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“Oh, but I am. It was part of his bargain with your king that he accept the religion of the French people.”
“How could the man embrace Christianity with the sins
he must have upon his soul? Surely his conversion was no more than an expedient one.”
“You are supposed to know nothing of Christ’s teachings, so perhaps you would like to invite him to instruct you. Then you could judge for yourself whether or not his beliefs are sincere,” he suggested slyly.
“That is not a subject I’d care to discuss with that rogue.” It would be difficult not to blurt out the purpose of her visit when first she saw the man; she would never be able to calmly discuss religious doctrine as if she were no more than curious.
“If luck is with us, you will have no need to discuss any topic with him.” Sighting a small boat headed their way, Mylan nodded confidently. “You see, curiosity is a powerful weapon, and someone has been sent to investigate the nature of our visit, just as I knew they would. You must rely upon me to make the first contact with Hrolf, for as captain of this vessel that is my duty.”
Those were the last words Celiese heard Mylan speak for many an hour. He went ashore accompanied by two of his crew, but she did not argue with his decision to leave her behind for the moment. As far as she knew, no Viking sailed with his wife at his side, so her presence was a distinct oddity. His arrival would be regarded as remarkable enough without her to cause a distraction.
She found the wait interminable. She shared the crew’s rations at suppertime, and then paced the deck until it had grown dark, but Mylan had still not returned.
Mylan found Hrolf to be exactly what he had expected, an arrogant brute who dominated every conversation no matter what the subject. Immense in size, he was never the less fit, his looks pleasant if not handsome, but his appetite for meat and drink was extraordinary, and by the time Mylan staggered aboard the Surf Falcon he was exhausted by the duke’s hospitality and more than a little drunk.
Celiese had been unable to close her eyes, fearing Mylan had come to some terrible harm and that she and his crew would all be taken prisoners at dawn and promptly slain. When he lurched across the deck and stumbled into her dimly lit tent she knew immediately what his activities had been. “When I have been so dreadfully worried I might never see you alive again, how could you have been drinking yourself into a stupor!” she demanded angrily.
“I am not in a stupor,” he replied with difficulty. “Hrolf is as generous a host as my father and insisted I did not suffer from thirst while I dined at his table.”
“How thoughtful of him,” she responded through clenched teeth, but when Mylan sprawled across their blanket she began to unlace his boots without being asked for assistance. “I have never seen you drunk, not ever. How the Danes can pass so many evenings swilling ale I will never know, and I have always been grateful you did not have such slothful habits, but perhaps you only lacked the opportunity.” She yanked off his suede boots and tossed them aside but remained seated at his feet, unwilling to do more to make him comfortable.
After rolling over upon his back, Mylan raised his right arm to cover his eyes as he yawned sleepily. “He believed all I told him about wishing to establish a profitable trade agreement, and if he wants a drinking companion I will be one. Now hush your complaints and come here to me. I told him I would bring my bride with me tomorrow when we take his falcons out to hunt.”
“You expect me to go hunting with that fiend?” she asked in hoarse disbelief.
“No, with me. Now come here as I asked you,” he called in a far softer tone.
She had been frightfully worried, terrified he had been met with the very worst of receptions, but the fact that he had been enjoying himself so fully at Hrolf’s table was more than she could tolerate or forgive. “No! I’ll not sleep with a drunk.”
Mylan opened his eyes long enough to fix Celiese with a sullen stare that would have turned a lesser woman to stone. Thoroughly disgusted she did not appreciate his efforts on her behalf, he answered sarcastically, “If what you see is a drunk, then sleep elsewhere.”
“I intend to.” Grabbing her cloak, she moved to the edge of the tent and sat huddled in the shadows, so furious with the handsome young man who was her husband only when it suited him that she did not close her eyes until more than one cock had crowed to welcome the new day.
When the small boat Hrolf had sent arrived alongside the Surf Falcon the next morning, Mylan helped Celiese into the vessel and held her hand tightly for the short trip to the docks. Thinking the best approach simply to ignore the argument that had spoiled his plans to enjoy her company the previous night, he explained, “The duke, Robert, as he now calls himselfâ??he told me it is the custom of his adopted religion to choose a new name at the time of baptismâ??lives in a magnificent residence that faces the town square. It is difficult to go from one room to the next with the great number of treasures he has stored there.”
Whispering defiantly, Celiese contradicted him, “Booty!”
“Yes, of course, I know the goods are the spoils of his raids.” He tightened his grip upon the delicate bones of her hand; sorry now he had been so foolish as to bring her along when her temper was so quick. “Should you by some strange twist of fate chance to see something that belonged to your family or to their friends, please pretend you see nothing more than straw being stored to feed the livestock in the winter.”
“Don’t you understand what you are asking of me?” she asked indignantly.
“Yes,” he hissed crossly, “I am asking you to be as fine an actress today as you were the night we were wed!”
Devastated by that insult, Celiese clamped her mouth shut and turned away. She had been a fool to come to Rouen with Mylan when clearly he found Hrolf, or Robert, whatever he wished to call himself, a most interesting and doubtless admirable man. She already knew he would own nothing from her home, for Raktor had burned whatever he had not stolen, but all his possessions would have belonged at one time to families as dear as hers, and the tragic thought pained her. At the dock they found horses waiting, beautifully groomed and spirited mounts. All were surely stolen, and, thoroughly sickened by the day that lay ahead, she ceased to think of anything other than how to regain possession of her land.
The character of Rouen had changed so greatly since her last visit, Celiese would not have recognized the city had Mylan not sworn that was where they were. There were Danes everywhere, robust men whose fair hair and blue eyes shone brightly above their wide smiles. These men had stopped their raiding to take up permanent residence in France, and yet she knew there was land for them only because her countrymen had not been able to defend their homes and so had lost them, as well as their lives. Being fair-haired and green-eyed, she could pass among them unrecognized for what she was by birth. If it was an actress Mylan wanted, then that was what she would be, but only while it served her purpose.
Bored as the summer drew to an end, Hrolf was pleased to have the benefit of the company of a young man as intelligent and charming as Mylan Vandahl. While he had spent his own years pillaging France, Mylan had sailed to the edges of the known world and far beyond, yet he related the most astounding of adventures with a disarming modesty. He was exactly the type of man Hrolf wished to befriend, and he looked forward to a day of hunting with eager anticipation.
The duke and his party had already reached the open fields outside the city walls and were ready to begin the hunt when Mylan and Celiese arrived to join them. Mylan had favorably impressed all those he had met the previous day, and they were greeted warmly. Celiese’s fair beauty brought her instant acceptance as well.
“Your husband is far too modest a man, Celiese, for you are a wife who should be cherished, and he told us little of your virtues. We were not prepared to meet a woman of such extraordinary loveliness.” Hrolf flashed his most charming smile, expecting to see a pretty blush rise in the young woman’s cheeks, but she regarded him with a cool gaze he found most disconcerting. The power of his position made women eager to please him, but his flattery had failed to win so much as a smile from this beauty.
Ignoring his compliment, Celiese inquired instead abo
ut the hunt. “How have you found the time to train falcons for sport, sir? I should think you would have been far too busy.” Busy with murder and thievery, she was tempted to say, but she was too discreet to insult him so openly.
