The Viking's Woman (7 page)

He left them, staring after him. Alswitha seemed even more distraught than she.

“He does love you. Dearly,” Alswitha said.

Rhiannon turned to her and tried to smile. The effort failed. “Aye, he loves me. But not as much as he oves Wessex.”

“He does not love
me
as much as he loves Wessex,” Alswitha said dryly. She noticed that Rhiannon was shivering, and she called to her women, who came scurrying into the hall. “Quick, we must have warm water and give the lady Rhiannon a bath before the fire and warm her, lest she be ill.”

Beyond the walls of the manor they could hear the sounds of hoofbeats and the jangling of the horses’ trappings as men mounted to ride. Alswitha put an arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders and led her toward the easterly side of the hall, the women’s solar. There her bath was brought. Alswitha did not leave her. She
washed out Rhiannon’s tresses herself and tried to talk idly—of folklore, of the hearth, of the home. But when Rhiannon was done, wrapped in a linen towel, and sat huddled before the center fire, she started to shiver again.

Alswitha, still beautiful with her honey-colored eyes and delicate features, sat by Rhiannon to reassure her again.

“We’ll have Masses said for your people. We shall pray for them this very evening.”

Rhiannon nodded. She swallowed. “Alswitha, you must believe me. They were not Irishmen—I saw them. They were Vikings.”

“Rhiannon, I do believe that you are telling me what you saw. I think that you are not understanding that this Irish prince has a Norwegian father and may appear very much the Viking. Don’t you see? Viking shipbuilding is the best, so the ships would be dragon prows. And perhaps many of his men fight like berserkers. Alfred needs such men to go against the Danish madmen. The Irish prince Alfred seeks to please is from the stronghold of Dubhlain but Norse in his paternal heritage.”

Huddled in her towel, Rhiannon shivered. “I tell you, Alswitha, that Alfred has entered into a pact with demons! I saw them, and they were not Irish Christians but heathens!”

Heathens with the golden hair of the north sun, and blue eyes of crystal coldness. Alfred had entered into a pact with them. She might very well see the prince’s Viking captain once again.

“Oh, God!” she whispered, and she felt ill. The blond Viking surely would have told the Irish prince
about the Saxon wench who had tried to skewer him with arrows. Alfred was already furious with her. He would be doubly so once he had been to the coast.

“How can he care so little for me, for my people, for what has happened?” she cried to Alswitha. “I am his blood and he is my guardian, and he rails against me for defending what is mine!”

Alswitha was very quiet for a long moment. Then she spoke quietly. “Nay, you forget the King. Wessex, Rhiannon—all of Wessex—is his.”

“He is cruel!”

“He is harsh and can be unforgiving. Fate has made him so, for he must be strong. Remember, he is your guardian and your king and your protector. And he does love you.” Alswitha pulled the drying strands of her hair from her towel and smiled gently. “He is concerned for your welfare. He did not mean to hurt you and would never try.”

Rhiannon wanted to believe it. She loved the king. Alfred and Alswitha and the children were her family. They were all that she had left. She curled her toes beneath her and hugged the linen towel, staring at the fire. Silent tears slid from her lashes.

“It was horrible!” she whispered. “So much death, so much blood. I loved dear Egmund so very much. And Wilton too. Think of the wives who will never love again, think of the orphans.” She looked up suddenly. “And Adela! I didn’t see her when I escaped. She must be missing, Alswitha. I know not whether she was captured, or she if runs terrified in the forest even now.”

“Alfred will find her,” Alswitha said with confidence.

“Oh! I was so selfish! I did not tell Alfred about her.”

“She will be all right, I am certain. Alfred’s men will find her.”

“What if the Vikings find her?”

“If she escaped to the forest, why would they pursue a woman they did not know existed?”

Rhiannon was silent. They would not pursue Adela, but the Norseman she had so grievously injured might send someone out after her and Adela might be found instead.

She did not tell Alswitha so. She could not tell Alswitha about her encounter with the Viking. She did not dare. Alswitha was Alfred’s wife, and she might think it necessary to find him and tell him.

“Come, Rhiannon,” Alswitha said, urging her gently. “You must eat, and then you must try to sleep.” She hesitated, studying Rhiannon. “What is it that you’re still so afraid of?”

“What?” Rhiannon looked at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“What is it? Why are you still so afraid?”

She shook her head. “I—I am not. Not now. I am here with you. I am safe.”

But she didn’t know if she was safe or not, or if she could ever be safe again. She could not forget the Viking. She could not forget the fires of his body, or the ice of his eyes, or the husky timbre of his voice when had spoken to her in warning.

Pray, lady … that we do not meet again
.

And she would not meet him again, ever. She would stay with Alswitha and the children, and Alfred would ride forth with his mercenary army and
meet the Danes at Rochester. She would never, never see him again.

Her teeth began to chatter. She was praying—just as he had suggested. She prayed, too, that Alfred would not know just how involved she had been in the fight.

Alswitha, concerned, patted Rhiannon’s shoulders. “Come. You must sleep. There is someone else here who loves you, you know.”

“Rowan!” Rhiannon cried suddenly, leaping up. She had nearly forgotten him—her very love!—in the trembling aftermath of all that had happened.

“Aye, Rowan. Except that I am sure that he rode with the king and most probably will not return until tomorrow. So you must eat now, and then you have a night’s lost sleep to regain. You would not have him see you in such distress, would you?”

“Nay, nay, I would not!” she agreed quickly. She could not let Rowan know of anything that had happened. He was not in love with Wessex, he was in love with her, and surely he might want to avenge her honor against the Norseman in the so-called Irish prince’s party who had so abused her.

But when Rhiannon was at last put to bed in a long linen gown between clean sheets and covered by a warm woolen blanket, she did not dream of Rowan as she had assumed she would. Nay, she did not see the man she loved in her dreams, the young Saxon with laughing green eyes and tawny hair.

She saw instead a towering Viking with golden hair, and golden beard, broad shoulders as hard as steel, and eyes as hard and wintry cold as a glacier that cut into her heart.

She heard his laughter, remembered the strength of his touch, and felt the sudden, startling burning deep within her when his hands had roamed so freely and intimately upon her flesh—against her breast, upon her thigh. So tauntingly gentle in contrast to the fury of his eyes, the violence of the fight.

She heard his whispered words, haunting her dreams, over and over.
Pray, lady … that we do not meet again
.

The memories would not leave her, and she lay awake for long hours, trembling. She had felt that strange shiver of apprehension when she had first seen him. And then she felt his eyes upon her, felt his touch. She had thought that he might fall in battle.

He had not fallen. He lived, she was certain.

And they would meet again.

No …

Yet she felt sure of it. He had come with the storm and the savage waves in the sea. He was destined to rock her life with tempests.

His sleep had been uneasy. Scattered dreams danced through his mind, and snatches of the past came before him. He saw the curious mosques of the Arab traders, and the grand palaces of the black-skinned Moors. He saw a sea on the day when Odin had thundered and sworn and cast men to death with heady abandon. He remembered traveling down the Seine to Paris, and even farther back in time he could remember the schoolroom in his father’s fine stone castle in Dubhlain. Leith was ever the scholar and ever the peacemaker, and Leith was their father’s heir. Leith had known their Irish history like a born seneschal, and Eric, often in jealousy, would leap atop a study table, wave an imaginary sword, and swear that he would conquer the world.

Then his mother’s voice would come to reprimand him—soft, strong, and melodic. And his dreams of conquest would subside as she gathered her brood around her: Leith, Eric, Bryan, Bryce, Conan, and Conar; and the girls, Elizabeth, Megan, and Daria. She would speak to him of the Tuath De Danaan, the ancient tribes, the honor of Irish hospitality, and the pride of their race. They might well travel far and wide, she assured them, but they could never forget
that they were Irish. Their race was in their blood, a part of them, and it would be ever with them. The sound of the pipes would always tug upon their hearts, just as they would sense the banshee, the death ghost, in the wind. And in the forest, if they listened, they would know that the wee people played their games and tricks and that in the end it was the land that was sacred. Erin would spin her tales and legends, and the whole quarrelsome lot of them would be silent at her feet. Then Olaf would appear in the doorway and would seek to best her with sagas of Odin, Thor, Loki, and the rest. There had always been warmth in the castle at Dubhlain. Warmth and love.

Those scenes stayed with him as he tossed in his sleep. The great hearth, the hounds, and the land. Days when they rode to Tara to sit with the kings of all the land, days when his grandfather, Aed Finnlaith, ruled with justice and wisdom over the Irish. And days, too, when he had been sent into the woods. Sent to study with the colossally old Druid, Mergwin. Days when the wind had whipped and the thunder had roared and the old fool had stood out in the rain, lifting his arms to the heavens. “Feel it, boy! Feel the wind! Feel the hawk as it flies, and feel the earth as she lies beneath you. And remember, remember always, that answers lie not with other men but always within your own soul—you and the earth are as one.”

Mergwin had forced him to read. To study his scripts in Latin, Frankish, Norse, Irish, and English. Mergwin had dragged him through the rotting bogs and taught him which herbs drew poisons from the body, what mold could create a poultice to stop a
man’s lifeblood from flowing away. The Druid had driven him hard, far harder than his brothers and sisters, and once he had protested, drawing himself up and telling Mergwin, “Cease, old man! I am a prince! I am the Spawn of the Wolf, grandson of the great Ard-Ri!”

Mergwin had surveyed him from head to toe and then had tossed the boy an ax. “Aye, Eric, you are all that you say. Therefore let the strength of your body match that of your conceit. Chop these trees, and don’t cease till the pile is high, for it promises to be a cold winter.”

He never knew quite why he obeyed the old buzzard, except that his mother loved Mergwin, and even his father sought out his advice.

The Druid was never wrong.

He had known when Emenia would die.

Upon his new-won bed in the seized manor house, Eric groaned and twisted around again. The Druid had tried to stop him when he was to sail away with his uncle. The days of his youth were past then, but Mergwin had come to the shore. His beard and his hair and his robes had flapped around him, and he had appeared much like a giant crow. But he had stood tall against the wind and had waited until he could speak with Eric alone.

“Don’t go,” he had warned him.

“Mergwin, I must. I have promised my uncle.”

“You are in peril. And I cannot warn you from where, or from what. Your heart, your soul, and your life are in grave peril.”

He remembered feeling a grave affection for his old tutor that day, and he had set his arm around the
Druid’s scrawny shoulders. “I am a prince of Eire, Mergwin. I do not recant my word and, as my father before me, I must live in danger.”

Mergwin had argued no further.

And he had gone, and he had met Emenia, and his heart and soul had indeed been in peril. In his dreams he saw her beauty. He saw the supple, naked beauty of her flesh, her smile as she straddled over him. He felt anew the silken brush of her hair over his shoulders, sleek as midnight, shining. She knew where to touch a man, as if she were inside him, as if she knew just what he needed when and where and how. He saw the honey of her body, shimmering with a glaze of sweat from the sweet tempest between them, the shape of her breasts, the darkness of her nipples. He could see the scent of her.