“Rhiannon …” He pressed her back against the hay and moved over her. She suddenly felt keenly aware of the moment, of all sensation. The scent of the hay rose up, and she heard each shuffle of the horses’ hooves, felt the very texture of the flesh on his palms. The day was ridiculously beautiful, she knew, beyond the paneling of the barn. It was spring in Wessex; the grass was green and the brooks and streams bubbled and laughed. And she loved the man here beside her.
If they were caught together, though, they would both be condemned as guilty of defying the king’s will. Nay, it went further, for she knew that it was not only Alfred’s will but his honor, as well, at stake.
Alfred’s honor—and perhaps Rowan’s life.
She scrambled up upon the hay. “Rowan! If someone saw you come here … I am afraid.”
“Hush. No one saw me. I would not jeopardize your future so.”
“My future!” She reached out again, needing to touch him. He had kissed her before, had held her. She knew his touch and cherished it. Perhaps she felt no great stirring wonder, but she did feel loved and secure in his embrace.
Suddenly, bitterly, she wished that she had given herself to him before. She could not believe in honor now; she had been sold to a heathen, and so honor could matter little. She might have gone forth from there with one sweet memory of having been loved. She smiled at him tenderly. “Think not of my honor, love, for such a thing is suddenly not my own at all. I fear for you, dear Rowan. The king has spoken.”
“Aye, the king has spoken,” he agreed tonelessly. “And I am left a fool, bereft.”
“I will not marry him,” Rhiannon vowed. She came to her knees, and he pressed his face against her chest.
“God, that I could have been your husband!” he breathed.
“I am not going to marry him. I am going to escape. My dear Rowan, Rowan …” she murmured. She didn’t feel his passion, but she did feel his pain and his emotion, and she gladly would have fallen then and there with him into the hay and defied the very world. But she suddenly heard the sound of laughter, and she realized that men were coming into the stables, seeking their mounts.
“Rowan!” she cried.
“I will not leave you as if we were ashamed of this love—”
“You must!” She shoved him from her. “For the love of God, Rowan! Let not your life be the price of love!” He still did not move. She leapt to her feet, determined to leave the stables. But when she saw the desperate way his eyes followed her, she rushed back to him. “We will be together,” she murmured. “And I’ll not marry the invader who laid waste to my home!”
Then she ran, quickly escaping the stables and racing out to the meadows.
The sun was high. Newborn lambs brayed in the fields. All of Wessex was redolent with spring. Yet she would escape it, she vowed. When the Irish party was near, and when the king and his household were most preoccupied, then she would fly.
As the days continued to pass, Alfred and Rhiannon waged a cold and silent war. Rhiannon stood still as she was fitted for the splendid garments she would wear for the wedding: a long linen tunic, white for purity, trimmed with dusky ermine; the shift she would wear beneath was exceptionally fine silk, rich and expensive, for it had come all the way from Persia. The bodice would be jeweled, and the king had given her a crown of amethysts to adorn her hair. She had not thanked him for the gift. Nor had she ceased to dream of her departure.
With but three days before the wedding was to take place, Alfred appeared at the doorway to the extension of the women’s solar, where the ladies worked diligently sewing jewels into the gown, crafting the soft woolen hose Rhiannon would wear beneath it. The king stared at her, and she returned his gaze coolly. Her heart pounded and she hated this thing that stood between them.
When Alfred entered the room, the women working around Rhiannon backed away. He lifted a hand, indicating that he wished to be alone with her, and they bowed and left them. Rhiannon remained standing there, tall and proud and still somehow fragile in the white gown.
“You have really accepted this?” he asked her.
Again she could not face him. She felt her gaze wavering, and then her lashes fell. She lifted her hands vaguely. “You have commanded it.”
“You will obey me.”
“I always obey you.”
“That’s not exactly so. And you do not forgive me.”
She lifted her eyes and they were filled with passion. “Nay, I cannot forgive you!”
His fists knotted at his sides, and he ground out a sound of anger and impatience. “Rhiannon, this was not easy for me.”
“Ah, but, Sire, you love dirt more than you love people!”
“Aye!” he returned to her angrily. “Aye, I love this dirt, this England!” He caught her hands and pulled her to the window that opened to the east, where the hills sloped away in vernal beauty, covered with yellow daffodils and soft purple violets. “Aye, lady, I love this land, and you love it too! Your father fought and died for this, and deny it or no, you love it too. You have shared the dream with me—of a time when peace will come, when music will float through the forests, when men will read, when artistry will flourish. But first I must expel these Danes, I must cast them from this land. By the dear Lord, Rhiannon!” He spoke out impatiently. “You were raised in a noble household and are aware that marriages are often contracts and seldom matters of love. You were raised to do your duty and to honor your king. You must understand that an alliance rides on this issue, that England’s future is at stake here.”
She stood still and waited several seconds, watching him gravely. “And you must see,” she said at last, “that the land is composed of people. I have shared your dreams and I have had my own. Now you, my king, have cast aside my hopes and dreams and happiness so carelessly, so ruthlessly.”
“I have not offered you up to an ancient man but a virile prince of a noble house.”
“A Viking.”
The king was very still for a moment. She watched his fist clench, then ease.
“An Irishman—but I would have offered you to Satan himself, Rhiannon, had it been necessary. I am sorry for you, and for Rowan. But unfortunately a woman is part of her land, and you, lady, are most certainly part and parcel of yours. I have already appeared a treacherous fool, for your people attacked invited guests—”
“Alfred! I have told you—”
He held up his hand, stopping her. “And I have believed you. Yet I would take grave care, for the man you will marry knows that you were the instigator of that fight.”
“I believed that I was attacked! Dragon prows—”
“We’ll not speak of it. But you’ll not make matters worse or embarrass us further. I have promised you to this man, and you will uphold my promise for me. I do not trust you, Rhiannon. I fear that you will deny him when you stand before God. I have loved you as I have loved my own children. But if you shame me now, if you dishonor me and cause rivers of your countrymen’s blood to flow, I will turn my back on you, and from the depths of my heart I will damn you.” He held still for a moment, watching the effect of his words on her. “Good day, Rhiannon.” He bowed stiffly and left her. Tears rose to her eyes and she almost ran after him. She could not bear the coldness between them; she had lost everything, and now she had lost Alfred too.
She did not sleep that night. She lay awake and remembered the king’s words. She had nightmare visions of dragon prows sweeping across the sea and crawling upon the land. The dragons came toward her, breathing fire, and they were like serpents, sliding around her to choke her. She awoke shaking and swore that she would not marry any Viking.
But neither could she be the cause of more bloodshed.
She could not think or feel anymore. In the morning she followed Alswitha to confession and tried to whisper the words that she could not obey her king. Father Geoffrey bade her speak up, but she could not; she ran from the church without seeking absolution.
She had to see Rowan. Alone. Just o
ne more time. She had to taste the love she might have savored for a lifetime. She still hadn’t forgiven the king, but she didn’t know now whether she could run away. If she did so, the men would have to fight, the Irishman to avenge his honor and the king because he would have no choice.
Often she thought of her father, who had loved her mother beyond life and reason and had ridden to sweep her away and demand her for his own. Rowan could not ride against Alfred, she knew. Yet each day caused a greater pain, and the time came closer and closer. They saw each other every night, from a distance. Their eyes would meet across the banqueting table in the hall, and she would know that the king watched them. Rowan would hang his head miserably.
Sweep me away! she longed to cry to him. Carry me from here on the king’s fastest horse, and we can live forever in the mountains of Wales. She did not hear the lutists or the pipers who played through the meal, nor did she listen to the seneschals who related tales of courage and grandeur. She watched Rowan and dreamed of a horse that could fly.
Rowan did not come to her to carry her away.
But where he usually avoided her at the evening meal, he came close to her one evening, when the wedding was just two days off. He leaned low, pretending to reach for the delicate meat knife he had dropped, but he whispered to her instead, “I must see you!”
Her heart took flight.
“Meet me with the dawn. At the split oak, by the brook.”
She nodded. She went to her room with her nerves aflame and her heart quaking. She did not sleep but lay in torment. She could save her heart and dishonor her king. Or she could bow before honor and duty and cast aside her very soul.
When she dreamed, the dragon prows came alive again. She fell into a deep pit of dragon vipers, and she screamed and screamed, trying to elude them. Around her at the pit stood the king and his liege men, Allen, William, Jon … and even Rowan. They watched her struggle and listened to her scream. She reached out, and a powerful hand caught hold of her hand. As she watched, her fingers entwined with more powerful ones, long and rugged and heavily callused.
A pair of sizzling blue eyes captured hers, and she opened up her mouth to scream again. Laughter rang around her, and she was lifted upward, into a swirling mist, into the arms of the Viking with the golden hair and bronze, muscled chest and towering height.
“Pray, lady …” he whispered to her, and she started to scream; then she awoke.
She shivered through the end of the night and then rose, still agitated.
Whoever this Irish prince was, he was half heathen at least. Alfred asked too much of her. She could not differentiate the Norwegian menace from the Danish terror. They were all Vikings.
And the man with ice-fire eyes and barbarian build was surely one of the prince’s closest captains. She had nearly killed him.
And she was about to be cast on the mercy of a barbaric prince. Nay, she had too much pride! She could not bear it.
She gazed about the room where she had stayed so often, where she had laughed with Alswitha and the children, and where their love had warmed her.
The warmth of the room was gone. Nay, the very warmth of life eluded her.
5
Eric sat upon the beautiful white stallion and stared southward toward the coast, his startling blue gaze assessing and appreciating all that he saw. His mantle lifted and blew behind him in a curious majesty. It fell, delineating the breadth of his shoulders and the tall ease with which he sat his mount.
Behind him, the walls of the town were already rising again. The sea breeze, from the shore ahead, touched his face and dampened his cheeks, and it was good.
The land was like a mistress, his father once told him, achingly demanding and calling to the senses with a seductiveness that couldn’t be denied. This land called to him.
A slight smile curved his mouth.
Once he had stood upon the cliffs of Eire as a boy. He had waved a wooden sword in the air; Leith had approached him and they had engaged in mock battle. Leith had dropped his wooden sword, and Eric had stepped forward, claiming himself the victor.
“Nay, you churl!” Leith had protested, a mischievous smile playing upon his lip.
“What? Nay, what is this? I am no churl. Rather, I am the better man, for I have bested you.”
“Churl, you have not! For I will be the king, and you, my brother, will be my liege man. You will fight for me and obey me.”
“I will obey no man! I will rule my own destiny!”
Erin, who had idled her time upon a blanket with their baby sister while the boys played, leapt to her feet, coming between them. Eric twisted and set his jaw stubbornly.
“Will he be the king, Mother?”
“Aye, he will. But you will both honor your father first—for many years to come, God grant us!”
“I will always honor Father,” Eric grumbled.
“And your brother,” Erin said softly.
He paused, then he had come down on one knee before his brother. “Leith, I will honor you, as I have honored my father. Aye, I will raise my sword ever in your defense. Until I have my own kingdom, that is.” He gazed over to his mother. “I will have my own land?”
She smiled. “Your father is a king. Your grandfather was a great king. You will surely have a place to call your own.”
He went to her and placed his hands upon his hips. “They needn’t pity me, Mother. I will claim my own land. Like my sire, I will go a-Viking, and I will find the land that is to be my own.”
Erin had picked up this stubborn child and held him tightly to her breast. “You are an Irishman, love. We will see that you have a place here—”
“Nay, Mother. I must find my own.”
“That is years hence—”
“Father will understand.”
And his father had understood. They had all grown; they had all ridden off to war. He had set sail in many a Viking ship, and in time he had created his own army of men and acquired great riches. But the land had eluded him, the land of his dreams.
But now it stretched before him as a great and vast prize. He had to go to war to defend that land, and then it would be his. He had to go to war … and accept a fire-haired menace who might very well have betrayed her king, as a wife. That was part of the contract, and it seemed a very small payment when compared with the quickening of his heart and the triumph in his soul.
Seeing the harbor and the meadows and the cliff stretch out in all of spring’s sweet majesty, he felt that he could be generous. He would offer her peace. He wondered if a peace between them was possible and remembered the way she had looked at him, silver daggers in her eyes, and then he recalled the way she had spoken so vehemently. Nay, there would surely be no peace.
He shrugged dismissively. He would seldom need to see her. If he could deal gently with her, he would. He would leave her to herself and to her hatred. But they would be united under God, he thought, and the quickening, the love of the land, came to him again. Men sought out land to create great dynasties, and he was no different. He had wandered the earth long enough. He wanted heirs. Certainly she understood her duty there.
Curiously his pulse began to thunder, and a rising heat seized his body. She did not elicit tender emotion within him, but she had reached into the savage recesses of his heart. In anger, in pain, he had felt a blossoming in his loins. He had desired her. Yet he did not like the depth of that desire within himself. He was no barbarian. He had sown his wild oats in his youth. He was as proud of his father’s people as he was his mother’s, for he knew the civilized side of the Viking—had learned it from his father and had seen the great potential of the sea-roaming race. When they did not engage in warfare, the Norse were great builders. They farmed the land in summer and created beautiful carvings when the north winds blew. They spun sagas of challenges met, of daring. They set down laws and lived by them. They built towns and brought commerce and trade to many peoples.
His jaw tightened. They were not savages.
&
nbsp; Not barbarians.
“Eric?”
Rollo rode up behind him. Eric spun the magnificent white horse around. A long trail of his men stretched out behind, awaiting him.
“We ride to Wareham!” he said. He raised his shield, a shield of wolves, and sent forth his battle cry. Answering shouts rose high upon the wind, tossing and echoing from the sea to the land. The white stallion reared and snorted, and his forefeet plunged back to the earth.
Then the ground was a-thunder as the party rode out for Wareham.
Eric, pensive, kept ahead. He observed his journey carefully over the hills and vales and through the Roman roads that marked the way through dense forests. And all the way he felt the land. He raced upon the flowers of spring and sailed through the freshness of the air. Fawns leapt before them, and pheasants set up a mighty whir, rising from the tall grasses to streak upward into the sky.
With the coming of darkness, they neared Wareham. Eric ordered that the party stop and camp for the night. He could see the walls of the king’s home before him, but he was not ready to enter those walls. A curious brooding was upon him, and he wanted solitude.
They set up fires and cooked their meals. Eric kept his distance, leaning against a tree, drinking English mead and watching the light in the night that denoted the king’s walled manor and surroundings. He admired Alfred greatly. The King of Wessex was a man of action who longed for finer pursuits. A king who shed blood but lamented the deed.
Eric drank deeply of his mead and wondered what would come of the wedding. He feared that there would be battle if the girl chose to dishonor the betrothal. Christian banns had been cried, and the honor of not only himself but his men was at stake. He shrugged, trusting in the king. Alfred would not risk insulting him again.
“Take heed, young lord!”
He turned, aware that Mergwin had followed him. The Druid stood tall. The moon fell upon him, whitening his beard and his hair, until he appeared as a mad magician. His ancient face was weathered, infinitely wrinkled.
“I always take heed, Mergwin. If you followed me across the sea to warn me to watch my back, know it is a lesson I’ve learned well.”