Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series Read online

  THE DEFIANT HEART

  by

  Anita Gordon writing as

  Kathleen Kirkwood

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Author’s Appreciation

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Author’s Postscript

  Author Biography

  Coming Soon

  Also Available

  Coming in Late 2013

  ©Copyright 1993, 2013 Anita Gordon

  Revised Edition, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, other than those in attributed quotations or references, are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover art: edhGraphics

  Cover image of models Jimmy Thomas & Lacey Hannan licensed from Romance Novel Covers at www.romancenovelcovers.com.

  ISBN-13: 978-1624540073

  Dedication

  For my children, Kimberly, Scott, and Christopher. You’ve always been and continue to be the precious lights of my life. And for our grandsons, Sean, Beau, Connor, Aidyn, Nicholas and James, and for Ligia, our daughter-in-law, and Brian, our son-in-law, you add sparkle and shine to my life all the more.

  Author’s Appreciation

  Very special thanks to Jim Shellem for his nautical expertise and advice, not only in editing the pertinent scenes, but as the “architect” of the sea battle.

  Additional thanks to Linda Douglas for her help in Lyting’s and Deira’s scene at Gelandri.

  Also, warm and very special thanks to my parents, Jim and Betty Barbour for the “care and feeding of the muse” while laboring in the face of her deadline and she needed a place of peace and quiet to tuck herself away. You’re the best.

  Note on pronunciation: Once again, I have used Icelandic (Íslensk) which preserves the language of the ninth-century Norsemen. The character “ð” is pronounced like the th-sound in “the”; “Þ” is pronounced like the th-sound in “thin”; and “æ” is pronounced “i” as in “like.”

  THE DEFIANT HEART

  “A rich and sumptuous feast of romantic historical adventure . . . I read all night.”

  Bertrice Small, author of To Love Again

  “A wonderful story of grand adventure and enduring love — I thoroughly enjoyed it!”

  Anita Mills, author of The Fire and the Fury

  “From the first page to the last, The Defiant Heart is totally captivating.”

  Linda Abel, publisher, The Medieval Chronicle

  “A masterpiece of fiction! Five stars!”

  Affaire de Coeur

  THE VALIANT HEART

  Winner of the Golden Heart Award

  “Wonderful historical fantasy; I read it with avid enjoyment!”

  Roberta Gellis, author of Fires of Winter

  “Exciting and heartrending, touched with warmth and humor. One of the best novels I’ve read in years!”

  Rene J. Garrod, author of Passion’s Endless Tide

  “Anita Gordon joins the ranks of the finest Medieval novelists.”

  Romantic Times Magazine

  PART 1

  A furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine.

  “From the fury of the Norsemen deliver us, 0 Lord!”

  Prologue

  The North Sea, 915 A.D.

  The mighty fleet of drakken swept north, carving the fogbound sea. Swift and silent they coursed, triumphant high-prowed dragonships, their hulls heavy with plunder — serpents in the mists.

  Onward they plowed through trackless ocean and sunless haze, bearing their precious cargo — ivory, gold, and womanly flesh — far from the Isle of Eire, far to where gelid shores and hoarfrost lairs brinked the earth.

  A horn brayed long and deep, sending chills to crawl over Ailinn as the lead vessel signaled its companions through the curtain of gray. The others quickly took up the call and repeated the blast from stern to stern till the waters vibrated with the sound of trumpeting beasts.

  Ailinn drew the mist-sodden blanket about young Lia and hugged her close. “Shush, love. Rest now,” she soothed.

  Lia shuddered beneath Ailinn’s arms, but her cries quieted to a broken sniffle.

  Heavyhearted, Ailinn laid her cheek against her stepcousin’s small, dark head and closed her eyes. She breathed the dank sea air and listened to the muffled sobs of the women about her. Listened to the rhythmic drub of a wooden rod as a Norseman smote his buckler over and over, pacing the oarsmen’s strokes.

  “May God remember us in our hour of need,” Ailinn prayed softly over Lia. “May God protect — ”

  Ailinn swallowed her words against the knot of anger that rose in her breast. For a countless time this day she shuttered her heart against the pain, against the horrors that burned in her soul.

  Where was the Almighty in those desperate moments before dawn? Why did God hold back his hand when the blood-thirsting devils descended upon Clonmel? Why?

  She squeezed her lashes against a fresh flow of tears. Still, they trickled paths over her cheeks. Instinctively Ailinn rocked Lia in her arms, a gentle, comforting motion.

  Cold. She was so cold. And so very tired. ‘Twas a chill and a weariness that only one who had passed through the darkness of death and the shadows of Hell could know. If there remained one shred of gratitude she could lift heavenward, ‘twas that Fianna, her mother, and Lorcan, her stepfather, did not live to see Munster ripped wide by Danish blades. Would that God had seen her to her own grave with them and spared her this agony.

  Ailinn thrust aside her self-pity. Her heart ached for her stepcousins. Lia and Deira had witnessed their parents lying in a pool of blood, their father with his head crushed and their mother savaged. Rhiannon had shrieked wildly for her father, the overking. He was a dauntless, hard-bitten warrior. Still, there was no sight of him when they were dragged from the compound with the other women.

  Sweet Jesu, the sight of it! — everything hacked to pieces. In their contempt the Norsemen hewed down every object and beast that misfortuned to occupy the walled yard. All about lay the wreckage of implements, furniture, and crockery. Huts were torched and pens smashed down. Blooded hounds cluttered the yard. Everywhere there was death. Ailinn saw those she’d known from her youth lying vacant-eyed, their lives poured out on Eire’s sweet earth. Many more were beyond reco
gnition.

  The preparations for the bridal feast, so joyfully made the day before, lay in ruin. Sprays of hawthorn, decorating the doors and walls of buildings, shriveled with heat as flames devoured the structures and those who had fallen within.

  Longships — dozens upon dozens — awaited, blackening the River Suir. Ailinn was boarded with the others and shackled to the thick mast. As the ships slid away, she watched the billowing smoke climb the skies over Clonmel.

  Ailinn shivered as she tasted the salt of her tears. A breeze stirred and teased a strand of auburn hair across her face. Dragging it down, she squinted her eyes open to seek Deira and Rhiannon. Instead, her gaze met with the hard, flinty stare of the man called Hakon.

  She stiffened with revulsion and loathing. God willing, she would kill the cur with her own hands given the chance. ‘Twas he who had slain their maid, Bergette, and violated Deira and Rhiannon before her very eyes.

  Ailinn averted her face and stared gloomily into the mist. Fresh currents of guilt surged through her. ‘Twas, in part, her own actions that provoked the Norseman to lay hold of her stepcousins and defile them so savagely. Even now as she glanced to them, Rhiannon clawed her with eyes sharp as talons, then gave Ailinn her back as she slipped a comforting arm about Deira.

  Pain lanced through Ailinn and stung her heart. She grieved for them both and for all the women who suffered the dark lusts of the Northmen. None had escaped, not even young Lia. None, save herself alone.

  She glanced to the ship’s graying chieftain, a massive, grizzled warrior — Skallagrim, she’d heard the others name him. ‘Twas he who claimed possession of her despite Hakon’s heated protests. Whatever his intent, Skallagrim neither pleasured himself upon her nor allowed his men sport of her.

  Ailinn felt the weight of Hakon’s steady, piercing gaze. A chill curled along her spine. She feared he yet purposed to have her.

  In that first, horrifying moment, when the Norsemen burst through the chamber door, her eyes had beheld Hakon’s crimsoned blade flashing. Flashing its terrible downward stroke as he severed Bergette’s life. Ailinn screamed at the butchery, drawing Hakon’s attention upon herself. In a heartbeat he leapt for her, yet she fought him with a frenzied strength as pure, unholy terror erupted through her. The fine bride’s veil and crown of hyacinth ripped from her hair beneath his hands as she wrenched free and fled for the door. In the next breath she slammed into the hardened chest of a huge, brutish Northman who reeked of smoke, sweat, and death.

  Ailinn’s blood ran cold as Skallagrim held her in his iron grip and ran a gauging eye over her. Hakon argued hotly with her captor while their comrades began to push into the small room and lay hold of the young women there. Though Ailinn understood naught of their twisted tongue, Hakon plainly deemed her his prize and demanded her back.

  But Skallagrim refused to release her, using his authority to end the matter. ‘Twas then in the heat of his anger that Hakon seized Deira and ravaged her. He next laid hold to Rhiannon. The heathens abused the other maidens as well, swiftly, brutally, shouting their coarse pleasure. Several flaunted the stained gowns of the virgins they sullied, pleased with the spoils of conquest.

  At that, Skallagrim studied Ailinn a long, considering moment. He marked the bridal array that adorned her — the unblemished gown, the remnants of bruised blossoms that yet clung in her hair. A light came into his flat eyes and his craggy, bearded face spread with a grin as though he had found some great treasure. With Ailinn secure in his grip, he hauled her from the building and down to the River Suir.

  Lia tensed against Ailinn, netting her back to the moment. She looked up to see Hakon unfold to his full height. He stepped forward with sure footage on the forging deck.

  Ailinn’s heart thudded against her ribs as his gaze prowled over them. She tightened her grip on Lia, but he only rumbled a sound deep in his throat, then moved past to the rear of the ship, where he replaced the man at the steering board.

  Ailinn vented her breath. Gently she fingered back a tangle of hair from Lia’s pale cheek.

  “As pas de peur, ma chère cousine. Reposes-toi,” Ailinn calmed, unmindful she had slipped into Frankish.

  She, Lia, and Deira had learned the tongue at their nurse’s knee and exercised it most often to share a confidence or voice their griefs. Now the familiar words rushed forth, consoling in somewise — old friends, intimate and dear.

  Lia quieted once more as Ailinn soothed her fingers through the girl’s sable tresses. What would come of them, she brooded — Lia, Deira, Rhiannon, the maidens of Clonmel, herself? Were the remainder of their days foredoomed to enslavement and submission among the heathens? And Skallagrim — what plans did he hold for her? Surely, he spared her apurpose. Though she loathed to concede it, for the moment her safety lay with the rugged chieftain. But her kinswomen and friends she was powerless to aid.

  Dispirited, Ailinn began to sing softly, lulling Lia with an old strain that was tinged with a sadness peculiar to Gaelic melodies. Her crystalline voice carried along the ship’s length and drifted out over the deep waters. The men fell silent. Even the oar-pacer muted his strokes.

  Tears ached in Ailinn’s throat, but her voice never faltered. Once anew, she thanked Heaven above that her mother and stepfather had not lived to suffer this day or witness her fate. She embraced their memory and held them dear. For the briefest of moments she recalled her mother as she lay dying, her husband’s and daughter’s hands clasped within her own thin strength.

  “Hold fast, my dearest Ailinn,” Fianna heartened. “Sometimes the darkness holds the light.”

  Ailinn staved the memories before their keen edge pared too close. Lifting her gaze, she beheld her new masters. They wore the blood of her people.

  Raw, mordant anger churned Ailinn’s soul. What small light remained in her life after Fianna’s and Lorcan’s deaths today went out altogether. In the darkness that engulfed her world, she knew only a scalding hatred for all Norsemen. Her body they might use and break, but in her heart she vowed ever to remain defiant.

  As the ships sliced the waters for distant shores, Ailinn ended her song. “I am sorry, Mother. Night has fallen and I cannot see beyond. There is no one to aid me or bring forth the hope of dawn.”

  Chapter 1

  Hedeby, Danmark

  A bright smile slashed Lyting’s sun-coppered features as he leapt from the prow of the Sea Falcon to the wharf’s solid planking. ‘Twas good to be in Hedeby once more.

  As he secured the ship to one of the stout bollards, he scanned the bustling quayside with its colorful mix of humanity.

  Já, ‘twas good, he avowed warmly, his pulse quickening to the pace that thrummed along the dock and on through the town. This voyage would be his last for many a year to come — a final excursion before his return to Normandy. Then would he set forth for Corbie and begin studies under the Benedictines, bound by Holy Rule.

  Mayhap, in time, he would yet return to these shores.

  With a staunch yank he finished lashing the lines and glanced back to the sleek ship. Lyting’s grin widened. His sister-in-law, Brienne, and her friend, Aleth, gaped from their perch. The scene before them, he imagined, was wholly unlike any they’d ever witnessed in their native Francia.

  Hedeby. Gateway of Danmark. Mistress of trade and crossroad of the North. The town nested in a ring of heavy defense works on the Schlei fjord which cut deep across the narrow foot of the Jutland peninsula. Traffic intersected her boundaries east from the Baltic and west from the North Sea. Along the military road, Hærvejen, goods flowed north and south.

  Lyting looked on with amusement as Brienne nudged Aleth, pointing out a man who ambled along the pier in wide, baggy pants gathered below his knees. Aleth, in turn, gasped at the necklace one woman wore, an extravagant piece crowded with large rock crystals, set in silver mountings.

  The planks shuddered beneath Lyting as his brother, Rurik, jumped to the wharf beside him. An instant later Aleth’s husband, Ketil, appeared above th
em shouldering a narrow wooden ramp.

  Lyting tossed a spirituous glance from one to the other as he helped brace down the thick board. “Best secure the keys to your coffers. Your wives look ready to spend last year’s gain.”

  Ketil guffawed in his flaming red beard, his broken features crinkling. “And what better enjoyment than for a man to squander a bit of coin on his lady? ‘Twill be most happily rewarded in the end.” He winked, then leaned forward to cast Lyting a purposeful nod. “Mind, ‘twould do you well to find a warm and lovesome maid and bind yourself there. Far better than the cold stone walls you seek,” he said, dispensing his all-too-frequent advice.

  Rurik chuckled deep and rich as Ketil withdrew. “Marriage agrees with our friend. Who would have thought that such a wisp of a girl as Aleth could tame that bear?”

  Lyting shared the laugh, his smile lingering as his golden brother mounted the plank to rejoin his wife in the ship. Rurik dropped a kiss to Brienne’s lips, then a second to the small, dark head asleep at her breast. Aleth moved to Rurik’s side just then, bearing a second child, identical to the first, and gave the mite over to his father.

  A warm pride swelled through Lyting as he looked on the Baron and Baronne de Valsemé as they stood with their young heirs and gazed townward. Norse and Frank, they tarried, content in each other’s presence. Nei, Norman, Lyting amended, melded by heart and blood.

  Danish by birth, Lyting and his brothers had grown to manhood in Jutland’s north on the inlets and broads of the Limfjord. Their father, Gruel Atli, warred for a decade in Francia alongside their famed uncle, Rollo, and the Norsemen of the Seine.