Chapter 5

Voyage to Normandy

Ylva’s thighs and rump ached as she thumped endlessly up and down in the stiff leather saddle. She was unused to riding a horse, for she and Lova had never been able to afford one. They had always trekked into the village on foot, each of the two women hauling a small wooden wagon to transport their bartered supplies. Now, as Ylva rode the majestic grey Andalusian, forced to follow her father and his Viking warriors along the craggy Breton coast, the pitiful bleating of her terrified sheep filled her ears and tore at her heart. Like my beloved herd, I am a lamb being led to slaughter. Sacrificed to the insatiable, voracious Viking army. Throat parched and stomach clenched, she watched the abundant pink and purple blossoms of the familiar heathered moor disappear as her captors’ caravan progressed relentlessly east into the unknown forested cliffs of Normandy.

She was numb, hollow, and empty. Stunned by the slaughter of her innocent sheep. Abducted from the cottage where she’d lived with her mother. Where she’d learned the herbal medicine of a skilled Druid priestess. Where she’d discovered her innate gift to see through mirrored waters of the sacred spring of Mont Garrot.

Torn from the seaside village of Saint-Suliac, the only home she had ever known, Ylva drowned in endless waves of engulfing emotions.

Grief at the loss of her herd and her home.

Fear of the future, forced into marriage with the Danish brute Sk?rde the Scourge. The Dragon of Denmark--a rugged warrior as ruthless as Richard the Fearless, the Viking savage who’d conquered her Breton village and claimed her Celtic mother. The heartless father who had abandoned his wife and daughter, subjecting them to hatred, derision, and scorn.

The pounding of her horse’s hooves jarred Ylva’s clamped jaw as she relived the bitter past.

When the Vikings invaded Saint-Suliac, and Riichard claimed Lova as his more danico , Ylva—the privileged daughter of Jarl Rikard —had once trained with her warrior father and wielded the magnificent Frankish sword which was now strapped across her Andalusian’s saddle. But now, the heirloom blade was destined to be given to her future husband Sk?rde in the ritual exchange of swords for her forced Viking wedding on the Summer Solstice.

Ylva, born with a blend of Viking and Celtic blood, had grown up in isolation, accepted by neither culture and rejected by both.

She sighed in exasperation, frustration, and fury. I—like the ancestral lands of my great grandfather—am nothing but property. To be given to my husband in a dowry. I’ll be forced to submit my body to him. Compelled to bear his heirs. Like my mother and both of my grandmothers, I—- Breton priestess and gifted guérisseuse—shall be sacrificed though marriage as a captive Viking bride. Will I, like them, be cast aside when my husband takes a Christian wife?

Ylva inhaled the saline scent of the sea, its tangy brine a soothing comfort as she faced her ominous future.

My betrothed is Sk?rde the Scourge, a vicious Viking brute. A savage beast, like the Viking warriors in Saint-Suliac who conquered their Breton thralls. A shiver of dread slithered down Ylva’s spine at the memory of her recent vision inside the sea cave. In the waters of the sacred spring, I glimpsed a thunderbolt blazed across my betrothed’s chest, and a shocking current surged up my veins.

Will Sk?rde scorch me with his sizzling touch? Strike like lightning and consume me in flames? Reduce me to ashes, strewn in the charred wake of dragonfire?

A gusty breeze whipped Ylva’s long blonde hair and stung her windblown cheeks as she plodded along the forested cliff. I speak the Breton language of my mother and the Norman French of my father. But I’m grateful that Faeir also taught me his Viking tongue. Although it has been ten years since I spoke it, at least I’ll be able to communicate with my future husband. When we live together in my ancestor’s castle, I’ll have to learn the Viking customs expected of me as the wife of a Nordic jarl. Will Sk?rde learn to speak French as Count of the Pays de Caux? Or will the Vikings from Denmark force the Celtic people to learn their Nordic tongue?

Lost in disquieting reverie, suffering in physical misery, Ylva was startled by the sudden snort of her father’s enormous Percheron as Richard, atop his massive black warhorse, galloped up to her side.

The procession of Viking warriors who’d stolen her from Saint-Suliac had halted at the edge of the dense forest where, in the clearing up ahead, Ylva glimpsed an imposing stone fortress, built upon a high chalk cliff, on the forested bank of a fast-flowing river which emptied into the Narrow Sea.

The setting sun had just begun its descent behind them, casting a gilded glow onto the glimmering white limestone castle. Two cylindrical towers with crenellated rooftops flanked the immense donjon , or keep. The entire fortified chateau was surrounded by dense forest and a thick stone outer curtain wall, with a wooden drawbridge and barbican watchtower centered above a defensive moat. In the bay of the sheltered inlet, beyond the castle perched on the towering cliff, the ominous red and white striped sails of a fearsome fleet of Viking drakkar warships flapped in the salty, stinging wind.

“There it is, dóttir. The fortress of Chateaufort. A royal residence which once belonged to your great-grandfather Rollo, the first Viking chieftain of Normandy.” He grinned broadly, his white teeth barely visible amidst the thick blond mustache and long, braided beard. “It’s time for you to embrace your Viking roots. For here, in this majestic castle, you’ll marry the son of the Danish king and rule the white chalk cliffs as Viking Countess of the Pays de Caux .”