Authors: Phoebe Conn
“I tried to reason with her, to assure her I would look after you and her, but that only served to enrage her all the more. When she finally realized I’d never marry her, she raised the knife. She was going to plunge it through her own baby’s heart, but I was quick enough to stop her. We struggled, and not caring whether or not she cut me, I managed to wrench you from her arms. I meant to send her away where, no matter how long she continued to hate me, she would never be able to harm you, but she turned the knife on herself and cursed me with her dying breath.”
His mother had been a slave who had died soon after his birth. That was what Erik had been told. Now he knew it was merely a convenient lie to shield him from a ghastly truth. “Why are you telling me this now?” he asked.
“You still don’t understand,” Haakon sighed sadly. “Each time I looked at you I saw a beautiful young girl whose obsessive love for me had driven her mad. The violence of her death left me more badly scarred than any knife wound could have. It was my own guilt that kept us from being close. I worried that you’d learn the truth from one of the servants and blame me for your mother’s death. At the same time, I couldn’t forgive myself for being so flattered by her possessiveness that I didn’t foresee the danger in it. I had never asked for Sofia’s love, and yet she died for want of mine.”
When Haakon fell silent, Erik spoke his most immediate fear aloud. “You must have wondered if I’d be like her.”
Haakon shook his head. “No, you’ve always favored me in temperament, but you’re a far better man than I was at your age. I know it’s very late, but I’ll try to be a father to you from now on, and never punish you again for my own mistakes. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but perhaps in time we can become friends.”
Erik had grown up idolizing Haakon, and he was relieved beyond measure to learn his father had not shunned him because he was a slave’s child rather than Freya’s. Her abundant love had kept his childhood from being the lonely one it might have been. He had always longed for his father’s love, and he was too wise to refuse it because it had come so late. “I need something more valuable than friendship now,” he stated with just a hint of a smile.
“Name it,” Haakon offered agreeably, “but let me assure you I’ve already decided to let you keep a good portion of the ransom. I want to give Brendan a handsome share as well. I think you both earned it.”
Knowing he could put the silver to good use building his own farm, Erik was enormously pleased, but wealth had not been what he had in mind. “That’s very generous of you, but I want to marry Berit, and Grena refuses to allow it. I’d like your help to win her consent.”
Despite his initial surprise at so bold a request, after a moment’s reflection Haakon broke into a wide grin. “That’s the least I can do for you. When Grena understands that I’m in favor of the match, she will be too. I should have realized she’s been lonely without Jarald having to tell me. I think we can find her a second husband, one who’ll also help to soften her attitude toward you.”
That Haakon and Erik had ended their long estrangement so amicably delighted Brendan, and he got up to fetch more ale. When he noticed Dana was awake, he went to her side. “It took all four of us to do it, but we gave Jarald a beating he’ll never forget. Had he raped you, we would have killed him, but he swore time and again that he hadn’t. Was he telling the truth?”
Dana’s head still hurt so badly she had considerable difficulty focusing her eyes, but even though she could not see Brendan’s face clearly, she had no trouble understanding his words. “Yes, our argument was a violent one, but I wasn’t raped. It was unfair of me not to discourage his company last spring. If only I had, then he wouldn’t have clung to the hope I’d eventually grow to love him. He should never have hit me. I didn’t deserve that, but what about you? Are you content to let him live after he nearly killed you?”
Brendan sat down on the edge of Dana’s bed and took her hands in his. “I fought him once today, and I’d have fought him again if Haakon hadn’t warned me that should I slay him his family would retaliate by attacking yours. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I’m satisfied to let him go with a beating that will keep him hurting for weeks.”
“Why would Jarald’s kin come after us for revenge? We aren’t related to you,” Dana reminded him.
“That’s what we need to discuss,” Haakon announced as he reached the bed. “Brendan has proven his worth today. As a prince of the Dál Cais, he hopes one day to become king of all Erin. Such an ambitious man needs a wife worthy of being a queen. He claims that you want him for a husband, but I want to hear those words from your lips.”
Dana didn’t know which of her father’s comments was the most startling, so she began with the first. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a prince, Brendan?”
Brendan chuckled before replying. “When I was dressed in rags, would you have believed me?”
Dana did not need to search her heart long for that answer. “Yes, I would have believed you, but you chose not to confide in me. As for being your wife, I don’t recall ever saying that I wanted you for a husband.”
Both of Dana’s eyes were black and swollen, but Brendan thought her beautiful still. “Perhaps not in words, but nonetheless you’ve said it quite eloquently. I know I’ve always been reluctant to talk, but now that I’m home, I’ll be happy to recount our history for as long as you’re willing to listen.”
When her only response was a skeptical glance, he provided a brief introduction. “The most powerful people in Erin are the Ui Néill; they rule from Tara in the north. The Eoghanachta rule the south from Cashel. The Dál Cais are here in the west. If we can unite as one, we can drive the Norsemen from Erin. That was what I was attempting to do when Trom took me prisoner. He had no idea I was anyone of any importance. He saw only that I was good with a sword, and because he respected my skill, he allowed me to live. I didn’t return that favor.”
Dana understood the sly comment. “A prince,” she mumbled again, barely able to think above the painful throbbing in her head.
Kneeling beside her, Haakon spoke with an urgent haste. “We can’t stay in Erin, Dana. We’re all needed at home for the harvest, and there’s a danger we’ll come under attack if we tarry here. Brendan has already summoned a priest to perform their marriage ceremony, but if you don’t want to stay with him, then I’ll carry you to my ship and we’ll sail on the morning tide.”
Dana was still clad in Soren’s clothes, and she had never felt less like discussing marriage. “Surely a prince ought to have such fine manners he would know how to politely ask a woman to become his wife.”
Brendan bent down to plant a tender kiss in the center of Dana’s left palm. When he raised himself up, his eyes were alight with a teasing gleam. “I love you with all my heart and soul. I swear I have from the moment I first saw you riding up the path to Grena’s. Your beauty was more blinding than the sunlight dancing on your curls, and I’ll never forget that day. I was no more than a slave then, and although I am again a prince, I am your slave still. Please say you’ll be my bride, and I’ll give you a life every queen in the world will envy.”
Dana studied what she could see of Brendan’s expression for a long moment, and while she was inclined to agree to his effusive proposal, there was still something more that she craved. “I want your trust as well as your love. Can you give me that now as well?”
Brendan nodded. “Willingly.”
“Then my answer is yes,” Dana informed him with a smile that lit her battered features with a warm glow of happiness. Brendan leaned forward to kiss her, but Haakon immediately interrupted the show of affection.
“There is the matter of her bride-price,” the tall Dane reminded Brendan. “Dana is an incomparable beauty, and I’ll not simply give her away.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Brendan responded as he rose to his feet. After an absence of three years, he had no idea what his family might be in a position to offer, but he didn’t want to waste the time to ask. “Keep the part of the ransom you planned to give me. That should be more than sufficient.”
“It is too much,” Haakon argued.
“Not for a queen,” Brendan replied smugly.
“Do you see why I love him?” Dana asked her father.
Haakon nodded. “I’ll come back each spring to see that you always do. Now we’ll have to find you something else to wear for the wedding. I doubt you want to be married in your brother’s clothes.”
“This isn’t my home,” Brendan explained, “but the home of relatives with whom I spent part of my youth. I’ll ask the women for a suitable gown.”
Dana reached out to catch his hand as he started to turn away. “No, wait, I brought a gown of my own to wear. It was in a silk bag in my tent. Did you bring it?”
“Yes,” Erik assured her. “It’s here.”
Brendan turned to find Erik and Svien shaking out a rose-hued tunic and matching chemise. Bordered with wide gold braid, they were even more lovely than the pink and rose garments he had always loved seeing her wear. “You mean you expected to marry me?” he asked in dismay.
It was impossible to see Dana’s blush beneath her bruises, but it was an intense one. “I didn’t want to ever have to tell you good-bye” was all she cared to admit.
Haakon cuffed Brendan on the shoulder. “Dana is clever as well as beautiful, but I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”
Brendan agreed, “Oh, yes, she has such a remarkable array of talents that I think it might take me a lifetime to get to know her well.”
“And for me to know you,” Dana complimented him in return. When Brendan helped her to her feet, she assured him that she wasn’t feeling too poorly to bathe and dress, but even if she had been, she would have denied it, she was so eager to marry him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dawn found Brendan and Dana in the lush meadow atop the Cliffs of Moher. They stood arm in arm, yawning sleepily as they waited for her father, Svien, and Erik to begin their journey home. Thoroughly humiliated, Jarald had departed the previous day and would not be missed.
“Oh, look,” Dana exclaimed, “here they come!”
Brendan joined his bride in waving excitedly as the two knarr Haakon and Svien captained came into view. They were accompanied by three of the more elegantly proportioned dreki which had once belonged to Trom. Seeing no reason to leave ships which could be used to pursue them, Haakon had taken the dreki he could spare crew to sail. Brendan’s relatives had hidden another of Trom’s ships in an inland lake and had sunk the rest. With Trom and his band of cutthroats dead, and his fleet either commandeered or destroyed, it would be a long while before another ambitious Norseman with evil intentions was able to take his place.
“They are such beautiful ships, aren’t they?” Dana remarked wistfully. “Like living creatures, they glide through the sea so effortlessly.”
While he had never thought he would see the day when he could regard a Viking warship as a thing of beauty, now that he had made friends with the men who sailed them, Brendan found that he could. That he now had such a magnificent vessel in his possession pleased him all the more. “If only we had discovered the secret of building such sturdy ships ourselves,” he mused aloud. “Then the world might be at our mercy, rather than yours.”
“What do you mean by ‘ours’ and ‘yours’? Are we not of one family now?” Dana’s gaze was still focused on the ships passing by the cliffs, but Brendan’s answer meant a great deal to her.
Brendan took care to give her only a slight hug so as not to cause her badly bruised body any pain. “Yes, we are truly one. I was never even tempted to take a wife before I met you. I think you must be one of the bravest women ever born.”
“Brave?” Dana denied with a sparkling laugh. “You are the one who fought Trom, not me.”
Brendan recognized Erik by his dark hair as the final dreki sailed by, and waved to him. “You’ve left a loving family and a wonderfully pleasant life on a prosperous farm. And for what? To marry a man who will have to unite tribes that have been feuding for centuries before he can defeat his enemies.”
Her good-byes made, Dana turned toward Brendan. “Do you think I’d be content to lead the placid life of a farmer’s wife when I could be married to a prince with so noble a cause as yours?” Her teasing glance convinced him she thought the idea absurd. “I don’t think I’m brave at all, merely very clever for loving you.”
The sea breeze tossed Dana’s fiery curls, and Brendan reached out to brush them away from her face before he leaned down to kiss her. “If what I hope to do proves impossible in the next year or two, I’ll abandon the effort, Dana. I won’t sacrifice our future to a dream that will never come true. The Norsemen hold the ports on the east and south of Erin, but Limerick is their only settlement on the west. Their interest is in trade, and they look to the sea. We can simply ignore them if we choose, and live our lives inland as we always have. It was a life not all that different from yours. I may have given up my portion of the ransom, but I’m certain your father gave me more than my share of Trom’s booty. You’ll never want for anything.”
Dana thought Brendan wonderfully generous to think of her welfare rather than simply his own ambitions. She had married him in a Christian ceremony in which she had not understood a single word, and yet she had no doubts about the wisdom of what she had done. Their bond of love far surpassed whatever differences their backgrounds had given them.
“When my father returns in the spring with more men to help you, your countrymen are bound to be inspired to join the fight against the Norsemen. If they refuse, then they don’t deserve to call Erin their own.”