The Rose and the Shield

by Sara Bennett

  She was approaching the main table now, the wine jug clasped to her breast. ’Twas a wonder, Rose thought wryly, that with her eyes fixed unwaveringly on Captain Olafson she could find her way without stumbling.

  But so were the eyes of all of the other women in her hall!

  In fact, in Rose’s opinion, they were behaving in a quite ridiculous manner. It wasn’t just the serving women, either. Wives of many years’ standing and girls hardly old enough to string two words together were all goggling at the mercenary captain. First one, then another, had made an excuse to approach the dais and perform some task or merely to linger there without reason, while others—including Constance—just sat and stared unashamedly in his direction.

  Rose sighed, and supposed it was natural—Somerford Manor had been stripped of most of its marriageable-aged men. And Captain Olafson was an exceptional-looking man. But couldn’t these foolish creatures see that the mercenary’s beauty was but a disguise? A thin veneer for his savagery? He might sprawl, relaxed, on the bench, his chain mail replaced by a woad-blue tunic that clung to his broad shoulders and made his hair seem brighter and his eyes bluer, but he did not fool her!

  Irritated and yet fascinated, Rose watched as Eartha arrived at a breathless halt before the mercenary. The wine slopped over the rim of the jug and stained her kersey gown, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Captain!” The word was a gasp.

  The mercenary looked up, a question in his cool eyes.

  Eartha continued in halting French. “I am called Eartha. I want to thank you for saving my son. He’s a babe still, and if he had fallen…” Eartha shuddered dramatically and then edged closer, her eyes growing heavy. “If I can repay you in any way…? Serve you in any way…? I am willing.”

  Rose stiffened in her chair—she didn’t need Arno’s stifled guffaws to clarify Eartha’s meaning for her. It might be that in this instance Eartha was offering to repay the mercenary’s kind action in the only manner open to her—she had neither wealth nor power, only her looks and her body. Such exchanges were part of life, and Rose did not pretend they did not happen at Somerford.

  Why then was there an uncomfortable tightness in her chest? A hot sensation in her throat?

  “Well, Gunnar?” Arno was speaking with drunken familiarity. “What better way to warm your bed tonight than with a pretty wench? I say if she wants to show you her gratitude, let her!”

  Rose frowned and wondered why no one else at the table appeared to find the comment objectionable—even Brother Mark was smirking. And yet Sir Arno did not normally speak so coarsely before her—he was most particular in his manners. What was the matter with him tonight? What was the matter with everyone?

  Suddenly it was as if Rose were a stranger in her own hall.

  The mercenary spoke quietly, and yet the noise about them ceased instantly. “Your thanks are unnecessary, Eartha.”

  Irritably, Rose noted the fascinated faces turned in his direction. Captain Olafson had sounded unmoved by the woman’s offer, but Rose refused to believe that. Probably he was already plotting when and where he could claim his payment.

  His answer had put Eartha at a loss—men rarely refused her favors—but then she appeared to remember her wine jug and quickly moved to fill his already full goblet. Of course the wine spilled. Realizing what she was doing, Eartha looked up at him and gave a nervous giggle. The interested watchers in the hall chuckled with her.

  Gunnar Olafson smiled. A tug at the corners of his lips that broadened into something quite amazingly attractive. To Rose’s disgust there came a collective sigh from the womenfolk in the hall. She could cheerfully have strangled them all for being so gullible. Indeed she was so angry…

  Eartha, now refilling Rose’s goblet, received a look from her gentle lady that surprised her into a slack-jawed stare. Sensing that her offer might have been the cause of Rose’s ill humor, she stammered in English, “Lady, I meant no harm. I…Forgive me. I did not know you wanted him for yourself.”

  The silence in the hall intensified. Constance, who spoke English, coughed and bowed her head to hide her gleeful expression. Rose felt her face burning as if she were too near the sun. It did not matter that most of the Normans there did not know what Eartha had said. The English did, and far worse, so did the mercenary.

  “You forget yourself,” Rose said in a frigid voice at odds with her fiery face.

  Eartha bobbed a hasty curtsy. “Your pardon, lady,” and scuttled away.

  Gradually the quiet was filled by voices as conversation resumed, and soon it was as if nothing had happened. Constance made some comment to Brother Mark about the tastiness of the pork, and he replied at length. Normality returned.

  Rose felt herself thaw a little. Beneath the table her hands were shaking. Why does it matter? she asked herself angrily. Why should I care if he believes I want him, as Eartha said?

  Because it’s true.

  Her breath jammed in her throat. No, it wasn’t true! How could it be? Rose cast a furtive glance in the direction of the mercenary.

  He was staring down at the embroidered cloth that covered the trestle table, as if it fascinated him as much as he fascinated all of them. His thin copper braids had swung forward with his hair, shielding his face, and his big hand lay relaxed beside his goblet, a crisscross of white scars etched into the tanned flesh.

  Gunnar. That was what Arno had called him. Rose spoke the name silently to herself, and was shocked by a prickle of awareness. A shiver traced her spine, curled low in her belly…

  Stop it, stop it now!

  Arno leaned toward the mercenary captain, his movements clumsy from the wine, and muttered some jest. He laughed loudly, not realizing at first that Captain Olafson had failed to join in. When he did realize, Rose saw the baffled anger in his expression: How dare this churl reject his offer of manly comradeship!

  “Why did you save the brat?” Arno asked with a sneer. “Why bother if you don’t want to bed the mother?”

  Gunnar Olafson’s scarred hand closed into a fist.

  Rose held her breath, for this was the very question she wanted answered.

  She was listening.

  Gunnar could sense her interest, more than that—he could feel it. Like the wash of a warm ocean, it flowed over him; like the sting of salt, it alerted him. He had never before been so completely aware, to the exclusion of all else, of a woman.

  They were a strange gathering. The priest too interested in his meal, the knight so arrogant and sure of himself that he drank too much; the sly-eyed old woman; and the beautiful, treacherous lady. Of them all, it was she who held the most danger for Gunnar.

  He had heard the serving girl’s words—I did not know you wanted him for yourself. Gunnar did not know whether that was true, but he knew how he felt. His skin was raw and sensitive, the rod between his legs already half erect. He was still in control, but there was a recklessness burning inside him that had never been there before and his grip was at best tenuous.

  He should not have looked up at her window, in the bailey, after he had rescued the child.

  He hadn’t wanted to look up; he just hadn’t been able to stop himself. She had been leaning far from her window, the veil gone and her hair hanging forward over her shoulder in a thick, dark braid. He had imagined it loose, his mind instantly accommodating him with curling, ebony waves framing her beautiful face. Gunnar had actually felt his hands sliding through the silky, dark mass, holding her as he plundered her mouth with his, as he lifted himself and prepared to drive deep inside her body, again and again…

  No! Gunnar pulled himself up, reminding himself of where he was, who he was, why he was there at Somerford Manor. The land was his if he completed this mission; a future of his own making. And for a mercenary, to own his own land was an unimaginable dream.

  Somehow he would conquer this lust and send it fleeing like the enemy to his plans that it was. And now, just to be certain the lady never let him use his formidable charm on
her, let him talk his way into her bed, Gunnar set out to make her really hate him.

  “Why did I save the child?” he repeated Sir Arno’s question calmly, unmoved as the drunken knight swayed in his seat. “Because such a death would have been bad luck. If I had let him die, then I would have had to make a sacrifice.”

  “Bad luck? Sacrifice?” Arno repeated stupidly, as if he doubted what he was hearing.

  “Aye.” Gunnar put his hand slowly and ostentatiously onto the hilt of his sword. “You see this?”

  “’Tis a sword.” Arno blinked foolishly.

  “Aye, but not just a sword. This is Fenrir. Fenrir, named after the savage Norse wolf. The black wolf. He demands blood, ever more blood, though he has drunk much in his time. If the boy had fallen and died, it would have brought us bad luck. Fenrir would have demanded blood, and I would have had to satisfy him.”

  Gunnar felt the shock shimmer about him, but did not lift his eyes from the bemusement in Arno’s, as the knight’s sodden mind sought to understand what Gunnar was saying. For some reason he did not want to see the expression on Lady Rose’s beautiful face. If she had not thought him beyond redemption before, she would now. So be it. He was there at Somerford to fulfill his mission, and if that meant making a beautiful and traitorous Norman lady hate him, that was what he must do.

  But once again Gunnar had underestimated her.

  “Such pagan practices are frowned upon at Somerford, Captain.” Her voice floated through the silence toward him, full of haughty command. “Brother Mark has set them to flight. You would do well not to mention Fenrir or your other nasty Norse creatures in this place.”

  She made his bloody threat sound like a mild infestation of ants!

  His mouth twitched but he held it firm. He felt like laughing aloud in delight, and something very much like admiration. “The Norse gods are not so easily ignored, lady,” he said carefully, and slowly raised his eyes to hers. “Odin, Thor, Loki, Freyer…They are old and wily, and they demand that their desires be satisfied.”

  As I would like to satisfy mine.

  She seemed fascinated by his mouth, as if she could see each word forming there, as if she expected him to say something remarkable. He wondered again what she would taste like. If he leaned forward and opened her lips with his…A jolt of desire made every muscle in his big body tense and go hard.

  She was still looking at his mouth, her own lips slightly parted, her cheeks flushed. Her tone might be that of the unreachable lady of the manor, but her eyes said something else. With a shiver, he wondered if the woman Eartha had been right after all. Could the lady want him?

  It didn’t really matter.

  She was not for him. This was the wrong place and the wrong time, and he dared not allow himself to be distracted.

  Gunnar held on to that, steadying himself with an effort. “Lady?” he said sharply, and snapped whatever hot spell was between them.

  With a blink her gaze returned to his. For a moment she seemed dazed, and then she woke up, lifting her head and straightening her shoulders. “As long as those desires are satisfied elsewhere, Captain.”

  Now he did smile.

  Her eyes remained firmly on his, but they had a startled look, a frightened look. And Gunnar realized with a tingle of shock that her fear was not because of what he had said about Fenrir, but because of the attraction simmering between them.

  “Well said, lady.”

  It was Brother Mark who spoke, his breath unpleasantly hot in her ear. Somehow Rose dragged her gaze away from that of the mercenary, turning her head and giving the priest her full attention.

  “My lady,” he went on earnestly, his rather blunt fingers clasped before him. Rose’s dazed eyes noted the priest also had battle scars on his hands—unusual, surely, for a man of God? “We have spoken before of the need for a new church.”

  “I remember.” They had indeed spoken of it, but there was no money for more building. Brother Mark seemed to believe that a new church should come before food and warmth and clothing. Rose, practical woman that she was, did not.

  Brother Mark proceeded to tell her exactly what he wanted. It sounded like a smaller version of the cathedral at Wells—and not that much smaller. Rose nodded, pretending to listen, but in truth she was more interested in what was happening further down the table.

  Jesu! She blinked. Here was yet another serving wench approaching them, and bearing yet another full jug of wine! Were they all completely empty-headed? Perhaps she should give an order that none should look at the man, for their own safety!

  The girl drew closer. How would Gunnar Olafson react?

  Before she could stop herself, Rose glanced again toward the mercenary. Yes, she noted, his goblet was still topped to the very brim with good red wine. What would most men do in such a situation? Rose had known only a small number of men really well—Edric, her father, her brother. Edric, kind though he was, would have laughed and made the wench feel foolish. Rose’s father would have been angry, her brother, too, for they were not even-tempered men.

  She paled. What if Gunnar Olafson were to draw that frightening sword of his and threaten the wench with it? Or cry out a pagan oath? Or maybe he would guzzle down what he already had, so that his goblet was empty? She tensed, waiting.

  Arno was holding out his goblet to be filled—yet again. The knight, his voice noticeably slurred, was boasting about his powerful relatives in Normandy, and seemed hardly to notice the simpering girl. She moved on to Gunnar and waited expectantly, hopping from one foot to the other as if it were impossible for her to keep still in the presence of so impressive a man.

  Rose held her breath, expecting the worst.

  Gunnar Olafson gave the girl a calm smile and shook his head. It was done so unobtrusively that probably no one but Rose noticed. The girl blushed, smiled back, and retraced her steps.

  Kindness, even disinterested kindness, was a rarity in the harsh world where Rose dwelt. To see it now, from a man she had wanted to believe incapable of any of the softer emotions, shook her to the core. Tears stung her eyes and she bowed her head, desperate to hide her own lack of control.

  She was the Lady of Somerford Manor—she could not afford to be a woman, afflicted with womanly feelings.

  Gunnar Olafson had explained to them why he had saved the boy’s life—it was a pagan thing. Rose had been relieved to hear his reason was as unfeeling as she had told herself it must be. For Constance must be wrong; how could such a man as this be a hero? Heroes were not men with hair like fire and steely muscles and scarred hands. They did not own swords near to four feet long called Fenrir and wear shields painted with snarling wolves. And certainly they did not kill for coin!

  And yet now, just when she was feeling justified in her initial judgment of him, he acted in a way that could only be called kind. Thoughtful. Even honorable.

  What was happening?

  Rose clutched the arms of her chair with the sensation that she, and it, were adrift on the sea. And then, thankfully, doubt and scorn came to her rescue, making her rethink her conclusions.

  How could a Viking savage be kind? Sometimes her father and brother had been kind, but it was all a trick, a way to manipulate, to get their own way. That must be what Gunnar Olafson was doing. Storing up favors for weeks and weeks to come. A wench for every night!

  For what woman would be able to resist him, Rose thought bleakly, if he were kind as well as handsome?

  She lifted her goblet and gulped a mouthful of wine, promptly choking on it.

  “Lady?” Brother Mark was eyeing her reddened face curiously.

  “Rose?” On her other side, Arno dared give her a disapproving stare. In his inebriated state he had again forgotten the respect due her.

  Despite streaming eyes, Rose reminded him. “It is Lady Rose, Sir Arno.”

  Arno d’Alan stiffened, his face pinched, brown eyes narrowed. He looked…not amused, not angry, not anything she recognized. Sullen, certainly, but something more tha
t was unfamiliar. It disturbed her—a trickle of ice in her backbone—for the brief moment before she dismissed it. If she had hurt Arno’s feelings, Rose told herself firmly, it was for the best—he seemed far too sure of himself these days, and she had allowed him to go on doing so without checking him.

  “My apologies, lady,” he said now, pretending contrition, but his voice was thick with drink and mockery.

  “Do you always have such a serious effect upon womenfolk, Captain?”

  The question came from Constance, and suddenly Rose had a new worry. Jesu, let the old woman not mention her hope of finding Rose a lusty man!

  Gunnar Olafson had turned to Constance and was thus looking past Rose. His face was once more expressionless, as blank as if it had been carved from a block of wood, albeit an extremely handsome block of wood. Why, thought Rose, did she feel as if so much was going on behind it?

  “There is something about me that women like—” He spoke the simple truth. “So I do not gainsay them the pleasure of looking.”

  Pleasure of looking! What arrogance, what conceit!

  “And if they want to do more than look?” Constance asked boldly, in the evident belief that her advanced age allowed her to be nosy. “Do you give them that pleasure, too, Captain Olafson?”

  Arno gave a snort of laughter, almost as if he were enjoying Rose’s discomfort.

  “Sometimes,” Gunnar said quietly, his smile mischievous. “I would have thought you beyond the need for bed sport, lady?”

  Constance crowed with laughter. “What were you before you become a soldier of fortune, Captain?” she continued to probe, eyes sparkling with curiosity.

  He was taken by surprise—a shadow in his eyes.

  “I was a soldier, lady.”

  “And did you fight at Hastings? What is it the English call it?”

  “Senlac,” he said, his voice grim.

  “Aye, Senlac. Did you fight at Senlac, Captain Olafson?”

  Rose waited, expecting him to disclaim the words, shrug them off, or retort that there were many men who fought at Hastings. He did none of those things. “Aye, I fought at Senlac. I fought with Harold Godwineson and the English. Now that you have unearthed one of my secrets, lady, be contented.”