by The Saxon
That seemed to shake Helmi’s confidence in her sources. Which was quite as it should be. Surely Helmi could have no valid information concerning Bayard’s wives or women or children. Nonetheless, Helmi’s gossip had disturbed her. Endredi had agreed to this marriage because she had few alternatives, but also because she dearly wanted children.
It could very well be that Bayard did have illegitimate children. He was a Christian, and if they were born out of holy wedlock, he might seek to keep their parentage secret. Or it might be that Bayard’s other wives had simply been unable to bear children, although that would be a rare misfortune.
“If he doesn’t give you children, you could always divorce him,” Helmi noted optimistically.
“No, I could not. Christians are not allowed to divorce for any reason. Besides, where would I go?”
“You could go home to your father.”
“My father has other children and other responsibilities. When I married Fenris, I became his family’s concern. Because of his death, I must do as Dagfinn wishes, since he is the head of the family as well as the chieftain, and he desires this alliance.”
Endredi sighed as she moved away and sat down on a stool. Her father had married a Saxon woman, and their union was a joy to both. Perhaps, just perhaps, she might find it so with Bayard.
She fingered her crucifix, trying to calm her growing dismay and bury her memories of the boy she had once cared for but who had left her to her fate, never trying to find out what had become of her. Despite what he had done—or not done—she had hoped, dreamed...until years had passed, and she had grown into a woman. Adelar had never returned. So Endredi had put him from her heart and from her hopes, and wed another.
Although Fenris was kind, he had inspired no passion within her, and she feared there was no passion left to inspire. When Dagfinn had told her what he planned for her, she had thought not of her own seemingly impossible happiness. This marriage might bring a measure of peace between Saxon and Dane, so she had agreed.
Helmi paused for a moment in her bustling near the large curtained bed, an object Endredi had been doing her best not to notice. “I think someone’s coming!” she cried. “Stand up, stand up!”
Endredi obeyed and despite her resolve to face this marriage resolutely, she had to clasp her hands together to keep them from trembling.
Dagfinn entered the bower and surveyed her slowly. “Good,” he muttered. He nodded toward the door. “Come to the hall.”
Endredi followed the big man out of the bower. In the yard before the hall several women and children were standing at a respectful distance and staring at her. They looked well-dressed and well-fed, a sign that Bayard took care of his people.
Some were curious, others openly hostile as they stood silently. Endredi raised her chin. She was the daughter of Einar Svendson, and no hint of fear or doubt must show on her face.
She continued to walk proudly as she entered the huge wooden building, which was as richly decorated as Helmi had guessed.
There was another crowd of Danes and Saxon men inside. Here, Endredi lowered her eyes as a woman should in such company, lest she be thought immodest, but she glanced up when they paused before proceeding. Standing at the front of a group of Saxons was a tall, bearded, finely dressed man who moved with the natural arrogance of a nobleman. He had to be Bayard.
There was another, younger man at his elbow, with light brown hair, a cruel mouth and thin lips. He looked at her with an impertinent curiosity that annoyed her, despite her anxiety. A woman stood beside him, thin, too, and motionless, her face placid but her gaze darting everywhere.
On the other side of Bayard was a man who had to be a priest. He wore a huge wooden crucifix and a strange black tunic that reached all the way to the ground.
Dagfinn walked ahead of her. “Bayard, here is your bride,” he proclaimed.
Helmi moved behind her and gave her a gentle shove. “Go forward! Go forward!”
Endredi went toward her betrothed slowly, looking at Bayard steadily. He was handsome, dark and well-built. His tunic was a brilliant red, his belt studded with gold, his boots made of fine soft leather, and he wore a beautiful silver brooch with many jewels.
But there was an expression in his eyes.... Suspicion? Reluctance? Then it was gone, masked by a charming smile.
“You spoke the truth, Dagfinn,” Bayard said when she was close to him. “She is beautiful.”
Another man spoke, this time in the Danes’ tongue, obviously translating Bayard’s words. She recognized the voice instantly and quickly scanned the crowd, her heart beating as rapidly as the wings of a bird trapped in a net.
Adelar! Here! She knew him at once, although it had been years. The color of his hair, the shape of his features—even the way he stood was as familiar as her own body. Her mouth went dry, and for a moment she thought she was going to faint.
She had tried to forget Adelar and had convinced herself that she had, but she knew now it was a lie.
For a moment she saw recognition in Adelar’s eyes and something that thrilled her beyond words, something that made all the long years disappear. She could not marry Bayard now. She would refuse, no matter what Dagfinn said or did.
Then Adelar’s demeanor changed, as if a flame had been blown out, replaced by something hard and cold as iron. He looked away.
Oh, Freya! Was he his father’s son, after all? Kendric had been a base traitor, a man outwardly handsome, but inwardly as corrupt as a man could be. Had Adelar grown that way, too?
What other explanation could there be for his action? He was not going to acknowledge that he knew her, not even when she was about to be married to another. He was staring at the floor, not daring to meet her gaze, willing to abandon her again. Acting like a dishonorable coward.
Endredi tried to collect her scattered thoughts and marshal her confused emotions. She wanted to run. To hide like a wounded animal and let herself moan in agony. Or perhaps worst of all, she wanted to beg him to look at her again.
“I am honored,” Bayard said.
Adelar did not want her. Perhaps he never had. Perhaps she had only been swept away by his looks and his apparent need for her comfort.
Suddenly aware that they were waiting for her to speak, she said stiffly, “No, the honor is mine.”
Bayard held out his hand, and she put hers into it. She was a woman now, and the dreams of her childhood were dead.
* * *
The wedding feast was a long and very rich one. Dagfinn and the other Danes gobbled up the abundant food as if they had not eaten in days—so greedily, in fact, that Endredi was quite ashamed. It was obvious that the Saxons were not impressed by their guests’ lack of manners, either.
“That is my cousin, Adelar,” Bayard said to his bride as the Saxon warrior rose and left the table with only the curtest of nods toward his host when the gleeman began to sing, signaling the end of the feast but not of the celebrations. Others stood and moved about the hall, filling it with hushed voices and muted whispers, giving the lord and his bride the occasional curious glance.
Cousins, Endredi thought, watching Adelar go out the door. That explained the resemblance between them and why Adelar would be in attendance here.
The cousins had the same fearless brown eyes, dark hair and muscular build, Endredi realized. Indeed, even now, Bayard reminded her of Adelar so much that she found it difficult to look at her husband without a pang of bitterness.
But she would have to find a way. The gifts had been exchanged, promises made, the priest had even said a blessing. Only the consummation remained to make them truly husband and wife. One more duty to fulfill.
And to her, it was a duty. She could not understand why men seemed to find such a thing a tremendous pleasure. Nonetheless, she did want to have children. A baby would surely bring her joy and fill the loneliness in her heart.
“Adelar is one of my finest warriors and one of the few men I trust. You must forgive his seeming rudeness. It is just h
is way,” Bayard said with a look of concern.
“Is it?” she responded politely, but with growing dread. Bayard seemed all too ready to excuse Adelar’s impertinence. What else would he excuse his cousin?
If Adelar was so capable of deceiving her when he was but a lad, was he now deceiving Bayard, who obviously trusted him enough to have him in his counsel? She would find out and warn her husband if she suspected any treachery at all.
With even more dismay she realized that Ranulf, her husband’s nephew, was coming to sit in the space closest to her, away from his thin, sallow wife, who seemed not to notice.
“I trust, my lady, that you will not think we are all so lacking in our attentions to you, as my lord’s wife,” Ranulf said, attempting to sound polite but only succeeding in sounding the worse for too much ale.
She bowed her head toward Ranulf in slight acknowledgment.
Obviously taking Endredi’s response to be encouragement, he said, “Adelar is an uncouth fellow. But of course if one believes those tales about his family—”
Bayard said, “I am pleased he has decided to remain here.”
Ranulf returned to his wife.
Endredi fought to stay silent, although she was filled with curiosity. What did Ranulf know about Adelar’s family? Did others know what Kendric had done? What had happened to Adelar and his father in the years since she had seen them? She dearly wanted to find out, but until she understood the natures of these men, she had best speak cautiously. She had sensed an undercurrent of hostility ever since she had set foot in Bayard’s hall and had assumed it was the natural enmity between Saxon and Dane. Now, however, she realized all was not well within Bayard’s ranks. Bayard did not like Ranulf, Ranulf sought eagerly to please in a way that roused her suspicions, and Ranulf did not approve of Adelar although Bayard did.
She twisted her hands in her lap. She was completely alone here among these men.
“Adelar’s father is a wealthy thane, with lands and a burh further south,” Bayard explained.
Endredi nearly knocked her goblet from the table. Adelar’s father still possessed land after what he had done? What tales had Ranulf been speaking of, if not that Kendric himself had arranged for a Viking raiding party to attack his village, only too glad to see it destroyed? He had murdered his wife, too. It was not possible that his people could have forgiven such things—but once she would have said it was impossible that Adelar would ignore her, too. She would also have said it was impossible that Adelar could be like his father, but how else to explain his actions since she had arrived?
“If you will excuse me, my lord, I must prepare for evening prayers,” the priest sitting near her said gravely.
“Good even, Father,” Bayard replied, bowing his head.
Endredi watched the priest walk away. Before she had known a Christian, she had been told priests were evil men who would cast spells to send you to eternal torment if you didn’t pay them to say special prayers. She had learned otherwise, but this gloomy man still added to her dread. She did not trust him, either, especially as he had been giving her harsh looks for the better part of the meal.
Bayard, seeing where she looked, patted her hand. “It is not you he disapproves of, Endredi. It is women in general.”
“Women in general?”
“Yes. He suspects you all of being little more than demons sent to tempt honest men. You see the long tunic he wears? He began to dress like that after he went to Rome. He was there several years. Too many, I think. He was a kind enough fellow before he left, but easily swayed. I understand he joined with some rather strict priests. Ever since he has come home, he has spoken as if women were God’s special punishment.” Bayard smiled, his eyes twinkling rather mischievously for a powerful thane. “Fortunately, he leaves tomorrow on a journey to the monastery of his bishop for synod.” He touched her hand. “I hope you will soon come to feel at home here. It will help that you speak our language.”
“My...my family has Saxon blood,” she replied, slipping her hand into her lap. Then, as she smiled with some sincerity, she began to hope that she might not find her marriage just a duty. Bayard seemed genuinely concerned about her.
Her response had caught Ordella’s attention, as well as most of those seated around them. Ranulf said, “Cynath will surely be pleased to hear that you are part Saxon.”
Endredi looked questioningly at Bayard. “Cynath?”
“My overlord, an ealdorman in the Witan.”
“Cynath thinks very highly of your husband, my lady. Justly so, of course,” Ranulf said.
“Of course,” Ordella echoed.
The man who had been singing stopped and put down his harp. “What would be my lady’s pleasure?” he asked, an infectious grin on his round face. “Another song? Another instrument? I can play pipes, horns and fithele. Perhaps you would care to dance?”
“This is my gleeman, Godwin, and a talented fellow,” Bayard said by way of introduction. “He amuses me, for which privilege I pay him an extraordinary amount of silver.”
“I assure you, my lady, I am worth every coin!” Godwin proclaimed, making a very deep bow.
His mien was so sincere and yet so comical, she knew he was trying hard to make her smile. She attempted to oblige him.
“I think we will dance another time,” Bayard said. “Show her how you juggle.”
Godwin responded with a roguish grin, then pulled out three knives, the shortest of which was twelve inches long. The Danes, seated just below Ranulf, half rose from their seats, until he threw the knives up into the air and began to juggle them.
“Look at him,” Dagfinn said scornfully in his own language. “Saxon warriors have many skills, albeit useless ones.”
“What did he say?” Bayard inquired of his bride, shifting closer to Endredi so that his body was against hers. She moved away.
“He says that Saxon warriors are very skilled.”
Godwin picked up three heavy battle axes and juggled them, the blades flashing. This time, the Danes stared openmouthed. “I am not a Saxon,” Godwin said without taking his attention from the whirling axes. “I am a Mercian.”
“If other Danes act like these, we may use our skills to drive them right out of the Danelaw. They seem as attentive as a dog waiting for a bone from his master’s table,” Bayard remarked.
The Saxons around him smothered their laughter. Endredi stared at the fine white tablecloth. She had never liked Fenris’s brother, who often made jests at the expense of those weaker than himself, but she did not enjoy hearing her countrymen insulted. Nor was she pleased to find that her husband so obviously wanted the Danes expelled from their lawful land. He had been attentive and polite to her thus far, but perhaps that would change when they were alone.
Godwin stopped juggling the axes and began to do other tricks with his knives. The Danes went back to drinking.
“Barbarous rabble, are they not?” Ranulf observed loudly. “And most unpleasant—yourself excluded, of course, my lady. No wonder Adelar hates them all.”
Bayard darted an angry glance at his nephew. “Ranulf!” he said, an unmistakable tone of warning in his voice. “You must forgive his hasty words, Endredi,” Bayard went on placatingly, as if she were no more than a child. But she knew only a fool would believe a burh full of Saxons would welcome a marriage between their thane and a Viking, and she was not a fool. “It is true that my cousin dislikes most Danes. He was abducted by Vikings when he was a boy. They killed his sister.”
“What?” Too late Endredi realized that she had shown too much. Everyone stared at her. “How terrible, my lord,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm and not to proclaim to everyone that Adelar had told a base falsehood. “I am most dismayed that my countrymen may have caused a member of your family any anguish,” she said after a moment. Despite the seeming regret in her voice, anger was boiling under Endredi’s placid surface. If anyone had been to blame for Betha’s death, it was Adelar, who had taken her from the Viking vil
lage during a snowstorm in an ill-fated attempt to make their way home. Even then, the little girl had died of an illness, an act of the gods, as she had tried to tell him. Then she had given him the silent companionship he seemed to find the greatest comfort. This lie was her reward?
She would make him correct that lie. Such falsehoods only inflamed the hatred between the Danes and Saxons. Many of the women she knew were as tired of the fighting and the bloodshed as she. If making Adelar confess the truth would prevent one skirmish, one more death, she would ensure that it happened.
“You had nothing to do with it,” Bayard said kindly. “Godwin,” he called out, “sing something else. Something pleasant.”
Godwin complied. After his third song, Bayard turned to her and said solicitously, “You are so quiet. Are you weary? Do you wish to retire?”
Endredi glanced at her husband. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Helmi waiting patiently at the end of the hall.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, rising. The time had come. She was this man’s wife.
“I shall join you in a little while.”
“Sleep well, my lady,” Ranulf said, a leer on his impertinent face.
She was going to hate her husband’s nephew. And she would make Adelar reveal the truth, at least to Bayard. As for how she would feel about her husband, she would find out soon enough, no doubt.
* * *
Helmi held open the door of the bower. Inside, someone had kindled a small, coal-fueled fire in one of the braziers, so that the building was warm against the cool night air of spring. The bed curtains of fine damask had been drawn back, as had the fur coverlet.
Endredi turned her back on the bed.
“Please sit, my lady,” Helmi said, “and I will remove the ornaments from your hair.”
“Leave me.”
“But my lady!” the servant protested. “I should help you.”
“I said, leave me.”
Helmi shrugged and went to the far corner of the bower, where she had made a bed from a mattress filled with straw and some blankets.
“I would prefer you to sleep elsewhere tonight,” Endredi said. She had no wish to have a servant’s presence on her wedding night. She was nervous enough without that.