The Briton (14 page)

“What are these terrible new weapons, then?”

“First comes a wooden tower on high wheels. Norman warriors cover their heads with shields as they roll it toward us. Behind the tower comes a catapult, madam. It has a long arm on which rests a great bowl. They will use it to launch stones at our outer wall. Once the catapult breaches the for-tification, the tower will be rolled forward so that the Normans can climb over and attack us.”

“We must burn the weapons! Surely it can be done.”

“The Norman leader on his gray steed directs all the action on the field. He’s shrewd and clever. Your husband is… He is uncertain how to respond.”

Even as he spoke the words, a stone missile struck the wall around the castle. The fortress shuddered from the impact, and Bronwen could hear rocks tumbling to the ground below.

Enit screeched in terror as the guardsman bolted from the chamber to return to his post.

Unwilling to lock herself into a doomed chamber, Bronwen followed the man. Through his window, she saw hordes of Normans racing past the catapult, swarming up the wheeled tower and climbing onto the crumbling parapet of Warbreck Castle. The catapult flung another stone and knocked away a second section of the wall’s top. The lower wall began to weaken and collapse as well.

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As one band of Norman warriors worked the catapult and a second climbed the rolling tower, a third regiment bore down on the gate with a massive iron-tipped battering log.

Though shields covered their heads, the assailants were turned back when Olaf’s men poured boiling oil on them from the battlements. But at once another group took their place.

Bronwen left the window and ran back to her chamber.

“Enit!” she cried, bursting through the door. “The Norman army overpowers us, and I fear they mean to kill us all. Their leader thirsts for Viking blood. These warriors live to die by the sword!”

“They live to die for their honor, child.” Enit had covered herself in Bronwen’s furs as if somehow they might cushion her from the falling walls. “This is the way of men, and we cannot hope to understand it. Sit down with me and await your fate, for this is the way of women.”

“Last night I spoke with one of Olaf’s spies.” Bronwen knelt beside her nurse. “He can lead us to safety. We must find him and escape this place. My father is dead, and I will not lose you, too. Take my hand and follow me.”

Enit shook her head. “If you find a way out, return for me.

Either way, I am ready to meet my destiny.”

Nearly bursting with fear and frustration, Bronwen left the chamber again and hurried through the guardroom. As she passed a window, she looked out to discover that the Normans had already overrun the outer wall. Within the castle courtyard, men wielded sword, shield, spear and mace in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Many of the Norman troops had ridden their horses through the battered gate that now hung splintered and broken on its hinges. These men held a clear advantage over their unmounted Viking foes, who fell beneath the heavy blows of Norman swords.

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But the Vikings fought on. In their wild eyes and bared teeth, Bronwen saw a bloodlust not present in the calculated strikes of the Normans. She recalled Olaf’s words—to Vikings, death by sword was the only death. Only then might men walk in Valhalla with the gods.

As she scanned the throng for Olaf, Bronwen realized that some of the Vikings had turned upon their own men. They killed each other rather than face capture and lose the glory of death by sword.

A loud thud below told Bronwen the Normans had moved their battering ram to the wooden door of the castle itself.

Panic rising in her throat, Bronwen tried to think what to do.

In a moment the enemy would be inside. She was too late to escape! And how could she protect Enit?

She had started up to her chamber for the nursemaid when she heard a great splintering crack and the crash of the huge keep door falling open. Shouts of victory flooded the hall and echoed up the stairway. Running for her chamber, she felt the heavy pounding of footsteps behind her—and a massive, mail-clad warrior threw her to the floor. Just as a sea of black-ness swam before her eyes, the Norman jerked her to her feet.

“Release me!” she cried, pushing at him. “I am the wife of Olaf Lothbrok!”

“So we know,” the knight replied brokenly in her tongue.

“Our orders are to take you to our lord.”

Surrounded, Bronwen saw she had no choice but to go with them. She spotted Enit standing ashen in the door of the chamber as the men ushered her forward.

“I walk alone,” Bronwen told them, speaking the Norman French the tutor had taught her. “Release my arms.”

The knights halted in surprise. “She speaks our language.”

“Yes, and you will treat me well. Now unhand me.”

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The men set her free, and Bronwen smoothed out her tunic and straightened her mantle. Just as they reached the bottom of the stair, four Viking men carried the blood-soaked body of their lord through the broken door. With a cry, Bronwen pushed between the knights escorting her and ran to Olaf’s side.

The Vikings placed the old man on the floor and Bronwen knelt beside him. His face was gray and blood-spattered, and the tired blue eyes were half-closed. Bronwen saw that Olaf’s mail had been hewn across the arm, leg and chest. The gaping wounds bled freely.

“Olaf,” she whispered. “It is I, your wife.”

At her words, the parchment-thin eyelids slid back, and Bronwen looked into his eyes. In that moment, her ears closed out the sounds of groaning men and the sight of armored knights around her. All she saw was the man she had tried so hard to please and had longed to understand.

“Bronwen,” he murmured, his lips barely moving.

Taking Olaf’s wrinkled hand in hers, she held it to her cheek. This was not the father of Haakon, the deceitful betrayer of Edgard the Briton or the overmatched warrior who lacked a strategy. He was her wedded husband. She remembered the night in her room when he had taken her in his arms and spoken words of admiration.

“You… You have been good to me,” he rasped. He rested for a moment, and then he lifted his focus to her again. “Yet I betrayed you.”

Bronwen shook her head. “It is all past now. I hold nothing against you.”

“Then I go happy to Valhalla of the gods.”

Bronwen bent and kissed her dying husband’s hand and rested her lips there as she tried to accept the dim certainty of her own fate.

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“What a hovel this is,” a loud voice called out behind her.

“It can hardly be called a castle. Are we certain we want the place now that we have won it?”

Laughter followed the remark as another voice spoke up.

“I would call it the cesspool of England. We should return it to the barbarians.”

As Bronwen listened to the cutting remarks and harsh amusement, a sudden rage coursed through her. These men cursed the land they had taken from her husband. Here he lay—dying from his wounds—and they mocked the holding he had given his life for. And she had taken pride in her work here. This
hovel
was the product of her own hand as well.

Bronwen glanced to one side and she saw Olaf’s great sword lying bloodstained on the stone floor.

She could not allow this sacrilege. Enit had said that battle was men’s work. Now none remained to defy their foes. But she remained, and she would take down one Norman to pay for Olaf’s life.

Bronwen reached out, grasped the hilt of the old weapon with both hands and leaped to her feet. She lunged forward and whirled the sword in a wide arc.

“Villains!” she shouted. “Death to you all!”

Her first pass sent the knights around her stumbling backward. Behind them the enemy leader in his bloodied mail and gray helm approached. With all her strength, Bronwen swung the heavy sword at his neck.

“Norman dog!” Bronwen shouted. “Pay for your crime!”

As the weapon made its way toward the mark, the knight raised his own sword to block the blow. The ringing clash of weapons sent a shock down Bronwen’s arm. Olaf’s sword flew from her hand and clattered on the stone floor.

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ing his ironclad chest with her fists. Ignoring the rain of blows, he grasped her arms in his gloved hands and pinned them to her side.

“You are the hated one,” she spat in his own tongue.

“Take Warbreck then. I shall stay no longer in your presence—heathen!”

At her last word, the man released his grip. The knights surrounding them stared agape at the woman who dared curse their lord. The Norman warrior reached up and lifted his helm from his head.

Bronwen’s heart stumbled as she fixed her gaze on the man’s face. His eyes were deep and gentle. His hair, darker than her own, curled long and loose about his neck. His skin was bronze.

“Bronwen the Briton.” The man addressed her with a low bow. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Jacques Le Brun.

I believe we have met before.”

Chapter Seven

“I express my regret at your husband’s passing,” Jacques said, facing the woman whose memory had refused to flee him in the months since their last meeting. “But you are mistaken in assuming my guilt. One of his own men was responsible for the death of Olaf Lothbrok.”

“’Tis true, my lady,” a voice spoke up from behind the throng of knights. A red-haired peasant shoved through to the forefront. He stopped in front of Bronwen and fell to his knees. “This Norman speaks the truth about your husband’s death, madam. ’Twas not the Normans that did the old man in. ’Twas his son.”

“Haakon?” The bright flush of color drained from her cheeks. “But—but where is he now?”

“My men tell me he escaped into the forest,” Jacques told her. “Madam, I intended to capture your husband and trans-port him to London. I had no plan to kill him, though perhaps it would have come to that in the heat of battle.”

Jacques studied Bronwen as she looked down at the still figure of her husband. Had she learned to love the man in the
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months following their wedding? It was hard to imagine the old man winning the heart of such a beauty. But the actions of Bronwen the Briton had never ceased to intrigue him.

Aware of his men standing around him, Jacques addressed the woman. “Your attempt on my life was justified,” he said.

“You defended yourself. But as to your accusations against me, I take exception.”

In her dark eyes a flicker of smoldering anger lingered as she looked into his face. “What have I said that you did not deserve, sir? My husband is dead, my home is taken, and I am your captive.”

“True on all counts,” he acknowledged. “But you labeled me a heathen, and I am not.”

“No? I have heard otherwise. Defend yourself, then.”

“With pleasure. My father is a Norman baron who journeyed with Robert, Duke of Normandy, on the First Crusade to the Holy Land in 1096. When Robert returned, my father elected to remain in the East to build a shipping enterprise in Antioch. He acquired land and became a wealthy merchant.

There he met and married a Christian woman, by whom he had six children—of whom I am the second son. My mother’s lineage can be traced to the earliest followers of Jesus Christ, for the first church ever established was at Antioch.”

“Your Christian heritage is one of bloodshed and tyranny.

Your God demands carnage. In your blood mingles the im-purities of many races.” She lifted her chin. “I am a Briton—

pure and unpolluted. My gods are worshipped in the trees, stones and waterfalls of this holy land on which you dare to tread. Let us make no mistake, sir. You may have captured me, but you will never conquer my spirit.”

“What of your heart?” Jacques asked. “Does it remain free? Or are you bound forever to the Norseman? I fear,
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madam, you have failed to discern that your own father was less interested in the purity of your children’s blood than in the preservation of his land.”

Her dark eyes suddenly welled with tears. “My father is dead. My husband is dead. In what other way will you mock my pain, sir?”

Feeling the rapier tip of the remark, Jacques turned to his men. “Bring in the wounded and see that the kitchens cease their boiling of oil and begin turning out food fit for hungry warriors. We must eat, rest and begin our true labor. We have much work to do here before we can call this a stronghold of Henry Plantagenet.”

When he looked around again, Jacques saw that the woman had again fallen to her knees beside her husband. The Viking’s ragged breathing had ceased, and his body lay still.

The mask of death had already transformed his face. As Bronwen passed a blood-caked hand over her eyes, Jacques could not prevent himself from going to her.

“Madam,” he said in a low voice. “Are you well? You are bloodied, and your gown is torn. Did one of my men—”

“No. I’m not injured.” Drawing her cloak about her, she stood. Her fire was gone now, and her lip trembled. “I have been tending the wounded.”

“I see you wear my mantle. Perhaps then you do remember me?”

At his words, a soft pink suffused her cheeks. “The mantle is…warm,” she said. “You told me you would ask for it when we met again. I had not thought it to be under these circumstances.”

She reached to unclasp it, but he stepped forward and covered her hand with his. “Please. Keep the mantle. Did you receive my gift? A small chest containing—”

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“Three golden orbs.” Her eyes searched his face. “I did, but why? Why did you send them?”

“I had hoped you would see the crest on my mantle and know that my emblem is the three golden balls of St.

Nicholas. He is my patron.”

“But why?” Bronwen asked. “Why would you honor the patron saint of virgins?” Though the Britons were pagans, she had heard some of the saints’ tales, including Saint Nicholas.