Dream of Me/Believe in Me (33 page)

As she was doing so, he strode into the lodge, a big, forceful presence seeming to bring with him the wild scents of forest and plain. She flew into his arms, embracing him with such strength that he laughed.

“Easy, sweetheart, I'm not fit company until I've bathed.”

She laughed, ignoring the various, inevitable stains on his tunic that spoke of the fury of the hunt. When the women had brought buckets of heated water and left,
carefully concealing their smiles, she helped him off with his clothing.

But when she took soap in hand to wash him, he shook his head. Very seriously, he said, “I've been without you for four days, Cymbra. Touch me now and Dragon will be left to explain to our guests why I'm not there to greet them.”

With a smile that swept over her from head to toe, he added, “I wouldn't mind that but they would and I'd rather not have to undo the trouble it would cause.”

Resigned to his good sense, yet flattered by his unconcealed desire, she took his hand and placed the soap in it. “All right, but promise me you will not be such a good host as to remain at table with them too long. Let them eat and drink and wench themselves into oblivion, but come to me this night.”

His quick but ardent kiss assured her of his intent. She left him then and did not expect to see him again until the feasting, but he surprised her. On his way to greet their guests, he stopped in the great hall where she was supervising the placement of drinking cups and the ornate eating knives Wolf had ordered as a gift for each visiting lord.

The women who surrounded her, receiving their final instructions, saw him and flitted away like clouds before a strong wind. Cymbra smiled, gazing at him with frank enjoyment. His thick, ebony hair was still slightly damp and drawn back from his brow with a golden band. So, too, his tunic of crimson wool was intricately embroidered with golden symbols of enduring strength. The same symbols were embossed on the golden bands fastened at his wrists. He wore the wolf's-head torque that was a larger version of the one he had given her, the bloodred eyes glinting in the afternoon light.

Frustration pinched at her when she considered how many hours remained until they could steal time alone.

With a sigh for what must be borne, she went to him and laid her hand lightly on his broad chest.

“The garment suits you, my lord.”

He inclined his head at the compliment but his eyes were strangely guarded. With a hand on her elbow, he drew her off to one side of the hall. Quietly, he said, “I thank you for all you have done. No one else could have managed it so well.”

She stared at him for a moment, puzzled by the tension she felt in him, then let that go and smiled. “But you don't know what I've managed. You haven't been home long enough to find out.”

“I need not see for myself. I trust you.”

Cymbra's breath caught. She gazed up into his silvery eyes and felt a spreading warmth of happiness that seemed to blossom from deep within. She would have been delighted to tell him how he made her feel—or better, to show him—but they were being pulled in different directions. He had to meet their guests and she had to change before meeting them herself.

She contented herself with a quick touch of her lips to his and a smile. “Thank you. That means more to me than you can know.”

He nodded and she saw it again—something in his eyes. Regret? His brows drew together. She felt his hold on her arm tighten ever so slightly.

“Cymbra … I do deeply appreciate all you have done. But now you must retire to our quarters and remain there until this gathering is over.”

He spoke softly but audibly, the words were clear enough, yet they made no sense at all. Retire? Remain? She stared at him in bewilderment. “I don't understand.” She shook her head as though trying to clear it. Her eyes met his and she saw his implacable resolve. “You want me to stay in our quarters instead of attending the feast?”

He nodded. “It is best this way.”

Already, he was drawing her toward the doors. She saw Dragon waiting outside and realized with a shock that he was going to escort her back to the lodge while his brother went to greet their guests. Nor was he alone. There were other warriors behind him, their eyes carefully averted. She was to be well and truly guarded, it seemed, sealed away just like one of those women in … what had Kareem called it?—a harem. Say rather a
prison.

“This council of the jarls is important,” he said as he continued out of the hall with her in hand. “I cannot allow it to be disrupted by the temptation you present.”

That she presented? As though it were her fault if men could not control themselves. The stinging unfairness of that burned through her. Though she wanted desperately to resist, pride prevented her from making a spectacle of herself before Dragon and the others. She knew with a sinking heart that Wolf would simply ignore her objections and do as he wished.

“Let go of me,” she said under her breath. When he hesitated, she added, “I'll do what you want. It's not as though I have any choice.” Without attempting to conceal her bitterness, she added, “But I want to know something first. You intended this all along, didn't you?”

He did release her then but stayed very close, his eyes never leaving her. She thought she saw a flicker of regret again but it was gone before she could be sure.

“Yes,” he said simply, “I did. This is not merely a friendly meeting of the jarls. I called it to put to rest certain rumors.”

Despite herself, Cymbra found her curiosity piqued. “What rumors?”

He hesitated but only for a moment before answering her bluntly. “Rumors that I am so besotted with my Saxon bride that my will is weakened, my power lessened, and
my holdings ripe for the picking. Moreover, that such attacks are deserved because a Norseman enthralled by a Saxon can no longer be trusted.”

When she would have spoken, he held up a hand. Curtly, he continued. “The men who attacked the settlement at Vycoff were not Danes as I originally believed. They were Norse. They thought they saw an opportunity and they seized it. Their deaths were intended to assure that no one else behaved so stupidly, but because I allowed them to die quickly, the rumors have only grown.”

Cymbra pressed her lips together tightly as horror burst in her. He had granted the men a swift death for her sake, because she had insisted on being there, because he wanted to spare her pain. Never had she considered that his action might be interpreted thus. The color fled from her face as she realized the implications.

“I warned you,” her husband said quietly, “this is a hard land and we a hard people. No man holds power who does not show himself willing to use it.”

“And now you will show your power over your Saxon wife by imprisoning her?”

He made an impatient gesture. “Don't exaggerate, our lodge is hardly a prison. The jarls will understand what I do. They have heard the stories of your beauty and they will respect my prudence in guarding my property. They will take lesson from it and recognize that I will do the same for all that is mine. As for the rest, they will be left with no doubt where I stand.”

Where he stood.
She had believed she was coming to know this man, this
husband
, to know and to trust him. Yet she was not a wife he would have others see at his side, honored and respected. Instead, he meant to make an object lesson of her, to use her to display his power and ruthlessness.

Why was she so surprised? Why did her throat suddenly hurt so much with tears she would die before she shed? Had he not used her from the very beginning—for
vengeance, for alliance … and for pleasure? She must not allow herself to forget that last part for all that it was a knife stabbing into her.

“I have been so foolish,” she said faintly, her voice little more than a thin wisp of sound. It was all she could muster. “So foolish as to forget …” Her gaze turned inward toward a landscape both real and nightmarish, the beach beyond the berm, the bloodred sand, the savage promise he had made to her on their wedding day.

“You stand against the Saxon and for the Norse.
That
is where you stand, isn't it?” Despair threatened to choke her but she managed to speak her deepest fear. “Is that the real reason you've called the jarls here? To plan yet more attacks against helpless people, to plot my brother's death, to sate your bloodthirsty gods?”

A dark flush of color stained his high-boned cheeks. His eyes glinted dangerously. “I
am
Norse. If that displeases you, it is unfortunate for it is also unchangeable. And you know I want peace, elsewise none of what has passed between us would ever have occurred.”

He cast a swift, hard look over her, lingering at her breasts and hips until it was all she could do not to squirm with self-consciousness. His mouth tightened. “I took you captive but made you wife. You have known only gentleness from me. Remember that and think well how different your fate could have been.”

Before she could reply, he looked over her shoulder, saw the watch guard on the berm signaling urgently, and gestured to his brother. “Escort
my wife
to her quarters.” To Cymbra he said, “You will have to bear your anger alone, lady, I have no time for it now.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away.

C
YMBRA FROWNED AT THE BRIGHT RED DROP OF
blood on her skin. For a moment, it appeared to have
blossomed all by itself. Only belatedly did she realize that she had pricked her fingertip. That small sensation of pain was scarcely noticeable beneath the far keener ache of the past three days.

Slowly she lowered the length of finely spun blue wool she was fashioning into a tunic for her husband and stared at the opposite wall. She guessed the day to be very fair but she couldn't be sure. Nor could she know how the two days previous had been except that it had not rained, for she would have heard and smelled that.

The shutters had remained closed all that time, permitting only what sunlight could enter through the narrow slats. To see well enough to sew without tiring her eyes she needed the added light of braziers, but they also added heat to the chamber, which warmed enough as it was as the summer day passed. The air was very still, she could hear the hum of bees just beyond the windows. When the door opened to admit Brita with a tray of food, the sudden bolt of bright light was so intense that Cymbra had to look away from it. But not before she caught a glimpse of the guard standing just outside.

Brita set the tray on the table, glanced a little anxiously at her mistress, and smiled. “I've brought some of the cardamom rolls, my lady, your favorites, and there's a wonderful stew made just as you like with chicken and rosemary.”

Cymbra shrugged, disinterested. She had no appetite. The trays Brita brought thrice daily went back scarcely lighter than they arrived. Indeed, she had eaten so little that the serving girl was growing anxious.

“I can fetch something else,” Brita said. “Perhaps you'd like some goose liver spread on warm bread?”

Cymbra shuddered at the thought. Her stomach was uncertain these days. She ascribed it to the stressful circumstances. “I'm really not hungry. How goes the feast?”

“They are bottomless pits, these jarls. It is fortunate you planned so generously for they consume everything in sight. Their hunger is exceeded only by their thirst.”

“They rode out again today. I heard them go.” The pounding of their horses' hooves had sounded like thunder shaking the walls of the lodge.

Brita nodded. “Drunk or sober, they love to hunt. Fortunately, only a few have fallen off their horses and those have hard enough heads to bear it.”

“What about the man who was knived last night?” Brita had told her about that when she brought breakfast. It was the only kniving so far, something everyone considered a sign of how well things were going.

“Ulfrich says he will be fine but thanks you for the salve all the same.”

Cymbra set her sewing aside and stood up. Her neck and shoulders felt stiff from lack of movement. Despite having done almost nothing for three days, she felt oddly tired. But then perhaps it was not so odd after all, for she had slept poorly when she slept at all.

“And the rest of it?” she asked, looking at Brita.

The Irish girl shrugged. “I think it safe to say there will be no such thing as a poor whore left in these parts, only rich ones.”

That was no surprise. The noise coming from the feasting halls late into the nights included the bold laughter of women floating above the beat of drums and the lilt of pipes. Nor was it confined to the halls. Those seeking a bit of privacy had often stumbled past her lodge. One pair had fallen to coupling right up against the wall, only to be shooed away by whoever happened to be on sentry duty at the time.

No man stood post outside her lodge for more than a few hours. She wondered if that was Wolf's way of making sure the guard was always alert and fresh, or if he thought
longer contact might cause a hapless male to fall victim to her wiles. Did he imagine she would try to escape, and if so, where did he think she would go?

She might have asked him had she been given the opportunity, but since their angry confrontation in the great hall her husband had absented himself. He had not returned to their lodge that night or the next. Lying awake, listening to the ribald sounds of merriment, she tormented herself with thoughts of how he was amusing himself.

“I heard some of the whores complaining,” Brita said, eyeing her mistress. “The most beautiful of them vie for the attention of the Norse Wolf but he ignores them all.”

Cymbra wished heartily to believe her. The pain of imagining Wolf with some other woman—or women— was so great that she could scarcely bear it.

When Brita left, still urging her to eat, Cymbra glanced at the food on the tray but could not bring herself to taste a morsel. It was growing too dark to sew, she did not wish to play her lute for herself alone, there were no medicines that needed making. She had read her precious scrolls over and over until every word was imprinted on her memory. There was nothing left for her to do.