow, built seamlessly into the wood of the boat, and the multitude of hammocks hangin above the holding pens. Barrels of water, food supplies, and the thought occurred to Eleanor, these men were more prepared than any village, they had supplies, they took care of their men, and their women. They were not the barbarians the Scots made out. They were the better of the two.

Leading her to the room, Bruni moved the sliding door with a firm shove, and showed her inside. Two separate beds, on either side of the bow spine, a thick fabric hung between the two, providing as much privacy as one could expect. Panic assailed her, Kate would surely wish to share her bed with Ragnar, she did not wish to invade the lover's privacy, nor did she think she should invade Bruni's by sharing, or taking his bed.

"I can sleep on deck Bruni, a few blankets and I will be fine." Eleanor said quietly, a deep blush tainting her cheeks, as she backed into the store straight into her friend.

"Eleanor and I will share a bed..." Kate elbowed a protesting Ragnar, who obviously had other ideas, "...and Bruni and Ragnar can share." She offered a smile to Eleanor, putting her friend at ease.

"Come on Eleanor, lets go up on deck, its a beautiful day." Kate said, pulling her friend away from the male-ness in the cramped space.

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Staring at the rolling sea, Kate and Eleanor smiled, both surprisingly relieved to be free from the unforgiving Scots. Kate was overjoyed at finally being with Ragnar, had even cursed her stupidity for not agreeing to it before, and was also glad that her brothers where close too. Eleanor was just glad to be finding a family, she had her friend, and she had a family and home to discover in Bergen. All she needed to do was endure the boat journey. And stop her errant heart from skipping a beat when her giant passed her with a smile.

Bruni Auden, you will be the death of me. Eleanor thought, watching his taut muscles flex as he rained in the loose sail.

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"We are nearly there Bruni, perhaps one more night. Nikolas said it was the north point of the Gaul lands?" Thorod asked, directing the other men with the oars since the wind had died a little in the afternoon.

"Yes Thorod, I have a pretty good idea where he is, he tends to get stranded there a lot, its a port with a rather narrow lane out. And of course Nikolas is usually drunk when he leaves there; this is the third time I've done this journey in five years."

At twenty eight, Bruni was growing tired of his older brother's antics. The extensively traveled Nikolas had too much free spirit in him, of both the philosophical and liquid variety, and Bruni was sure his wandering brother would fall from the end of the earth one day. Born to his father Broddi, and his first wife Bertha, Nikolas was thirty nine, and a full blown child. Bruni's mother Astrid was thoroughly furious with him, as Queen, she had the right to banish him, but her love for his father, Astrid could not hurt his dead father's memory, and so had set new levels of having patience of a saint.

That patience had worn thin these past two months with Oleif's death, the lost expression on his mother's face when the news had arrived, had nearly crippled him. She had endured so much, just pregnant as her Broddi died, she had been for fifteen years alone, defending her country from the Gauls, the Germans, striving to see the contract sealed between Auden lands and Haur, together they would be formidable, and could put an end to the invasions of the barbarians from the south.

"Prepare the ship for the night, make sure half the rowers sleep now, so they are ready to row through the night. We aim to pick up Nikolas in the morning. Ragnar is getting worried about Kate, she is growing more uncomfortable, she most likely only has three weeks left at most, we need to make headway back to Bergen as soon as my brother and his men are collected."

"Yes Bruni." Thorod agreed, and set about his orders.

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"Ragnar, will you stop pacing and sit down, you are going to make me sick." Kate moaned, her patience wearing thin at the man running a path in the floor of the boat.

"I'm just concerned about you, your getting close, and here is not the best place for you." he stopped his pacing and looked at his poor female, propped up against the bow of the boat with blankets all around her, protecting her from the chill of the winter water, and the sides of the boat if a storm were to hit.

"We could stop when we get Nikolas, and make our way back after the baby is born." Kate offered, knowing in her soul it was what neither of them wanted, both would rather have the child on board than on foreign soil.

His peeved glare confirmed her thoughts, and annoyed her all at once.

"Don't you be glaring at me Ragnar; you're not the one carrying at full term!!!" Kate was irritable, she knew it, but she could not be nice to him right now. They were soon to pick up Nikolas, and no one had told Eleanor that the traveling Norse was her soon to be husband.

"You have to tell her soon Ragnar, its not fair." Kate winced, as the baby began kicking her furiously, not liking the raised voices.

"We will." Ragnar promised. "Just not yet."

Not yet.

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Varin crept into the North room, praying the snoring Sibbe downstairs would not awaken. Gently shaking little Anika, he stifled her gasp with his hand.

"Little Loki, it is me." He smiled, taking the food parcel out of his pocket, sitting next to her on the huge bed, he unwrapped his gift for her, catching her in a hug when she realised it was chocolate the Monks had given her mother as a gift.

"Oh Varin, thank you!" Anika gasped, excitement rippling through her.

"Shhhhhh little one, we do not want the handmaiden of Hel to awaken and deprive us of breakfast." Varin chuckled.

"Varin, how long before they come home? I can no longer stand the thought of that piglet in my bed, snoring into the quilt Mamma made for me. Surely it cannot be long before Ragnar or Mamma reach? I know Father will be weeks before he gets home, but the others?"

"I do not know little Loki, I will just keep plying the wench with wine, and she will hopefully sleep right through the week!"

Tucking the little hellion into the warm blankets, Varin scooped any crumbs from Anika's bed in case Sibbe found them, and put the folded cloth back into his pocket. His heart felt torn, leaving her like this, in fear of Sibbe. He had always felt like her protector, she was like a little sister to him, having only grown up with brothers, and now he felt as though he were failing her.

"Sleep tight Anika, they wont be long." He whispered as he closed the door. Walking past his Loki's normal room, Varin stuck out his tongue at the sleeping piglet inside, and went back to his chambers in the gatehouse. Praying himself that someone came home soon, before he killed the slobbering Sibbe for every tear she had made Anika shed.