by Joanne Rock
He listened without acknowledging her, not wanting to give away her presence. No one but him could have possibly heard her above the din of the hooves. He thought they might run him down until the Saxons reined in their beasts at the last moment, sending their mounts’ eyes rolling back as their mouths foamed and dripped.
Wulf did not move, though one of the horses’ pawing hooves tipped his raised blade, making the steel clang with vibrations that echoed up his arm.
One of the riders nudged his horse forward. “I am Godric of Fanleigh, brother to the departed Gerald of Fanleigh. Where is the Wessex widow, Norseman?”
Wulf assumed this man led the group. He’d been first to arrive on the hilltop and his helm bore the most elaborate decorations of any of the men.
“Leave it to a filthy Saxon to lose track of a woman.” Wulf lowered his blade, knowing he would not have a chance to use it against eighteen men.
If not for Gwendolyn, he would have taken as many with him as he could have before they stilled his sword arm for good. But he could not indulge his pride when he had vowed to protect her. He needed to think of her.
“Where is she?” The fat-faced Saxon repeated. Sweat rolled down his head so profusely, he swiped at it with his sleeve. “Alchere had no legal right to the widow once she married my brother. She was Gerald’s bride before that greedy bastard Alchere stole her, and now she will be mine.”
Wulf knew Gwendolyn had not made a sound from her nook nearby, yet he seemed to hear her protest in his thoughts. No man who treated his horse cruelly would treat a woman well.
She must be worth an even greater fortune than Wulf had first suspected for her dead husband’s kin to devote this kind of force to her return. No wonder she had felt controlled all her life.
The idea of this foul-smelling Saxon touching Gwendolyn gave Wulf the urge to run him through despite the overwhelming odds he faced. He would at least take this man to the grave with him.
“Alchere has protected the woman for many moons since your brother died. How can you claim a widow you do not safeguard?”
“A wife has no right to forsake her husband’s family upon his death. She belongs with us. And I will stake my claim the same way you took her.” The Saxon unsheathed his sword and brandished it. “By force.”
Wulf liked his odds of winning against this man who had come with more ambition than skill. But that left seventeen others. While they were mounted, Wulf fought on foot.
He plucked up his axe with his other hand. There was something about the axe that always made Saxons turn a bit green.
“Try it, and you will die painfully.” Wulf let the truth of the statement show in his eyes. He knew how to warn opponents of his prowess. He had not spent his life making war to be beaten by a filth-faced second son who dared to take a woman under his protection. “You have not heard of the stealth of the Danes, I see. While your life blood leaks beneath my blade, your men will have their first taste of the axe at the hands of my followers who blanket these hills in silence.”
The falsehood played into the strong Saxon fears and painstakingly perpetuated Norse myth. Warfare by scare tactic could be as potent as any waged with steel.
Their gazes locked. The prickly silence of eighteen men waiting for someone else to blink first was the kind of quiet that always preceded battle. Wulf had experienced it innumerable times.
But when a soft, feminine yelp sounded nearby, he realized Gwendolyn had not. By Odin’s hairy beard, the foolish woman rose from her hiding place like a child-size warrior with a death wish. Striding toward him with sharp, determined steps, she cast them both headlong out of the pot and into the flames.
“I am here. I will go with you,” she told the drooling, sweating boar pig on horseback. “I pray you, there is no need to shed blood on my account.”
A vein in Wulf’s temple pounded so hard he thought it would burst. Did she not understand blood would be shed either way? And that her arrival had just made matters infinitely worse?
For the first time, Wulf understood what it felt like to be caught flat-footed on the battlefield. And even as he gripped his weapons, prepared to go out of this world in a haze of bloodshed the like of which these Saxons had never seen, he could not help the wryest of grins.
It seemed the fickle widow of Wessex had developed an affection for her captor. Right now, he could think of no regret he’d leave the world with so great as not getting to take full advantage of that knowledge for just one more night.
9
GWENDOLYN COULD NOT imagine what that hard-headed Dane had to look so smug about.
Fear made her fingers shake like new leaves in a spring gale, her heart pounding so fast she could scarcely catch her breath. Gerald’s odious brother, Godric, was a fate even worse than her husband had been. He had been away at wars on the continent when Gerald had died, which had been a blessing since she knew he would have married her within the week. As a second son, Godric had coveted her wealth from the moment Gerald brought her home.
But she could not allow Wulf to face nearly twenty armed and mounted men for the sake of avoiding Godric. To do anything else but give herself to their keeping would be a sure death sentence for the Dane. Seeing him there—ready to protect her to the death—had touched her deeply. She knew instantly she could not live with herself if she did not prevent it.
Now, her gaze lingered on Wulf as she wondered what would happen to him. Would he be free to find his men and live to raid another day? Or would Godric still demand Wulf’s life?
She looked from Wulf—cursedly unaffected and gazing upon her with more amusement than remorse for her sacrifice—to Godric, whose eyes traveled her greedily.
She shivered in repulsion, certain the sweating pig would be no more gentle than his cruel brother.
“Release the Dane,” she demanded, hoping Godric could not see her fear as she reached the center of the men. “He has not harmed me. I am ready to return to my home in Fanleigh.”
The unnerving stillness in the clearing had not been broken. She had the sudden sense that what she’d done had made no difference to the men whatsoever. They waged their battle of wills as intently as before she’d arrived.
Had she put Wulf in an even worse position? How strange to realize that she would regret any harm done to the man who’d captured her by force.
“I will have safe passage for the Dane or I will not attend you.” She hated that her voice shook. But by now, she was so scared for Wulf she did not stand a chance of disguising it.
“Gwendolyn.” Wulf wielded his axe and his sword as easily as eating knives, yet he spoke her name with the same accented seriousness he’d always used when addressing her. “Thank you.”
The words pierced her heart, sounding in her ears like a tender goodbye.
Godric urged his horse closer to her. To them. And all his men did likewise. They were surrounded.
“I fear I have made things worse instead of better,” she muttered to Wulf, keeping her body between him and the Saxons as the net around them tightened. They would be captured like fish in a net.
“Do not fear,” he counseled, his voice as steady as a rock and comforting in spite of everything. “Sometimes we are called to fight no matter the odds when we see injustice that cannot be borne.”
This was not the way Wulf Geirsson should die. The memory of him saving her life blazed brightly in her mind. He could have demanded ransom for her or conquered Alchere’s keep from within. Instead, he’d merely taken her and a few trinkets, and he’d treated her more kindly than her own husband. How could a man of his skill and resources be lost to a band of green knights who were not worthy to row his longships?
The anger she’d felt at him earlier had faded, replaced by a flood of other memories of him and regret that they wouldn’t have more time together.
“Come, Gwendolyn.” Godric lunged toward her and she ducked, eluding his grasp. He swore. “You have no right to make demands of me or Fanleigh. My men have traveled lo
ng and far to retrieve you.”
The menace in his eyes frightened her. He viewed her as his property already.
“Then they are as clod-pated as you,” she accused, giving vent to her true thoughts since Godric had ignored her attempt to deal with him civilly. “Richard of Alchere will never recognize a union for me that he did not approve. My family lands never belonged to Gerald, but were under Alchere’s care until I bore a son.”
Legally, Godric could not take her.
In her other ear, Wulf’s voice hummed low.
“You will run when I tell you to.”
The words were so ludicrous, she wondered if she’d misheard. Nearly twenty men surrounded them on horseback. Just where did he think she would run?
“Possession is the better part of the law,” Godric returned, swooping low to pull her off her feet.
She ducked again, but was not sure she would avoid his arms. Then, a sharp whistling noise passed her ears and her hair ruffled in its wake.
Godric screamed as Wulf nicked his arm with the sword.
“Run!” The command unleashed mayhem like she’d never seen.
Godric wailed atop his horse while the beast pawed the air in fright. The Saxon fell to the ground with a dull thud, holding his bleeding arm. Gwendolyn ran in the gap that opened among Godric’s men, retreating to her place among the tree roots. Yet she ran with her head swiveled toward the whirl of dust and swords in the clearing.
Horses and men cried out, the circle of knights expanding and spiraling outward until some turned and fled. She could not quite credit that Wulf would scare off such a large number of men, but she saw him at the center of the circle, wielding the axe and the sword like a man possessed by demons.
His size alone would have made her run had she been one of the young knights who followed Godric. But even if that did not put a fright in them, the way he handled two weapons as adeptly as two men should have. Striking down the group’s leader seemed to have thrown the rest of the group in turmoil.
Still, he could only move that fast for so long. Three of the horsemen circled him with renewed vigor, perhaps sensing a better way to attack. Compelled to act, she picked up a nearby rock and hurled it with all her might at the knight closest to her. To her surprise, the rider sank like a stone, puddling on the ground beside his frantic horse. Encouraged, she scrambled for more rocks, flinging handfuls at the knights who advanced on her.
Nearby, some of the fighters who’d fallen back now shouted warnings to retreat before speeding away.
Before she could puzzle out the reason for their hasty withdrawal, a shower of arrows rained down upon their heads. Men fell in their wake, their bodies sliding to the ground in lifeless slumps.
Where on earth had they come from?
Her gaze followed those of the men left standing. On the sea, they found two longships full of Danes. Half rowed the ships. Half strung their bows for another round of arrows.
Wulf’s men had arrived.
Relief soothed her for only a moment until she realized their next barrage of arrows could easily down their leader.
“Wulf!” She ran toward him. “Look out! Your men have—”
“They are not my men.”
She could not make sense of what was happening. The hiss and whistle of fresh arrows sailing through the sky sent her stomach plummeting to her feet. The deadly downpour pummeled the ground nearby.
Above her head, a shot landed so forcefully that Wulf’s arms bent from the blow. Gwen gave silent thanks for chainmail. And then, eerily, there was a scant moment of quiet.
“Come on.” Wulf had her hand in his, dragging her back into the cover of the trees where their attackers already hid.
“Godric’s men are in there,” she warned, her legs burning with the strain to keep up and the desire to escape the next lethal shower.
Even the sack on Wulf’s back had been pierced by the wooden shaft of an arrow. The feathers on the end fluttered as he ran.
“They are long gone,” Wulf assured her, his grip so tight on her arm she feared he would drag her behind him if she could not keep up. “We have more to fear from Harold’s men.”
Her knee screamed in protest where she had recently twisted it, but she kept running.
“Harold?” She knew he meant the Danes. The enemy from his native lands, it seemed.
“Hedra’s brother.” Wulf peered back and, perhaps seeing her fall behind, paused to scoop her into his arms before continuing. “He seeks vengeance for his sister’s death.”
The death Wulf felt responsible for. A shiver turned her insides to ice, but she squelched the feeling to focus on survival.
“I can run,” she protested, peering over his shoulder, but seeing no one in pursuit.
Later, she would ask him about what happened with his brother’s widow. Right now, she just wanted to be somewhere safe—for both of them to live long enough for him to give her those answers.
“Not as fast as I can.” He veered sharply back in the direction of the sea, his hands cradling her close against a chest full of rippling muscle, reminding her of his strength.
“What are you doing?” She wanted to hide, not confront these arrow-flinging Danes all over again.
“My men will have tracked Harold’s movements. They will know to come for me.”
“They weren’t exactly helpful back there.” Ducking a tree branch, she could not think about those moments when Wulf had been risking his life for her without shivering. “Perhaps they resent your abrupt departure with me.”
“They would risk any danger for me.” He veered sharply to one side, plunging them into the thickest of undergrowth. “They would have taken cover in a cove or inlet if they saw Harold’s men.”
She noticed he’d slowed his pace though he paused now and again to be sure they were not followed. Perhaps he thought the enemy Danes would not bother to chase them overland.
“It must be nice to think your friends are so loyal.” Her own household was too full of widows vying for every wealthy nobleman in sight. The women were only too happy to cut one another down if it meant stealing more male attention for themselves.
“Treasure-givers attract many followers.” He turned sideways down a sharp grade where the sand fell away from his feet with every step.
Tightening her hold on his neck, she realized how natural it had become to rely upon him. Trust him. Did she make a grave mistake to give herself so easily into his care? But then, what choice did she have at the moment?
“Are you suggesting you have bought all that loyalty?” Her skirts caught on a thorny bush and he tugged them free.
The sensation of his hands skimming over her ankles tempted her as much as the strong arm braced under her thighs.
“Not all, but most.” His blue eyes bored into hers. “I can be very generous.”
Her breath vanished at the thought of his particular generosity toward her. She felt heat flood her cheeks and knew they flamed bright.
He chuckled at her expense, clearly enjoying her embarrassment. She wrenched her gaze away from his to peer out along a cliff’s edge overlooking an inlet, unwilling to amuse him further.
“You are a peculiar man to entertain such teasing when a whole tribe of war-hungry Danes seek vengeance on you.” His steps lengthened as he moved downward to the water.
Around them, the ground grew slick with moss and muck. The scents of spring turned damp and earthy, peppered with the smell of rotting logs and decaying leaves.
“All the more reason to laugh and make merry if your days are numbered.” He pointed downstream as they moved closer to the cove.
There, tucked tight against the shoreline, sat a longship filled with men. Wulf’s men. The vessel was as fierce-looking as she recalled. The dragon’s head at the bow appeared as ready for battle as the crew that filled the dark, low-slung craft. Erik stood at the helm, his wide-legged stance the posture of a man in charge. As they approached, all the men rose as one. They each beat a fist har
d to their chests before they sat down again. All except Erik, who glowered at them both.
“The Saxons will come back for her,” Wulf’s cousin warned, glaring particularly at her.
Clearly, she was not atop his list of favorite people. She swallowed a small lump of fear, knowing Wulf’s followers would not feel the same affection that he did for her.
“I will never give her to this Godric of Fanleigh.” Wulf tossed his satchel to Erik. The arrow still pierced the bag and the cousin eyed it warily. “I will leave her at our encampment when I confront Haaraldson.”
She recalled his plan to set her aside. To leave her among a foreign people while he settled his own accounts. But then, what had she expected? Of course she couldn’t remain with him. He was a warrior and a raider. A leader of men with enemies everywhere. As a Dane and a Saxon, they did not fit together. And yet…she had not been ready to cast aside the tenderness they’d shared so soon.
“You will agree to the battle he’s long sought?” Erik wrenched the arrow from the satchel and tossed it in the shallow stream.
“It is time.” Wulf waded into the water with her in his arms. “His pursuit has become tiresome and robs me of ever taking a moment’s rest.”
His crystalline-blue eyes peered down into hers. How long would they have together before he left, she wondered? And what would happen to her once he’d gone? With no protector, would she be at the mercy of his men? Surely not. But she could see no place for herself in the world of the Danes.
There was tenderness in his eyes, or did she just imagine it? Nay. He felt a connection to her that went beyond the pleasurable swell of his muscles melding against her. Today, facing Godric’s men, Wulf and Gwendolyn had become more than pleasure-sharers.
They had cared for each other enough to try and save one another. Neither wanted to watch the other die. It was a bond she’d never shared with anyone.
As he set her down in the longship, their moment of connection was broken and she came face-to-face with his cousin. Erik’s lips flattened against his teeth in a disproving grimace.