by Sara Bennett
He had anticipated her.
Captain Olafson was striding forward, looking so big and capable among the helpless onlookers. He reached up, just as the boy, with a last lusty cry, let go his hold. The child fell neatly into his arms and, with a rough gentleness that made Rose’s skin prickle, the mercenary checked him for injuries. But the child yelled and began to struggle wildly. He was set down and, with a last wail, promptly took off as fast as he could manage, toward the keep.
“Probably more frightened of his rescuer than by any fall,” Constance muttered, and shook her head. Her eyes were fastened on the man’s bare chest as if she were a human leech. “Did you recognize the boy? I thought ’twas Eartha’s son.”
But Rose did not answer her. Her hands were gripping the windowsill and she was unable to move, for her gaze was also riveted on Captain Olafson. Her heart was thudding in her ears like a drum. I know him. How can I know him? And yet there was something suddenly so familiar about him, while at the same time he was utterly unlike any man she had ever seen before in her life. A familiar stranger? It made no sense.
Rose took a shaking breath. He hadn’t moved. He stood in the place where the boy had left him when he ran, bare-chested, his copper hair gleaming in the sun, his long legs set apart in the dark breeches that clung like a second skin, one hand resting on the hilt of that terrifying sword. And then, with a movement that for some reason struck Rose as both eager and yet unwilling, the mercenary tilted his head and looked up. His blue eyes found her at her solar window as if he had known her position all along.
He looked straight at her.
It was as if their gazes were flint and tinder. They struck and sparked, setting fire to Rose’s body and mind—a white hot blaze. It made her feel alive! She felt as if she had been asleep until now, a walking sleep, and then in a moment she was wide awake and eager to begin living…
Almost as quickly the impossibility of the situation—and her terrified recoil—sent Rose stumbling back, out of his sight. At the same time he spun on his heel and was walking away, brushing through his men in a manner designed to prevent comment and hurry them into following him.
Constance’s breath spurted from her lips in silent laughter. “Is that your raven-black soul?” she asked innocently. “No, no, lady, you are mistaken. I believe you have hired yourself a hero. What think you of that?”
Rose found her voice, though it did not sound like hers. “I think any fool can save a child.”
“Aye, but would he? ’Twas not the mercenary’s place to take charge, and yet so he did. I did not see Sir Arno rushing to the boy’s aid.”
Arno would not do anything so undignified, Rose thought wildly. He was a knight; the child was a cook’s son. There, for Arno, the matter ended.
She moved to warm her hands at the sulky fire. They were shaking worse now and she knew why, though she would never tell Constance. Captain Olafson was the cause. For some inexplicable reason, he had jolted her to the core. In the short time he had been at Somerford he had become the most important thing in it.
No! she thought angrily. That isn’t so. How could it be? He is a stranger, a creature beyond my experience, a man whose life can never really bisect mine…
Why did he save the child?
The question cut through her. Was he really a hero, as Constance said? Then why had he told her that he believed children were expendable in men’s wars? Why had he made her believe he had no heart? Such a man would not then turn around and save a child’s life. A child who had no ties to him. There had to be a reason, one that made sense, not a fantastical explanation like Constance’s.
If she could make sense of it, Rose could turn him back into the savage, soulless creature she believed him to be. And if she could do that, then mayhap all inside her would be calm again. Suddenly she craved normality.
“I had best get down to the kitchens,” Rose said, as if her heart were not jumping about like a landed fish in her chest. “Eartha and the other women will need help. There will be much food to prepare—I imagine these mercenaries will eat more than all of us put together! I wonder if we should kill one of the pigs we have been saving for bacon?”
And she was gone before Constance could answer.
The old woman plumped down by the fire and stared into it. She did not need to be a seer to know that the big mercenary frightened Rose. Was it his strength she feared? His occupation? Or his maleness? Certainly Constance had never seen a man before with such a blatant attraction for women—witness him in the bailey just now! The air around him had actually sizzled with the promise of sexual fulfillment.
But was he capable of delivering on that promise?
Constance sat, thoughtful, as the fire spluttered and distant sounds drifted up through the open window. Whoever and whatever he was, if this man would save a child when no one else seemed capable of it, then it was plain he was a better man than Sir Arno. Surely that was all that really mattered in the struggle to come? And, aye, there would be a struggle. Constance might not be able to see into the future, but she knew that much.
There was trouble brewing, and whoever won the battle would take Somerford Manor.
And the Lady Rose.
Ivo downed his ale in one gulp, but his dark eyes were watchful over the rim. Gunnar sat on the bench in the corner while around him his men laughed and shoved and claimed their own sleeping spots. And yet he was very much alone.
Their captain had been much subdued of late. Not that he lacked as their leader—there was a solid core of steel strength inside Gunnar, a calm stillness. If Gunnar told them he would do something, then he would. He was utterly dependable.
Before Somerford, Gunnar and his men had been on the Welsh border, the Marches, where they had fought in the name of some chinless Norman baron. They had earned their money that time, Ivo thought grimly.
The Welsh had been hidden in the hills and the forests, waylaying the unwary, silent and deadly with their longbows and arrows. Gunnar’s men had proved their worth again and again, but Ivo had sensed Gunnar’s distraction.
The chinless baron was greedy, stealing land that was not his own.
“Why,” Gunnar had said, “should we support a man such as this? Give our lives so that he can look out at the view from his window and say, ‘This is all mine’?”
“It is our job,” Ivo had retorted. “Do not think beyond the doing, Gunnar. It is dangerous for a mercenary to question too hard.”
Aye, Wales had been a dangerous place. More than once Gunnar’s warrior instincts had kept them from being skewered like pigs. And with each close call, Gunnar’s melancholy had seemed to deepen. One night they had drunk deep, and it was as if the silent, calm Gunnar had sprung a leak.
“I do not want to end with an arrow bolt in my eye like Harold Godwineson,” he’d said. “I don’t want to die where no one knows me or cares.”
“What other course is open to you?” Ivo had joked uneasily, hoping to jolly him up a bit. This was not the Gunnar he was used to. He, Ivo, was the emotional one; Gunnar was always so tranquil, so untouched by the turmoil about him. “Can you become a farmer with a plow? I do not see you rising, shivering in the dawn light, to plant barley and peas. Though I can see you cuddling against a plump lusty woman, plowing between her thighs.”
But Gunnar didn’t laugh.
“Maybe you could be a weapon maker like your sire,” Ivo went on quickly, “forging great swords for great warriors and weaving chain mail for Lord Radulf.”
Gunnar blinked like an owl.
“But the truth is, my friend,” Ivo had told him softly, encouragingly, “you are so good at being what you already are.”
“Aye, you have the right of it, Ivo. I am no use for anything but fighting and killing. Where does a mercenary go in his old age? Better I die now, here, and get it over with.” And then he had murmured beneath his breath, the slurred words meant for him alone. “Is there a place for such as me, where I can be valued, honored, and loved?”
>
Ivo had clapped him hard on the shoulder. “You’re not old yet, Gunnar! Plenty of work and women left in you!” And eventually, after a few more drinks, Gunnar had agreed that he was right.
Now Ivo poured himself more ale, watching Gunnar pretending to listen to Sweyn’s jokes, and remembering that drunken night. The next morning, as if wishing had made it truth, there had been a message from Radulf. They were needed at Crevitch—there was treachery afoot. Gunnar had been exhilarated ever since—or as exhilarated as a man like Gunnar could get.
Land. Somerford Manor. It was Gunnar’s to take when he had accomplished Radulf’s mission—proved the lady was in cohorts with his enemies as her letter suggested. Once that was accomplished the rest of them could stay on with Gunnar, or take their share in coin and move on.
From a distance it had sounded so simple.
But nothing was easy and despite his profession and his ability to lie seamlessly, Gunnar was a deeply honorable man.
Ivo said a silent prayer: Let Lady Rose be an evil, treacherous bitch. If that were only the case, then all would be well. Gunnar would take Somerford with a clear conscience and make his life there, live to a ripe old age a happy man. The warrior would have found the haven he had been secretly longing for.
But Ivo feared the lady was not quite as they had believed. She was beautiful for a start, although Gunnar had had beautiful women before. She was a Norman lady, but there had been a few well-bred ladies who couldn’t keep their hands off Gunnar, and they had never slid under his guard. In fact, Ivo could not remember a single woman who had meant more to him than a warm body or a pleasant few hours.
Unwilling, he let the memories of the more recent past well up in his mind. The look on Gunnar’s face as Lady Rose walked across the bailey toward them, as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning; how she had stepped around the Norman knight, placing herself directly in Gunnar’s line of sight while Gunnar had been trying very hard not to look at her; and just now, when he looked up at her window—Ivo had felt the heat coming off him in waves.
Aye, Gunnar wanted her. ’Twas a pity she had come along at this time, when there was so much more at stake. Just when Gunnar was at his most vulnerable. When she could quite possibly destroy his whole happiness.
Chapter 4
At least the mercenaries did not eat like wild animals, Rose thought, watching them as she sat picking at her own food.
The main table stood upon a dais and ran sideways to the rest of the great hall, and from her place on it, Rose could see everyone. Below her, in the body of the hall, the mercenaries ate among the castle folk and yet in an island of their own. The Somerford people eyed their new guests with a mixture of suspicion and fascination, while the mercenaries spoke among themselves, often laughing loudly, clearly unfazed by their enforced isolation.
Mayhap they were used to it.
They still appeared very exotic to Rose, but she was becoming more used to the look of them. The big, dark-haired man with the single black glove had removed his fur cloak and now wore a plain tunic and breeches; now and again she would find him watching her, his gaze so fiercely intense it made her uncomfortable. The fair Dane with the lazy grin was telling a joke, while the other fair-haired man was laughing, in between yawns. The Englishman they called Alfred, with the ruined face, stared moodily at his meal, while a swarthy fellow named Reynard seemed content to listen. They were all big, strong men whose attributes Rose imagined would make them invaluable in their work.
It seemed more than likely the troublesome merefolk would take one look at them and flee for their lives back into their watery marshes.
Furtively, unable to prevent herself, Rose glanced sideways. Of all his men, Captain Olafson was the only one seated at the main table. Sir Arno had invited him there. Such an action had seemed out of character, until Arno—seated on Rose’s right—murmured to her that he would rather have the man where he could see him. Rose, who would rather have had Captain Olafson at the farthest end of the hall, reluctantly agreed.
Brother Mark sat on her left. A middle-aged, taciturn man who seemed to have his head closer to earth than heaven, Brother Mark had come from Wells six months ago at Arno’s request, when the old priest had died. Brother Mark was not a warm man, and the people of Somerford did not like him; Rose did not like him much herself. Too often she found him gazing at the gold goblet Lord Radulf had given Edric, which held a position of pride on the shelf behind the main table. Sometimes she wondered if the glint in his eye was entirely appropriate for a spiritual man.
Constance, the steward’s widow, sat beyond Brother Mark, at the end of the table. Her eyes were fixed on the mercenary captain, though not with the blank, dazed look that filled the eyes of most of the other women. Constance stared with bold curiosity, as if she were trying to see inside him.
But what is there to see within that pretty wrapping? Rose asked herself, glancing again in the mercenary’s direction. Are there any deeper levels or twists to his character? He is nothing more than a Viking savage, and that is the beginning and the end to it.
But she was deluding herself, as that annoying voice in her head immediately reminded her.
What about saving the child? Why would a Viking savage play the hero?
Why indeed?
She ran her fingers restlessly along the arm of her chair. High-backed and sturdy, it had been Edric’s and was now hers. Such an item of furniture was only to be used by the Lord or Lady of Somerford Manor—the rest of the folk in the hall sat upon stools or benches, or stood if there was nowhere to sit. The chair was a symbol of power.
There were carved panels on its back and sides, swirling tendrils of vines and plants, intermingled with strange beasts and serpents, all in a curling, writhing mass. The old priest had been prone to eyeing the chair uneasily and asking if it was pagan. Edric would laugh and tell him the chair had come from Wales in the possession of a distant ancestor. It had been a bride gift. Then some devilment would always make him add that there was a tale the chair had floated across the Bristol Channel by itself, fetching up on the shoreline to the north before continuing on its lonely travels across the Mere to Somerford.
Brother Mark was helping himself to a piece of succulent pork from a platter, and at the same time muttering Latin under his breath. He spoke Latin in a manner Rose had never heard before, but still, she was no scholar…Guiltily, she was aware that her dislike of him colored her feelings toward him.
Rose turned back to Sir Arno. He was speaking in his usual plausible and confident manner about Somerford’s defenses; Arno always inspired confidence, even when sometimes he did not deserve to. But tonight he had been drinking before the meal arrived, and the wine was already affecting him. As she listened to their conversation, Rose realized that Arno was repeating her own earlier words: the mercenaries had been hired for show only.
“I believe the troublemakers are the folk from the marsh—the Mere, as they call it here,” he said, his voice louder than normal. “They live hard lives, and if a chance came for them to make it easier, then I believe they would take it. I am sure that once they realize you and your men are here, captain, they will leave us in peace.”
Arno sensed her attention and turned with an ingenuous smile. “Money well spent, do you not think so, Rose?”
Arno was normally a genial man, and it was a strong woman who resisted a smile like that. Rose had never had trouble resisting it, but she was annoyed by his familiarity in front of this stranger. She glanced warningly toward the mercenary and then frowned at Arno with a severity unusual for her. There was a brief flicker in the knight’s eyes—annoyance, irritation, maybe both. His color heightened.
“Wine, girl!” he shouted, and held out his goblet to be refilled.
He was drinking more than normal. Perhaps Rose would not have noticed under other circumstances, or would not feel the need to reprove him for it. Tonight she did. It was the contrast, she realized, with surprise. For while Sir Arno drank
steadily, with an almost careless disregard for his position and duties, Captain Olafson drank hardly at all.
He had barely sipped at his wine, although Rose knew it was good. Instead his serious gaze roamed over the hall, searching out its doors and dark corners, and resting often on the faces of its occupants, as if he wished to read their minds. He was watching, assessing, and yet if Rose had not in turn been watching him she would not have noticed the tension in him.
What did he presume would happen? Rose asked herself uneasily. The merefolk would burst in on them and steal their supper?
Captain Olafson appeared to be looking for treason at the very least, but if he thought to find it at Somerford he was sadly mistaken. It was too much…he was too much. Such a simple task required a simple solution—a couple of armed men would have done, not this battle-hardened crew and their barbarian of a leader. It would be like smashing an ant with an anvil.
Deep in her own thoughts, Rose nibbled on a pie, enjoying the rich and succulent taste. They had eaten sparingly for so long that tonight’s supper had been an excuse to gorge. Tomorrow, she told herself firmly, they would resume their austere and sensible habits.
Rose let her gaze wander about her hall, automatically noting if anyone was lacking food or wine, and directing her servants in their direction. And then she saw Eartha and frowned. Eartha, as mistress of the kitchen, rarely showed her face in the great hall at mealtimes. That she should now be standing in the doorway with a jug of wine in her hands seemed strange…out of place.
As Rose watched, the woman began making her way through the great hall, dodging a groping hand here, a reaching arm there. Eartha’s husband had died during the English uprising. An earthy, buxom woman with flaxen curls and angry blue eyes, Eartha was attractive; since her widowhood the men of Somerford had favored her and Eartha had not been reluctant to accept their offers. Although, to give her her due, Eartha was choosy, and she was a good mother to her little boy.