Brandewyne, Rebecca (24 page)

When
supper was done, Wulfgar rose slowly and took up one of the broadswords for
which he had bartered in Sliesthorp; and one by one, quieter now, the
thegns
came forward to
kneel before him and to place their right hands upon the blade's gold hilt,
swearing solemn fealty to him, their lord, their
jarl.
His heart
swelled with pride at how high he had risen from the depths into which his
father and half brothers had cast him. His only regret was that Yelkei was not
there to see the oath-swearing that her prophesying had wrought. Then Håkon
sang a mighty
thegn's
song,
followed by a soft, melodious love ballad, the strains of his lovely, carved
harp echoing on the wind that swept gently through the open door of the great
mead hall, setting the whale-oil lamps and rushlights aflicker; and of a
sudden, it seemed that there
was magic in the night that was not really night at
all, but a gloaming, aglow at its edges with the far-distant flame of the
midnight sun. Abruptly, Wulfgar caught Rhowenna up in his arms and strode
toward his sleeping chamber, stumbling slightly along the way, so she knew
then, with a sudden lurch of her heart, that he was as drunk as the other men,
although he held his liquor well.

Drawing
back the hide curtain, he carried her inside and laid her upon the pallet, his
eyes holding hers steadily as he stripped off his leather tunic and sealskin
boots and tossed them aside. Then, after a moment, he bent over her, pressing
her down, his gilded mane of hair falling about his bare, broad shoulders,
glowing like a nimbus in the shadowy half-light cast by the whale-oil lamps,
making him seem like one of his ancient pagan gods. Rhowenna's breath caught in
her throat at the way the light gleamed upon his bronze flesh, shimmering and
dancing with each sinewy ripple of the powerful muscles that corded his arms
and layered his chest and belly. In her breast, her heart pounded with apprehension
mingled with a strange, leaping anticipation that caused her blood to quicken,
her body to tremble.

"Lady,
tonight... tonight was a night of which— all my life— I have dreamed,"
Wulfgar
said, his words soft and slurring, his eyes shining with wonder and triumph.
"How I would that you knew what it has meant to me! But how can I make you
understand— you, a princess? I was... nobody, Rhowenna, nothing, a bastard my
father would not acknowledge, and belonging nowhere. My mother, a Saxon woman taken
captive by my father, died when I was just a lad; Yelkei reared me after that,
she herself a yellow slave from the grassy steppes of the Eastlands. She and my
mother were the only two people who ever loved me. To the rest of the
Northland, I was naught but a lowly
bóndi,
undeserving of life's rewards
or, at death, of a place in Valhöll, Odinn's great mead Hall of the Slain, in
Asgard. Can you imagine what that was like for me, Rhowenna? I hardly dared to
hope that the gods would grant my dream of becoming a warrior, much less a
jarl.
But now they have, and I would share it with you, who might have been my
queen and chose instead to be my slave. But in truth, 'tis I who am enslaved. I
could take you— I
want
to take you! But I will not unless you wish it,
for I have given you my word. But I
would
kiss you, Rhowenna, and lie
beside you and hold you through the night if you bid me do no more than
that."

Stretching
out one hand to caress her cheek, he slowly lowered his mouth to hers and
kissed her lightly, once, twice, before he claimed her lips more firmly,
nudging them apart with his tongue that teased and twined with her own.
Startled, touched despite herself by his words and gentleness, Rhowenna did not
at first resist. She had feared that in his drunkenness, Wulfgar intended at
last to rape her callously; she had not expected tenderness and respect for her
wishes, much less his confession of his ignoble birth and humble background, of
his innermost hopes and dreams. It had not occurred to her before to wonder
why
he was different
from the other
Víkingrs;
it
had been enough that he was. Now she glimpsed the lonely boy inside the man and
saw him as more than just her captor, a man with emotions far deeper and more
complex than she would ever have suspected, and with demons that haunted him.
She had not known he was illegitimate; she could only guess what his life had
been like until now— hard, wretched, solitary, with only his impossible dreams
to comfort him, dreams that had this night come true. He was right; how could
she possibly understand what that meant to him? In her life, all things had
come easily to her, save for Gwydion, who had not come to her at all, who had
never spoken
to her as Wulfgar did, impassioned words of love and desire, words as beautiful
as the strains of music that drifted from beyond the curtained doorway, plucked
by Håkon, the
skáld,
upon the strings of his wild harp, a song for
lovers and dreamers.

Wulfgar's
kisses tasted of mead, a taste so familiar upon Rhowenna's tongue that almost,
she could imagine she were home again in Usk, lying in her own bed— save that
no man had ever shared it with her, except Wulfgar in her dreams. Wulfgar held
her now in reality, his kisses bestirring her traitorous young body, kindling
within her the hot, licking flame she had felt before in his embrace, as though
it had been smoldering inside her all along, waiting for him to stoke it anew.
Fueled by his insistent lips and tongue and hands, the fire burgeoned, seeping
through her veins, like a strange, languorous fever overtaking her, dizzying
her, clouding her senses, setting her body ablaze. She must shake it off, she
told herself dully; she must make him stop. He had promised he would do no more
than hold her, kiss her— and she should not have permitted him even those
liberties. No matter that Wulfgar had aroused her compassion, her empathy, he
was still her enemy; why did she keep forgetting that?

Bewildered,
frightened now by the feelings
he evoked within her, Rhowenna attempted to fight
them and, at last, to fight him, too. But her strength was nothing compared to
his, her fleeting struggle that of a swan against a wolf, her defeat swift as
his hands easily caught her wrists and, with surprising gentleness, pinned them
to the pillows beneath her head.

"There
is no need for this, sweeting," he whispered huskily. "Did I not say
that I would not take you against your will? I want only to taste the sweet
nectar of your lips, to hold your body close to mine, and to feel you tremble
against me as a woman does when she is wakened to passion by a man. Don't be
afraid. I won't force you; I won't hurt you. By the gods, I swear it!"

His
mouth claimed hers once more, his tongue slowly tracing the outline of her lips
before again plunging deep between them to taunt and to wreathe her own tongue,
as though he entwined it with silken ribands that he would tie in a love knot
to hold it captive— as she was held captive until, releasing her wrists, his
hands swept down to tangle in her long black hair. Impatiently, he pulled the
thong from the end of her braid, loosing and spreading her tresses so they
rippled like an ebony sea about her, shimmering in the diffuse light. His
fingers sailed upon its waves;
like a gust of wind, he lifted one thick strand,
drawing it across her face and her throat before wrapping it about his own
throat, binding them together.

"Rhowenna..."he
muttered thickly as he buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply the sweet,
heady fragrance that clung to her locks, born of the heather with which she had
scented the water in which she had bathed earlier, just before supper.
"Rhowenna...
kjœreste..."

Like
Wulfgar, she had drunk too much mead, she thought, else surely she would not
feel like this— burning with a treacherous fire and dazed by his kisses and
caresses. Or mayhap she was really asleep— and dreaming, a midsummer night's
dream of a midnight sun that shone in a forgotten, faraway land of a more
ancient, atavistic world, a land where time stood still and darkness never
came, only a strange and magical twilight touched by flame. Tendrils of smoke
wafting from the whale-oil lamps garlanded the sleeping chamber, giving it a
primitive, mystical air, as though it had become an unreal place, a place that
existed only in the realm of the old gods, or in her dream. Wulfgar's breath
was a wind primeval against her flesh— sultry, savage with quickening as he
rained hot kisses upon her face and hair. His fingers
wove through
the sweat-dampened tresses at her temples, disheveling, ensnaring, compelling
her head back to bare the long, smooth white arch of her throat. Purring low in
his own throat, like some predatory animal, he scalded her there with his lips
before he found the tiny pulse fluttering at the base of the slender column,
and his tongue stabbed her with its heat, setting her aquiver with the sudden,
wild tremor that coursed through her. All the while, his hands moved with skill
and assurance upon her body, embracing, exploring, and exciting her, so she
felt as though she no longer had any strength or will to resist his
increasingly fierce, demanding kisses and bold, sensuous caresses.

Of
their own volition her hands slid up his naked, hard-muscled chest, sheened and
slick with sweat, to fasten about his neck, drawing him down to her; for, despite
herself, she longed for more of him. She felt as though, somewhere deep inside
her, a dam was bursting, unleashing a flood of want and need that sluiced
through her to sweep her up as ruthlessly as a madding sea, bearing her
swiftly, helplessly, toward some distant, unknown, uncharted shore— and Wulfgar
was the northern star that guided her there, bright and golden in the gloaming.
Her skin felt so incredibly sensitive that his every touch
scorched her,
like sparks cast from the strange and beautiful flickering lights that he had
told her of while aboard the
Dragon's Fire,
that she would see shining
in the night sky of the Northland, and that were the flashing swords of the
Valkyries, the helmed maidens who, on their magnificent white horses, came to fetch
home the Einheriar, the brave warriors killed in battle, to Valhöll, Odinn's
great mead Hall of the Slain, in Asgard.

"The
Valkyries are as fair as you are dark, lady," Wulfgar had said to her,
"and every
Víkingr
prays
to lie in their arms at his death. But willingly would I wander the Shore of
Corpses to the barred gates of Hel, lady, to lie in
your
arms
instead."

And
so now, he lay, his powerful body weighing her down as he clasped her to him,
his mouth and hands everywhere upon her, his hard, massive thighs holding her
prisoner, brushing intimately against her own thighs, making her acutely aware
of his virility and desire. She had never been so close to a man before. A low
whimper escaped from her throat at the feel of him, at the caress of his strong
hands upon her shoulders, pushing the sleeves of her gown down her arms to
expose her light woolen shift beneath, her breasts that strained against the
thin-woven fabric, rising and falling quickly, shallowly,
with her every
ragged breath, their dusky-rose nipples taut, alluring.

"Don't,
Wulfgar. Please, don't," Rhowenna pleaded softly.

"Shhhhh,
sweeting. You cannot sleep in your gown."

Slowly,
he eased it from her, leaving her clad in her soft, loose shift, which clung to
her body enticingly, revealing not only the white slope of one shoulder, but
also the generous swell of her ripe, round breasts, the soft curve of her hips,
and the long, lean line of her graceful legs. A door was opened in the great
mead hall beyond and a gust of wind swept beneath the hide-curtained doorway of
the sleeping chamber, ruffling the long, raven skeins of her hair and billowing
the white folds of her shift about her, so that to Wulfgar she looked very like
a lorelei, the beautiful, enchanting sirens of the seas' far strands and who,
with their bewitching songs, would tempt a
Víkingr
to his death,
luring his longship into shattering upon the rocks. The whale-oil lamps
flickered in the draft, alternately illuminating her face and then casting it
into shadow. Her sloe-violet eyes were closed; her thick, sooty lashes spread
like delicate wings against her cheeks; her moist mouth was parted. Wulfgar's
eyes and his lips drank her in as his palms cupped
her breasts
possessively through the fabric of her shift, his thumbs gliding in a slow,
circular motion across her nipples, sending waves of pleasure radiating through
her body. The neckline of her shift was wide, so it was easy for him, after a
moment, to slip it off one shoulder, pulling it down low to expose her breast.
His mouth trailed fervent kisses down her throat to the deep valley between her
breasts, then closed hungrily over the dark-pink nipple he had bared. Greedily,
he suckled her, his tongue swirling, tantalizing, causing Rhowenna to inhale
sharply and to shiver with delight and then with a wild, exigent desire as an
unbearable, burning ache erupted at the very core of her being, so she longed
instinctively to be filled by him. Sensing her need, Wulfgar slid his hand
lower, tugging at the hem of her shift, dragging it upward.

"Nay!"
she cried, suddenly afraid and beginning desperately to struggle once more
against him, twisting and writhing to free herself from his embrace. "Nay,
don't! Please don't, Wulfgar!"