As suddenly as he had found himself amid the enemy, he found himself standing alone. All had stepped away from him. His head seemed to ring, his eyes to blur. He closed them and opened them again, and saw before him Olaf the White.
It was true that an aura seemed to radiate from the man. Even for a Viking he was tall, and beneath his emblazoned mail he seemed to be a mass of sinewed power. As he walked forward, tension seemed to spark from him.
I do not want to die! A shudder rippled through Aed as he gazed into the frigid blue eyes of the Norseman, but no sign of that shudder appeared in his countenance. Good Lord, I am an old man who fears death, he thought as be began to pray. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow … Aed raised his heavy battle sword high as the prayer drifted from his mind. And it was he who struck first. Blow parried blow. It appeared to be more a dance of agility than a dance of death as the two men faced each other. Each strike of steel upon steel seemed to screech.
Aed’s arms shuddered from the force of each strike he parried. He noted vaguely that they were left entirely alone. At least he had the advantage of not worrying about an axe to his back. But he was a man past his prime meeting a superb warrior who never failed to best even the most ferocius and talented of his peers. That Aed held his own as long as he did was a consolation, enough of one at least to slowly bring him to the acceptance of a proud death, a warrior’s death, a king’s death.
A blow from the Viking’s sword sent him faltering to his knees. He tried to stand again, but he slipped in the blood-slick mud, unable to wield the heavy war sword effectively. He closed his eyes and thought of green grass, of the smell of the earth after the rain, of Maeve’s smile and blue skies. And he tried to brace himself for death, tried not to tremble as he felt the point of the Viking’s sword touch his wrinkled throat.
The swordpoint was removed and Aed opened his eyes, wondering why the Viking king would not grant him death in battle. He could not believe that this extraordinary man known for a strange type of mercy would grant none to the Ard-Righ of Ireland, a man who had fought him bravely.
To Aed’s amazement, a hand partially clad in leather to the knuckles reached out for his. There was a trace of thawing amusement in the arctic eyes.
“Rise, High King of Tara,” a deep and surprisingly pleasant voice bid him in his own tongue. Rather blankly, Aed accepted the hand. “Would that I have your strength and courage when I reach your years,” the blond giant continued quietly.
Aed stood, praying he wouldn’t wobble. “If you would kill me, Wolf of Norway,” Aed replied, using in his turn the Norse tongue, “grant a king his due and end it here.”
The Viking laughed. Aed did not know that he saw the first trace of warmth in eyes that had long been cold. “By your Christian God, Aed Finnlaith, Ard-Righ of Tara, I would not take your life. Only that God of yours knows who might follow in your footsteps, and I am partial to men of reason. Go back to your troops, High King. You will not be molested. You are a man of honor and courage.”
Scarce believing his ears, Aed watched as an ocean of the burly giants parted to allow him through. He stared at the hard handsome face of his enemy, then turned and forced himself to lift his chin without faltering as he began to walk.
Any second an axe will fall into my back, he thought as he slowly made his way. But as he had been promised, he was not molested. He walked past the Vikings and through the now-quiet battlefield. The fighting was over for the day. A strident trumpet sounded; and the Norse seemed to melt into the trees.
As Aed finished his silent but fervent thanks to God for the extraordinary quirk within the Wolf of Norway that had granted him his life, he began to study the results of the day. And for the life of him, he did not know who had taken the victory.
Forty miles inland, Aed’s daughter was leaving the scene of her own particular battle. Tara had been saved by Gregory and the troops of the Golden Warrioress, but Erin was not jubilant as they rode through the forest. Gregory had been wounded and she was anxious that they reach Mergwin’s quickly so that he could be treated. Even Gregory, who had once voiced a certain fear of the Druid, longed for his magic touch.
Erin caught her cousin’s eyes on her as they rode in silence. He smiled, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
“Mergwin will know we are coming,” Erin assured him. “Your pain will soon be soothed.”
Gregory shrugged. “I worry about you, Erin, not me.”
Erin made no attempt to reply. She had almost been caught that day. She had become embroiled in the battle, forced into hand-to-hand combat with a bulky Dane. She had managed to elude his lethal axe but she had not been forced to deliver a death blow. Gregory had come to her rescue. Yet she had been forced to realize that she could kill but only to survive. She hadn’t the heart for warfare. She knew that Gregory worried she might be caught again, and that she would be too hesitant to strike.
“Gregory,” she said finally, “please don’t ever worry. If the need ever comes and I am alone, I will do what is necessary for my life.”
Gregory half smiled, but his smile was miserable. “I pray, cousin, that you never have to don your suit of gold again.”
They fell into a silence as they continued onward through the forest.
As Erin had sensed, Mergwin expected them. He cared for Gregory’s wounds, he fed them, and he made them rest. He didn’t scold, he delivered no lectures. He stroked his long beard continually, his eyes mirrors of distraction.
They spent the night in the cottage in the woods. Erin slept well, a deep sleep, like that of a very young child. She almost felt gay in the morning, as if she were a child again, staying with Mergwin merely to learn to listen to the breeze and delight in the sight of a rainbow. Mergwin’s cottage was warmth; it was safety. She flirted outrageously with the old man while they prepared a breakfast of smoked fish. But not even her coddling could bring him out of his distracted mood.
She and Gregory left after the meal. Erin turned back to wave, which she did with a smile. But when she turned away again, her brow was knit in a furrow. She almost asked Gregory to turn around and look at the Druid, but her cousin was semislumped over his horse and his expression was tired and irritable.
She shivered suddenly, unable to shake that final vision of Mergwin’s eyes. They had stared upon her so sadly. She had never seen anyone glance upon her before with such agonized … pity.
They were able to slip back to Tara with no incident. Gregory remained another day, then rode off to return to the battlefield. Erin quietly resumed her tasks. She spent her evening hours with her sisters and since even Bride was jubilant with the news that the Irish were pushing the Norse back to Dubhlain, Erin quickly found herself allowing her near-fatal deceit to fall into misted memory. Once more she allowed her dreams to surround her as she tended the geese or sheep.
Mercifully she was unaware that her dreams, the substance of her existence, were about to be shattered. In the most incredible way.
CHAPTER
8
Aed Finnlaith stood, a weary man, against a tall tree as he stared at the earthworks of Dubhlain, already being replaced by a stone and mortar wall. His generals were boasting of the day. He knew the murmurs of the voices he heard from the central campfire were those of glory. Aed could not see the day as a victory. The green mounds of Ireland were well fed with the blood of her sons. Men he had supped with the night before were butchered beyond recognition. Indeed, even the night sky highlighted the display of grizzly death by changing with a shocking array of crimsons and mocking blood reds.
He closed his eyes, feeling sick. He tried to shut out the wanton waste of life, of both Irish and Norwegian men. The majority of the dead were young men, beautiful young men, strong, healthy … the pride of their fathers, the love and youth of their mothers.
God rot us all! he thought angrily. And his anger turned on his own generals as he thought of the work it had taken to draw them together. They had been born and bred to the
Viking threat, born and bred to battle. Today they had faced the Norse, but though they called themselves civilized Christians, they were still murdering butchers. Aed began to wonder how long it would take the kings to go to war against one another again if the threat of the Viking diminished.
“Perhaps we deserve one another,” he whispered aloud. And perhaps the Viking threat would never be over, he thought, discouraged. Olaf played cat and mouse so well.
Olaf the White. Aed had seen him again today, leading his troops, his heavy sword high as he charged the field on his immense black stallion. He had screamed a heathen war cry as piercing as any ever heard, he had ridden across the land as fiercely as ever a Viking lord before him.
But he was different. That had been proven yesterday. Aed had his life as testimony. Yes, Olaf was different—young, strong, and as steady as an old oak tree—and as tall and powerful. His golden-blond head, appearing over the hill like the wrath of God, had been enough to instill terror into the hearts of many a brave man. Yet he was still a man who battled only men. He preyed upon neither women nor children. He was a warrior, ferocious in battle, but not an executioner.
The sky slowly lost it shade of crimson mockery, but it did not bring relief from the gruesome pictures of the day. Instead, campfires flared with the breeze of night, seeming to flame a golden warning.
Impatiently Aed cast his helmet aside and strove to free himself from the heavy shackle of his mail. Many of the Irish troops still fought with nothing more than leather tunics and fell to the superiority of steel.
He sat on the ridge by the tree, suddenly a very old man, old beyond life. Perhaps his graying hair and beard were an outward sign of the weakness creeping into his bones and into his mind.
They wanted him to attack the city. Perhaps that was exactly what he should do. Why didn’t he do it? Because he couldn’t win. He knew that Olaf anticipated an attack and that he awaited Aed’s next move with curiosity. And because if there was hope at all for their lives and for peace, the hope rested with the Wolf. He was different. A wild barbarian from the North, yes. But somehow civilized. Unlike the Dane Friggid the Bowlegs, Olaf was fastidious. It was rumored that he had taken on many Irish customs, including daily bathing. He was a builder and a dreamer. Already a stone castle stood within the growing walls, and Aed had also heard that in Dubhlain there was now water running directly to the houses through hollowed-out logs.
A cry of agony from a mortally wounded man pierced through Aed’s eardrums like a hard-flung spear. He gritted his teeth and pulled his red-gray hair over his ears with clenched fists to relieve the haunting shrieks of the dying man. Then suddenly Aed Finnlaith, High King of Tara, the man who had drawn together the fighting nobles of the land to beat the common foe, cried. Tears, which had not touched his weathered face in forty years, swept down his bronzed and bushy cheeks. And for a moment he gave into the sickness of his heart. He cried for the beautiful sons of the land who lay in mangled heaps.
Slowly Aed staggered back to his feet. He did not touch his coat of mail, nor his sword with its crust of blood. He strode on his aged but still powerful legs to the campfire where generals and kings awaited his council, expecting that he would give the word that they would attack Dubhlain come morning.
The men looked curiously at Aed as he walked among them, their eyes bright with the lustful gleam of power and victory. Fools, Aed thought. You have watched him draw us ever closer, and yet you believe that this day has really been ours? Aed grimaced as he saw the eyes of his men. They were Christians, yet they appeared as animals, carnivorous and bloodthirsty. Dear God, Aed asked silently, are we, the men of your faith, no better than the beast that comes from the North?
His answer lay before him. The kings at the fire, those who had withstood the weeks of battle and today’s horror with little or no injury, continued to boast of their feats. Aed warmed his gnarled fingers over the fire wordlessly as he waited for the conversation to die around him. Then he looked up with fierce eyes, nonetheless compelling for the smoky hue that had encroached upon a once-brilliant blue. “It is over,” he said simply. “Come the morning, we will send a delegation to Olaf to offer negotiation.”
The fire snapped and crackled, the only reply to Aed’s surprising words. The expresssions on the faces of the men who ringed the fire differed; some were of scarce-concealed relief, some were of anger. It was Fennen mac Cormac who finally spoke, breaking the terse silence of the macabre scene.
“Look here, Aed,” he protested, drawing his muscled body to full height. “You called us together. You demanded the ultimate defeat of the Vikings. Now you propose to withdraw when we are but a day from final victory.”
Aed eyed Fennen with patience and then spoke quietly. “It is true that I called you together. Olaf threatened all of Ireland. But we will never be truly rid of the Viking. He strikes at will, he isn’t a common enemy. The Viking is a Dane, a Norwegian, a Swede. He preys upon himself as we have seen. And as we have also seen, Olaf is not our customary foe. So think on this, my lords. We seemed to have won the day. The Norse took refuge behind their walls. But can we trust this victory? There stands the possibility that we have been drawn here in one group. We could attack tomorrow morning and we could discover that Olaf has thousands of warriors awaiting us.
“Or we could negotiate. He is stronger than any Viking before him. Men obey his word blindly. An alliance with him could grant us aid against the outlaw raids that chew upon the coastlines, slowly devouring the Irish. He has proven himself a better man than any Dane. We have seen him fight; we have also seen his generosity. He allows us to take away our wounded. He has left no trail of death in the villages behind him.
“This, my lords, is my belief. Mull on it as you will and at dawn we make our decision. But I believe that Olaf has cunningly brought us here. That he wants no more than Dubhlain, but he wants the recognition that the city is his. I say that we should let him have it; the city has always been Norse. Our option might be a final slaughter of the kings of Ireland. One last thing to think on. We have regained land today. We have not beaten Olaf. Should we not beat him, he has the power to raise his strength again and again, and perhaps eventually annihilate our kingdoms.”
There was silence again around the fire. Aed surveyed the eyes of the kings, but then he waited for no more words or discussion. Let their minds brew awhile, he thought as he walked away. He was tired. He longed to be at home, hearing Maeve’s gentle laughter, feeling her soothing touch upon his brow. I might be old, he thought, and the passions and fires of youth might have grown subdued, but still my wife is my lover and my friend.
He had not reached his tent before he was stopped by his son Niall.
“Father?”
Aed’s lifted brow indicated his exhaustion.
Niall spoke quickly. “I believe the kings will side with you. Few still rave about victory.” Niall shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. “Many of the kings believe that Olaf does have the gods on his side, that he cannot be destroyed. They worry about only one thing—how to cement a peace, how to ensure that Olaf will not ride against us again.”
Aed smiled and placed his hands upon his son’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me this, Niall.” He knew that Niall had the confidence and respect of the younger kings. “I will rest now, and I will dwell upon solving that problem.” He paused a moment. “Niall, what is your opinion?”
Niall hesitated, then cleared this throat. “I believe as you do, Father, that the Wolf is cunning. I believe that he allowed you to live because he respects you and that he hopes you will sue for peace rather than force him to senseless slaughter.” Niall paused again. Then he spoke hoarsely, his voice thin. “Look at those walls, Father. God alone knows what horrors he has in preparation behind them.”
Aed nodded and turned from his son. He ducked into his tent to find a young girl, a camp follower, a whore. He smiled dryly, thinking the lass would find herself disappointed. He was a faithful man, and if he weren
’t, he would still be too old to play warrior and lover in one day. “Go, girl,” he told her softly, “for I have no use of your talents this night.”
She was very young and very pretty, too young and pretty to be following this life. Her face flamed at his words, and he realized she believed he thought her not worthy. He relented.
“If you would provide me with water to wash the stench of blood from my hands, I would find pleasure in a little cleanliness.”
The girl nodded with a gentle smile. “I will fetch water, m’lord,” she murmured shyly. “And I can rub your shoulders to ease the tension.”
“That will be fine,” Aed said softly. Then as he watched the girl procure the water and bathe his hands, he realized that she reminded him a bit of Erin. She hadn’t Erin’s stunning coloring, nor the lithe perfection of form, but she was the same age as his daughter.
The girl began to massage his neck and shoulders. Aed smiled and closed his eyes, his thoughts still on Erin. It would be good to go home.
He had to stop thinking about home. He had to think about Olaf the White and a peace treaty that could be binding, but he was so tired. Thinking was a painful process but he had to think about the Wolf, aye, he had to think about the Viking. The girl was good at soothing him; she had a touch almost as gentle as Erin’s.
He had begun to relax; then his entire body suddenly stiffened. Thoughts of the Norwegian Wolf and his daughter had merged together. As a father, he cringed with pain. As Ard-Righ, he had known instantly what he had to do, offer a truce, an alliance that couldn’t be broken.
Aed spent a miserable night, but with the dawn messengers were sent to the walls of Dubhlain. The Wolf agreed to meet with Aed, and an unhappy Niall was sent to Tara to bring his sister Erin to his father. The Ard-Righ had struck his alliance.
Erin tried every feminine trick she knew as she traveled with her brother, from cajoling and wheedling to pouting and begging. When all else failed, she tried tears, but not even that effort could draw an explanation from Niall.