Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
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BRETON WOLFE
The Wolves of Brittany #1
A De Wolfe Pack Novella
VICTORIA VANE
For Dad
Thank you for believing in me.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
ALSO BY VICTORIA VANE
The Devil DeVere Series
PROLOGUE
No sickness is worse to one who is wise than to lack the longed-for joy. - Hávamál
The Duchy of Vannes, Lower Brittany – 907 A.D.
SEATED BESIDE the queen, Adèle gazed past the tables of wedding feast revelers at the younger maidens. Accompanied by the mixed harmonies of biniou and bombarde, the circle of dancers joined hands to begin the new set. Laughing and twirling, their hearts seemed light as birds in flight. Why couldn’t she also share in the joy of the dance? Struck with envy, Adèle tapped her slippered toes in time to the music only to receive a look of silent reproach from the queen, a stern woman who thoroughly disapproved of such frivolous frolics.
The queen spoke as if reading her thoughts. “Dancing is for the gratification of peasants, Adèle. As Countess de Vannes, you must henceforth conduct yourself at all times with utmost decorum.”
“And what of Rudalt?” Adèle asked, her gaze darting across the room to the young count who sat slumped in his chair, wine jug in hand, surrounded by his raucous band of men. Rudalt bellowed for more wine, then reached out to squeeze the breast of the buxom serving wench who’d come to refill his jug, but rather than slapping his hand away, the woman threw herself onto his lap for an open-mouthed kiss. His men-at-arms roared with laughter.
Adèle winced as if struck, her heart as bruised as her pride. As a young maid she had worshipped the handsome Count Rudalt as if he were some ancient Greek or Roman demi-god come to life, but time and close acquaintance had revealed his less-than-godly character. She would like to have blamed the wine for tonight’s lechery, but whispered rumors of bastard children had pulled the scales from her eyes.
Following the direction of her gaze, the queen’s expression remained perfectly bland. “The men of this world may do as they please, Adèle. It is the indulgence we must grant them for our provision and protection. Thus, it is also our duty to act as a counterweight. Through purity of heart and selfless acts of piety, a good wife makes recompense for her lord’s moral failings.”
Adèle’s throat tightened. She’d waited seventeen years for the day she would fulfill her destiny, yet far from celebrating, she suddenly felt as if her very soul was in mourning. “We are wed less than a day, my lady. Am I expected to turn a blind eye to such flagrant philandering?”
The queen answered with a tight smile. “Mayhap ‘tis best you retire to the bridal chamber.” She looked to her daughter seated opposite Adèle. “Gwened will accompany you there and remain until Rudalt comes to you.”
“Yes, my lady.” Adèle stood and made her obeisance to the queen and then curtsied in a similar show of respect to the insensate king who’d passed out on his throne an hour hence, chalice in hand.
With chin raised and spine rigid as a timber, Adèle made her way across the hall toward Rudalt in an attempt to force his acknowledgement, but the whore of the hour, who remained on his lap had fixed his attention. Was this how it was to be from this day onward? Refusing to be so publicly humiliated, Adèle seized the woman’s discarded pitcher, raised it above her head, and showered the amorous couple in wine.
Sputtering in shock, Rudalt thrust the woman from his lap. Shrieking, she hit the floor with a thud, but Rudalt paid no heed. “God’s blood!” He leapt to his feet with a growl “What demon has possessed you, woman?” He grabbed a fistful of Adèle’s golden hair. She bit back a cry as he gave it a solid yank that threatened to shear the scalp from her skull.
She had sought his attention. For better or worse, she now had it.
“It is our wedding night, Rudalt,” she replied tightly, refusing to show her terror at his unexpected act of brutality. “It is your duty to consummate this union and mine to produce your legitimate heir. Now release me that I might go and prepare myself to receive you.”
She exhaled a long and shaky breath when he did just that. Gwened was immediately by her side taking her arm and urging her toward the staircase, yet Adèle refused to scurry away like a frightened mouse. Smoothing her skirts, she raised her chin another notch and swept the serving wench a final haughty glare. Then, her pulse racing with dread of what was to come, she departed the great hall for the bridal chamber above.
***
Adèle paced the room, her mind and heart both racing in dreadful apprehension. It wasn’t that she was in any great hurry to meet her fate, but Rudalt’s tarrying below was killing her by measured degrees. ‘Twould be far better to grit her teeth and bear whatever torment was to be thrust upon her, or better said, inside her, than to died this slow death of anticipation.
“You are restless,” Gwened remarked.
“Of course I am.” Adèle spun around hugging her robes about her. “I have been waiting for hours! He dishonors and humiliates me by his disinclination to come to bed,” she declared, making no attempt to hide her rejection from her closest friend.
“And ‘twill surely be hours yet,” Gwened replied with a yawn. “Rudalt much enjoys his wine and companions…far too much in my father’s estimation,” she added disapprovingly.
“His companions leave much to be desired,” Adèle agreed, thinking once more of the servant woman. Was she Rudalt’s concubine or just a random diversion?
“You must try to understand why he behaves this way,” Gwened endeavored to explain. “My father is a hard man, and Rudalt chafes in resentment. His choice of low company is intentional. He does these things purely to antagonize the king.”
“Is that also why he doesn’t come to me?” Adèle asked. “To provoke the king?” Adèle’s betrothal to Rudalt had been contracted by their respective fathers on the day of her birth. She had known this her entire life and had been fostered and groomed for the role by Queen Oreguen.
Now that she had come fully into her maturity to breed a royal heir, the king had commanded that his son fulfill his pledge to wed her. Rudalt, of course, had balked. Although he could not refuse, he’d made his displeasure perfectly clear. His actions, thus far, implied that Adèle would be forced to bear the brunt of his res
entment.
“I do not presume to know my brother’s mind this night, but mayhap it is so,” Gwened replied. She rose and crossed the room to where a jug of wine sat on a table beside an offering of sweetmeats from the wedding feast. Pouring amber liquid into a silver chalice, Gwened extended it to Adèle with a sympathetic smile. “Drink of this. Mayhap ‘twill help ease your unrest.”
Accepting the vessel, Adèle wrinkled her nose and sniffed the sweetly pungent drink. “What is it? Chouchen?”
“Aye.” Gwened nodded with a subtle smile. “Mixed with mandragora root.”
“But I have not megrims, sister,” Adèle protested. “What if I fall asleep before my groom arrives?”
“All the better for you,” Gwened replied with a look of sympathy.
“Is there great pain as they say?” Adèle asked. “Was it so between you and my brother on your wedding night?”
“Our brothers are very different men,” Gwened replied. “‘Twas a full se’nnight before Mateudoi ever breached my maidenhead.”
“How can that be? Were you not bedded together on your wedding night?”
“Aye, but Mateudoi insisted we spend the entire night kneeling upon the rushes in prayer. Eventually, we both fell asleep. On the night that followed, he vowed to do his duty, but his eagerness overcame him, and I felt nothing but wetness.”
“Wetness?”
“Aye. In his eagerness he spent his seed betwixt my legs. When he finally succeeded, the pain was sharp but brief—as was the entire experience.”
Adèle shook her head ruefully. “He is my brother and I love him, but I would not have wished him upon you as a spouse. He has always been far more enraptured by the spirit than by any temptations of the flesh. He would have made a far better priest.”
“It is fortuitous that it befalls you rather than me, to produce the heir to the kingdom of Brittany,” Gwened returned with a sad smile. “Mateudoi comes so rarely to my bed that I fear I shall never conceive a child.”
Adèle knew that Gwened was dissatisfied with her marriage, but what woman had a choice? A daughter of noble blood knew from birth that her role was to enrich her family. Both of their unions were part of a well-planned strategic alliance to strengthen the bonds between the ducal houses of Vannes and Poher. Gwened and Rudalt’s elder sister, Avicia, had been first to wed, given in marriage to Count Cornouaille. Gwened was supposed to have wed Adèle’s elder brother Hugo, while Mateudoi was to have entered the church. But two years hence, Hugo was slain by Norse raiders while hunting. Though he was only fourteen, a full four years younger than his bride-to-be, Mateudoi had been summoned from the abbey to wed Gwened in his brother’s stead. Now it was Adèle and Rudalt. Adèle understood and accepted her duty, but it appeared her groom did not.
Adèle plucked at her long, finely embroidered sleeves. “Gwened,” she ventured. “Is it true what the maids whisper of Rudalt?”
Gwened’s fair brows rose in what had to be feigned ignorance. “What whispers?”
“They say he keeps a woman—a Neustrian whore.”
Gwened’s blue gaze met hers with a frown. “It’s unwise to heed servants’ twattling.”
“You don’t deny it?” Adèle said. “So you also would have me turn a blind eye?”
“It’s what my mother has always done,” Gwened replied. “As the future queen, you would be wise to heed her example.”
Adèle wondered if she dared voice the real question that plagued her. “There is something else,” she chewed her lip. “His nickname troubles me.”
“Nickname?”
“The maids titter and call Rudalt ‘The Battering Ram’. At first I thought he was thus called for his reputation with the siege machines, but now…” Heavy footfalls and a cacophony of laughter echoed outside the door. The latch raised with a rattle.
Adèle spun around to find Rudalt’s broad shoulders filling the door, eyes bloodshot, tunic in disarray, and voice slurred from drink. “Come my friends! The time is ripe for the battering ram of Vannes to breach the walls of Poher.”
Adèle looked in panic to Gwened. There would have to be witnesses to the consummation, but that’s precisely why Gwened had stayed behind while the aging king and queen had long gone to bed.
“Forsooth, you don’t intend for the entire company to bide in the bridal chamber?” Gwened asked her brother.
“You need not remain, sister…unless perhaps you wish to retrieve that impotent boy you call spouse. It’s been two years since you wed, and he has yet to put a babe in your belly. Mayhap he wants for skill in sheathing his sword?”
His drunken cohorts howled while Gwened’s expression went slack telling him his strike had hit the mark. “You’re drunk, Rudalt,” Gwened accused.
“It’s my wedding feast,” he replied with a sloppy smile as he advanced into the bedchamber. “I have every right to celebrate… and now I will consummate.”
Adèle’s stomach tightened as he approached with an unsteady swagger and a lascivious leer. Although she’d resigned herself to the inevitable deflowering, she refused to be manhandled by a drunken brute. She glanced down at the cup of adulterated chouchen that Gwened had given her. Perhaps if Rudalt drank of it, the mandragora would work its somnolent magic and forestall this misadventure.
She extended the cup to Rudalt with a sweet smile. “Mayhap you would care for another drink?”
Snatching the cup from her hands, he drained the remains, and then threw it over his shoulder. Before she could react, he jerked her into his arms. His wet mouth upon hers was bruising and his breath foul. His hands groped and pawed, tearing at her robe to expose her breasts. “Nay!” Adèle cried in mortification, shoving vainly against his chest. “Do what you will, Rudalt, but not before this audience! Send them away!”
“Be silent!” He gave her a violent shake that made her teeth rattle. “I am your lord and husband now, and I require that they remain to bear witness that my queen is a virgin.”
“It is not done thusly!” Gwened cried out.
“Take her away,” Rudalt called to his men who proceeded to drag a fiercely protesting Gwened from the chamber. “Gisela will wait upon her.”
Bile rose in Adèle’s throat upon recognition of the serving woman who stood smirking amongst the men. Her fears were instantly confirmed. Gisela must be his Neustrian whore.
Once more gripping a fist in her hair, Rudalt hauled Adèle to the bed, throwing her face down upon the mattress and shoving up the yards of linen that covered her body. A pair of hard thighs forced hers apart as calloused hands spread her buttocks in preparation of the assault. Holy Mother Mary, she silently sobbed to the virgin, let it be done quickly.
Her prayer was denied.
The invasion was sudden, shocking her senses with its violence. Through she drew blood from her own lips in the effort, Adèle failed to suppress her scream as he thrust into her much as a ram batters against a fortress door. His siege machine was indeed a brutal and relentless weapon that threatened to tear her asunder. When at last she thought her end had come, his body convulsed in a great shudder, and then his full weight came to bear up on her, almost smothering her in the mattress. Part of her wished that he would have done just that. He lay senselessly atop of her, until finally rolling away with a groan.
She turned her head only far enough to see him raise a blood-streaked hand to his companions. “Indeed, a virgin.” She shuddered in renewed revulsion as he proceeded to lick it from his fingers. “Tend to her,” Rudalt commanded the creature he called Gisela and then parted with a laugh.
Refusing to acknowledge the woman, Adèle shut her eyes. Perhaps untended she would just quietly bleed to death. Death would have been a kinder fate indeed than what she had just suffered at her own husband’s hand.
CHAPTER ONE
The lame rides a horse, the handless is herdsman. The deaf in battle is bold; The blind man is better than one that is burned. No good can come of a corpse. - Hávamál
Chartres, Western Frank
ia - 911 AD
VALDRIK VARGR paced the hilltop squinting westward into the sinking sun, his body quivering, his ears still roaring with battle cries, and nostrils filled with the stench of death. Thousands of fallen peppered the otherwise pastoral landscape. The earth as far as the eye could see was stained with the mixed blood of Norse and Franks, the gleaming metal of axes and swords stained to the color of rust with dried blood.
Retrieving his wineskin and raising it to parched lips, Valdrik cast a longing gaze southeastward to the shimmering waters where their boats were moored—within sight, but ever out of reach. Between the encampment on the hills and the river were dense lines of horse and foot soldiers—Frankish reinforcements freshly arrived.
His kinsman, Hrolfr, the chieftain of the raid had predicted an easy victory with bountiful tribute money, but much had changed in the twenty-some years since his first incursion. Then, Charles the Fat, either too lazy or too craven, had not raised his sword. Instead, he’d willingly paid tribute and allowed the Norsemen free passage south to pillage Burgundy instead. Easily vanquishing their unwary victims, the Norsemen had returned home with boats laden with silver and plunder and stories to fill the sagas. But now, after half a century of raiding, it seemed the contemptible Franks had finally learned how to fight.
Nothing about the expedition had gone according to plan. They’d set out to ransack Paris, but the city had become well-fortified since the last victorious raid. Having failed to take that city, they’d sailed further down the Seine and into the tributary of the Eure, but Chartres had proven equally impenetrable against their ballista, mangonel, and catapults. Though forever scarred from the Norse siege machines, the Frankish walls stood strong.
The counter-attack had come as a surprise. In their supreme arrogance, the Norsemen had been unprepared. Led by Richard, Duke of Burgundy, the Franks, Neustrians, and Aquitainians had formed an alliance against their common foe. Splitting the great army into three divisions, they’d surrounded the Norse invaders. Outmaneuvered and outmanned, Hrolf’s warriors had fought valiantly, no longer for riches and glory, but to defend their lives and honor.
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