Chapter 5

“Father!”

Melisande had slept little that night and had arisen early. Shivering with the cool air of morning, she had hurried out to the parapets to watch the fortress awaken. The guards, on duty through the night, dozed with their heads bent down upon their own shoulders. Far below, the bakers and their wives were well into their day’s work, and the sweet smell of freshly baking bread was beginning to permeate the morn, thankfully taking away some odors that were not quite so pleasant. She could hear the blacksmith’s hammer, the song of a dairy maid. It seemed a very average day.

Then, suddenly, she became aware of a rider coming over the ridge from the eastern side. Coming from Gerald’s territory. She arched a brow curiously at first. Gerald himself had come often enough in her father’s absence. There seemed nothing odd about his coming. She didn’t like the man and despised his eldest son. Geoffrey was twenty, yet Melisande, at twelve, felt years his senior. From what she had always seen, he spent his days endlessly torturing the hounds or trying to wrest any little trinket of any value from his younger sisters and brothers. He was tall and well built, a handsome enough youth, but with a certain light to his eyes and twist to his lips that made her acutely uncomfortable. His mother had been dead as long as Melisande could remember, and their household seemed a wild one. Everyone wondered and speculated on when Gerald would take another wife, and it had occurred to Melisande that he might intend for it to be her. The servants had whispered about it often enough.

She shuddered at the thought. Marie de Tresse, the young maid who was her personal servant, had thoughtfully begun to teach her all the things she must know, though in truth, she had gleaned much of it by simply studying animal husbandry! The thought of being with Gerald in any such way made her feel violently ill. Yet the feeling did not persist, for she was assured in her father’s strength of will and determination. Maybe Gerald thought it natural that they should join their households together. She did not!

Nor would she ever entertain the thought of being a wife to his son! She could imagine sitting at night with him, watching him try to throw his dinner bones at the hounds’ noses!

“Father will never let it be!” she assured herself.

But the rider was coming closer, and she felt uneasy. Was this some message from Gerald regarding her? Would her father’s very definite refusal give cause to trouble—or battle—between them?

She hurried away from the parapet, racing for her father’s tower bedchamber. It was a huge place with a great canopied bed in the center, a fireplace far before it, tables and chairs and trunks strewn about so that he might be visited within his personal rooms. Count Manon had already risen and was sliding his sword into the sheath at his waist.

“Father!” she cried, bursting in on him, but he was quick to comfort her.

“I have seen the rider coming. I’m going out to meet him.”

Melisande hesitated. “Father, truly, you wouldn’t begin to consider making an arrangement—”

He laughed, pausing to kiss the top of her head. “Truly, Melisande, never! Now let me see what is going on out there. He claims that I consider my land and my daughter superior—aye, girl, and that I do!” he said, smiling. But his smile faded, and he looked seriously into her eyes and stroked her cheek. “Truly you are superior! I have watched you grow into a young woman with a wisdom that far exceeds your years. You have a tender touch for all beasts, a kindness in your heart for our people. They are dependent on us! All dependent on us, that is the world we live in. And you do not look to your own value, but give great concern to theirs. You have done me very proud, Melisande. Any man must prove himself worthy of you.”

Melisande stood up on her tiptoes, throwing her arms around her father’s neck, kissing his cheek. “If I have grown well at all, sir, it is because I have the wisest and kindest of all fathers!”

She realized then that someone stood behind them. She swung around. Philippe, captain of the fortress guard, was there, staring hard at the count. “It is Gerald himself at the gate, begging an audience with you. He warns of danger, and asks that you come beyond the gates so that his words may be for your ears alone.”

Ragwald hurried up behind Philippe. “I do not like this, not one bit, Count Manon.”

Manon sighed deeply. “Ah, well, he warns of danger. I must ride forward and see what that danger might be!”

He started forward, then turned again, kissing his daughter’s head tenderly once again. “Remember my words, Melisande. Always.” He hurried to the stone steps leading from the tower parapet to the ground below. Someone had already brought his great horse, and the count swiftly leapt upon the animal.

He called out the order for the gates to be opened and rode out.

Melisande remained on the parapet, uneasily watching what took place below. All eyes in the castle were trained on that meeting just beyond the gates.

That must have been why, Melisande realized when she saw the danger at last, they had been so very oblivious to it at first.

Other riders were coming over the ridge now.

She saw it all too late and all too quickly. Gerald had led her father out some distance from the gates. He had come alone as a lure.

And her father, in good faith, had followed him. Now riders were bearing down on him with deadly intent. So very many of them. Melisande stared at them and realized that many of them were different, they were not all Gerald’s men. They were Vikings. Clad in conical helmets, skin boots trimmed in fur, wooden shields carved just a little differently. They were Vikings. Just like those who had come to ravage the coast, like those they had beaten back upon occasion from the fortress walls. Vikings riding with Gerald.

Because alone, Melisande thought, neither they nor Gerald could best her father. They had strength, Gerald did not. Gerald could reach her father, deceive him…

And the Vikings could not!

Melisande began to scream. For a moment she saw her father’s eyes. Below her, in the courtyard, the guards, too, realized the danger. There were screams and shouts, men mounted their horses and went racing out on foot.

And all too late, as Melisande saw clearly. Gerald drew his sword against her father, and her father, excellent swordsman that he was, parried the first blow, and the second, and the third.

But by then the horsemen racing down from the ridge were upon him. It seemed a dozen gleaming swords shimmered in the daylight, silver growing red.

She began to scream again, sinking to her knees. All of Manon’s men were industriously engaged in the battle now, and all too late. She had seen her father fall from Warrior. She had seen the gates fly open again as the men from the fortress poured out, confused, fighting wildly, screaming, shouting.

Their leader downed.

She had seen Warrior come trotting back in through the gates, lost, as the others went racing through them, and she knew. With certainty.

Her father was dead.

Upon the parapet she leaned back against the wall, trying to breathe, trying to fight the staggering power of the pain and loss that seized her. Nothing on earth could cut so deeply, tear at her with such deadly agony. He was gone; she could not live without him. The tears came pouring down her cheeks and she cried out in a shrieking sob.

But there was no one there to hear her. Ragwald was gone, having raced down the parapet, in shock himself from the sheer brutal treachery of the assault.

The pain that gripped her was so great at first that she could think no further. Yet it was thinking of her father that at last gave her strength to rise again. Gerald had come to slay her father and then do battle. He had known that if he killed Manon, he would have destroyed the heart of the fortress, taken away the crucial guiding point for all the men within the castle walls. There was no one left for them to follow now. Philippe was their captain, of course, but the fighting would be different in the hearts of all the men.

Ragwald had taught her military issues as well as legal ones. The enemy always sought to kill the leader, and thus cause confusion within the force of men.

Gerald had done so. He had caused the gates to be opened. And even if they were closed again, he had done his damage. With his Viking warriors, he had created a powerful horde.

With Manon gone, the castle guards were fighting without heart.

Gerald would win. He had slain her father, and now he would take all that he wanted. There would be no one to stop him, especially once he had sworn homage to the king in Paris, because no one could ride out to settle petty disputes in a lawless land, where the strongest castle was always the one that decreed its own law…

She came determinedly to her feet. Gerald thought that he would kill her father, condemn her to whatever gruesome fate he desired, and seize all that her father had created.

She could not allow him to do so. She would rather die.

She gripped the wall of the parapet, staring down to the courtyard. Warrior stood there, alone, forlorn.

She pushed away from the wall, and she thought of the beautiful gilded coat of mail her father had brought her. For ceremonial occasions.

There would be a ceremony tonight. Her father must somehow lie in the chapel vault below, and they must all stand vigil.

They must live to do so. And somehow, somehow, best Gerald.

She looked to the heavens. “Dear God, let us slay him somehow! Please, God, any way on earth. Let me see him die today, or let me die myself in the effort!”

She pushed away from the wall and hurried for her tower room. She dressed in the mail, started out, but fell to her knees. “God, however you seek to help me, I will be grateful! By any means, fair or foul, let Gerald be beaten! I will accept any penalty you send my way, I will rot in hell, if that is your desire, but I beg of you, let this man be beaten!”

She stood and grasped the sword that fitted into the finely decorated scabbard that came with the mail. She shivered suddenly, violently. She didn’t want to die.

But her father was already dead. And she wasn’t so terribly sure that she wanted life without him. She was afraid.

Suddenly she heard his words echoing in her ears. “You have …a kindness in your heart for our people. They are dependent on us. They are dependent on us…”

What reward for seizing this castle had Gerald promised the men he fought with? The women and girls who resided within it? The clothing they wore, the plates they ate from, the precious little pieces of jewelry they might have obtained? The silver chalices in the chapel, the golden crosses there? The dairy maids, the seamstresses, the maids, the cooks…

The men murdered, the rest of them slaves. She dared not think of the fate Gerald would have for her.

Death might well be preferable.

With that thought in mind, she rose. She would spend her life hating Gerald and his kin and Vikings!

However long or short that life should be.

Far down upon the parapet Ragwald was seeing a new dimension give a different shape to the fray taking place before him.

Great waves of sea beasts were coming. With each white crest that broke across the water, the rise of the ships could be seen again. They lined the horizon, those ships with their serpent heads. Prow heads snarling, teeth gnashing. Dragon ships, Viking ships.

They rose, again and again, seeming to leap across the water, their dragon prows rising anew, no matter how roughly the sea raged. The day, so bright with morning, had turned ominous. Gray clouds roiled on the horizon. Jagged streaks of lightning came down from the skies as if the great Norse gods Wodin and his son, Thor, had banded together with a vengeance and now, in a fury, rode the billowing, windy gray day, tossing down golden and rippled spear after spear of fire.

Dragon prows…

Ragwald stared upon the coming ships. Heedless of all that was going on, he raced down the stone steps to the courtyard and shouted for a horse. A mount was brought to him, and he leapt atop it quickly. He ordered the gate opened, and rode through the mass of men engaged in hand-to-hand combat, not fearing them at all, he was so incredulous. He rode hard to the shore and leapt down from his horse. With the melee still going on behind him, he stood there unbothered, as if he were immortal, the sea wind picking up clouds of his graying hair to blow it across his ancient wizened face, his gray eyes suddenly ageless.

A man who counted astrology—along with other curious wonders—among his talents, he was amazed that he had not seen this great catastrophe that now seemed destined to befall them.

First Gerald, and now this!

The ships, those magnificent, horrible ships with their great raging dragon prows and red and white striped sails!

He looked from the ships to the land.

How could any prophet of any kind claim credibility when he had not foreseen today! Oh, he’d felt those shivers last night, but he hadn’t begun to see any of this! He might have warned Manon against it all!

And now!This fury from the sea!

With Count Manon already dead. Butchered by so many men, beaten by their swords and maces, a battle-ax nearly cleaving his fine head from his warrior’s body. They were already in such very grave trouble. Ragwald could see from where Gerald had drawn his strength, bartering for it with some of the marauding Danes who were forever pestering the coastal byways and rivers of France.

The people here would know it, they’d all know it! Gerald was a distant cousin, and he had long coveted this piece of land, where high rock surrounded a safe harbor, where the sand of the beaches quickly turned to rich soil. Manon had worked too well here when he had taken the wooden fortress and slowly, surely, turned it to stone. Stone that shone white against the blue of the sea and sky and the rich tones of the earth.

But what was this new element? Viking prows leaping and flying across the sea? Coming like a hundred pounding horses, bearing down upon them!

Ragwald turned quickly again. All was nearly lost. With Manon slain, his men were beginning to run in panic. They were good men, loyal men, but with the thoughts and hearts of men.

What was left to fight for if Manon was gone? Better to run to the safety of the forest, rescue their wives and children, run with them!

Men needed a leader, someone to stand behind, someone to fight for, to die for.

And all that was left to them was Manon’s young heir.

His daughter.

Ragwald inhaled and exhaled. He stared to the sea, trying to think. What would these ships matter, if Manon’s men could not regain their strength after Gerald’s attack? First things must come first, the enemy must be taken in order!

He leapt upon his horse and quickly turned his mount around, riding through the clumps of still fighting men, riding hard for the gates to the stone fortress, closed tightly at the moment.

Few fighting men were left inside the great gates. There would be no choice but surrender. Gerald’s men would seize them, or the dragons who came from the north would.

“I need Melisande!” he cried to the sentry. “I must have Melisande!”

There was a hesitance. Melisande should be in her room, awaiting the news of the battle. Perhaps with Marie de Tresse, perhaps with some other woman. Someone should be comforting her, hiding with her.

Ragwald sat grimly on his mount. Nay, not Melisande. Aye, she would be in pain, agony. But he knew her better than anyone else. If he called her, she would come.

One of the kitchen women, pale with her fright, looked over the parapet. “You cannot send a child to fight a battle for men, Ragwald!” she cried in dismay.

When the men are dead, I have nothing but a child, he thought.

Yet neither could he really think of her as a child anymore.

He heard her voice, soft, melodic, very feminine, and for all its youth, very strong.

“Open the gates. I will pass.”

Someone slid the great bolt, the gates parted outward, and she appeared.

Melisande.

She was trembling, Ragwald could see. She had loved her father dearly. But no tears ran down her fine ivory cheeks. Nor had she chosen to ride out on her small mare, Mara; rather, she had mounted on her fallen father’s great stallion, Warrior. Seeing her now, Ragwald realized quite suddenly that she had indeed grown up. She was tall for her years, extremely dignified now.

And she was clad in the armor they had all admired so greatly last night. The incredibly beautiful chain mail armor, decorated lavishly with gold and silver.

Her hair, rich, thick, and bounding well beneath her knees, flowed about her.

She was a figure to lead, a figure for men to fight for, for men to die for.

“You have heard?” Ragwald said softly. “Your father is dead. You are the countess.”

Her lower lip trembled, and he could see the wealth of tears about to spill from her beautiful violet eyes. She nodded. She would not spill those tears. Not now.

“There is a great deal of horror before us,” he continued gently. “But you are our only chance. Can you ride before men?”

She was afraid, yes, certainly. But the emotion showed in her eyes just briefly. She lifted her chin. “I am the countess. I…” She hesitated a moment, for they both heard—suddenly, clearly—the hard sound of an ax connecting with flesh and bone, and the agonized cry of a man. She paled, her pain for the man evident, but then she continued quickly, “I am the countess, and I will lead our men.”

Ragwald suddenly wanted to cry. Shivers ripped along his spine as he realized again the very great beauty of this child, the girl he had taught and now must serve. If they were to lose the day, if she were to be taken, what would befall her? She was somewhere in that strange age between childhood and womanhood, so innocent, so tender, so achingly lovely.

He had given this great thought. So, apparently, had she. There was no choice but for her to ride.

For a moment the petty little wars that they seemed to wage so constantly with one another meant nothing at all. His heart ached, and he reached out to her. “Come, Countess,” he said, bowing low to her. “Come, and we will rally our troops!”

They rode forward, he and Melisande. Men were slipping from the crest of the battle, heading for the deep forests.

“You must call them, speak to them—” Ragwald began. But it seemed he didn’t need to teach her any longer.

Melisande cried out to them. “My friends! We must fight on! We cannot give over this land to the men who betrayed my father! We cannot let them steal our livelihoods, rule us, slay us!”

Those who had been disappearing paused. Swords crashed and thundered, and one of the enemy fell before the huge captain, Philippe. On foot he hurried to fall before Melisande. “Countess! What can we gain? We fight this bastard—and look to the sea! More dragons come, more and more!”

Melisande saw the ships at last. Ragwald had thought it best not to mention them to her, but now he watched her violet eyes widen as they took in the multitude upon the sea.

“Maybe they have not come to wage war!” he said suddenly. Someone had to meet them. Beg for help, promise some reward. “They are a strange lot, and if they are Norse rather than Swedish or Danish, they might well fight with us rather than against us.”

Anguish seized him. He needed to meet the Vikings. He had been Count Manon’s aide for years, he had brought messages, he had negotiated peace again and again. He had to go.

And Melisande had to stay here, golden and shimmering, inspiring their troops to victory. To fight until help could come. Yes, yes! The Vikings had to fight with them, had to.

“Strange Vikings!” Philippe cried suddenly. “Look! Look beyond the dragon on that helm!”

It was the first time that Melisande was ever to see Conar MacAuliffe, and oddly enough, it was then she began her hostility toward him. For whether Ragwald managed to encourage the man to fight with them or not, she could not bear his look behind that dragon’s visage at the prow of his ship.

She had never seen a man quite like him.

The day had grown increasingly stormy. The sky was gray, the wind was vicious. Yet no matter what the violence or rage of the whitecapped sea, he stood without wavering. One foot, booted in skin and fur, rode the helm while he looked to the shore, his great arms crossed over his chest. Golden blond hair caught what slim light filtered through the gray of the day, and over a breast coat of chain mail, he wore a mantle most similar to that Melisande had seen upon the Irishmen who had come to her father’s house. It was caught at his shoulder by a great broach in a Celtic design. He was strangely dressed—like a Viking, yet not like a Viking. His ship cut the water like hot steel, there was something very wild and raw about the way that he stood, and the way that his ship moved.

There was also something of absolute confidence and arrogance about him. There was a dignity in the way he stood without flinching or faltering.

Suddenly Melisande was certain he was looking at her. Straight at her. He couldn’t possibly see her eyes, for she could not see his. But she was certain that he was staring at her, and that he saw her as a child, and nothing more.

“Strange Viking…” Ragwald said. Then he gasped, “Why, ’tis him! Jesu, what a daft fool I have been here! It is him!”

Melisande stared at him. Indeed, he had become a very daft fool!

But Ragwald stared at her, aggravated. “Conar MacAuliffe, son of the Wolf—and grandson of the Ard-Ri of Eire. Kin through marriage to Alfred of Wessex!”

Melisande followed his words quickly. Alfred was the greatest king they had ever known across the channel. He had fought for his people, and held his ground, in countless battles. He had forced the Danes to treaties.

And this man was kinsman to him?

Philippe cried out suddenly, warning them all of a greater danger. He pointed to the crest southeast from them, Gerald’s land. “There rides Gerald himself! The bastard! With more men. The coward! He tricks your father out, sees that he is slain, and then retreats again until the battle is nearly taken. Now he rides out himself! And our forces are so greatly weakened!”

“Melisande,” Ragwald warned firmly, “you must cry out again, gather the men around you. I will go for help!”

“From those heathens from the sea?” she cried.

“Girl, you can’t understand as yet. I’ll explain it all to you, but aye, there will be help from those heathens from the sea!”

“Ragwald!”

There was no time. “Cry out again, Countess!” he warned her. “We must fight hard now!”

She was suddenly alone, it seemed, though not alone at all, for hundreds of men, dead and alive, littered the battlefield. But indeed, she was alone. Her father was gone. Blessed father, he was gone. The incredible tall, kind man who had been her life, who had taught her dignity, who had stood behind her, and loved her more deeply than any man could love a son. Who had always given her an incredible worth. He was gone.

It could not be.

He could not be dead. He had been too tall to die, too strong, her protector. He had seemed as invincible as the gods, and now she dared not look down to where he lay still.

The people were dependent on her.

She was the countess now. And no matter how she shivered inside to sit atop Warrior and look out over these men, she must do so.

Gerald had pretended to be her father’s friend. He had betrayed him. And he meant to take their fortress and have it for his own. And God alone knew what would happen to them all if they did not beat back Gerald’s forces!

She opened her mouth, determined to create some new rallying cry. For a moment, though, she was torn by what she saw around her. Her mouth went dry. The words would not come. Men lay about so haphazardly! Men like her father, strong men, men who had so recently lived and breathed, smiled and laughed! Now they lay about, mangled, torn, swept up in pools of their own blood.

She could not do it! She could not ride forward!

She could not let her father lie unavenged!

She drew the small sword from the scabbard about her waist. She raised it very high on the air. “For God and Our Right, my friends! For my father, slain, for our lives! Mon Dieu! Onward!”