By Royal Command Page 11

  Absurd as it was, the viper of envy twisted in Katrin’s belly. “Pray don’t allow me to keep you from your sport. I bide well enough without you.”

  He pinioned her with one of his penetrating stares, piercing the veil of her proud indifference. The hint of a smile appeared in his burnished beard.

  “It wouldn’t trouble you to be left, my lady?”

  “Indeed it would not.” Katrin angled her chin. “I dare say Thorkell will be pleased to partner me. He promised to show me the court.”

  Deliberately, Eomond set his cup on the floor. With a tingling jolt of danger, she realized she’d sparked a reaction. His anger burned through the distance that yawned between them. Her skin tightened as he captured her goblet.

  “My lady likes her play,” he said softly, raising the goblet to her lips.

  Alerted by his dangerous tone—too controlled, and far too gentle—Katrin demurred. But, with the wall at her back, she couldn’t retreat.

  Well, let my would-be suitor observe this! When he pressed the goblet against her lower lip, she wrapped her hands over his and took a long reckless swallow. Again the crowd parted, revealing the king in his chair. Even from this distance, his resemblance to her father was jarring.

  Eomond held the cup until she drank it down. When she looked up, her head was spinning.

  “Good lass.” His voice was strange, a dark note throbbing beneath the words. “Now we play to please my lady.”

  From her sleeve, he plucked a scarf of amber silk. Though the wine had muddled her wits, she drew back with a laugh. “Nay, I don’t wish to be blindfold—”

  “How not?” His brows lifted with mock surprise. His eyes smoldered. “You wished to play a game, aye?”

  Swiftly, he bound the scarf around her eyes. The lower hall vanished behind a swath of tawny silk. The din of music and voices receded, and Katrin was alone. Still as a deer before the hunter, she knotted her fingers in her lap.

  For an eternity, she waited. She began to wonder if he’d left her there, alone and blindfolded, with drunken guardsmen roaming at will, a menace to any lady’s virtue. She became almost certain of it; his place to her left felt empty. As she moved to tear away the blindfold, warm breath tickled her right ear.

  “If you would play, you must abide by the rules.”

  Her heart lodged nervously in her throat. Only a game, and it serves me. “I don’t know your rules.”

  “Then I’ll teach you. This game calls for obedience and trust. Though you’re not well schooled in those virtues.”

  “Oh, I’m nothing if not obedient,” she countered, fists clenching in her lap. “First to my uncle, then my husband, then you. If I choose to trust no man, ’tis because no man has given me reason.”

  “Be still,” he whispered, at her other ear. He had circled her again. “You may trust in me, Katrin—for the span of the game.”

  “Only for so long?”

  “Be still.”

  Still she was aware of her vulnerability to the casual malice of the king and his court. “Don’t leave me!”

  His breath scorched her ear. “Never would I.”

  Every particle of her soul strained toward him. Unholy desire pulsed in her belly. Beneath her skirts, her thighs squeezed together.

  “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

  “Because I’m your champion, by the king’s command, and I’ll have them all know it.” His voice darkened. “I’ll have you know it. Let’s have no more talk of Thorkell. He wants you only for ambition’s sake.”

  One sword-toughened finger, wet with sweet wine, traced her lower lip, lighting her ablaze. Her entire body ached with wanting him, and she dismissed it all—eighteen years of religion and careful bearing—to touch her tongue to his finger. Beside her, his long frame went rigid.

  “No more talk of Thorkell,” she breathed. “Is that a command, my lord?”

  He dropped his hand. “And still you play. Well do I know you’re not mine to command.”

  “Pardon, milady!” a voice chirped. Alarmed, Katrin startled away, and Eomond released the blindfold. She looked for a sea of staring faces—but the lax morals of Yule gripped the hall. Dancing and music, overworked servants, a few sly glances toward her and nothing more.

  Eomond said gruffly, “Aye, what is it, lad?”

  “A message from my liege for milady.” Clad in the king’s crimson, the page bowed. A white cat wound around his ankles and minced delicately to Katrin, then rose to plant playful paws against her knee.

  Reflexively, she stooped to pet the cat. “What is the message?”

  “You’re to attend milord in his privy chamber after morning Mass.”

  Her heart dropped to her shoes. Still Eomond watched her, eyes smoldering as they lingered on her wine-red lips—a look that promised sin and damnation.

  Blushing, she could barely look at the page’s innocent face. “Tell my lord I shall attend him.”

  The boy nodded and slipped away, wriggling among the churn of bodies as he fought his way toward the dais.

  Staring after him, she gently dislodged the cat’s clinging paws from her skirts. “So then—at last we come to it.”

  Eomond pushed out a harsh breath. “Don’t entertain these foolish fancies. They do you no credit. Katrin, for the love of Freyja—”

  He stopped. Keenly, she wondered what he dared not say. And she wondered where he slept, whether on some pallet in the hall or in the barracks with his men. In these crowded conditions, he would not have more…unless she brought him into her own bed.

  Sweet Jesus! That would be carrying my ploy too far. She dared not for a legion of reasons, not least her uncle’s idle interest beating down on her from his throne.

  “Sword-theyn, I crave your pardon.” She adjusted her skirts with a graceful hand and rose. “I’m full weary from our journey.”

  He unwound his long limbs from the bench and towered over her, staring down with a look she couldn’t fathom. “I’ll escort you to your chamber.”

  “That will hardly be necessary. As you’ve gone to great lengths to assure me, I’m in no danger in my uncle’s keep.”

  He fixed her with an unwavering look. “Even so, I’m ordered to guard you.”

  “I need not be guarded so close as that!” she exclaimed, her fine control snapping. “I’ve managed without you before this, and I’ll manage when you’re gone.”

  Whirling away before her face could betray her, she swept down the hall between the massive timbers. Thankfully he didn’t seek to stop her, but she knew he followed at a distance. Warding her as bidden.

  She didn’t need his faithful duty. She wanted nothing less than his heart, given to her full willing. But that, she knew she could never have.

  * * *

  Chastely she knelt before the altar, hands clasped, the very image of virtue. Yet Katrin seethed with turmoil in body and soul. Her presence before God was sacrilegious, for she sinned in thought and deed, and confessed none of it.

  She’d startled awake from a dream that was surely Hell-inspired: the searing sight and feel of a tall blond pagan crouched between her thighs, his touch igniting her like a candle. She’d wakened slick and throbbing with godless pleasure, ready for him, arched and rising from the bed. Through some miracle, she hadn’t disturbed Gwyneth and Alix, who shared her bed for warmth. Even now, as she knelt before God, her heart jumped and skittered.

  Even her placement unsettled her, for Ethelred had drawn her into his pew. She knelt beside him now, jewel-stained sunlight spilling through painted glass, the gold monstrance blazing on the altar like a holy vision.

  Behind her, Eomond knelt among the fighting men. She could feel his eyes burning into her. Consequently, her thoughts were everywhere except on God.

  When the Mass ended, she straig
htened her aching knees. Ethelred swept past, mantle billowing wide. Katrin followed in his wake to the king’s privy chamber. His crimson guards uncrossed their pikes before him as he strode past without slackening, retinue streaming at his heels. Behind her, the pikes clanged into place and blocked her retreat.

  Within the inner sanctum, she waited uneasily for his notice. While the queen and her ladies gathered around the loom, the king lowered himself behind his writing table, where his bailiff at once attended him. Absently, without looking at her, Ethelred beckoned to an empty chair. Struggling to master her reluctance—what could he possibly do to her with half the court present?—Katrin sat where bidden.

  Her gaze was drawn to the volumes stacked on the table between them. Now here was a marvel of unexplored riches: Virgil and Pliny the Elder, the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, treatises on alchemy and magic, astronomy and rhetoric in Greek and Latin. Carefully she lifted a gilded Psalter. Wrapping her hand in her sleeve to protect the precious vellum from the oils of her skin, she turned the pages. Glittering illustrations in gold leaf and brilliant crimson leaped out at her, framed by curling capitals and graceful verse.

  “This looks not well.” Ethelred frowned. Her heart lodged in her throat, but he was addressing the quailing bailiff.

  “M-my dread lord,” the fellow stammered, “you see here the losses from the goods that burned beneath the Viking’s torch. Even before this, your debts were not insubstantial, as I’ve begged leave to inform you—”

  “Aye, well,” the king murmured, “’tis no modest endeavor to command this great realm, my good Oswulf. Perhaps you have been too lenient with my churls and villeins, who have gone soft and idle.”

  “M-my good lord, your people labored even through Hocktide and Whitsunday without reprieve. I can’t think what greater revenue—”

  “Then perhaps you have been too lax in collecting the tolls from my roads and bridges.”

  The luckless Oswulf paled at this suggestion, but rallied gamely. “My most puissant lord, the tolls are faithful drawn. If—if I may but suggest it, my liege, the Danes’ demands for annual tribute are an unbearable burden on your treasury. They’ll drain us dry for their Danegeld, and still they keep coming—”

  “How now, my good Oswulf? Should I jeopardize the safety of an entire realm, only to accommodate my slothful churls and bailiffs? I think you must be more diligent in the pursuit of your duties.”

  “B-but my dread lord—”

  “Enough.” The king frowned. Half fainting, the bailiff subsided. Katrin kept her eyes on the Psalter as the king issued a cool stream of directives before dismissing the miserable fellow.

  Diligently she pored over the Psalter. Nearby, Emma and her ladies whispered and eyed her. Much to Katrin’s distress, the king came to stand at her shoulder, bending to study the pages spread across her lap. The heavy-sweet reek of incense rose from his garments.

  “’Tis handsome work, my lord,” she said, trying not to edge away.

  “Indeed.” Folding his sleeve over his hand as she’d done, he delicately turned a page. The temptation of Christ opened before her, a goat-faced Devil gesturing before the Savior. Suddenly, she recalled her dream of Eomond.

  “It must be long, kinswoman, since you have advanced your studies, hard up against the Danelaw. You must make yourself free with my poor library.”

  Despite her wariness, a wave of pleasure coursed through her. Yet when she glimpsed his face, his expression was disdainful, as if he mocked her pleasure. She lowered her eyes and closed the volume in her lap.

  The king returned to his chair. “Tell me how your lands prosper.”

  “Not well,” she said, sharp-edged. “Between the Scots, the Danes and the pestilence, I’ve barely a dozen retainers—scarcely enough to keep outlaws at bay. The keep has fallen into ruin.”

  “It was inconsiderate of your late husband to die when he did. His fall shattered our northern defense. If we didn’t dread assassination from Mercian rebels for the best of reasons, I would have marched to close the gap myself. But we cannot venture north of the Humber, so this matter is left to your neighbors.”

  “And to me,” she said bitterly. “’Tis my marriage that will restore the land—isn’t that so?”

  His eyes glittered as he read the words she didn’t say, the harsh accusations she didn’t hurl, damning him for her exile and her loveless marriage. With a thoughtful smile, he stroked his beard.

  “Have you never thought to question the assumptions of your childhood, Katrin? Have you never wondered whether it might be more than petty spite that caused me to send you away?”

  Confusion seized her. She’d always thought he did it to punish Goda.

  He raised a sardonic brow. “Has it never occurred to you, Goda’s daughter, to be grateful that I did it? For it would have been easier simply to keep you. You may believe I thought on it.”

  Her throat burned with unshed tears. She wanted to scream aloud her fear and hatred for what he’d done.

  Instead she drew a trembling breath. “You did it for malice and political expediency. What was I but a child to be bartered for advantage?”

  He smiled, heavy lids drooping. “Gaining Courtenay and his ties to Northumbria was useful, but you may believe I could have chosen worse. I could have kept you, Katrin. Doing that would have destroyed Goda far more effectively than sending you away.”

  “Then why didn’t you keep me? I would have preferred anything else to—to Maldred.”

  “Oh, I think not,” he breathed. “Sending you to exile in the hostile Danelaw, giving you in marriage to that harsh and imbecilic man, abandoning you to your fate after God answered your secret prayers and took him…what effect have my decisions had upon your life?

  “What do you see when you look in the polished plate, Katrin of Courtenay? I shall tell you what I see—a proud beauty with eyes of fire, the heart of a lion and strength like forged steel! I made you, kinswoman—took a spoiled little girl and tested your mettle, reforged you on the anvil of adversity. I made you a woman whom men shall cross at their peril. If you had wisdom to match your will, you would thank me for it.”

  So easily he turned her world upside down. She would never believe a word he said. “Am I to believe my mother meant nothing to you?”

  “Your mother?” The king leaned back in his chair. “’Tis true that your exile broke her heart and her will to defy me. Loneliness and grief won her, when tender wooing would not. You know your mother yielded to me in the end?”

  “Yielded?” she whispered. Her father’s brother looked into her eyes and smiled.

  Katrin pushed back her chair and stood. Near the tapestry, the queen glanced up. “If you and my lord have finished your business, Katrin, will you join us here?”

  “I—most humbly beg your pardon, my lady. I’m committed elsewhere this hour.”

  “Come in the afternoon then, if it please you.” Emma of Normandy returned her attention to the loom.

  Stiffly Katrin bent her knees in a curtsey, despair sinking like a stone in her gullet. As she stumbled toward the door, Ethelred called after her.

  “Have a care for your safety, my dear. There are many rogues in their cups roaming this keep.”

  Sensing an opportunity, she wavered. “I would welcome an escort to guard my person from the tender attentions of your guests.”

  “I have anticipated you, kinswoman.” Irony tinged his voice. “And arranged for your safe-keeping most carefully. My sword-theyn Eomond will stay closer to you than your own shadow.”

  Chapter Ten

  Eomond awaited her in the chapel. In apparent prayer he knelt, his cross-guarded sword propped against the pew, but his face held nothing of piety, Viking features set grimly for battle. The spill of light through painted glass lit his sword in brilliant green and vermilion, but
the man himself knelt in shadow.

  Although she’d been fleeing the king, running as she burst into the chapel, her steps faltered when she saw his theyn. He levered upright and buckled the sword around his hips, then trudged toward her, moving heavily as if encased in mail, though she saw no glint of steel beneath his mantle.

  A battalion of emotions assailed her: shuddering reaction from her encounter with the king, gratitude to see Eomond, followed by a scalding flood of embarrassment, as if somehow he knew she’d dreamed of their carnal congress the night before. But nay, she knew why he waited—because his liege had bidden him, and for no other reason.

  Eomond ducked his head in token respect. “What pastime pleases my lady?”

  Inwardly she sighed. He made it plain as if he spelled it out; he resented the king’s orders. After so long away, there must be a hundred things he was itching to attend.

  “This keep is stuffed to bursting with unseemly men.” She angled her chin. “It pleases me to escape into the clean air. But I’ve no desire to keep you from your duties.”

  “My liege tells me I have no more important duty,” he said flatly, stepping back so she could precede him.

  Although she knew she should keep silent, her wounded pride stung her. “Rather he set you upon me to ensure I don’t flee his keeping. Like a watchdog, you’re to bark if I stray.”

  “Thor’s hammer!” Halfway down the nave, he gripped her elbow. “I’m no man’s watchdog. You’ve said yourself there are intemperate men about. Not all of them know you’re Ethelred’s niece, or would care if they did. He does you a kindness.”

  “Well do I know you’re his creature—the Devil’s own minion, if you but knew it.”

  “Will you speak of him so under his own roof?”

  She realized he was right to warn her. The shadows could conceal anyone. The echoing curve of the staircase enveloped them, darkness barely lifted by a single torch. As they descended, a sharp cry rang out below.

  Instantly Eomond pushed her back against the wall. Her heart rose into her throat as he shouldered before her, six inches of bare steel showing above his scabbard.