The Viking's Woman (26 page)

She nudged her own mount to a faster gait. She was going home. If nothing else, there would be solace in that.

The foot soldiers followed behind while the men with mounts thundered down the field toward the fortifications at Rochester. The Danes had built their own siege fortifications, but even as the first English troops bore down upon the ramparts, it became obvious that the Danes had chosen retreat.

Eric skirted the wooden ramparts of the walled town and chased around its circumference, certain that the attackers had taken a slow leave from their posts and sought the forests before them. They dared not let those Danes escape, for the Danish force would still be full and vital and ready for another attack.

On the great white stallion, Eric charged his enemies. His battle cry could be heard on his lips, just as his deadly standard of the wolf flew nearby as his men followed his line of attack. At the edge of the forest they engaged in battle.

Eric’s first contestant was a fierce graybeard swinging a double-headed ax. From his position atop the
stallion, Eric swooped low to avoid the deadly swing of the weapon and brought his sword down smoothly upon the man’s neck. He fell in silence, already dreaming of Valhalla.

It would be a quick and merciful battle, Eric thought.

He bested others, for it seemed that the strength of the gods, Christian and Norse, were with him that day. Opponents streamed toward him, yet he was not so much as nicked. Rollo fought near him, and he, too, seemed to lead a charmed life. No matter how many men charged toward them, they neither faltered nor failed, and as time passed, they realized they stood alone in their field of fallen enemies. There was a certain commotion to their left, down one of the deep gullies by the forest. They exchanged glances, then swerved their mounts and hurried along the ridge to come riding down hard upon the scene of action.

Saxons were engaged with a score of Danes—berserkers, from the looks of many. The Danes were outnumbering the Saxons two to one. Eric grinned to Rollo. “Shall we?”

“Who wants to live forever?” Rollo queried him.

“Aye, who wants to live forever?” Eric echoed.

Riding hard together, they came into the fray. The ground was too rugged to maneuver the stallion, and Eric dismounted. He was quickly attacked by a young redhead who assured him that he had best kiss the sweet taste of life good-bye. “Child of a she-goat!” The Dane snarled.

Eric parried his sword thrust, leapt back, and caught the man in the throat with the point of his blade. He stepped over his fallen enemy. “Lad, I assure
you, you never saw any woman quite so magnificent as my mother.”

He looked across the gully. He was startled to see that several Danes, heavily weaponed and wearing chain mail and faceplates, were circling one lone Saxon defender.

The man was Rowan.

Certain death faced him, but the lad met it bravely and well, taunting his attackers. “Come, then, you sorry devils, come one, come all. Of course I shall die, but I shall take at least one of you with me. Who shall it be? Come, come on! You face me like a pack of women, you putrid and pathetic stench from hell. Come!”

Rowan was afraid, Eric sensed, but the man’s show of courage was more than admirable. He waved his sword in the air, and the weapon caught a ray of sunlight that streaked through the trees.

The Danes would be upon him in a minute.

Eric wasted no more time but leapt atop the stallion and raced quickly toward the scene, his sword slicing and hacking. Men screamed and fell away, stunned by the sudden attack. He leapt from the stallion and fought on savagely.

Rowan cried out and entered into the battle himself, stepping forward aggressively and engaging the men who had taunted him and come upon him as a deadly horde. Within minutes Eric realized that Rollo had joined him, too, and they were then three against the horde, their backs their walls of defense as they came close to fight any new threat.

But the battle was over. Men lay dead upon the
ground in grotesque and haphazard abandon. Those Danes who had survived had fled.

Alfred came riding into the gully. He looked about at his own fallen men, at the number of the enemy. The king was silent for long moments. “We did not stop many,” he said.

“They seemed many enough,” Rollo commented dryly.

“Aye, good Rowan here was engaged with plenty,” Eric said.

Rowan glanced his way, flushing. He looked at the king. “I’d be dead now, Sire, were it not for the Prince of Eire.”

Eric shrugged and walked among the fallen, then stared up at the king. The priest, Asser, had come up behind Alfred. “We need to find and bury all of our dead. If the Danes decide to come back for the bodies—”

“We will take care of our own,” the king quickly assured him. Their eyes met. They had both survived many a battle. They had seen what the Vikings, as victors, could do. Prisoners might well be disemboweled, burned alive, or find their organs used for cooking skins. The injured were best off dead, and the dead were best off in hell.

Eric mounted the white stallion again and followed the king from the gully and toward the walls of Rochester. The gates were opening, and the starving populace was rushing forward to meet their deliverers.

That night in Rochester they learned that the Danes had truly run in haste. They had left behind their prisoners and many of their horses.

Alfred was glad to claim both.

That night they feasted within the hall of a manor in Rochester. The fire lay in the center of the room, with a flue to the night above. Deer and sheep taken from the surrounding countryside were set on spits above the flame to roast for the hungry defenders of Rochester, for the king and his retinue. Eric sat by the king as the great haunches of meat were sliced from the roasting animals and served to the fighting men by lads and wenches.

The mood within the manor was triumphant and wild. English storytellers rose to speak of the exploits of their king, and one of Eric’s Irish bards created a splendid recitation on his prince’s prowess during the day. Eric listened with a certain amusement, but he was startled when young Rowan rose and lifted his cup to him. “To the prince who has twice saved my life! My undying loyalty, so I do swear it!”

Cheers went up. Eric rose, startled that he could feel so awkward among men. Rowan was advancing toward him. He knelt before him. “Your servant, my lord, always,” Rowan swore humbly.

Eric reached down and forced the man to rise, taking him by the shoulders. “No, Rowan,” he said smoothly. “Be not my servant. Be my friend.”

The cheers went up louder and louder. Rowan’s youthful, winning smile touched something deep inside of Eric. The young man was no coward, and no fool. There was strength about him, and humility and honor.

Rowan had loved Rhiannon, and Rhiannon had loved him. It had been easy to dismiss their youthful infatuation before. Well, perhaps not easy, for a certain rage and jealousy had admittedly plagued him.
But now he liked the lad, and he was sorry for the two of them. They had loved.

As he had loved Emenia.

As they stared at each other, a curious music was heard.

It came from a long flute, and once the music had begun, a hush settled over the room. The music was not the only entertainment beginning.

A dark-skinned girl with dark, almond-shaped eyes had moved before the fire. Her hair was ebony and fell well below her waist. She stood very still, and then her body began to sway subtly to the music before her limbs began to move.

She was incredibly graceful and beautiful. She was exotic beyond belief with her slanted eyes and warm, honey-toned skin, and when she moved, the sheer gauze drapery she wore floated about her and defined the full, sweet perfection of her figure. The music was slow, haunting; it swept into the flesh and the blood, and it was spellbinding.

Other than the music and the rustle of her movements, the room was silent. All eyes were upon the girl.

Eric watched her undulations, smiling for a moment. Then something about the dance reminded him of another such performance he had too recently witnessed. Rhiannon. When she had moved with sinuous grace, when she had told her tales with her soft, sultry siren’s voice …

The room had been silent then too. Her hair had cascaded about her in sunset and golden waves as she taunted the men the way this vixen did now. She had held them all captive with her sway.

Even now, watching this almond-eyed temptress, he was reminded of his wife. He clenched his teeth and swore silently. He did not want to be reminded of her in his every waking moment. Nor did he want to dream of her.

Rollo sat down beside him. The smoke from the fire was rising. The girl seemed more and more a creature of myth and mystery, magical, elusive.

“She is one of the Dane’s prisoners, left behind in their hurry to escape, so the steward here has told me. She was taken in a raid along the Mediterranean Sea, and it is whispered that she seeks a new master. It seems to me that her eyes are frequently falling upon you.”

Were they? Eric didn’t know. He had stared at the girl but had been lost in thought.

She swirled before him, to a faster, more exotic rhythm. The gauze about her was slowly disappearing as she cast various veils off and away from her body. Honeyed arms and shoulders and the mounds of her breasts were revealed. Slim pants hugged her hips, and a narrow band of the gauze barely concealed the tips of her breasts. She moved faster and faster, spinning before him in her bare feet. The music rose then suddenly ceased. She tossed her head back and forth and came to her knees before Eric.

Again the room was very still. There was not even the sound of music now. Eric could clearly hear the rise and fall of the girl’s breath. She raised her head slowly, and her almond eyes touched his.

He felt the gaze of everyone in the room. He smiled slowly, then applauded.

The king spoke. “The girl is a slave. She is giving herself to you.”

There was nothing in Alfred’s voice to betray his thoughts. Eric was certain, however, that the king had a definite opinion on the proper way to handle the situation.

He turned to Alfred.

“I fought for your banner here today, Alfred. All that is taken today falls into your coffers, to be divided by you among the men.”

The king, irritated, waved a hand, dismissing the woman. Unhappily she rose. Slowly, with several backward glances, she left the central hall of the manor.

The hounds began to nuzzle about the outskirts of the fire, seeking bones and leftovers. Men began to move again, rustling the rushes beneath their feet.

Eric stared at the king. “Neither of us watched this girl tonight, Alfred. Both of us were thinking of another such performance.”

“One that brought you a wife.”

“And you an alliance. The marriage was a contract between us.”

The king’s eyes narrowed. “So you intend to take the heathen harlot?”

Eric grinned and slowly shook his head. “Nay, Sire. I intend to give her to another.”

The king’s brows rose.

“Rowan,” Eric said. “The lad has lost much. I think perhaps he deserves recompense.”

Eric rose, suddenly very weary. He was losing his mind. He should not have given the girl away. He should have kept her to remind them all that he was
his own man, that he would not be ruled by a woman, be that woman his wife and kin to the king.

He stared down at Alfred. The king looked up at him and said, “I am well pleased with our alliance. I would offer you anything taken here today.”

“Even the girl?”

Alfred winced. “Even the girl.”

Eric hesitated. “I don’t want her,” he said. “Good night, Alfred, King of England. She has reminded me that I am eager to return to what will be my home. There is much damaged, and I would see it righted.”

He turned and walked from the hall. There were rooms surrounding the central hall in the manor with its warm central fire, and he had taken one for his own.

A rich down mattress lay atop a large rope bed, and there he stretched out. He closed his eyes; his sword, Vengeance, at his side, his hand upon it. He never slept out of reach of it.

The events of the day played before his weary mind, and then he began to drift toward sleep. He saw the almond-eyed girl dancing before him, half naked. Then the girl changed and she was his wife. Rhiannon.

Her hair flowed about her like the softest curtain of flame. It cascaded over her naked limbs and tumbled around her. Then she lay on her back, and the sounds around them were the sounds of a babbling brook. She beckoned to him, she smiled, she urged him to come to her. He lowered himself between the softness of her thighs and pressed her back into the lush green foliage of a sweet-smelling and verdant earth.

He stroked her hair and moved his fingers upon her, and he felt something sticky; it was blood.

He awoke with a sudden start.

All was still darkness around him. His door to the hall lay ajar, and men still lay about the fire sleeping or passed out cold, as if dead.

She was in no danger, he thought. Why did thoughts of her death haunt him so?

It was rather she who longed for his throat, he reminded himself.

He needed to sleep. The only physical wound he had received had been from her, but still, the day had been long and hard, if victorious. And tomorrow he wanted to ride like the wind. He had paid his part of his agreement, and he would continue to pay it. The Danes would certainly rise again to avenge the battle here today.

But for now …

He wanted to wake in the morning and ride like the wind. He wanted to claim what was his.

He lay back down and closed his eyes.

He dreamed again and slept restlessly. He kept dreaming that she was in danger, and he woke again and again.

She was in no danger. She was in Mergwin’s care, and he would protect her from all things that a warrior might, and then some.

The dawn had barely broken when he gave up and rose. Irritated, he strode from the room and found Rollo by the fire, his great head cradled in his arms. Eric gave him a shove with a booted foot.

“Rouse the others,” Eric commanded. “It’s time to ride.”