The Viking's Woman (6 page)

Until today, when it had mattered so desperately.

She wondered then, bitterly, why her arrows had not hit home.

Or why the Viking had thrown his dagger so as not to slay her. She knew instinctively that if he had wanted to kill her, she would be dead.

She gave a deep sigh. Night was falling. She did not want to think about the fair-haired giant anymore, and she would not. She would not tremble, and she would not remember the heat or the strength of him, or the danger in his ice-blue eyes.

Pray, milady … that we do not meet again …
.

An owl shrieked in the night. Rhiannon nearly fell from the horse, then she caught her seat again. The moon was rising. It would light her way and she would not stop.

But she was exhausted and heart-weary, and she suddenly felt terribly, terribly alone. She could not help but remember when they had brought her father’s body to her mother. Rhiannon had seen his face, his handsome, proud face, reduced to the ashen pallor of death. She had seen the blood dried upon his temple, and the massive gash from the Danish battle-ax that had split his skull in two. She had screamed, held his bloody head, and crooned to him as though to revive him. Then her mother had pulled her away at last, and she had nearly ceased to believe that there could be a God in heaven.

And now Egmund, Wilton, and Thomas. And so many others.

Rhiannon threw back her head and screamed, and
the heartbreaking sound was terrible. They would take no more from her. She swore it. They would take no more from her—ever again. She would die first.

Alfred, King of Wessex, paused as he walked from the chapel to the manor. He stared up at the morning sky. The rain had stopped, and it seemed that the crimson streaks of morning painting the sky were like a portent of blood. He was a pious man, a great believer in the one and only Catholic church of Christ, but this morning the sky seemed an ancient, pagan warning.

He sighed. He was not ready to return to the house. To see his wife’s face, to listen to the children. To have the children see him and stop their laughter and grow tense.

He wound his fingers tightly into his fists.
God in Heaven, in Your infinite mercy, let this battle that comes be the one to tame the beast that plagues
.

He could not remember when the Danes did not control his life. His earliest memory of childhood was his pilgrimage to Rome, a journey taken by a four-year-old because his father and brothers could not be spared from battle. And now they were gone. All gone. His father, three older brothers. None had had the opportunity to grow old.

There was a natural seat, formed from ancient rock, between the wooden chapel and the long manor house. Alfred sat there and realized that his fingers were still clenched into fists.

He had battled the Danes first with his brother, and when he had died, Alfred had been twenty-one. A young man, with a young wife and a child due. Now
that child was nearly fifteen, and Alfred was grateful that his firstborn had been a girl and that her coming of age would not prepare her for this endless war and for death. But a son had followed his daughter, and he would come of age soon enough.

He stared up at the sky and wondered at the message in the bloody-looking streaks. What had happened, or what was to come? Though he hadn’t the fey instincts of the Celtish folk, he knew that England herself still hovered sometimes on the verge of paganism and that the first coming of the Viking had been foretold in omens of doom. Druids still roamed the forests, and despite their Christianity, most of his people were as superstitious as the pagan Danes. Something was to come.

He prayed again. He prayed that the sign meant victory at last. God had granted him many victories. Alfred knew that men hailed him as the greatest king since the legendary Arthur; he had bested his enemy in skirmishes many times. He was king, and men bowed down to him and fought for his honor. He wanted more. He wanted peace. He wanted England to be a place of learning, and he wanted his children to read and to write, and to study with scholars from all over the world. He had not read himself until he was twelve years old, and though he had been very young when his mother had died, he had never forgotten how she had read to him, how her voice had been a melody, laughing and tripping over the words in a poem. Time had hampered his study, but he had learned to read before his brothers. He had loved learning and craved it for Wessex. He needed peace to achieve his goal. He was thirty-six. Not a young
man anymore. But not an old one. There could be long years ahead of him. Time to do so many things. English craftsmen were known for their work in metal and stone; beautiful jewelry was made here. Once English monks had toiled in the monasteries, creating works of grace and beauty. Now the monasteries were plundered, and all too often precious metals and stones were taken, along with anything else of value. An Englishman was lucky to hold to his piece of earth.

Before the stone Alfred fell down upon his knees again, though he had just come from Mass. He picked up a handful of dirt and stared at it. “God of my fathers, let me tear the Dane down this time! Let me strike him from my land and force him to see the true way of Thy light!”

Even as he spoke, he heard the earth tremble. Allen of Kent, one of his most entrusted retainers, was racing toward him. Alfred came quickly to his feet, and Allen dismounted from his horse and dropped down before the warrior king. Alfred knew it to be bad tidings.

“Get up, Allen, and tell me. What is it? Did the Irish prince change his mind and refuse to come?” The sky had warned him. He waited for what would come.

“Oh, no, my king. He came, and ’tis disaster that he did. No message reached the coast. The people thought themselves under siege and tried to strike the first blows. The Lady Rhiannon ordered an attack. The Irish prince received no welcome but a barrage of arrows.”

Pain searing his heart, Alfred took Allen fiercely by the shoulders. “How do you know this?”

“I was riding to the Lady Rhiannon’s and met a survivor on the way, trying to make his way here to you.” Allen’s eyes would not remain on the king. Alfred wondered what the man was hiding, then he thought that Allen lowered his gaze with misery and with fear for Rhiannon.

“And it is true, you are certain?”

“Aye, I am certain. The town is nearly razed.”

“It would be no less,” the king said. He had taken a beast by the tail—a civilized beast, he had believed. But he knew the reputation of the man, and he prayed that the repercussions could be limited to what had already occurred. Eric of Dubhlain could well be marching on Wessex right now, his battle cry for vengeance. The Irish prince would assume that the King of Wessex had betrayed him. Had Rhiannon betrayed Alfred? Impossible! Alfred wondered in his heart about Rhiannon, worrying about what
had
happened, but he spoke to Allen with expediency as the king. He had no choice. He was a king before all else. There was only one way to hold some part of Britain for the Saxon people.

“Where is Eric now?”

“Taken over the town.”

“He has not moved inland? How can you know?”

“An ominous silence comes from the town. I know, sire, for I rode toward the coast to see for myself what had happened before riding swiftly to you.”

Alfred briefly thanked God that the Irish Viking was not set upon instant retribution. Then he asked about Rhiannon. “My cousin?”

Allen shook his head sorrowfully. “She has not been seen. But the man I met was certain she escaped.”

Alfred tossed back his mantle and stared up at the spring sky once again. “Allen, find Rowan and have him take his men to search the way for Lady Rhiannon. If she lives, and if she can be found, his love will guide the way.”

“And you, sire?”

Alfred looked at his man and hesitated. He and Allen were of an age. They were both fit from the eternal practice for war. Allen was dark, with sharp gray eyes and a mouth that could slant to cruelty. They had all become hard as granite, the king thought.

“I will go to Eric of Dubhlain. I will seek to rectify this wrong.” He turned and started for the manor, his mantle sweeping behind him. He paused, looking back to Allen. “How could this have happened? The message was delivered?”

“Sire, I know that the messenger was sent. The man I spoke with knew nothing of it, though. He said that perhaps old Egmund refused to tell his lady, his hatred for all Norsemen is so great. He died upon the field, so we shall never know.”

The king smiled grimly. “Oh, we shall know, Allen. We shall discover the cause as soon as possible.”

“Sire!”

The cry was shrill and feminine. It brought Alfred swinging around to face the dense forest to the east. He knew the sound of the voice, and relief swept through him.

He saw Rhiannon. She was racing toward him on a roan, coming across the meadow and the clearing. Torn and disheveled and wild and beautiful still.

“My God,” Alfred whispered. Then he started to
run toward her. Earth flew as the roan churned up clumps of mud, then she reined in, and in a new flurry of exhausted tears she collapsed into his arms.

He held her, smoothed back her hair, lifted her into his arms, and his heart thundered with sweet relief. Silently he thanked his god for returning her to him.

He didn’t know why he loved her so much—like one of his own children. Perhaps it was because he had once loved and admired her mother. Perhaps it was the fact that he was her godfather, having stood sponsor to her at her baptism. He didn’t know the reasoning of the heart but he did love her as one of his own, and he held her, cherishing her. She was fairly tall for a woman but as slim and shapely as a sprite, easy to sweep up into his arms. Forgetting Allen, he hurried toward the manor, calling to his wife.

Rhiannon held to him tightly, trusting in him like a child. Her eyes, so incredibly blue, met his.

“Danes attacked, my lord. Dragon ships. They sailed down upon us and butchered us.”

Her eyes closed. She was cold, exhausted, and wet through and through. She had ridden all night in the rain.

Suddenly fury at the savagery, at the waste of life, cut into Alfred like a blade. He shook as he held her. “Those were no Danes.”

She stared at him. “My lord cousin! I was there. They came like hungry wolves, they—”

“A message was sent to you, Rhiannon. I called for help across the sea. To an Irish prince of Dubhlain, a man who hates the Danes as fiercely as we do.”

She shook her head. He didn’t understand.

“I saw no Irishmen!” Rhiannon assured the king.
She clenched her teeth tightly. She could not forget the Viking she had almost killed—golden blond and as wintry cold as his homeland. “Dragon ships came!” she whispered. She could not tell Alfred about her encounter with the man. He would be furious with her that she had not fled immediately.

“The prince’s shipbuilders would be Norse, Rhiannon, as would many of his men.”

Again she shook her head. She was so tired, and she couldn’t make the king understand the danger. “My lord, perhaps I am not being clear, maybe I am incoherent—”

“Nay!” he told her firmly. His temper was rising. He was ill for those who had suffered so needlessly and was very afraid that some treachery had perhaps cost him the assistance of the Irish prince when he needed it most. He held Rhiannon too tightly. He did not blame her, but he was shaking with emotion and anger. “Nay, you are clear, but you do not understand my words! I have been betrayed. You set your men to attack a man I asked here in friendship. You set your hand against me.”

Rhiannon gasped, horrified. “I would never betray you, Alfred. How can you accuse me so? I fought the enemy! We have always fought the enemy.”

“I do not accuse you, but I tell you that you were to have welcomed the man but you fought him instead.”

“I swear I did not know!”

He loved her; suddenly he could not look at her. He could not lose the manpower he needed now. Victory was too close; it was sweet on his tongue. He could not bear that it could be seized from his grasp. He needed the prince of Eire, and if the Irish prince demanded
some punishment, he might be forced to fulfill the price.

He raised his voice as he entered the manor house. He carried Rhiannon before the fire and set her there. “Alswitha!” he called to his wife, and she was there, his bride of Mercia, with his young daughter, Althrife, in her arms. She quickly set the child down and gasped, staring at him reproachfully as she greeted Rhiannon, embracing her. “What has happened to her?” she demanded, dismayed at Rhiannon’s dishevelment.

Alfred could not dispel the rage that had settled over him. “Someone within her household chose not to honor the order of the king; that is what has occurred.”

“Nay, that cannot be true!” Rhiannon protested.

Alfred was trembling. She didn’t understand the depths of his emotion, and she was stunned that he would be so furious with her when she had come to him for succor.

“I accuse
you
of nothing, Rhiannon, yet someone did betray me—and you. And what has happened could have dire consequences, far more deadly to our cause than what has already occurred.”

Rhiannon disengaged herself from the queen’s embrace and stood, shaking, to challenge the king. “More dire than the sea of blood before my town? Have you forgotten, Alfred? Men, good men, my dear friends, lie dead—”

“Have you forgotten, lady, that I am the king?” he thundered in return. “And, Rhiannon, it might well be your dear and loyal friends who turned traitor, for the message was sent that the prince of Eire sailed,
that he was to be greeted with all courtesy and escorted here.”

“No message came, my lord!” she cried. “And believe me, sire, I saw no Irish prince, just a horde of Viking raiders.”

He spun around, ignoring her.

“By the saints, Alfred!” Alswitha called after him. “How can you be so cruel as to doubt the girl!”

He turned back to them both and his gaze seemed empty. “Because all Wessex could depend upon this. Because peace could depend upon the whim and fury of a foreign prince.” He swept his mantle around him, buttoning it high. “I ride, my lady,” he told his wife, “to the coast. Rhiannon has survived, and she is, I trust, safe in your keeping.”