“Accursed Vitalis of the Saxons!” Nicola pivoted, made fists of restless hands.
    “Accursed Vitalis of the rebels!” She stepped forward, snapped arms to her sides.
    “Accursed Vitalis of the Danes!” She splayed fingers, pivoted again.
    “Accursed Vitalis of ungodly height and breadth!” She threw arms wide, gave a squeak when imagination placed her palms on those shoulders.
    “Accursed Vitalis of red hair and beard!” Imagining the soft and coarse of both, she dug nails into palms, kicked the wall, and pivoted again.
    “Accursed Vitalis of…everything!” She halted center of what Bjorn named a chamber.
    “And accursed Nicola D’Argent who thinks herself clever,” she hissed, then cleared her scowl. “Not that I am not clever,” she defended herself to calm anger and frustration more due Vitalis than her. “But fie on this lady for allowing vexation to land her here.”
    Breathing deeply, she considered this place whose floor was less inclined to stand still than she. The damp, planked walls of her chamber were the left and right sides of the ship’s stern, whereas the third wall was fashioned of sailcloth whose upper end also served as a ceiling to prevent rain and restless waves from soaking her should the weather turn foul. 
    “Oui, fie on me. Not only is Mary Sarah—” She snorted. Mary Sarah the abbess was, in truth, the illegitimate Mercia of the Godwines from whose family the Duke of Normandy had taken the English throne. Not that the Saxon woman had willingly confided her deception. It was Prince Canute who forced the revelation when Nicola rebuked him for abducting a holy woman.
    Still, Nicola had aided her fellow captive in escaping the Danes, believing Mercia more valuable to them than this lady who had believed she could affect her own escape. The trade made, once more the false abbess was in the hands of Canute who believed wedding a relation of the departed King Harold would gain his sire Saxon support in unseating King William. Nearly as terrible, once again Nicola suffered the smitten Bjorn, and she was mostly to blame for allowing anger to delay her dismount during the trade.
    She had tried to contain her roiling—truly she had!—but so vexed was she with Vitalis for siding with the Danes and insisting she be bound and gagged, she had failed.
    “For naught!” She lifted her eyes to the canvas which the last of day’s light struggled to penetrate. “Now what think you of this adventure, Nicola?” she demanded of the young woman who had assured Mercia her own abduction was more interesting than working needle and thread. And it had been.
    “Still is,” she told herself, though it was less interesting now she was aboard a ship which the earl’s whim could cause to sail for Denmark.