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voice.
    “Which do you like best?”
    Gildan took the garments and fluttered about the room, busy with her plans. But Bronwen’s thoughts had left the warm, smoky chamber to center upon a dark traveler with raven curls and a kiss that could not be forgotten.
    As the day passed, it was decided that Enit would go to live with Bronwen at the holding of the Viking—Warbreck Castle. Gildan protested, but she was silenced with Enit’s stubborn insistence that this was how it must be. She could Catherine Palmer
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    not be divided in half, could she? By custom, the older girl should retain her. Pleased at the knowledge that her faithful companion would share the future with her, Bronwen tried to shake the sense of impending doom that hung over her.
    During the day, Bronwen worked to fit and embroider the wedding gowns. In the hall below, Edgard’s men stacked the girls’ dowry chests along with heavy trunks of their clothing and personal belongings. But Bronwen slid the small gold box containing Edgard’s will into the chatelaine purse she would hook to a chain that hung at her waist.
    Toward evening, the hall filled once again with the sounds and smells of a feast. Rather than joining yet another meal with her future husband, Bronwen bade Enit walk with her in silence along the shore as the sun sank below the horizon.
    Looking up at Rossall Hall, Bronwen pondered her past and the years to come. She must accept the inevitable. At Warbreck Castle, there would be no pleasure in the nearness of the sea, no joy in the comforts of a familiar hall, no satisfaction in the embrace of a husband.
    Surely for Gildan, marriage might someday become a source of joy in the arms of one who cared for her. But for Bronwen, only the heavy belly and grizzled face of an old man awaited. As she imagined her wedding night, Bronwen again reflected on the traveler who had held her. Though she tried to contain her emotion, she sniffled, and tears began to roll down her cheeks.
    “Fare you well, Bronwen?” the old woman asked.
    “Dearest Enit,” she burst out. “I cannot bear this fate! Why do the gods punish me? What ill have I done?”
    She threw herself on the old woman’s shoulder and began to sob. But instead of the expected tender caress, Bronwen felt her head jerked back in the tight grip of the nurse’s gnarled hands.

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    The Briton
    “Bronwen, hold your tongue!” Enit snapped. “Be strong.
    Look!”
    Bronwen followed the pointed direction of the long, crooked finger, and she saw the fearsome profile of her future husband’s Viking ship. It was a longship bedecked for war—
    a Viking snekkar— and it floated unmoving, like a serpent awaiting its prey.
    “Enit, we must hurry home.” Bronwen spoke against her nursemaid’s ear. She must not be met on the beach by Olaf Lothbrok’s men. They would question her and perhaps accuse her of trying to escape. Now she had no choice but to return to her chamber and make final preparations for her wedding.
    When Lothbrok saw her the following morning, she would be wearing her wedding tunic, having prepared herself to become a wife.
    At their request, the two brides ate the evening meal alone in their room, though Bronwen could hardly swallow a bite.
    “Gildan,” she said as they sat on a low bench beside the fire.
    “I hope you will be happy with Aeschby. I shall miss you.”
    At that, Gildan began to weep softly. “And I shall miss you.
    You must come to see me soon in my new home.”
    She flung her arms around her sister, and the two clung to each other for a long moment. Bronwen felt as though she had never been more as one with her sister…or more apart. Gildan looked so young and frail. If only Bronwen could be certain that Aeschby would treat his wife well, the parting might come more easily.
    “I smell a storm coming across the sea,” Gildan whispered.
    “Let us send Enit out and go to bed. I have had more than my fill of her predictions and proverbs about weddings. Truly, I