The Captive Read Free

from the front of each ship, the fierce angle of the heads marking them as dragons or some other fantastical creature even from this distance. Between Gwendolyn and the oncoming ships—twenty, perhaps—the courtyard below hummed with activity. Warriors hauled weaponry to the walls from storerooms in the keep. Quivers full of arrows appeared from the protective nooks where they were normally kept to keep their feathers crisp. Cauldrons had been set over a bonfire, no doubt boiling some substance to be dumped upon anyone foolish enough to climb the fortifications.
    Would it be enough to keep the marauders away?
    Gwendolyn sensed the fear in the air. Alchere had boasted enough about his impregnable keep, but he had not fought the scourge of the north, the Norsemen whoburned abbeys after raiding the relics and ravaging the women.
    The swift boats were landing even now, gliding silently onto the beach all around. Why weren’t Alchere’s men firing on them? Had she been correct to assume they would give these raiders anything they asked to keep them at bay? From up here, she could see no way out of the keep, let alone a clear path to travel if she could reach the stable and secure a horse. Crouching low on her way to the farthest corner nook, she avoided notice from Alchere’s men who congregated on the southern facade, closest to where the Danes gathered. She leaned out over the wall on a vacant section of the ramparts to see the invaders for herself.
    The Norsemen were barbaric-looking. Large men, their stony visages reflected their warlike disposition. Their leather braies stretched over muscular thighs, while their light tunics snapped in the breeze against massive chests. This race that had conquered half of Britain was every bit as fearsome as she’d imagined.
    Holding down her veils to keep them from flapping in the wind, she tried to staunch the panic rising up in her throat. She could not afford to be taken by these men. Not as a pawn in some misguided bartering by Alchere, and not as a battle prize by marauding brutes. These men would hurt her as Gerald had hurt her. Or worse.
    Panic bloomed in her belly. She spied her overlord riding out to meet the assembled throng of warriors. Wasn’t that the action of a man prepared to negotiate peace instead of fight for it?
    By God, she would not serve as a peace offering to some lustful Dane.
    Backing away from the edge of the wall, hearthammering her chest, she thought about where to hide. Bits of stone broke beneath her feet and skittered down the wall. Nowhere was safe. She needed to—
    Her veil caught on the rocks in the wind, the fine silk snagging. Hands shaking, she reached to untwine it. She’d been foolish to wear it. She should have tied it about her waist, but it had not occurred to her she might really need to leave—
    “Ow!” She winced as she yanked her hair in her haste and still did not free the veil. Stepping closer to the edge of the wall, she lifted the fabric straight up to dislodge the snag. Just as the material came loose, a few rocks gave way beneath her feet.
    Her foot slipped. She gasped, her arms wheeling round, but finding naught but air to steady herself. In one gut-wrenching moment of clarity, she knew she would fall and break her neck on the rocks below.
    But at the last moment, strong arms belted about her waist, snatching her back from the edge as she pitched forward.
    Impossible. A miracle! Her brain could not comprehend what happened as limbs thick as tree trunks wrapped about her and hauled backward on her rump, dragging her to safety on the parapet wall.
    Relief burst through her like giddy laughter. She’d been saved from certain death.
    Turning toward her savior, her veil ripped and hanging limply to one side, she discovered a sight that led her to wish she’d flung herself to the beach below. Because the man who had saved her was no proud Saxon warrior, but the most terrifying enemy she could imagine.
    She’d been rescued by a