by Swan Road
Swan Road
Rebecca Brandewyne
Standing on the cliff edge, Rhowenna let her black hair blow wildly in the sea wind, knowing the time for her destiny had come. Her gift of the Welsh "second sight" had brought a vivid vision of her future: one of a man far more passionate than the callous English prince who was her betrothed. Her true fate must be with the raiding Norseman on the red-sailed ship she saw coming across the sea... the blond-haired giant who stepped out of her dreams and into her arms... the Viking Wulfgar Bloodaxe who was her enemy and wanted her to be his mate. For here, at last, was a man able to ignite a desire no king could extinguish, and no force on earth could end.
Copyright © 1994 by Rebecca Brandewyne All rights reserved.
Published in 1994 by arrangement with Warner Books, Inc.
Thorndike Large Print Romance Series.
The tree indicium is a trademark of Thorndike Press.
The text of this Large Print edition is unabridged.
Other aspects of the book may vary from the original edition.
Set in 16 pt. News Plantin by Ginny Beaulieu.
Printed in the United States on acid-free, high opacity paper.®
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brandewyne, Rebecca.
Swan road / Rebecca Brandewyne. p. cm.
ISBN 0-7862-0132-0 (alk. paper : lg. print) 1. Large type books. I. Title. [PS3552.R296S8 1994]
813'.54—dc20 93-47341
For Loyal and Use Gould, Basil C. Raffety, and in memory of Thomas H. Thompson, all the best and wisest of mentors and friends. With much love and appreciation.
The Players
In Walas:
Pendragon, king of Usk,
Igraine, queen of Usk, wife to King Pen-dragon
Their daughter: Rhowenna, princess of Usk
Gwydion, kinsman to the House of Pen-dragon
Morgen, a serving woman
Father Cadwyr, a priest
Owain, a bard
In Northumbria and Mercia:
Aella, king of Northumbria
Cerdic, a prince of Mercia
Mathilde, a princess of Mercia, sister to Prince Cerdic
In the Northland:
Ragnar Lodbrók, a Viking konungr
His sons:
Ivar the Boneless
Ubbi
Halfdan
The Viking jarlar:
Björn Ironside
Flóki the Raven Hasting
Olaf the Sea Bull Wulfgar Bloodaxe
Yelkei, a slave and spaewife
Swan Road
The old gods touch her sleeping thoughts
With a dream that soars on night's soft breath
'Neath outstretched wings of long-necked swans
And mighty dragons breathing fire and death
From a-crest foam-flowered waves
Swelling o'er seafarers' graves
Of shifting bones that seaweed shrouds enwind.
By fair winds caressed and deeply kissed,
Hoist'd on high and billowing wide
Against the sun-washed blue of summer skies,
Sails spill like blood, a crimson tide
That flows unchecked to distant strands,
And in its wake, on violated sands,
In silent voices speak the corpses left behind.
Yesterday's princess is tomorrow's slave,
Quick as the moment between beats of a heart
That pounds with terror, blind and cruel,
And weeps for lovers torn e'er apart
As warriors, each riding serpent's spine,
Dismount and plunge into frothy brine
That seethes and swirls like a storm before
Violent surge the sweeping combers in
Upon what was, just past, the tranquil beach
O'er which the misted mountains rose
And palisade kept watch from falcons' reach.
Now shouts a wild, barbaric cry—
And from dying lips, the last, low sigh
Of those who'll fight the battles brave no more.
With baubles and bangles of amber and silver
And a treasure far more precious than gold
Loaded onto their longships of mammoth oaks felled,
Set sail, homeward bound, those marauders so bold.
Swift up the Swan Road do they flee,
North, toward the white Frozen Sea,
At whose edge lie the lands of the midnight sun,
Where swords light the heav'ns when onsnowy steeds
Odinn's Valkyries come to fetch home the slain,
And in the great mead halls, by low-burning fires,
The skalds sing a tale of Wulfgar the Dane And of fey Rhowenna the Fair;
Sweeter than siren's snare,
Is love when two hearts twine fore'er as one.
Prologue: The Old Gods
The Dream
The Southern Coast of Usk, Walas, A.D. 865
Rhowenna awoke with a start.
Panicked, she gasped and cried out, sitting bolt upright in bed and clutching her fur blankets tight against her trembling body. Wildly, she gazed about her shadowy sleeping chamber, fearing to be set upon at any moment, seized by the strong, barbarous hands of which she had dreamed so vividly that even now, she could still feel them upon her, sweeping her up, crushing her against a broad, hard-muscled chest that belonged to no Usk man, or even to a man of Walas, but to a stranger, a savage worse than those who inhabited the lands to the east and, across the sea, the isle of Erin to the west. But as always, she found no one in her chamber save her waiting woman, Enid, who slept on a pallet at the foot of the bed, her slumber undisturbed by the low wail of terror that had issued from Rhowenna's lips. Although she was now fully awake, Rhowenna's fright did not diminish. Rather, it increased. This was not the first time she had had the nightmare. Each time it recurred, she grew more frightened, worried lest she had been beset by some madness. Part of her even hoped that it was so, for if it were not, she must accept the fact that she possessed the Sight and confess as much to Father Cadwyr. He would surely think her accursed; perhaps he would even accuse her of being a witch. And perhaps he would be right.
Even now in her ears, the primitive drums still pounded, the arcane chanting still echoed, and the piercing screams still rang — although her father's royal manor was as silent as a grave and, outside, only the raw night wind stirred. As though she had run a long way, her heart beat as loud and fast in her breast as the drums in her mind; and despite the winter cold, she was so drenched with sweat that her fine white wool nightgown clung to her skin. The fire in the brazier had burned low, and as the wind snaked through her father's royal manor, slithering over her clammy body, she shivered violently.
Pushing back her tangle of long, heavy black hair, Rhowenna slowly rose, dragging one of the fur blankets about her for warmth. Quietly, so as not to waken Enid, she moved to pour herself a cup of dark, rich, spicy mead from a clay jug set nearby. Then, grasping the goblet, she knelt beside the brazier to feed sticks of wood to the blaze. Soon, the tongues of flame licked high, and they and the mead, of which she drank deep, pervaded her body with their welcome heat.
It was still night, when not only the wild animals, but also the old gods roamed the earth. This, despite her Christian upbringing, Rhowenna deep in her bones believed; for on the wings of the night wind, had not the ancient ones come to her again, bringing the dream? It was a premonition, a warning, she knew. She had spoken of it to no one — not even to Gwydion, her beloved kinsman — for she longed with all her heart to deny that it was a true vision. If she remained silent, she felt she might somehow prevent it from breathing life, from becoming real. Still, it so terrified her that ton
ight, she was sorely tempted to rouse the household, to speak of what she had seen. Only the thought of Father Cadwyr's penetrating eyes and thunderous wrath as he denounced her as unholy, the devil's handmaiden, dissuaded her. Still, compelled by her inner turmoil, Rhowenna rose abruptly. Despite the inclement weather and the certainty that she would be punished if she were caught sneaking from her father's royal manor into the night, she knew she must go down to the Great Sea, whence came what haunted her.
She gathered up her warm fur cloak, wrapped its folds about her, and tugged on soft leather boots. Then, willing its creaking iron hinges to silence, she carefully eased open the door to her sleeping chamber and peeked out. By the light of the low-burning fire in the central hearth of the great hall beyond, she saw to her relief that the housecarls — her father's warriors — and the servants slumbered on, undisturbed by her furtive gambit. Her feet whispering across the rushes that strewed the stone floor, she swiftly ventured past them and into the darkness.
Because Rhowenna's father, Pendragon, was king of Usk, his royal manor not only occupied the central position in the village, but was also the grandest dwelling of all, the only one constructed of stone. Situated on a knoll overlooking its domain, it contained a great hall, a kitchen, and private chambers for the royal family. It was surrounded by the chapel, various outbuildings, and an earthwork girded with a wide ditch and topped by a stout wooden palisade. Beyond the palisade were the huts and workshops of the ceorls, the serfs, each structure built of wattle and daub, roofed with thatch, and located on a hide, a single measure of land.
The village itself sprawled along the shores of the river Usk, which poured into the Severn Sea and thence into the Great Sea to the west, with the gentle green hills and the rugged, mist-enshrouded mountains of Walas rising behind.
Her father's small kingdom of Usk was bordered by the larger ones of Glamorgan to the west, Gwent to the north, and, beyond the immense ditch and earthwork erected by the Bretwalda Offa and known as Offa's Dyke, vast Mercia to the east. In these uncertain times, when war was all too common and alliances shifted as suddenly as the wind, all three larger kingdoms posed a threat to Usk — but Mercia threatened most of all. To the south, across the Severn Sea, loomed the isles of what had once been the Summer Country, the largest and holiest of these the Tor that rose above Glastonbury or Yniswitrin, the Isle of Glass, as it was sometimes called. Woad, used to make blue dye, grew there, and apple trees; and there, too, the High King Arthwr and his second queen, Gwenhwyfar, were buried. In Arthwr's time, the Tor and Glastonbury had been places of the old gods; now, like much else, they belonged to the Christ and to the priests who served Him. Once, long ago, beyond the craggy black cliffs of West Walas in the distance, had stretched the land of Lyonesse, where fortresses had towered more magnificent even, it was claimed, than those of the Romans. On a cloudless day, some said, one could see the strongholds shimmering beneath the Great Sea; for Lyonesse was lost now, drowned by the treacherous, unending, whitecapped waves that rushed in to batter the coast relentlessly, crumbling and eroding the land, leaving long, gnarled fingers of black rock behind, which would someday also disappear. What lay beyond the isle of Erin to the west, beyond the Great Sea itself, no one knew. On the few maps Rhowenna had seen, dragons were pictured as inhabitants. Bards sang also of another drowned land, called Ys, to the south, which had once lain beyond Brittany, and of a mighty kingdom, Atlantis, even farther away, which had once risen from the waves, and of its towering, magic crystal mountain, so powerful that it had even harnessed the sun. But in the end, the forces the mountain had sought to command had proved too potent for it, and it had exploded, wreaking havoc upon the kingdom and causing it, like Lyonesse and Ys, to sink into the Great Sea. Although she had never been beyond the boundaries of Usk, Rhowenna had acquired this information through the years by listening intently to those who came to her father's royal manor to seek his favor.
By the priests, she had been tutored about the Christ who was the one true God. From the bards, she had learned of the old gods and of those who had, with blood sacrifices, worshiped them: her ancestors, the Picti— the Old People of the Hollow Hills— and the Tribes, who had tattooed themselves with blue woad and who had understood, or so she had been told, even the mysteries of the standing stones and all the lore that had been lost through the ages, since the advent of the Christ. There had been wise and learned men and women in the old days— the priests and priestesses of the Druids and of the Houses of Maidens. But when the High King Arthwr had fallen in battle at Camlann, a great and terrible darkness had come upon the land— the twilight of the gods, some called it; and as the Great Sea had drowned Lyonesse, Ys, and the mighty kingdom of Atlantis, so the Christ had vanquished the old gods. The merchants who traveled far and wide— from the east by horses across the mountains, and from the west by ships upon the Great Sea, up the rivers Usk and Severn— told their own tales of foreign and forgotten lands; and from these, as well, had Rhowenna gleaned further erudition.
As a squirrel stores nuts for the long winter, so did she hoard in her eager mind every scrap of information that came her way. Knowledge was power, her mother, Queen Igraine, often said to her, a weapon more formidable even than a broadsword or a battle-ax— and one that a woman who was wise would learn to wield skillfully, both to defend and to advance herself in a man's world. Yet there was a force even more powerful than knowledge, Rhowenna thought, troubled: fate, destiny. It was this she believed she had seen in her dream, written in the stars, immutable; and despite all her learning, she felt herself helpless against it.
A silver moon ringed with pearly mist shone in the black-velvet night sky, illuminating her way as she slipped through the postern gate of the palisade to traverse the stony, narrow, serpentine track that led down from her father's royal manor to the shore below. From past experience, she knew she would spy nothing there. Still, she could not banish the frisson of fear that this time she would see in reality what she had hitherto seen only in her mind; and she was driven to reach the strand, to make certain all was as it should be. If she did not, she would not sleep again this night.
The winter wind, while not strong, was nevertheless bitter, permeated with drifting mist, drizzle, and salty spindrift from the Severn Sea. Against the chill, Rhowenna drew her cloak even more closely about her as she hurried along. So often had she made this short journey of late that her feet seldom faltered upon the rough, frost-encrusted path, although it was occluded by mist and darkness. Regardless of its possible dangers, she loved the night. It was magical, mystical; it belonged to the old gods who called to her, came to her, as though to entice her from the Christ, whose realm was of the light. Beneath her cloak, her hand sought the Celtic crucifix that hung from a slender gold chain about her neck. On such a cross had the one true God died, the priests said. But the old gods lived, as elemental as wind and fire, as the earth and the Great Sea. Over all things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, they yet ruled. Rhowenna did not doubt this, despite all she had been taught by the priests. The ancient ones spoke with the voice of the wind— a sigh, a moan, a warning that prickled the fine hairs on her nape; and in answer, the cry of some night creature echoed through the mountains that hove up behind her, dwarfing her. What was she compared to the mountains, to the old gods? The minutest grain of sand upon a beach, cast hither and yon by the mighty sea whose name was fate, destiny. Had she not seen in her dream that this was so?
She had gained the shore; and now as she stood looking out at the cold, dark, frothing water that sluiced in upon the strand, her hair and cloak billowing about her in the wind, Rhowenna was struck anew by her own insignificance in the vast scheme of things.
Yet the old gods spoke to her now.
She did not want to listen— but she heard them all the same. The surf pounded like the drums in her mind; the wind chanted its lyrical refrain; the unknown beast in the mountains screamed. All about her, the sinuous mist twisted and twined like the ghosts of the blue-w
oaded pagans who had danced amid the standing stones aeons ago. The Great Sea stretched before her— boundless, empty. Yet in her mind's eye, the images unfolding in slow motion, Rhowenna saw upon the far horizon a tide of phantom riders as crimson as blood, mounted upon the spiny backs of monstrous sea dragons that rose and plunged upon the foamy waves, drawing ever nearer to the coast, come to ravage and to rape, to maim and to murder. Down from the north, along the Swan Road that was no road at all but the course the migrating swans followed when they winged their way across the Great Sea, the longships with their bloodred sails came. As swift as the wind, as silent as the earth. But in Rhowenna's ears rang the pounding of the drums, the chanting of the pagans, and the screams of dread at the sight of those savage riders of the seas.
Caught up in the throes of her vision, she saw the vessels spill forth their army of marauders. Shouting their war cries, their broadswords and battle-axes held high, the giants leaped into the sea, a gold-headed god at their vanguard. Against their massive thighs, the breakers crashed and churned; but still, the giants surged forward, as though they and the sea were one. And now, the screams of the wounded and of the dying began as her father's housecarls and ceorls were set upon and slaughtered, as the women were flung down violently wherever they were seized, skirts ripped away, thighs spread wide for the giants who defiled them. All around Rhowenna, terror reigned. The acrid smoke that rose from the burning village stung her eyes and filled her nostrils. Coughing and choking, she stumbled on amid the cacophony and confusion, frantically seeking escape, slipping on the blood that ran red upon the ground, seeping into the dark, dank earth. Before her stricken, disbelieving gaze, a broadsword flashed in the sunlight, then reddened as the blade bit deep into Gwydion's neck, severing his head from his torso.
Gwydion! Gwydion!
Rhowenna was not even aware of the terrible, animalistic cries that erupted from her throat as he slowly crumpled before her, of the powerful arms that, even before her beloved kinsman's body hit the ground, grabbed her up, enfolding her tight against a brawny chest. Her head fell back against her captor's shoulder. Shocked and dazed, she stared up into eyes as deep blue as a summer sky, a face framed by a halo of tawny hair gilded by the sun. The old gods had come for her, she thought. Soon, she would be reunited with Gwydion in heaven. Desperately, she clung fast to that hope as a merciful blackness swirled up to engulf her.
