Brandewyne, Rebecca (15 page)

"In
the great mead hall of my enemies, you would soon learn that you had left the
lair of a lone wolf for that of a vicious pack," Wulfgar declared soberly
when Rhowenna had related Morgen's words and warning to him, "as I have
good cause to know. Still, 'tis a fair enough bargain when you've no reason to
trust me save for my word, and I will hold to my end of it." So saying and
after glancing about covertly to make certain he was unobserved, he swiftly
bent and, removing the gold circlet from Rhowenna's head, placed it upon
Morgen's own. " 'Tis little enough protection I offer you, lady. Even so,
you shall be glad of it, I am thinking, before this game is done."

Miserably
contemplating the price he might demand she pay in return for that protection,
Rhowenna did not answer, but swallowed hard and turned away. Morgen's words
rang in her mind: Better one man than many. Surely, that was true.

As
the square red sail of the longship was hoisted and caught by the wind to send
the vessel skimming swiftly over the waves, Rhowenna watched the rugged green
mountains of her homeland, Walas, grow smaller and smaller in the distance,
perhaps
never to be seen by her again— and it suddenly occurred to her that she did not
even know her captor's name.

Where the Wild
Swans Soar

The
abomination of the journey by longship to the Northland was surpassed, in
Rhowenna's mind, only by her memory of that brief, brutal battle at Usk. Except
for the small roof above the stern, there was little shade and, so, little
relief to be found from the hot summer sun that beat down unmercifully upon her
and the rest of the women, burning and blistering the delicate skin of
Rhowenna, Morgen, and the other few serving maids, who, unlike the female
ceorls,
were not
accustomed to working long hours in fields exposed to the sun. Fresh water, for
drinking, was strictly rationed, and there was none at all for bathing, only
the harsh, salty seawater for washing away the grime, blood, and defiling seed
that soiled the women and
their tattered garments. Nor was there any privacy whatsoever, any escape from
the men's prying eyes, their plainly lewd if unintelligible jests in their
foreign tongue, their raucous laughter, their slaking of their lust whenever
they desired. Worst of all was the fact that the corpses of the slain
Víkingrs
still lay upon the deck. The
jarl
Olaf the Sea Bull and his
thegns
were to be taken to the Northland for interment; only the bodies of
freedmen and slaves were pitched overboard at death. This was the custom unless
it was a vessel's maiden voyage, in which case it was considered bad luck to
bring home a corpse.

Rhowenna
did not understand this at first, not until, once they were well out to sea,
the oars were drawn in, and the sail was raised, the marauders pulled up
several of the loose planks that formed the deck of the longship to reveal a
shallow cargo space beneath, into which the bloody, stiffening bodies were
carefully lowered, along with the plunder from Usk. Only then did she grasp the
fact that the corpses would not be buried at sea, as she had initially assumed.
Never had she imagined even the savage
Víkingrs
capable of such
a barbaric practice as this; for as the afternoon wore on, it soon became clear
what the gruesome result of storing bodies in the stuffy, humid hold would be.
The smell alone
was vile, nauseating, making Rhowenna and the rest of the women, some of whom
were already seasick, retch violently over the side of the longship. But then,
from nowhere, it seemed, the flies came in swarms, until Rhowenna thought that
there must be millions of them aboard the vessel, so loud was the sickening
drone of their buzzing in the hold. Drawn by the blood on her clothes and that
of the other women, the flies came up through the planks to settle on the
living as well as the dead, their bites making her skin sting; for with her
hands bound, Rhowenna had no means of swatting the flies away. Only by tossing
her head and writhing could she shoo them off; and she loathed the
Víkingrs
more
than ever for their ribald gibes and howling laughter at her suffering and that
of the other women.

Only
her captor, Wulfgar Bloodaxe, did not take part in the malicious merriment, but
stood protectively close at hand at the tiller, his face impassive, so she
could not guess what he was thinking. Like the rest of the men, he had stripped
off his bloodstained leather tunic and was now naked to the waist, clad only in
his leather belt and breeches and sealskin boots. Despite herself, Rhowenna
found her eyes surreptitiously straying more than once to his tall, powerful
figure. His
long tawny hair gleamed like burnished gold in the light of the sun creeping
slowly toward the western horizon; his eyes shone as blue as the infinite
summer sky. Like the body of some strong, sleek predator, his massive bronze
arms, back, and chest rippled sinuously with hard muscle, disturbing her in a
way she could not understand. There was something almost larger than life about
him, she thought, as though he were indeed one of the old gods— for so had she
imagined them.

Under
his guidance, the longship sped forward, like a swan, Rhowenna reflected, long
neck outstretched, wings spread wide upon the cool sea wind that was the only
relief from the heat, the stench of the corpses, and the sting of the flies.
She was glad of the small roof above the stern; at least she had a modicum of
shade. Still, sweat beaded her body, making her thin, fine summer gown cling to
her sticky flesh in a way that Wulfgar was only too aware of. Linen was rare
and costly in the Northland, brought back from raids upon the Southlands and
worn only by the wives and daughters of
konungrs
and the richest
jarlar.
It would mark
Rhowenna as such, he realized suddenly, frowning, for he had not thought of
this before. She and Morgen would have to exchange garments, as well
as identities.
This, he explained softly to them when, at sundown, he was, to his wary
surprise, spelled at the tiller by a stout, bleary-eyed Knut Strongarm, reeking
of blood, sweat, alcohol, and rutting, but lately Olaf's second-in-command
aboard the
Dragon's Fire
and so the relief steersman.

"I
am sorry for your discomfort and lack of privacy, lady," Wulfgar told
Rhowenna as he knelt to untie her bonds and those of Morgen, also. "I know
that you are gently bred and not used to such hardships as you have suffered
this day. I will do what I can to ease your unhappy lot. But know you this: I
have with no man's consent seized command of the
Dragon's Fire,
and it may be
that at any moment, Knut Strongarm or one of the others will grow bold or sober
enough to challenge my authority. Should that happen, I will be fighting not
only for the captaincy of this vessel, but also for my very life." He did
not add that until today, he had never fought a real battle, but only mock
training duels within Olaf the Sea Bull's palisade. "If I am killed, you
must reveal your true identity at once, else you will not be safe from the rest
of the
Víkingrs.
They
are hard men, lady, and ruthless. Trust them not."

"No
more than I trust you— which is not at all!"

To
Rhowenna's surprise, for she had expected Wulfgar to be angered by her words,
he cupped her face gently in his strong hands, his fingers weaving through the
tresses at her temples as he gazed down at her, his blue eyes glittering with
approval in the fiery light of the sun sinking slowly into the sea.

"Good,"
he said shortly. "You will be safer that way. I have brought a bucket of
seawater for you and Morgen to wash yourselves and your clothes; you can trade
gowns while you do that. Then will I bring you food and drink." Briefly,
his hands tightened in her hair before he loosed her and, getting to his feet,
turned away.

Chafing
her wrists, Rhowenna herself rose slowly, unsteadily, her back and legs cramped
and aching from the unaccustomed position in which she had been forced to sit
for the last hours. But finally, she got her sea legs and managed to stand
upright, glad she had lived all her life on the sea and had never suffered from
seasickness. It was the foul odor wafting from the shallow hold that was making
her feel so queasy. There was at least more privacy in the stern than elsewhere
on the longship, and Wulfgar's tall, watchful figure as he stood between them
and everyone else provided something of a screen. Even so, Rhowenna and Morgen
did not linger as
they stripped to their shifts and laved themselves and their garments as best
they could in the wooden pail and without any soap. Despite its salty
abrasiveness, the seawater was cool and welcome; Rhowenna longed to immerse
herself in it, to scrub and to scrub until she was certain every part of her
was washed clean, untainted by the blood of the dead and the dying. It even
occurred to her, suddenly, wildly, simply to leap overboard into the sea
itself, where she would surely drown; and she chided herself as a coward
because something deep inside her strove to survive, no matter what might become
of her.

Furtively,
she and Morgen exchanged clothes, she donning Morgen's coarser gown, in worse
shape than her own; and as she remembered the reason why, Rhowenna felt a
sudden, deep sense of guilt and shame that she alone among all the women taken
captive should yet be chaste. She had never been particularly close to Morgen;
there had been some days when she had actually disliked her. But now, as she
thought of the other serving maids and her own dear waiting woman, Enid— most
of them still safe in Usk, behind the palisade of Pendragon's royal manor—
Rhowenna knew she had rather have Morgen at her side now than any other: dark,
bold Morgen, stronger in her own way than the
rest, and not so hard and
unfeeling as Rhowenna had once supposed.

"I
won't forget what you've done for me, Morgen, I swear it! When my father
ransoms me, I shall insist he pay whatever price is demanded for your own
freedom, as well."

"I
am counting on that, my lady, for no more than you do I wish to spend the rest
of my life as a slave and a whore of these barbaric Northmen!" Morgen
declared, the glint in her dark, narrowed eyes bespeaking a fierce sense of
self-preservation— so Rhowenna realized that this, perhaps even more than pity,
had driven Morgen to aid her.

When
they had finished dressing in their wet raiment, Wulfgar brought the two women
a cup of fresh water and one of ale, a single bowl of dried meat and fruit, and
a thick slice of hard bread for them to share. As she and Morgen sat down to
eat, Rhowenna observed to her relief that the other women had also been untied,
permitted to wash, and were now being fed. At least their captors did not
intend to starve them, she recognized, although none of the women, including
herself, was especially hungry and some were plainly having difficulty keeping
the food down. The
Víkingrs,
however,
ate with gusto, seemingly unperturbed by the flies or by the
stench of the
corpses in the cargo space, and consumed large quantities of wine and ale,
besides, talking and laughing all the while— although Rhowenna, who understood
snatches of the conversation because of the similarity of the Northmen's
language to that of the Saxons, felt that despite their apparent congeniality,
there was among the men a certain wariness and tension that had not been present
earlier, when their battle fever and bloodlust had still been upon them.

Now
that the sun had set and twilight was seeping into darkness, the whale-oil
lamps on board the
Dragon's
Fire
had
been lighted; by their soft glow, she could see Wulfgar's face, his guarded
eyes, the muscle that throbbed in his set jaw. When he spoke, his voice was low
but strong and sharp; and although he did not glance in her direction, the
other men did, their eyes hard, sly, speculative, openly appraising, their
voices heated, so she knew that they and Wulfgar were discussing her— or, more
likely, Morgen, whom they must believe was the princess of Usk, if Wulfgar had
kept his word. Remembering his warning earlier that he might be forced to fight
for command of the longship, Rhowenna shivered, apprehensive that such a duel
might be imminent. But at long last, it seemed that some sort of agreement was
reached; for
despite a few muttered curses, no weapons were drawn, no blows were exchanged.
The
Víkingrs
finished their supper; then all of them, including Wulfgar,
drew lots for the women, all of whom, save for Rhowenna and Morgen, were then
dragged away to the men's sleeping pelts now unrolled upon the deck. Rhowenna's
heart leaped to her throat as she watched Wulfgar spread a huge wolfskin in the
stern, then motion her and Morgen toward it; for she did not know what he
intended, and from its dregs, her mind conjured shadowy images of rape and even
worse perversions about which she had overheard whispered tales. But after binding
their hands and feet again, Wulfgar said only:

"The
gods are often capricious; but tonight, thanks be to Odinn, they decided to be
generous, so I did not have to fight for you, lady. My straw was the shortest—
and so my choice was the first. I chose you, lady, so you have naught now to
fear. I will not force myself upon you. Lie down and go to sleep. 'Tis not
confrontation, but rutting the men have upon their minds this night, so I do
not think that any attempt to challenge me will occur before morning."