Lord of Hawkfell Island

by Catherine Coulter

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  Epilogue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LORD OF HAWKFELL ISLAND

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1993 by Catherine Coulter

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1415-2

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  Jove and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: May, 2002

  Titles by Catherine Coulter

  THE EDGE

  THE COVE

  THE MAZE

  THE TARGET

  BEYOND EDEN

  IMPULSE

  FALSE PRETENSES

  MAD JACK

  ROSEHAVEN

  THE WILD BARON

  THE WYNDHAM LEGACY

  THE NIGHTINGALE LEGACY

  THE VALENTINE LEGACY

  LORD OF HAWKFELL ISLAND

  LORD OF RAVEN’S PEAK

  LORD OF FALCON RIDGE

  THE SHERBROOKE BRIDE

  THE HELLION BRIDE

  THE HEIRESS BRIDE

  Write me and tell me how you liked

  Lord of Hawkfell Island at

  P.O. Box 17,

  Mill Valley, CA 94942

  or email me at

  ReadMoi@aol.com.

  To My Grandmother Schatz—

  She taught me to read when I

  was three years old and told

  me “Tricker” stories.

  She was one great lady, blessed

  with a beautiful soprano voice, a

  wonderful imagination, and she loved me

  bunches.

  The halt can ride, the handless can herd,

  the deaf can fight with spirit;

  A blind man is better than a corpse on a pyre—

  A corpse is no good to anyone.

  —The Hávamál is a ninth century

  compilation of earlier poems

  consisting of sayings attributed

  to Ódin.

  1

  Clontarf, Ireland

  Danish Fortress, 910

  HE PLACED HIS finger to his lips as he turned to his two men. They’d crossed the plank over the deep ravine as quietly as they could, though the need for their absolute silence wasn’t necessary now for lightning streaked through the night sky and with it came the booming thunder, louder and more powerful than the gods’ own battles. The utter whiteness in the sky, then the shaking of the earth was as steady as the torrential rain that blanketed the sky and the earth, coming down so thickly it was difficult to see two feet ahead. But he knew exactly what he was doing. Everything was going as planned. He gave a small salute to Hafter and Sculla behind him, and he smiled, a fearsome smile.

  Einar was within the fortress, he had to be. Rorik had been told that he was by his own man inside the fortress. The message Aslak had sent was only a week old. Aye, Einar had to be here, even though that witch had yelled to him from the fortress ramparts that he was in Dublin, at the king’s compound, aye, that damned witch who was probably his whore, who was lying, trying to protect him.

  He and his men reached the small rear door, thick and stout, able to withstand a battering ram for a very long time, but it would be open, for Aslak had sworn it would be.

  It was. He eased open the door, then turned slightly to wave his men to move in closer behind him. They moved silently, pressing close.

  He hunkered down, his knife drawn, and eased through the opening. Suddenly, behind him he heard a man shout, “Take him! He has nowhere to go! Don’t kill him!”

  Rorik lurched back to see three men coming across the wide plank still spread across the ravine, swords drawn.

  He was seized with madness and blood lust. In front of him were a dozen men, armed and ready, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t retreat, not now, even though he knew he alone could kill the three men who’d crossed the ravine. No, he must go forward. One of the men in front of him was Einar, a man he’d never seen. He yelled his name, calling him a coward, a murderer, taunting him to come and fight him.

  “Einar! Einar!”

  The garrison warriors remained together, pressing closely, drawing nearer, their shields and swords raised. He growled his fury. He shrieked his rage to the sky. They were hiding him; they were protecting Einar.

  Rorik raised his sword over his head, and like a berserker lunged into the mass of men. His blood pounded madly through him. His brain saw only the frenzy of killing. He hacked his way wildly through the warriors that surrounded him. Einar must be here. He was hiding, using his men as a shield to protect him, but Rorik would find him. Aye, and he’d send his sword through his throat. He heard a scream of pain, then another and another. He paid no heed.

  “Einar!”

  Again, he heard that same man shout from behind him, “Don’t kill him!”

  Suddenly, he was grabbed by a dozen hands and jerked down to his knees on the muddy ground. He struck out with his sword, dropped his shield, and used his knife, carving a slice from one man’s leg. The hands eased in that instant, and he was up, his knife in one hand, his blood-covered sword in the other. He yelled at them, cursing, his eyes demon-red in the thick sheeting rain, deadened to anything save his mad lust for revenge. Thunder shook the earth beneath their feet, and the men jumped back. Then they formed a circle around him, always moving, first to the right, then to the left, adjusting as he shifted his position, always balancing on the balls of his feet. He yelled at them, calling them cowards and worse, sons of whores.

  Gunleik, the garrison commander, stood a bit behind the circle of men, studying the warrior. His two men were already prisoners, both of them wounded, but not gravely, and that through happenstance. Both men were brave and strong, one of them nearly seven feet tall, and he’d fallen like an oak tree when Ivar had struck him over the head with the blunt side of an axe. The other had gone down when he’d slipped in the mud and four men had held him down, cuffing him with his sword handle. But this man with his wild eyes and his cunning, this man wouldn’t give up, nor would he be tricked with guile, but still, Gunleik refused to kill him.

  Four of his own men were down, screaming in pain. He
yelled out again, “Keep back! Don’t kill him!”

  But his men were angry. They wanted the man’s blood. He couldn’t let this continue. His men would kill the warrior soon and he wouldn’t be able to stop it.

  He drew his knife from his belt. Slowly, with great deliberation, he raised it and calmly aimed. When the warrior turned to face him, the knife flew from his fingers, a silver blur in the heavy rain. It struck him high in the fleshy part of his right shoulder. It hadn’t struck bone, for it wasn’t meant to, just thick muscle, which was bad enough.

  Rorik heaved and jerked backward with the force of the blow.

  He shuddered, but didn’t fall.

  He screamed and lunged at another man, but he was slower now, his mortality finally eroding his warrior’s resolve, weakening the iron hold he had on his body.

  He stumbled, then regained his balance, standing within the center of the circle now, still slashing his sword in a wide arc around him.

  “Move away from him!” Gunleik shouted. “Nay, Emund, keep back! I order you, don’t kill him!” It couldn’t last much longer now. He was a man, after all, he was mortal. His eyes would blur from the pain, his powerful arm would numb, his guts would cramp, and he would fall.

  Rorik felt no pain, only a sharp cold that seemed to surge through his shoulder. He didn’t understand it, but it didn’t bother him—yet. Oddly, he felt strangely apart from himself for a few moments. Suddenly a woman broke through the circle of men. She stared at him, at the knife stuck through his shoulder, its handle glistening in the rain, but still Rorik stood straight and swung his sword in a powerful arc, the knife in his other hand just as deadly to those who ventured close. She looked as if she were terrified. But if she was, why was she here? Why was she staring at him? Why was she coming closer?

  He watched her as she slipped between two men and came to the fore. He realized it was the same woman who had lied to him, the black-haired witch, Einar’s whore.

  “Mirana! Get back!”

  It was the man’s voice, the man who’d thrown his knife into his flesh, the man who’d yelled at the warriors not to kill him, but Rorik saw that she paid the man no heed. Slowly, her hand outstretched, she walked toward him. One man tried to stop her, but she shook off his hand, paying him no attention. Was she mad? Did she believe him on the point of death? Did she believe him no longer man enough to kill?

  Rorik stared at her, a witch, aye, she must be an Irish witch, her thick hair black as a man’s dead heart, plastered against her head, making her face a death mask, and she had no fear of him, nothing showed in her white rain-streaked face. He stared at her outstretched hand, as white as her face. She was come to take him to Valhalla. She was a Valkyrie then. Nay, that couldn’t be right. A Valkyrie was all white and blond and solid, not slight and skinny like this girl. She was mortal, she had to be—all that black hair streaming down her shoulders, over her breasts, aye, she was mortal and his enemy. He could kill her if he could but reach her.

  He slowed, still staring at her, unable to look away from her, for something about her drew him, held him. He looked at her mouth, blue with cold, and heard the words she spoke, but he didn’t understand them. No, all he felt was a deadening weakness that was twisting through him, and he was caught within it, as an insect would be in a spider’s web. It was slowing him, holding him still now, and he hated it, knowing that it was crushing his very soul. It was defeating him, destroying what made Rorik Haraldsson a man and warrior, and alive. He couldn’t breathe. He knew a knife was in his shoulder, he saw the silver of its blade sunk nearly to its hilt into his flesh, the whiteness of its bone handle. Weakness swept over him, pulled at his arms, gripped him hard, made his legs weak as a woman’s.

  The witch with the soft gentle voice said, “Put down the sword. You are injured. None will harm you. I swear it. Give me the sword.” And she held her hands out to him, so small her hands, the wrists so slight he could break them easily, very easily.

  He frowned at her for she was still there, standing in front of him, unheeding of the rain, unheeding of the fact that he could cleave her apart. Those damned hands of hers still stretched toward him. He wanted to kill her. He wanted her white throat between his hands.

  “Come, put down the sword.”

  He shook his head, took a step toward her, his sword raised. Then, very slowly, he sank to his knees. He stared at the muddy ground and felt the cold of the pounding rain and the air settle onto his body like a heavy shroud. He fell forward on his face then lurched to his side. He felt the coldness of the sucking mud to his very soul. It was the relentless cold of failure. He’d failed, there was naught else to do but die.

  2

  THE BLACK-HAIRED WITCH was leaning over him, her white face very close to his. She was speaking to him, her words quiet, the sound of them soft, but he didn’t understand. He wondered vaguely what she wanted of him, but then he didn’t care. He sought death. He’d failed, not only himself but his father and mother. He eased out his breath and welcomed it. He was drawn quickly inward once again, and he saw her no more.

  Mirana backed away from the bed. The man was deeply unconscious, which was just as well. She watched Gunleik lean over him, brace one hand on the post of the box bed, clutch his fingers around the ivory handle and pull the knife from his flesh. He did it quickly and cleanly. Blood gushed out in its wake, red and thick, too much blood, flowing under his arm, snaking down through the thick blond hair covering his chest. Quickly she pressed clean woolen cloths against the wound. Gunleik wiped his knife on his tunic, then slid it back in its sheath. He grunted, and moved her aside.

  “I have more strength,” he said, and sat down beside the man, bearing down on the wound.

  “You truly don’t know who he is,” she said as she bathed the filth from his face.

  “Nay. But I know that if he’d gotten his hands on Einar, he would have told him, aye, he would have told him who he was and watched his eyes as he killed him.”

  “Why do you wish him to live? Einar shows no mercy for a man who steals a chicken. What would he do to this man?”

  “Kill him slowly and with great pleasure.”

  She was silent, drying his face now, pale and drawn in the dim rush light.

  “Let him die,” she said finally.

  “Nay, I cannot. My loyalty is to your brother. I must grant him the choice of this man’s future. Besides, we must find out who he is, we must know what he wants, why he hates Einar so much. There might be others, the man’s kin. There are strong feelings here, hatred that runs very deep. Nay, we must know who he is.”

  “Ask his two men once they are conscious again.”

  “Aye, I will, but I doubt they’ll tell us. No, I must speak to this man, and only he, for he is their leader and he is the one who seeks revenge.” The man wouldn’t speak, Gunleik knew, not until he saw Einar, and even then perhaps he wouldn’t, for he had failed in his vengeance. He would probably die unknown to them and to Einar.

  “Why is there such hatred for my brother?”

  Gunleik pressed more firmly on the wound, frowning at the seeping blood from beneath the thick wad of wool. “You will seek your answers from Einar. I trust he will recognize the man. There is hatred here that chills the soul.”

  “He is a very young man,” Mirana said. “With his silver helmet and its nose guard, he looked fearsome, like a demon, unknown and thus frightening. But he isn’t. He’s just a man and he—”

  “Aye, he is just a man, Mirana, and he is well formed and strong, a warrior. I hope that Einar will allow him to die like a man.”

  Mirana did as well, but she doubted Einar would ever consent to forgo his pleasures, for the pain of others brought him a good deal of pleasure. This man was fine-looking as well, Mirana thought, turning away from him. When she had watched him fighting in the outer yard, his sword had gleamed as brightly as the silver arm bands that still encircled each of his upper arms. Aye, he’d looked like a demon in that helmet, but not an old devil
though, for he was large, his body lean and beautiful with its golden hair, his legs thick with youth and muscle. He wore only a tunic that was belted at his waist and thick leather shoes cross-strapped to his knees.

  “I will send two of the women to strip off his wet tunic and bathe the blood and mud from him.”

  “I will keep the pressure on the wound. The blood is slowing already.”

  She sent Einar’s two mistresses. She’d not been honest with herself. Actually, the man was magnificent, his face all hard lines and shadowed planes, a beautiful face with arched golden brows, a deep cleft in his chin. Let them sigh over him and caress his body, the lustful fools. She wouldn’t care. She refused to let herself care, for down that path lay only sorrow and pain, for her as well as for him.

  The hour grew late. Mirana saw that their four wounded men were tended. None would die, thanks be to Thor. The warrior’s two men were bound and locked inside a storage shed, their wounds tended as well, slight wounds really, but their heads ached terribly. She told Ivar, who was guarding the two men, to keep a sharp eye on them; perhaps, she told him, just perhaps, one of the men would tell Ivar who their leader was.

  Gunleik assigned men to keep a watch on the rest of the enemy, who were now standing miserably cold and silent on the beach, huddled under their bearskins in the pounding rain. Perhaps they didn’t yet know their leader had failed.

  It neared midnight. She rose and stretched. Men were snoring on the benches that lined the longhouse, each wrapped in his woolen blanket or bearskin. Gunleik was standing, staring into the orange sparking embers in the fire pit in the center of the longhouse. His age-seamed face was set and hard, his pale gray eyes as calm as the core of a storm. His legs were bare but they didn’t look like the warrior’s legs. His legs were bowed and scarred from many battles.

  She said quietly to him, “When do you think my brother will return?”

  “Your half-brother, Mirana. In two days, he told me.”