The Briton

by Catherine Palmer

  “How fares your longboat?” she asked, hoping to have some conversation with the man her father had chosen.

  Olaf grunted. “Badly damaged. We struck a reef near the Irish coast. Six men died at sea.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Sorry for your loss.”

  With a quizzical expression on his face, Olaf chewed for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Why be sorry? We can repair the snekkar, and death brings glory to ourselves and honor to the gods.”

  Bronwen reflected on the Celtic deities of her forefathers. Then she recalled the man she had met in the seaside hut, Martin, and his lifetime devotion to Jesus.

  “Which are your gods?” she asked.

  “Baal, god of the sun, of course. And Odin, Thor, Frey, Balder, Aegir—”

  “What of the Christian God?”

  “A God who allows Himself to be killed?” Olaf scoffed. “Yet I suppose each deity—weak or strong—has some purpose. Our great joy is to die in battle, for no man can go to Valhalla of the gods if he dies not by the sword.”

  “But surely illness or disease takes many men.”

  “No Viking male may die except by the sword. We do not permit it.”

  Bronwen was taken aback at this information, but her husband returned to his meal as if indifferent to such a barbaric practice. Unable to eat, she listened as Olaf’s men rose and began to tell battle tales—one gruesome, horrific and bloody story after another. The drunken narratives were difficult to understand, but Bronwen was able to make out awful accounts of severed heads and men torn apart, their entrails drawn from their bodies while they were still alive. Soon she had no doubt she had been united to the most vile and despicable race on the earth.

  At the tale of the Viking practice of slicing open a man’s chest and pulling out his pulsing lungs, she could endure no more. Standing, she excused herself. Olaf acknowledged his wife with a nod but made no move to stop her. Feeling ill, Bronwen hurried from the hall to the staircase that led to her bedchamber.

  “They are animals,” she told Enit as she entered the room. “Worse than animals. They glory in torture, suffering, murder. They kill without thought. Their swords swing heedless of a man’s age or station in life. My husband tells me that every man must die by the sword if he wishes an afterlife. Every man!”

  Enit reached to soothe the young woman, but Bronwen brushed her aside and went to the window. “How can I stay here?” she cried clutching the rough stone sill. “They worship gods I do not know and welcome death with every breath. Enit, how can I bear the filth, the barbarity, the bloodshed? Tomorrow I shall send word to my father. He must allow me to return to Rossall and end the marriage.”

  “Impossible, Bronwen. You made a vow.”

  She pursed her lips. “I cannot allow that man to touch me. Do you hear what I say, Enit? You must bar the door against him tonight.”

  “La, child, stop talking nonsense.” Enit took Bronwen’s shoulder and turned her from the window. “You are his wedded wife, and you will perform your duty. Take off your tunic now and put on this gown. You must make ready for your husband.”

  Bronwen fought tears as her nurse slipped a cotton gown over her head. “It was horrible, Enit,” she said. “They told stories of what they had done to their enemies. Dreadful, wicked things. And at all this, they laugh!”

  “Ask the gods to help you forget the tales and forgive the ones who spoke them.” Enit took Bronwen’s arm and ushered her to the bed. “You cannot return to Rossall. Your home is here.”

  Buried under the furs, Bronwen lay awake listening to Enit bank the fire. Tonight the old nurse would go to new quarters in the keep and no longer sleep outside her charge’s room. The bride must await her husband.

  Bronwen woke with a start and sat straight up in bed. She had been dreaming of a great crow. Its flapping wings had begun to envelop and suffocate her when at once they changed into the heaving, bloody lungs of a dying man.

  With a shudder, she left her bed and went to the window. The sun was risen, but no one had awakened her. And Olaf had not come.

  “Enit?” Bronwen called out. “Enit, are you there?”

  The old woman hurried into the room bearing a tray of bread and steaming porridge. “The servitors tell me he never entered the room, child,” she said as she arranged the tunic Bronwen had selected. “Can this be true?”

  “I never saw him after I left the feast.”

  Shaking her head in consternation, Enit combed and plaited her mistress’s hair. While Bronwen ate, the women discussed the coming day, but neither again mentioned the fact that she had slept alone.

  Fearing that she had shamed herself and disappointed the entire household in failing to lure her husband to bed, Bronwen decided she must find the man and make an attempt at forming some sort of bond between them. Slipping the black mantle with its peacock lining over her shoulders, she crossed the guardroom and hurried down the stone steps.

  On entering the hall, she saw men lying about in deep sleep. It was a lucky thing they had no battles to fight today, she thought, picking her way through the tangle of arms and legs. At last she made her way past the dais to the small partition at the far end of the hall where the lord typically slept.

  Flat on his stomach in a knot of blankets, Olaf snored loudly. Bronwen approached and touched his arm. The Viking did not budge.

  “Husband,” she said. “I am come to you. Bronwen—your wife.”

  Olaf’s eyes fluttered open, and he gazed at her for a moment before rolling away onto his side. “Leave me be,” he growled. “My head thunders!”

  Before she could take a step away, he was snoring again. Disgusted and frustrated, Bronwen left the hall and summoned Enit. “My husband sleeps off his drunkenness. He has dismissed me—and so I shall go.”

  “Go where? You cannot return to Rossall, Bronwen!”

  “I’ll not stay here to face that man’s surly disposition and his servitors’ stares. I mean to leave the castle and walk upriver.”

  “Alone?”

  “Of course. I always wandered the woodlands around our keep at Rossall. Why should this place be different? If the Viking wakes, tell him his wife will return by nightfall.”

  “But Bronwen—”

  Unwilling to listen to Enit’s warnings or her own conscience, Bronwen left the hall. She made her way across the courtyard, through the gate and down to the Warbreck River. As she followed it, the green mosses growing along the banks lifted her spirits. Even in winter, life thrived. Envisioning the primroses, cowslips and bellflowers that would bloom in spring along the water’s edge, she imagined the trees thickly leaved, their branches laden with fruit or nuts.

  One day she would be happy here, she determined as she strolled along the river’s edge. She would bear children and teach them to love the land and revere their Briton forebears. Her husband would learn to admire her. His son would accept her. The servitors must respect and obey their mistress, and in time she would make the castle her home—a clean, warm, proud place where visitors would be welcomed and where everything thrived.

  The sun rose and then began its downward journey while Bronwen walked, and finally decided she must turn back. Her heart, though still heavy, had calmed. As soon as she reached her chamber, she had decided, she would send for messengers. Her father would want to know she was safely at Warbreck. And Gildan—oh, how Bronwen missed her sister! A message must go to her, too. Gildan would be happy in Aeschby’s arms, and Bronwen must celebrate her sister’s happiness with tender words.

  As shadows crept along the path, the sound of horses’ hooves in the distance rang out. Bronwen caught her breath, at once aware of her precarious position. At Rossall, she had given little thought to dangers, for she was never far from a cottage or a hut. But—on Viking land—she now admitted she had been careless not to heed Enit’s warnings.

  Electing to hide until the possible threat was past, Bronwen started for the darkened woods. But as she stepped from the path, she heard he
r name called out.

  “Bronwen, wife of Olaf Lothbrok!” The man himself spurred his horse forward from the midst of a group of mounted comrades not far from where she stood. His long beard lifted in the wind as his steed thundered toward her. “Halt in the name of Thor, woman, or I’ll flay the skin from your back!”

  Stiffening, she squared her shoulders. “Here I stand,” she told her husband. “I await your bidding.”

  He reined his horse and surveyed her coldly. “Wife, what mischief have you played today?” he barked out. “Do you not know the dangers of this forest? We have not only wild beasts, but also wild men, thieves and witches here. If you had been killed or taken, I would have a war with your father at my northern borders—to add to the conflicts on my southern and eastern flanks.”

  “I am well enough, sir, as you see.” She stared back at him. “And I do not fear beasts or witches. Or men.”

  Her value to her husband was purely strategic, Bronwen realized, nothing more. But her brazen straying from his protection was enough to set the Viking’s rage aboil.

  “You, woman!” He pointed his finger at her. “You will never again leave my keep. Do you think you are a queen who may rule her own husband? Upon my honor, you are my chattel. My possession. I command your obedience. Do I have it?”

  “Of course, sir.” She bowed her head. “I am your wife.”

  Turning his horse, Olaf called out to his men. “Return her to the castle.”

  Before Bronwen could react, Haakon rode out from the others. Grasping her by the arm, he jerked her off her feet and threw her across his horse like a sack of meal. The ride back to the keep was excruciating and Bronwen’s humiliation grew with every thud of the horses’ hooves. In leaving the castle grounds, she had sought peace and reflection, but her action had only brought her shame. A chattel, he had called her. And she was. A sack of meal, indeed.

  When the horses reached the inner courtyard, Haakon pushed her to the ground and dismounted. Light-headed and queasy, Bronwen sank to her knees as the men stalked away toward the hall. For a moment, she could do nothing but try to suck down breath. Her ribs ached and her arm felt as if it had been pulled from its socket.

  Aware of the stares from those around her and trying not to weep, she was struggling to her feet when a man approached.

  “My lady, may I have a word with you?”

  He spoke her tongue with a Norman French accent, and Bronwen lifted her head in sudden hope. But this was no dark, hooded knight come to her rescue. The man was short of stature, and his blue eyes warily scanned the castle courtyard.

  “Speak, sir,” she told him.

  “Are you Bronwen the Briton?”

  She recognized the address as the one Jacques Le Brun had given her. Though she knew this was not the man himself, her heart flooded. “I am Bronwen the Briton,” she affirmed.

  The courier tipped his head in a sign of respect. “My lady, I have been given a message for you.”

  “And what is this message?”

  Rather than answering, he drew a small box from beneath his mantle. Carved of a deep red wood she had never seen, the chest bore swirling mother-of-pearl and gold inlays. An exotic fragrance filled her nostrils as she took it from him.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “But who gave you this? Where is the one who sent the message?”

  “That man is my lord, madam. A traveler from afar.”

  “And his name?”

  “He said you would know.” The courier again gave her a slight bow and then turned away.

  “But, sir—”

  Bronwen could see she would not hold him. Indeed, he was already slipping through the gate in the wall. With a mixture of hope and trepidation, she studied the seal on the chest’s clasp. But the wax had not been imprinted—it was blank. Breaking it, she slid apart the clasp and lifted the lid. The chest was filled with white eiderdown.

  Bronwen shook her head in confusion. Feathers? Who would send her feathers? What message could they signify? The sun was almost set as she reached into the soft bed and felt about. Her fingers closed on a solid round object, and she removed it. Against the waning light, she held aloft a small golden ball.

  Again, she dipped her hand into the box and brought out a second ball. And then a third. Three gold balls in a nest of soft down?

  Bronwen weighed the box in her hand. She felt certain it could not have come from her father. Her dowry had already been brought to Warbreck, and it was more than sufficient. Gildan would never have sent the three gold balls. The wealth-hungry Aeschby must surely prevent such a treasure from leaving his premises. Besides, the gift signified nothing between the two sisters. What did these orbs mean, and what was she meant to do with them? Most important, who had sent them?

  She had hoped, even prayed, that she might meet with Jacques Le Brun again. But he had not come, and she could identify no reason to tie him to the orbs.

  Was the chest itself intended as a message? A gift? Again Bronwen searched the box for a crest, an identifying color, a sign. She could decipher nothing.

  Lest her husband begin to search for her again, she dropped the three spheres back into their downy bed, shut the chest and slid the hasp. As she placed it under her arm, her black wool mantle fell over it. And in the corner of the cloak, she caught a glimpse of an embroidered crest on the peacock-blue lining. The crest bore upon it three gold balls.

  Chapter Five

  “Your husband requests your presence at his table this night,” Enit said on entering Bronwen’s bedchamber. “You must ready yourself and go down to him.”

  Bronwen sat in silence on the clothing chest where she had hidden the box with its secret golden message. Humiliated and in pain, she could think of nothing but Jacques Le Brun. Perhaps he awaited her outside the castle wall. Or maybe he had sent the gift as a way for her to buy her freedom. With the gold, she could purchase passage on a ship to London. Maybe she could find him and his retinue at Martin’s monastery. But it was all impossible. All nonsense. She could never escape her fate here, and she could not even be certain the Norman had sent the gift. Even worse—Le Brun was her enemy. A Norman dog. A conqueror of her homeland.

  No, she must be faithful to her father, her forebears and their land. She had no choice but to obey her husband…her master. But now that he had shown his domination of her, must he display her disgrace before the entire household?

  Bronwen closed her eyes and tried to block out the memory of Olaf’s face, flushed with fury and indignation. How she dreaded and feared him. How he disgusted her. Yet she knew that any further defiance of the man was useless.

  “I shall go,” she declared, rising from her place on the old trunk. “Find something clean for me to wear, Enit. Anything will do. Quickly now.”

  Bronwen smoothed her hair with an ivory comb. Enit helped her into a yellow tunic and laced the tight sleeves of the undergown. Bronwen draped her veil while her nursemaid settled the golden circlet in place.

  “Give me the black mantle I wore today, Enit,” Bronwen ordered.

  “But it’s covered in dust and caked with dry mud. You cannot go before your husband and his men wearing this!”

  “It warms me.” Bronwen took the mantle and shook it out. She drew it over her shoulders, felt for the key at her neck and the purse that contained her father’s will box. Then she lifted her chin to fasten the mantle’s clasp.

  “Where did you get the cloak, Bronwen? You wear it always—yet we did not stitch it, nor did I see it in the items purchased for you at last summer’s fair in Preston. Who gave it to you?”

  Bronwen turned away. “It was a wedding gift, and I do not mean to part with it.”

  As she dipped a rushlight into the fire and saw it catch, Bronwen took a deep breath. She did not know how she would face her husband again, but she was determined to do all in her power to quell his wrath.

  Leaving Enit, she went down to the hall and was pleased to find that fewer men attended this night’s meal. Yet as
before, the general mumble ceased when she entered, and once again every eye fell upon her as she stepped to the dais. Olaf stood by while Bronwen seated herself beside him. Haakon sat at her other elbow.

  Servitors carried out the trenchers—a meal of roast suckling pig, breads and cheeses, and finally baked lamprey eel with herbed beets. Bronwen managed to eat, but she said nothing to the men on either side of her. They, in turn, were focused on their dinner, feeding themselves with much lip smacking and belching. They threw bones and other leavings over their shoulders to the floor, where the dogs that roamed the castle snarled and fought over them.

  “So you went on a journey today,” Haakon spoke up as the final course was carried away. “And what did you find?”

  “The mossy bank of the Warbreck River,” Bronwen replied. “That is all.”

  “Nothing more? Not even a tall, black-hooded knight, perhaps? A Norman on his way to London?” At that, the man rolled back his lips and let out a hearty guffaw.

  “Keep quiet, son,” Olaf growled. “You know not when to shut your mouth.”

  Haakon continued to snicker as Bronwen rose from the table. She knew that all color had drained from her face. Trembling, she bowed before Olaf. “My meal is complete. If you will excuse me, husband, I bid you good evening.”

  Olaf started to say something, then he gruffly acknowledged her departure. Bronwen stepped down and hurried from the hall to the stair. Mortified, she entered her chamber to discover that her nurse had already gone for the night. As she undressed and slipped into her bed gown, her mind spun. Olaf’s anger was more than justified, she realized. Not only had she left his protection without permission, but Haakon had whispered evils against her into his father’s ear.

  She drew back the furs and crept into bed. What would Olaf do to her this night? Would he seek vengeance? Would he treat their first union with total disregard for her, or might he even torture her? She had heard tales of such atrocities against disobedient wives, and she and Gildan had clutched hands at night in the fear of such violence ever happening to either of them.