Brandewyne, Rebecca (30 page)

"Nor
will you," Ivar declared shortly, with a supercilious smirk as he strode
to stand before Morgen. Reaching out, his fingers digging viciously into her
cheeks, he compelled her face up to his, his eyes dancing with spiteful
amusement at how her own shot sparks at him, how she attempted— futilely— to
wrench free of him. "When I arrived in Usk, 'twas to discover that you had
been there before me, Wulfgar, and had taken half of what Ragnar had ordered me
to obtain. In a way, you actually made it easy for me. Usk was neither
expecting nor prepared for a second attack to follow so swiftly on the heels of
the first— and I had three times as many longships and men under my command.
The palisade fell on the third day. Pendragon is dead. I slew him."

Stunned,
heartbroken, Rhowenna could not repress the low wail of agony and denial that
issued from her
lips. But even in her sudden state of shock and sorrow, she instinctively
recognized not only her own danger, but also that battle threatened as Ivar
glanced at her sharply, shrewdly, and Wulfgar stealthily laid his hand upon the
scramasax sheathed at his belted waist. Like an animal, Morgen, too, sensed the
abrupt deadliness of the moment, and she began again to struggle furiously
against Ivar, reclaiming his attention and crying out to Rhowenna in the tongue
of Walas, "What is it? What is it, my lady? What has happened?" so it
seemed only natural that Rhowenna, her supposed waiting woman, should answer.
Inhaling raggedly, fighting to hold her tears at bay, she spoke with anguish to
Morgen in their own language, translating what Ivar had said, knowing that
Morgen's knowledge of the Northland tongue was not yet so great as hers and
praying that Ivar would grasp this fact and would attribute to it her own grief
and Morgen's initial lack of response at the news of Pendragon's death.

Hearing
what had come to pass, Morgen started to scream with wrath and pain and to
strike out at Ivar blindly, clawing at his face, leaving bloody gouges upon his
cheek before he backhanded her savagely with his fist, violently knocking her
to the floor, where she lay, sprawled and dazed and
weeping.
Flóki's indrawn breath was a hiss of ire as his hand swept to the hilt of his
own scramasax; and Rhowenna did not know if Wulfgar's sharply uttered "Nay!"
was a command to stop Flóki from drawing the weapon or herself from running to
Morgen's side. She, at least, paid it no heed; and as she bent over Morgen, the
two of them clung to each other, Morgen sobbing wildly.

"I'll
kill him! I'll kill that bloody bastard! Oh, my lady, my lady! We'll never get
home now! We'll never see Usk again!"

"Shhhhh,
don't say that! Don't say that! We will! Somehow, we
will
get home, I
swear it! Mayhap this heathen Northman has but lied for some cruel purpose of
his own. Perhaps my father... my father is not truly dead...." But in her
heart, Rhowenna did not believe this; for in her horrifying dream last night,
had he not been a corpse— and her mother, also? Her mother... A harsh sob of
terror and torment caught in Rhowenna's throat at the thought, choking her.
What had happened to her mother?

"Oh,
my lady, I am sorry, so very sorry." Morgen's voice, while still raw with
fury and loathing, tremulous with affliction, was nevertheless quieter now.
"I am selfish, thinking only of myself— and not of you and the grievous
blow you have suffered at
this Northman's ruthless hands."

"I
must know... I must know what became of my mother," Rhowenna murmured
dully to herself, hardly aware of Morgen's words. "My lord... my
lord"— for fear of what he would see in her eyes, she did not dare to look
at Ivar as she addressed him in the Northland language— "the princess...
the princess would know her mother's fate."

"Tell
her that Igraine, queen of Usk, is dead, too. Tell her that as proof of all I
have said, I offer this." From the pocket of his leather tunic, Ivar
withdrew a gold necklace set with amethysts, which Rhowenna recognized at once
as Prince Cerdic's gift to her, plundered by Ivar from her jewelry chest in her
sleeping chamber in her father's royal manor.

It
was all true, then, as she had feared. Still, it was all she could do to keep
from keening like a banshee again; she bit her lower lip so hard to remain
silent that she drew blood, tasted it, coppery and bittersweet, in her mouth,
upon her tongue. Now she knew why her dowry had never been delivered to Prince
Cerdic, why he had refused to pay her ransom, why he did not care what happened
to her. She was no longer of any use to him. Her father's palisade had fallen
before
the onslaught of Ivar the Boneless and his
Víkingrs;
her parents had
been killed; their royal manor ravaged, perhaps even burned to the ground;
Usk's people slaughtered, perhaps to the last man. For Rhowenna did not delude
herself that Ivar's attack had been no more than a raid that, however brutal,
had at least been brief. Nay, he had engaged in a long, hard battle. Perhaps
even Gwydion now lay dead.

"The—
the Queen?" Morgen asked hesitantly, her dark-blue eyes stricken as she
saw the pain upon Rhowenna's face. "She— she is dead? The Northmen
murdered her, also, my lady?"

"Aye..."
Rhowenna whispered brokenly, drawing another long, uneven breath as she fought
to keep from giving way to the sorrow and hysteria that threatened to overcome
her.

A
blinding rage and hatred such as she had never before felt welled within her
breast. She could commit murder at this moment, she thought numbly; she could
drive a dagger deep into Ivar's black heart, and never feel remorse for the
deed, but take joy in his death.

"Damn
you to Hel, you filthy whoreson!" Morgen spat in the tongue of Walas; and
although Ivar did not comprehend the words, he got the gist.

He
laughed, an ugly sound, as he gingerly touched his wounded cheek, then
deliberately wiped his fingers across Morgen's upturned face, marking her with
his blood, in the way a hunter did himself with the blood of his kill. Then,
without warning, seizing hold of her hair hurtfully, he kissed her, grinding
his mouth down on hers hard and long before, at last, he released her, his eyes
raking her lewdly, lingering on her heaving breasts— although only his own men
laughed, and the sound had a nervous ring; for in that moment, something vital
and terrible leaped between Ivar and Morgen, and the air was fraught with a
tension so strong as to be almost tangible.

"If
you know that you can expect no ransom for the princess of Usk, why have you
come here, Ivar?" Wulfgar slowly stood, longing fervently to comfort
Rhowenna, his heart aching for her— and he not liking at all what had passed
between Ivar and Morgen. From that, he knew that the danger to them all was not
yet over, that Ivar and his warriors could turn upon them at any moment, a
violent battle erupt in the great mead hall. "From your boasts, 'twould
seem that you have the princess's dowry in your possession. So, what more do
you want?"

"The
princess herself, of course, as you
must surely have guessed by now— or are
you blind, as well as bolder than is wont for a bastard
bóndi?"
Ivar
turned from the two women back to Wulfgar. "It may be that Cerdic of
Mercia can be persuaded of the error of his ways, or that whoever manages to
rise to power from the ruin of Usk will want her to secure his claim to that
kingdom's throne. Regardless, one of her rank is always valuable for coin or barter,
and so Ragnar means to have her. He has ordered you to surrender her and me to
bring her to him. He is your king; he will not look lightly upon your failure
or my own to comply with his demand. So, do you give her up or nay,
Wulfgar?"

"Even
a king may not just take what is not his, but fairly won by his
jarl,
unless he wishes
to start a feud— or a war."

"
'Fairly won' is debatable, since you would not have known about the princess of
Usk and her dowry had not a foolish yellow bird of Ragnar's dared to chirp in a
cage not her own. Still, Ragnar's raid upon Paris this summer was quite
profitable. He is even now hiring an army of mercenaries. I feel certain that
he, as I, would welcome a battle to test their mettle before they march upon
the kingdoms of Britain."

"Indeed?
What a pity, then, that
you,
at
least, would not be there to see it,
Ivar." Wulfgar glanced pointedly around the great mead hall, where his own
warriors outnumbered those of Ivar by two to one.

"I
thought that perhaps that might prove your answer," Ivar rejoined coolly,
seemingly unruffled by the veiled threat to his life, although his eyes shone
like blue flame and his body was suddenly as taut as a bowstring. "And
since I am not so hotheaded as you, Wulfgar, I came prepared to offer you a
bargain instead of the point of a blade. Bring the yellow slave from the
Eastlands inside!" he called to his
thegns,
causing
Wulfgar's nerves abruptly to tighten like thong. "Bring the spaewife, that
spawn of Nidhögg, bloodsucking dragon of Náströnd!"

Yelkei!
Wulfgar had not seen her earlier, in the bailey; his fear for Rhowenna had been
paramount in his mind, and Yelkei was a small woman and had ridden double,
mounted behind one of Ivar's men, besides. But she
was
here, he saw now
as she was momentarily silhouetted in the frame of the open door, the sunlight
bright behind her. Then her stooped figure began slowly to shuffle toward him
in such a way that he realized of a sudden, enraged, that she had been badly
beaten, whipped viciously but skillfully as punishment, surely, for telling him
the
skáld
Sigurd

Silkbeard's
tale; and he thought that with his bare hands, he would throttle Ivar in that
moment.

"Do
you draw steel on me now, 'twill be without provocation, Wulfgar, after I have
proposed to you a fair trade; and no man will trust you after that, and the
Thing
will have just
cause to brand you a traitor to your king and an outlaw," Ivar warned
softly, his smile mocking, disdainful. "And that, I should find a pity,
indeed; for you should not be a foe worth having if your honor were lost, and
then I must kill you as I would a mongrel dog instead of in battle, as I long
to do and will when the time comes. Now, you've that yellow witch to tell you
when that will be— for all the good it may do you— and I'll take the princess
of Usk and go in peace until we meet again, when perhaps I'll slay you."
Reaching down, he hauled Morgen roughly to her feet, laughing shortly as she
struggled in vain against him. "A feisty wench I shall enjoy taming. Had
the men of Usk had half the mettle of their princess, I should not have
slaughtered them like sheep. Come!" he shouted to his warriors. "Let
us ride!"— and he was gone in a flurry of dust churned up by the horses'
hooves as, after striding from the great mead hall, he and his
thegns
thundered from
the palisade.

"Elsket,
I
am sorry." Wulfgar's voice was gentle as, slowly loosing the hand he had
clamped down hard upon Flóki's wrist to prevent him from yanking his broadsword
from its sheath and running with it after Ivar, he pulled Rhowenna to her feet
and into his arms, holding her trembling body tightly but tenderly against him.
"I am sorry for your loss, sorry for all the pain that has been caused
you. By the gods, I would undo it if I could, I swear!"

"You
have risen high, Wulfgar, since last I saw you— but not so high that you are
become a god yourself, to change what is written in the stars," Yelkei
croaked in her raven's voice, her black eyes shrewd as she stared hard at
Rhowenna, then glittering with malicious amusement as she glanced out through
the open door, where Ivar had vanished. "Although you have learned
something of the gods' devious ways, I am thinking, to trick Loki's wolf, with
fine-woven silk ribands— as Týr did with the chain called Gleipnir. But now,
you had best beware, lest your own hand, too, be bitten off at the wrist! Haaa!
How I should love to see Ivar's face when he learns what a fool you have played
him for!"

"Be
silent, old woman!" Wulfgar hissed, angered, despite his gladness at
seeing her
and his love for her; for his love for Rhowenna was greater still. "Naught
here save myself and my lady know of what you speak; nor will I risk having it
babbled about in Ragnar's
hof,
because you could not hold your venomous
serpent's tongue! 'Twas
you
and your prattle of power and prophesy that
brought about all that has come to pass! Truly, you are lucky Ivar did not cut
your tongue from your head, but only lashed you for carrying to my ears the
tale told by the
skáld
Sigurd Silkbeard that summer's night in Ragnar's
great mead hall!"

"
'Twas not due to luck, but because of Ivar's fear of my witchery that I may
still speak the truth to you, Wulfgar, thankless though you may find it. My
tongue, I would not part with— and for all his bravado, Ivar did fear its curse
upon him. But the beating I gladly endured for your sake, who are the child of
my heart; 'twas a small price to pay, indeed, for all you have gained— and will
yet achieve, Wulfgar. But, come. We may talk of all this later. Right now, your
lady is ill with grief, and Flóki the Raven burns with a fire that may rage out
of control if not dampened. Do you take your lady to your sleeping chamber,
while I prepare a potion for her that will ease the burden of her anguish for a
little while, so she may rest. Then
speak you to Flóki. The woman he would
have will come to no harm yet for a time at Ivar's hands; Ragnar's great
longship lies at anchor in the harbor, and he will not prove so hot as Ivar to
breach the maidenhead of one whose virginity he thinks may still hold
value."