The Viking's Woman (17 page)

There were times when he had pitied her. He could not forget the chilling, tear-glazed dignity of her eyes when she had appealed to him in the king’s house that day. Yet she had brought it upon herself.
Still, he remembered how it had felt to love, and in that she had his sympathy. He might well have risked everything for Emenia. He could not, however, think of her without a rise of heated ire, for he could not tolerate what she had done. The situation had been too precarious. And she had been promised to
him
.

He wondered, however, if her very fire and beauty were not the reasons he had chosen to see through his alliance with the king. Perhaps he could not love again, but he did want the lady Rhiannon. Now he rode to Alfred’s side.

“I am still pleased with our alliance,” he assured the king in greeting. “And I am pleased that the morning passed without the spilling of blood.”

“Aye,” the king murmured, looking straight ahead and barely seeing him.

As Eric followed the king’s gaze across the field, he saw that Rollo was riding toward him, and he sensed that his captain’s grave countenance had to do with the girl.

“What is it?” he demanded when Rollo reached his side upon a lathered mount.

The horse snorted. “Trouble among the men,” Rollo said.

Eric arched a brow expectantly.

“They demand blood, they demand justice.”

“Against …?” he inquired coolly.

“Against the Welshman, Rowan.”

“Why?” None had seen what he had, so none knew the seriousness of what had occurred.

“Rumors fly. You know the men. They will demand that you fight for your honor.”

Eric sighed impatiently. “They want me to kill the lad?”

“Aye,” Rollo said unhappily. He knew that they needed no discord among their own troops. “The boy will have to come before you. He will have to challenge you. And unless you choose to give the girl to him, you will have to kill him.”

Even as Rollo finished speaking, a sudden silence came to the practice field. All the men watched and waited.

Another horseman approached Eric. It was Rowan. Men broke aside to let him pass.

The man was still ashen, Eric saw, but he sat his horse with his dignity intact. He stopped before Eric, but before he could speak, Alfred of Wessex had come between them.

“Rowan, how dare you come here thus? I have granted you the mercy of your life and you disavow me yet again!”

Rowan lowered his head. “Before God, I beg your forgiveness, Sire.” He raised his eyes, facing Eric. “But I love her, you see. Eric of Dubhlain, I offer you no disrespect, for you are invited of my liege lord. But still, I challenge you, sir, to a test of arms, as is my right under ancient law.”

“You would meet with me—and Vengeance?” Eric inquired softly, raising his sword.

The man’s face grew even paler, but he nodded gravely.

Eric paused a moment. “The maid is not worth it, lad. No maid is worth it.”

“Aye, this one is,” he said softly.

Eric thought him a besotted fool, but he was a man and deserved his test of arms.

“At dawn, then,” he said. “Upon this very field.”

Rowan raised a hand in salute. “Here, then, Prince Eric, upon this field.”

“And may God have mercy on your soul!” the king muttered gravely.

Rowan nodded in misery again. Eric decided that he liked the younger man; he had the courage to meet with sure death. Rowan turned his mount and raced back toward the annex buildings of the manor. A cry began among Eric’s men, a battle cry. It rose with the wind and was like an echo of death.

Eric lifted his hand high in angry denial. He dropped it, and the cry ceased. The white stallion pranced, sensing his anger. He whirled the mount around, facing his men. “Do you then seek the death of our allies so easily? Nay—we fight the Danes, and if we must rejoice in death, let it be theirs!”

His temper rising, he, too, turned to ride from the throngs of warriors. He raced toward the wall, not bothering to seek out the gate. The white stallion soared over the barrier, and he rode out onto the meadows and fields and forest beyond the manor fortress. He rode and he rode, and he felt it again, a love of the land that utterly overpowered him.

He paused at last upon a high cliff that overlooked the valley where the king made his home. Despite the amassing of men and weapons, he could narrow his eyes and imagine a peaceful scene. He could see the sheep grazing, and the fat ducks as they waddled along. A mare raced with a foal, and the air carried the very taste of birth, of spring.

She loved the land, too, he thought suddenly. She had fought so fiercely for it. But he would prevail, he determined. He
would
prevail.

That night Eric was startled to see that Rhiannon had chosen to appear at supper.

Rowan was absent. Eric wondered if Rhiannon had heard about the challenge, and then he decided that no one had told her, for when her eyes, glittering silver, fell upon his, they were filled with such loathing that he knew she felt no fear whatsoever, that she knew nothing of the one-on-one combat that honor had demanded be fought over her.

She did not sit near him, nor did she appear before the king. Indeed she ignored both men.

She appeared, beautiful and in a curious splendor, for she walked with a pride and scorn that denied any wrongdoing on her part. Eric had assumed that she would avoid him and the king. She had chosen not to do so. She was the most stunning woman in the hall—likely in all of England, Eric thought. She was dressed in soft powder blue, a color that matched her eyes, except for the flinty look of hatred and anger that came to them when they fell upon him. Her hair was swept into a coil, and the clean lines of her throat and face were artfully highlighted. She walked in beauty, a sylph, slim and agile. When it was time to sit down to the banquet, she did not come near him or the king, or even Alswitha, but chose a place at the end of the table.

For his part, he bowed to her coolly and watched her with a certain amusement and curiosity. Tomorrow she was to be bound over to the women of a
religious sect to assure her continued virginity until her wedding. Many women in her position would have shunned this assembly tonight, but not this one. She was here, aloof, condemned by many, and yet majestic before all.

He forgot her presence as he discussed with the king the grave matter of the plan of attack. Rollo spoke forcefully, as did a number of the king’s men. Endless platters of food were served—quail, stuffed and still feathered; herring; boar; roast deer upon a spit. Ale and mead flowed freely. When the food seemed no longer appealing, Alswitha stood and nodded to the servants, and the platters were taken away.

“To the honor of our guests,” she cried, “Padraic, seneschal to the great Lord of Thunder, Eric of Dubhlain.”

Eric was somewhat surprised when his Irish storyteller rose and went to the rear of the hall, where he could be seen by all. The fire behind him added atmosphere to his tale. With great and dramatic clarity he described the family of Eric’s grandfather. He spoke of the Irish kings and of the battles that had raged between them. He spoke in beautiful, beguiling poetry, and he honored the family Finnlaith, coming at last to Aed, who had united the kings of Ireland; who had given his daughter, Erin, to the Norseman Olaf the Wolf, so that Ireland could find peace and be strong. Then he told of Eric himself, of his travels abroad, of his defense of his father’s realm, of the mighty battles he had waged and won.

When he fell silent at last, men raised their voice in loud, raucous approval. Alswitha flushed with pleasure,
for Alfred was pleased and Eric surprised, and the company was highly entertained by the talented storyteller.

Then the noise died down and there was a stillness. Eric looked up curiously, to see that Rhiannon had come to where Padraic had stood before the fire. She had freed her hair, and the firelight played upon it and her gown, and she seemed a vision of flowing silk and sensual beauty.

“We have heard the tales of our great Norse host, and we have been greatly entertained. We thank our illustrious ally and pray that we may, in return, entertain him with our Saxon tale of pain and battle and … triumph.”

The haunting sound of a lute filled the air then. Rhiannon began to sway, and it seemed that the music entered her limbs and moved them with exquisite grace. She spun and swirled. She cast back her head and lifted her arms, and all men were silent, watching her. There was not a sound in the whole of the hall except that of the lute, the soft crackle of the fire, and the fall of her delicate feet upon the floor. She wove a spell; she held them all enthralled. It seemed that the fire dimmed and the room darkened, and that all else paled except for the seductive and beautiful maid.

And then she began to speak as she swayed. She sang more than spoke, and her melody was a haunting one. She, too, told a story. A story of England.

Her eyes fell upon Eric with a bold, taunting challenge.

“The story I tell is of Lindesfarne. Lindesfarne,” she repeated softly. Her eyes were full upon Eric, mutely challenging him. He knew why she had come
tonight. She had come for revenge. She had come to do battle again—with him.

“I tell a tale of a beautiful place, stripped of God’s grace, of beauty, of peace. Lindesfarne … And I tell a tale of the savages who raided there, fierce barbarians.”

She smiled and began to move again—sweepingly, gracefully, seductively.

And not a man in the hall seemed capable of speech or movement as she began her damning tale.

Eric wasn’t certain he was capable of movement himself.

He would listen to her tale.

And if she wanted battle, then battle he would enjoin.

Lindesfarne …

If he wasn’t mistaken, there was danger in the tale. Alfred was watching Rhiannon warily, his fingers taut upon his chair.

Yet he did not move. None of them moved.

Indeed the tale was dangerous. She was dangerous. She had the power to enchant.

Surely some magic did lie over the hall, some deep enchantment. She cast some powder into the central fire, and it seemed to glow with special colors. The music continued to play, ethereal and hypnotic. She was bathed in the curious glow of that firelight, and her hair was a silken flame around her, her form lithe and fluid and haunting as she swayed and moved like Salome dancing to gain the Baptist’s head.

“Lindesfarne!” She cried the name, and then she began to describe the monks who lived in that ancient and revered monastery. She spoke of their days, and her dance flowed to image forth the peace of the place. Then her voice rose, and the sound of the music became discordant, and there was a thundering sound against the floor, like the sound of a storm.

“Lightning came to warn them. Rain and wicked winds. The people were afraid and they wondered how they had offended God, for this church and this monastery, defenseless on an island off the coast of Northumbria, was the most sacred place of pilgrimage in all of England. St. Cuthbert had lived and worked there as an abbot a century before ….

“It was the year of Our Lord 793, and the thundering came again.”

Rhiannon spun again and again, an exotic beauty in the fiery swirl of her hair; in the silver gems of her eyes; in the sensual, weightless sway of her elegant young form. Then she paused and fell to the floor, and the thunder crescendoed and then ceased ….

And then her voice came again. She told them how the horde had fallen upon Lindesfarne. How murder had fallen with the blade of the ax, how the fields had been trampled with blood, how the pages of learning had been cast into the eternal hellfire of the heathen who had come. She paused for effect. “Vikings, milords. Not Danes.
Norwegians.”

Her arms stretched out, white and lovely. Slowly she unwound herself and rose, and still there was no sound within the hall. Eric himself did not move, though he knew that she fought with this last trick to discredit him before his English host. Her eyes reached across the mist of the darkness to his, and he knew that she would never forgive him for entering her life and radically transforming her destiny.