Thorbrand had always wanted sons, as any man must. He’d given great thought to those sons and how he would raise them, warriors all, to distinguish themselves in battle. But he had thought little of the wife he might take to make those sons. To carry on his name and sing it down through the seasons long after he fell.
But this woman’s combination of strength and softness had made him think of his mother and her many sacrifices—including her last. How his mother had worried when his father was away, for there was always a battle waiting and no telling if a warrior would return from combat. How she tended to his wounds when he did return, battered and grim. How she had mourned the deaths of her two eldest sons, Thorbrand’s fallen older brothers, who had gone on one raid or another as so many did and like too many of their people, had never come back.
He realized now that he had spent his time thinking of the glorious death he would win in battle, not those left behind.
Not the wife who would have to tell his sons who he was while he was away, again and again, serving his king.
Tonight, he found himself far more interested in the wife part of the story than he ever had been before.
Especially as Aelfwynn started to breathe a little heavier. Her lips trembled. And even so, she kept that bold, direct gaze of hers on him.
As if she would only allow herself so much fear.
He was not sure he liked how much she intrigued him.
“If you intend to beat me,” she declared then, “I wish you would get on with it. Waiting for it is, I think, worse.”
“Waiting is not worse,” he corrected her, and laughed. “I did not plan to beat you this eve. Does that disappoint you?”
“I only wish to know what I might expect.”
“You are mine, Aelfwynn. To do with as I wish. Expect that.”
He enjoyed the flush that went all over her then, the way her fingers twisted together, and not, he thought, in agitation.
Aelfwynn did not appear to breathe, then. “Am I to be your...?”
But she did not finish. And he found himself taut, wishing to know what she imagined was happening here. What word she might choose. Slave? Concubine?
She looked down at her hands instead, her fingers linked tightly together.
“Do not fear,” he said, as if he could not help himself. Perhaps he truly could not. “When you obey me, I will reward you.”
“Reward?” she echoed.
He moved then, hooking the nape of her neck with his palm and toppling her to him. She offered no defense. She sprawled out over his chest, letting out a faint, soft sound that made him grit his teeth to keep from freeing his cock and taking what he wanted.
There. Then.
Without regard to her feelings.
Her lips hovered close to his, and her warm scent gripped him like a fist, mixing with the fresh smell of snow and the wood smoke outside the tent.
She smelled how she would taste, sweet like honey. Everything about her was sweet—even the startled look in her gold eyes. Even the way she melted against him, as if it did not occur to her to do otherwise.
And though he was no less hard and ready, something in him stilled.
“You are an innocent,” he managed to say.
And though it was dark, there in his furs, he could see her face clearly enough. He saw her swallow, hard. Then she nodded.
His hand still covered the soft nape of her neck. He could feel the heat of her skin, and the rough silk of her flaxen hair. Her breath came in small pants he wanted to cover with his mouth.
The word his was like a pulse in him.
Mine, he thought, like a growl.
He had never prized an untried woman before. He would have said he did not—he had little enough time to enjoy himself as it was. Why spend it tutoring a virgin in how best to please him? But there was something about Aelfwynn. There was something about her innocence that rocked through him.
He wanted to claim her as his in every way possible. This he knew.
And he would do so.
But he was a damaged, ruined man, like all men were who made battlefields their homes. He knew naught but war and his hands were bloody more often than they were clean. How could he touch a creature like this, all sunshine and honey? Surely he would do nothing but harm.
And he did not intend to harm her.
For purely selfish reasons, he assured himself, because it was better for him that she acquiesce than fight—but still. Her innocence seemed like more sweetness, more light, in the middle of this dark night. When Thorbrand had expected her to be as corrupt as any other woman too long at court. Any court.
He would need to tread carefully here. A man who rushed too heedlessly into relations with a woman he intended to keep always paid for his haste. Sooner or later.
His mother had taught him that.
“You had best sleep,” he told her. He tugged Aelfwynn to him, so that she was tucked against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and waited while she trembled. When her trembling eased, she let out a long sigh.
And Thorbrand held her there, pressing his chin to the top of her head.
Then lay awake while she settled, the tension slowly leaving her. Until she melted against him and burrowed closer, using him for heat.
He held her until he heard the low whistle outside that told him it was his turn to take the watch.
Thorbrand dressed quickly, then left her bundled in his furs and fast asleep. And welcomed the slap of the cold outside, because it reminded him who he was.
What he was doing here in this lonely wood, with the daughter of the enemy.
And sweetness had nothing to do with it.
Chapter Five
Wif sceal leohtmod wesan rune healdan, rumheort beon.
A woman should be cheerful, keep secrets, and have a generous heart.
—Maxims I, The Exeter Book,
translated by Eleanor Parker
When Aelfwynn woke, she was alone.
She sat up, looking around wildly as if there was room for a very large man to hide in a small tent, but she truly was alone. Save for the way her heart drummed in her chest, with such violence she had to take a moment. She laid her hand over her heart. She wrestled her breath under control. And she also checked to make sure that all her garments were where she had left them. Her knife still strapped to her thigh. Her hose still in its place.
Her virtue dented, perhaps, but still intact.
Though she doubted that a woman could sleep through a man like Thorbrand’s attentions. Even if she had heard the women talking indiscreetly amongst themselves her whole life, many claiming archly they did just that when their men took their pleasure. Aelfwynn had never been able to make sense of the couplings she’d half seen set against the stories the women told over spindle and thread. And now, having spent this indecent night with Thorbrand, she understood even less.
Why had he asked her if she was innocent? Why had he held her there, sprawled over him for what seemed to her like a lifetime, before he pulled her to his chest? She’d been braced for the frenzy, the writhing—but there was nothing frenzied about the way he held her to him. It was as if he were a bed to lie upon and no more. She had felt her own heartbeat, but then, to her astonishment, realized she could hear his, too.
Right there, beneath her ear.
It had seemed to Aelfwynn a rough, wondrous magic.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he was so warm and the furs so soft. And she had been cold for so very long.
But now it was a new day. She could see faint hints of a gray daylight illuminating the edges of the tent, and there at the front where her garments still hung, blocking the entryway. A different sort of shudder moved through her at the sight. Aelfwynn had always imagined that should she find herself taken—though, in truth, she had never imagined a taker so la
rge or so daunting—she would submit to her fate so gracefully as to bring the man to tears, softening the fire in him. Or better still, present herself as a willing, noble sacrifice with all the righteousness of her finest prayers.
Those who could not pick up swords and axes, those denied their chance to bear cups in halls to ease men’s hearts, could do their part even so and die prettily, piously.
Aelfwynn felt rather out of sorts that she was...perfectly well this morn.
She knew not what to make of this half-taking. Or the savage, terrifying Northman who had done naught but hold her close and leave her untouched. Of all the tales she’d heard of these barbarians, each more horrific than the last, she had never heard of...soft furs and ease.
These must be games he plays to amuse himself, she assured herself.
That made far more sense. He had known her. He had followed her. And he had taken her because of who she was, not simply because he had encountered her on the road. Though he had not seen fit to share his plans with her, Aelfwynn felt certain he yet had one.
A plan he would no doubt follow as it pleased him while keeping her in the dark, also as it pleased him.
This calmed her, for she knew too well the plans of men. There was no altering them, though with soft words and smiles, a woman could find her way along. It was a relief, she thought, to remind herself that while Thorbrand might be a pagan beast of a man, he was yet a man. She had handled all manner of men. What woman had not?
She set about neatening her braid, keeping it in its coil as best she could. Then she pulled the lengths of fabric he’d hung the night before to her, wrapping her legs and her head and feeling more herself as she did. Even if she could better feel the cold now she sat up from his furs, making her fingers clumsy.
More clumsy, she amended as she pulled on her leather shoes. Her finger work had always left far too much to be desired.
But Aelfwynn had far greater worries this morn than her failures as a lady, as she discovered when she pulled her heavy cloak to her from where it blocked the entry panel into the tent and saw the three Northmen gathered around the remains of their fire, staring right at her as she was revealed.
Her mouth went dry, but her mother had not raised a coward.
Aelfwynn crawled outside, then stood with as much dignity as she could manage. There was the hint of sun, low in the trees to the east, a thin winter’s light to herald the coming of another bitterly cold day. When she blew out a breath, she could see it hang in the air.
More than that she could see, all too well, what she’d missed the night before when Thorbrand had brought her here. She’d had impressions of dark hair or red, scarred face or no. But otherwise, the men he traveled with had been as good as boulders to her. Huge, massive, and not at all friendly.
This morning naught had changed, but she could also see them in the weak daylight. All of them. And whatever she might have thought about the heat of Thorbrand’s chest, or how she might have wondered that he had not hurt her as he could have, there was no denying that she was all alone here. With three terrifying Northmen, not one.
Warriors all, she could see. They all sat with their heavier cloaks thrown back, so she could better view not only their tunics but their weapons. Leif, the red-haired giant, carried an axe as well as a sword. Ulfric, the dark scarred one, carried a bow in addition to his. Only Thorbrand carried a sword alone. She supposed she ought to be grateful that she could see no sign of blood on their garments. That would distinguish them, then, from her memories from a childhood spent far too near the front lines of too many battles with these giants from without. They all wore their hair long and braided back out of their way, the better to see the scowls on their faces. And they all wore beards—a practice Aelfwynn had always found distasteful.
Yet even as she thought it so, she remembered the feel of Thorbrand’s beard against her head as he’d held her. And what fluttered in her then was in no way distaste.
As they all stared back at her, she found herself thinking about a woman’s calling. She had been taught since birth that women were the peace-weavers, sent in to bend between the plots and plans of men forever at war. Men who could not bend and dared not try, lest it be seen as a weakness. Peace-weaving was the sacred duty of wives, or so she had been told by Mildrithe and her mother and every other woman she’d known as she grew. As such, Aelfwynn had thought a great deal about how and when she might do her duty in this way. Did not all girls? And because she knew who her parents were, who her uncle and grandfather were, Aelfwynn had always assumed that the weaving she would be called to do might well be significant. She’d taken a kind of pride in knowing the task that awaited her. Marriages were often used as truces and she knew that were she bartered off to a hostile enemy, it would be up to her to ease tensions however she could. To take no insult, even were it offered. To praise her new house and yet bring honor to her father’s.
And should the peace break down despite her efforts, mourn well her dead on both sides of the fight.
Yet it was all very well to speak of praising this and honoring that, cup-bearing and peace-weaving, but what did that actually look like?
Like this, something in her whispered darkly. Three huge, glowering men at a fire and she no larger nor more accomplished at warfare than she had ever been. Helpless.
When all but handed Mercia after her mother’s death, Aelfwynn had done a different kind of peace-weaving. Not house to house, but Mercia to her uncle’s too-powerful Wessex. She had not taken any actions that could have been misinterpreted as rising up against him, though too many had wished she would. Instead, she had waited. She had prayed almost as often as she’d pretended to pray. It had been a fraught and treacherous six months and Aelfwynn had known too well that every breath might well be her last.
Had she really thought, only yesterday as they had set out from Tamworth, that she might truly live free of that weight?
No longer need she worry about earthly kingdoms, she had told herself with great satisfaction once Tamworth was behind her. And yet here she was, faced with three sets of hostile Northman eyes, very much on this same earth.
Aelfwynn smiled as serenely as possible. “Many greetings to you all this fine morn,” she said, not quite merrily. But certainly with no trace of fear.
Thorbrand indicated the pouch that he’d fed them from the night before. “The day ahead will be long. You will need your strength.”
As overwhelming as Aelfwynn found Thorbrand, she found his men even more intimidating. Leif was loud, Ulfric silent. Both were tactics, she understood, as well as possible hints to their characters. The two of them watched her as they broke their fasts, their gazes hard and merciless. And Thorbrand might have been equally forbidding, but he had not hurt her when he could have. Again and again.
It was not trust. She was not so foolish. But it was enough to have her smiling in gratitude when she sat beside him and he presented her some more dried meat and slivers of hard cheese from the blade of his dagger.
“I’ve never spent a night in a tent in the woods before,” she observed into the cold air, the crackling fire. “It was far more pleasant than I’d been led to believe.”
“Pleasant.” Leif snorted.
“You must have been a captive before now, Lady Aelfwynn,” Thorbrand said in that dark way of his. “You do take to it so well.”
Aelfwynn chose to take pleasure in the heat of the fire in her face and the cold December morning at her back. She chose not to let the words he clearly meant as a blow harm her. “Have I been carried off on a horse to parts unknown to me before now? I have not. Yet have I been free to do as I pleased whenever the notion took my fancy? Alas, no. Or I would have found my way to the abbey long since.”
“The lady was not being taken to a nunnery against her will,” Thorbrand told his companions, sitting back. “She wishes for the veil. She finds the prospect of a life in
servitude to her god...peaceful.”
Ulfric did not smile. His eyes were too dark, his mouth too stern. “If you think a god peaceful, lady, you’ve never encountered one. Or his works.”
But all three of them laughed at that before she could think how to respond, lapsing into the other language they spoke. Irish, she was fairly certain, though she could recognize only the sound of it. Not the words or their meaning.
She ate the meat she’d been given as the men rose and broke down the camp, rolling up their furs and bundling up the strong sticks they’d used as poles, then securing them to three far more impressive steeds. Her own pouches were secured with Thorbrand’s, then lashed to his saddle. They put out the fire, kicking fresh snow over the embers. It was only when the men started to mount their horses that she looked around for her tired old steed and found her still tethered to a tree.
“What about my horse?” she asked Thorbrand when he came to stand over her.
He frowned slightly. “That pitiable nag cannot keep up.”
Then he said no more.
Aelfwynn gaped at him. “You cannot mean you will leave her here? She will be set upon by the wolves in short order. And that would be a mercy, for it would be swift. Else she will freeze, starve, and die here.”
“You should count yourself lucky that you were not set upon by those same wolves,” Thorbrand replied, his voice a warning. “Nor left tethered to a tree.”
“I count myself lucky that I did not have to walk from Tamworth.”
Aelfwynn knew better than this, especially when she heard the low rumble of the other men’s voices. Why was she taking up for an old, tired horse? It was not as if her own life was secure—as Thorbrand had so kindly reminded her.
But she could not bring herself to back down.
“I only hope when I am old and gray I am not so easily discarded by those I faithfully served,” Aelfwynn said, foolhardy to the last. “Tossed aside when inconvenient, left to die alone.”
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