Olaf’s eyes narrowed sardonically as he saw a flush of horror rise in her creamy complexion. She gazed at him, and upon her own position, her tunic hiked, her slender legs entangled with his, her body curled suggestively … his hand …
Erin’s cry died in her throat as she met his contemptuous gaze again. She had done this. She had come against him like a lover might. She had responded with pleasure to his touch, and even now her breast tingled against the touch of his palm.
He laughed suddenly, but it was the sound of dry leaves rustling, hollow. Empty. Distant, so distant.…
Still it was laughter, and her humiliation and loathing came to her full force. Forgetting the threat he had given her about snapping her limbs—a threat she hadn’t doubted for a moment—she lashed out with arms and legs, catching him unaware and causing new pain to his injury.
The laughter left his face to be replaced by the fury she was coming to know so well. He straddled her quickly, catching her wrists and securing them high over her head. He had found his strength again, she thought bitterly, her rash anger cooling as regret for her impulsive and foolish action turned quickly to a rebirth of terror.
“Irish, you are a bitch to be taught a few lessons,” he snapped irritably. “Thank your God that my mind is full, and my body wounded—and in need of your gentle touch,” he added sarcastically.
He let go of her wrists, his brows rising in questioning mockery as he dared her to move against him again. He placed his fingers lightly over her cheeks, smiling grimly at her battle for the control to remain still before him. His light touch held her as his eyes became clouded by shadow. “Be glad that I need you, girl,” he said, his anger almost absent, “and that a Dane did pierce my leg, for I do not forget when I am aggravated sorely. And, Irish bitch, again and again you have given me grievance.”
He released her face and pushed himself painstakingly to his feet. Then he reached down for her, dragging her to her feet. “You will help me to the water,” he commanded.
At the water’s edge he pushed her down before staggering down beside her. He swallowed and leaned back upon his arms. “Clean it again!” he demanded. “And rinse it well, Irish, for still I feel the burn. Ease the pain.”
With trembling hands Erin began to cool the damaged flesh with the fresh water. She glanced nervously at him and saw that his head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. But they parted in gleaming slits of warning and she turned her eyes back to her task.
He is distant now, she thought, preoccupied. But he had stored in his mind everything she had done to him. What would happen to her when the disinterested distance that held him at bay was no longer with him?
“The mud in this bank is a special clay,” she said falteringly. “When your wound is rinsed, it will be best to pack it with the clay and these river weeds. The burn will be eased and—”
“I will eventually rot with the poison?” he queried her sharply.
“No,” Erin murmured. “I am telling you the truth.”
“Then you will pack it—carefully.”
Still shivering, Erin ripped away the fabric near the wound and tore more of her own clothing to create a bandage.
And all the while she was aware of him. She felt the whisper of his breath against her neck as she bent over his thigh, the brushing of his sinewed arm against her when she moved. Even when she wasn’t looking at him she could feel his eyes, envision the full handsome lips, nestled in the trimmed beard, that could twist with both mockery and amusement.
Any brush against his body, any thought of him, made her shiver. She had to get away, but if she hurt him again, she would have to make her escape good.
As if sensing her thoughts, he spoke. “They say, Irish, that the taste of revenge is the sweetest in the world.…”
“Yes,” Erin bit back. “Revenge is sweet, Viking.” She touched the binding over his wound, as if checking her work, and then stood, carefully pretending to stretch her muscles cramped by her efforts in his behalf. As she had hoped, he dipped his golden head over his wound to survey her ministrations.
He is weak, Erin told herself. He had barely eaten, and although he had rested, he was still wounded; still exhausted. Despite the great strength of his body, he was weary. He had to be enduring a draining pain. He wasn’t holding her, and he couldn’t possibly run, and if she didn’t escape him, he would seek a revenge that he had warned her would be very, very sweet.
She stooped carefully to grasp a dead branch from the stream’s edge, praying he wouldn’t hear her. He did, but he glanced up a second too late. The blue eyes met hers just before she brought the branch careening against his skull. And just before his eyes closed she saw a message within them. He would never be distant or disinterested in her again. If he were ever to hold her in his power again, his revenge would be sweet and enduring.
He fell against the bank, but Erin was certain her blow had not been lethal. She doubted she had even rendered him unconscious. But she didn’t wait to find out. She ran, forgetting her horse—and the absurd idea she could ever have taken him prisoner.
Half-hysterical, she dove through brambles and thorns, foliage and trees, thinking of nothing but putting distance between herself and the man, the creature of incredible power, the Wolf.
CHAPTER
6
A.D. 853
Erin leaned heavily against the broad trunk of an ash, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
Spring was coming to the land and, with it, heavy rains. The ground was damp beneath her feet, and the forest smelled heavily of earth and greenery. The air itself was heavy and humid. Soon rain would fall again and the earth would turn to mud and slush.
She adjusted her stance, wincing slightly and clutching her shoulder. Her hand came in contact with something sticky and she looked at her fingers with surprise. Blood oozed from her flesh. Strange, she had felt no pain.
She reached upward to remove the gold-gilded helmet that shielded her head and hid her features, and then slid to sit at the foot of the tree. Somewhere, not far behind her, her raiders would be making an end of the Danish camp by the sea. She did not hear the cries of men—she had taught herself not to listen, just as she had taught herself not to think of the carnage.
A twig snapped and her eyes flew open as she reached for her heavy sword, trying to still the panic that rose within her. She was amazed to see Mergwin standing before her. But as her panic subsided, so did her amazement. The old Druid had a habit of managing to be places when he should have been miles and miles away.
Erin met his relentless stare silently, waiting for him to speak.
“Women,” he said quietly, “are exempt from carrying arms, my lady Erin, as well you know, since 697 when the mother of Saint Adamnan saw two fair ladies in battle. Those docile creatures, before Ronait’s vision, tore into one another with iron sickles in a manner so savage and barbaric that Saint Adamnan issued at Tara that year the law we refer to now as Cain Adamnan. Know you not that law, Erin?”
She wanted to outstare the Druid, but her eyes fell. She exhaled a tired sigh. “I do not enter the battles, Mergwin.”
“No, you lead the men, you position them to fight from the forests, to attack when you have lured the Vikings to their traps.”
Color rushed into her face, and she felt miserable. “What are you doing here, Mergwin?” she asked resentfully. Her arm was beginning to pain her and the gold-gilded mail she wore upon her chest seemed incredibly heavy. She felt gritty and tired and far more unclean than simply dirty. Why did Mergwin have this effect on her? She had been victorious that day, as she had been many times since she began her raids. But her victory felt hollow. She wanted to be home at Tara, to be with her mother, dressing her hair carefully, choosing silks for new gowns.…
“Oh.” Mergwin shrugged in answer to the question she had almost forgotten she had asked. “I thought I might find you here, daughter of Aed.” He sat down beside her and parted the chain on her arm, muttering beneath hi
s breath at the sight of her wound. “I will tie and bind it for you with a poultice,” he said. “Then you must take care to keep it clean or the career of the Golden Warrioress will end with no honor or great deed but with a rotting disease. Do you understand?”
Erin nodded silently.
“I assume,” Mergwin continued, his tone a firm scold, “that neither Aed nor my lord Fennen of Connaught knows that they harbor against their bosoms the lady who drives the Vikings to such great distraction with her devious tactics?”
Erin shook her head, still not meeting Mergwin’s eyes. “No,” she murmured with a bit of a nervous gulp. It was strange how she could now meet a horde of oncoming warriors with little more than a tremor, yet Mergwin could make her feel like a naughty child. But she was not the “Golden Warrioress” to Mergwin and she knew it well. She was a young woman, terrified both of capture and discovery by her own, often wondering how she had even set upon her path.
She finally turned her eyes to her old tutor. “Mergwin, Father must not know that it is I who lead these raids. He will stop me, Mergwin, and he will marry me off to Fennen.”
“I should tell your father,” Mergwin muttered darkly, making her gasp as he pulled tight a band of his own robe around the slash in her arm. “You should be married to Fennen and locked well in his royal residence, away from this bloodshed and foolishness.”
Erin started shivering, feeling a fear worse than that of her first raid. Most of the time she didn’t allow herself to think. After the day in the forest when she had encountered the Norwegian Wolf and found herself inept, she had lost all dreams of battle. She had learned she was fragile and she had discovered she had no wish to die, nor to be injured.
But it had been at that same time that her cousin Gregory had come home well and hearty again, and Gregory’s dreams of vengeance rekindled her own. Only she and Gregory had been at Clonntairth; only they could remember the horror. And so they had created fantasies together, daydreams in which they were the victors, in which the Vikings who had destroyed Clonntairth were butchered one by one. Erin had told Gregory of both Maelsechlainn’s daughter who had brought about the death of Turgeis the Norseman and about the Viking woman warrior who had impressed her. Gregory had seized upon her words. And Erin had discovered that her cousin had gained not only new strength and health from the monks, but a cunning that far surpassed his years.
But even as she allowed herself to spin tales with Gregory, Erin had remembered the horror of the field at Carlingford Lough and she had remembered the feel of the cold eyes of the Norwegian Wolf on her.
Peace had supposedly reigned after the Danes took the battle of Carlingford Lough. But the fact of peace hadn’t lasted a day. Not even the Danes were a totally organized foe. Bands of them had been scavenging tiny coastal villages even as the Irish kings had met with Friggid the Bowlegs, and the defeated Norwegians had returned like weeds. Their raids became more and more fierce, and in their vengeance they preyed more cruelly upon the Danes than ever before.
Gregory cared little whether the raiders were Norwegians or Danes. He had a fever about him to destroy all the foreigners. Even more than the foreigners, he wanted to destroy the outlaw Irish who turned their backs on their land to join with groups of Vikings to prey upon their own.
During his recovery at Armagh, Gregory had studied the tactics of warfare. He combined all he had assimilated with Erin’s tales of the brave, conquering females, and the Golden Warrioress had been born.
To her cousin, Erin had finally admitted she was a coward. She told Gregory she had met with a Viking in the woods after the great battle, and that victory had quickly become defeat in her panicked hands. Gregory had been fascinated, assuring Erin she had behaved commendably and that she had obviously been saved by the powers of the forest because she did have a heroic destiny.
Erin wasn’t terribly sure she was destined for heroism, but Gregory had designed the beautiful gilded helmet and tunic of mail, and before she had quite known she had agreed to his audacious plans, she had become the Golden Warrioress now admired by kings, revered by poets—and respectfully feared by the Vikings.
At first it had been only she and Gregory and a handful of young men. They had been nothing more than a small group of youths, crying out at their first sight of blood. But conviction had held them to their purpose, and after nights when they had sobbed out their terror, screamed with agony from their wounds, and watched friend and brother die, they had toughened into a formidable force. And with the success of their swift and cunning raids, more and more Irish princes and warriors had joined the secret ranks.
They met infrequently, only when Gregory and Erin could escape the work and formalities of home, thinking up excuse after excuse to ride from Tara. They had had more time lately; Aed was busy worrying about the resurgence of Norwegian power that seemed to grow like wildfire. He traveled the land trying to rally the kings together, for an organized defense was vital if they were to survive. Maeve had never had much control over her youngest daughter, and it was doubtful if she ever considered Erin might be lying about the “pilgrimages” she set on with her cousin.
Erin met her troops in the golden outfit, her helmet carefully in place. She had been terrified for months that her voice would give her away, but the delicately molded visor created an echo within the frame of the strange structure and her voice was well camouflaged. Her troops were loyal, placing her upon a pedestal and respecting her wish to remain anonymous. Any man who chose to allow his curiosity to outweigh his honor would quickly find swords held to his throat.
“Mergwin,” Erin said softly, “please, you mustn’t tell my father, or Fennen, or anyone. Not now. I could not be any man’s wife, Mergwin, I am needed. We have been striking the only decent blows against the Vikings. We have saved countless Irish villages, countless Irish lives.” She touched the old Druid’s bearded cheeks and whispered, “Please, Mergwin. I swear to you, I carry my sword only so that I may defend myself if—”
“If the Golden Warrioress can’t disappear quickly enough after seducing men to their deaths?”
Erin lost her temper. She was tired and worn and her arm was paining her, and Mergwin was behaving as if the Vikings were the injured party. “Mergwin,” she said coldly, “these men whom I ‘seduce’ to their deaths are rapists, murderers, and thieves. Butchers plundering a land that isn’t theirs! I don’t take off across the seas to bring them harm. They’ve come here, Mergwin, to my land. They need only to leave to keep their bloodthirsty hides safe! We attack their camps when we know they are about to decimate our villages.”
She had stood as she spoke, squaring her shoulders, straightening her spine. Mergwin could see how she had rallied a group of ragtag boys into inestimable valor. Her eyes glittered with righteous dignity. Within their emerald depths, one saw the land in all its beauty. He couldn’t even argue with her logic. Nor in fairness should he fight against her since her secret exploits had ironically done much to assist her father in rallying the kings of Eire together.
He was simply frightened for her, scared in his bones. But just as he knew a great danger lay before her in the hands of the blond giant, he also knew that he was powerless to steer her course.
He stood beside her and was glad for a moment that he was a tall man. With this willful daughter of Aed, one needed every advantage to appear as a figure of authority. “Go and disband your troops,” he told her shortly. “I have come to escort you back to Tara. Your father is calling council, and this is one time he will surely note your absence.”
Erin stared at the irascible Druid for a moment, hearing the pounding of her heart. He was not going to betray her to her father; he had come only to find her. “All right, Mergwin,” she said quietly. He handed her the golden helmet and she righted it upon her head, adjusting the visor.
Erin mac Aed, sweet-spirited beauty of Tara, was gone. The visor stole away the gentle girl he had known who healed robins’ wings and shed gentle tears for the least of the
forest’s injured creatures. She wore her gold with a frightening amount of authority.
Erin made her way quickly and quietly through the forest, returning to circle the clearing where the Vikings had been ambushed. She steeled her eyes to the sight of the dead. As many brave men before her, she had simply learned not to look upon death. As she had from the beginning, she began to pray fervently that Gregory was not among the fallen.
The forest was silent, and she forced herself to pause for a minute as Mergwin had long ago taught her. At first she heard only the slight stirring of the leaves in the breeze, but then the breeze also brought a murmur that was the distant sound of men. She followed the sound, realizing her band of twenty-odd had gone on to raze the Viking camp.
She trod softly to come upon a second, larger clearing filled with the tents and cold campfires of the Vikings.
She swallowed her revulsion at the sight of the damage done by her Irish raiders and fought back a ridiculous rush of tears. These were Danes, she told herself, but sometimes, seeing destruction and loss hurt just the same. An old man lay slaughtered near a cooking fire, a woman—a camp follower—lay dead before her tent, an Irish pick through her heart.
A quivering horror ripped through Erin and she almost doubled over. I am losing control, she thought sickly. They are the butchers, the barbarians. We are the educated, the literate … the Christian.
She stepped into the clearing and her voice rang across the camp. Men began to emerge from tents, booty in their hands, but as she railed against their heathen ways, their faces became sheepish. A man broke from the crowd and lowered himself to a knee before her.
“Our pardon, lady. The woman was killed in the frenzy of our attack. She appeared and our spears and picks flew without our careful scrutiny.”