Ragnor made to lunge at Wulfgar’s throat but Vachel leapt forward to grab him by the arms and held him back. Ragnor struggled to free himself yet his cousin would not loosen his grip.
“Nay, ‘tis folly, cousin,” he hissed in Ragnor’s ear. “To fight the wolf when we are in his den and his kind wait to taste our blood. Think, man. Have you not already left your mark upon the wench? Now bastard will wonder whose bastard she will whelp.”
Ragnor relaxed, considering this. Wulfgar’s expression did not change, yet the scar across his cheek whitened against the bronze of his skin. The Norseman sneered his contempt at the well-born cousins and his voice rumbled low.
“I perceive no contest. The seed of a weakling falls shallow of its mark yet the strong always knows fertile ground.”
Aislinn smiled with a secret contentment, gloating over their argument. They fought among themselves, these conquering foes. It would be simple to aggravate their anger and watch them kill each other. She lifted her head proudly again, her spirits thriving on their heated words, and found Wulfgar’s gaze upon her. His gray eyes seemed to look within her inner soul and search out the secrets hidden there. A corner of his mouth lifted into a smile as if what he saw amused him.
“The maid has not had her say,” he remarked, turning to Ragnor. “Let the girl choose between us. If it be you, De Marte, then I will give no dispute. You have my leave to take her.”
Aislinn’s hopes were crushed, leaving her in confusion. No battle here, for Wulfgar would give her over without quarrel. Her intended ploy had failed.
She saw that Ragnor looked at her with open desire and his dark eyes held a promise of tender reward. Wulfgar, on the other hand, seemed to mock her. He would not fight for her. Her bruised pride screamed to take Ragnor, demanded she scorn the bastard. She would delight in wounding his ego. But she knew she could not yield anything to Ragnor. She loathed him as any crawling, vile thing from the swamps. And if this was vengeance on him, small though it be, she would not cast it aside.
Her answer came doubly hard when the Norman guards led Kerwick into the hall. Standing in the midst of these towering men who commanded attention just by their mere presence, Aislinn could not hope to go unnoticed. Her bethrothed saw her immediately. Feeling his tortured gaze upon her, she raised her eyes slowly to his troubled face and found misery and despair. He seemed to make a silent appeal but for what she was unsure and even more doubtful of her ability to grant it. He bore no visible wounds, yet his tunic and braccos were dirt-stained and his golden curls were snarled and unkempt. He had always been a scholar, favoring books and learning to war. He seemed out of place now, a gentle man among fierce invaders. Aislinn could only pity him, yet there was nothing she could do, not when the enemy waited for her answer.
“Damoiselle,” Wulfgar pressed. “We await your pleasure.” The last word was stressed as he smiled tauntingly. “Which of us will you choose as your lover?”
She saw Kerwick’s eyes widen and in the pit of her stomach there was a coldness that would not ease. She felt sick, suffocated by the lustful stares of the men who stood about the room watching with great attention. But she cared naught of them. Let the idiots pant. And the pain in Kerwick’s face he must bear himself. If she but spoke any word, she would only lay his pride open to the Norman’s scorn.
She gave a sigh of resignation. She would have the matter behind her.
“So I must choose the wolf or the hawk, and I know the hawk and his cries are more of the raven caught in a snare.” She placed a small hand upon Wulfgar’s chest. “Thus I choose you. So, lover, ‘tis your lot to tame the vixen.” She laughed ruefully. “Now what have you gained by this play of straws?”
“A fair damsel to warm my bed,” Wulfgar replied and added with a hint of mockery, “Have I gained more?”
“Never,” Aislinn hissed and glared at him.
Ragnor silently raged, his tightened fists the only evidence of his irritation. Over Aislinn’s bright head, Wulfgar stared into his face and spoke slowly.
“It was made clear in my orders that each man should get his fair share of the booty. Before you go about your duties, Ragnor, you and your men leave what you have gathered for yourselves there.” He gestured to the pile of loot taken the previous evening. “Duke William will want his share first, then and only then will come payment for your work.”
Ragnor appeared on the verge of violence. His jaw tightened while his hand opened and closed about the hilt of his sword. Finally he withdrew a small pouch from his jerkin and going over to the gathered loot, tossed the contents onto it. Aislinn recognized her mother’s great ring and several gold pieces belonging to her father. One by one as Ragnor looked on his men passed him, dropping their treasures onto the heap until it had grown half again its size. When all had done, Ragnor turned on his heels and strode angrily from them, shoving Kerwick out of his path as he left the hall with Vachel following close at his heels. With the huge door closed behind them, Ragnor struck his fist into his hand.
“I’ll kill him,” he swore. “With my bare hands I’ll tear him limb from limb. What does the maid see in him? Am I not a handsomer man?”
“Ease your anger,” Vachel soothed. “Time will see his end. The wench seeks only to spread strife among us. I saw it in her eyes as we quarreled. She does bloodthirst after all Normandy. Beware of her as you would a viper, but know that she can be of asset, for she has no more love for Wulfgar than we.”
Ragnor straightened and sneered. “Yea, and how could she? Bastard and scarred that he is, no woman could cherish him.”
Vachel’s eyes gleamed. “We will give her time to infect the wolf with her winsome beauty, and then when he is weakened, we’ll set the trap.”
“Yea,” Ragnor nodded slowly. “And the wench is the one to do it. I vow she has cast her spell upon me, Vachel. Still do I have a yearning in my loins for the vixen. With every inch of my being I remember her against me as nature bore her, and I would throw her down and have her again if afforded some privacy.”
“Soon, cousin, soon you’ll bed her again and the wolf will be no more.”
“ ’Tis a promise I’ll hold you to, Vachel,” Ragnor flung. “For I am bound to have her, one way or the other.”
The few men of Darkenwald who had been taken captive were freed after spending the night tied in the cold October air. They stood about, still numb and stunned by the defeat of the day before. The women came to the square with food and water and those who found their men fed them and led them home. Other wives named the slain and then stood dumbly while their husbands and sons were laid in the holes. Still others who searched the faces of the living and dead but to no avail, went away wondering if they would ever see their kinsmen again.
Aislinn mournfully watched it all from the door of the hall. The slain were buried by the serfs from Cregan who labored under the direction of two of Wulfgar’s trusted knights. Aislinn had overheard them speaking of yet another who had stayed at Cregan with a few men-at-arms to see the peace was kept there. Her mother, with split and swollen face, went to the grave beneath the oak and lay a small spray of late flowers upon it. She crouched and, as if speaking to Erland, gestured and wept in her hands.
Aislinn’s father had been some three score and five years when he was slain and his wife was only two and ten. Though he was gray when she was still in the full bloom of womanhood, there had been a love between them that made the days seem bright and gay. Aislinn had known an older brother in her youth but a plague had come to the villages and he succumbed. Thus she had known the full dotage of her parents since, and the hall had been a place of love and kindness, away from the run of conquerors who flooded England like the tides. Erland had been wise and brought them through a multitude of kings. Now, though, it seemed the destruction of war had descended here to rest with a vengeance for its long absence.
Maida rose wearily, seeming lost and forlorn as she wrung her hands and gazed about her in misery and despair. She began to make he
r way back to the hall, her feet lagging with each step as if she were reluctant to meet the strange faces that now seemed to fill every corner of the place. Several of the women approached her with their woes as they had for years and pleaded her assistance, unmindful of the trauma that held her mind. She listened for a while, gaping at them from behind swollen lids as if in a stupor. Aislinn shivered and a sob rose in her chest as she watched her mother, her once-beautiful mother, who now seemed more of a mindless idiot than a stately dame.
Maida threw up her hands as if she could stand no more of the women’s complaints and gave a shriek. “Begone from me!” she railed. “I have troubles of my own. My Erland died for you and now you welcome his slayers with little more than a frown or two. Yea! You let them enter my hall, rape my daughter, steal my treasures from me—argh!”
She tore at her hair and the townswomen drew back at her ranting, wide eyed and fearful. With a slow, painful gait she walked toward the door then paused on seeing Aislinn.
“Let them find their own herbs and bind their own hurts,” she mumbled through her swollen lips. “I have had enough of their aches, lumps and sores.”
Aislinn watched her go, knowing a deep grief and anguish. This was not the mother she had known, so full of love and compassion for the townfolk. Maida had spent a life going into the swamp and forests to seek out roots and leaves then drying them, mixing potions, salves and tisanes to heal the hurts and ills of all who came to her door. She had carefully tutored Aislinn in the art of healing and saw that she too knew the herbs and where to find them. Now Maida cast the people from her and would not bend to their pleas, so Aislinn must take up the responsibility. She accepted it as a blessing, thankful for the labors to ease her mind.
Thoughtfully Aislinn rubbed her hands down the woolen gunna she wore. First she must clothe herself against the Norman’s prying eyes, then to work.
She mounted the stairs and entered her own chamber where she scrubbed herself and combed her hair, then donned a soft kirtle, slipping a fresh gunna of light mauve wool over it. She smiled ruefully as she smoothed the latter. No girdle or even a necklace to grace the garment. The Normans could not be outdone in their greed.
Aislinn gave the skirt a last pat, determined not to think of it again and left her chamber to fetch the potions from her mother’s room, the same one she had shared with Ragnor only the night before. She pushed the heavy door open and stopped short in surprise. Wulfgar, apparently naked, was seated before the hearth in her father’s chair. At his feet knelt the Viking who was bending at some task over his thigh. They both started at her entrance. Wulfgar, half rising from his chair, reached for his sword, and Aislinn saw that he was not naked after all but wore the brief loin cloth common to his profession. She noted also that a dirty, blackened rag clung to his thigh and Sweyn’s huge, blunt fingers were still resting on it. He relaxed back into the chair and set his sword to rest, seeing no great threat from this slim maid.
“I beg your pardon, lord,” Aislinn said coolly. “I came for my mother’s tray of herbs and had no thought that you were here.”
“Then fetch what you came for,” Wulfgar directed, his eyes skimming her, noting her change of attire.
Aislinn went to the small table where the herbs were kept, then turned with the tray in her hands. The men were again preoccupied with the bandage, and drawing closer, Aislinn could see the dried blood that stained the cloth and the angry red swelling that had begun to creep from beneath the bandage.
“Take your clumsy hands away, Viking,” she commanded. “Unless ‘tis your wont to play wet nurse to a one-legged beggar. Move aside.”
The Norseman lifted questioning eyes to her, but he rose and stepped away just the same. Setting her tray aside, Aislinn knelt between Wulfgar’s spread knees and carefully lifted the edges of the cloth, peering under and testing it gently. It was stuck to a long gash on his leg and the whole oozed with a yellow fluid.
“It festers,” she mused aloud. “You would have torn it anew.”
Aislinn rose and went to the fireplace where she dipped a linen cloth into the steaming kettle of water that hung over the glowing coals, then drew it out with a stick. With a crooked smile she dropped the hot wet cloth over the bandage, causing Wulfgar to rise halfway out of his chair. He tightened his jaw and forced himself to relax. He’d be damned if he’d let this Saxon wench see his pain. He stared up at her as she stood with arms akimbo and some doubt of her skill showed in his eyes, but she gestured to his leg.
“ ’Twill loosen the crust and draw the wound.” She gave a short, satirical laugh. “You treat your horses better than yourself.”
Whirling, Aislinn went to where his belt and sword lay and drew the short knife from its sheath. At her movement Sweyn eyed her closely and moved nearer his huge war ax, but she only went to lay the blade in the coals of the fireplace. On rising from the task she found both men watching her with something less than complete trust.
“Do the gallant Norman knight and the fierce Viking fear a simple Saxon maid?” she inquired.
“ ’Tis not fear I feel,” Wulfgar replied. “But your tender arts are ill laid on Normans. Why do you minister to me?”
Aislinn turned away from him and bringing her mother’s tray of potions, began to crumble a dried leaf into goose grease. As she stirred the mixture into a yellow salve, she answered.
“My Mother and I have long been the healers of this burh. So do not fear that I will maim you with lack of skill. If I would betray you, Ragnor would place himself in your stead and there are those who would suffer beneath his rule, not least of all myself. Thus for a time I will wait on my vengeance.”
“A good thing.” Wulfgar nodded slowly as he met her gaze. “If your vengeance was out, I fear Sweyn would not take kindly to it. He has wasted much of his life trying to teach me the ways of women.”
“That great hulk!” she scoffed. “What can he do that has not been done to me, other than end my slavery?”
Wulfgar leaned forward and spoke evenly. “His people have long studied ways of slaying and what they do not know they are very wise at guessing.”
“Do you threaten me, my lord?” Aislinn asked, raising her eyes to him and pausing in her stirring.
“Nay. I would never threaten you. Betimes I promise but never threaten.” He gave her a long look then leaned back in his chair. “If you lay me low, I would have a name to place to you.”
“Aislinn, my lord. Aislinn, late of Darkenwald.”
“Well, do your worst, Aislinn, while you have me at your mercy.” He smiled. “My time will come soon enough.”
Aislinn straightened, sorely nettled that he should remind her of what was to come. Sitting the bowl of salve on the hearth beside his chair, she knelt and braced her side against his knee to hold it steady, feeling the iron-thewed hardness of his leg against her breast. Lifting the dampened cloth, she neatly peeled away the bandage, baring a long, red, oozing gash that ran from just above his knee almost to his groin.
“An English blade?” she inquired.
“A token of Senlac,” he shrugged.
“The man’s aim was poor,” she retorted harshly as she examined the wound. “He could have spared me much a hand’s breadth over.”
Wulfgar gave a snort. “Get on with it. I have much that needs my attention.”
Nodding she fetched a bowl of hot water and seating herself again as she was, began to wash the open flesh. When all the blackened tissue and gouts of blood were removed, she brought the knife from the fire then noted that Sweyn picked up his ax and came to stand nearer. She met the Norseman’s calm, deliberate stare.
Wulfgar grinned sardonically. “So that you will not be tempted to remedy the Saxon’s aim and spare yourself my company in bed.” He shrugged. “Sweyn’s own manhood is so often and mightily tested he would see mine preserved as well.”
Aislinn turned cold, violet eyes to him. “And you, my lord?” she sneered. “Do you not wish for sons?”
Wul
fgar waved her question away wearily. “ ’Twould goad me less if there were no chance of that. Too many bastards are about these nights.”
She smiled wryly. “ ’Twould do me no ill either, my lord.”
She laid the glowing blade against the wound and drew it quickly down the length of it, sealing the flesh and burning away much of the poisoned part. Wulfgar made no sound as the sickening stench of scorched flesh choked the air, though his body jerked taut and his jaw tightened with his effort. This done, Aislinn rubbed the salve in and about the slash. She took from a plate on the hearth handfuls of moldy bread and, wetting it until it made a thick paste, packed it upon the wound then bound the whole tightly with clean strips of linen.
Aislinn stood back and surveyed her work. “This should stay for three days untouched, then I will remove it. I would suggest a good night’s rest till then.”
“It eases already,” Wulfgar murmured, a bit pale. “But I must be about or it will set and leave me lame.”
Shrugging, Aislinn gathered her potions on the tray and would have left him but as she moved behind him to fetch other linens, she noticed a chaffed spot behind his shoulder that showed signs of the reddish color that bespoke of poisoning. She reached out to touch the place and Wulfgar twitched and turned to stare at her with just enough of a start showing on his face to make her laugh.
“ ’Twill not need the searing, my lord. Just a small knife prick and a balm to sooth it,” she said and began to tend it.
“My ears betray me.” He frowned. “I swear you vowed your vengeance would wait.”
A knock on the door interrupted and Sweyn opened it to admit Kerwick with a load of Wulfgar’s belongings. Aislinn glanced up as her betrothed entered, but quickly bent her eyes to her labors and carefully kept them there lest she give a hint to Wulfgar, who watched the young man place the clothes and chest near the bed. Kerwick paused, and seeing Aislinn’s averted gaze, left without a word.