“Aye,” he said wryly. “When you come to me so, it is always for some purpose.”
She rose swiftly and gracefully, ready to spin about and leave him. He caught her hand and held her there. “You are not going home,” he told her.
“I did not ask to go home,” she said coldly.
He stared at her, then nodded and gazed absently at the fire again. “He is gone,” he whispered softly. “Aed Finnlaith is gone, and so is the peace of many decades.”
“I’m … sorry,” she said softly. She could feel his pain, but she longed to ease it.
He released her hand. She stood there awkwardly. “Truly, Eric, I am sorry.”
“Go to bed, Rhiannon.”
Still she stayed, uncertain. “Is there anything—”
“Go to bed, Rhiannon. I wish to be alone.”
So dismissed, she swung about. She wanted to run from the room, from him, but she did not dare, not when he was in his present mood. He might let her go … and then again, he might not.
Miserably she crawled back into his bed, and she wondered what he had been like as a little boy; she wondered about the man who had grown up with this castle as his home.
Hurt, she curled to the far side of the bed, leaving him plenty of room. Cold, she shivered, pulling the furs about her. In time she drifted off to sleep again.
Once more, before the dawn, she awoke. He lay beside her. He was upon his back, and she was curled upon his chest, in the shelter of his arm. She was no longer cold.
Nor could she pull away from him. He slept, exhausted. Her hair was caught beneath his naked back. She tugged upon it gently, then realized that her simple movement had awakened him, and his gaze was hard upon her. “Forgive me, madam, am I touching you?”
With a soft expletive he shifted, releasing her hair. Naked, he rose. She watched him, biting her lip, longing to say something but unable to, as he quickly dressed, then slammed out of the room.
She lay back down, but she did not sleep again. Much later Grendal came to her with fresh water and a meal, but she was not hungry and could not eat. She did not know what to do, and so she remained in Eric’s room throughout the long morning.
Later in the afternoon she wandered into the hallway, took the curve, and came to the top of the stairway. From the great hall below she could hear tears and wailing, the deep sounds of mourning. Rather than intrude, she swung around and hurried away. She stopped short, for the hall was blocked by the height and breadth of a man. In the shadows she blinked fiercely, thinking that it was Eric, then realizing that it was not Eric but his father, the King of Dubhlain himself. A true Viking, she thought fleetingly, and a rosy flush colored her cheeks as she thought of all the times she had railed against and taunted Eric for his paternal parentage. Yet surely Eric would never have mentioned her hatred to this man.
“Why do you turn away?” he asked her.
“I …” She stared at him blankly, then realized that he meant she had turned away from the stairs. “I—I did not wish to intrude, my lord.”
“Ah, Rhiannon! You are my son’s wife and therefore our own daughter, and in this moment you do not intrude—you are deeply welcome. My father-in-law knew this, for as his life ebbed away, he reached for you, and you answered that which he needed to hear. Come, take my arm. Eric is downstairs.”
He reached for her gently, and still she withdrew, shaking her head with sudden fear. “You do not understand, my lord.”
“Ah! You cannot take the arm of a Viking, even one so very many years upon this shore?”
“No!” she cried out, stricken, then realized that a subtle smile played on his ageless features. The years would deal with Eric so, she thought. Until the end he would be so very straight, so formidable—so dominating!—and yet still have the ability to charm with the curve of a smile.
She lowered her lashes, flushing, for it seemed this man quite easily read her mind. She shook her head. “It is not that.” She paused. How could she tell the king that his son did not want her with him? “I—I don’t think that Eric—”
“My Lady Rhiannon … daughter!” he corrected himself. “Come, take my arm. No man forces a maid across the sea to a foreign land if he does not wish her presence there.”
“But—”
“Come,” he said, urging her gently. And yet this gentle urging was every inch a command, and she took his arm. As she walked down the stairs she wondered how these men were so able to bend her will, the one she had married with his ruthless demands, this one, his father, with a gentle force every bit as strong.
When they came below, he led her to the Ard-ri’s bed, and the high king was adorned in all his glory, in royal blue and crimson, the crests of Ireland and Tara emblazoned on his mantle, a golden cross resting on his chest. She bent low with the Viking king of Dubhlain and said a prayer, and when she rose, she was still on her father-in-law’s arm. Men, kings of Ireland, came to speak with Olaf the White. To each he presented Rhiannon as his new daughter, and every man there gave her welcome and the respect demanded by the king. She was led across the hall, where a meal awaited them, and there Erin, her beautiful face betraying the stains of her tears, came upon them. She led Rhiannon to the high dais that fronted the long tables, but before Rhiannon could be seated, she felt her arm taken once again, and she turned swiftly. There was Eric, clad much as his father, wearing a crimson mantle trimmed with ermine and emblazoned with the insignias of the wolf, of the kings of Tara, and of the house of Vestfald. “Mother, I thank you. I will take my wife now, if I may.”
His words to his mother were so gentle, so tender. Thank God, Rhiannon thought, that he was not so gentle with her, for the tenderness would play too painfully upon her heart. She needn’t fear, she thought wryly as, seeming to growl, he demanded that she come with him. He seated her at his side and next to his father, and though she shared a chalice with her husband, it was her father-in-law who thought to speak with her, to engage her in conversation, to tell her about their customs. When the meal had ended, Eric led her back up the stairs, opened the door, and ushered her into the room. She turned about to see that he was already closing the door, leaving her again.
“Eric!” she called.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “I just …” She paused and inhaled deeply. She remembered her father-in-law’s assurance: No man brings a woman across a sea to a foreign land unless he desires her presence there.
Or unless he merely seeks to frustrate her own desires, Rhiannon thought bitterly. But she lowered her lashes softly and said, “I do not like to see you suffer so.”
He was very still for a moment, and she thought she felt a coldness like an icy rush of air. Then he stepped back into the room, closed the door, and strode to tower before her. His touch was none too gentle as he raised her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. “You do not wish to see me suffer? Why, lady! I thought that it was your dearest wish to have me boiled in oil!”
She pulled away, alarmed by the tears that stung her eyelids. “Indeed, I had forgotten. So it is!”
He did not come for her, yet she thought that there was the slightest ghost of a smile upon his face, and watching him, she felt her heart seem to cartwheel. She dug her nails into her palms because she was tempted to run across the room to him, he was so striking there, so regal in his attire, so tall that he dominated the room, so golden that he seemed to radiate light. “I suffer the loss of my grandfather, yes,” he told her very softly. His smile faded, but his gaze remained gentle upon her. “But you cannot understand the gravity of it all. Grandfather was the backbone of the island. He was Eire. He was … much as Alfred, you see. He was a very old man, over ninety years old, and he lived a great and majestic life. He will be welcomed in heaven, and the Norsemen he has known will save him a place at the table in Valhalla.” He paused, then came toward her, the gentleness gone. His eyes were alive with a glacial radiance as his fingers threaded through her hair, forcefully tilting her face to his this
time. “My father is strong, my brothers and I are strong, and now we must turn that strength to the aid and assistance of my uncle, Niall of Ulster. Do you understand this?”
“You are hurting me!” she told him.
His hold did not ease. His lips moved above hers, and his whisper warmed and taunted her. “There will be war. And you will remain here, within the safety of these walls, for the length of it.” He did not release her but awaited some protest from her. Levelly she returned his gaze and allowed him no answer, no protest, no tears, and no fight. “My Lord, you are pulling on my hair!”
Then he did release her. He swung about and was gone.
She paced the room for what seemed like forever. Her trunks had been brought to the room; however, she did not change into her own bed clothing but chose the beautiful gown of Irish linen she had worn the night before.
The fire grew very low, and Rhiannon was cold when she at last slipped beneath the sheets and furs of her husband’s bed.
It was later still when he entered the room. Wearily he took a chair before the fire and stared into the flames.
She watched him in the firelight for what seemed like eons. There was such harsh tension in his features, such pain in the depths of his eyes. Her father-in-law was wrong. He certainly did not love her, and now, here, he did not even want her.
But she was falling in love with him despite her better judgment, despite all that had passed between them, despite the man himself. Nay, she was in love with him ….
She rose and walked before the fire. His eyes met hers, and he arched a brow in surprise and taunting question.
He would reject her. She should run and bury herself in the covers.
She did not. She pulled the tie upon the embroidered gown and allowed the linen to fall softly to her feet. More slowly still, she walked to him, meeting his gaze. Before him, she fell to her knees, took his hands, and lightly kissed his palms.
A sharp sound escaped him, and he was up, swinging her into his arms. He placed her upon the endlessly soft texture of the furs and began to make love to her. His kisses seared her flesh. His hands aroused her to a frightening ecstasy. She had longed to ease his soul, had meant to make love to him. Yet she had no chance, for it seemed that she had opened up the floodgates to his passion, more powerful and fierce than the storm that had threatened the sea and sky on the day of their arrival. Now that she had unleashed this tempest, she could neither guide nor control it; she could do nothing, indeed, but ride out the storm.
And it was sweet. He maneuvered her upon the fur, ravenously played his lips and teeth and tongue upon her, sweeping her back, her spine, and her buttocks with his soaring desire, then turning her and positioning her to his leisure once again. She felt the wind inside of her, and the gold of his sun, and she cried out, obliging his every whim, accommodating the dark and windswept passion that rose with a pulsing crescendo between them. The world seemed to rock when he was inside her, to pitch with the wicked, awesome force of the sea, to spin like a whirlpool, then explode in a frenzy of brilliance and light and sweet, sweet nectars.
At last he held her very close. He said nothing but stroked her sweat-dampened body. Words rose to her lips. We’re going to have a child. She tried to open her lips, to utter them. She could not. In time she slept.
In the morning he was up and dressed before she could open her eyes. Exhausted, her hair a tangle within the furs, she realized he was standing above her. “You are not going home,” he informed her harshly.
“What?” she whispered, amazed at the change in him. He might not love her, but she had thought, in the night, that there had been, at the least, a caring between them.
“You are not going home.”
“I did not ask—”
“Whenever you seduce, madam, you are asking. You seek payment like the harlot, you—”
He broke off as she furiously tossed a down pillow into his face. He held the pillow as tightly as he held his temper. “Rhiannon, I do not pay. You should know that by now.”
She pulled a fur over her quivering breasts with what dignity she could muster. “I asked you for nothing!” she spat out. “Nothing, my lord, at all! I sought to give something to you last night, but you needn’t fear, I shall never think to give you anything again!”
He tossed down the pillow and reached for her face. She started to turn away, but his fingers moved so gently upon her flesh that instead she froze, stiff and miserable. “I stand corrected, my lady,” he said softly, and his voice touched her, causing a warmth to shiver down the length of her spine. “And I thank you.”
His lips brushed hers lightly. Then he was gone. She hugged a fur to her and stared after him, then sank back down into the bed. She would never know him. In a hundred years she would never know him.
Grendal saw to her needs once again in the morning, then she dressed and waited, wondering if she should go down or if Eric would come for her.
Eric, most probably, would not come for her.
In the afternoon there was a tap on her door. The nun she had seen by the Ard-ri’s bed the first night of her arrival came in, smiling gently. “I am Bede, Erin’s sister,” she introduced herself, and took Rhiannon’s hands and kissed her cheek warmly. “This is such a very hard time to have come upon us all! Truly we are warm and welcoming, and if you could have known him, you would have loved my father so dearly!”
“I am sure that I would have,” Rhiannon said politely.
“You did so very well with Father.”
“I did?”
“You did indeed” came a voice from the open doorway. Erin of Dubhlain was there, glancing at her sister, then smiling wryly at Rhiannon. “You must have been terribly confused when Father grabbed you so.”
“I—” She broke off, determined to say nothing more. Your father read my mind and my heart! she wanted to cry, but she did not, and she was glad, for Erin quickly continued.
“You see, he thought that you were me.”
“Your pardon, milady?”
Bede laughed softly, and even Erin cast her an affectionate smile. “Aye, she can laugh now! But this fine, saintly sister of mine once conspired with Father—”
“I did not conspire!” Bede protested.
“Hmmpf!” Erin said. “They tricked me into marriage, you see. I would have taken on a gnome or a dwarf or a large ugly boar rather than a Viking,” Erin explained. “But you see, there had been war—awful, horrible war—and Father and Olaf formed a peace, and I was the assurance for that peace.”
“Oh!” Rhiannon exclaimed. “But you seem now to be so … so …”
Erin smiled delightedly, catching Rhiannon’s hands, bringing her to sit at the foot of the bed. “No woman has ever been so blessed with a marriage—or with a man. The years have been exceedingly kind to me, but they did not start off well.”
“’Twas hard, you see,” Bede informed Rhiannon, “for Erin and Olaf had known each other. Erin was running about the country in golden armor, you see, and she had battled her own husband.”
“Bede!”
“There was much that Father never knew,” Bede said affectionately.
“Rhiannon, I thank you again with all my heart for what you said to my father.”
“Please, don’t thank me. I—I’m just so sorry that he is gone.”
Erin leapt up and paced nervously. “And now that he is gone, all those men who so honor him in this hall are plotting war against my brother!”
“I don’t understand,” Rhiannon said. “Why should they do so?”
Erin shook her head. “I don’t know, I’ve never understood. When I was a child, there was always war among the kings. Then the Vikings came, and Father formed a peace so that they could be met. And now … now they will fight again. God help Niall!” She spun back around. “Have you everything that you need? Your trunks arrived from the ship all right?”
“Indeed, milady, they did. Thank you.”
“Milady?” She smiled broadly, her emera
ld eyes bright, and again Rhiannon thought that she was an uncannily beautiful woman. “I am your mother-in-law. You musn’t be so formal. Except that now you must excuse me, because there is so much to be seen to.” She headed to the door, then paused, looking back. “Bede, see to it that Rhiannon meets the family, will you please? Yesterday was so difficult, but today … we must go on.” She started to leave, then came back and smiled at Rhiannon. “I am so glad that Eric has found you. He has been quite a wanderer, going a-Viking to far-distant lands, and I am actually quite amazed that he has found a beautiful young Christian wife at King Alfred’s court. Pray believe that I welcome you with all my heart!”
She left then, and Bede suggested that Rhiannon come down to the hall and meet the family.
Rhiannon followed Bede. Down the stairway she could see the hall where the Ard-ri now lay to receive the homage of his people. A multitude of men in elegant dress, mantles emblazoned with their mottoes and insignias, stood by him in silent prayer. Rhiannon did not see her husband.
As the day wore on, Bede guided Rhiannon about the manor of the King of Dubhlain. In a room across from the main hall she caught a glimpse of Eric at last. He sat with a large group of men, his brothers and uncles, she assumed, and they were engaged in a heated discussion. Bede led her onward. In the grianon, or the women’s sun room, a beautiful girl with Erin’s ebony hair leapt to her feet and raced forward when Rhiannon entered. “Aunt Bede, you’ve brought her at last! I was so intrigued to meet you last night. Do you remember me? Can you remember us all? I’m Daria, the youngest and last of this brood, Eric’s sister. And these are my sisters, Megan and Elizabeth. You’ll get to us all eventually. The boys are Leith—you might have seen him last night at Grandfather’s bedside—and let’s see, Bryan, Conan, Conar, and Bryce. And Eric, of course. Father’s double, that’s what we call him. Please, come in! There’s been so much sorrow! Tell us about Alfred and England, and that awful Gunthrum. Oh, please, do come in, and don’t be shy. We’re never able to be so ourselves, you see.” She laughed, and Rhiannon was instantly enchanted by her candor and ease.