Northumbria—1000 A.D.

   She had murdered her husband when she wished him dead.  In secret Katrin of Courtenay had always known it—and now God would call her soul to account for it.  Gripped by the vise of terror, her heart thudded against her ribcage.  Her belly roiled and her hands were ice.  She would die the death she no doubt deserved—devoured by wolves, condemned in the end by her own sinful will.  Yet, divine judgment or no, she could not resign herself to it.

            Who would tend their welfare without her—those humble folk of Foresthold who looked to their lady for sustenance?  She should not have dismissed so readily their pleas against riding out alone, beyond the uncertain safety of walls and weapons—an act of sheer madness by any reckoning, when her lands crouched quivering beneath the twin menace of encroaching Scots and savage raiders from the Danelaw.  Now her willfulness would be her downfall.

 She should have taken heed when she saw the fire-blackened gates of Courtenay Hall swinging inward into shadow.  She should have taken warning from the silence that mocked her hesitant hail, the uneasy nicker of the goat in its pen.  Yet instead she had dismounted to investigate—a man’s impulse rather than a woman’s—to seek those who guarded the ruined keep in her name.  She had barely lit her torch to confront the darkened confines of the stable when her palfrey had shied wildly and broken free from her hand.

 Now too late she spied the wolf, lean and dangerous, slinking out from behind the charred stable into the failing light of day.  Her heart sank to the soles of her boots as his brethren slid from hiding.  Five of them in all, for God’s love!  Her entire body ignited with the adrenaline charge of flight—a woman’s impulse that was, but come too late.

            Katrin thought desperately of her hunting bow, but it was strapped to her saddle, and the mare had fled.  She had her belt-knife, but scarcely wished to allow the circling beasts close enough to employ it.  The wolves grinned at her as though they knew it, held at bay only by the smoking torch.

            Clenching her lower lip between her teeth, Katrin thrust the flaming brand toward the nearest wolf.  The monster tensed and bared yellowing fangs in response, but inched back from her fire.  She seized her advantage and edged sideways until her back abutted the reassuring bulk of the stable.  Now they could not creep up behind her, perhaps she might sidle around to the door and let herself in.  The door was not as solid as she would have wished it to be, with her on one side of it and five wolves on the other, but with St. Cuthbert’s grace it might still be enough to hold them at bay.

            She tried to bolster her failing nerves:  were not these beasts God’s creatures just as she—not possessed of some evil malevolence, but driven by the forthright spur of hunger?  Who was not hungry in this accursed land?  But their hunger made them cunning.  When she dared to creep toward shelter, the lead wolf crouched threateningly, its snarls deepening in timbre.  She thought the wolves sensed what she was about, and were clever enough to thwart her.

            A gust of wind caught the rope of braided hair and flung it forward over her shoulder.  The cord loosened, and a skein of red-gold curls unraveled across her face, blinding her.  Swiftly Katrin stripped back the hair with her free hand, and tasted the bitter knowledge of her fate.  She would very likely die here, in the bailey of this gutted ruin where once she had come as a reluctant bride.  Her life, with its grim daily struggles for food and fire and the strength to hold her meager lands in safety, would be over.  She had spent her brief years uselessly, like a candle burning in an empty room, and now that struggling flame was about to be blown out.

            Sudden fury surged within her, crowding her terror aside.  A current of energy coursed tingling down her spine.  By God, they would not have her—not without the mother of all battles! 

  Savagely Katrin bared her teeth at the wolves and shouted, “Come on then, you bloody great beasts!  Come and try for a piece of me!”

            She would thrust her torch down the throat of the first one who came at her; she would bury her knife to the hilt in its fierce beating heart.  Beyond that she did not think.  Fiery hair streamed around her body as she swept the torch before her.

            The gray leader bunched its shaggy body and leaped.  Katrin braced for the assault as the wolf closed on her in a low snarling rush—and then, a heartbeat before impact, the monster went tumbling sideways in a tangle of flailing limbs, yelping as a dark arrow sprouted between its ribs.

            A second wolf was springing, eyes red and yellow teeth snapping.  Katrin swung her torch in a wide arc, screaming words of defiance.  Two strides from her feet, the beast lost its footing and came crashing to a halt with its nose against her boot, a second arrow quivering in its belly.

            Katrin scrambled back from the carcass, floundering in her woolen skirts, swinging her torch with fear-driven strength.  Through the veil of flying hair she heard the thunder of hoofbeats rolling down on her like an avalanche and the metallic shing! of steel unsheathed.  All around her, wolves were growling and snapping.  As she frantically stripped back her hair, the high-pitched yelp of a third stricken beast rang out.

            When her eyes were clear, she beheld an impossible apparition:  a mounted knight the size of a siege tower, encumbered in full battle armor, head concealed within the cavern of his helm as he commanded the yard.  She gaped witlessly at this new menace, pressing her back against the wall as the mounted giant roared past her, bending perilously low from his high saddle to sweep his broadsword in a dizzying arc.  It sheared into the blurred mass of another leaping wolf, and grated against bone.  The warhorse clattered to a plunging halt.

 With brutal efficiency, the warrior braced one boot against the dying wolf and set his weight against it, withdrawing the length of his sword.  His stallion screamed a challenge and reared high, heavy hooves crashing down on the remains.  Overwhelmed by this superior force, the remaining wolves scattered and took to their heels, gray bodies flying low to the ground as they streamed through the gates onto the moor.

            Katrin’s brain seemed to function with surreal slowness.  Time wavered in its tracks.  She could not seem to compass the knowledge that she had survived the wolves.  Not divine judgment after all then, since God had spared her.  Yet she could not turn her thinking so swiftly to counter this new threat.  She stood, trembling from head to foot with the torch clutched in a white-knuckled fist, and dragged in great gulps of air.  Reverberations of aftershock rippled back and forth through her brain.  He may have saved her from the wolves for some purpose of his own, but she knew the instrument of destruction filling her bailey with his dangerous presence was no guardian angel dispatched by God to rescue one reckless woman from folly.  Four years of exile astride the shifting Scottish borders had taught her to view armed strangers with the utmost suspicion.

            Katrin pressed her back against the wall and held the torch between them while she struggled to find her breath and think what to do.  The giant turned slowly in his saddle to study her, ring-mail chiming in soft-voiced menace.  Behind him the red sun hovered low and burning in the sky, throwing his face into impenetrable shadow.  Keen eyes glittered at her as she squinted against the light.  His rust-colored cloak lashed the air behind him. 

            Katrin determined to take the offensive.  After all, she was still mistress of this keep, was she not—even if Danish raiders had burned it down around her ears and she stood alone and undefended in its ruins?

  Clearing the taste of fear from her throat, she called boldly, “Declare yourself, stranger.”

            The apparition stirred into motion, swinging down suddenly from his saddle with the chink of steel on steel.  Her chest tightened with alarm.  Feeling her heart pound, she watched as he stooped to clean his blade on the slain wolf’s pelt.  When he thrust the sword back in its sheath with the hiss of steel on leather, she released her held breath.  Whatever his intent, at least he would not hew her down where she stood.  If only she could discern him against the blinding light.  Was he Scottish border thief or Viking raider or some new threat?  When he took a step toward her, she brandished her torch in warning.

            “Declare yourself, I say!” she challenged.  Brave words, a small voice mocked inside her head.  For what would she do if he did not?

            The shadow-knight halted, cast in silhouette against the bloody sun.  She saw dark eyes flicker beneath his bacinet-helm as he studied her wary stance.  At last he lifted one hand, clumsy inside a steel-ringed gauntlet, and hoisted the helm from his head.  The wind lifted a banner of sweat-dampened blond hair and unraveled it in the air behind him.  At once she circled sideways, lifting a hand against the light to shield her sight.  With a sinking heart, she took him in:  an utterly foreign face, stern and unrelenting to behold, dominated by scything cheekbones, the blade of a nose, and glittering dark eyes beneath tangled blond brows.  Unkempt whiskers in gold and copper stood out against wind-reddened skin.  Katrin stared defiantly into those eyes and felt her heart bump uneasily against her ribcage, refusing to be quiet.  By his coloring he looked like a Viking to her—and may all the saints defend her from that. 

            Bracing his helm beneath one arm, he said gruffly, “Have you no fear, girl.  The wolves are fled.”

            Ah, but a woman had more to fear than wolves.... 

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