Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (30 page)

             
Rorik cupped her face in his huge hands.  “Who is the ‘someone else’ your free life belongs to, Alodie?  You surely cannot mean to marry Edmundson, not after the way he treated you and what we mean to each other, Odin, woman I love you so much that I would die for you, right here and now!  I have had women, beautiful women, almost throwing themselves at me, why, I even had one woman offer to pay me to bed her and not one of them ever came near to touching my heart.  I am twenty nine years old, Alodie, and never have I fallen in love, until now - promise me you will not marry Edmundson!”

             
Alodie turned away from him as she felt hot tears spring to her eyes “What else can I do?”  she sobbed “Luke has told me that the king is going to issue a royal decree forcing me to wed him, but even if I held out against it and refused, there is still King Herger!  There is no future for us, Rorik, stop pretending that there is! Forget me!”

             
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her who King Herger actually was but now was not the time.  Putting his hand on her shoulder he pulled her gently round to face him.  “Alodie” he murmured “listen to me, I understand the pressures on you to marry Luke will be great, resist them if you can, agree perhaps to marry him then set the date for after your Christ Mass, there are things I have not told  you about Herger and about myself, things you will discover shortly.  Remember this, I will be back for you no later than the end of Blot Monath - November.  Alfred is going to be keeping me busy I think for the next two weeks, leave your shutters unbarred at night, they will try to keep us apart during the day”

             
The sounds of the hall coming awake permeated through the oak door, the voices of the scullions and the thud and clank as they began to light the cooking fires, a muffled curse as someone knocked over a pail, the yelp of a kicked dog.

             
Suddenly from down the passage came the sound of a sharp knock and a voice called out “Viking, awake, we ride within the hour” Rorik got out of bed and kissing Alodie, pulled on his clothes and climbing onto the sill, jumped.

With a cry she jumped out of bed and ran to the window.  He had landed on some straw and, climbing onto the pigsty wall and walking gingerly along the top of it until he got to the place directly below his window, he jumped, grabbing the sill and pulling himself up launched himself through and into his room.  Not a moment too soon, the knocking on his door was getting louder.  After a couple of seconds she heard him shout “Alright, Saxon, you’ll rouse the dead if you knock any louder, I’m awake!” Smiling, Alodie climbed back into bed, and pulling the covers over her head, drifted off into a deep, dreamless, sleep.      

Herger was right, Alfred was true to his word, keeping the Viking in his sight constantly.  Alodie too was kept busy at her Latin lessons and embroidery, Aehlswith even began to admit that she was improving.

             
A few days later, at around supper time, Wat and Margaret arrived asking for Alodie and shyly informed her that they had found suitable premises, whereupon she took the opportunity of going with them for an inspection.

             
The ‘premises’ consisted of a workshop with a shop frontage and four rooms upstairs.  Personally, Alodie would not have kept her pet dog in it but for Anglo Saxon Wessex it was positively luxurious and it cheered her up immensely to see happiness and hope in the eyes of both Margaret and her father.

             
In an attempt to allay any suspicion she began to be civil again to Luke, even allowing him to kiss her from time to time, whilst studiously ignoring the king’s Danish hostage, but she lived for the nights.  Rorik came to her in the early hours and they found ways of loving which surpassed Alodie’s wildest dreams.

             
On their last night he came to her earlier than usual and, after their passion was spent, he held her in his arms and asked her again to marry him.  Alodie did not answer.  She had never felt such conflicting emotions, feeling both at peace but sad.  She told herself over and over again that their parting would not be for long but she was filled with doubts, not about his coming for her but about circumstances preventing him.

             
Before he left he reminded her of her promise to wait for him.  Wait?  She would wait for eternity.  The sun set and rose, the tides ebbed and flowed and the Earth turned, and as sure as all these things occurred Alodie and Rorik were meant to be together, they had been separated by over one thousand five hundred years and still they had found one another.

***********

             
It was
September 9th 876
, the summer at last began to give way to autumn and the ransom was ready.  It lay, ten chests full of gold and silver, in Winchester Great Hall.  Guthrum arrived early in the morning to collect it, together with the mysterious Herger wearing his full face helmet.

             
The women were kept away for obvious reasons but Gwen of Saltop had found a nook in the minstrels’ gallery and Alodie, curiosity getting the better of her, agreed to join her.  Looking at her husband Alodie thought he did not look as big as he had appeared at the wedding and decided it must have been a trick of the light which made him seem larger than he actually was, in fact, next to Rorik, he seemed quite average.

             
Gwen nudged her, slyly. “Glory, Alodie but Lord Rorik looks magnificent doesn’t he?” she whispered.  Alodie nodded in agreement, he did indeed look splendid.  He was dressed Viking fashion in black leather braeis and sleeveless jerkin, his huge arms adorned with gold bracelets and his wayward, dark curly hair (Alodie’s mind slipped back to the countless times she had run her fingers though that crisp shining mass) tied back with its leather thong.  She felt a lump come into her throat as she thought of the lonely nights ahead of her.

             
“He bedded me, you know” Gwen said suddenly.

             
“Who?” asked Alodie, her heart starting to thump violently.

             
“Yon handsome giant, Rorik” she said almost nonchalantly.  Alodie got to her feet so quickly that she almost banged her head, and grasped Gwen by the shoulders.

             
“When?  When did he bed you?”

             
Gwen smiled, almost sneered “Touched a raw spot have I?” she said “well milady, the answer to that is almost every night, he used to come to me just after I retired for the evening”.  Alodie’s guts turned to liquid and she almost gagged, grabbing the balcony rail to steady herself.

             
The first thought that sprang into her head was that the black haired Welsh slut was lying, she had to be.  Rorik stayed in the hall until the early hours to allay suspicion, he told her so.  But suppose he had not, suppose he had been lying, suppose he had held that black haired bitch in his arms and whispered the same things, made the same promises, run his hands over that plump body, just suppose - and he had gone to Gwen first.

             
Rationality forced its way into her brain, Gwen was lying, definitely, but the worm of doubt had already started to crawl round her brain, laying eggs of jealousy.  Turning, she took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm as, blinded by a veil of tears, she watched the only man she had ever loved, could ever love, grasp King Alfred by the forearm and walk out of the hall, out of the hall and out of her life.

She stayed in her hidey hole long after Gwen had left.  Unwept tears made a physical lump in her throat and she would have to go to her room presently to shed them.  She had fallen in love, deeply in love, with a man who spoke sweet words and took her body to the heights, who played on her emotions like a troubadour played on a gittern and looked like an earthly angel.  A man who had asked her to wait for him, declared his undying passion and yet a man who could lower himself to bed that smelly witch.  Her heart wanted to believe that what he had whispered to her was true but her head interceded.  He was a hostage, he had no love for the Saxons, and it would be a great joke, a wonderful feather in his cap, to capture the hearts of two of the most noble ladies in his enemy’s kingdom.  A marvellous tale with which to regale his men on a winter’s night, and anyway, why should Gwen lie? Even though she knew the Welshwoman detested her, Gwen had no reason to think that Rorik and Alodie were lovers and what she said would hurt her hated rival.  After what seemed an eternity Alodie climbed slowly to her feet and shuffled disconsolately to her room.

*******************

             
It was uncomfortable in the tree and Luke changed his position for the hundredth time.  He had quietly left the hall when the Vikings had arrived and had run up the main forest road and climbed a large oak whose branches hung across the path.

             
At length he heard the jingle of harness, the snorting of horses and the shouts and rough laughter which told him that his quarry was heading toward him.

             
He was going to kill Herger.  He had lain awake all last night turning it over in his head.  He knew he was in breach of the First Rule, he knew that if Alodie ever found out she could either shoot him in cold blood or, if they were ever rescued, report him to the authorities who would execute him, but he did not care.  Once Herger was dead and Alodie’s faith shaken in that big ape Rorik, and he had left Gwen to deal with that, there would be nothing to stop the wedding.  Possessing Alodie, holding her naked in his arms, was all he could think about, all other considerations, both physical and moral, came second.

             
At last the Vikings appeared.  Herger was riding a little way behind Amund and Guthrum, in deep conversation with that gorilla Rorik - wonderful!  Two birds with one stone.  There were about fifty soldiers behind them and the Danegeld chests were slung on poles between ponies in single file.

             
Luke flipped up the green stone on his bracelet and checked that the blast was set to ‘low’, ‘medium’ would take out the whole column and possibly him too and ‘high’ would blast a twenty foot crater in the ground and uproot fifty or sixty trees - a ‘high’ blast from a psi gun had the same powers of destruction as a small meteorite and left a similar type of crater.

             
Luke shuffled backward until he met the tree trunk at its junction with the branch, then pointing in the direction of Herger, he fired.

             
The Viking, and his horse, literally exploded - pandemonium followed - the air was filled with the shrieks and screams of men and horses, two of the mules carrying the gold bolted into the woods and the pole supporting the boxes snapped.  Rorik, Luke was glad to see, had taken some of the blast and was thrown over his horse’s head, landing under the hooves of Guthrum’s steed.

             
After what seemed like an age the terrified animals were calmed.  Amund and two of the men were dragging Rorik from under Guthrum’s horse’s hooves, although they seemed only to be worried about Herger - at least that was what Amund was crying out as they dragged Rorik, head covered with blood, onto the grass.  He looked to be in a bad way, a very bad way, he had been trampled under the hooves of Guthrum’s horse and Luke could see the bloody indentation that its hoof had made in his skull.  Even if he lived there was likely to be permanent brain damage.  It was a good shot, he had to admit to himself, Rorik and Herger seemed to be the only casualties.

             
“Serve you right you clever bastard!” Luke muttered to himself as he watched the Vikings manhandle the unconscious man onto a spare horse, noting with a wry smile that it was the general consensus that the explosion had been a sign from Thor.

****************

             
The court heard the news from a panting shepherd boy who had had it from the Vikings themselves as they wended their way along the road.

             
“Herger whaat?” asked Oswy incredulously.

             
“Boom sir!  Gorn in a flash of light, there’s nothing left of ‘im at all.  The ‘eathen are blaming their god Thor and saying that ‘ees punishing them for not fighting us”

             
Alodie chewed thoughtfully on a wheaten cake and glancing up at Luke who was cleaning his sword, muttered in English “Exploded eh?  Convenient wouldn’t you say Lieutenant Commander, I wonder how you are going to explain that away?”

             
“Me?  What is it to do with me?” Luke replied with an air of injured innocence.  “I was miles away in the other direction.  Thunderbolt the lad said and thunderbolt is what it most likely was.  However, that’s the main barrier down in the way of our wedding”

             
She looked at him again, he had a smug, self satisfied smile on his face that she itched to slap off.  She knew and he knew she knew what had happened to King Herger.

             
A hand touched her shoulder and she looked up, it was a young servant.  “If,  ‘ee plaise ma’am, his Grace would like to see you as soon as possible” he said quietly.  Alodie nodded and getting to her feet followed him.

             
Alfred had not eaten with the rest of the court, he and Aehlswith having taken their meal in a little ante room off the main hall.  As Alodie came through the door he was sipping a goblet of wine and eating a pork cutlet,  at her entrance he glanced up and waved her to a chair.  “Alodie, good of you to come” he announced “now I’ll not beat around the bush - with King Herger dead there is no barrier that I can see to your marriage with Luke”

             
It had come sooner than she expected.  She glanced frantically at Aehlswith who looked at her helplessly and shrugged, Alodie found herself twisting the material of her gown in her hands, sweat springing from her brow.  Thoughts, excuses, chased themselves round her brain, perhaps if she agreed, just to keep them quiet, Rorik would come for her at the end of November, he must.  Agree, set the wedding for after Christmas.  She would be with her love by then - he would come - he had to, the thought of him making love to Gwen sprang into her head, she dismissed it.  She sighed heavily and looked up at the king.

             
“No sire, there is no barrier, perhaps if.........”

             
“Excellent!  Now there has been enough shilly shallying” he snapped his fingers and a manservant approached with a bowl and cloths.  “Tomorrow is the Sabbath” he said as he washed his hands “the wedding will take place the day after, the bishop of
Winchester
will conduct the service”

             
Alodie felt her heart begin to pound erratically “But sire, I thought....” Alfred held up his hand.

             
“No, milady, enough time has been wasted.  Your being an unmarried woman has caused enough trouble in this court to last years.  You either marry Luke on Monday or be sent to either
Bohemia
or to your relatives, if any still live, in
Northumbria
.  You will not be allowed to stay here as one of Aehlswith’s ladies, on that I am determined.  You are far too beautiful for either your own or anyone else’s good.  Why girl, within a month another lovelorn swain will have become besotted with you and Luke will be wanting to call
him
to book”

             
Alodie felt tears rush to her eyes and spill unchecked down her cheeks.  Alfred tutted and Aehlswith handed her a piece of cloth.  It occurred to her that she had very rarely cried until she had fallen in love and now she never seemed to be doing anything else.  Taking a deep breath she fought for control.

             
“Are you recovered?” asked Alfred at last.  She nodded in reply, he shook his head “why maiden, I fail to see what ails you - most women would kill to be in your place.  You are getting a young handsome husband who will be the owner of rich lands once the Danes have left, which they have promised to do before winter sets in -  and when, God forfend, Oswy dies, Luke will be the possessor of one of the largest estates in Wessex, you will want for nothing - now dry your tears and take your leave - may God go with you.”