Brandewyne, Rebecca

by Swan Road

  "Please, Wulfgar..." Rhowenna entreated softly, her violet eyes flying open to see him poised above her, bronze and naked in the shadowy half-light, his own blue eyes dark with desire, glimmering with triumph, his bold shaft hard and heavy with desire.

  She shivered at the sight, suddenly afraid of what was yet to come, understanding that what had gone before was but a tantalizing prelude designed to ready her to receive him. There was between them an eternal moment as highly charged as a storm, the air fraught with promise and portent. The fire and the lamplight flickered and danced, casting eerie, elongated shadows on the walls; the smoke swirled high, sinuous and somehow mystical, making her feel like a vestal offering and Wulfgar seem like one of his ancient pagan gods from a place older than the earth, older than time itself. It was as though in all the heavens, only they two existed, wanting, needing, destined for this joining.

  "Rhowenna," he groaned. "Rhowenna..."

  And then, at last, he took her, the hard, questing sword of his manhood driving swift and deep and true into the sheath of her, burying itself to its hilt, splitting her asunder in a breathtaking moment of penetrating, white-hot pain that was all-vanquishing, all-consuming. She gasped, then cried out, a low wail of surrender that he smothered savagely with his lips, filling her mouth with his tongue as he filled her with himself, throbbing within her, lying still atop her to accustom her to the feel of him inside her, stretching and molding her to accept him. Until now, she had never truly known what to expect, had never truly comprehended this absolute invasion, this quintessential possession that made of a maiden, a woman; and of a man, a conqueror. How could there be pleasure from this subjugation? Rhowenna did not know, and tears trickled from the corners of her eyes at the thought that perhaps there was none to be had, that Wulfgar had lied to her, after all.

  "Shhhhh, sweeting," he murmured as she whimpered against his lips. Gently, he kissed the tears from her cheeks, his hands stroking her hair soothingly. "Hush. I know that it hurt. But the pain will pass in a moment, and then you will know only pleasure, I promise you. Trust me. I love you. I love you with all my heart."

  Slowly, steadily, he began to move inside her; and it was then as though her body no longer belonged to her at all, but had become a part of Wulfgar. His hands were beneath her hips, lifting them to meet his own as he thrust into her powerfully, again and again, faster and faster, dark flesh melting urgently into pale as he quickened against her, his head buried against her shoulder, his harsh, uneven breath hot against her skin. From the woolen pallet wafted the scent of their mating, sharp and sweet, as, to her surprise and wonder, the pain Rhowenna had felt at first gradually gave way to pleasure that grew stronger and stronger within her, until she felt as though she would burst from it and did not know how she could possibly withstand it. Surely, she would die, and yet, perversely, she felt as though she would die, as well, if she did not find some release from the nameless thing that had seized her, that she did not yet understand but instinctively sought. Feverishly, she clutched Wulfgar, enwrapped him, enfolded him, taking him deep inside her, the world spinning away into nothingness as she moaned and strained desperately against him, rushing headlong with him down a dark, wending passage that led from deepest seas to highest mountains, where a sun-touched midnight sky above seethed and roiled, and then, without warning, erupted violently into such splendorous fire that it was almost hurtful to behold, dazzling flame setting them both ablaze, taking their breath, exalting them, sealing them forever as it burned them to ashes until, finally, with a last, ragged gasp, Wulfgar shuddered long and hard against her, spilling himself inside her before they lay still, hearts pounding as one.

  In the quiet afterglow of their lovemaking, he held her close against him, cradling her head against his shoulder; and Rhowenna was filled with joy and wonder as she lay silently in his embrace, marveling that he should have made her feel as she had. In her wildest dreams, she had never imagined that what happened between a man and a woman could be as it had been for her and Wulfgar— beautiful and special in every way. She had never in her life felt so close to someone, to a man, felt so secure and protected, so fulfilled and beloved as she did now. Idly, her hand trailed down his broad chest, traced tiny patterns in the fine blond hair there until he caught her wrist and, turning her palm up, kissed it tenderly, lingeringly. His blue eyes were loving and drowsy with passion, his smile so tender that her heart turned over in her breast.

  "I love you, Wulfgar Bloodaxe," she said softly.

  "I know, kjœreste, I know, else you would not have surrendered yourself to me; and my heart is overflowing with all that it holds for you and for what you have given me in return. I love you, Rhowenna of Usk," he murmured fiercely before his lips came down on hers again, desire for her once more sweeping through him like a strong, in-rushing tide.

  His body moved to cover hers again, pressing her down; and eagerly did she open herself for him, not knowing then where his mouth ended and hers began. Outside, the wind sang its unbridled, melodious song to forest and heath and sea; and within, the fire and the whale-oil lamps burned low as she and he became again as one, no space between, urgent mouths and tongues and hands engaged until he swelled and surged into her, bringer of exquisite torment— and its joyous, sweet release. His exultant cry was as piercing as the call of the seabirds that haunted the sea-swept strands; dulcet, it mingled with her own when, at long last, she felt the hard, supple length of him shudder against her, and she trembled fierce with passion as, like a wild swan, white wings spread wide, she soared over seas and distant shores unto the very heavens, then came to rest ever so gently in his strong and loving arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Frey's Blessing and Loki's Mischief

  Although she did not then know it, the short, swift days that followed that first night of lovemaking were the sweetest Rhowenna was to know for a long while. Yet even had she known what was so soon to come, she could not have savored those sweet days any more than she did. Never before in her life, not even with Gwydion, had she felt such happiness, known such sharing and intimacy with another human being as she knew with Wulfgar; nor had she ever experienced such passion. Time and time again, he swept her up to lay her down upon the soft woolen pallet of the beautifully carved bed in the sleeping chamber, there to work his devilish magic upon her, until she knew every plane, every angle of his body as well as she knew her own. There was nothing he did not know, did not teach her. As autumn hastened toward winter, she spent long, languorous, greying afternoons with him erotically tormenting and tantalizing her until she begged him to take her; and there were intense, feverish nights, as well, nights when, long after she had fallen into slumber, he came late to their bed to take her urgently, fiercely, without any preliminaries.

  Wulfgar insisted that they be wed, although, to Rhowenna, the pagan ritual they would undergo had little meaning, and she knew that in the eyes of the Christ and the Church, and under the laws of Usk, she would not be truly and legally married. Still, because Wulfgar wished it, she gave in to his demand, and preparations for the ceremony went forth. It was to take place in the templum in the Sacred Grove on Wulfgar's markland. The feasting would last for nine days, and sacrifices would be made to the god Frey, who was the god of fertility and sexuality. To her horror, Rhowenna learned that the customary sacrifices for such an important occasion as the marriage of a konungr or jarl were nine young male slaves.

  "Nay!" she cried, distraught, to Wulfgar when told this terrible news. " 'Tis a heathen practice, a sacrilege!— and I will not wed with you if it means our marriage must be consecrated by the blood of men!"

  " 'Tis the way of the Northland, to which you now belong, lady!"

  It was their first serious quarrel and upset them both dreadfully. In the end, they compromised, with the sacrifices still being planned, but in the form of cattle, sheep, and pigs, which had to be killed and butchered anyway for the fast-approaching winter.

  At last, the day of their wedding arri
ved. Long before dawn, Rhowenna was wakened by her waiting women and Yelkei, and taken to the bathhouse, which was similar to the one she had first used in Sliesthorp and an important part of life in the Northland; for the Northland people were very clean, washing every morning. Despite her new and warm fur cloak made from the hide of one of the great white bears found far to the north, in the tundra, she shivered in the chilly darkness, and her new sealskin boots crunched on the frost-rimed ground in the stillness. It was Yelkei, looking even more witchlike than usual, who swung open the bathhouse door on its creaking iron hinges, her bony, clawlike hand seeming almost disembodied, spectral, as she wordlessly beckoned Rhowenna to enter. Slowly, beset, of a sudden, by a tiny frisson of fright, Rhowenna stepped inside. Because it was close on winter and cold, the steam that filled the bathhouse was like white clouds of mist; and although Yelkei and the waiting women had brought whale-oil lamps, Rhowenna could scarcely see inside the shadowy, dimly lighted interior. Like ghosts, the women moved to disrobe her; then, naked, she climbed into the bathtub. Sitting in the warm water, with the steam rising all around her, was like being sealed in a gossamer cocoon, she thought, quiet and eerie, as though a blanket had smothered the earth. The only sound was the ripple and dripping of the bath water as the women washed her hair and body so she would be purified for her wedding rite; and into her mind, unbidden, came the thought that the bathing ritual was not so very different from what her ancestors, the Picti and the Tribes, must once have practiced. Rhowenna had never felt so close to the old ways as she did now at this moment; and she wondered uneasily if the Christ would be very angry with her for taking part in the pagan ceremony that would shortly make her Wulfgar's wife.

  Once the bath had ended, the women wrapped her naked body in her cloak, then led her back to the hof, to the sleeping chamber, which was empty, Wulfgar having been taken away for his own preparatory rites. In the center of the room, she stood, while the women oiled and perfumed and powdered her body, then dressed her in a beautiful, pleated gown of expensive blue silk from the Eastlands, over which went an exquisite tunic of purple silk banded at both bodice and hem by heavily bejeweled and embroidered widths of gold riband, and fastened with ornate gold brooches above each breast. Her long black hair the women left unbound, but plaited strands of it with fine, narrow ribbons of gold into tiny braids. Upon her head they placed a gold circlet, engraved and nielloed, that Wulfgar had had made for her. Her neck was hung with a multitude of necklaces of gold and amber; armlets and bracelets of gold and silver adorned her arms and wrists; she wore rare rings upon her fingers.

  When her toilette was completed, the women escorted Rhowenna from the long-house to the celebrative, consecrated ox-cart that was to carry her to the templum in the Sacred Grove. No common vehicle, the oxcart was embellished with detailed carvings of runes, other magic symbols, and scenes of battle and from the tales of the gods. It was festooned with pine and spruce boughs, branches of berries from the sacred ash trees, acorns from the equally prized oak trees, and sprigs of mistletoe. Wulfgar's great wolfskin covered the top and hung down the sides. Naked to the waist, despite the cold, the nine young male slaves who, if not for Rhowenna's protests, would otherwise have been drowned in a secret pool after serving her, surrounded the ox-cart, silent, heads bowed, not daring to look upon her face; for as the bride of their jarl, she was this day the embodiment of the goddesses Freyja, sister to Frey; the unchaste Gefjon, to whom virgins prayed; and Nerthus, the Earth Mother. Only the priest, who stood at the heads of the yoked oxen, was permitted to glance at her with impunity as he led the vehicle to the Sacred Grove. Reverently, he handed her onto the seat of the ox-cart. Then, with a small lurch, the oxen lumbered forward at his command, the cart wheels rumbling, and the procession began its solemn progression across the now-fallow fields and the wild heaths of Wulfgar's markland.

  The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, turning the dark sky a silver that gleamed with a cold, frosted flame, like a blade, and the earth into a crystal, fairy place when the pale light shone upon the sparkling rime that encrusted the trees and the land. Rhowenna's breath caught in her throat at the sight. Wulfgar had told her once, on board the Dragon's Fire, that the Northland was at its most beautiful in summer, but she thought she had never seen it look more splendorous than it did now, white and glittering, the dark, soughing forests sweeping up the craggy sides of the great, towering mountains whose snowy pinnacles seemed to pierce the very heavens. Truly, it was a place fit for the old gods, she thought— primordial, almost unearthly in its magnificence, this place of atavistic mountains and ancient forests, of burning sun and twilight darkness.

  Then, at last, the Sacred Grove lay before them, so chosen because of the massive old evergreen tree that rose at its heart, its trunk so huge that even a Víkingr could not span it with his arms, its branches so long and feathery that they were like an immense canopy sheltering the Sacred Grove. Beneath the tree stood the templum, a simple structure consisting of little more than four elaborately carved pillars topped by a thatched roof; only templums at the Sacred Groves of hofs such as Ragnar's had walls. There, Wulfgar was waiting for her. Like the male slaves, he, too, was naked to the waist; but if he felt the cold, he gave no sign of it, for it was the lot of a warrior to endure, as he demonstrated by baring his torso to the frigid air. A gold circlet that matched her own was around his head; at his throat, he wore a gold torque formed by two dragon heads that met at his collarbones; armlets that were gold serpents coiled around his arms. As she descended from the ox-cart to walk slowly toward him, Rhowenna thought he had never looked more princely, more godlike.

  Silently, they stood before the priest as he intoned the requisite prayers to Frey and the blessings upon them, then made the animal sacrifice and other offerings to the tall wooden statue of the god— with its customary exaggerated phallus— which had been erected beneath the templum. A little of the blood that had poured from the sheep's cut throat, the priest caught in a silver-chased cup, which he then filled with wine; and this, Wulfgar and Rhowenna shared to symbolize their joining, drinking deep. After that, each fastened around the other's left wrist a wide gold wedding bracelet especially engraved with the wolf and the swan that Wulfgar had chosen as his seal. Then he kissed her, and the ceremony was ended. She was his wife.

  She had not thought to feel truly married after the pagan rite; yet, strangely enough, she did. In rituals such as this had her own ancestors wed, and their blood flowed strongly in her veins, no matter the gold Celtic crucifix she wore around her neck, beneath her gown. The Christ's priests would call her a sinner, her marriage a blasphemy. Yet when she looked into Wulfgar's eyes and saw his deep, abiding love for her shining there, she could not in her heart believe that the Christ would withhold his blessing of their union. Only on the ninth and last day of feasting, when the second messenger Wulfgar had dispatched to Usk finally returned, did Rhowenna doubt this, did she seem to hear Father Cadwyr's invidious voice whispering in her ear that God's curse was upon her. For the scroll the messenger handed to Wulfgar was written not in Latin, but in the language of Walas; and when Rhowenna read it, the words struck her as hard as a devastating blow:

  Usk survived, with Gwydion as its king, and he would pay whatever ransom was demanded for her safe return.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Flight into Darkness

  Rhowenna would never, so long as she lived, forget the anguish on Wulfgar's face in that moment when she read aloud Gwydion's letter. She was stricken by the missive's contents, but even more so by what she saw in Wulfgar's eyes. He was her husband; he loved her, and she loved him. Yet she knew that in that first instant, her heart had involuntarily leaped into her eyes, with hope that she might go home, to Gwydion; and she knew, also, that Wulfgar had seen it.

  "Do you want to leave me, elsket?" he asked her later, in their sleeping chamber, after they had made love and she lay snuggled in his embrace. "Here in the Northland, a woman is permitted to divorce her husband
if she wishes. Do you want to do that, to return to Usk?"

  "Nay, oh, nay, Wulfgar," she said quietly but fiercely, wounded herself by the pain she had caused him. " 'Twas only a moment's homesickness— that's all— a longing, really, for the time when I was young and innocent, and my parents— my parents were still alive. Sometimes even now, I— I just can't believe that they're— that they're really dead."

  "I know, kjœreste." His voice was kind. "I know that 'tis hard. I know that your life and your world have been changed forever because of me, because I took you from Usk."

  "Aye, but I would not go back, not if it meant never knowing you, never loving you, Wulfgar...."

  They made love again then, with a passion as unbridled as a storm, her hair a tangle of heather, ensnaring him, drawing him down to her. Her breasts were mounds of soft earth, molded by his palms. His breath was warm and inciting upon their rosy buds. His tongue was as moist as the spindrift that spewed from the sea to waft on the wings of the wind across the strands and heaths of the Northland, as salty as the taste of him upon her own tongue when she pressed her lips to his flesh. There was no part of her that he did not know, nor any part of him that was untouched by her. Clinging tightly to each other, they came together as, hard and swift, Wulfgar claimed her and, soft and deep, Rhowenna took him into her, sailing with him down a wild, tempestuous wind to a place that was neither Heaven nor Asgard, but a mystical isle of misted mountains and sylvan glades through which rushed and tumbled the quicksilver river of life before it swept finally, quietly, into a boundless, tranquil sea.