Brandewyne, Rebecca

by Swan Road

  "Why do you show me such kindness, my lord?" she asked him.

  "I do not even myself know the answer to that, lady, save that I have always thought you more regal than the other— and Ivar a fool, that he did not see it," Halfdan confessed. "You are the true princess of Usk, and Wulfgar's wife, and have made fools of us all; and for all that, I suppose I should wish to slay you. But the truth is, I do not. For although neither my father nor brothers would ever own him, I have always known that Wulfgar was Ragnar's son and my brother, as well, the same as Ivar and Ubbi; and in the end, blood is blood, and, bastard or nay, a brother's a brother, I have always thought. Wulfgar has outfoxed us all, but I bear him no grudge for it. In truth, in my heart, I think he may be the greatest Víkingr of us all; and I think Ivar knows it, too, and that's why he fears him."

  "Does he?"

  "Oh, aye, lady, he does," Halfdan asserted. "For at the core of his soul, Ivar's rotten, as cold and dead as a wolf frozen on the tundra— and what's more, he knows it. He's like an Eastlander— dark and cunning and malicious; he'd as easily stick a blade in your back or pour poison down your throat as to meet you face-to-face in battle— and that's not the way of a Víkingr. But a man cannot change his nature, and Ivar's too proud of his to waste his evil deviousness against less than a master opponent. In all his life, he's found no worthier foe than Wulfgar; and I think he believes that so long as Wulfgar lives, he will, too— inside. But once Wulfgar's dead and buried, why, then, who in the world will there be to give Ivar a game worth playing? So 'tis like a snake with its tail in its mouth— a venomous circle. Ivar wants Wulfgar dead, and yet he doesn't— and that's why he fears him."

  "And you do not?"

  "Nay, lady, I fear no man, only the gods— and my own accursed ambition," Halfdan said, and smiled. "Like Ragnar, 'twill be the death of me in the end, I am thinking."

  They spoke no more, for they had come at last to Cerdic's royal manor; and now, each was alone with long thoughts, wondering what would happen inside. His hand beneath her elbow to steady her, Halfdan escorted Rhowenna into the great hall. Then, with an unexpected but chivalrous nod to Wulfgar to let him know that she was unharmed, Halfdan left her standing in the center of the floor. Rhowenna's heart turned over in her breast as her eyes found Wulfgar's, and she saw that his hands were tied securely, with rope, behind his back, and that the point of Ivar's broadsword lay at Wulfgar's throat and had drawn a drop of blood there.

  "Lady," Ivar addressed her, "I commanded Halfdan to bring you here, because I have just now heard a fantastic tale, in which yon wench"— he indicated Morgen— "was said to be naught save a serving maid, which can only leave you as the princess of Usk."

  "Where is the skáld who has sung you this strange and incredible song, lord?" Rhowenna asked, slightly startled to hear how calm and collected she sounded, as though, now that her true identity was revealed, she was become again the proud princess she had once been. Tossing her head, she stared haughtily at Ivar. "Was he wounded in the battle, and is he now delirious with fever, or is he merely drunk on bjórr or nabid, this skáld?"

  "Neither, lady, and no skáld of the Northland, either, but a priest of Christendom, and so an honest teller of tales, I am thinking. There stands he, and since you are a Christian lady, do you go and swear upon his crucifix that he has lied to me, and I'll trouble you no more."

  "That, she cannot do, lord." The priest spoke, drawing Rhowenna's attention for the first time; and as he slowly lowered his hood from his face, she gasped with shock, as though she had been struck a mortal blow.

  "Father Cadwyr!"

  "Aye, my lady, 'tis indeed I— once your confessor and of whose ear and blessing you must stand again in need from the look of you!" The burning black eyes she remembered with horror raked her deliberately, eyeing her swollen belly pointedly.

  "Then 'tis true!" Flóki the Raven burst out suddenly, accusingly. "She is the princess of Usk! Gods, you bastard!" he spat heatedly to Wulfgar. "You knew! You knew that Morgen was not the princess, and still, you stood there and watched and kept silent, while your half brothers raped her, you whoreson!"

  "In my place, Flóki, would you not have done the same? Were you not willing to strike down Ragnar, your king, for your own love?" Wulfgar queried quietly, so Flóki's eyes fell, and he hung his head with shame. "I am the only man Rhowenna has ever known; she carries my child, Flóki! And Morgen was no virgin, as you must have guessed when first you took her."

  "Aye, but I thought... I thought 'twas you who—"

  "Nay, 'twas not."

  "Flóki, 'twould seem from your words that you knew naught of this deception, but were Wulfgar's unwitting dupe," Ivar observed. "Therefore, I give you leave to depart, taking with you the maid Morgen, if you wish. But do you go in peace, and swear never again to raise your blade against me or mine, so I may consider the score between us settled."

  "That sounds fair enough to me, lord," Flóki confessed, after a long moment, "and so I shall do, if Wulfgar Bloodaxe, my jarl, will give me leave to do so."

  "I will," Wulfgar said.

  "By the gods, then," Flóki pledged his oath, "I do so swear never to take up arms against you or yours again, Ivar the Boneless, so long as I may live."

  "Then I've no more interest in you, and you are free to go," Ivar declared. Flóki took Morgen's hand, and with a last, anguished glance back at Wulfgar and Rhowenna, who were truly alone now in all the world, save for Yelkei, the spaewife, he led her from the great hall. "Now, then, Wulfgar," Ivar continued softly, reaching out— the point of his broadsword still at Wulfgar's throat— to seize Rhowenna and to draw her slowly toward him, "as you've won your way from a mere bóndi to a mighty jarl of the Northland, played us all for fools, and dared to claim a princess as your wife, who may guess how much higher still you will seek to climb? I would serve myself well, I am thinking, if I simply struck off your head and had done with it, as I intend to do with Cerdic. But then our game would be ended, and as I've none so interesting a foe as you, I am loath to see that happen, I'll admit. So here is what I'm going to do instead: I'm going to let you live, in exchange for which I'll kill your child when 'tis born, and then put one of my own into your wife's belly!"

  Wulfgar went crazy then. Rhowenna could feel the murderous rage that rolled up inside him, so that despite his bonds, he lunged forward wildly, like some savage predator, snarling and tearing free of the men who restrained him, as though, with his teeth alone, he would rip out Ivar's jugular vein. Even Ivar took a hasty step back from those blazing blue eyes that burned to his very soul, and jabbed the point of his weapon warningly against Wulfgar's throat, cutting open a small wound that trickled blood.

  "Careful, Wulfgar— or you die this moment, with your wife still alive and at my tender mercy. Or mayhap I'll simply slay her and your babe both, right here and now."

  This last threat, especially, was enough to make Wulfgar go absolutely still, his breath coming in hard rasps, his eyes like blue flame. Slowly, tangling his hand roughly in her hair to hold her still, while Wulfgar watched powerlessly, Ivar bent and kissed Rhowenna full on the mouth, his tongue forcing her lips to part. She did not struggle, she did not move, she did not breathe, knowing that while a woman might not call her body her own if a man were bent on taking it by force, her heart, her mind, and her soul were hers alone for the giving. And those things, Ivar the Boneless would not have of her; those things, he would not even touch within her, so wholly were they Wulfgar's— and his alone. When, finally, Ivar released her, puzzled and angered by her lack of fight, he said:

  "By the gods, 'tis not royal blood, but tepid water that runs in your veins, lady! Morgen the maid had a good deal more spirit and backbone than you, I swear!"

  "That is because you do not understand quiet courage, Viking, or inner strength." Prince Cerdic spoke again at that. He had remained silent before, the better to raise the odds of his not drawing Ivar's attention further to himself, thereby spinning out the thread of his precarious exi
stence a little longer than it might otherwise have been. "My lady," he continued to Rhowenna, "once, I would have bid you welcome here; now, I can only bid you farewell, and for that, I am sorry. Had I laid eyes on your beauty ere you were kidnapped from Usk, I would have paid all your ransom demanded, and more. Instead, I did you a great wrong, which has brought you to this pass, and I regret it more deeply than I can say. I've no right to ask— but since I go this day to meet my Maker, in Heaven, and would stand before Him with a clear conscience, I do crave pardon and beg you to forgive me for my transgression against you."

  As she gazed at Cerdic kneeling before the block, Rhowenna thought that but for his own avarice and a trick of fate, he, not Wulfgar, would be her husband; and while Cerdic was handsome enough in the same dark fashion Aella of Northumbria had been, with his short-cropped hair and beard, still, she had grown accustomed to a long tawny mane of hair on a man and a smooth-shaven face against her skin.

  "I forgive you, my lord," she said to Cerdic, "for your loss was my gain, and so I am the richer for it."

  "Then there is one thing more I would beg of you, and that is this: one kiss from your sweet scarlet lips, fair lady, for your less-than-gallant betrothed, a fleeting taste of what might have been had I not suffered my purse and my ambition to rule me."

  "Because you are to die, I will grant what you ask, but only the kiss of peace, my lord, and no more. For the rest belongs to him who is my gallant husband, to whom I have gladly and willingly pledged my faithfulness and my heart."

  " 'Tis enough, then; 'twill serve, my lady." And then, as Rhowenna solemnly bent near to him, cupping his face to kiss first one cheek and then the other, Cerdic whispered quietly but urgently in her ear, "There is one thing, at least, that I can offer you, my lady, and for my soul's sake, so I will before I die. Beware the priest! He is a traitor to your people, a Judas whose treacherous soul I bought with thirty pieces of silver from my purse. 'Twas through him that I learned how best to lay the trap I used to strike at your father, Pendragon, in the hope of winning Usk for my own, thence to march upon the whole of Walas and proclaim myself its king. And when the attempt upon Pendragon's life failed, 'twas Cadwyr who counseled your father to betroth you to me, that I might gain by marriage what I could not seize by force; and in this way did I seek to use my poor, innocent, goodhearted sister, also. Now I am punished, fallen prey to men even more ambitious than I, such is the nature of man, a savage and predatory beast. Still, I think I might have loved you in the end."

  As she stepped back from Cerdic, Rhowenna did not dare to glance at Father Cadwyr, for fear of what he would see upon her face, in her eyes, such was the anger that churned within her at the revelation of his betrayal of Usk, of her father, of her. Trembling, she went to stand at Wulfgar's side, burying her face against his chest as, at last, Ivar lifted his broadsword high and then brought it down with a single, swift, hard stroke to cut off Cerdic's head.

  Mathilde's screams filled the air as blood from her brother's body spurted on the floor, spreading across the stones to seep into her gown. Mumbling pious platitudes, Father Cadwyr moved to comfort her, while Ivar began issuing orders to secure the royal manor and the prisoners. Struggling fiercely, Wulfgar was taken away to the dungeon, while Rhowenna and Mathilde were confined to a tower, with Yelkei being sent to attend them. Mathilde, a gentle woman, lay on the bed there, weeping hysterically until Yelkei gave her a potion that put her to sleep. Then the spaewife said to Rhowenna:

  "Lady, 'tis rumored that there is an army of Usk warriors marching toward Cerdic's markland. It seems that lacking you as his bride, he instead betrothed his sister to Gwydion, the king of Usk, and had already signed the necessary scrolls and delivered to Gwydion her dowry when Ivar swooped to make war on this stronghold. The princess Mathilde was to depart for Usk within the fortnight. But instead of sending his sister, Cerdic was compelled to dispatch a message to Usk, demanding men and arms to support him in his battle against Ivar, as was agreed by the treaty Cerdic and Gwydion made between them. The missive reached Usk too late to be of any assistance to Cerdic; but 'tis claimed that Gwydion means to have his bride ere returning home, that for her sake, he'll not leave her to the mercy of the Víkingrs; and if that is the case, then I have thought of a way in which to save you and your child from Ivar the Boneless. So, do you listen sharp now, and hear my plan...."

  * * * * *

  The deadly potion was bittersweet, and as she drank it down, Rhowenna could not help but wonder with a deep shudder if it would, in fact, kill her and her babe. All day long and well into the night, she had lain in the tower, moaning and screaming, pretending to be in labor, terrified that she would actually bring it on with her exertions— although Yelkei had told her that the draught would delay the onslaught of childbirth. Now, as she felt the potion begin to take effect, Rhowenna closed her eyes sleepily, drifting steadily downward, toward a deep and dark unconsciousness, her last waking thoughts of the anguish she must cause Wulfgar and whether she would ever see him again in this life.

  * * * * *

  "I am sorry, Wulfgar," Yelkei whispered, and in her empathy, seeing the torment upon his handsome bronze face as he bent over Rhowenna's still and silent figure, the spaewife had no need to feign the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "I did everything I knew to do, but still, I could not save her. I have seen it before: The hips of your lady wife were too small, and the child was too large to travel through the narrow passage that leads into this world. She and the babe are in Asgard now."

  "Rhowenna of Usk was not a pagan, but a Christian, old woman— and would even now be in Heaven had you let me inside this tower to perform the necessary rites!" Father Cadwyr glared at Yelkei malevolently. "Instead, she died unshriven!"

  "She did not want you at her side, priest! She died calling not only on the Christian God, but also on the gods of the Northland and other ancient gods, whose names I had never heard before and so did not know. For she said that at last, in her hour of darkness, she had come to understand that the one God was the many, and that the many were the One, but that you, priest, served none save the Devil and were a traitor to Usk and to your king!"

  "Shut your mouth, you evil old witch!" Father Cadwyr cried, and struck Yelkei violently across the face, sending her sprawling upon the floor, blood spurting from her bottom lip.

  Yelkei's knife flashed in her hand then, but at that, Ivar spoke coldly:

  "Priest, from what little I know of the Christian God, you are a disgrace to your robes. You've no respect for a man's tortured soul, or for the powers of a true spaewife, either! Halfdan, take this miserable servant of Christendom out into the courtyard, and hang him!"

  "I will, and with pleasure," Halfdan growled, grabbing hold of Father Cadwyr's terrified, protesting figure and forcibly dragging him away.

  Following that, there was only silence in the tower, broken only by the sound of Wulfgar's tormented, racking sobs as he held Rhowenna's limp body in his arms, cradling her head against his chest, rocking her gently, and stroking her long, unbound hair as though it were something very precious and very fine. Even Ivar was still, unwillingly moved by this outpouring of love and grief; for although he had known many emotions in his life, these two alone had surely eluded him, and he envied Wulfgar them, despite the pain they had so obviously caused him. After a long while, Yelkei murmured:

  "The last words of your lady wife were of you, Wulfgar. She said that she wished to be buried on the shores of Usk, from where you took her and where she would wait until the end of time for you to come for her again."

  " 'Twill be done, then. Gwydion of Usk arrives tomorrow morn, with the ransom he is to pay for the princess Mathilde's release. When they leave, they may take the body of your lady wife with them, Wulfgar, back to Usk," Ivar declared. He was so distinctly troubled by Wulfgar's silence, by what he glimpsed in Wulfgar's eyes, as though their vital flame had blown out, had been forever extinguished, that he failed utterly to notice the faint, sly smile of triu
mph that curved the corners of Yelkei's mouth.

  * * * * *

  "My lady, art mad, in truth!" Gwydion cried as he stared at Mathilde, aghast. "Ivar the Boneless did swear to me that you were yet chaste. But now I think that the pagan bastard must have lied to me and that his rape of you has unhinged your fragile woman's mind!"

  "He did not touch me, my lord," Mathilde insisted, with quiet fierceness. "For when it seemed that he would do so, Rhowenna of Usk rose bravely to stand between us. She looked him, unafraid, in the eye and said, 'Ivar, I had not thought so, but art a fool who does not learn from his mistakes?' And although I knew not what she meant, he pondered her words, then laughed and said that he was no fool, that he would get for me the purse he had not got for her. But we are wasting time, my lord, when every moment is precious! Rhowenna is alive, I tell you! But she shall surely die, in truth, if you do not pry up the lid on her coffin so that she may breathe! Please, my lord, I beg of you! Oh, please!"

  Finally, as they had just crossed over Offa's Dyke into Walas and so were no longer in any immediate danger, Gwydion raised his hand to signal a halt to the men who accompanied him. Then, dismounting, he walked back to the ox-cart in which lay the wooden coffin that carried home to Usk the mortal remains of his beloved kinswoman, Rhowenna. For an eternity, it seemed to Mathilde, he just stood there, lost in reverie, his hand resting on the lid. On his face was such an expression of sorrow that she understood that to him, Rhowenna had been more than just a kinswoman, and her heart went out to him. Mathilde also knew that Gwydion believed her mad. But then, as though he could not bear to throw away the chance, the hope, however small, that she had spoken truly, he bade his men force open the lid on the coffin and then bent to gaze inside. So it came to pass that his was the first face Rhowenna saw when, wakened from her now-natural slumber by the noise of the hammers and the chisels, and the feeling upon her skin of the heat of the bright summer sun, and of the caress of the sea-kissed wind, she slowly opened her eyes.