The Viking's Woman Read online

  Allen shook his head sorrowfully. “She has not been seen. But the man I met was certain she escaped.”

  Alfred tossed back his mantle and stared up at the spring sky once again. “Allen, find Rowan and have him take his men to search the way for Lady Rhiannon. If she lives, and if she can be found, his love will guide the way.”

  “And you, sire?”

  Alfred looked at his man and hesitated. He and Allen were of an age. They were both fit from the eternal practice for war. Allen was dark, with sharp gray eyes and a mouth that could slant to cruelty. They had all become hard as granite, the king thought.

  “I will go to Eric of Dubhlain. I will seek to rectify this wrong.” He turned and started for the manor, his mantle sweeping behind him. He paused, looking back to Allen. “How could this have happened? The message was delivered?”

  “Sire, I know that the messenger was sent. The man I spoke with knew nothing of it, though. He said that perhaps old Egmund refused to tell his lady, his hatred for all Norsemen is so great. He died upon the field, so we shall never know.”

  The king smiled grimly. “Oh, we shall know, Allen. We shall discover the cause as soon as possible.”

  “Sire!”

  The cry was shrill and feminine. It brought Alfred swinging around to face the dense forest to the east. He knew the sound of the voice, and relief swept through him.

  He saw Rhiannon. She was racing toward him on a roan, coming across the meadow and the clearing. Torn and disheveled and wild and beautiful still.

  “My God,” Alfred whispered. Then he started to run toward her. Earth flew as the roan churned up clumps of mud, then she reined in, and in a new flurry of exhausted tears she collapsed into his arms.

  He held her, smoothed back her hair, lifted her into his arms, and his heart thundered with sweet relief. Silently he thanked his god for returning her to him.

  He didn’t know why he loved her so much—like one of his own children. Perhaps it was because he had once loved and admired her mother. Perhaps it was the fact that he was her godfather, having stood sponsor to her at her baptism. He didn’t know the reasoning of the heart but he did love her as one of his own, and he held her, cherishing her. She was fairly tall for a woman but as slim and shapely as a sprite, easy to sweep up into his arms. Forgetting Allen, he hurried toward the manor, calling to his wife.

  Rhiannon held to him tightly, trusting in him like a child. Her eyes, so incredibly blue, met his.

  “Danes attacked, my lord. Dragon ships. They sailed down upon us and butchered us.”

  Her eyes closed. She was cold, exhausted, and wet through and through. She had ridden all night in the rain.

  Suddenly fury at the savagery, at the waste of life, cut into Alfred like a blade. He shook as he held her. “Those were no Danes.”

  She stared at him. “My lord cousin! I was there. They came like hungry wolves, they—”

  “A message was sent to you, Rhiannon. I called for help across the sea. To an Irish prince of Dubhlain, a man who hates the Danes as fiercely as we do.”

  She shook her head. He didn’t understand.

  “I saw no Irishmen!” Rhiannon assured the king. She clenched her teeth tightly. She could not forget the Viking she had almost killed—golden blond and as wintry cold as his homeland. “Dragon ships came!” she whispered. She could not tell Alfred about her encounter with the man. He would be furious with her that she had not fled immediately.

  “The prince’s shipbuilders would be Norse, Rhiannon, as would many of his men.”

  Again she shook her head. She was so tired, and she couldn’t make the king understand the danger. “My lord, perhaps I am not being clear, maybe I am incoherent—”

  “Nay!” he told her firmly. His temper was rising. He was ill for those who had suffered so needlessly and was very afraid that some treachery had perhaps cost him the assistance of the Irish prince when he needed it most. He held Rhiannon too tightly. He did not blame her, but he was shaking with emotion and anger. “Nay, you are clear, but you do not understand my words! I have been betrayed. You set your men to attack a man I asked here in friendship. You set your hand against me.”

  Rhiannon gasped, horrified. “I would never betray you, Alfred. How can you accuse me so? I fought the enemy! We have always fought the enemy.”

  “I do not accuse you, but I tell you that you were to have welcomed the man but you fought him instead.”

  “I swear I did not know!”

  He loved her; suddenly he could not look at her. He could not lose the manpower he needed now. Victory was too close; it was sweet on his tongue. He could not bear that it could be seized from his grasp. He needed the prince of Eire, and if the Irish prince demanded some punishment, he might be forced to fulfill the price.

  He raised his voice as he entered the manor house. He carried Rhiannon before the fire and set her there. “Alswitha!” he called to his wife, and she was there, his bride of Mercia, with his young daughter, Althrife, in her arms. She quickly set the child down and gasped, staring at him reproachfully as she greeted Rhiannon, embracing her. “What has happened to her?” she demanded, dismayed at Rhiannon’s dishevelment.

  Alfred could not dispel the rage that had settled over him. “Someone within her household chose not to honor the order of the king; that is what has occurred.”

  “Nay, that cannot be true!” Rhiannon protested.

  Alfred was trembling. She didn’t understand the depths of his emotion, and she was stunned that he would be so furious with her when she had come to him for succor.

  “I accuse you of nothing, Rhiannon, yet someone did betray me—and you. And what has happened could have dire consequences, far more deadly to our cause than what has already occurred.”

  Rhiannon disengaged herself from the queen’s embrace and stood, shaking, to challenge the king. “More dire than the sea of blood before my town? Have you forgotten, Alfred? Men, good men, my dear friends, lie dead—”

  “Have you forgotten, lady, that I am the king?” he thundered in return. “And, Rhiannon, it might well be your dear and loyal friends who turned traitor, for the message was sent that the prince of Eire sailed, that he was to be greeted with all courtesy and escorted here.”

  “No message came, my lord!” she cried. “And believe me, sire, I saw no Irish prince, just a horde of Viking raiders.”

  He spun around, ignoring her.

  “By the saints, Alfred!” Alswitha called after him. “How can you be so cruel as to doubt the girl!”

  He turned back to them both and his gaze seemed empty. “Because all Wessex could depend upon this. Because peace could depend upon the whim and fury of a foreign prince.” He swept his mantle around him, buttoning it high. “I ride, my lady,” he told his wife, “to the coast. Rhiannon has survived, and she is, I trust, safe in your keeping.”

  He left them, staring after him. Alswitha seemed even more distraught than she.

  “He does love you. Dearly,” Alswitha said.

  Rhiannon turned to her and tried to smile. The effort failed. “Aye, he loves me. But not as much as he oves Wessex.”

  “He does not love me as much as he loves Wessex,” Alswitha said dryly. She noticed that Rhiannon was shivering, and she called to her women, who came scurrying into the hall. “Quick, we must have warm water and give the lady Rhiannon a bath before the fire and warm her, lest she be ill.”

  Beyond the walls of the manor they could hear the sounds of hoofbeats and the jangling of the horses’ trappings as men mounted to ride. Alswitha put an arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders and led her toward the easterly side of the hall, the women’s solar. There her bath was brought. Alswitha did not leave her. She washed out Rhiannon’s tresses herself and tried to talk idly—of folklore, of the hearth, of the home. But when Rhiannon was done, wrapped in a linen towel, and sat huddled before the center fire, she started to shiver again.

  Alswitha, still beautiful with her honey-colored eyes and delicate features,
sat by Rhiannon to reassure her again.

  “We’ll have Masses said for your people. We shall pray for them this very evening.”

  Rhiannon nodded. She swallowed. “Alswitha, you must believe me. They were not Irishmen—I saw them. They were Vikings.”

  “Rhiannon, I do believe that you are telling me what you saw. I think that you are not understanding that this Irish prince has a Norwegian father and may appear very much the Viking. Don’t you see? Viking shipbuilding is the best, so the ships would be dragon prows. And perhaps many of his men fight like berserkers. Alfred needs such men to go against the Danish madmen. The Irish prince Alfred seeks to please is from the stronghold of Dubhlain but Norse in his paternal heritage.”

  Huddled in her towel, Rhiannon shivered. “I tell you, Alswitha, that Alfred has entered into a pact with demons! I saw them, and they were not Irish Christians but heathens!”

  Heathens with the golden hair of the north sun, and blue eyes of crystal coldness. Alfred had entered into a pact with them. She might very well see the prince’s Viking captain once again.

  “Oh, God!” she whispered, and she felt ill. The blond Viking surely would have told the Irish prince about the Saxon wench who had tried to skewer him with arrows. Alfred was already furious with her. He would be doubly so once he had been to the coast.

  “How can he care so little for me, for my people, for what has happened?” she cried to Alswitha. “I am his blood and he is my guardian, and he rails against me for defending what is mine!”

  Alswitha was very quiet for a long moment. Then she spoke quietly. “Nay, you forget the King. Wessex, Rhiannon—all of Wessex—is his.”

  “He is cruel!”

  “He is harsh and can be unforgiving. Fate has made him so, for he must be strong. Remember, he is your guardian and your king and your protector. And he does love you.” Alswitha pulled the drying strands of her hair from her towel and smiled gently. “He is concerned for your welfare. He did not mean to hurt you and would never try.”

  Rhiannon wanted to believe it. She loved the king. Alfred and Alswitha and the children were her family. They were all that she had left. She curled her toes beneath her and hugged the linen towel, staring at the fire. Silent tears slid from her lashes.

  “It was horrible!” she whispered. “So much death, so much blood. I loved dear Egmund so very much. And Wilton too. Think of the wives who will never love again, think of the orphans.” She looked up suddenly. “And Adela! I didn’t see her when I escaped. She must be missing, Alswitha. I know not whether she was captured, or she if runs terrified in the forest even now.”

  “Alfred will find her,” Alswitha said with confidence.

  “Oh! I was so selfish! I did not tell Alfred about her.”

  “She will be all right, I am certain. Alfred’s men will find her.”

  “What if the Vikings find her?”

  “If she escaped to the forest, why would they pursue a woman they did not know existed?”

  Rhiannon was silent. They would not pursue Adela, but the Norseman she had so grievously injured might send someone out after her and Adela might be found instead.

  She did not tell Alswitha so. She could not tell Alswitha about her encounter with the Viking. She did not dare. Alswitha was Alfred’s wife, and she might think it necessary to find him and tell him.

  “Come, Rhiannon,” Alswitha said, urging her gently. “You must eat, and then you must try to sleep.” She hesitated, studying Rhiannon. “What is it that you’re still so afraid of?”

  “What?” Rhiannon looked at her with wide, frightened eyes.

  “What is it? Why are you still so afraid?”

  She shook her head. “I—I am not. Not now. I am here with you. I am safe.”

  But she didn’t know if she was safe or not, or if she could ever be safe again. She could not forget the Viking. She could not forget the fires of his body, or the ice of his eyes, or the husky timbre of his voice when had spoken to her in warning.

  Pray, lady … that we do not meet again.

  And she would not meet him again, ever. She would stay with Alswitha and the children, and Alfred would ride forth with his mercenary army and meet the Danes at Rochester. She would never, never see him again.

  Her teeth began to chatter. She was praying—just as he had suggested. She prayed, too, that Alfred would not know just how involved she had been in the fight.

  Alswitha, concerned, patted Rhiannon’s shoulders. “Come. You must sleep. There is someone else here who loves you, you know.”

  “Rowan!” Rhiannon cried suddenly, leaping up. She had nearly forgotten him—her very love!—in the trembling aftermath of all that had happened.

  “Aye, Rowan. Except that I am sure that he rode with the king and most probably will not return until tomorrow. So you must eat now, and then you have a night’s lost sleep to regain. You would not have him see you in such distress, would you?”

  “Nay, nay, I would not!” she agreed quickly. She could not let Rowan know of anything that had happened. He was not in love with Wessex, he was in love with her, and surely he might want to avenge her honor against the Norseman in the so-called Irish prince’s party who had so abused her.

  But when Rhiannon was at last put to bed in a long linen gown between clean sheets and covered by a warm woolen blanket, she did not dream of Rowan as she had assumed she would. Nay, she did not see the man she loved in her dreams, the young Saxon with laughing green eyes and tawny hair.

  She saw instead a towering Viking with golden hair, and golden beard, broad shoulders as hard as steel, and eyes as hard and wintry cold as a glacier that cut into her heart.

  She heard his laughter, remembered the strength of his touch, and felt the sudden, startling burning deep within her when his hands had roamed so freely and intimately upon her flesh—against her breast, upon her thigh. So tauntingly gentle in contrast to the fury of his eyes, the violence of the fight.

  She heard his whispered words, haunting her dreams, over and over. Pray, lady … that we do not meet again.

  The memories would not leave her, and she lay awake for long hours, trembling. She had felt that strange shiver of apprehension when she had first seen him. And then she felt his eyes upon her, felt his touch. She had thought that he might fall in battle.

  He had not fallen. He lived, she was certain.

  And they would meet again.

  No …

  Yet she felt sure of it. He had come with the storm and the savage waves in the sea. He was destined to rock her life with tempests.

  3

  His sleep had been uneasy. Scattered dreams danced through his mind, and snatches of the past came before him. He saw the curious mosques of the Arab traders, and the grand palaces of the black-skinned Moors. He saw a sea on the day when Odin had thundered and sworn and cast men to death with heady abandon. He remembered traveling down the Seine to Paris, and even farther back in time he could remember the schoolroom in his father’s fine stone castle in Dubhlain. Leith was ever the scholar and ever the peacemaker, and Leith was their father’s heir. Leith had known their Irish history like a born seneschal, and Eric, often in jealousy, would leap atop a study table, wave an imaginary sword, and swear that he would conquer the world.

  Then his mother’s voice would come to reprimand him—soft, strong, and melodic. And his dreams of conquest would subside as she gathered her brood around her: Leith, Eric, Bryan, Bryce, Conan, and Conar; and the girls, Elizabeth, Megan, and Daria. She would speak to him of the Tuath De Danaan, the ancient tribes, the honor of Irish hospitality, and the pride of their race. They might well travel far and wide, she assured them, but they could never forget that they were Irish. Their race was in their blood, a part of them, and it would be ever with them. The sound of the pipes would always tug upon their hearts, just as they would sense the banshee, the death ghost, in the wind. And in the forest, if they listened, they would know that the wee people played their games and tricks and that in the
end it was the land that was sacred. Erin would spin her tales and legends, and the whole quarrelsome lot of them would be silent at her feet. Then Olaf would appear in the doorway and would seek to best her with sagas of Odin, Thor, Loki, and the rest. There had always been warmth in the castle at Dubhlain. Warmth and love.

  Those scenes stayed with him as he tossed in his sleep. The great hearth, the hounds, and the land. Days when they rode to Tara to sit with the kings of all the land, days when his grandfather, Aed Finnlaith, ruled with justice and wisdom over the Irish. And days, too, when he had been sent into the woods. Sent to study with the colossally old Druid, Mergwin. Days when the wind had whipped and the thunder had roared and the old fool had stood out in the rain, lifting his arms to the heavens. “Feel it, boy! Feel the wind! Feel the hawk as it flies, and feel the earth as she lies beneath you. And remember, remember always, that answers lie not with other men but always within your own soul—you and the earth are as one.”

  Mergwin had forced him to read. To study his scripts in Latin, Frankish, Norse, Irish, and English. Mergwin had dragged him through the rotting bogs and taught him which herbs drew poisons from the body, what mold could create a poultice to stop a man’s lifeblood from flowing away. The Druid had driven him hard, far harder than his brothers and sisters, and once he had protested, drawing himself up and telling Mergwin, “Cease, old man! I am a prince! I am the Spawn of the Wolf, grandson of the great Ard-Ri!”

  Mergwin had surveyed him from head to toe and then had tossed the boy an ax. “Aye, Eric, you are all that you say. Therefore let the strength of your body match that of your conceit. Chop these trees, and don’t cease till the pile is high, for it promises to be a cold winter.”

  He never knew quite why he obeyed the old buzzard, except that his mother loved Mergwin, and even his father sought out his advice.

  The Druid was never wrong.

  He had known when Emenia would die.

  Upon his new-won bed in the seized manor house, Eric groaned and twisted around again. The Druid had tried to stop him when he was to sail away with his uncle. The days of his youth were past then, but Mergwin had come to the shore. His beard and his hair and his robes had flapped around him, and he had appeared much like a giant crow. But he had stood tall against the wind and had waited until he could speak with Eric alone.