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 toseethrough 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 Skårde the Scourge. TheDragon 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 hismore danico, Ylva—the privileged daughter ofJarl 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 Skårde 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 Skårde 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 glimpsedathunderbolt blazed across my betrothed’s chest, and a shocking current surged up my veins.
Will Skårde 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 Faðir 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 Skårde 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 immensedonjon, or keep. The entire fortifiedchâteauwas 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 Vikingdrakkarwarships flapped in the salty, stinging wind.
“There it is,dóttir. The fortress of Châteaufort.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 thePays de Caux.”
Chapter 6
Plotting Revenge
The medieval city of Lâon was known asla Montagne Cournonnée—the Crowned Mountain—because the fortified royal castle, residence of the Frankish kings, was built atop a towering mountain of white limestone and encircled by massive walled battlements, like an imposing crown upon a monarch’s majestic head.
Although its lofty location and solid construction were ideal for defense, King Lothaire of West Francia was trapped, surrounded by powerful enemies eager to dethrone him.
His cousin Otto the Red, King of East Francia and Holy Roman Emperor, anxious to expand his empire to equal the grandeur of his ancestor Charlemagne. His uncle Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, the royal guardian during Lothaire’s adolescence who exalted in the superior strength of East Francia. Another cousin, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, who—despite being Lothaire’s appointed vassal—ruled over the royal capital like a crowned Frankish king.
And now, still reeling from the recent disastrous defeat at Dorestad where his Frankish army had been vanquished in Frisia, Lothaire had just learned of the renewed alliance between his two greatest enemies. A duo of ruthless Viking monarchs.
Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Norway.
And Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy.
Lothaire stared sightlessly out the window of his castle, gazing at the dense forest beyond the crenellated curtain wall surroundingLâon. Frustration and fury simmered as he reflected on the failures of the past.
Twice before, the same duo of violent Vikings had allied against the Franks.
In 942, a humiliating defeat had forced Lothaire’s father, King Louis IV, to recognize Richard as the reigning Duke of Normandy.
Seven years ago, Bluetooth’s bastard—the monstrous brute known as Skårde the Scourge, the Dragon of Denmark—had fought alongside his Viking father, allied with Richard the Fearless, in the battle where Lothaire would surely have perished had it not been for the valor of his finest knight, Marcellus of Soissons.
The inimitable prowess for which I awarded him the Ulfberht sword which had once belonged to King Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne. The priceless blade stolen when the Dragon of Denmark slew Marcellus in the slaughter at Dorestad.
Lothaire gulped his goblet of fine French wine, grimacing at the vile, bitter taste of defeat. Skårde the Scourge had not only repelled Lothaire’s army, he’d driven the Franks back into Frisia and pillaged the port of Dorestad at the mouth of the Rhine River.
