Brandewyne, Rebecca (13 page)

Reins
trailing, a riderless horse galloped by, white-eyed and snorting, nearly
knocking the two women down, and as, with all her strength, Rhowenna pulled
Morgen from its furious path, they tripped over a body, sprawling headlong upon
the earth. The stench of fresh-spilled blood filled Rhowenna's nostrils, and
she could feel it, warm and slick and sticky, upon her flesh. Crying and
gasping for breath, she lay there beside the corpse, shaking and thinking dully
that surely in moments, she would be dead herself. All around her, men were at
one another's throats, fighting to the death. To her utter horror, a
ceorl
was decapitated
right before her eyes, his head flying away, a fountain of blood spewing from
his neck. Another man had his belly ripped open, his insides spilling out as he
slowly crumpled forward and collapsed. Gorge rose uncontrollably in Rhowenna's
throat at these unspeakable sights, and she retched violently onto the ground
before struggling mindlessly to crawl on toward the royal manor.

Dimly,
she realized she had lost Morgen in the fray, her last link with all she had
ever known that was safe, secure, and sane in this world so suddenly and
horribly gone mad. This could not be happening, she
thought
hysterically, tears streaming down her cheeks. This could not be real. But the
arms that, without warning, caught hold of her, swinging her up and crushing
her against a broad, muscular chest, were strong and warm and all too tangible.
Shocked and dazed, her head rolling back against her captor's shoulder,
Rhowenna stared up into eyes as blue as the summer sky, a face framed by a halo
of hair gilded by the sun. It was he, the Northman she had seen in her dream.

"I
knew that you would come for me—" she whispered, her voice catching on a
ragged sob. "The old gods warned me that you would."

Then,
as in her dream, a merciful blackness swirled up to engulf her, and she knew
nothing more.

The Shore of
Corpses

The
Southern Coast of Usk, Walas, A.D. 865

Wulfgar
had never before been in battle, so when the battle fever and bloodlust came
upon him, he did not at first know them for what they were. He knew only that
he burned with a raging madness that was consuming his entire body. Time and
time again, his battle-ax, Blood-Drinker, soared and plunged and sang a
Víkingr's
song to Odinn,
the god of war; and to Wulfgar's pride and satisfaction, many a Christian man
of Usk fell beneath its whetted blade. Its engraved scenes of battle, the like
of which Wulfgar had only imagined before, he now experienced firsthand. Only
once, when he had first stood upon the
deck of Olaf the Sea Bull's
Dragon's
Fire,
with the endless blue sea shimmering and swelling all about him, had
Wulfgar felt as exhilarated as he had when he had raced pell-mell behind the
howling Berserks up from the shore of the Severn Sea, to the village of the Usk
men and into the heart of the slaughter.

Presently,
he was to learn there was a third cause for such a fire to blaze within a man.
He felt its licking tongues of flame flicker deep inside him when, toward the
end of the brief but devastating battle, he first beheld Rhowenna, princess of
Usk, she whom the Northmen would in time come to call fey Rhowenna the Fair,
because of the dreams sent to her by the old gods and because of her beauty. By
Rhowenna's long, silky hair— as black as the ravens that nested in the woods
along the strands of the Northland— and by the fine gold, engraved, nielloed
circlet about her head did Wulfgar know her. Although he had not thought to
find her outside the palisade that perched like a falcon's aerie upon the top
of the hill, green and rocky, which towered over the burning village, he knew
she could be none other. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her;
and his heart leaped with excitement in his chest and, if he were honest in the
telling, with coveting, too— for bedraggled as she was,
her beauty
shone forth.

She
was half crawling, half dragging herself through the melee, trying desperately
to reach the palisade; although she was weeping and obviously terrified, there
was, too, upon her countenance a grim expression of bravery and determination
that touched something deep inside him. Without thinking, Wulfgar hacked his
way toward her through the fighting and caught her up, crushing her weakly
struggling body close against him, as though to protect her from the mayhem and
killing taking place all about them. She was not so tall and robust as a maiden
of the Northland, but as light as a veil of mist in his arms, her garments torn
and so covered with blood that for a moment, he feared she had suffered some
wound during the battle, although he could discern no injury but a pale bruise
upon her ashen cheek. When his eyes met hers, he saw that her own were a
startling shade, as violet as the amethysts the Greeks had craved as protection
against drunkenness— although Wulfgar himself had never known such a stone to
keep a man sober. Her lashes were as black as soot and so heavy that they
seemed to pull her sloe eyes down at the corners and cast crescent shadows upon
her cheeks in the sunlight. When she spoke, her voice was like the gentle
caress of the wind;
and although Wulfgar could not understand her unfamiliar Christian tongue, he
felt, eerily, that the gods had deliberately delivered her into his arms. It
had happened just as Yelkei had known it would when she had told him of casting
the rune stones nine times, with nine times the answer the same: He, Wulfgar,
must go after the princess of Usk.

The
battle was dying down now, although the palisade upon the hill still stood
strong and unravaged because the Usk warriors had hailed arrows and poured hot
oil upon the Northmen who had attempted to breach the circular timber wall and
forced them to retreat. As this was only a raid, the
Víkingrs
had not come
prepared to conduct a lengthy battle or siege. They had thought to storm the
palisade, set it afire, and take its inhabitants by surprise; they had not
expected to find the Usk men on guard and ready for battle. Because of this,
the princess's dowry was no doubt forfeit. Still, she herself would surely be
worth her weight in gold, Wulfgar reflected as he gazed down at her in his
arms. After speaking to him, she had swooned, overcome by fright and smoke, he
surmised, and now lay with her head resting against his shoulder, her black
lashes like fragile butterfly wings against her cheeks. So she would look when
sleeping, wrapped in a man's
embrace, he thought. Never had he seen a woman so
fair, as lovely and graceful as the rare black swans he sometimes saw at the
lakes and meres of the Northland, her bones delicate and finely molded.
Suddenly, the idea of her belonging to Olaf the Sea Bull or, worse, Ragnar
Lodbrók and Ivar the Boneless, angered and appalled him; for he could not believe
that upon seeing her, any man could help but desire her. That she should be
brutally dishonored and defiled sickened and shamed him. He had not thought of
her as a woman before, with feelings, but only as the princess of Usk, a prize
to be won and exchanged for riches. He should have left her in peace instead of
listening to Yelkei's cryptic prophesying.

Almost,
as these thoughts filled his mind, was Wulfgar tempted to leave Rhowenna
behind. But the notion of laying her down amid the bodies that strewed the
bloody ground as though it were Náströnd, the Shore of Corpses, filled him with
revulsion and misgiving. Already, several of the other
Víkingrs
had the captive
Usk women spread-eagled upon the earth, their skirts rucked up about their
thighs, and were ruthlessly and raucously raping them before snatching them up
and carrying them toward the longships. Such might prove Rhowenna's fate,
Wulfgar
thought, if he relinquished his hold on her; for in their frenzy, the Berserks,
especially, might not notice the gold circlet about her head, which marked her
as the princess of Usk, the one woman not to be harmed. So reasoning, he at
last turned and made his way down the narrow, serpentine track that led to the
strand below, where he bore Rhowenna on board the
Dragon's Fire
and set
her down gently in the stern.

Her
lashes fluttered slowly open then. Her tearful eyes were wild and dark with
fear and hatred as she stared up at him, mute and trembling and offering no
resistance. But when he tentatively stretched out one hand toward her, she
abruptly jerked free the knife at her waist and attempted savagely to stab him.
Reflectively, Wulfgar seized the wrist of her upraised hand in a cruel grip
that made her cry out softly and that he knew to his regret would leave bruises
on her tender flesh tomorrow. He had not wanted to hurt her. But despite his
powerful hold on her, she continued to struggle like a wild thing against him,
the fingers of her free hand curled like talons to strike viciously at his face
before he managed to restrain her, compelling her to drop the knife and then
pinioning her arms behind her back. At that, her chin setting mutinously, her
violet eyes blazing with
reckless anger, Rhowenna hissed some heated words at him in her strange
Christian tongue that he could not understand, then spat contemptuously in his
face.

"Be
still!" he growled, infuriated, as he wiped the humiliating spittle from
his face, then gave her a rough shake. "Be still! I am not going to hurt
you!"

Rhowenna
was startled and disbelieving as, to her confusion, she half grasped the
meaning of his foreign words. Then, her voice low and trembling with emotion,
she spoke to him again, this time, to his surprise, in the Saxon language of
her betrothed, Prince Cerdic.

"Lying
dog! Let me go— or I swear the first chance I get, I'll cut your heathen
throat!"

"An
evil deed for a Christian maiden," Wulfgar rejoined slowly, the Saxon
language he had learned as a child at his mother's knee rusty from years of
disuse. "For do not your priests claim that murder is a mortal sin, for
which a Christian soul will be condemned to everlasting Hel?"

"Aye,
but I would sooner burn in Hel than submit to you!" Rhowenna shot back,
quivering at her own temerity before this Northman who now held her very life
in his hands.

"Would
you? Nay, I think not; for Hel is no fiery place such as you have been taught
by your
priests, lady, but a world of nine lands, cold and dark, and the worst of these
is Náströnd, the Shore of Corpses, where there stands a bleak black fortress
filled with hideous monsters to torture you and to devour your flesh from your
bones forever, since in Hel, you are already dead and so there is no release
for you— a cruel fate for one of your spirit... and beauty."

Deliberately,
Wulfgar brushed the tangled mass of long, heavy black hair back from her face,
then set his hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up to his, feeling his
heart swell strangely with triumph and pleasure and desire at the way in which
her eyes fell before his. A crimson blush stained her cheeks, and her breath
came quickly and shallowly, making her breasts rise and fall enticingly beneath
her bodice.

"Do
not touch me so, brute!" All too aware of his overwhelming strength and
nearness, the way he held her, his hand locking her arms behind her back,
pressing her against his broad chest and preventing her from struggling to
escape, Rhowenna tried to wrench free of him, to no avail. She was caught as
fast as though by an iron band. "Let me go!"

"Look
about you, lady, at the carnage and violation done to your people, and be glad
that 'tis I and
none other who holds you captive— and that I knew you for the princess of Usk,
besides— else you would even now be laid upon the ground, your skirts thrown up
over your head, your maidenhead forfeit to a moment's brutal lust, and you
yourself carried away afterward to the Northland to become a slave and a whore
of men far crueler than I. Do you doubt it?" When she did not respond save
for the widening of her eyes, the paling of her face, the erratic beating of
the pulse at the small hollow of her throat, Wulfgar continued more gently.
"I do not wish to harm you, lady. But 'tis my duty to bind your hands and
feet lest you make some foolish attempt at escape before we are under way; and
much as I dislike the idea, if you persist in fighting me, I shall be forced to
some unpleasantness you will regret, I promise you. So do not try my patience
further."

At
that, slowly loosing his steely grasp on her and drawing the scramasax from the
leather belt at his waist, he swiftly sliced off an ell of spare rigging that
lay coiled nearby on the deck. Then, being careful not to wrap the single strip
of walrus hide so tightly that he cut off her circulation, he deftly tied
Rhowenna's wrists behind her back and her feet together at the ankles, so her
lissome
body was bent like a supple bow and she could not even stand, much less make
any attempt, however futile, to run away. She could only sit where she was,
heartsore and sick and afraid, longing for death and knowing with a terrible
certainty that even that escape was to be denied her. She was a prisoner of the
barbaric
Víkingrs
who had descended so suddenly and swiftly upon Usk,
and they did not intend that her release should come easily— if at all. This
morn, she had been a princess— and a virgin. Now she was a slave— and perhaps
was soon to become a whore, as well; for had not that threat been implicit in
the Northman's words to her? With difficulty, Rhowenna fought down the hysteria
that threatened to overcome her at the thought, realizing that she would need
to keep her wits about her if she was to survive.