“Bitch,” Rhiannon seethed. “ ‘Twas chance that spared you, a deception that protects you still. Many of us will soon be swelling with little pagan bastards. Your own stomach might remain flat but not for long. Not when I — ”
Torn afresh by Rhiannon’s words, Deira gasped and looked with horror at her belly, then grabbed at Ailinn’s gown.
“Cease, Rhiannon!” Ailinn exploded. “Shut tight your mouth and do take care to not impale yourself upon your tongue.”
Rhiannon began to speak again, but Ailinn advanced on her. “By the saints, I’ll gag you with my own chains if I must!”
Rhiannon clenched her jaw and reseated herself before the fire. “Doomed,” she muttered to herself but so the others might hear. “Might as well be dead.”
Great tears spilled over Deira’s cheeks. “ ‘Tis true, ‘tis true. They will get us with babes. We are no more than animals to them. Animals to mate.” Deira hunched forward and buried her face in her hands.
Ailinn sank instantly to her knees and encircled Deira with her arms. Comforting her, she slipped into Frankish — their “secret” tongue with which they’d shared so many privacies in years past, but which now afforded her a way to speak to Deira without Rhiannon’s interference.
“Non, non. Ne pleure pas. Do not cry. Viens, permets-moi de to tiens. Come let me hold you. Sh-h-h-h . . .”
»«
Riveted by the stormy exchange, the men sat motionless, their tongues paused in midsentence and their gestures frozen midair. Like thunder and lightning did the two women clash — the ebony-tressed slavegirl and the autumn-fire maid.
Now, as their squall abated, the one sat with daggers in her eyes while the other consoled the younger girl in a steady flow of words. Words that carried across the fire, distinct and unmistakable.
Lyting came to his feet, his breath trapped in his chest. ‘Twas as though a door had been flung open within his hearing, a great barrier removed. He stared at the maid as her voice fell sweet upon his ear, her every pronouncement clearly understood.
“ ‘Tis Frankish she speaks!” Lyting tossed a side-glance to Skallagrim, then crossed to the other side of the fire.
Lyting dropped to a crouch before the Irish beauty. She gasped and pulled back, enclosing the girl in her arms. Lyting rebuked himself for moving too swiftly. He did not mean to startle or affright her. Never did he wish her to fear him.
“Je ne te nuirai pas. I will not harm you,” he avowed in perfectly accented Frankish.
Ailinn’s eyes rounded to huge disks and her jaw dropped. She knew that she gaped, but there was no help for it. You speak Frankish!”
The silver warrior smiled, creases appearing in his cheeks. “I am Lyting Atlison. Ordinarily I speak Frankish each day, for I abide in Francia, in the duchy of Normandy.”
Lyting Atlison. At last she had a name to put to him. Oddly, it seemed familiar, as though she should have known it all the while. As though it had long been a part of her. He spoke again, his voice beautiful to her ears, the pitch low and smooth.
“ ‘Tis my understanding that you were seized in a raid on Ireland. How is it you speak Frankish?”
Ailinn searched his face. She hesitated, wondering how much, if anything, she should divulge, then realized it mattered little. Eire lay behind them and to a great distance, and her kinsmen were dead.
“There are those Irish nobles who once fled our beloved land for Francia — a time when the Norsemen relentlessly ravaged our shores.”
Ailinn paused for the warrior’s reaction, but he remained intent to her every word.
“My stepuncle left with his family at his wife’s bidding but later regretted forsaking Eire and returned.”
She refrained from adding how Cellach had been scorned by the tribe, and how her stepfather, Lorcan, had given his brother and family a place beneath their own roof. Or how later, after Fianna’s and Lorcan’s deaths, Cellach had taken her in.
“My stepuncle brought with him a Frankish nursemaid from Francia, for his young daughters. Our families dwelled together for atime.” Ailinn’s eyes moved accusingly to Hakon. “Bergette was the first to be slain in the women’s chamber. She sought to protect me but was felled at my feet by that one’s ax.”
Lyting envisaged the scene, keen to the pain that underlay her words. It must have been then that Hakon seized her. He recalled Stefnir’s words and hated to think of the maid in Hakon’s possession. Lyting looked to the two who had been taken with her.
“These are your cousins, then?”
“Stepcousins,” she corrected. “Though they themselves are cousins of blood.”
“You said your stepuncle had daughters.”
“The other has been sold.”
“At Hedeby?”
“What is Hedeby?”
Lyting traced her elegant features with his gaze, remembering them once besmudged and her eyes fired with defiance.
“The market town of Danmark, where first we met.”
Ailinn’s eyes widened, but Lyting rose to his feet as Skallagrim joined them, followed by Hakon. The warrior appeared infinitely tall from her perspective. As he spoke with the chieftain, her thoughts reached back to Hedeby and her arrival there — to when he lifted her from the street and held her in his grasp.
“Come. Do not fear.” Lyting’s hand closed gently about her arm. The image of Hedeby dissolved as the moment blurred from the past to the present. Ailinn found herself gazing up into his incredible blue eyes.
“Come,” he repeated, aiding her feet and then Deira. “Skallagrim wishes to know more of you.”
The chieftain tugged at his beard and directed several comments to Lyting. Deira eased from Ailinn’s side as the warrior turned his attention once more to Ailinn.
“Skallagrim would know what place his men raided, whose hall it was they attacked.”
Ailinn’s eyes whisked to the chieftain. It incensed her that the heathens should devastate her home, murder her kindred, and not even have a name to put to the place.
Before she could reply, Rhiannon shoved to her feet. Her eyes glowed with a look of triumph, having witnessed Ailinn and the Dane speaking in a shared tongue — Frankish. Her moment had come at last, and she readied to reap the victory.
“Tell them,” Rhiannon demanded, grasping Deira by the arm and forcing her forward. “Tell them who I am.”
Deira shrank into the cocoon of her mantle, but Rhiannon stabbed her fingers into Deira’s arm and compelled her to face the Norsemen.
“Tell them!” Rhiannon gave her a firm shake.
“Leave Deira be,” Ailinn snapped.
“You think I am fool enough to let you render my words for their understanding? You’d favor being in my place a time longer, wouldn’t you? — wearing the rank of nobility to which you have no claim nor can ever hope to bear. Ní hea. Deira will tell them. Word for word.”
“What is it your stepcousin says?”
Ailinn felt Lyting lightly touch her arm, but she could not meet his eyes.
“What provokes her so?” he asked again, but Ailinn fixed her gaze on the ground.
“The chieftain is a man short on patience. Do not risk his anger,” Lyting cautioned, then added, “If you will answer his questions, I will answer yours.”
Ailinn’s eyes drew to those of the silver warrior. So many questions were locked in her heart. But would he still wish to answer them once Rhiannon had done with her? Would Skallagrim and Hakon afford him the chance?
Ailinn braced herself, the fated moment upon her.
“ ‘Twas Clonmel that the Danes attacked. The hall of the ruri ri, Mór.”
“You’re father’s hall?”
“Non. Rhiannon’s.
Hearing Ailinn pronounce her name, Rhiannon released Deira and moved forward as far as her chain would allow. She stood before Skallagrim, her bearing regal. Head held high and straight of spine, she addressed him in Gaelic and, when finished, ordered Deira to translate.
Deira looked to Ail
inn and, receiving her reassuring nod, turned to Lyting.
“I am Deira, daughter of Cellach. Rhiannon, my cousin, asks that I give to you her words precisely as she gives them to me. Further, she asks that, as I do so, you translate them for the chieftain, Skallagrim.”
Lyting nodded, wary.
Deira waited as Rhiannon began, then transmitted her message as her cousin wished, word for word. Lyting, in turn, rephrased the information for Skallagrim.
“I am the princess of the Casil Eóganachts. Descended from the kings of Munster. Daughter of the ruri ri, Mór. ‘Twas Mór’s hall that you beset. On my wedding day.”
Lyting’s gaze leapt to the auburn-haired maid.
“I, not my stepcousin, was the bride. She and I exchanged places that morn. I was to marry a man of wealth and consequence. A man who would still pay a great sum for my return,” Rhiannon assured through Deira.
“In the bridal chamber we heard the clamor of swords and arms. We believed ‘twas the rival tribe of the Dal Cassis, come to seize me, Domnal’s bride. We sought to deceive the Dalcassians. My stepcousin dressed in my gown, my mantle. We veiled her and placed flowers in her hair. I was hidden among the other maids. Your men were quick to enter our chamber and despoil our maidens there, including myself. But now I make it known to you. ‘Tis I who am the daughter of the ruri ri, the princess and bride. Not my stepcousin, whom you cosset. She will bring naught to your coffers. But I am worth a very fine ransom.”
Rhiannon waited, cutting Ailinn with her eyes.
Lyting finished imparting the message to Skallagrim and found himself struck by the bravery of the autumn-fire maid who had risked herself in the face of danger. And yet, he wondered of her true reasons, for the princess impressed him as a coldhearted woman. He doubted Rhiannon would imperil herself, given a similar circumstance.
The chieftain appeared amused with the princess.
Hakon only shrugged a shoulder and crossed his arms. “She might have been the ‘bride,’ but she was no virgin.”
“A fiery one, is she not?” Skallagrim’s beard parted with a smile. He directed another question through Lyting.
“The chieftain would know more of the maid. If she is your stepcousin, would she not also bring a ransom?”
Rhiannon smiled, a poisonous smile that took Lyting aback.
“Ní hea. She is nothing. Neither is she related by blood nor an Eóganacht. Her mother married my father’s brother, well after she was born. She springs from the Corcu Loígda, an ancient tribe of Eire, defeated and subdued long ago by the Eóganacht.”
Derision dripped from Rhiannon’s tongue as she made her final pronouncement. “She is Ailinn of the Érainn. Her people were once Druids.”
Deira’s voice dropped as she translated the last of Rhiannon’s words, then added quickly, “Of course, they all be Christians now.”
Lyting’s gaze traveled to the maid.
Ailinn. Of the Érainn. A name as beautiful as she, herself. One side of his mouth pulled upward into a smile as he tried to imagine her Druid ancestry. The Druids bore an intense love of nature. As did he.
Truly, the maid possessed an enchantment about her. Long had it been his dream — a fanciful illusion to make love to a woodland nymph or a water sprite. Until now he had never considered that one might exist.
Lyting turned to convey the last of the princess’s missive. “Your captive is a most noble and gentle-born maid, Skallagrim, born of a shining and ancient tribe of Ireland — Ailinn of the Érainn.”
Rhiannon smiled, casting a look of triumph to Ailinn as the warrior pronounced her stepcousin’s name and that of her reviled tribe. Rhiannon waited expectantly for Skallagrim’s displeasure to fall on Ailinn and for their lots to be recast.
Lyting turned once more to Ailinn, his manner toward her unaltered by the revelations.
“Ailinn.” Her name passed pleasingly over his tongue even as he voiced it. “Are there questions you would ask?”
Ailinn glanced about, surprised the chieftain had given no commands concerning her, nor made the least exertion to alter Rhiannon’s lot.
“Where do you take us?” The question fell from her lips, though so many poised there.
“You are being taken to the imperial city of Byzantium, Constantinople.”
“To what end?” She tried to shield her surprise.
Lyting hesitated. He must guard his words. Skallagrim and Hakon watched. Would that he could give her hope, but whatever he revealed to Ailinn would likely be mirrored in her eyes.
“Skallagrim deigns to gift you to a Byzantine aristocrat in exchange for privileges in the silk trade.”
“Gift me? How do you mean? As a slave?”
“As a concubine.”
Ailinn took a dry swallow. “But now that will change, will it not? For whatever reason Rhiannon’s bridal raiment first halted the chieftain’s attack on me, all is revealed. I am not the bride he thought me to be, not a valued princess of a ruri ri. Rhiannon shall take my place — ”
“Naught has changed, Ailinn.” Lyting shook his head, denying her words. “Rhiannon is Hakon’s slave, and should he wish to offer her for ransom to the Irish, that he alone will decide. But you belong to Skallagrim. The bridal garments marked you as a virgin. He does not preserve your virtue because you are a princess, but because of your matchless beauty and your virginity, which the Byzantine requires.”
Ailinn stared openly at Lyting, astonished by what he spoke. But as Deira rendered his words to Gaelic, Rhiannon grew livid and reeled on Ailinn, shrilling in her native tongue. Lyting blocked her attack, imposing himself.
Skallagrim, too, came forth. Seizing Rhiannon by the arm, he jerked her to his chest. “A torrid one, eh?” He grinned down at her, then looked to Lyting and Hakon. “ ‘Twould appear the princess feels herself to be wronged in some wise.”
“From what I gather, she seeks to replace Ailinn in your favor,” Lyting commented.
“She’s spoiled for the Byzantine, but she does find favor with me,” the chieftain proclaimed robustly. “Have you objection, Hakon? I find I harbor a mighty itch in my loins. Mayhap ‘tis a chieftain she needs to bed her, and I a princess to break the ‘witch’s curse.’ “
Rhiannon blanched when Skallagrim squatted to unlock her chains. She stumbled back several steps, then fell full upon her backside. Lying sprawled upon the ground, she upraised her head, only to lock gazes with the chieftain between her parted legs. His grin stretched the wider.
Rhiannon pitched to her stomach and tried to scramble from his reach, but he gripped both her ankles and dragged her back. She swiped clawed fingers at his head, but he only ducked aside, enjoying the game to the full. Heaving Rhiannon upon his shoulder, Skallagrim trudged to his tent, flung back the flap, and disappeared inside with his booty.
The men who had gathered about the fire began to disperse, chuckling at the intermittent screeches and grunts that emitted from the tent. Orm and Ragnar moved off, each choosing a slave for themselves for the night and offering Hakon the remaining two.
Hakon looked to Deira, then deciding on the Saxon women, led them away, leaving Lyting to guard over his and Skallagrim’s women.
Ailinn hugged Deira tight. The girl looked distraught and waxen again. She clutched at the cincture as she listened to the sounds from the tent. Ailinn made Deira a pillow from her cloak and urged her to lie before the fire and rest. Disheartened, she sat staring into the night, wondering what would come of her cousins after she, herself, was given to the Byzantine.
The fire burned low, the night grew still, and the mating sounds in the camp finally ceased. While Deira slept, Ailinn remained steeped in thought, vaguely aware of the movements in camp and of those who held watch, including Hakon, who now stood nearby.
Lyting kept his own watch before the fire with Ailinn and Deira, and now moved to add a fresh log. Kneeling down, he attended his task, but spoke in low, quiet tones.
“Ailinn. Have faith. I will help you.”
For a moment Ailinn thought she had misheard.
“Have faith, Ailinn,” he repeated. “I will do all within my power to see you and your cousins free.”
Just then, Rhiannon stumbled half-naked from the chieftain’s tent. Skallagrim appeared long enough to hurl out the remainder of her clothes and motion for Lyting to chain her. Grousing, Skallagrim jerked the tent flap closed again.
Rhiannon picked herself up and began yanking her gown over her head. “Disgusting, filthy swine!” She grabbed up her mantle and scrubbed its fabric against her arms and neck. She headed toward the fire, muttering, “Freak. Torc. Revolting twisted cock.”
Lyting resecured her chains. Humorless and in a fit of temper, Rhiannon rolled herself into her mantle and, without further utterance, lay down beside Deira.
Ailinn fixed her gaze on Lyting as he took up his place across the fire, and thought on his words.
Who was this star-bright Dane? This shining lord of Normandy? And why should he wish to help her?
Chapter 10
Vitholm. Kiev.
The stockaded fortress of Kiev sat high upon the western bluff — the Starokievskaja Gora.
Below moved the slate-blue waters of the Dnieper, broad and purposeful, broken intermittently by bars of whitest sand.
Dense timberland had accompanied the convoy since Riga. But now, beneath the lofty eye of Kiev, the extensive forests gave way to an endless plain of shimmering grasses.
The Steppe.
The Steppe, rooted in deep, rich soil — black and loamy.
The Steppe, extending as far as the eye could see.
And Lyting could see far.
Looking out over it, the land sang in his veins.
As the convoy approached the shores at Vitholm, Lyting wished he had the luxury of time to climb to the upper city and gaze over the vista. But Skallagrim intended for the convoy to put into port only long enough to secure new Slav ships and transfer their goods. They would then set out immediately for Vitchev, south along the Dnieper, where the main convoy would convene.
Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series Page 17