Page 55 of Her Celtic Captor

"After," he prompted, his voice low.

"After what she saw. After she found me and ... Aelbeart."

She clamped her hand over her mouth as though to ram the name back in whence it came Until that afternoon with Dughall she had not uttered that hated, feared name for a decade, but now it hung there between them, hovering in the air like a toxic odour. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Aelbeart? A Celtic name if I am not mistaken."

She nodded, no longer able to stem the flow of words. It was as though a dam had burst, and the torrent escaped, unstoppable, sweeping away all before it.

"He was a thrall, a slave in our settlement. My father purchased him, I think. I do not know, he just arrived. He was... handsome."

"I see." Taranc waited, his patience seemingly without end.

"I... I was fourteen years old. Aelbeart would smile at me, offer me flowers sometimes. A daisy head, a rose perhaps. He told me the petals of the cornflower were the same colour as my eyes. I ... I have never seen a cornflower."

"He was your friend, this Aelbeart?"

She shook her head, hard. "He was a slave, so no, we could not be friends. But, I watched him. I could not help it. He was... everywhere. Every time I left our longhouse, he would appear at my side. He helped me with my chores, told me I was pretty, and clever, and... and he flattered me. I became confused, infatuated I suppose but at the time I just... I just adored him."

"Was he of a similar age to you?"

"No, he was older. Twenty five summers perhaps, maybe more. I was never quite sure."

“Ah.”

“What do you mean? Ah?”

“Nothing. Please continue. Did your family know of your... interest in this slave?"

"Of course not." She gaped at him, shocked at the very suggestion. "I could never tell. Aelbeart said we must keep it a secret."

"Did he say why that was?" Taranc’s tone was deceptively soft but Brynhild knew him well enough to be able to detect the undercurrent of suppressed anger. Was it directed at her? She thought not.

"He... he wanted me to help him to escape, eventually. When I was older he said we would go away together, and we would be happy."

"But running away with a slave was not your dream. I of all people should know that, and you just told me so. You were to be a lady of the Jarl, like your mother."

"A life with Aelbeartbecamemy dream. I wanted it. I wanted him. I was wicked, sinful, greedy. It was all my fault."

"Wicked, sinfulandgreedy? What happened?"

"Aelbeart wanted more than just brief and secret flirtations in the fields or around our settlement. He persuaded me to slip away and meet him, sometimes at night after the rest of my family were in bed. I did not want to at first. I was afraid... my father... But I agreed eventually. So, we would meet, walk together, talk. He... he kissed me. And I let him, because I am a slut."

"Who told you that?" he prompted.

"He did. Aelbeart. I said it was wrong, what we were doing, and that I could no longer meet him in secret. He became angry and told me I was no better than a common harlot, a slut who had teased and tempted him, only to let him down when he had trusted me. He said I was beholden to him, I owed him for the sacrifices he had made in being prepared to wait for me. He could have escaped, could have found his freedom, and he would now that he knew I did not care for him as he cared for me." She paused, remembering the heated words, the pleading as she begged Aelbeart not to leave her. "He said I must prove it, that I must prove my love for him or he would have to go. He told me that he was a Celt and that they are a passionate race. There was but one way to prove my love to a Celt, nothing less would suffice." She glanced up at Taranc, his handsome features impassive as he listened to her tale. She rushed to get the rest of it out, to lay it all before him. "I knew no better, not then, so Ibelieved him. I went with him one night to the meadow behind the barn where the grain was stored. It was quiet there, secluded.

"You were barely more than a child."

"Even so, I knew what I was doing. I loved Aelbeart, and this was what I had to do to make him stay. He told me to lie down. He even brought a blanket..."

Taranc said nothing, but he tightened his embrace around her.

“But however much I loved him, and I did, at the time I truly did love him and I wanted to please him and make everything right, I did not like what he did to me. I did not want that. I said so, told him to let me go. He would not. He held me down. He pinned me to the ground. I struggled, cried, pleaded with him to leave me be, to let me go back home. He... he said I could never go home again. Not now. I would tell my father, and Aelbeart would be punished. My father would have had him killed, I know that to be true. I knew it then, also, but I swore I would never tell. It was no use, he would not let me go. I... I thought he meant to murder me. I still believe that he did intend that, and he would have, but for some reason he suddenly stopped and I was able to scramble away. Then my mother happened upon us."

"Solveig? She found you?"

"Yes. I have no notion why or how she knew where I was. But suddenly she was there. She was angry, I had never seen her so incensed. She ordered me to get up, to put my tunic on and to go, to run away home at once and she would deal with Aelbeart. So I ran, my feet bare on the wet grass of the meadow. I heard him yelling after me, screaming at me. He called me those names—slut, harlot, whore. That I was a cold, heartless little bitch, ugly, foul on the inside. He was yelling at my mother too, that it was all my doing and that she had borne a whore for a daughter, that I had lured him there. I was evil and corrupt and a filthy little witch. "

---