Anna Markland - Viking Roots Medieval Romance Saga 02 (16 page)

It was well past midnight by the time Torstein and Sonja arrived at their cottage. She had changed into clothing more suitable for riding and they shared a horse. The wind had dropped, but the air was cooler and he relished the firmness of her breasts as she leaned into his back for warmth.

They exchanged worried whispers about how to get rid of her inebriated brothers who’d insisted on escorting them home. To their relief, Frits and Kennet, new shields slung on their backs, quickly retreated to the stable. They secured the horses and collapsed into the hay, belching like hogs, then giggling like girls.

Torstein was also relieved the guards Bryk had stationed on the property had lit torches outside and left a fire banked in the hearth. The warmth caressed them as he carried her through the door. “Wonderful,” she said, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“It will be,” he rumbled, sitting on the edge of the mattress unfastening his belt. “Let’s get into our sweet feather bed. I wanted to undress you slowly, but it’s too chilly.”

She stared at him.

Contrite, he came to his feet and hugged her shivering body. “Forgive me, my love, I am in a hurry to get you into bed, but a beautiful bride deserves less haste.”

She eyed him curiously, pressing her mons to his arousal. “Haste is good. I’m freezing. But I wanted to undo the silver buckle. It drew my eye to you the first day in the cathedral.”

He spread his arms wide. “Then you shall unfasten it now.”

He sucked in a breath as she worked the buckle loose. He moved her warm hands to his waist, intending to have her push his leggings off his hips. But she seemed to lose courage. She turned away and hurriedly peeled off her dress, then the chemise beneath it. She hugged her arms around her body, her shoulders hunched. He hastily pulled off his leggings and stood naked, waiting. “Turn to me,” he growled.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

He moved to stand behind her, his chest barely touching her back. Her skin was warm, but she was shivering. He put his hands on her shoulders, gently pressing his thumbs into the stiffness, inhaling her perfume. “Afraid of me?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to—”

He turned her carefully and pulled her arms away from her breasts. They were as beautiful as he remembered. “Sonja, my wife, you arouse me like no other ever has. Look at me.”

She raised her eyes to his.

He eased away from her slightly and put her hand on his
pikk
. “No, I mean for you to see how you excite me.”

Her lips parted as she glanced down. “Torstein,” she breathed, her eyes wide. “You’re big.”

He shrugged. “I may not be a large man, but the god of fertility has seen fit to endow me with male parts capable of pleasing a woman.”

She shuddered, the firelight catching a gleam in her eye. “May God bless Freyr.”

Utter silence reigned for a moment until they both realized the incongruous nature of her prayer and dissolved into laughter.

His smile widened when she said, “It’s your turn for pleasure. Make love to me, my husband.”

Grinning, he lifted her into the bed and gathered the chilly linens over them. They cuddled together, warmed by the heat of their bodies. She moved against him restlessly as he nibbled each nipple in turn, then moaned when he suckled hard.

“I want to bring you joy again,” he rasped, hoping the need surging in his sac wouldn’t belie his words.

She opened her legs. “Lick me like before,” she murmured. “I loved it. I’ve dreamt of your mouth on me over and over.”

His spirits soared as he parted her nether lips. “You dreamed of me?”

“Every night. Yes, like that. Mmmm.”

The soft crooning soon turned to guttural screams when she released. He positioned himself over her, his weight on his elbows, and thrust his shaft into the moist heat of her sheath. The coupling freed him forever of the bonds of hatred. The power of love had helped him defy fate. A vision of Cathryn’s patron saint, a woman martyred hundreds of years earlier for love of her Savior, appeared behind his eyes.

Sonja cried out.

Reluctantly, trembling from head to toe, he slowly withdrew.

“No! Deeper,” she cried, grasping his hips.

His shaft thickened as he plunged back inside. “Curl your feet behind my knees,” he urged, growling his pleasure when she complied, drawing him closer to her center.

He thrust again and again, hard and deep, her amulet around his neck swinging free between them. She danced her fingertips along his thighs, carrying him over the edge. As his seed erupted into her womb he crushed her against his chest. Their cries of ecstasy filled the night air.

Euphoric, and soaked in sweat, he collapsed on top of her. “Good thing we have no neighbors,” he whispered into her neck.

“Hope my brothers and the guards are asleep,” she murmured hoarsely.

He raised up on his forearms and looked into her eyes. “In truth, I don’t care if the whole world knows I’ve made love to my noble wife. Now I am free.”

“No,” she teased. “Now you’re my slave.”

His heart leapt. “And you are mine.”

Careful to stay inside her pulsing sheath, he turned them so they were lying face to face. They drifted into oblivion atop the sweet feather bed.

Montdebryk, Normandie, Fifteen years later

Bryk and Alfred strolled around the recently completed wall walk atop the palisade. The last time his brother had visited Montdebryk, two years before, there’d been only one row of wooden pilings encircling the promontory. Bryk resisted the urge to explain the construction, wanting to see Alfred’s reaction.

His brother paused, stamping one foot, then the other. “Solid,” he muttered.

“You’re as talkative as ever,” Bryk replied. “Aren’t you curious?”

Alfred shrugged. “I’d guess you’ve filled the space in between the two wooden walls with earth and stones.”

Bryk was disappointed. “Well,
ja
, but you make it sound easy. It’s taken months to get the fill packed hard enough to build on, and the walls secure so they didn’t cave in.”

Alfred looked out at the cottages that had sprung up at the edge of the promontory. “Good thing you’ve no shortage of workers.”

Bryk welcomed the opportunity to boast of other steps he’d made toward progress. He gestured towards the trees encircling the promontory. “You know from your own experience in Rouen how a fruitful orchard attracts peasants. It took five years, but my trees eventually provided apples.”

Alfred laughed. “
Ja!
Our hardy little seeds from Norway seem to like the rich earth here.”

Bryk was happy to see his older brother laugh. In the two years apart, Alfred had grown stooped. His hair had thinned and turned completely gray. Bryk ran a hand through his own hair, thanking Freyr for its weight, though he’d recently detected a few traces of gray. He straightened his shoulders, and sucked in his belly. He hoped the lines around his eyes weren’t as pronounced as Alfred’s. He didn’t consider he was elderly, and his brother was ten years his senior.

The intimate passion he and Cathryn shared kept him feeling young. The wanton gaze of a beautiful woman was strong motivation for a man to keep his body in fine fettle.

He supposed fourteen children would wear anyone out, though the diminutive Hannelore never seemed to age, and Cathryn looked as vibrant as she had before birthing Magnus and the four brothers and one sister who’d followed.

As they continued their walk, the sounds of laughter and children playing drifted from the courtyard. “I wonder what our father would say of our twenty children?” Bryk asked.

Alfred grinned. “He’d proudly boast up and down the fjords of Norway how Freyja had blessed his virile sons.”

Their eyes met in a moment of shared recollection. “Do you miss our homeland, Alfred?” Bryk asked.

Alfred stared out, his arms relaxed at his sides. Was he seeing laborers in fertile fields, apple trees in blossom, villagers bustling in and out of their cottages? Or was his mind’s eye filled with narrow fjords, pure white snow, conifer trees and mile upon endless mile of grey seas?

“You, me, Torstein, we’ll always be Norsemen, sons of a beautiful but cold and sometimes brutal land,” Alfred replied without turning to look at Bryk. “Now the Franks call us Normans, and we’ve molded a strong, prosperous country in a new land. But we couldn’t have done it without the strengths our homeland bred into us.”

“Nor without Rollo’s leadership, though I am still reluctant to admit it after all these years,” Bryk added.

Alfred finally turned to Bryk. “Look around you, brother. As Cathryn says, be grateful to God and to Odin for what we have, and forget the resentments of the past. Rollo made mistakes, and he knows it. He’s a frail old man, and—”

Inhaling the fragrant smell of apple blossom, Bryk waited in vain for more, but Alfred avoided his gaze and seemed to have forgotten what he was going to say. “You’re right. The years have gone by quickly, but they’ve been good years. Magnus is already fifteen and your eldest boys are in the army.”

Alfred rubbed his knuckles along his chin. “As you may have guessed, Hannelore isn’t happy, but she’s proud just the same.”

Bryk thought back to the day Magnus had been born. His babe had grown into a strong youth, built like his father, talented with a sword, handy with the
stridsøkse
, and a gifted rider. Cathryn fretted over Bryk’s insistence he be trained in the arts of war, but the boy would one day be the
Comte
of Montdebryk. “It won’t be long before my son and Torstein’s eldest join them,” he said, though the prospect was strangely disturbing.

Alfred arched his brows, his eyes wide. “Hard to believe Bendik has seen fourteen summers. It bodes well that he and Magnus are good friends.”

Bryk ushered his brother down the steps to the bailey. “Careful, we still need a railing here. You’re right. Since our nephew and his family came to live in the fortress ten years ago, the two have been inseparable.”

“Remember how apprehensive we were when we granted Torstein his freedom?” Alfred said.

Bryk did indeed recall his misgivings. “Yet Montdebryk couldn’t have a better Marshal. I trust him completely.”

“Where is he by the way?” Alfred asked.

“He took Sonja to assist with Kaia’s confinement. They live in the house Torstein built, though they’ve expanded it. It’s only seven miles away, but Javune goes to pieces when she’s with child. No one can blame him. He’s never forgotten the memory of the two babes they lost, and she’s not the strongest of women.”

Alfred shrugged. “What’s this one? Their fourth?”

“
Ja
,” Bryk replied. “They have three boys, all like their father. Cathryn is hoping for a girl this time. She’d like a niece close by.”

“I was surprised they decided to come to the valley. I didn’t think Kaia would leave Rouen.”

“It was a tumultuous time. The only way they could be together was to elope, and this was the obvious place to run to. Of course, my wife had a lot to do with it, aided by the Archbishop who married them without her parents’ approval.”

Alfred looked wistful. “Family is one of the things my children have missed, though they have their friends in Rouen, and Sven Yngre is a good neighbor.”

“How many children do he and his wife have now?”

“They didn’t wed until five years ago. Dagmar has borne him three sons, two of them twins. Hard to tell them apart.”

Bryk’s next question was a measure of Cathryn’s influence on him. “Is he happy?”

Alfred guffawed. “As a pig in muck. Dagmar is the perfect woman for him. She’s not like his late mama, and, surprisingly, nothing like Sonja.”

Both men laughed heartily as they walked towards the main building. “This is certainly a fine dwelling like no other, brother,” Alfred said.

Bryk was proud of the large square keep with its round towers on each corner, but his brother’s rare praise had him puffing out his chest. “
Ja!
Stone is more difficult to work with than wood, but worth it. I defy Njord to blow this down.”

Alfred slapped him on the back. “Who would have believed when we left Norway you’d become Rollo’s key man in a new territory! Let’s go in and you can show me what you’ve accomplished since my last visit.”

Cathryn caught sight of the brothers as she and Hannelore were stepping away from the tiny chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria constructed by her husband in a quiet corner of the courtyard within the palisade. It was barely big enough for two people, but she was content the treasured triptych now had a special place.

As if sensing their presence, Bryk turned and the men waited for them to reach the door. She pecked a kiss on his lips. “I was showing Hannelore the chapel,” she said.

Alfred’s wife tucked under her husband’s arm. “It’s wonderful. Cathryn has given me a tour of the courtyard.”

“You’ve seen the kitchens?” he asked.

“And the stores,” Hannelore added.

Bryk opened the heavy oaken door and ushered them out of the gusting wind. “I showed Alfred where we’ll build the barracks next to the forge.”

Hannelore pouted. “I didn’t see the forge.”

Cathryn laughed. “Sorry. It stinks of iron ore. I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

Her sister-by-marriage rolled her eyes. “I’m not. But I do want to see what else you’ve accomplished on this level.”

Smiling, Bryk led the way past the granary to the cellar. Hannelore gasped when she saw the scores of rundlets stacked one on top of the other. “This is all apple wine?”

Pride blossomed in her husband’s eyes. He never turned away a chance to boast about his wine.

“
Ja
,” he replied. “You market the fruit, Alfred, but I decided to ferment most of my crop.”

Alfred peered closely at one of the rundlets. “But why is it in barrels?”

Bryk’s eyes lit up. “Some of it’s in
potels
, and some still in the open vats. But I’m trying something new with these oak casks. I want to see what happens after the wine is kept in them for a long while. I’ve heard in the East—”

Hannelore interrupted. “How long has this wine been in the casks? I don’t recall seeing them the last time we were here.”

“Correct,” Bryk said. “We’ve been making the casks for nigh on two years, but the wine in them is eight years old.”

“How long do you intend to let it sit?” Alfred asked. “Seems like a waste of good wine.”

Bryk frowned. “Mayhap we’ll have occasion to break open a barrel while you’re here,” he said.

Alfred looked at him strangely. “Make a cask ready,” he said with unusual authority. “I bring news from Rouen.”

Torstein was relieved to get his wife back to Montdebryk. She’d helped Kaia deliver a tiny baby girl, but it had been a difficult birth, and Sonja was round with their seventh child. He’d spent the long hours repairing tools with Javune who told him what he already knew. Many local women in the throes of labor had confidence in Sonja. She calmed them, kept their fears at bay. Perhaps it was because she seemed to give birth without much effort. Their four boys and two girls had come into the world quickly.

Looking tired but content after each birth, the first words out of her mouth were, “Thanks be to Freyja I’m not like my sister.”

Torstein looked up at the grand edifice he’d helped his uncle build. Alfred and Hannelore had probably already arrived with their younger children. “I’d like to get you straight up to our chamber on the second floor,” Torstein told Sonja as he helped her dismount.

“I doubt it,” she replied, nodding towards Bryk and Alfred who were headed in their direction across the courtyard. She slid off the horse into his embrace, her arms snaked around his neck. Predictably, his body warmed when she touched him. “I’d like to curl up with you on our feather bed, but I want to see the children. I’ve missed them.”

They exchanged greetings as Cathryn and Hannelore came out to the courtyard. Soon noisy children clamored for their attention.

Anxious to get Sonja inside, Torstein picked up his daughters, Tordis in one arm and Karoline in the other, and exchanged a glance with Bryk. His uncle seemed to understand and hoisted his daughter Katarina onto his shoulders, encouraging everyone to enter the main building. “Alfred has important news,” he said.