The Eagle's Woman

By Miriam Newman

Son of an impoverished, dying Norse chieftain, Ari raids for booty and slaves so he can feed his people. Pagan himself, still he spares priests though he sells them. He’s a heathen, a murderer, and it is a sin for any Christian woman to love him. Yet when he abducts Maeve from her peaceful Irish fishing village, he may have found the one woman who can.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DCL Publications
• Release date: Apr 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780985468279

Book preview

THE EAGLE

BOOK I

The Eagle’s Woman

by

Miriam Newman

DCL Publications, LLC

© 2012 Miriam Newman

All rights reserved

First Edition August 2012

DCL Publications

1033 Plymouth Dr.

Grafton, OH 44044

ISBN 978-0-9854682-7-9

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Annie Marshall and Beyond the Book Productions

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Chapter One

Coast of Eire

853 A.D.

Like the eagle for which he was named, Ari Bjornsson searched out prey.

Above the slide of silken waters past Stormwind’s bow, he heard Snorri Olafsson’s tread on the deck behind him. It was hard to miss a man that size.

Thor’s hammer strikes hard today, eh?

Ari turned from his perusal of the coastline, shrouded in eerie tendrils of morning mist. No, ours does.

Snorri’s brow furrowed slightly, and Ari slapped him on one mountainous shoulder. A raid on unsuspecting monks was a far cry from war. Though he was usually careful to acknowledge the gods, Ari had not even dedicated this raid to Tiw, god of war, much less to Thor.

We need not trouble him for such simple folk, he said lightly. They will be like lambs to the slaughter.

Comprehension lit the other man’s face and he licked thick lips above an explosion of red-gold beard. I like lamb. But I like women better.

Ari shook his head. It was well known Snorri had been uncontrollable on his only previous raid and Ari wanted no serious damages to saleable slaves. Gold first, then women. We can make a fortune at Hedeby this time of year on the good-looking ones. Do those no damage.

Children?

A few. They will not bring as much at market. For that we need women.

And the monks?

Ari hesitated for the merest second. Since they lived close to their God, he should not have any compunction about sending monks on their final journey. No man could escape his fate, even one who wore a robe.

We can sell some as scribes. Gold, young women and men, strong-looking children, a monk or two, he summed up, because Snorri could be forgetful. He was like a bull, useful if you could harness his strength, otherwise dangerous. The other twelve men aboard he could trust. His glance ran over them, taking stock, but they were either studying the mist as he had been or putting a final touch to their weapons. They had gone a-Viking with him many times since the lightning stroke claimed his father’s arm and leg.

Few others raid here, he explained to Snorri, who might be listening or not. Everything we take will be ours. And we are early. Stormwind could be the first ship of the year at Hedeby.

Just then the mist parted and he nodded in satisfaction. Eire had but one fjord to his knowledge and it lay straight ahead, limestone rocks well sprinkled with trees, pinnacled walls beckoning. It was a perfect place for a trap except the Irish never set one. Their chieftains were too busy fighting one another. Instead, undefended earthen walls surrounded a monastery only partially concealed by a grove of hardwoods. He saw no round tower to which the monks might escape, pulling up their ropes behind them, to outwait the Vikings.

It could not be better. His men need not go far for plunder, and he knew that close to the monastery were a small village and farms. There, Snorri and the others could take captives he could sell at the thriving market in Hedeby or even in Britain. Everybody needed slaves for spring planting.

We left this one last summer, he explained. Thought I would give it another year to grow. And now we reap the harvest.

* * * *

Maeve could smell the enticing scent of roasting meat and baking bread and her stomach registered its interest, loudly. She smiled, looking forward to a promising meal if not what it celebrated. So many lambs had been born at Candlemas that now, in April, roast lamb would be abundant for her betrothal. Her mother had been at work turning it in vats of oil sprinkled with sweet rosemary and thyme, then basting it over outdoor fires. There had been an anxious moment early that morning, when things looked dicey, but the fog had cleared and now her mother and friends were cooking the feast over spits.

Morning dew no longer pearled the meadow and woods, so she picked busily, gathering new violets in a cloth. They would look beautiful against the pale violet of her gown and the expanse of shoulder and bosom it left bare for this occasion. Usually she was far more modest, of course, and she would be again after she and Ronan married. But for that one day she would show her wares, so to speak. He would be appreciative. In fact, she wondered how she would fend him off this time.

A sudden raucous babbling of geese startled her from thought. Turning with her gathering cloth in hand, she never noticed it fall from her suddenly nerveless grip. Silhouetted against a brightening sky, images of men running through snowy clouds of honking geese seemed instantly burned into her stunned brain. No, not men…fiends. She had never seen a Viking, but Maeve knew that was what they were—savage long-haired men in conical helmets and mail, some leather, some chain…all of it far more defense than farmers and villagers would have. Battle axes the invaders carried left no doubt of that.

Stifling a scream, she dropped into a crouch despite her equally strong urge to run to the cottage. Her father’s instructions for such an event were well established, though there had been few raids along their wooded fjord. Usually invaders struck to the east where there were more riches or the more barren north, where there was less concealment.

But she had the woods. Ripping her hands in her desperate haste, she clawed her way into a nearby copse, heedless of anything but the need to disappear into earth and trees, praying the early leaves would be sufficient concealment. Try to hide, her father had said. And, if discovered, do not fight. A young woman had a chance to survive…a man, or at least a man who fought…none. Even if her father, Ronan and the others had seen the Vikings coming, there was precious little staves and pitchforks could do against such lethality.

Cold sweat drenched her skin instantly; her insides knotted convulsively with mortal dread. Her mother had been roasting lamb on the other side of their cottage. Fist jammed in her mouth to stifle her sobbing, she waited for screams.

Chapter Two

See, you got your lamb.

Ari speared a shoulder of juicy meat dripping oil, slicing a generous piece with his other knife