He’d planned to introduce her to the delights of tasting each other’s intimate parts, but his need was too great. They had a lifetime to look forward to.
He scooped her up and laid her on the bed, opened her legs, pushed up her knees and knelt between them. She blushed as he stared at a part of her body she had probably never seen, her face as pink as the pretty wet folds. Perhaps he had time for one lick.
She dug her nails into his scalp, whimpering when he swiped his tongue over the glistening bud.
“I must have you now,” he babbled half in Norse, half in her language, his voice raw. “Next time more slowly. I’ll try not to hurt you but there will be pain.”
She smiled like a Valkyrie come to take him to Odin’s feast, which he hoped meant she’d understood. No time to worry about it.
He positioned his pikk at her fragile entrance, gathered her to his fevered body and plunged into her sweet, wet heat.
She screamed, clinging to him as he thrust and thrust and thrust. His mind filled with the memory of his heart hammering in his chest with awe and excitement as he’d watched the volcano hurl its molten lava skyward. Still he thrust, ever deeper, praying to Saint Catherine he wasn’t hurting her too much. He gradually became aware she was keening out a long low wail that sounded like—
She threw her head back and stopped breathing altogether, trying to stammer something unintelligible.
She has released! Thanks be to all the gods and all the Christian saints.
It was his last coherent thought before his seed exploded inside his wife’s pulsating sheath.
PART TWO
THE BEGINNING
Cattle die, kinsmen die, all men are mortal.
Words of praise will never perish, nor a noble name.
~The Havamal (Viking Book of Wisdom)
THE VIKING’S CONCUBINE
One month later
The apple tree sapling was dead, its grey leaves twisted grotesquely as if it had died in agony.
Fighting tears, Cathryn sank back on her heels in the brown dirt of the Archbishop’s kitchen garden. Despite her best efforts to follow her husband’s instructions for the care of his plants, it was the third one to shrivel within a sennight. At this rate, they’d all be gone by month’s end. Rootstocks that had survived a perilous journey by sea from Norway to Francia seemed determined not to thrive in the rich soil of the Seine valley.
Witnessing Bryk’s boyish pride in his newly planted apple trees had made her love him even more, if that were possible. Then he’d left with the Viking army a month ago. She dreaded having to tell him on his return that she had killed his dream.
If he ever returned—
With trembling hands, she grasped the twig and eased the root from the brown earth. It had withered like the other two.
“What are you doing?”
She swiveled her head, taken unawares by a familiar voice she hadn’t heard since she’d turned her back on the abbey convent. “Kaia!” she exclaimed, dropping the dead sapling as she struggled to her feet.
The friends fell into each other’s arms. “It’s been too long,” Cathryn said hoarsely. “Let me look at you.” She narrowed her eyes, wiping away a tear when they broke apart. “You’re not wearing your habit.”
Kaia smoothed a hand over the fine wool of her skirts. “Papa decided my education was complete, and Mater Bruna became an even more unbearable tyrant after you left. Who would want to become a nun under such a Superior? Besides I plan to marry Javune.”
Cathryn wondered what Kaia’s wealthy father thought of the notion of his daughter marrying a monk, but she held her tongue. “So you are free of the convent?”
Kaia grinned. “At last. I was hurt you didn’t come to visit me after you left.”
Cathryn frowned. “But I did. I was refused entry.”
Kaia grasped her arm. “What! Why?”
Would her noble friend understand? “I am not welcomed anywhere in Rouen, especially in places of religion.”
Kaia squeezed her hands, her eyes full of sympathy. “Because you married a Viking?”
Cathryn stared at her dirty feet. “Because I am a Viking’s concubine.”
Kaia’s mouth fell open. “Concubine? How can that be? You are living in the Archbishop of Rouen’s residence.”
“His Excellency has no choice. The Viking chieftain commandeered this house and allowed me and Bryk to occupy a small chamber. The Frankish servants shun me, though I am one of their own.”
“But you and Bryk married.”
“Yes, but it was a Norse wedding, without the blessing of the Church. Bryk is not of our faith.”
Kaia narrowed her eyes, anger darkening her fair face. “I hate the Church and its rules. My true love is languishing in the abbey at Jumièges, no doubt pining for me, condemned by his father to a religious life he loathes.”
Cathryn looked around nervously, relieved no servants were nearby to overhear her friend’s blasphemous remarks. Perhaps a change of subject was called for. She smiled weakly. “It’s good to hear and speak my own language again.”
“Do you see no-one?”
“Mostly Vikings. The chieftain’s wife, Poppa of Bayeux, enjoys talking with me in the Frankish tongue. She had scant opportunity during her years as a captive in Norway. Otherwise I think she would shun me too, like the other Vikings.”
“Why do they shun you?”
“I’m a Frank. They are living in uncertainty waiting to hear if Hrolf has been successful in securing a grant of land from King Charles.”
Kaia rolled her eyes. “The Senseless.”
Cathryn nodded. “Until then they don’t know if they will remain in this foreign land where they want to settle. I shouldn’t give the impression they all ignore me. Alfred’s wife, Hannelore, is always glad of my help with her ten children now her husband is away.”
“Alfred?”
“Bryk’s brother. His family lives in the Viking camp near the river. The little ones are teaching me their language. Bryk also allowed Torstein to stay with Hannelore.”
“Does he come here?”
“Sometimes. He’s helped with the trees, but he’s a slave who only speaks when spoken to. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking. I can’t imagine being a slave. It’s one of the things I find hard to understand about the Vikings.”
Kaia hesitated before replying. “I have seen Poppa in the town. She comports herself like a princess with her son. You’d think she was governor of Rouen rather than Tormod.”
Cathryn chuckled. “I think when Hrolf chose Tormod to hold Rouen in his absence both men knew who would really be in charge. After all, she was the daughter of a Count.”
“Have you heard anything of the war?”
Cathryn shrugged. “The last news Poppa received from Hrolf wasn’t good. The Vikings had abandoned the plan to besiege Paris in favor of sailing down the river Eure to attack Chartres. What have you heard?”
“My father says the same.” She glanced around. “I think he hopes they succeed. I overheard him saying that life in Rouen has improved under their rule. People feel more secure.”
Cathryn’s sprits lifted. Perhaps there was hope that one day Vikings and Franks would live in harmony in the valley of the Seine. It was her husband’s fervent wish—along with the apple orchard he dreamed of nurturing. She bent to retrieve the dead sapling. “I have killed another tree,” she lamented, heartsick with longing for Bryk.
CHARTRES
May 911 AD
Overseeing the setting up of the camp on an island in the river Eure, Bryk thought back to the day he and his fellow Vikings had left Norway, hoping to wrest new lands from the Franks where they could settle.
Alfred emerged from the midst of the hubbub, brushing dust from his kyrtill. “You must be pleased with your rise in stature,” he said without rancor.
Bryk scratched his beard. Had his brother read his mind? It was true he’d been an outcast in Møre because of a decision two years ago to turn his
back on warmongering and help his brothers work the family farm. Plundering and bringing home spoils was all very well, and he’d done it successfully for years. But bloodletting for sport sickened him.
His chieftain’s fury at his decision had led to him being shunned, resulting in the death from grief of Bryk’s wife, Myldryd, Hrolf’s sister. She’d taken their unborn child to the grave.
Alfred chattered on, his voice filled with pride. “Thanks to your singlehanded capture of the town of Jumièges and its abbey, Hrolf has made you his second in command of more than one thousand warriors preparing to attack the town of Chartres. You left Norway as Bryk the Farmer, now everyone addresses you as Bryk the Warrior.”
“It does please me,” he admitted. “Trusted warriors will be granted the best tracts of land by Hrolf if we’re successful in gaining and keeping territory. There can be no going back to Norway. And what I win will be for all of us.” He winked at his brother. “Including you and your ten children.”
Alfred smiled, but then his face darkened. “If only Gunnar—”
Bryk shrugged. It was pointless to regret the past, to wish that their younger brother hadn’t been swept away in last autumn’s storm tide that had taken hundreds of lives. Better to speak of something else. “Much as I appreciate the responsibility Hrolf has bestowed on me, I’d rather be in Rouen tending our fledgling apple trees.”
Alfred smirked. “It’s not the trees you miss, though we did go to great lengths to bring the rootstocks and seeds across the sea.”
Again his brother had perceived the truth. It was his new Frankish wife he longed for. He worried how she fared, alone. They had spent only a sennight together after their Norse marriage. “I had to get my hands in the dirt. You understand that, but planting and fussing over my precious trees in the Archbishop’s garden took much of my attention. I wish now I’d spent more time with Cathryn.”
“I miss Hannelore too,” Alfred said, “but at least I know she’s in the Viking camp, with people who will look out for her. And I told you it would be better to plant your trees with mine, so my wife and Torstein could take care of them.”
Alfred had again sensed his worry. “I suppose I wanted to leave something of myself with Cathryn. I understand why the Franks treat me with disdain and mistrust, but it rankles that my bride has earned their censure by wedding me. In their eyes she is my concubine.”
His first wife had died of shame, and Alfred was aware of it. Myldryd’s death had brought him to his knees. “If I lose Cathryn there’d be no purpose to life. Norway holds naught but bitter memories.”
The notion of securing fertile land and starting afresh in a new land had promised a way out of his darkness. Now a desire to find a place where he might establish a dynasty of his own consumed him. He and Cathryn would help Hrolf build a new country in this land of the Franks.
She was in his blood. Each time their bodies joined the dizzying passion left him filled with a serenity he’d never known. Just thinking of her caused pleasant stirrings in his pikk.
Alfred brought him back to the present. “That’s what she is in the mind’s eye of your fellow Vikings, brother. They look upon her as a concubine, beneath you in status.”
“It’s ironic she’s my captive because I rescued her from Sprig, the monk who tried to rape her.”
“Hannelore has offered friendship,” Alfred said.
It was probably true, but Bryk suspected his sister-by-marriage welcomed another pair of eyes and hands to look to the demands of ten children.
He hoped the steadfast Christian faith his wife espoused would strengthen her. Behind his eyes he conjured an image of her kneeling in prayer before the gilded copper triptych he’d looted from the chapel of Saint-Éloi—his wedding gift to her.
She was perturbed one of the Archbishop’s servants might discover it in their chamber, but refused to surrender it.
“She must feel isolated,” Alfred said.
Bryk nodded. “We Vikings are proud of our ancestors and often share tales of them around the hearth. You and I have strong memories of our father and grandfather. Cathryn has no one. Yet she believes if the saint is with her, all will be well.”
He supposed it was much the same as his belief that if the goddess Freyja smiled on him, he’d be a happy, fertile man. But this was no time to be daydreaming of children. He might soon be feasting with other fallen warriors in Odin’s Valhalla.
Still he wondered if his seed had taken hold during the sennight they’d made love with abandon. The intuition that his virgin bride harbored a passionate nature within her had proven to be right.
He recalled the laughter they’d shared when he’d discovered a birthmark on her lower back she didn’t know she had. She’d refused to believe him until he’d used his mirror to show her. His teasing had led to a confession that the women in the convent always rose and retired in the dark and were forbidden to look upon their own bodies.
He’d nicknamed it his jordbær because of its strawberry shape, and because she was so juicy, a notion that had spread a blush across her full breasts. He’d enjoyed sucking and licking it like the sweet fruit. That had led inevitably to—
Hrolf’s sudden arrival in the camp, barking orders, took him by surprise. Bryk was tall, but the chieftain towered over him. If he made a habit of daydreaming about Cathryn and her strawberry birthmark during the coming siege the Franks would make short work of him.
Hrolf’s gaze traveled quickly around the rapidly blossoming camp. He gave Bryk a hearty slap on the back. “You were right as usual, brother. These islands downstream of Chartres are a better place to set up camp. The heights of the town overlook those upstream. More vulnerable.”
Bryk had thought his observations were common sense, and was astounded at the familiarity with which his chieftain addressed him. While it was true they’d been brothers-by-marriage in Norway, there’d never been any love between them. “We can keep them guessing here,” he replied quietly.
Hrolf raked his nails through his bushy beard. “First order of business is to isolate Chartres by devastating its environs. I plan to leave at dawn with a good sized raiding party. You’ll remain here to hold this position and send out spies. Get the men started building siege engines. The town appears more fortified than I remember.”
Bryk wasn’t surprised. The last time Vikings had attacked Chartres they had destroyed it. He too had noticed that the fortified walls came down to the river. Taking the town would be a challenge.
SUMMONED BY THE ARCHBISHOP
Hands clasped behind her back, Cathryn waited nervously in the Archbishop’s private library, gazing round in dismay at the shelves crammed with codices of bound vellum and parchment of all shapes and sizes piled haphazardly. There were unbound sheaves too, some stacks threatening to topple at any moment.
She’d at first worried about the reason for her summons since she was normally ignored, as if she didn’t exist. The chaotic disorder amid which she stood offered an inkling as to the reason for her presence.
The black-robed prelate swooped in, followed by a hooded monk. A shiver of fear raced up her spine at the memory of Sprig’s attack, until the monk lifted off his cowl and looked up. She gasped. “Brother Javune!”
The young man bowed, smiling weakly, his eyes exhorting her not to reveal what she knew of him.
The prelate ignored her outburst. “I requested Brother Javune be allowed to travel from Jumièges to assist in setting the library to rights,” he announced in a haughty tone, gesturing towards the shelves with bony fingers. “As you see, my predecessor left it in a less than desirable state.”
Since Franco had been in office for nigh on half a year, she thought it inappropriate to lay all the blame for this mistreatment of precious books on Archbishop Witton, but said nothing.
He looked down his nose at her. “However, this young monk assures me you are the best person to examine the illuminated pages and restore those that are found to have deteriorated.”
&
nbsp; A tiny bud of hope sprouted in Cathryn’s heart. She was to be allowed to work on sacred texts, doing something she loved and excelled at. Perhaps her fellow Franks hadn’t written her off altogether. “I am humbled, my Lord Archbishop,” she said hoarsely, finding the courage to look up at him. “It will be an honor.”
He waved a dismissive hand, eyeing her Viking garb with distaste. “Yes, well, Our Lord welcomed Mary of Magdala so we mustn’t condemn you too harshly. Those who repent their sins are to be forgiven.”
She glanced up sharply at Javune. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He avoided her gaze. She suspected the Archbishop knew nothing of the young man’s sin, of his apparent longing for Kaia.
Irritation welled up in her heart. The love she and Bryk shared wasn’t sinful. Why did she need forgiveness? Was it wrong to love an honorable man because he espoused a different faith? Bryk’s belief in his own gods was steadfast. He had pledged to her in the name of those gods, but because no Catholic cleric had blessed their marriage—
She shuddered, aware that voicing such heretical thoughts could lead to prosecution and perhaps death.
The Vikings suddenly seemed a tolerant people compared to her Catholic countrymen. Hrolf had allowed the Rouennais to continue practicing their religion. Bryk had never insinuated she should abandon her faith. In fact he seemed drawn to some aspects of it.
Still, she would seize this opportunity and pray that one day Vikings and Franks might live together in peace.
PREPARING THE SIEGE
It had been an exhausting few days for the Viking warriors, laboring under cloudless skies to build a siege engine.
Bryk and the men under his command had scoured the neighboring islands and the nearby banks of the Eure for suitable trees.
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