Winter Serpent (27 page)

Sweyn turned to Wilfrid.

“Let us go outside and permit the Jarl to speak a few words to this woman such as men use to address their wives,” he said.

Wilfrid demurred, looking at Doireann. “I cannot agree to this,” he said.

“Go, go!” Doireann cried. “Do you think I am afraid of them?” “You have but to speak and I will stay,” he assured her.

“What does it matter? They do not hurt me with words,” she said proudly. “Well—” Wilfrid hesitated. “I shall stand just outside the entrance with the

other Northman and we will be within earshot if you should call.”

Sweyn held the tent flap up for Wilfrid to pass, and crooked a finger at Elda.

“You also,” he commanded.

She squealed as she ran past him.

Doireann wrinkled her nose. Let the others act like fools. She would not let them frighten her.

It was quiet except for the flapping of the edges of the tent in the wind. The Jarl studied her.

“Sweyn has made the child another ship,” he said, breaking the silence. “It is of whalebone and wood and is like the one destroyed in the firing of our mead hall. As we drifted helpless upon the sea that dawn, Sweyn took his knife and began to work upon this new toy, and in this way he told me that you would yet bear me a son. I have gazed upon it many times with the thought of how the child would take pleasure in it.”

She shifted the heavy child in her arms. There was another silence. When he spoke again his voice was low.

“What Sweyn has told you is true. That is, I have more wealth and fame than when I first took you to me. I have a camp in a north island and there are women there to attend you who speak the language of the Scots. The Irish girl still lives and is heavy with child which my cousin Gunnar Olavson claims is his doing, although there is no way of knowing that this is so. Still, she clings to him as tightly as any noose about his neck and I have allowed it, since the others now have women of their own. I have also suitable gifts for you there which it would not have been proper to bring to this place.”

She was silent.

“I speak of this to convince you that I have power and wealth even as your kinsman, this Pictish king. I am willing to pay a foolish price for you without too much bargaining. I have brought gold which they do not know of and I will not be thwarted in my desire to take you with me. It has ever been so: that I will have what I want despite the price.”

“You waste your time,” she told him. “You could have said this before the others.”

“That is true,” he admitted.

He stretched out his hand to touch the tasseled plaits of her hair.

“This is not so becoming as your hair undone, hanging down. It occurs to me that you are little better than a prisoner in this place for all your fine jewels and silk gowns. I know you well enough to see much fear in your eyes.”

“I do not fear you,” she retorted. “The King of the Picts is my uncle.”

“Yes, I have seen him. These Picts are strange men. They are little people, like the Lapps of my country. And they are treacherous.”

His hand slipped to her shoulder.

“I once thought that you would kill the child in your hatred. I did not know then that you would love it and be a good mother to it. I have thought also of the bed where once we lay together and how soft your body was to feel against mine. I have had a great longing for you in this way. And yet, it is a strange thing that often I remembered you as I had last seen you, heavy and misshapen with the child and tired, and I still desired you, but merely to have you with me.”

He put his arm about her awkwardly as she still held the baby, and bent and put his mouth against her cheek. She started. Then his mouth was on hers, his lips eager.

He drew back for an instant, perhaps from surprise that she did not call out or struggle. He put his lips to hers again and there was a tremor in the arm which held her.

He held her close to him for so long a time that it seemed her back would break with the intolerable burden of the child in that position. She twisted away from him slightly and he tightened his embrace. Her feet left the ground, only the toes touching. She was unresisting and it seemed there was not much will in her to oppose him. The child made a barrier between them, but she was still slipping, being pulled to her defeat.

She closed her eyes and after a time opened them to see the tent still billowing above his head.

“You obstinate lump!” she cried. “Why must it be me that you pursue? You can buy what you need with less gold in any village in Britain!”

He dropped her instantly. She staggered with the heavy child and nearly fell, but she was at no loss for words.

“You have wasted your breast-beating and your speeches on me and my kinsmen, and we have laughed behind our hands. You know nothing! I am betrothed to the son of the King of the Picts, and Nechtan has hopes of an heir from this union.”

As she watched, his face slowly drained of its blood and took on an ugly gray hue.

“Betrothed?” he said stupidly. “Close kin are not betrothed to each other.” “They are in this land, or is this not a part of your well-traveled wisdom? Ask

any Pict on the beach. He will tell you what you do not know: that because the Picts reckon their blood lines through the women my blood is more royal than that of Nechtan’s son. If I breed with him the line is assured a place on the throne. My legal children, that is, not nameless bastards by roving seamen.”

The Norseman’s eyes seemed to shrink into his head. “Have you lain with him?”

“Many times. And the Old Cruithne sat in his hall and smiled into his drinking cup counting the fat grandsons he would soon have.”

He made a choking sound. Encouraged, she went on.

“Since you took me by force I little knew how rightly a man could treat a woman’s body and what satisfaction she could find in his arms. But I learned this in the bed of my cousin, the son of Nechtan. His hands have known me as have yours, but with this difference: I gave myself willingly to him and he profited so much more.”

She licked her lips, and a new thought struck her.

“The old king will be happy now and pleased with me. For when I leave this tent I will go to him and tell him what he wishes to know. That even now I carry his grandson under my belt!”

She saw his face then. She stepped back. His look was like death. She put her hand across her face as if to shield it, but he was quick. His hand caught in the string of Flann’s cross about her neck and it twined about his fingers. He lifted her by the cord, and as he rose to his full height the ridgepole collapsed and the tent fell on them. They were tangled in the cloth and the child’s screams were muffled.

Hands were already tearing the fabric away. The Northman lurched from the wreckage, dragging Doireann with him.

Wilfrid recoiled from him, the corner of the tent still in his hand. “Father in heaven!” he cried.

Sweyn rushed to the Jarl, his shield held high to hide him. His sword was drawn and pointed at the figures running toward them from the other tent.

The Northman dragged his captive a few steps and then halted. Doireann’s eyes were glazed but she still clutched the child.

“In God’s name!” Wilfrid implored Sweyn. “You must make him let her go. He will kill her!”

But Sweyn did not hear the Saxon bishop. He was speaking soothingly to the giant. Doireann’s eyes shut and her body fell limp. The child rolled from her arms. Wilfrid sprang under the Northman’s feet and scooped Ian up, brushing sand from his mouth.

The Viking crew on the beach began to run toward the longship, shouting the alarm. But the Jarl was oblivious. His tread was slow and uneven, his eyes unseeing.

“When the time comes they will speak to you,” Sweyn said softly, “but not now.”

The big man shuddered. He threw his burden down on the wet sand and stopped, his hands over his eyes.

Sweyn was close to him in an instant. He did not touch him, but his voice was low for once, and astonishingly gentle.

“Come away,” he said. The other looked dazed and drew a long, ragged breath. “We have other things to attend to. This woman is not all of your life.” “No,” the Jarl said slowly. “I do not want her. She says she is with child by
the son of Nechtan the Pict.”

“What is this, now?” Sweyn shouted, whirling on the crowd which followed. “King of the Picts, under the guise of truthful speaking you bring this woman to us and yet do not mention that she has been ill-used in your house and is with child?”

Behind Sweyn the crewmen of the longship were splashing in the surf, putting their shoulders to the hull. Hallfreor ran toward the Jarl who stood with head hanging, water curling about his ankles, and lifted his sword in front of him, ready for attack.

At the sight of the Northmen preparing to cast off, the Picts rose from their lines along the dunes and raced down the slope, screaming eager war cries and brandishing their spears.

“In the name of Christ, in the name of the Holy Church!” Wilfrid was shouting in the uproar. He struggled with the terrified child and was jostled by indifferent Northmen. “Stay, I beg you. There are still the captives’ lives to be considered! We may yet bargain for their release!”

The Picts loosened a shower of arrows into the water. In the scramble
Wilfrid was knocked down to his knees.

A swell of the sea lifted the Viking ship from the shoulders of the Northmen. It floated clear, the oars quickly dipping. The crew chief’s voice bellowed out the stroke. Those Northmen in the water caught at the sides and were lifted aboard.

The oars flashed, sending spray into the gray sunlight. A few of the Picts, Brude among them, waded into the surf but the Viking ship was already out of range of their spears.

An enraged Nechtan stamped to the spot where the Saxon bishop stood, wet and dripping.

“Now all my plans are destroyed,” he shouted, “and by a woman who truly has a curse on her!”

“The Viking shouted that the woman was with child by your son,” Wilfrid answered. Unable to get a good grip on the agonized child, he shoved him into the arms of a nearby Pictish warrior. “Go find the serving woman,” he ordered, “and give this child to her.”

He turned back to the King of the Picts.

“Let us have true words spoken now, my lord,” he said. “Reveal to me what treachery and conniving have been played out upon this strand.”

Nechtan glared at him.

“Can a woman bed with a man and know she has conceived in just ten days? Well, this is how it has been with Doireann nighean Muireach. She would not have dared to come to me with such a tale. She used it only to bring mischief. Were you not set over her to watch her and prevent her lies?”

The bishop was pale with distress.

“This is the first time I have heard such a thing. It was not to serve your purposes nor to spy on this woman that I came to this parley. I was here to see that God’s mercy was used in this dreadful business and also to protect a Christian woman and her child!”

Nechtan snorted. He touched the body of his niece with his foot. “Protection? She needs no protection from God or man. A curse is on her

such as was on the dread women of ancient times. Look, she is stirring, being only stunned, when she should be dead. I renounce her. I would not have her for all the gold in the Seven Counties. The tribes would brand her as a sorceress and kill any children she might bear.”

Wilfrid knelt quickly at the other man’s words and turned the girl’s face to him. Her lips were blue and her eyes closed.

“Yes,” he said somewhat sadly, “she lives.”

He dragged her away from the water and stretched her out on the sand. The silent Picts stood watching.

The Cymry guards and the men of Conor of Connaught came up and stood by the water’s edge, shading their eyes. The Viking ship had raised its mast and put up sail, though the oars still worked rapidly. They could still hear the faint call of the crew chief. They were reminded of the lives of the Viking’s captives now forfeit.

“Merciful heaven,” Wilfrid cried, “what an evil day this has been!” Llewellyn ap Gwilym of the Cymry went to the girl and knelt by her side.

He shook his head, muttering, frowning. He took her hand in his and rubbed it. “Look now upon the sea,” the Welshman told the bishop, “and I think you

will see a sight which will truly give you cause to cry out to God.”

The bishop stood up with the rest, looking seaward. Instead of one square patch of sail there were now two; a speck, a third sail, was growing larger on the horizon.

The Picts began to howl their anger. Brude ran to his father and gestured for him to leave the beach and fall back among the dunes. But the Welshman laid his hand on Wilfrid’s arm.

“There is no need to run,” he told them. “Watch. They will not come back.” Still another dot appeared, and then another. Five ships, the Viking pack,

hurried to meet in the sea road. They began to turn, making for the west. “Now you see,” Llewellyn cried bitterly. “Here we are like the old dog by

the fire while outside the wolves run for the sheep.” “What is it? What are they doing?” Wilfrid cried.