The Viking's Woman (48 page)

He pulled aside his helmet as he approached her. He tenderly kissed his son, and then handed the babe to his sister. He took Rhiannon into his arms, then, and kissed her long and tenderly, until she thought that her heart would break.

A shadow of fear swept over her as he broke away. He was in so much danger. Mergwin would not have come with them to this shore if he were not afraid of danger to Eric. She could not let him go.

“Eric …”

“It will be over and I will be home before you know it, my love.”

“No …” she whispered miserably.

“I will come back. I have said that it shall be so, and so it will,” he assured her with a tender smile.

“If only …”

“What?” he demanded.

She shook her head and lifted her chin. She would not send him into battle oppressed with her fears. “God be with you, my love. God, and all the deities of the house of Vestfald!”

He held her tightly once again. “You’ll be safe and well. Patrick is staying to guard you, Daria is here, as well as Adela. Watch over our son, madam.”

“I will.”

“And Mergwin will be here.”

“Mergwin!” Startled, she pulled from him. “Mergwin is staying here? He is not riding with you?”

“He wishes to stay with you. He is a very old man. I am not pleased when he insists on riding to battle.”

She nodded and felt a chill wind sweep over her. Then she managed to smile.

Mergwin did not think that there would be danger for Eric. He thought that the danger would come for her.

She kissed Eric again, warmly, passionately. Then he whispered that he must go, and they tore from each other. And she watched as, resplendent in his war apparel, he mounted the stallion, and she managed to smile and to wave until he was gone from sight.

Then a sob ripped from her throat. She spun about, entered the house, and raced to her room, to
their
room, and there cried until she had no more tears to shed.

Lying there, she prayed then in silence.
God help him, God help him, God be with him
.

And pray you, dearest Lord, be also with me!

The fighting was swift and merciless.

Within weeks they had forced the Danes to London, and in the days that followed they battled fiercely within the old Roman town. Alfred was like a man possessed, determined, driven. But then the events that had taken place in Eric’s absence had brought him to this bitter point.

Gunthrum had signed a treaty in which he had agreed to settle East Anglia, but hearing of the assault on Rochester had apparently been too much for him, and he had rejoined the battle. Alfred had sent all of his available ships, including Eric’s, against Gunthrum on the Thames, and Alfred had prevailed, capturing Gunthrum’s fleet and all the treasures within it. But as Alfred had ordered his men toward home, the Danes had assaulted his heavily laden ships and won away all that had been lost and more.

They had come this far, trailing carnage in their wake. Alfred had ordered countless villages and towns burned, and there had been tremendous bloodshed. The king was demanding absolute loyalty from the people and would accept nothing less.

Now Eric sat atop Alexander and stared down upon the ruins of London. It was a charred and desolate
place, unfit for human habitation. Men with carts carried away bodies and limbs; women and children were just beginning to appear among the debris, scrounging amid the ruins for food and sustenance.

If nothing else, Eric thought wearily, it was over.

And he had survived it all once again, he and Rollo and the vast majority of his men. Alfred had forgiven him his absence when he had crossed the sea to Ireland, and so, in all honor, Eric had felt himself obliged to ride forward in every fray, to bring his battle cry to his lips and race first into the battle line of the enemy. He was adept at warfare; life had given him that. But today, looking down at the ruins of the pathetic town, he was sick to death of the slaughter and pain and the desolation, and he was heartily glad that he would start for home within the next few days. Home …

There was to be a new peace treaty. Scribes were already working on it. Gunthrum the wily Dane had also managed to survive the battle very well.

England was to be divided into two parts. The boundary would run along the River Thames, then along the River Lea at its source, then directly to Bedford, then along the Ouse to Watling Street. The Danes would hold Essex, East Anglia, the Eastern Midlands, and the land north of the Humber. In the south Alfred would reign as king, and none would dispute his sovereignty again.

There would be peace. If only the peace could last ….

He turned the stallion away from the desolate scene and led the horse toward the multitude of tents on the outskirts of the city.

He quickened his pace suddenly as he heard a high,
drawn-out cry, followed by the clang of steel, and then again the sounds of fierce swordplay. He nudged the stallion to a gallop, and by a copse of trees he found a group of men, mainly his own and some of those belonging to the king’s closest retainers, vehemently engaged in battle with what seemed to be a Danish raiding party. Quickly he drew his sword and entered into it, finding Rollo already in the fray. Eric leapt from the stallion and hacked his way to his friend’s back, and there they formed a fierce and deadly fighting machine together. “By the halls of Valhalla!” Rollo roared out. “What is this? On the very day that a treaty is to be signed?”

“I know not!” Eric claimed. Nor could he care at the moment. The enemy was coming at him two at a time, and it took ail his great strength to move his sword with sufficient speed to save his skin. He nearly tripped over one fallen attacker, but that proved to be his salvation, for a sword, ripping through the air, missed his skull. He straightened and skewered his assailant, then inhaled sharply as he noticed that high atop a knoll a single horseman was staring down at him. He squinted against the morning air, trying to make out the emblems on the man’s mantle.

He swore, lifting his shield as the man raised his hand, then sent a small silver blade hurtling through the air toward him.

The dagger caught on his shield with shattering force, and fell to the ground.

The horseman quickly raced away.

Eric knelt down and picked up the dagger. It was the same type that had killed Rowan. They might have been identical.

The surviving Danes in the glade had melted away, disappearing into the trees. Eric shouted to Rollo that he had to catch the horseman, then went racing out to find the white stallion. He galloped from the glade, but the horseman was gone, and he had little clue as to his direction or destination. Swearing beneath his breath in every language he knew, Eric rode wearily back to the glade where Rollo and the others were gathering up their wounded.

Young Jon of Wincester, a favorite of the king, was bending down by one Danish body. He rose with disgust as Eric came riding to his side. “What bloody treaty can we ever trust when men come forward such as this?”

Edward of Sussex, Jon’s good friend and once a loyal companion to Rowan, came to Eric’s side as well. “I’ll be damned if I can understand it! It was as if they cared not for battle or gain but were intent upon murder and nothing more!”

“Not so strange for Danes,” Jon said bitterly.

“I don’t know,” Eric said, shaking his head. “Even for Danes. Men battle for gain or for defense. Why else?”

None of them had an answer. They gathered the wounded and headed back to the camp. Eric washed the blood from his face and hands and changed his tunic, then made his way to Alfred’s tent. The king was there, listening as a scribe sent from Gunthrum rambled on and on about the particulars of the treaty.

“There’s not a word of truth in the bloody thing!” Eric interrupted.

Alfred looked his way. “We’ve already sent word to Gunthrum, accusing him of infamy and treachery.
He has denied the attack and has sent me a daughter of his as hostage to verify his word.”

“Then,” Eric said coolly, “there is some traitor among us. Some traitor who has wished me harm—rather, death—since I came to this shore. It began when your message failed to reach Rhiannon and my ships were so vehemently attacked. Then, when I went on your behalf, Alfred, to battle the Danes in the far south, they were warned of my approach. Moreover, I have very good cause to believe, Alfred, that young Rowan did not fall in simple battle in Ireland but that he fell to a murderer, to create greater turmoil within my house.”

There was a shocked gasp from the opening of the tent. Jon of Wincester came striding in, decked in mail, his features tense. “By all that’s holy, my lord of Dubhlain! You say that Rowan was murdered?”

Eric tossed the dagger that had been aimed at his throat upon the king’s table. Alfred and Jon both strode for it, Jon giving way for the king.

Then Alfred studied the dagger and its design. Pain etched into his weary features and he fell back into his chair. “What is it?” Jon demanded.

Alfred waved a hand that Jon might pick up the dagger. He did so. He inhaled sharply. “It’s William’s. William of Northumbria’s. ’Tis his dagger. There must be some … mistake.”

William of Northumbria. Indeed William and Allen and Jon and Edward had all come into his house, into Rhiannon’s house, when Alfred had sent him orders to see to the Danes in the south. William had not accompanied them to Ireland, but there had been
many men of Wessex with him, as well as many sent directly under Rowan’s command.

“There is no mistake,” Eric said. “I’ve two daggers. One taken from Rowan’s back in Ireland, one just hurtled at me in the glade.”

“In Ireland—”

“Find a man called Harold of Mercia. If he has survived this latest warfare, he might shed some light upon these events,” Eric suggested.

Alfred strode to the opening of the tent. He ordered his guard to find Harold, and then he paced back and forth upon the cold earth floor, his hands locked behind his back. In seconds the older man who had stepped forward at Rowan’s death in Ireland came hurrying into the tent. He knelt before the king. “My lord, you have summoned me.”

“Get up!” Alfred commanded. Harold did so. Then his eyes fell upon Eric and Jon, and he paled visibly. He looked to the table and saw the dagger there and suddenly turned about in a raw panic. He started to run from the tent.

Jon stepped before the opening. Eric seized Harold by the shoulder and dragged him back before the king.

“Were you in the service of William of Northumbria when you went to Ireland?”

“In William’s service? Why, no, no, my King. I served young Rowan, I did.”

“Did you serve him?” Eric asked coldly. “Or did you slay him, for gold provided by William?”

The man’s pallor sealed his doom. A harsh, anguished cry escaped Jon, and he stepped forward, his knife bared, and swiftly slit the man’s throat.

Alfred turned his back on the scene, his pain and weariness evident in the slope of his shoulders. “By God, Jon, I have fought for this land to give it laws! You have done murder here and now!”

“And I will gladly pay his survivors, and perhaps they will be as pleased to make gain upon death as this man was! By God, Alfred, he murdered Rowan!”

“At William’s command,” Eric interrupted. “I’m going for William.”

He hurried from the tent and made way quickly for the section where William and his followers were encamped. He strode past William’s men and threw open the flaps to his tent.

There was no one there. Outside he caught by his shirt the first man he could find, and demanded to know where his master might be.

No one knew, and no amount of threatening could change their story. William had ridden out that morning in the company of Allen of Kent, and he had not been seen since.

As Eric stood there among William’s men, Jon, with Edward close behind him, came riding up hard upon him. “William has not been seen in hours. Neither has Allen. William must have known that you had the dagger—and proof against him. He has ridden south.”

“We must follow,” Eric said.

Jon glanced at Edward, then began speaking rapidly. “Aye, we must ride, and very quickly. We’ve already told your man, Rollo, and he is gathering your weapons and bringing your mount. We have to head for the coast, for your manor, with all haste.”