“The friar would enter,” the woman said.
She left him. The flame-haired Dane seemed completely uninterested in him.
He grunted and shoved the door open. Conar entered a small, drafty, peat-filled room with no windows. In the darkness he could barely see. He realized a man sat upon a bed of rushes on the floor, leaning against the wall.
“Welcome, Brother,” Niall said softly after a while. “Take your time entering. I have been here long now, and my eyes have grown accustomed to this darkness.”
Conar quickly made his way to his uncle, hunching down beside him.
“Have you come to raise my spirits, man? They have never fallen, and what comes will come, as is God"s will. Maelmorden will kill me, but he will never win. If my life no longer stands forfeit, my family will crush him.” His uncle sounded amazingly like his grandfather. Aed Finnlaith had been such a man, to calmly curl his fingers around that which he could hold—and defy fate when it could defy him.
“Aye, Ard-Ri!” Conar said softly. “But your family does not intend your life to be forfeit!”
“Who is it?” Niall whispered.
“It is I, Conar.”
He felt his uncle"s fingers touch his face. “Dear God, Conar! You"ve come alone? What foolishness! I have aged, my boy, my death would not be such a tragedy. You are young, with life stretched out before you!”
“Uncle, we haven"t the time to discuss that at the moment. I have to know, can you stand, can you walk?”
Niall was quickly on his feet, not unsteady in any way. “We risk all the fury of the gods!” Conar muttered.
“God, son. God. One God. This is Eire. Your father has turned Christian!” Conar sighed. “Uncle—”
“Aye, time, time! What is the plan?”
Conar was pulling off his robes. “Put these on.”
“But you—”
“I slay yonder dragon, lying at the door, seize his armor, and escort you out.
Do you see?”
“Aye, it could work, it could work …”
“It has to work!”
Conar left him and returned to the door. He watched the man and slowly drew his knife from his calf.
He threw open the door.
The Dane saw him, his eyes widening with shock. He scrambled to unsheath his sword, but even as he drew it, Conar"s knife found its mark on the man"s throat.
He caught the massive Dane as he fell, then quickly divested him of his mail and horned helmet, knife, mace, and sword.
He hurried back into the room. There was no going back. Speed was everything.
Niall was clad in the robes. He silently accepted the weapons his nephew offered him, then studied Conar. “Aye, you"ll pass for him!”
“Then we move now.”
Conar took his uncle"s arm and led him down the long hallway. They came into the center room, where Maelmorden was still complaining about the strength of his enemies.
The Norse languages were nearly the same, yet there were subtle differences in the words spoken by Danes and Norwegians, and Conar was careful to guard his tongue as he grunted out the statement that he was seeing the friar out.
“His soul"s a loss, eh, brother?” Maelmorden said, and burst into long spates of laughter. Conar pressed his uncle"s arm, and they started out together. They quickly walked the long distance from the house to the line of guards surrounding it.
His father, his brothers, the other allied Irish kings, could see them now.
They would know that the plan had been successful thus far.
He had only to cross the line.
Then came a wild cry of fury from behind them. Conar swung around.
Maelmorden was bursting from the house, his teeth gnashing, his mouth near foaming. He drew his sword, racing forward with his men behind him, yelling in a dark rage for his men to slay them both.
But there was a cry from the fields as well. His father"s forces came bursting out of the trees, riding down thunderously upon the line of defense and the manor. He saw his brother Eric sweeping toward him and thrust his uncle toward him. Eric reached for Niall, and Niall shed the monk"s robes, reaching for his nephew, leaping up behind him on his horse, the sword Conar had given him from the slain Dane held high in his hand.
It was well Niall had reached his family, for the enemy was upon them. Eric and Niall hacked and slashed from atop Eric"s horse.
Conar met the men who charged him from the ground, swinging in a broad arch that silenced several in one sweep, keeping his back to his brother"s horse.
A second later a known enemy pit himself in fury against him.
Maelmorden himself.
The rebellious Irish king was a battle king, well trained, hardened, and in a rage. Conar thought back to all his training as Maelmorden faced him again and again, as their swords clashed and shuddered, as they broke away from each other. Maelmorden was smiling, displaying broken teeth. He fought like a berserker, foam forming upon his lips.
Never lose your temper in battle …
So had been his father"s warning when he had been a child. He remembered it now.
When the powerful Maelmorden rushed him next, he simply moved aside.
And when the man passed him, he drew up his sword and slashed it down.
Maelmorden fell before him. The small eyes looked at him once again. The man smiled. “Would that it were to your Valhalla, where battles are fought daily, that I might go!”
His eyes closed. Blood bubbled from his lips.
He died.
“Conar!” Leith was riding in hard, leading Thor. Conar leapt atop his horse and rode into the rest of the battle.
There was not much more of it. With Maelmorden gone, the backbone of the resistance was broken. With Niall freed, order was restored. Most of the Danes fled. The Irish cast aside their weapons and bowed low in fealty to Niall on the battlefield where their comrades lay dead.
At long last it was over.
They ate in Maelmorden"s house that evening, and Conar was honored by his father, uncle, brothers, and the other kings.
“What boon would you ask of me, nephew?” Niall asked him.
“No boon, Uncle. Except to give me your blessing to sail. I wish to reach my own land as soon as possible now.”
“Melisande has gone to Wessex—” Eric began, frowning.
“No. Melisande used Rhiannon to reach Wessex, and from there, sent for her own ships. I am deeply worried about things at home.”
“You"ve more than my blessing, Conar. You"ve my full support,” Niall promised him. “You"ve this land in Maelmorden"s stead, awaiting you always, should you choose to return.”
Conar thanked him and retired. He awoke Swen and Brenna and the rest of his men early, riding hard for Dubhlain, where his ships waited. He forced them to travel hard, covering more than fifty miles a day.
In Dubhlain he discovered what he had expected.
Rhiannon had written Erin to tell her Melisande had chosen to go home.
Melisande had written that times might soon be desperate.
Erin had just told her that the men had not returned from the north, that Niall was still hostage.
“I"ll write again immediately—” Erin said.
“Nay. I sail now. For home. And my wife.”
“You must long to hold her—”
But his eyes were cold. She had cut him deeply, and he determined that he would bury his heart against her.
“To slit her throat!” he swore to his mother, and Erin fell silent. She kissed his cheek.
“Give her a chance—”
“Mother, I only pray that I arrive in time to do so!” He sailed immediately, heedless of the tides. He did not need Brenna or Mergwin to warn him that time was of the essence.
The days seemed to pass endlessly for Melisande. She was most concerned with the wall of the fortress, which still seemed to have weaknesses. She sent men to acquire stones to repair it from the Roman ruins and gathered them inside the fortress, not
certain as yet just how she wanted it repaired.
She heard frequently from Odo, who seemed concerned for her safety. She also heard from Erin and knew that nothing had changed in the north.
She felt as if she had been away from Conar forever. She ached for him, yet at times he even became vague in her mind, for he was so far away and so distant. She had not heard a word from him, and she knew that he was probably coldly furious, and that he might well despise her all the more for what she had done.
Maybe he would never come, she thought. He was too fiercely loyal to his homeland. That was what he didn"t understand. This was her homeland. She had to care about the fortress, had to defend it. Even at risk to herself.
To their child.
Eire was vast. Conar would always have his place within it. This was her land, and she had to fight for it.
She was called upon to do so when she had been home scarcely three weeks.
Philippe came to her in the great hall to tell her that a group of raiders were pillaging a fishing village just to the north of them. She had been studying a letter from Rhiannon, reading to see if Eric had mentioned his brother or her, when she heard his breathless arrival and looked up.
“What do we do, milady?”
She hesitated a moment. “We defend them,” she said. She stood. “I will ride with you.”
Philippe gaped at her. “Milady, do you think that wise?” Ragwald came thundering into the room. “It is not wise indeed! The count would be furious!”
“But the count is not here,” Melisande said coolly. “I will ride with you.” She hurried to her room and opened the trunk with the gilded mail. She quickly donned the armor, then lifted the pretty sword.
Her fingers trembled when she remembered the last time she had wielded it.
A sudden, anguished longing swept through her. She fought it.
He would have to have known that she had come here. And still he hadn"t come. Yet he had always sworn that he would never let her go.
But she had left him, and perhaps now he had decided that she and her fortress were not worth the effort. What difference did the anguish in her heart mean now anyway? If he came here, he would be ready to kill her. Aye, as fearsome as any enemy.
She shook off the tremors that had seized her and hurried down the stairs.
Ragwald and Philippe remained there, worriedly discussing her actions.
“Do I ride alone?” she asked from the bottom of the stairs.
Philippe hastily joined her.
They rode hard upon the enemy, and Melisande knew that she drew her people"s loyalty and that riding at their head, she gave them strength.
They were quickly victorious, for the small party of Danes that had set ashore had done so for rape and plunder, they quickly discovered, with no intent to stay. Even as the invaders saw the horses sweeping down on them, they cried out, seeking their ships.
Philippe managed to save a pretty child from being kidnapped, grasping the babe from a fleeing Dane and returning it to the outstretched arms of her wailing mother. Gaston, the old but talented fellow, managed to slay their leader, ducking the man"s battle-ax, catching him in the midriff with his razor-edged sword.
Melisande watched it all, hating it, feeling ill. Yet she felt that she"d had no choice but to ride.
Conar would never see it that way.
If he ever found out.
If he lived.
If he returned.
Days later an Irish player arrived on their shores. He came to her and sang, setting a recent poem to music, explaining that she would enjoy the words.
It was about the great fight in the north, its having just been won. Niall was freed. The player knew only the message in the poetry, for details were still not known, all that passed south like wildfire had been that the Ard-Ri lived, the Irish forces had tricked Maelmorden, Niall had been taken, and Conar had slain their enemy and received titular head as king in Maelmorden"s stead.
Melisande thanked the player for coming to her.
“He will come now,” Ragwald told her.
She shook her head. Would he? If he did, she must fight against him. Nay, they needed him.
But what would he do to her now?
“He will not come. They are eager to make him a king in Ireland.”
“He has a wife.”
“In Eire a man may set his wife aside if he so chooses!” she said softly.
“He will come,” Ragwald insisted.
Yet the next morning, when she awakened first, it was not Conar who had come.
Gaston rushed in upon her. “Jesu! Jesu! You cannot imagine! It has come at last, Geoffrey"s attack. Lady, they are lined upon the ridge, lined there endlessly!”
She was freezing. Oh, so stiff! It was damp and miserable and dark in Geoffrey"s awful prison beneath the earth.
She had fought against her fear, remembering.
All those men lined there! And that just this morning!
Thus had begun her day. She had donned her gilded mail again. She had fought Geoffrey, and then Ragwald had been right—and she had been wrong.
Conar had come in his magnificent ships.
Beaten back Geoffrey"s troops, thundered through the wall.
Come to her, claimed her anew, spoken to the people with her.
And she had fought him. She had told him that she loathed him when she loved him.
He had touched her again. Taken her to heaven, no matter what the tempest.
He had made love to her.
I will never let you go. Aye, he had said it time and time again. But what chance did he have now?
Melisande pulled the cloak more tightly about her shoulders as she sat in the dank prison so deep in the earth, where Geoffrey had cast her. She fought tears, fought screaming. But who would see her tears, or hear her screams?
She closed her eyes, praying that it would take Geoffrey a long, long time to come back for her. If he touched her, she would want to die.
She couldn"t die. She was expecting a child.
Should she tell Geoffrey that? Would that keep him away from her?
Nay, he"d be convinced he needed to slay her quickly.
She rose, but the darkness was complete. She hugged the cloak to her and tried to move.
Her feet were bare, blistered, bleeding. She trod carefully.
She heard the squeal of a rat, and her breath caught, and she jerked her hand back.
She had to escape. If God ever gave her a chance again, she would …
What?
Ah, indeed, what? she mocked herself. Tell him that I love him, that we are to have a child. That I was hurt and willful most often because he did not understand that I needed to fight with him, I thought that I battled alone, but I needed him.
She thought of his tenderness, thought of the way that he touched her.
If Geoffrey came, she would die, by his hand, or by her own.
What a fool! she cried to herself. She had to keep fighting, she had to escape, find the door …
But she went dead still. She could hear the ancient door creaking. She could feel things, sense them in the darkness, she had been here so long.
She stood on her toes, flat against the damp wall, listening. She held her breath. Her heart hammered furiously.
She was no longer alone.
Someone had entered into the stygian darkness of the room with her.
Someone who closed the door quietly in his wake, locking them in together.
A silent scream welled in her throat.
3
After …
A Siege of Hearts
Chapter Twenty
Spring, A.D. 885
The Coast of France
The wall had taken the greatest extent of the damage today, Conar decided, surveying it in torchlight against the darkness that had fallen.
The wall, and our lives, he thought wearily. Dear God, but it had been an awful day. The fear that had gripped him when he had seen the fortress un
der assault had been horrible; he"d never known such anguish.
The fear had fueled his anger.
He"d been so damned furious. Ever more so when he came here, when she had so nearly fallen to Geoffrey, as wretched a traitor as his father had ever been.
What if Conar hadn"t arrived when he did?
The thought caused a cold sweat to break out on his forehead, and he closed his eyes momentarily, praying for the tension to ease from his body. And his wife! How great the distance that lay between them now!
He gave orders that the stones be shored up for the night, and he started to turn from the damage. He felt a presence behind him and turned to find Brenna watching him with large, soulful eyes.
“What?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.
Brenna shook her head slightly. Inhaled and exhaled. “You should not be so hard on her.”
He arched a brow. “Brenna,” he said very softly, “she defied my orders and came here, and there was nearly disaster.”
“But she knew she would be attacked—”
“And what is this fortress except for wood and stone?” he demanded. “Had it fallen, we would have rebuilt.”
“There are her people,” Brenna reminded him.
He turned his back on her, having little answer for that. “She defied me. I don"t know why you speak on her behalf—the lady remains highly suspicious of you.”
Brenna smiled. “Only because she is blind to one truth. She does not see that you don"t allow her to travel with you because you are so deathly afraid that some danger will befall her. I am more expendable.”
“Brenna—”
“I serve you, as do Swen, and the others.”
He fell silent, waiting, knowing Brenna, knowing she intended to say more.
“You haven"t—done anything to her, have you?”
“Done anything!” he repeated, then his voice took on the edges of a growl, though it remained soft. “How long have you known me?” he demanded. “What do you think I would have done?”
“I have never seen you so angry.” She hesitated. “Nor so hurt.” He sighed. “No, I have not beaten her, nor caused any injury to her! I confess, I"m at a loss. What do I do? Lock her within her tower? I must find some way to make her understand how reckless she is, how much she risks!”