Wulfgar

by Wulfgar (NCP)(Lit)

  Her gown scarcely touched her now. It was small wonder he could not stomach bedding her.

  A tiny spark of anger surged through her, supplanting the self-pity she had been enjoying wallowing in. It was a woman’s lot in life, she knew, always to be pawns in the games that men played, but it was grossly unfair. She had done nothing! She didn’t deserve to be punished for something someone else had done!

  She could not escape it, however. Just as Wulfgar had used her to punish Jean-Pierre for the death of his beloved wife, Jean-Pierre was bound to punish her for living after Wulfgar had soiled her, for not having fought to the death to defend her honor.

  In truth, she had not fought at all. She could be grateful that Jean-Pierre could not know that. She was amazed now at the naiveté that had led her into thinking that yielding to Wulfgar would be her secret revenge upon Jean-Pierre for taking her to wife when she wanted none of him—that it might even persuade him to denounce her and send her home. He would take her anyway, for it was her dowry that was of interest to him and her dowry could only be had if he wed her. Most likely, she would meet a tragic end once her dowry was his—might have in any event, but most certainly he would not want to keep her now.

  The worst of it was that she very much feared hell would be hers before he granted her release.

  * * * *

  Despite what he had told the cotter, Wilhem, Wulfgar was of no mind to allow Jean-Pierre to die quickly. He had challenged the worm to mortal combat, and he would have it before he was done.

  A prickle of uneasiness scratched at the back of his mind, however, as he swiftly and silently made his way to the keep, moving like a shadow among shadows as he crept closer and closer to his goal. He had still been caught in the grips of fury when he had left Alinor tied to the tree, unable to think much beyond the need to strike out at Jean-Pierre and to allow him to know that he could not sleep easily so long as Wulfgar lived.

  He should not have left her so vulnerable. No doubt, if he were slain tonight, Jean-Pierre would find her come daylight as he had intended—but she was exposed, easy prey for any beast brazen enough to hunt so near the keep.

  He almost turned back when that thought occurred to him, but he had already slipped past the guard. It could take little more time to see his deed through and return than to simply turn back and leave it undone.

  Dismissing her from his mind, he focused on his objective. There were two guards stationed near the rear entrance of the manor. Wulfgar studied them for some moments, formulating a plan. Finally, he moved behind the small shed at the rear of the manor, where the cooking was done, looked around until he found a small stone, and scraped it against the side of the building.

  "What was that?" one of the guards said in a harsh whisper.

  "Nothing—some stray animal most likely."

  "We should check it out."

  "You check it out. Jean-Pierre will have both our heads if we leave this door unguarded."

  For several moments Wulfgar wondered if his ruse had worked at all. He was on the point of trying again when he heard one of the men stride purposefully across the yard. He moved down the wall and rounded the corner, placing his back against the wall as he waited, listening intently as the guard crept along the wall, pausing every few steps to listen. As the man rounded the back corner, Wulfgar slipped a meaty arm around the man’s shoulders, covering his mouth, and sliced his throat. Blood gushed in a fountain of deep black. The man went limp. Easing him to the ground, Wulfgar left the dead man sitting propped against the shed wall and slipped around the other side.

  The other guard had left his post by the time Wulfgar rounded the end of the shed. Uttering a mental curse, Wulfgar moved quickly down the building, hesitated at the corner and listened to the sound of gravel crunching under the man’s feet as he walked half the length of the building and stopped. After a moment, he whirled and headed back toward his post. Wulfgar caught him as he had the first guard, dispatching him, as well, leaving him propped in a sitting position as he had the first.

  He had already turned away when a thought occurred to him. He turned to look at the body speculatively a moment and then, with a wolfish grin, lobbed the man’s head off.

  He moved swiftly then, through the door, up the stairs and into the master’s chambers. Laying the wolf pelt he’d brought with him at the foot of the bed, he sat the guard’s head upon it, turning it so that the guard’s vacant stare could greet Jean-Pierre when he woke.

  He had covered less than half the distance from the keep to the forest when the alarm sounded. He abandoned stealth then and sprinted for the woods. He was winded by the time he reached the concealment. He hadn’t been spotted, despite the fact that he’d made no attempt to keep to the shadows. He had headed straight for his goal, but he knew that would matter little. They would be rushing to saddle horses even now to give chase.

  When he reached the rise, his gaze went at once to Alinor. Gritting his teeth, he turned away and ran to his horse, sheathing his sword, snatching the reins free and leaping into the saddle.

  She had served her purpose. She would be better off if he left her. She would slow him. If he left her, the men searching for him even now were bound to find her and take her to safety.

  Against all logic he found he couldn’t abandon her. Whirling the horse, he returned for her, drawing his sword even as he leapt from his saddle, hitting the ground at a run. She cringed as he swung the blade, falling to her knees as he sliced the bindings cleanly. Grasping her around the waist, he half carried, half dragged her back to the dancing horse, shoved his sword into its sheath once more and tossed her up onto the saddle. She grabbed frantically for purchase as he mounted. Slipping an arm around her waist, he held her tightly against him as he turned the horse into the woods.

  He had no hope of outrunning the party that would be coming for him. Light as she was, Alinor was nevertheless an added burden and would slow him dangerously if he headed for the open road.

  He knew the woods as few others could claim, however, for he’d hunted them from the time he had learned to use his first bow. He would lose them and then he would take Alinor to a place of safety. If the challenge he had left upon Jean-Pierre’s bed did not goad him to meet him in honest combat—He would torment the man until he had no choice but to meet Wulfgar or to admit his cowardice.

  Chapter Five

  Alinor did not know what to think of the fact that Wulfgar had not abandoned her as she had fully expected he would. Truthfully, it didn’t even occur to her to wonder at first, for she’d been so certain when he came at her with his sword that he would slay her that she had not been able to think of anything for quite some time afterward. By the time it did cross her mind, she was far too weary from the arduous pace he set to be in any state to consider it with any logic.

  He headed north when he was satisfied he’d thrown off pursuit. After a time—Alinor had no idea of how many days had passed—they began to move westward. They came at last to a homestead in a green valley, but Alinor had passed her limit long since. When Wulfgar dismounted, she simply fell off, unconscious.

  Before Alinor was even fully conscious, she sensed blissful comfort; softness beneath her; the scent of freshly aired linens; warmth; stillness. It felt so good that she was reluctant to give it up. She merely stretched, winced when her muscles complained and snuggled deeper. She would’ve drifted away again, but her movements seemed to set off a chain reaction of movements. Someone nearby gasped—a woman—then spoke to her in a language she didn’t recognize. She opened her eyes to peer around cautiously just as a door banged closed.

  She stared at the door for several moments and finally allowed her gaze to wander from the door to the room around her, striving for a sense of recognition. Alarm touched her when she neither recognized the room where she found herself, nor could track any memory of having gotten where she was.

  With an effort, she pushed herself upright and explored the room further, but it didn’t become more familia
r. Vaguely, she began to recall little snatches of things, however—of being pushed and pulled as someone removed her clothing, of being bathed—fed. She must have been ill, she decided, but she couldn’t remember feeling ill. She couldn’t remember anything except being tired to the point that she was beyond caring whether or not she fell off the horse.

  A heavy tread outside the door distracted her at that moment—the tread of a man, coming closer.

  She gasped as the door was abruptly thrown open, staring blankly, and with more than a little alarm at the strange man who filled the doorway. Slowly, recognition dawned.

  "Wulfgar?"

  He looked her over searchingly. "You are well?"

  "I was sick?" Alinor countered in surprise.

  He frowned, nodded, slowly closing the door behind him.

  Alinor thought it over, but found she still couldn’t remember being ill. "Where are we?"

  "Wales—the home of my mother’s brother."

  That explained the strange speech. It didn’t explain that Wulfgar had suddenly developed the ability to speak to her in French. His accent was difficult, his speech halting, as one who had to think many moments to find the words—or one who was mentally translating from his own language into another—but plainly he had some knowledge of her native tongue.

  He had seen her as his enemy and had refused to reveal his knowledge before. Did that mean he no longer saw her as his enemy? Or simply that he had brought her to a place where he felt he wouldn’t have to watch his back?

  It seemed absurd that he could have seen her as any threat at all. She would not have been a match, or any threat, to a much smaller man that Wulfgar … and there were few men of his stature, or breadth or strength in all of France, or even in England that she had seen. She was further disadvantaged now, huddled in someone else’s nightclothes, so weak it was an effort even to hold herself upright, among strangers in a strange land. The brief intimacy they had shared seemed to belong to another lifetime—someone else.

  "What happened?" she finally asked, as much because she had little memory of it as because she felt the need to distract him from looking at her so piercingly.

  His face hardened immediately with anger. "I issued a challenge to your betrothed that he can not ignore unless he wishes to be known as a coward."

  It was said accusingly, thrown down at her as a challenge—as if she were responsible for Jean-Pierre’s honor, or lack of it! She felt color wash into her cheeks. "It was not by my choice that I was betrothed to him," she said angrily. "I wanted none of him!"

  His eyes narrowed. "And yet I saw no sign that you were held captive."

  Alinor gaped at him, but she felt her anger rise a notch higher. "I suppose you think I should have killed myself rather than yield to my parents’ wishes?"

  "Freda took her own life because he had sullied her!" he said harshly.

  "She took her life because she loved you and feared you would hate her otherwise!" Alinor snapped angrily. She was almost immediately sorry she’d allowed her tongue to get away from her, for she saw that she had struck bone deep with her sharp retort.

  He moved away from the door, pacing. "You know nothing of it—you did not know Freda," he snarled, but his disclaimer lacked conviction.

  "I know the way of the world. I know what it is to be a woman."

  He snorted. "You are a child yet!"

  If he had slapped her, it could not have stung more. All the doubts she’d so carefully submerged and dismissed swarmed into her mind and she voiced the first thought that surfaced without considering whether there was truth to it or not, or how it might be received. "I am woman enough to carry your child!" she said tightly.

  His gaze snapped immediately to her belly, the color draining from his face. He looked away. "If that was truth … it resides there no longer."

  Alinor was still grappling with the realization that she must, subconsciously, have known that she was carrying his child, for she had not had her menses since Wulfgar had taken her and her courses were far too late for it to be anything else. It took her several moments to assimilate what he had said and for the implications to sink in. Behind that a lump of sadness swelled in her chest. It was unreasonable to feel grief for what she had lost when she had never even acknowledged the child that grew in her belly—when she was unwed and the child fathered by the man who had taken her prisoner—However unreasonable, though, she couldn’t deny that she felt a terrible sense of loss. She looked down at her hands. "God in his infinite mercy …."

  "Your god has no mercy," Wulfgar snapped harshly.

  Alinor glanced up at him in shock. She was of no mind to argue religion with him, however, particularly when she could see, from his own words, that he was an unbeliever. Her own belief, though she would never have admitted it for fear of damnation, was not as strong as it should have been, which hardly qualified her to take a position as defender of the faith.

  Unfortunately, she could think of no retort at all. Hugging her knees to herself, she studied her toes, which just peeked from beneath the voluminous gown she wore. "What will you do now?"

  He did not answer for so long that she finally looked up at him.

  "Jean-Pierre has accepted my challenge—at last. I await word of when and where he will meet me."

  Alinor felt as if a hand had squeezed her heart. "He can not be trusted," she said a little breathlessly.

  "I am well aware of that!" Wulfgar snarled.

  "Nay! You think because he has accepted the challenge that he will fight you fairly. He will not! If you go, you will be slain!"

  Wulfgar’s eyed narrowed. "I am accounted a good man with a sword," he said stiffly.

  Alinor came up on her knees. "Good enough to dispatch a dozen men or more!" she exclaimed. "He will not meet you in single combat! He will lay a trap for you and they will all fall upon you if you meet him! If they capture you alive he will have you tortured until you will beg for death! Can you not be content with the victory you have taken?"

  "He took all from me! ALL! I will not be content until I have deprived him of breath!" Wulfgar growled angrily.

  "You can not get your beloved Freda back! If you pursue this, you can only join her!"

  "So be it! At least I will not have to live with the knowledge that I left her to his tender mercies!" he snarled, pacing the room like a caged beast.

  A mixture of emotions washed through her as she watched him; sympathy for his pain and guilt that he’d failed the woman he cared so much for; envy that the woman had held his heart; and anger, too, that he seemed to account her of no worth. She knew she was no great beauty, but neither was she ugly or disfigured and her dowry had made her a prize in her own land that many men had considered worth pursuing.

  The thought of her dowry prompted another thought and, typically, she spoke impulsively. "You have another means of revenge if you would but look upon it!"

  He stopped abruptly, turning to look at her in surprise. She blushed, but she was not timid. The thought would not have occurred to her if her heart had not voiced it. "I am no dowerless bride! I bring an estate of some note—in a fertile valley that produces well and supports a goodly number of livestock. It is not of great wealth, but ‘tis certainly equal to what you …uh … what was taken."

  Wulfgar scowled at her. "I am no landless fortune seeker!"

  "You took that which was meant for my husband and none other! You are honor bound to right the wrong you have done me! For I have not offended thee and it was wrong to punish me for something of which I had no knowledge of or hand in!"

  His look of affront vanished. For several moments, he looked at her with a mixture of discomfort and surprise. Finally, all gave way to a hint of humor. "You are petitioning for my hand?"

  Alinor cringed inwardly. Put like that it made her sound brazen indeed. "I merely point out," she said stiffly, "that there would be justice for all concerned if you … if I …." Mortification overcame her and she found she could not continue.


  He looked her over as if he were sizing up a mare brought round for him to consider for purchase. She misliked the look, well aware that she must look far from her best. He said nothing, however. After a few moments, he moved to the hearth. A small piece of wood had burned in half and rolled beyond the reach of the flames and he nudged it back with the toe of his boot.

  Alinor studied him for several moments, angry, inexplicably hurt. She didn’t know why it distressed her so much to think of him dying to defend another woman’s honor—or that he so obviously did not want to consider her as a wife. She had thought, when he had come back for her—What had she thought? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was still a silly, heedless child—because she had thought she must mean something more to him than just the means to an end.

  It had been simple minded to believe, just because he had not brutalized her—because he had been sweet and gentle—that it had meant something to him when he had coupled with her, that she had meant something to him. She should have known that it was merely his way—or, perhaps, he had thought that would be a revenge in itself? To treat her gently so that she could only compare her husband unfavorably when Jean-Pierre took her into the marriage bed?

  "Why did you come back for me?" she asked quietly.

  He glanced at her sharply, his face hard, unyielding.

  Because he was not done with her, she realized.

  Alinor’s chest tightened with disappointment. "Go then!" she said angrily, flopping back on the bed and turning away from him. "Avenge your precious Freda by allowing Jean-Pierre to lift your head from your shoulders! You are a pig headed man and -- I do not care!"

  She heard him stride across the room. Expecting to hear the door slam as he left, she was startled when she looked up to see him standing beside the bed, looking down at her speculatively. "You have been at great pains to convince me to forswear my vow. What is it you hope to gain, I wonder? Was all of this to protect him?"