Hostage of the Heart by Linda Acaster

Hostage of the Heart is a Mediaeval sweet romantic suspense set on the English/Welsh borders in 1066AD. It was always destined to be a sweet romantic suspense, but it started life as a Dark Age post-apocalyptic adventure. Such is the way of the publishing world.

It won an award, was seen by an editor, and the offer was made - with strings attached. Mediaeval or Regency. Er... pardon?

Perhaps it was just me, but I couldn't see how the two eras could be interchangeable. For a start, the mores of society dictated... 

The editor couldn't understand my reticence. 

'If you don't want to...' So it became a Mediaeval. In fact it became a new book. 

Orphaned and unwed, Dena is whisked from the rolling farmland of her birth to the mountainous wilds of the Welsh borderlands by Edwulf, her uncle and his young wife, in an attempt to have Dena marry well and so secure patronage for him in the court of the new English King Harold. Yet powers in Norway and in Nomandy seek to unseat the new king. With Edwulf intent on gaining glory with the militia, closer, older, enemies strike at his fortified hall and Dena is taken prisoner. From being the pawn of a kinsman, she becomes the pawn of the hated Welsh, and their intentions seem anything but chivalrous.

Exercept:

Dena heard the younger man snort his derision, and realised that her gaze had fallen guiltily to the stone floor. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to raise it again.
   ‘We’ve dallied here enough,’ growled Rhodri reaching for his sword-belt. ‘Let’s be gone. We don’t want to be scrambling about in the forest in the dark.’
   Gwylan lifted his face and gauged the light filtering through the high window. He muttered something and then looked about him at the furnishings of the hall.
   ‘That is what Wybert wants us to do. He’s a wily old animal. He thinks like a wolf, just as Edwulf does. Even encumbered as he is, he could lead us a dance through those forest trails. He’s not one to let the cloak of darkness pass without some benefit, and I have no desire to lose men to an arrow in the back. We shall leave a first light.’
   ‘And this one?’ Rhodri murmured.
   Dena’s eyes were drawn to Gwylan’s, but her blood ran cold when she saw the calculating manner in which he regarded her.
   ‘I’m not convinced about you,’ he announced. ‘But if what you say is true, I may well be able to use your captivity to good advantage.’
   ‘Who shall you use as guard?’ Rhodri asked.
   ‘Yourself.’
   He almost choked.
   ‘I don’t want a repetition of what happened at the tun,’ Gwylan warned. ‘She is to be your responsibility.’
   Rhodri seemed ready to burst with anger. He looked from Dena to Gwylan and launched a vicious tirade at his lord in the Welsh tongue. Gwylan responded in like manner, and the young man was stilled. Dena knew who was victor, but was dubious of the outcome. It was Gwylan who spoke to her, in that pleasant, kindly tone which now seemed to fit him so ill.
   ‘Have no fear of my men, Lady Dena. Rhodri will protect you with his life.’
   Dena saw him glance at Rhodri, a smile of amusement playing across his lips, then he turned to leave the hall, calling orders to his men.
   As she looked uncertainly towards the younger nobleman, his attention was fixed not on her but on the figure of Gwylan disappearing through the doorway. With his lord gone, Rhodri turned his brooding eyes on her, and with a flowing movement which made his tunic of mail ripple, he closed on Dena with all the malevolence of a viper intent on its prey.
   She backed towards the wall without thought of resistance. Fear ran wild through her mind. Dear God! Who will protect me from Rhodri?

  

Hostage of the Heart is available as an ebook and as an mp3 download:

Kindle USA ¦ UK ¦ Nook, Kobo, Sony ¦ Apple  

mp3: Audiolark ¦ Audible.com 

Linda Acaster is currently working on the second in the Torc of Moonlight trilogy of paranormal romantic suspense novels. Her writers' resource Reading A Writer's Mind: Exploring Short Fiction - First Thought to Finished Story has recently launched in paperback and is available as a Goodreads Giveaway until the end of June. Connect via her Website ¦ Facebook ¦ Twitter.

Peter Alan Orchard: 'The Cross of St. Mary's'

Lame after a Viking raid, Ulf leaves Leystoke to learn a new trade. Working for the ironsmith Hunlaf in Hemingburh, he is busy doing work for his lord's new church. When Feirgil the Irishman is hired to make the great cross for the altar, life at the forge becomes tense - and what of the master ironsmith's young daughter, the quietly self-possessed Goldrun? 

(This is the second story featuring Ulf of Leystoke. The first is Starlight.)




Smashwords 2012  $0.99 
(c.5,600 words)

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EXCERPT:

Ulf nearly spat into the fire, but changed his mind and worked the bellows instead. ‘Fond of himself, this Feirgil.’

Hunlaf, on the other side of the hearth, waved his free hand. ‘He may be right.’ He held a door-hinge for St. Mary’s, now a dulling red, up to the light. ‘Done, I reckon. Can’t get a more even turn on it than that.’

He glanced across the red-hot fire for appreciation, found Ulf already hunched over the Irishman’s handiwork and joined him. Against the wall leaned a wooden cross the height of a man. It was simple enough carpentry, with its shaft and cross-piece sheathed in polished sheet bronze that seemed to dance in the flicker of Hunlaf’s charcoal fire, but the real wonders lay on a bench next to it. Christ, squat and slant-eyed, but from his pose recognisably Christ, filled one subtly incised and embossed bronze plaque, the Virgin another, her lozenge eyes startled at the marvel of God’s baby. On yet more strips of metal flowed the sketched beginnings of sinuous lions and dragons, or foliage which snaked and fluttered in the imaginary breeze.

Behind them the door opened, bringing the scent of damp leaves from the street. With a shadow of a smile on her sun-pink face Goldrun said quietly, ‘Feirgil is back,’ and glided out again into the daylight.

‘Well, now,’ Feirgil said, rubbing his hands together. ‘It’s good to have an appreciative audience. What do you think, gentlemen?’

Hunlaf and Ulf looked Feirgil’s wiry body up and down, from his tousled red-brown hair to his soft-leather boots, then looked at each other.

‘Young man,’ Ulf said, ‘you surely earn your keep. This is fine work, eh, Hunlaf?’

Hunlaf nodded. ‘Never seen better, and Godwulf will worship it even before the priest gives him leave.’ His eyes strayed for a moment towards the door, left ajar by Goldrun. ‘You’ve been here a month now. When will you finish, do you think?’

Feirgil gazed at the ceiling. ‘Another month at least. Longer if I need to make changes, though I doubt that I will.’ He laid a hand on each man’s shoulder and beamed happily.

Ulf and Hunlaf took the hint and left him to his work.

After an hour or two Feirgil stood, stretched and went out, leaving his work on the bench. After a few minutes Goldrun came back in and pored over the new decoration blossoming in the metal. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t you think so, father?’

‘Iron is my business, not this,’ Hunlaf said. ‘He is a craftsman, though, no doubt.’

Goldrun tilted her head and looked up at Ulf. ‘What do you think, Ulf? Do you have an eye for beauty?’

Ulf thought for a moment. ‘I think it will be an ornament to the new church,’ he said quietly. ‘An ornament. Yes, that’s it.’

‘Men!’ Goldrun laughed. ‘Here’s the loveliest thing that’s ever been in this forge and neither of you can think of two words to say.’ She gave the bench a couple of taps with her forefinger and swept out, leaving Ulf thinking, not quite the loveliest.

Then he thought of Hroswitha, and felt guilty. After that, he thought fiercely of Feirgil and realised he was jealous.

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Hostage of the Heart by Linda Acaster

September 1066: the northern militia has been raised to support the new English king against Norse invaders, leaving the Welsh borderlands dangerously unprotected. Rhodri ap Hywel sweeps down the valley to reclaim by force stolen lands, taking the Saxon Lady Dena as a battle hostage.

But who is the more barbaric: a man who protects his people by the strength of his sword-arm, or Dena’s kinfolk who swear fealty to a canon of falsehoods and refuse to pay her ransom? Betrayed as worthless, can she place her trust, and her life, in the hands of a warrior-knight shielding dark secrets of his own?

~~

The door burst open and more men appeared, some carrying heavy buckets, some pushing barrels. There was a good deal of excited chatter, and the doleful Welshmen quickly began to change their humour. Dena sank back against the wall with a sigh. The brewing-house must have been plundered. Contemptuous Welshmen were bad enough; drunken Welshmen would be unbearable.

A man came to Rhodri, spoke a few unintelligible words, and left two rawhide mugs on the table.

‘I’m told there’s not a morsel of food to be found,’ Rhodri said to her. ‘It’s shameful that Wybert does not think highly of his lord’s niece.’

Dena risked a glance in his direction, and found him grinning at her through bared teeth.

‘Ah! The lady is not dead! Sitting so still with your head bowed, your face hidden beneath that square of cloth — you look like a toadstool under a tree!’

Glowering at him, she did not rise to the goad. The man was bored and wanted a plaything. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure, or any excuse for more.

‘Your face looks pinched, my fair Lady Dena. Does the sound of my voice fill you with such dread?’

My fair Lady Dena…? What was this a trail to?

‘I have no cloak. I feel the cold,’ she replied.

‘Do you wish to sit closer to the fire?’

Dena looked down the length of the hall to the hearth where the majority of the Welshmen were taking their ease amid the open casks.

‘I prefer to remain cold.’

Rhodri chuckled, more softly than she’d expected.

‘If I were a true nobleman, I’d give you the clothes off my back. But I’m not, am I? I am Welshman — a barbarian. That’s what you call us, isn’t it? That’s what those prancing fools at Edward’s court called me— "our captive barbarian".’

Dena looked up at him in surprise, and he mocked her expression. ‘Are you shocked that such as I have sat with a king of England?’ He pushed himself from his seat on the table and stood tall and proud so that she might admire him. Dena drew her lips into a thin line at his conceit.

‘You’re not impressed?’ He sounded truly astounded, and she realised that she’d been drawn into a game. And they called Wybert wily, she reflected.

Turning her scornful gaze aside, she hoped to end the contest of wills on a winning note, but he pounced on her, trapping her between arms of flowing metal as he leaned his weight against the wall. The more she tried to back into the logging, the more he lowered his face to hers.

‘No? The whores of Edward’s court liked the barbarian in me. They vied with each other to buy me with gifts.’ He paused as he looked down at her, the taut muscles of his neck relaxing. ‘But you aren’t such a woman. From you, a man would have to steal his kisses.’

He made the slightest of movements, but enough to convince her of his intentions. Her chest heaving with fear and anger, she turned her head and glared at him.

‘Do so, and I’ll scratch out your eyes!’

He faltered, a temple braid tracing an arc across her cheek. A smile crept across his face, one of genuine pleasure rather than of teasing, and his dark eyes searched her face for… for what, Dena didn’t know.

‘My cowering maid has a fire in her belly. Envied will be the man who beds you,’ he tweaked an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps it will be me.’

She filled her lungs ready to curse him to Hell, her colour rising with her fury, but her tongue was stayed by the curious silence of their surroundings. She inclined her head to look beneath his mailed arm, and to her distaste found every Welshman intent on the proceedings. She groaned her shame, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. Rhodri played to his audience, bantering with them in his own tongue and gaining uproarious laughter.

‘What did you say to them?’ Dena demanded almost beneath her breath.

‘That the lady does not appreciate my advances — more or less.’ But she could see by the sparkle in his eye and the gestures of his men that the truth of it was far more than less.

Pushing his weight off the wall, he turned to the table behind him and picked up the mugs to hand one to her.

‘Here, with no food, no cloak and no fire, it is all the warmth you’ll feel this night.’ He drained his mug in one draught, tilting his head like some coarse pedlar so that he might not miss a drop. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he smacked his lips appreciatively.

‘At least you Saxons know how to make ale!’ He turned to the men, calling for more.

Although Dena thought hard for some cutting reply, the image which flickered into her mind froze the breath in her lungs. She could see them working in the brewing-house as clearly as if she were standing again in the doorway — Wybert and Mildthryth. Gwylan had told her that Edwulf had taken this hall by sending a diseased beggar among them. Wybert, Edwulf’s steward, his second man, hadn’t been leading the people to safety. He and Mildthryth had been in the brewing-house pounding herbs with pestle and mortar. They’d been poisoning the ale. That was why Wybert was so adamant about taking all the food: the poison would work faster on empty stomachs.

Dena looked at the mug cradled in her hands, into the ominously dark liquid within. She couldn’t drink it, she couldn’t! But she had to, she knew she had to, or the Welshman would suspect and Wybert’s plans would fail. Edwulf’s people, her people, would be caught in the forest and murdered.

‘What’s wrong with your ale?’

At Rhodri’s question, she sprang upright as though she’d been pierced by an arrow.

‘Nothing,’ she snapped back.

‘Then drink.’

‘I—’ Her voice quaked. With an inner heave, she pulled her scattered wits together. ‘I have a weak stomach. I’ve had it since birth. Ale makes me ill. I can drink only mead or clear spring water.’

Rhodri threw back his head and guffawed. Dena took heart and strengthened her jaw as though she were merely rebuffing another of his gibes. He could laugh all he liked, as long as he believed her.

Amazon USA: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MNH4BA

Amazon UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003MNH4BA

iPad, Nook, Kobo, Sony: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/14120

Hostage of the Heart is also available as an mp3 download from  http://www.audiolark.com/books/hostage-of-the-heart/

  

Linda Acaster has written short fiction across genres as disparate as Crime and Fantasy, Romance and Horror. Ten have been collected into an instructional ebook “Reading A Writer’s Mind: Exploring Short Fiction – First Thought to Finished Story”. As well as Historical novels, she writes contemporary Fantasy with a strong historical thread.

Catch up with Linda at

http://lindaacaster.blogspot.com

http://www.lindaacaster.co.uk

http://www.twitter.com/LindaAcaster