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Rune turned his back on them, and from the hillside, a piercing whistle sounded a warning.

“To the boats!” Bjorn’s voice rang across the yard.

The sounds of combat were replaced with shouts of urgency. In ones and twos, the Vikings exited the buildings at a run. Some carried bulging sacks. Two hauled a roasted pig, and four more held flagons of mead or ale.

As the yard emptied, the older woman left the protection of the wall and dropped to the ground beside the young woman. She began to wail, and Leif backed away. The lookouts had issued their warning. He must go.

As though she had only now realized that he was still there, the young woman looked up. Cradling her father’s head on her knee, her tear-filled eyes met his.

“May God have mercy on your souls for what you have done,” she cried.

Her tortured words penetrated his chest like a knife, and Leif took another unsteady step away from her.

“Leif!” Bjorn shouted. “The lookouts report mounted riders.”

The young woman likely did not know what had caused the Vikings’ sudden departure. Her grief was undoubtedly too great to truly care who came, but she deserved some measure of hope.

“Help is coming,” he said.

A flicker of shock entered her eyes. She had understood.

“What good will that do now?” She swiped her hand across her damp cheek. “It is everlastingly too late.” She covered her mouth to muffle a sob. “Go! And may you never set foot on Gwynedd’s soil again.”

Chapter 4

Through a fog of disbelief and anguish, Rhiannon heard the rattle of hooves approach the house. The horses entered the yard, and a man’s voice—brusque and insistent—punctuated the air. For a moment, Rhiannon wondered who had come. And then, as though from a faded memory, she remembered her father coming to fetch her from the beach and his insistence that she present herself well to the visitors he was expecting this very day.

Her chin trembled at the memory of the pleasure in his eyes when she’d reappeared in the hall, dressed in her finest gown, with her hair pinned. It had been less than an hour ago, yet it felt as though an eon had passed. She released a quivering breath, the pain in her chest threatening to consume her.

The new arrivals were undoubtedly Cadwgan ap Gronw and his party. This would hardly be the welcome he was expecting. She should rise to greet him, but she could not. No matter the nobleman’s lofty station, to offer him the deference he was due was currently beyond her.

At some point after the last Viking had disappeared, Nest had left to assess the damage done to the kitchen. Heledd and Myfanwy had returned from the trees. Devastated by what had happened during her absence, Heledd had gone to check on the condition of the men who had attempted to defend the house and its occupants, not least of them her husband, Dai. She had yet to reappear. Myfanwy had disappeared into the house, and Rhiannon had not thought to ask what she was about.

Footsteps sounded, drawing closer. Rhiannon raised her head. A man wearing a dark traveling cloak stood above her.

“You are Rhiannon ferch Iorwerth?” he said.

Drawing on every particle of strength she possessed, she pulled her shoulders back. “I am.”

He bowed his head. “My name is Cadwgan ap Gronw.”

Rhiannon studied him in the faint light. He was tall but not so tall as the Viking who had spoken to her before he’d left. She frowned. Surely it was unusual for a Norseman to converse in Gaelic. The Viking’s accent had been thick but the words fully recognizable. The realization that one of the monsters who had pillaged her home and killed her father could communicate with her was unsettling. It humanized them. She forced all thought of him away. “You have come at the worst possible time, my lord.”

“The stableboy claims it was Vikings.”

“Yes.”

He swung to face the sea. “Would that we had arrived earlier.”

Sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. If Cadwgan had arrived an hour ago, her father would surely be alive still.

Movement in the shadows drew her attention.

Myfanwy appeared carrying a sheet. “Forgive me, miss. I brought this for . . . for the master.”

Gratitude for the maid’s thoughtful gesture vied with her horror over what had to be done. Slowly, she slid her knees out from beneath her father’s head and gently laid it upon the ground. Fighting back her tears, she rose to her feet.

“I thank you, Myfanwy. Would you be so good as to lay the sheet upon him?”