Fires of Winter (4 page)

T
he large hall was the brightest room in the manor at the dinner hour. Nine flickering flames danced in an ornate candelabra in the center of the long table, and lamp bowls on every wall added to the abundant light in the room.

Smoke-darkened tapestries hung from the walls, including a half-finished landscape worked by Brenna’s mother, who had died in childbirth before she could complete it. A tapestry woven by Linnet depicted a castle by the sea; Cordella’s war scene hung beside it. The last tapestry in the room was of incomparable beauty; it came from the Far East, and was a gift from the duke of a neighboring kingdom.

It was not surprising that no tapestry made by Brenna graced the wall, for she did not have the patience required for that gentle art. In truth, she could not abide any skill which was solely a woman’s.

Her youngest, most impressionable years had left their mark on her, for during this time her father treated her like the son he had hoped for. She was a son to him until her body developed curves that bespoke the lie. The year her figure changed was a nightmare for Brenna, for her increasingly feminine body warred with her male mind. The mind won out. Brenna ignored her changed body unless she was reminded of its significance. Cordella took the most delight in causing Brenna to remember her sex.

Cordella, with her flaming red hair, river-green eyes and shapely figure, which she took pains to flaunt in daringly cut gowns, was Brenna’s constant antagonist. She was a comely wench as long as she was silent. Brenna understood the reasons for her shrewishness and tried hard not to lose patience with her.

She knew that Cordella was unhappy. A woman of only twenty years, she had married Dunstan at a young age, of her own free will. She loved Dunstan at the start, and was a different woman in those days. But for a reason that no one except perhaps Dunstan knew, Cordella now hated him. It was this hatred that made her the venomous creature she had become.

Cordella entered the hall and joined Brenna at the long table. Servants brought the meal of thick rabbit stew only moments later. Cordella, arrayed in yellow velvet that set off her hair and made it appear even brighter than it was, waited until they were alone before she spoke.

“Where is your aunt this eventide?”

“Linnet decided she would feed father this night,” Brenna answered as she dipped a ladle in the large pot of stew and filled her plate.

“You should be doing that, not your aunt,” Cordella returned.

Brenna shrugged. “’Twas Linnet’s choice.”

“How is my stepfather?”

“If you took the time to see for yourself, you would know that he is not improved.”

“He will,” Cordella said dryly. “That old man will outlive us all. But I did not expect you here for the meal. I understand a boar was killed today and there is a feast in the village. I thought surely you would be down there with your peasant friends, as are Wyndham and Fergus.”

“I see Dunstan finds the village more to his liking also,” Brenna said coldly, reminded of her fall in pursuit of the boar. “I want no part of that bloody boar’s carcass.”

“My, but you are touchy this night,” Cordella replied, a mischievous smile on her full lips. She purposely ignored Brenna’s mention of Dunstan. “Could it be perchance that Willow returned to the stable today long after you? Or mayhaps because the time grows shorter before your betrothed comes?”

“Be careful, Della,” Brenna said, her eyes darkening. “I have not the patience for your wagging tongue this night.”

Cordella stared at Brenna with wide-eyed innocence and let the subject pass for now. She was sorely jealous of her younger sister; she admitted it to herself freely. It had not always been so. When Cordella and her mother had first come to live in this fine manor eight winters past, Brenna was only a scrawny nine-year-old. In truth, it was a month before Cordella learned she had a sister, not a brother, as she assumed.

Of course, they had not liked each other from the start, for there was resentment on both sides, and to make the gap even wider, they had absolutely nothing in common. With her boyish ways, Brenna was leery of Cordella, who even at twelve was wholly female. Cordella thought Brenna was a fool to prefer swords to sewing, or caring for horses to running a household. Yet the two lived together without an eruption of hostility, and the years passed.

Then Cordella met Dunstan, a big, brawny male who set her heart aflutter. They were wed, and for once Cordella was truly happy. But their joy lasted only a year. It ended when Linnet insisted Brenna begin wearing female clothes on occasion, and Dunstan saw what a beauty she really was. Brenna, damn her, was not even aware that Dunstan lusted for her. Nor was Dunstan aware that his wife knew. He only knew that her love for him died that year.

Cordella’s jealousy was mixed with hatred—for Dunstan and for Brenna. She could not openly attack Brenna, though many was the time she wished she could claw her eyes out. Brenna was a skilled fighter, thanks to her father, and when riled, she turned Cordella’s blood cold. She had killed men without batting an eye. She had proved herself well, to Angus’s pride.

Since Cordella could not fight Brenna, she could give her stepsister cause to fear the one thing Brenna had yet to experience—being with a man. Cordella took great pleasure in expounding on the horrors, and not the pleasures, of knowing a man. She taunted Brenna at every available opportunity, feeling joy at the terror that leaped into those gray eyes. It was the only revenge Cordella had. Now if only she could pay Dunstan in turn…

Brenna would be leaving soon, a prospect Cordella knew the young woman dreaded. Then there would be no one for miles to compare with her own loveliness, and Dunstan would be brought to heel.

Cordella pushed her plate away and eyed Brenna speculatively. “You know, sister, the ship from the north could come any day now. ’Tis well into summer already. Are you ready to meet your future husband?”

“I will never be ready,” Brenna replied dismally, and pushed her own plate aside.

“Yea, the princess thrown to the lions. ’Tis unfortunate that you had no say in the matter. I would not have expected your father to do this to you. After all,
I
had a choice.”

“You know why ’twas done!” Brenna snapped.

“Yea, of course. To save us all,” Cordella replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “At least you know what to expect. If I had known what it would be like, I would have been like you, wishing never to marry. Lord, how I dread each night, knowing the pain I must bear!”

Brenna glared at her icily. “Della, I saw an act of coupling in the village today.”

“Really? How was this?”

“Never mind how. What I saw was not as horrifying as you would have me believe.”

“You will not know until you experience it yourself,” Cordella returned sharply. “You will learn that you must bear your pain in silence, else the man will beat you. ’Tis a wonder more women do not cut their throats rather than submit to such agony every night.”

“Enough, Della! I do not wish to hear anymore.”

“Be thankful you know. At least
you
will not go unsuspecting to your wedding bed.” Cordella finished and left the table, her lips curving in a smile as soon as she was out of Brenna’s sight.

B
ulgar, on the eastern bend of the Volga River, was a large reshipment port where West met East. Here Viking longships traded with caravans from the steppes of Central Asia and Arab freighters from Eastern provinces. Leading eastward from Bulgar was the legendary Silk Road to China.

A cornucopia of humanity abounded in Bulgar, from thieves and murderers to merchants and kings. At the start of summer, Garrick Haardrad anchored his splendid longship here and set out to add to the fortune he had accumulated on his travels. A wondrous business, trading.

Having unexpectedly spent the winter with a tribe of Slavic nomads, Garrick was not inclined to tarry long at Bulgar. He was anxious to be homeward bound. He still had to stop at Hedeby to dispose of the twenty slaves given to him by Aleksandr Stasov so he could make the journey home with greater speed. His first trip to the East had been full of surprises, but very satisfying.

After leaving Norway the previous year with a cargo of furs and the slaves he had chosen to sell, Garrick and his crew of nine sailed to Hedeby, the great market town on the Schlei River, where he traded half of his slaves for an assortment of merchandise made by the craftsmen there. He took combs, pins, dice and gaming stones, all made of bone, as well as beads and pendants crafted from amber brought in from the Baltic lands.

From Hedeby they sailed to Birka, an island trade center in Lake Malar, situated in the heart of Sweden opposite the Slav town Jumne. Birka was a well known Vic, or trading market; in its harbor could be found ships owned by Danish, Slavic, Norwegian and Scythian peoples. Here Garrick bartered for Rhinish glass, Frisian cloth, which was so valued for its fine texture, jeweled stirrups and Rhine wine, much of which he kept for himself.

Thence Garrick and his crew sailed to Uppland, went on to the Gulf of Finland and then, by way of the Neva, passed the marches and continued on to Lake Ladogo. Old Ladogo, the trading center, was located at the mouth of the Volkhor, and here they stopped for provisions. By then it was midsummer, and they still had a long way to go. They sailed eastward into the land of the Western Slavs, over the Svir to Lake Onega, and on several smaller rivers and lakes to Lake Beloya, until finally they reached the northern bend of the great Volga River.

Halfway between there and Bulgar, their destination, they came upon a ship under attack by a group of Slavs who lived along the river bank. The screams of both men and women rent the still air. Garrick manned the oars and reached the ship before the bloody attack was finished. He and his men boarded the small sailless vessel and killed off those marauders who did not flee quickly enough when they saw his great Viking ship.

Only a young woman and her baby were left alive, and that because they had hidden away inside a large, empty barrel. Haakorn, one of Garrick’s men and a seasoned traveler, spoke the woman’s Slavic tongue. He discovered that she was the daughter of a powerful chieftain of a Slavic tribe. Her husband had been killed, and she lay weeping by his mutilated body as she told of the massacre. The assailants were members of an enemy tribe intent upon killing her and the baby to revenge actions of her father’s. This attack had not been their first.

Garrick held an immediate council with his men to decide what to do with the woman. It was Perrin, Garrick’s closest friend, and as near to him as a blood brother, whose sound advice won out. Since they had already made enemies of those who had fled, they did not need to make more enemies by returning the girl to her tribe for ransom. They would be traveling this route in the future; it could only be to their advantage to have friends in the area.

Thus they returned the girl and her babe to her father without asking for a reward. Feasts were given in their honor, one after another, and days turned into weeks. The rains came, giving them another excuse to linger, for Aleksandr Stasov was an excellent host and they wanted for nothing. Finally it was too late to reach Bulgar and return home before the cold, so they stayed the winter.

In the spring, the grateful chieftain sent them on their way with twenty slaves and a bag of silver for each of the crew. All in all, the time lost to them was worth their while.

In Bulgar the last of the cargo was sold. The furs alone brought an enormous sum, especially the white fur of the polar bear, of which Garrick had four. Each man sold his own goods, for this was a joint venture, among friends, even though it was Garrick’s ship that had brought them.

And so, being young men on their first voyage east (for only Haakorn had traveled this far before), they lingered long, reveling in the new and unusual. Garrick purchased many gifts for his family. Some he would distribute on his return; others he would save for special occasions and ceremonies. He had necklaces and armbands made for his mother from precious jewels he bought cheaply from the Arabs, and he also obtained Chinese silk. For his father he found a splendid sword like his own, with its prized Rhenish blade, and the handle richly engraved and inlaid with silver and gold. For his brother Hugh he purchased a helmet of gold, a symbol of leadership.

He bought gifts for his friends and trinkets for Yarmille, the woman who ran his household and commanded the slaves in his absence. For himself he purchased extravagantly—Byzantine silks and brocades to make fine robes, tapestries from the Orient for his home, and a barrel of iron utensils that would delight his slaves. Each day they stayed in Bulgar, Garrick found something new to add to his collection. Finally his friends began to make wagers on how much silver he would part with before the day ended.

This day in midsummer, with the cloudless sky almost white in its intensity, Garrick entered the house of the engraver, Bolsky, his friend Perrin at his side.

The little man looked up from his work table in the center of the room and fixed his squinting eyes on the two young Norsemen dressed in short, sleeveless tunics with tight-fitting long leggings. They were both of towering height with broad chests; corded muscles rippled on their bare arms. They had taut, powerful bodies without an ounce of excess flesh. One had auburn hair and a trim beard; the other was blond and clean-shaven. The blond had eyes that were cold and skeptical for one so young. They were the color of aqua, like shallow waters on a bright day. The other had laughing eyes like glowing emeralds.