The Briton (8 page)

As the sun peeked over the distant mountains behind them, the company stepped out of the hut. Bronwen breathed deeply of the clean sea air. Though tired, she longed to be on her way from this place.

“Thank you for your generosity,” Enit was saying to Martin as she readied her bag for the journey.

“You are most welcome. And you, Haakon, may we part as friends? I wish no enmity between us.”

Bronwen turned in time to see the Viking walk away from the proffered hand. “I feel no enmity for you, Norman,”

Haakon spoke over his shoulder. “I desire no friendship either.

Come, women. The sun rises.”

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Bronwen set out after the Viking, but she stopped when a familiar deep voice spoke her name.

“Bronwen the Briton,” Jacques said from his horse. “I wish you well in your new life. Please tell your lord I look forward to our meeting.”

Bronwen turned to him, her heart thundering again. “Sir, my husband will welcome neither you nor your lord Henry Plantagenet, I assure you. Nevertheless, I wish you safety and godspeed.”

At this she turned away and rejoined her companions, never looking back.

Chapter Four

The sun was fully risen when Bronwen’s party arrived at the mouth of the Warbreck Wash, a swampland where the Warbreck River met the sea. Jacques had been wrong. The Viking
snekkar
was not moored there. Despite exhaustion and hunger, Bronwen’s spirits lifted. She was grateful for the reprieve, even though she knew that unless the gods had altered her fate, Olaf Lothbrok would soon return. In his absence she could take time to accustom herself to her new role in life.

At the river’s edge stood a small village, busy with the day’s activities. Men readied boats for fishing, while half-naked children poked into the sand with sticks and looked for cockles. Haakon shouted at them in his Norse tongue, and three of the youngsters scurried toward the nearby buildings.

Bronwen was appalled by the filthy condition of this seaside village—far worse than those of Rossall’s holding. Enit muttered her disgust as they lifted their skirts over the wet places in the streets. When they came to the river—afloat with rotted vegetables and rags—two men waited with a small
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fishing boat. Once they were settled, the men set to with their oars.

The gentle rocking of the boat as it pulled upstream against the sluggish current lulled Bronwen’s body and soothed her troubled mind. Before long she fell asleep on Enit’s shoulder and stirred only when the boat bumped against a wooden pier at their journey’s end.

Rubbing her eyes, she looked up into a sky filled with towering gray clouds. Outlined against them stood the imposing battlements of Warbreck Castle. The dizzying height of the keep that rose behind the stone wall took her breath away.

“Look, child!” Enit cried out. “Rooms built one on top of another.

“Imagine that.” Bronwen’s private chambers at Rossall had been on a higher level than that of the hall, but certainly not on top of it. She had never thought such a thing possible.

“Welcome, Haakon, son of Olaf Lothbrok.” A mail-clad guard saluted as the party approached the keep. When he spoke, Bronwen realized that Viking warriors must have inter-married with their conquered Briton populace some generations ago. Though their tongue was different from her own in many ways, she understood it well enough.

“Where is my lord?” the guard asked. “And the
snekkar?
”

Haakon related the details of the storm and its consequences.

“And this,” he said, pointing a thumb at Bronwen, “is the bride.”

To her satisfaction, the guard knelt before her. She bade him rise and lead her to the keep.

“Such a great number of men,” Enit said under her breath as they passed through the wall’s gate into the courtyard.

“Look at ’em standing at post and walking about the perimeters of the wall. They’re everywhere.”

Catherine Palmer

69

“This holding is far more heavily guarded than Rossall,”

Bronwen returned in a low voice. “I fear we are surrounded.”

Ahead of them, Haakon pushed open the heavy oaken door of the great hall and led them inside. Though a large log blazed in the center of the room, its high stone walls were cold and desolate.

“They have a dais,” Bronwen whispered to Enit.

“But no musicians’ gallery above it. Perhaps these barbarians don’t even have music.”

Bronwen elbowed her nurse to silence as Haakon pointed out the servitors gathered before her. “These are your personal attendants,” he said. “Most speak some form of your vulgar tongue.”

Bronwen pasted on a smile as she studied the motley group, though she wondered dismally if they would be as difficult as Haakon. A small woman with flaming red hair and ruddy skin beckoned, leading Bronwen out of the hall and up a steep flight of stone stairs. Enit puffed along behind, muttering good riddance to Haakon, boats and stormy seas.

At the top of the stairs a guardroom was filled with spears, swords, bows and arrows. In its center, coals from the night’s fire glowed, while a heap of blankets and furs indicated that this was also a sleeping room.

“So many weapons, Enit,” Bronwen murmured as they picked their way across the room.

To her surprise, the red-haired woman responded. “Your husband’s lands are hard pressed by Normans to the south and by Scotsmen to the northeast. He often travels to aid his neighboring allies and strengthen his borders.”

The women crossed the guardroom to a door on the far wall. It opened into a small chamber with a sagging wooden bed in one corner and a narrow slit for a window. Thick layers
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of rotting rushes on the floor sent up a dank musty odor.

“Your chamber, my lady.”

Bronwen turned to Enit, who stood aghast. “This?” Enit muttered. “This room is fit only for pigs.”

“Enough,” Bronwen snapped. “Our trunks are aboard the
snekkar,
and I need a clean, dry tunic. See what you can find.” She turned to the other woman. “I must have a fire, and send at once for the rush strewers. I’ll not sleep this night in such an odor.”

“We have no fresh rushes, madam. It is our custom to gather them once before winter, and not again until spring.”

Bronwen shook her head in disbelief. “Upon the morrow I insist that fresh rushes be gathered and set to dry.”

The servitor nodded and followed Enit from the room.

Alone in the foul chamber, Bronwen stepped to the bed and ran her hand over the pile of furs. These at least were clean.

The narrow arrow-loop window allowed only a slit of light, and she peered out it into the gathering gloom. A village lay far below, and in the distance the wide expanse of woodland was broken now and again by a glint of setting sun reflected on the river.

Was Jacques Le Brun traveling those woods even now?

Bronwen at last permitted herself to reflect on the man who had held her twice in the darkness. Did he truly travel toward London and a house for holy men? Or did he journey to meet his lord, Henry Plantagenet?

What were those Normans scheming for Amounderness?

Haakon had referred to Jacques as a dog, and Bronwen’s father insisted the French conquerors were the scourge of England. If Normans were so vile, why did Jacques speak to her with such kindness? Why was his touch so gentle? And how would she ever forget that man?

Catherine Palmer

71

* * *

Heavyhearted over Jacques’s departure and uncertain what had become of Olaf’s ship, Bronwen had spent the morning surveying her new home. The kitchen was well stocked. Dried herbs and onions hung in bundles from the beams; strips of salted fish lay in baskets, and a freshly dressed boar roasted over the fire. But when Bronwen had run her fingers through a bag of dried beans, tiny black bugs had scurried across her hand.

The cook had dismissed the pests as if they were of little consequence. She was more interested in telling her new mistress about the nuts that could be gathered in the nearby forest. Fruits, too, were plentiful. Apples, pears and plums were harvested in season.

Bronwen sighed as she handed Enit a slice of cheese.

“They grow no flowers here. Did you know that?”

“What, none?” Enit’s brow furrowed. “At Rossall we had roses, violets, primroses, all manner of blossoms. I loved to sugar the petals and eat them.”

“As did I.”

“But shall we have no petals to scent the water for hand washing and to flavor our sweets? Do they have bees then?

And honey?”

“I don’t know.” Unable to hold back the tide of emotion any longer, Bronwen covered her face with her hands. “Oh Enit, I feel so far from home. I miss my father and Gildan.”

“Hush, my girl,” Enit soothed her. “Continue your duties, and each morning as it comes will look brighter.”

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The thought of Enit faithfully lying in her blankets by the door reassured her. And indeed, as the nursemaid had predicted, the next days passed peacefully enough. With no word of the
snekkar’
s fate, Bronwen had little choice but to take on management of the holding, just as she had done when her father was away from Rossall.

Each morning she rose early and washed from head to toe in warm water. After breakfast she inspected the house and set the servitors to work cleaning and strewing fresh rushes on the floors. Outside, the kitchen gardens had been planted in haphazard rows and were dried out and weedy. Bronwen ordered them plowed under, even though the ground was almost frozen.

A walk through the village of Warbreck disclosed that it subsisted in the same state of filth and disrepair as the coastal town. A week after her arrival at the castle, Bronwen was discussing the deplorable situation with Enit when a tumult arose from the grounds. The nursemaid scurried to the window of the chamber.

“Bah!” she exclaimed. “This window is too narrow. Come girl, let’s go down to the hall.”

Bronwen considered for a moment. “No, Enit, that would be unseemly. You go down first and see if the mistress of Warbreck Castle is required.”

Enit nodded approval and set off. Despite all intentions to remain calm, Bronwen’s heart began to flutter. But she didn’t have to wait long before Enit burst through the door.

“It’s him, Bronwen! Your husband is returned. The old boat ran aground, but most of his men escaped with their lives.

They’re in the hall now, demanding food and drink. Such confusion—shouting orders at the servitors. They’ve the biggest mouths I ever saw clapped under a lip!”

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“And my husband? Does he ask for me?”

“He’s too busy ordering a feast for his men,” Enit spat in disgust. “Never have I heard so loud a roar nor seen such mayhem.”

Confused, Bronwen sat down on the bed. So Lothbrok had not even asked about her welfare. She was pondering the significance of the news when a company of servitors brought the clothing chests upstairs. Enit busied herself unpacking, but as hours passed with no word from below, Bronwen began to grow ever more dismayed.

What could it mean that Olaf had ignored her? Surely the man had not forgotten his wedding day. He must know that his young bride awaited his bidding. Did he mean to consum-mate their union this night? The thought of acting upon her vows with the old Viking filled Bronwen with trepidation. Yet, she was not the first woman wedded to a stranger, and she wouldn’t be the last. Duty to ancestry and protection of land came above all else. Bronwen had no intention of shirking her responsibility.

But when night fell and still no summons had come from below, Bronwen stood. “Enit, lay out my purple gown,” she said. “I shall wear it over the crimson undertunic.”

“You mean to go down? Uninvited?”

“I do.”

The nursemaid clucked as she helped Bronwen dress, wove red ribbons into the long black plaits and placed a golden circlet over her veil. “But do you really wish to go among them now, girl?” she asked. “They’ll be drunk, you know, and he hasn’t called for you. It is unseemly.”

Bronwen held up a hand to silence Enit, who drew a soft white woolen mantle over the shoulders of her charge. “Light a torch. I go alone.”

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Muttering, Enit lit one of the rushlights that stood by the door and gave it to her mistress. As Bronwen started through the guardroom, she breathed deeply, trying to gain control of her trembling hands. She did not know what her reception would be in the hall, but she was determined to make known her presence as the woman of the household and the wife of Olaf Lothbrok.

At the bottom of the stairs, Bronwen heard the raucous sounds from the hall. Summoning her courage, she pushed open the heavy door, entered the room and stood in silence.

One by one, the men ceased their revelry and turned toward her. Lifting her chin, Bronwen began to make her way between the tables to the dais where Olaf sat.

“Aha, my wife is come!” the man said on spying her.

Unwashed from his journey, Olaf looked older and heavier than she remembered. He shoved one of his men aside and indicated a place next to him on the bench. Lifting his hands, he cried out, “Fellow Vikings, I present my bride—Bronwen, daughter of Edgard the Briton.”

Bronwen could not help but wonder if her presence was a surprise—her existence a sudden afterthought—to her husband. His men applauded the announcement but soon resumed their laughter and feasting. When Olaf called a servitor to fetch the woman a slab of meat and a flagon of drink, Bronwen used the moment to assess her husband.

Olaf’s aging skin was leathered from the sun, and his belly protruded over his belt as he seated himself beside his wife.