“My lord — “ Brienne hesitated to correct him. The words slipped from her tongue, yet it seemed most natural to call him lord. “I am no widow.”
Rurik’s eyes snapped to hers.
“I shall gladly render up the room for your ease.”
“Nei, my lady. You are my father’s bride and you shall remain.”
Brienne tensed. “No longer his bride,” she amended firmly, “and most certainly not his widow.”
She was loath to broach the subject in Katla’s presence, but she could not allow Rurik to misconceive her position.
“The marriage was not consummated and is therefore invalid. All is as it was. I am still the ward of the crown.” She drew a deep breath and pressed on. “I have little need for the room, as I shall be returning to the Abbey of Levroux.”
“Nei!” Rurik’s heart lurched out of place, then came jolting back to slam against his ribs. Confusion, frustration, hurt, and anger collided within him. Brusquely, he motioned the others from the room. “Leave us!” he ordered, his eyes remaining fixed on Brienne.
Aleth hastened to gather Waite from where he hovered outside the portal. Katla obligingly drew the door shut behind her, the corners of her mouth turning upward.
Rurik stood motionless for a prolonged moment, holding Brienne bound by his steely gaze. He could not fathom her reasons for wishing to depart Valsemé. Had aught passed of which he’d not been advised? He released a long, bewildered sigh, suddenly drained by the day’s exactions.
Long into the night, he had sat in counsel with his father’s men. Before dawn shed its light, he was on his feet again after a few hours of fitful rest, attending to the needs of the keep. The day grew into an unwieldy affair, often of high temper, as he debated the funeral provisions and dealt with the burdens of his new authority.
Rurik raked a hand through his hair. He sought to escape for a time and seek comfort in the warmth of Brienne’s companionship. In truth, he ached simply to hold her in his arms and allow the day’s frustrations to seep from him and ease the pang of his loss.
True to his heritage, he detested displays of weakness, though he had found long ago that ‘twas no easy a matter when death claimed one near to the heart. Tears he would deny. Still, he desired Brienne’s healing presence to salve the pain he carried within.
“Surely you cannot mean to leave.” Rurik reached for her.
“Nay, we must not.” Brienne tried to pull away as he drew her against his chest. “ Rurik can you not see? All is changed.” Her violet eyes pleaded for understanding. “I cannot remain here. Not now,” she said miserably. “There is no place for me. I must leave. I must.”
He strained to follow her reasoning but grasped not one shred of logic in the appeal. An ugly suspicion reared to life in the depths of his confusion. Could it be ‘twas his Nordic blood, his and his kindred’s, from which she sought to flee? He rejected the thought though it remained obstinately lodged in a corner of his heart.
“I know not of what you speak but I will hear none of it,” he avowed, his mood turned grim. “Your Christian laws may not recognize your vows, but you forget: I hold to the ways of my ancestors. By Norse custom you are my father’s widow and my responsibility now.”
Unconsciously, Rurik increased the pressure on her arms as he held her to him, his temper rising more from the thought of losing her than from any true anger. “You will go nowhere! You will remain here, at Valsemé, where you belong.”
Brienne’s next words were lost as horns trumpeted in the bailey. Rurik drew her along with him to the window.
Brienne’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. Into the bailey strode a colossal man.
Rurik smiled down on the giant with golden hair much like his own. “Hrolf,” he identified the man. Seeing the amazed expression that captured Brienne’s face, he laughed softly.
“In my land he is called Ganga-Hrolf, the Walker. In the halls ‘tis sung that no horse can uphold his massive frame, so he must walk into battle. Your people have christened him with a new name. Rollo, Duke of Normandy.”
Chapter 10
“Hold still, Brienne!” Aleth tugged at the gown’s laces. Barely had she finished the ties but Brienne pulled away and rushed to the window.
Below, soldiers crowded the bailey. To her eyes, Valsemé’s Norse garrison was indistinguishable from the duke’s retainers except that they held a martial stance around the perimeters of the assemblage. The latter continued to pass afoot into the courtyard, exchanging smiles and nods of recognition. It skirted Brienne’s mind that these men were acquainted from their days of ravaging the land. Frankish land. Her land. She clenched her jaw.
From their lighthearted bearing, Brienne realized that the men of Rouen arrived anticipating Atli’s wedding feast, not his funeral. The grave tidings scarce had time to reach them, if indeed anyone had thought to dispatch a missive. Debate and argument had gripped the keep since early morn, not to mention the altercation wrought the night before.
Even now, the day was barely half spent. Brienne surmised that the duke and his soldiers had journeyed by water these past hours. No horse accompanied them and the men appeared fresh, neither damp with sweat nor caked with dust. They moved with energy, many bearing small chests and cloaked objects in their hands. Wedding gifts? she wondered with a start. Others braced carved wooden planks of varying lengths upon their shoulders, possibly disassembled furniture.
The tightness in her mouth relaxed into the beginnings of a smile as it occurred to her that the duke traveled about with his great bed. ‘Twas fortunate if true, she mused, for the keep housed no construction that could easily hold the Norse Goliath.
At that moment, Brienne caught several of the measured looks and wary glances that the Normans cast to where the Seigneur d’Esternay and his Frankish contingent stood near the motte’s swelling mound of earth. Her smile spread to see her countrymen gauging the newly arrived Northmen with an equal intensity and portion of mistrust.
Scanning the crowded courtyard, Brienne easily located Rurik and his brothers by their uncle’s mighty frame. Rollo stood rock-still, intent on Rurik’s words. A frown creased the duke’s heavy brow as he suddenly turned and lifted his gaze toward the keep.
Brienne shied away from the window, fearing he would glimpse her there and unprepared for that encounter. But curiosity spurred her to ease back and peer from the opening once more. She found Rurik’s and Rollo’s bright heads bowed in solemn conversation. No doubt Rurik was recounting the details of his father’s death. The duke heaved a long breath, then broke from the exchange as Brother Bernard approached with the Seigneur d’Esternay.
“Quickly, Aleth.” Brienne motioned toward the coffer. “My blue slippers and a girdle that becomes the gown.”
Swinging her dark mass of hair over her shoulder and splitting it thrice, she wove it into a thick plait. Swiftly, she threw a glance to the narrow window and ensured that the men remained in conversation.
“Will you present the wine, then?” Aleth held forth the slippers and a fashionable belt of silken cord twisted with thread of gold.
Remembering the prick of Rurik’s parting words, Brienne compressed her lips and, taking the slippers, shoved a foot into each shoe.
“Does ‘my lord’ afford me a choice?”
A smile stole over Aleth’s features, and Brienne rendered her a patient arch of the brow for such unmasked approval.
Rurik had insisted that Brienne greet the duke in the hall with the first goblet of wine, a gesture both befitting and expected of the lady of the keep. She had argued the point but was met only with his iron resolve to have it so. He had dismissed her remark that Katla should rightfully bear the cup. Instead, his time and patience spent, he hurled a well-aimed barb.
“Was it not my uncle who drove your father from his lands?” he had asked. “Yet Richard returned time and again to bedevil the Ganga like a shewolf intent on recapturing prized game for her cubs.”
Brienne had known her caus
e lost as he towered over her, steely-blue eyes penetrating her to her core as he added, “Does Beaumanoir’s daughter give sway so easily before the victor?” Then he was gone, the challenge issued, the glove cast down.
Brienne lifted her chin, knowing that as long as she still drew breath in her father’s hall, she must stand firm and proud, as did her sire, before the Norsemen. A Beaumanoir to the last.
The faintest of consolations rose in her breast. ‘Twas no more than a slender straw but she grasped at it, thankful all the same, for it tempered the bitterness that ached deep in her heart.
Though ‘twas true that Rollo had warred on Valsemé, her father and brother were not felled by his hand. ‘Twas the Norsemen of the Loire who had claimed their lives. Odd, that fate should see Rollo the champion of that which he once despoiled. He set his sword against his own kinsmen — including the pirates of the Loire — and any who would prey upon his duchy or ravage Charles’s heartland.
She ran her fingers thoughtfully along the girdle’s silken cord then handed it back to Aleth. “This will not suffice if I am to greet the Duke of Normandy. I would have the one that bears the Beaumanoir falcon.”
Aleth grinned and hurried to fetch the favored belt while Brienne returned to the window. When she looked out, the men were advancing toward the wooden staircase with Rurik, the duke at the fore. Without a moment’s pause, Brienne ran to Aleth to secure the girdle in place, then hastened from the room.
Mentally, Brienne braced herself as she entered the great chamber, expecting to match wills with Katla over the privilege of offering the first cup. To her surprise, Katla was absent from the hall. Rurik, she reasoned, most likely had arranged for the Norsewoman to expend her energies — and temper — elsewhere.
Brienne constrained a sudden laugh that begged to be given voice as she imagined Katla relegated to airing the duke’s bedchamber. Just as quickly her amusement evaporated. Somehow, a bedchamber seemed a fit setting for Katla’s wild beauty. Did she satisfy Rurik’s desires as fully and lustily as she claimed? Brienne could not doubt it. Katla seemed possessed with an excessive appetite.
Brienne shook away Katla’s taunting image and hastened to locate a cup and flagon of wine. Servants scuttled about laying cloths over the tables, stacking bread trenchers at the ends, and readying ewers and lavers for washing. They paused in their tasks as Brienne approached, radiating their affection by eye and lip as they awaited her command.
When Brienne made her needs known, an elderly manservant, smiling gap-toothed from his furrowed face, disappeared behind the screens passage and into the service area. Several moments later he proudly returned with a lavish goblet chased with silver and gold and brimming with a clear ruby wine. As exquisite as the vessel was, Brienne couldn’t help but think how pitiful it would seem, lost in the duke’s great hands.
The rumble of male voices and scraping of boots against stone brought Brienne around. In the same instant, Katla entered the upper end of the hall behind the dais.
Brienne tightened her hold on the goblet and set her mouth at the Norsewoman’s contemptuous look. Stiffening her spine, Brienne whirled away but not before noticing that Katla no longer wore the ring of keys upon her hip.
Brienne lacked time to ponder the significance of that, but felt certain it stemmed from Rurik’s stubborn will to hold her there. But to deprive his wife — ? She could not grasp his purpose.
Brienne gained the lower end of the hall just as the men mounted the last of the stairs. Her eyes widened in amazement and she could not stop herself from taking several steps backward as Rollo, Duke of Normandy, Count of Rouen, strode through the portal. Craning her neck, she gazed up. ‘Twas impossible to take him in all at once. The man was enormous!
The duke’s lips spread into a generous smile as his crystal-blue eyes fastened on Brienne. They were so like Lyting’s in their brilliance, and yet his thick curling hair was the same fine gold as Rurik’s. He wore it combed back from his face, tapering to the back of his neck but stopping short of the shoulders. Neither greatly handsome nor ill favored, his features were strong and regular, the solid, square jaw being clean-shaven though he possessed an exceptional mustache that draped well past the chin.
A tremor took hold of her under his sharp appraisal, but she stood strong, reminding herself of her noble lineage. Boldly, Brienne met his assessing eyes. After a prolonged and calculated moment, knowing she had stretched the bounds of courtesy but had not been so foolish as to be disrespectful, Brienne began to dip gracefully into a curtsy as propriety required.
Appallingly, she could not manage it. Her knees seemed locked and refused to bend. A shiver of panic ran through her, solidifying her limbs’ paralysis. Though her eyes remained anchored on Rollo, she caught Rurik’s rigid stance in the corner of her vision. Her pulse jumped as it fluttered through her mind that her actions, or lack thereof, were being interpreted as an intentional slight upon Normandy’s duke.
Rurik fumed silently as he stood beside his uncle, fresh anxieties coiling through him. What was Brienne about? Did she goad Rollo apurpose? Then, too, he did not welcome the gleam that had crept into his uncle’s eye. True, Rollo greatly favored his highborn mistress, but Rurik knew ‘twas a dry season for any man when his woman was filled with child or first delivered. Of course the duke eased himself where he would, but Rurik would allow no quarter to any notions his uncle might entertain about Brienne.
Time spun out as tension wreathed the room like a heavy mist on a chill morn. The ordeal fast grew into a test of purpose and honor. Brienne realized unhappily that even if she could now execute the maneuver, it would appear she had acquiesced before the “victor” and thus disgraced her father’s memory. What was a curtsy if not a gesture of obeisance, a token of submission? She could not award such deference to Valsemé’s usurper, especially not here, in her own hall.
Her hall? The mental slip spiraled sweetly through her, but she quickly disclaimed the thought. She stood firmly rooted to the small patch of floor, locking eyes with the massive Norseman and awaiting his displeasure. Surely she had earned his wrath and would taste of it. A single blow from his powerful hand could break many bones.
Rollo suddenly burst into laughter.” ‘Od’s blood! But you are Beaumanoir’s daughter!”
Laughter reverberated around them, slicing through the curtain of tension. He spoke something jauntily to his men in Norse and more laughter erupted.
Rurik, Brienne noted, barely broke a smile but cast her a cautioning glance instead. She trembled slightly as she continued to clutch the goblet, watching his brows pull together, and wondered where this would end.
“Well, my lady?” Rollo asked heartily in Frankish, the words mildly accented. “Will you offer me the cup or must I capture it from you?”
Heat suffused her face and spread down her throat as she extended her arms and yielded up the goblet. As predicted, the cup proved a paltry thing in the duke’s enormous hands.
Rurik stepped forward then, resting his palm possessively on the small of Brienne’s back and turning her toward the dais as he motioned for the men to proceed into the hall.
Rollo made note of his nephew’s familiar gesture. It surprised him somewhat, not because the lady had been wed and widowed of Rurik’s father the day afore, but because of what Atli had once shared in confidence.
Rollo’s brow furrowed into a frown as he cast about for Atli’s exact words, but they escaped him. There was something about a woman, an Eastern beauty whom Rurik loved to distraction. When she died, Rurik took to his ship, journeying restlessly along the trade routes, sowing no roots and ‘twould seem — if his father had the right of it — little masculine seed as well.
Atli had troubled over that, contending ‘twas neither a natural nor healthy state for a young, virile man such as his son. But Rurik seemed immune to the fawnings of even the comeliest of maids. As far as Rollo knew, Rurik still committed himself to no deep or lasting attachments. It had been so since the Byzantine girl . .
. Helena, the name sprang to mind . . . since Helena had died.
Rollo glanced down on Rurik and Brienne as they walked by his side, which was no slight upon his nephew’s stature as he viewed everyone as though from a perch. He recalled once questioning whether Rurik preserved Helena’s memory or guarded his heart or both. Now he was curious as to whether the Lady Brienne had penetrated those defenses and knew he would be confounded all the more if she had, for she was Atli’s bride, or at least she had been.
Rollo smoothed his flowing mustache as he determined to measure the depth of his nephew’s interest in this daughter of his old adversary.
“Lord Richard, your father,” the duke began, claiming Brienne’s attention from Rurik and offering his arm, “was an admirable man and exceptionally skilled in the arts of soldiery.”
Brienne found no choice but to accept the proffered arm and allow the duke to guide her the remaining distance to the dais. Rurik dropped his hand from her waist but continued to stride alongside, a muscle flexing in his jaw.
Upon gaining the platform, Rollo directed that the high chairs of the baron and baronne be separated, each to one side, then beckoned for his man to assemble his portable traveling chair and set it between the other two. It proved a sturdy piece, attractive in its simplicity, designed to comfortably bear the great bulk of its owner.
This accomplished, he called for his personal tankard and bid the assemblage find their place at table, gesturing for Brienne and Rurik to assume the baronial high seats flanking his own.
“ ‘Tis more a pitcher than cup, is it not?” jested Brother Bernard, eyeing the duke’s tankard as he settled to the right of Brienne.
Rollo leaned forward grinning, his hand closing around the carved vessel. “Grant pardon, my lady, if the size of my cup gives offense, but this churchman would have me sipping daintily from these little bowls he passes for goblets.”
Brother Bernard snorted at that, but the duke settled into his stride. “I suspect he secretly covets it for himself.” Rollo winked and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I shall be forced to save his immortal soul from the burden of sin by commanding a like one fashioned. I would gift him at Christmastide but I fear he cannot bide the wait.”
The Valiant Heart (Kathleen Kirkwood HEART series) Page 16
