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Authors: Linda Windsor

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BOOK: Deirdre
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He cleared his throat as if to clear the pang of guilt that assailed him from the depths of his pounding head. It had been the crew’s choice to fight. Had they not, their lives would have been spared. Cupping a handful of water, he lifted it to his lips. The taste was not much better than the beer, but it was wet and felt good to his dry mouth.

“So where are they?” Ricbert looked about. “I want to see the women. Helewis is looking for a handmaid, now that the one she brought with her from her father’s kingdom has wed. I do hope they’re as comely as I’ve heard at the Boar’s Head.”

Alric narrowed his gaze at his half brother, not the least surprised at the lustful smile that grazed his lips. “Best mop the drool from your mouth before you step in it and slip, Brother. They are on the other ship.”

“As if you have not already thought the same.” Ricbert snorted. “Like as not, there’s not a virgin between the two.”

Lambert shook his head. “Stop your quibbling and open the hatch. Alric is not as susceptible to feminine charms as you are. Besides, if I heard right, one is a manless nun.”

Alric hesitated for a moment before nodding, not because his father would give him a hard time over his setting Deirdre free, but because he still found her being a sister of the church, even disposed to such a fate, difficult to believe. No amount of the drink he indulged in during last night’s celebration with the crew had dimmed his doubt. Her image was never far from his mind, even when the tavern wench threw herself at him. Curse the pious little vixen. The thought of her made his head thunder even more.

“Yes, you heard right.” Hanging back by the water barrel, he pointed to the grate. “Have at it, Brother. If I lean down, my head may fall off.”

He was too miserable to take exception to Ricbert’s chuckle of delight at his agony Let the grinning fool lift something heavier than a noggin of ale for a change. Besides, with luck, he’d fall facedown in the barrel and drown away his affliction.

At the first attempt, the grate slipped from his brother’s hand. Alric might have laughed, but it would hurt too much. Impatient, Lambert reached down to help his eldest son. They tossed the grate back, where it thundered against the deck as though Thunor’s hammer had struck. A startled shriek followed from within the hold.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Ricbert asked in a singsong voice.

“A wench … I think.” Lambert glanced up at Alric for confirmation.

Stupified, Alric eased toward the open hatch and looked down at the bedraggled creature staring up at him. “You!”

It
was
the nun, wasn’t it? Her fair face was red, eyes swollen as if she’d been born sobbing, and her carriage, normally proud and aloof,
was as broken as a wounded bird’s. She sat, legs dangling through the rung of the ladder, hands clenching it as if her life depended on it. What in Woden’s world had happened to her? How did she come to be here instead of in the safety of the
Wulfshead?

He doubted that he really wanted to know.

“There are rats down here, hundreds of them.” Her lips quivered as though another tempest of sobbing teetered on them. The strangest urge to take her up in his arms as he would a frightened child crept like a thief into Alric’s mind.

“Are you going to introduce us, Brother?”

Deaf and dumb with disbelief, Alric did not acknowledge Ricbert.

“Why couldn’t you have wallowed with your cheap little trollop in the town like you said you would?” Deirdre sniffed loudly and wiped her upturned nose on her sleeve. No, that was
his
sleeve. He recognized the embroidery on it. Staring harder, he recognized his breeches as well.

“You are the snake’s belly of debauchery,” she went on, gathering strength with each condemnation she hurled at him. “I can only pray that your head feels like a swordmaker’s anvil at fair time. That your stomach churns with the souring of your beer. That your legs feel like a willow’s branch in the wind. That—”

“Enough!” Alric bellowed, condemning the vivid imagery of the truth. “How came you to be here?” Dropping to one knee, he reached down and gathered a handful of her shirt at the collar. With a grunt, he hauled her upward but fell back as he lost his grip, his buttocks striking the deck soundly.

“She’s more bristly than she looks, Son.” Lambert chuckled, leaning over to offer Alric a hand. “Seems you’ve underestimated your captive.”

Alric snatched away from the extended hand, his humor turning blacker by the minute. “No, I’ve been deceived by a long-legged witch.”

“Witch!”

The gasp from inside the hold brought a satisfied smirk to Alric’s lips. He reached down again, this time dislodging the lady’s hands from the rungs. He ignored her wince of pain without conscience as he
hauled her up to her feet and gave her a head-snapping shake. “You lying little charlatan, I ought to—”

“Go ahead, rave like the beast you are.” A hissing wildcat spat with no less fury. “You might outdo me with your muscle, but ’twas you who were outwitted in the end.”

Her wan but nonetheless smug smile was as goading as a punch to his kidney. Who would have dreamed from his first sight of her dangling below, that she still had fight in her blood? But then, he never dreamed she’d steal his clothes and make her way to the
Mell.
Nor could he imagine how she—a woman—could spend a night with rats in a dank hold and not cry out. Even now, despite her red, swollen eyes, she exercised anger rather than horror, accusation rather than contrition.

Amazing. She was amazing.

“I was not the thief caught in a hold in the company of her four-footed kin,” he reminded her gruffly.

“Aye, fortune turned against me at the last.” Deirdre straightened her shoulders. “But not, I think, the lady Orna. She is on her way to a Welsh monastery with the fisherman you so thoughtfully provided.”

Alric stiffened in alarm. “You there!” he barked at the guards watching warily from the dock. “See what has become of Wimmer and the other captives.”

“So much for the worth of your guards,” Ricbert jibed.

“I’ll deal with
them
later.” His head was a roar of hot blood and anger, mixing, boiling to the point of explosion. Or was that his stomach? Maybe both.

“That beguiling mix of fire and ice puts me in mind of your mother,” Lambert observed with a contrary mix of melancholy for his loss and admiration for the captive.

“She’s
nothing
like Orlaith.” Alric’s sharpness afflicted no one but himself. He pressed his fingers to the spot on each temple where blood and thunder were sure to erupt at any moment. He dared not give it sway, lest it embolden the rebellion in his gut.

“Gone!” one of the guards shouted from the deck of the
Wulfshead.

“No one but the priest,” the other chimed in.

Next to them, a sluggish Wimmer shook his head back and forth in disbelief.

Slashing a disparaging look at Deirdre, Alric was met with yet another twist of the knife to his pride.

“I told you as much,” she gloated.

“So the wolf has been outwitted by the church’s little dove,” Ricbert chided. “And one who is far more fetching in that shirt than you ever were.”

“This one is no dove.” Alric was sorely torn between punching his half brother and shaking the satisfaction from his captive’s face. With a low growl, he slung Deirdre at Ricbert. They deserved each other. “But she’s yours if you have coin enough.
Guards
!” Humiliation did not sit well with his nature, and Alric had had his fill of it.

“Then
you
shall be dealt with,” Alric added, his promise stopping the wash of relief on his men’s faces.

Suddenly, a slap resounded, jerking Alric’s attention to where Ricbert held his jaw in open astonishment.

“Touch me like that again, sir, and I will serve your liver to you on your own blade.”

“Why you impudent—”

Alric caught Ricbert’s fist a breath short of the defiant jaw Deirdre presented. She wouldn’t last long. Life or that spirit, one of them would be beaten out of her. “Don’t bruise the merchandise until you own it,” he warned lowly.

Lambert raised a brow. “I wouldn’t be too hasty, Son. She might be worth keeping for yourself.”

“I’d rather keep this pounding head.” Alric seized Deirdre by the arm and half-dragged her to the gangway, then shoved her into the custody of the guards rushing up to meet them. “Take her to the slave quarters. She’ll serve in place of the other, even if she’s God’s own daughter, though I think she’s more likely to be Lucifer’s kin. Try to stay alert until she’s under lock and key this time.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

“I can walk without your help,” Deirdre announced, surprising the
guards by pulling away with more strength than they’d given her credit for.

Embarrassed, they looked to Alric for advice.

“Best bind her and keep her on a leash.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

Alric turned to his father. “Father, trust me. You have no idea. The sooner she’s gone from Galstead, the better for the kingdom.”

“I disagree.” Ricbert’s eyes glittered. “I’ll buy her for my sweet wife tomorrow.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Alric shot back in annoyance—annoyance at Ricbert and, perversely, at himself for hastily pronouncing her fate. The idea of Deirdre in his half brother’s hands was worse than the thorn she’d be in Alric’s side.

He clapped his father on the back, dismissing the thought before it obsessed him. “Come along, Father. Join me in breaking the fast, and then we’ll see together just exactly what treasures await in the hold.”

Gold wasn’t nearly as troublesome as a woman.

E
IGHT

I
stopped by the Frisian’s compound and had another look at your wily captive. I think I will purchase her on the morrow.” Ricbert tossed the words at Alric as Lambert mounted for the return journey to Galstead.

Imagining Ricbert owning Deirdre was enough to make Alric cringe, but he simply shrugged. “Your money is as good as another’s.”

The inventorying of the
Mell’s
cargo had gone smoothly. Lambert applauded Alric and his importance to Galstead as the value of the cargo mounted. Torn between satisfaction and a twinge of pity, Alric had watched Ricbert grow more dour by the moment. Eventually his half brother sulked off and rejoined Lambert only when they were ready to leave.

“She’ll bring a high price, Ricbert, and she’s clearly not accustomed to taking orders,” Lambert objected. “Use your head, man. You can find a fine Saxon maid to do a better job.”

Ricbert ignored his father’s derision, looking beyond to where Alric’s second in command recorded the number of kegs bound for Galstead—the king’s portion of the privateer’s take. “At least if she attends my wife, ’twill make Helewis’s company more tolerable.”

Gunnar turned and handed the log to Alric. “All there,” he said flatly.

“Then I’ll see you at the auction,
Brother.”
Alric smacked the flank of Ricbert’s fine gelding, then offered his hand to his father. “Father, farewell and see if you can talk some sense into your son. We’ll all profit if the Irish wench is sold in the Mediterranean. Her fair features are much in demand there.”

“I might as well talk to my horse’s hind end,” Lambert muttered, nudging his steed after Ricbert’s.

Watching the king drive his horse until he caught up with his eldest, Alric couldn’t decide if the sick curl in his belly was due to the
thought of Ricbert owning Deirdre or his pity for Gunnar and Helewis. Sent to escort the lady from Kent for the wedding to Galstead’s heir, his friend had fallen in love with the princess bride. Usually an example of moderation, Gunnar drank himself into oblivion at the wedding festivities and had pretty much been that way since, at least in port.

“You’re
not
going to let Ricbert have her, are you?” Gunnar broke his grudging silence as Lambert’s entourage crossed the river bridge.

“She’s nothing to me,” Alric observed with typical pragmatism. It was more comfortable than the nagging twinge of guilt Gunnar played upon. “Besides, she’ll bring a higher price than Ricbert can afford. You know his weakness for gambling.”

“And his resourcefulness when he sees something he wants,” Gunnar reminded him. If a woman he loved were subject to Ricbert’s abuse, like as not, Alric might be as bitter. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy. Unbidden, the memory of his captive’s rebellious face looking up at him from the hold rose to plague him. Surely someone would outbid Ricbert. And then what? Abuse by a stranger? With her temperament, she would invite more beatings than kindness.

Shaking her tear-stained, bedraggled image from his thoughts, Alric checked the total of the numbers he’d recorded and smiled. Gunnar had come within the price of an ox of determining the cargo’s value just by estimation. “I don’t know why I bother to do this.”

“Because you are a heartless
and
distrusting son of Thunor.” Gunnar clapped him on the back. “What say we open this keg, since it’s already been tapped, and share it with these hearty fellows?”

Alric ignored the good-natured taunt. “Are you certain you are up to it?” He’d already put the keg aside for just that reason. It had been tapped, probably for use on the voyage, and his men deserved a respite after their hard work.

Gunnar took his cup from his belt and turned the tap. “Up to it, down to it, and ready for it.” When nothing came out, he kicked the small barrel.

“That always works,” Alric quipped wryly.

Grimacing, Gunnar put down his cup and lay the barrel on its side, shaking it. “It’s heavy enough to be full, but I can vouch that there’s no
liquid in it, unless it’s thick as grain.”

Alric tested it himself and heard no friendly sloshing sound. Whatever was in the container had been packed solid. He stood back as Gunnar took a small axe and split the top.

The splintered wood gave way to a landslide of blue wool, followed by the jingling of coin and scatter of velvet purses. Gunnar shook the barrel more, eyes rounding as more spilled out.

“By Woden’s eye, will you look at this!”

Alric was looking, but instead of the treasure consuming his mind, it was the face of his crafty captive that seized it. Now he knew why the ornate treasure chest had been empty.

BOOK: Deirdre
13.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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