“The alliance stands and we ride against the Dane?”
The Viking lifted his cup. “Aye, it stands.”
“It will be as you say,” Alfred promised. The two men clasped hands firmly. Rhiannon’s fingers curled over the carved handles on the chair, and her blood seemed to congeal.
“What has been will not go unpunished,” the king continued. He glanced her way briefly, and she had never seen him so cold or cruelly dispassionate. She had heard that he could be ruthless, and he had been brutal to traitors.
He had never been brutal to her. He had loved her. He had been strict but he had loved her.
No more.
He spoke again with a savage anger. “I promise that your bride will be taught humility and that the man who knew my will and my promise but ignored them will pay as is fitting.”
“Nay, Alfred,” the Viking said. “I will take my own vengeance.”
His hands were like fire and steel upon her shoulders, and she felt the determination in his words with every fiber of her being. They were no heated threat but a sure declaration of intent. He would surely beat her within an inch of her life, she thought dully, but then a staggering fear filled her, not for herself but for Rowan.
Suddenly the doors to the manor burst open without the king’s leave. Alfred turned in anger but saw that his liegemen, William and Allen, had returned. Between them, held by either arm, was Rowan, bloody and beaten.
She should have remained still. To salvage what remained of her honor she should have remained seated. But she could not bear to see Rowan injured and bleeding.
She forgot everything except for the gentle love she had shared with him. She escaped the Viking’s loathed touch and leapt to her feet, a horrified cry upon her lips. She started to race forward, but she barely moved a single step. Strong arms swept around her waist and she was crushed back hard against the Viking, who held her tightly to him.
No wonder he stayed so near her, Rhiannon thought bitterly. He was not going to let her further dishonor him or Alfred.
Rowan, dazed, met her eyes and smiled vaguely, then sagged between the two men. They shoved him forward so that he fell before the king.
“Sire,” William said, and his dark gaze took in the room, “we do not know that they were together, but we found him beyond the gates, not far from where the Lady Rhiannon’s horse had strayed.”
“Go,” the king said.
“But, Sire—” William protested.
“She is clean, my liege,” Rowan mumbled. Blood gurgled over his lips, and Rhiannon cried out again, hating the arms that restrained her. Rowan spat out a tooth. He gazed up, dazed, from Alfred to the Viking. “She is untouched, I swear it.”
The king walked toward him. He bent low, grasping Rowan’s tunic and chemise at the neckline. Rowan fell forward, and Rhiannon screamed again, scratching mindlessly at the hands that held her, for she feared that he was dead.
“For the love of God, let me go!” she pleaded.
“Stop it!” the king roared at her. “Have you not shamed us all enough?” He touched the pulse in Rowan’s throat. “He lives … for now.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks. The Viking released her suddenly, and she stumbled forward. She came down beside Rowan and discovered that he did indeed live. She held him in her arms, and silent tears streamed down her face.
The king called for servants to take Rowan. She felt a touch upon her shoulders, and it was not altogether cruel. She was pulled up and held once again. By the Viking.
Rowan was taken away. The king and the Viking continued to talk, but she did not hear their words, for she was numb again and praying fervently and earnestly that she would not be the cause of Rowan’s death. What vengeance the Viking might take, she could not determine. She wondered if she might plead for Rowan’s life; if she might humble herself and find some mercy.
He had already refused her mercy.
“It shall be done now,” the king said. “Now, this very hour.” He told a servant to find his physician and a midwife. Then he told Alswitha, “Take Rhiannon to her room.”
The Viking released her shoulders. Alswitha reached forward for her hand.
Instinctively Rhiannon backed away, staring at them all and wondering what new horror they had conjured to destroy her.
“Come, Rhiannon!” Alswitha urged her.
She looked at the king, who was grim and pensive. And she stared at the towering Viking, who watched her now with an idle, dispassionate curiosity. He shrugged, as if she were of very little consequence. “I still think that the wedding should wait,” he told the king.
“I promised the lady to you, and she was in my care. She is like my own child. It will please me to know the truth of this matter.”
“Truly, King of Wessex, I can discover the truth for myself, and I can dictate the ultimatums of my own house.”
“But she is still a ward of the house of Wessex, and I would honor my vows.”
The door opened again. The king’s most trusted physician stood there, his stout servant at his side. The woman gazed at Rhiannon with small, cunning eyes. She smiled furtively, as if anticipating the enjoyment of some cruelty.
Then Rhiannon realized what they meant to do with her, and her eyes widened with shame and horror. “No!” she exclaimed fiercely. She wanted to run madly to freedom but there was nowhere to run. She fought down the fury and the panic and forced herself to walk slowly forward, not to the king but to the Norse-Irish lord. Alfred had disowned her, as he had sworn he would. Perhaps he ached inside, but he did not betray it. The Viking had already pronounced her a whore. He had claimed his own vengeance; this was not of his choosing.
“Things are not always what they seem, my lord. I was guilty of no treachery against you before, and though it perhaps appeared that I …” She paused, seeking dignity and resolve and enough intensity to convince him. “I did not dishonor the king’s pledge, though he who swears to love me does not offer his faith. Don’t let them do this to me!” she demanded passionately.
She shivered, knowing that his methods of dealing with her could be far more brutal. Then she thought that nothing could be so demeaning as what they planned.
Whatever they did to her now, it would not save her when she was cast into his clutches, anyway.
Yet it seemed that there was a curious spark of admiration in his eyes, even as he denied her. “Milady, this is not something that I am doing to you,” he told her.
“It will make me hate you until my dying day,” she said, clenching her fingers at her sides. She could not accept the fact that she could not escape the king’s intent for her. Nor would she plead again with the Viking.
He sighed softly. “Milady, I admit I have little reason to be overly fond of you, but this is not my doing. Alfred is king here. And he is your guardian. This is not my choice. I have my own ways and means of discovering the truths I seek. Your king has spoken. In his house he is the law. In my house, my lady, I promise you that I will be your law.”
His words were not reassuring.
He offered her definite menace, yet it was the king who had decreed this ignominy for her. She swung around, facing Alfred.
“You might consider my word on the truth of this!” she told him.
“I cannot trust your word again, Rhiannon. You have brought us all near the brink of disaster.”
Alswitha caught Rhiannon’s arm. Rhiannon found the queen’s eyes damp with tears and searching out her own. “For Rowan’s sake, submit!” she pleaded in a whisper.
“Take her!” the king thundered.
Alswitha was no longer allowed the task. Two hearty women arrived from the kitchen, grabbing Rhiannon’s arms. She screamed then, and fought them. To no avail. She was dragged from the hall and into the manor’s annex, where her small bedchamber lay. No matter how fiercely she struggled and fought, she was soon pinned down, and her clothing was carelessly torn. Then, in deepest humiliation and mortification, she ceased to fight. Alswitha was w
ith her again, stroking back her hair from her forehead. Rhiannon lay still in shock, withdrawing deeply into her own mind. She tried not to feel the cold hands upon her. Tears came to her eyes as she was parted and probed. She dimly heard the doctor tell Alswitha at last that she was a virgin still and that her maidenhead was fully intact.
Never before in her life had she felt so mortified. She lay in so deep a pall of misery and shame that she could not even rouse herself to pray that at least this cross of hers might weigh heavily for Rowan’s life.
She vowed that she would never forget the Viking scourge that had come unbidden on the wind to shatter her very existence. God could forgive her or no, she cared not. She would pray daily that Eric of Dubhlain might be erased from the face of the earth. And she would pray that when he died, he would do so in anguish and agony, cursing the day he was born.
Eric rode along the ranks of fighting men, calling a word here, applauding an action there, and warning a young Englishman that he left his right flank open to attack when he held his shield so carelessly. He rode to the end of the ranks and stared back at the action. The king, too, watched the war play from horseback. They would ride for Rochester in the morning. The heavily besieged town could not hold out much longer against the Danes encamped before it.
Eric watched as men worked with a field of spears, the mainstay of war. They practiced with swords and with maces, while in a distant field the archers practiced their aim. Before him, Svein of Trondheim swung his mighty double-headed ax. It was a particularly “Viking” weapon, since much of Europe had come to consider the deadly piece as uncivilized.
Eric had learned, though, even as a child, that his crafty old Irish grandfather had taken from the Vikings what he saw as expedient and powerful. He had been a match for both the Norwegian and Danish menace to his isle because he had been ever ready to learn from the foe. Most Irishmen had fought in leather armor before his grandfather’s day, if they fought in armor at all. Aed Finnlaith had seen the chain mail upon the enemy and discovered that it saved lives, and so he had ordered his men to use mail.
Eric had noted that the double-headed ax was a deadly and formidable weapon, and he had encouraged his men, Irish and Norse alike, in learning the use of it. Tomorrow they would ride to do battle with the Danes, and the Danes could be fearsome adversaries. It would not be a civilized fight but a barbaric one. Eric was not afraid of death. He had been raised a Christian, but his mother had never denied them the study of the Norse religion. He was willing to believe in the gentle Christ and in a supreme God the Father. But he adhered to the Viking belief that no man could cheat death in the end, and it was always better to step forward; if he were to fall, he would honestly face the great gods of Valhalla, or even the Christian Lord of the universe.
He gazed across the field at the king he had chosen to support. Alfred sat a saddle well. He was not a large man, but a definite air of command emanated from him, the command necessary to be a ruler. Last night Eric had sat long with Alfred before his central fire, and though he knew that the Saxon king was usually sparing with his drink, they had both downed many a horn of the French wine Eric had brought in his ships. Dubhlain was rich in many ways, for ships constantly came and went from her ports. Since the Muslims had driven forward and claimed much of the Mediterranean, the wily Syrian and Jewish merchants had lost much of their trading power from the East. But in Dubhlain, spices and oils and fine silks and a multitude of wines could be had, for the Vikings who roamed the seas were willing to risk much in their pursuit of treasure.
The Saxon king had fascinated Eric as they had spoken. He was certain that Alfred had been fascinated in return and that he had envied much that Eric had taken for granted. By the age of ten, Eric had been able to read Latin and Greek, as well as his native Irish tongue and his father’s Norse. He had read of the exploits of Alexander and learned the ways of the caliphs who ruled the Arab world from their seat in Baghdad. He had studied the efforts of Charlemagne and been taught mathematics, science, and music. He had also studied the Brehon laws of Ireland, so important to any man who would rule there, and he had attended the councils at Tara beneath his grandfather. He had heard the legends of the great men of Eire from St. Patrick to Cuchulain to the mighty tribe, the Tuath De Danaan. He had ridden to battle against the raids that had harried the Irish shores, but he had lived in a fine house of his father’s making, a fortress with high walls and many rooms.
Alfred had often run in the night, and his home had many times been with the cattle and the pigs. His father, Ethelwulf, had won many victories, as had his brothers before him. But he had been just a lad himself when the last of his three older brothers, Ethelred I, had become king. And since then he had done little but practice warfare. Ethelred died when Alfred was twenty-one, and the fight had become his. In May of A.D. 878, Alfred rode out from the marshes to Egbert’s Stone, and there England rallied around him. He met the Dane, Guthrum, in a massive battle, and Alfred was the victor. Guthrum went so far as to consent to baptism. Alfred stood as his godfather before the eyes of the Church. And Guthrum had kept his Christian peace—for a while.
Now Guthrum stormed Rochester. Alfred wanted him gone.
The King of Wessex was a curious man. He was not awesome in appearance, but he had the power to inspire men to greatness. He was passionate in the support of his church and a man of deep convictions. His word he held sacred.
He had been deeply troubled by the events that occurred upon the coast, that warfare had come between them before Eric had even reached land.
“Have you no knowledge yet of what went amiss?” Eric had asked him.
And the king had shook his head gravely. “I sent a lad, a trusted young fellow, with the message that you were to be received as my honored guests. I have not seen the boy again. Someone determined that my message was not to be given to the lady Rhiannon. I believe that dead men kept my word from her.” He gazed at Eric quickly. “She would not defy my word, not against such odds! At least she would not have done so then. She denies any knowledge of it, and I believe her.”
Eric was silent.
“You may still free yourself from your vows,” the king assured him gravely. “If you believe her guilty—”
“I have no intention of freeing myself from my vows,” Eric said. He would not cast aside this alliance and his dreams of his own land because of a wayward girl. He had seen her with Rowan by the brook. Perhaps they been interrupted before their affair had been fully consummated, but Eric did not believe that he could ever consider her innocent. She was a temptress; she was aware of her beauty and her power, and he pitied the poor man who had fallen in love with her.
His fury had abated somewhat. He was possessive, and he knew it. When they wed, she would learn that he was the law of her life and she’d never dare stray. He didn’t like to think of the day when he had watched her, for the memory infuriated him anew. And more. He did not love her, certainly, and he was very wary of her. Yet she had cast some spell upon him. She was beautiful in the extreme and passionate and full of life. And she could be as seductive as a dream of glory. He had learned that he wanted her fiercely. She had created a fire in his loins that he could not squelch, and yet he was determined to hold away from her. He trusted Alfred; the king would not lie to him, neither would the king’s physician, not about something so delicate as his bride’s virginity. It was his pride, he thought, that had made him glad that Alfred had insisted on verifying Rhiannon’s innocence. And she had to know that Eric could be blunt, stern, and demanding, as necessary. He had no intention of letting her pursue her visions of lost love for Rowan throughout their married life.
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.