Loki's Daughters (50 page)

Loki's Daughters was my first Golden Heart finalist, back in 1998, and it went on to be published and garner many fine reviews. But a lot has changed since then. Today, I would write the story differently, and hopefully with more skill, for what kind of writer cannot improve with years of practice? So I've chosen to go on with other books and leave this one much like it was back then.

I did not realize until I finished the book just how much Arienh was like my dear friend Jan Shaffer, who was just as stubborn, just as determined never to give up. Jan survived four battles of cancer before finally succumbing to brain cancer not long before the book came out in print. I know she would have loved it. She read everything I wrote and never failed to love every word. Every author, published or not, needs to have a friend like her.

Loki's Daughters is a Historical Romance. As a romance, it I more true to the genre conventions than to actual history, but I have done my best to reconcile the two. I have studied the Viking English and the Celts extensively– they are my ancestors, after all, and they deserve to be portrayed well. They were fierce and raw, yes. But they were also people, people who loved and lived rich lives. They didn't know much about their own ancient past, for much of that history was lost to raids and the ravages of time. They based their lives more on faith in their religions, perhaps not really realizing how they mixed Christian beliefs with the pagan leftovers. I've tried to capture the flavor of people who live by faith sincerely, not knowing the tremendous store of knowledge we have today.

"Viking" has become an accepted name for the people who left the Scandinavian countries to raid. Whether they were so called in that day, we can't really tell, and some say the term was not coined until the 19
^th
Century. However, a similar term,
vikingr
, is known in the Icelandic literature of 1000 A.D, at a time when that language was very little different from the Norse language of the day.

Vikings did more than raid. Probably more were interested in moving on to new homes than in get-rich-quick raiding. They became a dominant fixture in the Brtish Isles, especially in Ireland, Scotland and Eastern England.

If you'd like to know more about the Viking cultures in England, or the Celts, contact me through my website or blog and ask questions. I don't know everything, of course, but I dearly love researching and am always looking for an excuse. But please don't try to tell me "a Viking would NEVER surrender his sword." That may be a convention in romance novels, but the truth is nobody knows, one way or the other. And from what I can see, Vikings had a very realistic approach on when to fight and when to exit rapidly, with or without the weapons.

See me on my website/blog IN SEARCH OF HEROES:
 
http://dellejacobs.blogspot.com

OTHER BOOKS by DELLE JACOBS

See Website for Availability:

http://dellejacobs.blogspot.com

LADY WICKED

SINS OF THE HEART

APHRODITE’S BREW

HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS

LADY VALIANT (to be re-published as THE PERFECT HEROINE)

THE MUDLARK

FIRE DANCE

SIREN

THE BOSS WORE RED (Contemporary Novella)

Coming soon:

FAERIE

BELOVED STRANGER

GILDING LILLY

EXCERPT from FIRE DANCE

Cumbria, England, 1092 A.D.

The odor of death filled the chamber where Fyren lay, its fragrance like the sweetly rotten smell of carrion. Beads of sweat formed on his brow and in the crust of his unshaven beard. His bulky limbs convulsed as he fought to rise, then fell limp. Yet his eyes blazed with a fury so malevolent, Melisande thought she smelled Satan's brimstone.

She stood alone in the chamber, for all his allies had fled. Her hands lapped loosely together and her face was as bland as she could make it. Even now, she dared not show her fear.

Caught in the stiff April wind, the wooden shutter clattered open against the stone wall, startling Melisande from her concentration and whipping pale strands of her hair into her eyes. She crossed to the open window to study the clamor in the bailey below where her unarmed knights stoically awaited their uncertain fate.

The Normans had reached the gate.

She had not counted on them coming so soon. They were only moments from entering the upper bailey, and moments more from the hall. And still, Fyren lingered.

Quashing her fear and setting her face once more to a mask of stone, Melisande returned to the bedside.

"The Norman comes, girl?" The words hissed from Fyren's lips.

"Aye."

"He will kill you."

All her life he had feasted on her fear while she had fought to withhold it from him. She kept her face rigidly controlled. "Aye."

"This is how you repay me. I gave you everything. Taught you things no one else knows."

She said nothing, made no move.

"I am your father. I loved you. Have you no compassion?"

"Compassion? Nay."

"You hate me so much, girl?" His words began to slur. His eyes, once as bright blue as her own, faded as she watched, yet his rage at her audacity had not dimmed.

"You should confess your sins," she replied.

"I do not fear God." Fyren fought to eke out the words. "You will not escape me, Melisande."

"You are but a man, after all."

"You think I die. But I will come for you. You cannot escape."

Even now, he threatened her. Yet Fyren’s eyelids sagged and closed. Perhaps the end would come now.

But what if he did not die? He was Satan's own, and God would not favor her. That she now dispatched Fyren to Hell meant only that he would be there awaiting her own arrival. And all her suffering in this life would be as nothing compared to what he would do to her then. Fear rose in her like gorge. She gulped it back down.

A whispered voice came from the doorway. "Lady?"

She knew without turning that it belonged to Thomas, by its tone of urgency as much as by its gentle timbre.

"I am here, Thomas."

"Is he gone, then?"

"Soon."

"You must hurry, lady," he said, rushing to the window to peer at the commotion below. "The Normans are already within the gate."

"Aye, Thomas. Soon." She bit her cheek to control her impatience, knowing his anxiety to be as intense as hers, but first she must see this finished. It was her doing. All of it.

 
Once again, Fyren’s fading blue eyes popped open. "A last thing, girl. The purple. As a shroud."

Her lips drew bowstring-tight, like the foreboding that twanged within her. "Aye. 'Tis fitting."

Melisande crossed the chamber to a small, heavily carved chest that had once been a reliquary for the bones of some long-forgotten saint. Now it held only the purple cloak, a sacrilege in itself. She lifted the cloak carefully, not wanting to touch the detested thing, and smoothed it over Fyren's body. A shame, that such a beautiful garment could be such a malicious weapon.

Fyren's breath came in shallow pants. His body lay stiff and motionless. His eyes drooped closed, then his breathing ceased. The stillness of death filled the chamber.

"Is he gone?" Thomas called impatiently. "The Normans approach the hall. You cannot delay longer."

"Come and see."

Thomas approached the bed and lifted the limp wrist, testing the pulse. "Aye, he's gone. Come now, hurry."

Dashing to the chamber door, he peered down at the hall. The clangs of metal and rough male voices resonated against the stone walls.

"It is too late, lady. They are below. Perhaps they will not be so harsh. Who could blame you– "The Normans could. For all their violence, they are pious men. Never fear, Thomas. There is another way out, if you will delay them a little. You will do as I ask?"

"Aye, lady. And I will see to the earl."

Melisande turned toward the door, but then pivoted back to face Thomas. "Bury him deep," she said.

Thomas's pale grey eyes reflected his concern and gentle fondness of her. "As deeply as shovel can dig. God keep you safe, lady."

"And you, Thomas. Keep our people safe."

It was as much of a smile as Melisande ever made, that small quirking of her lips at their corners, but she gave him the best she could manage. She had learned early in her life to stifle all signs of emotion, so that she now knew no other way.

Her light slippers padded against the wooden floor as she ran to the door between the chambers and into her own room.

Rough shouts echoed in the bailey.

The demons screamed at her.
Flee! The Norman comes!

She set her jaw, refusing to let panic rule her.

You are evil! You are no better than Fyren!

Be still. I have no time for your mischief.

Witch!

I am no witch.

But the Normans would believe it. When the Norman lord learned of the demons that tormented her, taunting her with her own fears, and of all the things she knew that she should not, he would have her burned.

Even before she crossed her chamber, she jerked her silk kirtle over her head. Snatching up a simpler garment of homespun earthen grey wool, she flinched at its scratchiness. But she dared not keep her light linen chemise, for the Normans would know a common girl would not possess such a garment.

Wadding her discarded clothing into a ball, she flung it all into the open chest near the window, and almost closed the lid before noticing her mother's ring on her finger. She hesitated, caressing the carved warmth of the gold band.

Nay. All must be left behind. She jerked the ring from her finger, threw it into the chest, slammed the lid shut, and turned the key.

Footsteps pounded on the bailey's hard earth.

In the far corner of her chamber, Melisande pushed aside a painted wooden panel that mimicked the yellow plastered walls, then crawled through the hole and closed the panel. Down steps hewn into bedrock, she descended in darkness toward a cavern that was as familiar to her as her own bed chamber.

One, two, three–

both hands skimmed against the roughly chiseled stone as she counted the steps. The earl was dead,– -eight, nine– and the Norman had come. The Red King, William Rufus, would win at last the land he had coveted so long.– Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen– The Norman lord would take the castle in the king's name, then look about for the bride Rufus had promised him. And with any luck,– twenty-five, twenty-six– he would not find her.