by Swan Road
When the baskets were full, Rhowenna and the rest walked back to the longhouse. Upon the wooden racks used for drying fish and fruits and vegetables, she hung the seaweed to dry in the sun. She would make the laverbread and the hog's-head cheese tomorrow; upon hearing her plan, Wulfgar had agreed to slaughter one of the pigs. Having ridden out earlier on Olaf the Sea Bull's huge black horse, which he had also confiscated for himself, Wulfgar had since returned to the hof from inspecting the fields and was now busy in the palisade, overseeing the repairs he had put into progress the day before. As she draped the strands of seaweed over the drying racks, Rhowenna could feel his intense eyes upon her, devouring her. Still, although his watching her unsettled her, she did not hurry at her task, for its completion meant a return to the shadowy interior of the longhouse. Thinking of her father's great hall during the long, dark winter months, she could only imagine the dreariness of the hof during the Northland's "murky time," as Wulfgar called it. But surely she would be long gone by then, she thought; surely Prince Cerdic or her father would have paid her ransom by then, and Wulfgar would have returned her if not to Usk, at least to Mercia.
That her current life here in the Northland was in some respects a glimpse of the life she would spend in Mercia as a stranger in a foreign land, with unfamiliar customs and raiment and foods, was a notion on which Rhowenna did not care to dwell. There could be no comparison between being a slave and being a princess— even if Wulfgar had allotted her the duties of his chatelaine— and Mercia was a civilized kingdom whose Saxon inhabitants, once barbaric heathens, had long ago converted to Christianity, unlike these savage Northmen. Further, Prince Cerdic would be her husband, caring and considerate, surely, as his gift to her of the gold necklace set with amethysts had demonstrated. That even so, he, too, would want of her what Wulfgar desired was a thought she determinedly shoved from her mind. It would be different with Prince Cerdic, Rhowenna told herself. His taking of her would be properly sanctified by the Church; he himself would be kind and gentle, understanding her maidenly fear and respecting her as his wife— not seeing her as merely a vessel to receive his lust, as Wulfgar did, murmuring his bard-song lies to beguile her into surrendering to him. Nor would Prince Cerdic press upon her such kisses and caresses as Wulfgar did to arouse within her that strange, leaping flame, that fierce, wild yearning that only a wanton would feel. In Prince Cerdic's arms, she would be safe. Only deceit and danger, dishonor and disillusionment lay in Wulfgar's embrace.
Picking up her empty basket and turning to go into the longhouse, Rhowenna's attention was caught by the return of some of the freedmen who had gone out earlier to the forest. They drove an ox-drawn sledge to which numerous logs were roped; here was the wood with which to begin building the furniture she wanted. Despite herself, she felt a tiny thrill of anticipation at the sight. She would soon have the hof at least looking as though it were inhabited by civilized men instead of barbarians, even if it were not. Carrying her basket against her hip, she went to speak again to Eirik, the chief woodcarver, still not certain he grasped what she had in mind. After a few minutes of struggling conversation in which Rhowenna addressed him in the Saxon tongue and Eirik responded in the language of the Northland, Wulfgar materialized at her side to translate. More than once during their dialogue, Rhowenna heard the Northland word seng but was not certain of its meaning; it was not, she thought, a term she had heard previously— and was not table bord in the Northland tongue, and bench, benk? Confused, she wondered if even Wulfgar had understood what she meant by furniture.
"Aye," he said in answer to her question, his voice dry, "I may be a 'heathen' and a 'savage,' as you have called me, lady. But I am not so ignorant that I have mistaken your meaning. Even if Olaf the Sea Bull possessed none, I have many times over the years seen tables and benches and other furniture at the hof of Ragnar Lodbrók. But most are used only on special occasions, such as feast days, we Northmen not being so soft and needful of luxuries as the warriors of the Eastlands and the Southlands— which is why we will someday rule them all, lady, as we already rule the seas.
"Even now, we have footholds in the Slavic, the Germanic, and the Frankish kingdoms, as well as in Frisia, Caledonia, and Erin. 'Tis only a matter of time before we conquer Britain and Walas, too. This summer, Ragnar sailed up the river Seine to sack Paris again, for plunder with which to support an army. If he gets it, he and his sons will hire mercenaries and, like a horde of flies upon honey, will descend on the kingdoms of Britain; for 'tis Ragnar's burning ambition in life to be overking of all of Britain, subject no longer to the Jutish king across the Skagerrak, to whom he must pay tribute and homage in the Northland. So you see, lady, 'tis not just a ransom worth your weight in gold that you will represent to Ragnar, but also perhaps a stronghold from which he may launch his campaign to subjugate the kingdoms of Britain and to place the Saxons firmly beneath his booted heel, Prince Cerdic of Mercia among them!"
"I— I don't understand." Rhowenna was puzzled and somehow frightened by Wulfgar's words. "What— what do you mean, my lord?"
"Only this: Despite your father's betrothing you to Prince Cerdic, Usk and Mercia will never be aught save uneasy allies at best; for between the Celts and the Saxons, there has ever been enmity. It may be, then, that in exchange for your honor and— Ragnar will take pains to convince him— your life, your father will find it wiser in the end to strike a bargain with Ragnar; for allies are often born of expedience and friends made of those with common foes. Ragnar has three legitimate sons, none of whom would scruple at setting aside their wives and marrying you if it served their ambition and purpose. Then would your Usk become Ragnar's stepstone into Britain— although once the old wolf and his cubs had devoured the sheep, they would no doubt turn on the shepherd who let them into the fold, I am thinking."
"A fact my father will be wise enough to grasp," Rhowenna declared, not without pride. "Besides, my father fears the Christian priests and so would never barter me to a heathen!"
"Perhaps, lady. But I tell you that there are Northmen who are not so fearful of your priests or of your God and who would swear oath to worship Him if such would win for them what Ragnar hopes to attain."
To Rhowenna, this was a terrible blasphemy. Yet from what she herself had seen of the Víkingrs, she could not doubt that Wulfgar spoke the truth. She shuddered at the thought; for as, unbidden, Father Cadwyr's fanatical image stole into her mind, she knew that the priest would view the conversion of a heathen to Christianity as God's most highly esteemed work and would counsel Pendragon accordingly should the opportunity arise, urging him to join forces with the Northmen against the Saxons— and allaying his suspicions that the Northmen would, after consuming Britain, also swallow the whole of Walas.
"Now you know why, above all else, Ragnar Lodbrók and his sons will come for you, lady, why I sought to have Morgen take your place as the princess of Usk." Wulfgar's voice was grim. "A father whose daughter has been dishonored and is heavy with child, besides, is more often than not a man determined to see her wed to her seducer and so a man, also, with whom a bargain may be more easily struck. Believe me, lady: If Ragnar should somehow learn your true identity and succeed in wresting you from me, if your father should balk at paying what I suspect will prove Ragnar's ransom demand, Ragnar will force you himself or turn you over to his son Ivar the Boneless for sport; and if afterward they cannot get you as a bride, and a stronghold in Usk as your dowry, you will wind up their slave and their whore. Doubt that not, lady. I know them, down to their bones. Father and sons are all hungry for power and ruthless in their pursuit of it— and you are but a woman and a maiden, whose feelings will mean nothing, less than nothing, to them."
"But if all you say is true, how can I permit Morgen to fall into their clutches?"
"She is no virgin," Wulfgar stated bluntly, shrugging. "Her fate at their hands will be no worse than what it would have been in my slave pens, as she must have guessed. So there is, in truth, little risk to her. As long a
s she commits no crime, neither Ragnar nor Ivar will kill her. As I told you in Sliesthorp, there are laws here in the Northland that govern how a slave must be treated. Besides, 'twas Morgen's own choice to trade places with you, and she made it freely. By doing so, she proved herself both bold and clever; and I will do what I can to protect her as I protect you, lady. And perhaps the messengers I have dispatched this morning to Prince Cerdic and to your father will return to the Northland before Ragnar Lodbrók and Ivar the Boneless sail their longships homeward. But if the gods decree otherwise, I will not sacrifice you to spare Morgen, lady. There is too much at stake for that. It would avail her naught and bring you a certain and grievous ruin— to say nothing of the formidable weapon it would place in Ragnar's grasping hands."
For a long moment, there was silence between them, each pondering the shared knowledge of what Wulfgar would allow Morgen to endure if it would save Rhowenna from a like fate. Tears stung Rhowenna's eyes at the realization, for with it came the understanding that Wulfgar, too, could be hard and remorseless when he chose. Had she not seen evidence of that once before, when he had beheaded Knut Strongarm? Even so, she could not fault Wulfgar's reasoning; it was all too obvious that he had thought things through very clearly. At last, her voice throbbing with emotion, she spoke.
"You—you are right, of course. I— I must think of Usk. Without me, Ragnar Lodbrók cannot compel my father to accede to his demands, and so Usk and its people will be safe. That is enough; that is all that is important."
"Have you no thought for yourself, Rhowenna?" Wulfgar inquired gently, his voice holding a curious note as he gazed at her searchingly. "For your own needs? In your place, another woman would think only of herself."
"I am a princess, and I know my duty."
"You are also a woman— with feelings— are you not?"
"Aye. But I have learned over the years that sometimes 'tis necessary for a princess to deny her own emotions for the sake of her obligations to kingdom and crown."
"Is that what you did when your father betrothed you to Prince Cerdic? Is that why you agreed to the match? For do not tell me that you wished to wed him when I know that you did not!"
"Nay, I did not want to marry him, 'tis true— but only because I— because I... loved another, my kinsman Gwydion." Rhowenna's face softened with sadness and regret as she spoke Gwydion's name, and her eyes glowed with a faraway light that filled Wulfgar with anger, jealousy, and a terrible fear, of a sudden, that he could never win her heart, that she had given it away to another and so had nothing left for him. He had never once thought that she might be in love, that some man other than he had embraced her, had tasted her sweet mouth, drinking long and deep of its nectar, and had caressed her milk-white throat and breasts.
"Lady, your words are a blade in my heart," he said, his voice low, rough with emotion. "Why do you seek to wound me with this revelation of your love for another when you know how much I love and desire you, that I would have made you my queen instead of my slave, and would still? Have you so little care, then, for my feelings? Or are you as fickle and faithless as any other woman? By the gods, I had not thought so. But why else would you lie in my arms and kiss me as you did last night if your heart belongs to your kinsman?"
"How can I reply when I do not myself know the answer?" she cried softly, turning her face away from him in shame that he would speak of last night and how she had responded to him. One hand fluttered to her slender throat, as though to still the sudden, wild beating of the pulse that lay at its delicate hollow. "No man has ever had of me what you have taken from me, my lord; and although I would hate you for it with all my heart, I find I cannot. I do not understand these strange feelings you have stirred within me. 'Tis as though my mind and my will melt away when you touch me—" A small, ragged sob issuing from her throat, Rhowenna broke off abruptly, stricken by her confession, her eyes cast down to avoid his, her mouth so vulnerable and tremulous that Wulfgar longed to possess it with his own as a thrill of triumph shot through him at her anguished admission. After a long moment, she continued. "Through you, a sinful pagan, does the devil, who is unholy and iniquitous, tempt me to wantonness and wickedness, I fear, to test my faith as a Christian maiden; and I pray earnestly for my swift deliverance and, if that be not granted me, for strength to hold fast against you as long as need be." When she paused, drawing a long, uneven breath that revealed how difficult she feared that the struggle against him— and against her own self— would be, he was filled with elation. Then, her voice poignant with sorrow, she went on. "As for my heart, if once it belonged to my kinsman Gwydion, it does no longer; for he would not have it in his keeping—"
"What?" Wulfgar exclaimed harshly, shocked that any man could not want her as his and angered by the hurt and rejection she had so obviously and painfully suffered. "What fool was he? Was he blind that he could not see your rare beauty? Deaf, that he could not hear your siren's song of enchantment? Mute, that he could not speak to you the words of love and desire for you that I would shout unto the very halls of Asgard, the barred gates of Hel, if the gods and Hela, who is Death, would deign to hear my cry?"
"Nay." Rhowenna shook her head slowly, her countenance wistful, her gaze distant, as before. "He was only a man who did not dare to dream."
"I am not such a man as that, lady. For I do dare to dream. I dream of holding you in my arms and of feeling you tremble with passion beneath me, your white thighs spread wide to receive me as I fill you to overflowing with a nectar far sweeter and headier than wine, as I would show you if you would but yield to me. I dream of waking every morning for the rest of my life to see you lying beside me, the waves of your raven hair rippling across the pillows, a black sea in which I would gladly drown forever. I dream of watching your soft body ripen and swell with a babe of my making, here"— he laid his hand upon her belly, a tender caress that made her shudder, despite herself, with a sudden, strange longing, a deep, instinctive, maternal ache she had never before felt. "I dream not only of life within you, but also of life with you, of you sitting beside me in my great mead hall, your face aglow with the light of the fire and of the whale-oil lamps of many a long, dark winter's eve. I dream of growing old with you. I dream that when I die in battle, 'twill be you instead of a golden Valkyrie who comes for me, and that we will live together until the very end of time, on some enchanted isle that is neither my Asgard nor your Heaven, but a place for souls who love so deeply that they can never be parted. All this, I dare to dream for love of you, Rhowenna. What more would you have me say?"
"Say that you will take me home to Usk, my lord," she implored quietly, although the reply was not what her heart prompted her to speak, and the hand she laid upon his arm trembled not with fear, but with the passionate yearning his eloquent words had aroused within her. No man had ever spoken to her so, plucked the strings of her heart so surely that they echoed with a melody so sweet she ached to sing a harmony in answer. "Tell me that, Wulfgar, if you love me as you claim."
"Gladly would I take you there, although I should sicken and die of unrequited love and desire for you at our parting; so much, I know in my heart. But I have no way at present to return you to Usk, Rhowenna. The Dragon's Fire was Olaf the Sea Bull's longship, not mine; even now, it lies in the hollow of a heath on this markland, waiting to become part of Olaf's burial mound when the priest of Odinn at the templum in the Sacred Grove has finished his preparations to speak the funeral prayers to the gods. And I dare not take you on board a cargo vessel, where your beauty and desirability might bestir its captain and crew to turn upon me and to slay me, so they can take you prisoner and rape you at their leisure before selling you at a slave market— or, if they should somehow learn your identity, hold you hostage themselves for your ransom. Either way, you would represent a profit to such men, lady, many of whom are Víkingrs or other sea wolves, as well as traders. Do you understand?"
"Aye." Rhowenna nodded, swallowing her disappointment, inwardly torn by the knowledge tha
t it was not so acute as it ought to have been, that some tiny, traitorous part of her was glad she must remain in the Northland, with Wulfgar.
Turning from him, carrying her empty basket, she went at last into the longhouse, into the gloomy great mead hall, where the fire burned in the central hearth— and now, of a sudden, she felt a pang at the unbidden thought that perhaps she would not be there to see it of a long, dark winter's eve in the Northland.
Chapter Eleven
Swift Flies the Summer
The summer was short in the Northland, and seemed to fly by so swiftly that Rhowenna, whenever she thought of it, could not believe how long she had been gone from Usk. Yet, strangely, despite being Wulfgar's captive and slave, she could not honestly have declared herself discontent. Because he had given her the duties of his chatelaine, her days soon settled into a pattern that was not dissimilar to that of her life in Usk. Time no longer hung heavily on her hands, as it had aboard the Dragon's Fire, but was taken up by her multitude of tasks as mistress of the hof. It was almost as though she were, in fact, Wulfgar's wife, Rhowenna sometimes reflected, such was the respect and deference with which she was treated by all, the way in which her soft-voiced commands to the thegns, the freedmen, and the slaves were obeyed. Still, she would have been surprised to learn that this was due as much to her own noble nature as it was to Wulfgar's august authority. She did not realize how her outer beauty and grace, her inner caring and compassion touched the hearts of even the hardest of the men, who, no more than Wulfgar, had never before known her like.
To the thegns, Rhowenna was a living symbol of their lord's boldness and virility; that he should hold such a coveted prize was proof indeed of his might and worth as a jarl, and so of their own as his warriors. Thus did they also come to revere her, as Wulfgar did. As the days passed, she learned that they were not quite the savages she had at first thought them, that although still boisterous, they usually comported themselves more decorously, the ribald revelry they had engaged in during the voyage and on the night of their homecoming being celebrative rather than everyday behavior. To the freedmen, Rhowenna quickly became a mistress who valued their skill as artisans and laborers, fishermen and farmers, and who was never too busy to praise their talents and to take pride in their work. She soon knew all their names and their jobs, from Gudrod, the temperamental potter, to Arngrim, the taciturn blacksmith, from Magnus, the tranquil fisher, to Thorvald, the thoughtful shepherd. They were, she discovered, not so very different, after all, from the people of Usk, the craftsmen and ceorls she had known and cared for all her life. To the slaves, Rhowenna seemed from the beginning a savior who did whatever she could to better their lowly lot, for she could not help but pity them. There were no slaves in Walas; and even though there were laws to govern the treatment of those in the Northland, the slaves were often miserable. All worked long, hard hours; the women bore the additional burden of being prey for any lustful jarl or thegn who desired them, and this practice, Rhowenna could not stop. But at least she could make certain the slaves were not denied proper food or clothing, and she had a kind word for everyone.
