“You speak harshly and you don’t understand the virtues of a man’s passing in a certain way, in a way of his own choosing, in a way that proclaims his valor, his worth. My father did not choose this plague.”
“Neither did your mother. Remember, Merrik, women do not have the chance to be butchered in battle as do men. Do all their deaths lack honor and dignity?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it in that way. But women—they are different.”
“Aye,” she said slowly. “They are.” She started to say something else, then just shook her head, obviously changed her mind and said, “Aye, they are, and men are lucky to be larger and stronger.”
He said, thinking again of her burned leg, “You survived.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a joyous laugh. “Without you I would not have survived much longer. I think that Thrasco was the final link in the chain. When he discovered I wasn’t a boy, he would have either sold me or killed me. Since Taby was gone from me, since I’d failed to keep him with me and as safe as I could keep him, why then it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“You would have killed yourself?”
She was silent for a very long time, just standing there close to him, the moonlight at her back now and he couldn’t see her face, just a nimbus of light around her head. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I had no time to dwell upon it. I was intent only on finding Taby. And then you came. I am very sorry about your parents, Merrik. I am sorry for your pain.”
He said nothing, merely leaned back against the rough bark of the oak tree and closed his eyes.
“Leave Taby with me,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I will bring him into the longhouse when I wish to return.”
“As you will. What will you do now, Merrik?”
“I want an island like my brother Rorik’s.”
She laughed. It was a pure, rich sound, no mockery in it. He realized he’d never heard her laugh before, not like this, honest and open. Not that she’d had reason, of course. He opened his eyes. “I amuse you?”
“Where would you get an island?”
“I don’t know, ’twas just a thought, just a quick answer to your insolent question.”
She stiffened, but he didn’t care. She deserved his sharp tongue. She turned away from him and walked away. He closed his eyes again and pulled Taby closer. He felt the child’s palm on his heart.
There was a feast to celebrate Merrik’s return, but it wasn’t like the one of the year before or the year before that. There was mead and beer to drink, cheese, cabbage, onions, peas, wild boar steaks, dark pink salmon well smoked and delicious, flatbread and rye bread and apples both sweet and tart. Sarla spread a beautiful pale linen cloth on the wide wooden table. Laren looked at it and felt a sudden unexpected surge of tears. There had always been such finery in her life until that awful night: beautiful cloths to spread over surfaces, exquisite furnishings, huge spaces, not dark and low and filled with smoke like this longhouse. She remembered her own mother’s laughter as she spread a beautiful linen cloth on a table, how she’d complained that the men didn’t care, but she did, so it didn’t matter. Such beautiful cloths, their edges beautifully embroidered. She hadn’t thought of her mother in more months than she could count. It was strange. Her mother’s name was Nirea, a soft name, a name that was like music to say. “What may I do?” she said.
“You will eat, Laren, that is all you may do until you are stronger.”
“She is a slave,” Erik said, coming up behind her. “Give her tasks to perform, Sarla. You are mistress here, it is time you acted like one.”
Sarla said calmly, without hesitation, “There are spoons in the soapstone bowl on the ledge yon. Please place them beside the plates, Laren.”
Erik grunted and went out.
Laren felt anger rise from deep inside her. Erik was like Helga’s husband, Fromm. He was a tyrant, a bully, proud because of his bloodline. He was a man who would be beyond dangerous were there not others to restrain him. She wondered how much Erik had tempered his swaggering and commands when his father had been alive and master here at Malverne.
The feast passed off well enough, Merrik supposed, sipping on the sweet mead that Sarla made so very well. His mother had taught her just about everything else, he remembered, but not how to make mead. He complimented her.
Erik said, “There is too much honey in it for my taste.”
“It is perfect,” Merrik said. “What think you, Oleg?”
“I will drink ten more cups and then tell you.”
There was only a chuckle or two, but it was a start. Erik said, “After we have supped, Deglin will tell us a tale, perhaps about my young brother’s brave exploits in Kiev.”
There was silence, brutal cold silence, uneasy silence, with darting glances. The men murmured and fidgeted, waiting for Merrik to speak.
Erik raised a blond eyebrow, staring first at Merrik, then down the long table to Deglin.
Merrik said mildly, “Deglin tells us no more tales, Erik. He has discovered he no longer enjoys being a skald.”
“Aye,” Eller said quickly. “He trained another, this girl here. It is she who now tells us stories.”
Erik said, “That is nonsense. She is a girl, naught more. She cannot—”
“You will listen to her before you make your pronouncements.”
Erik looked as if he would clout his brother, but he didn’t. He subsided in his chair—what had been his father’s chair—his face flushed, his eyes narrowed. He now looked at Laren, who was sitting beside Old Firren. “You fancy yourself a skald, girl?”
She looked up at him, and regarded him dispassionately, as though he were of little account at all. She shrugged then and it enraged him. “I fancy myself nothing at all. You will tell me, aye, doubtless you will tell me what I am.”
Sarla sucked in her breath. She was seated next to her husband, and felt the quick rage pulsing through him. She said quickly, her voice too loud, fright sounding through, she knew it, but couldn’t prevent it, “Do you like the herring, my lord? Roran Black Eye caught it just this afternoon.”
Erik forced his eyes away from the female slave. “Roran always has luck with the fish,” he said, and drank deeply of the mead.
So it was that after the interminable meal, Laren was asked to stand before them and begin the tale of Grunlige the Dane from the beginning. She saw Deglin leave from the corner of her eye and was relieved. Just looking at him brought a wave of pain to her burned leg. She noticed that he limped and knew that he blamed her for it.
She thought of silver coins, took a sip of beer, smiled at all the assembled company and said, “Once there was a valiant warrior whose name was Grunlige the Dane.”
She embellished the beginning of the story so that all of Rorik’s men were sitting close now, listening carefully, all their low conversation stilled.
“ . . . And when Parma leaned down to grab Selina, when his hands touched her arms, something very strange happened.”
She paused apurpose, looking at each man and woman and child—those children who were still awake. Her eyes sparkled, she leaned close, as if about to tell a secret, she wet her lips with her tongue.
It was Oleg who said finally, “Enough, girl! Tell us else I will steal your beer and you will have no more for two seasons!”
The men cheered and Eller said loudly, “Give the girl a chance. I smell a good tale acoming.”
9
LAREN SAID, HER voice low and filled with emotion, “Aye, when Parma touched Selina’s arms, he felt as though Thor himself had sent a bolt of lightning through him. He fell back, trembling, and suddenly he was brutally cold, his hands shaking. His hands felt seared, pain surging through them, yet there were no marks on them. They felt numb, then they ached and throbbed. He looked from his hands to Selina. She said quietly, ‘I told you not to touch me.’
“As the moments passed, so did his memory of his fear, the memory of the strange scorching pain in his hands,
the cold that was surely colder than death itself, and he was angry now, unwilling to believe that something strange had indeed happened, something that he hadn’t seen or understood. He snarled at her and leapt upon her, throwing her to her back on the rocky ground. Still, she didn’t scream, didn’t try to struggle against him. He lay on top of her, grinning now, spittle pooling on his lips, for his was an evil grin, a triumphant grin, and he said, ‘There was nothing strange, to well up within me, nothing foreign. ’Twas just a momentary dream, an instant of uncertainty, nothing more. I will plow your belly now and then I will take you back to my farmstead and you will become one of my concubines and know a life of servitude.’
“No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he felt himself lifted bodily off her. What man had the strength to lift him and hold him like this? Like he were naught but a small child? He tried to jerk free, but could not. No, he hovered over her, not more than six feet above her, looking down at her, stunned, unspeaking, words clogging in his throat. He didn’t drop back down to the ground as a man should when falling from a height. No, he wasn’t falling at all. He was going higher and higher, until finally he saw Selina still lying there on her back on the ground, just looking up at him. She smiled and called up to him, ‘Go higher, Parma, ’tis your ambition, isn’t it? Aye, as high as the clouds. Go, Parma. Your fate awaits you.’
“He kicked and thrashed about, but he continued to go higher and there was naught he could do about it. He was shrieking now with fear, struggling wildly against the unknown force that was holding him, yet even as he tried to turn onto his back, he was not able to. His body seemed frozen there, staring down at Selina, who was growing smaller and smaller, and he knew she was still smiling at him.
“He shrieked and shrieked. He wanted his release but he knew, too, if he were released he would die, for he would plummet back to the ground and be crushed against the rocks. Suddenly, without warning, he felt himself heaved forward, as if shoved by a mighty hand, and now he was no longer hovering over Selina, he was moving swiftly to the east. Then there was water beneath him, a vast sea of water, and his fear was so great that he couldn’t begin to understand what was happening to him. She must have cursed him, he thought, clinging to that, aye, she was a witch and none of this was really happening, it was a vision, an illusion brought on by her witch’s curse. He would find her and he would kill her, but all he did was move more quickly, shoved southward now by that mighty force. He was in the clouds and he couldn’t see through the white haze, and he was cold, shivering, his flesh blue, as blue as Grunlige’s hands had been after he’d shredded all the ice floes. He remembered Selina’s words. He damned her for a witch just as she’d damned him. He would die here, high above the earth, frozen to death in the clouds all because of a curse from a woman he would kill if only he could find her again.
“Then, very slowly, he began to descend from the sky. The air grew warmer and he felt himself once more able to think, to see, to reason. He could see the earth clearly, the rocks, a narrow stream, the brilliant green of the grass. He was not plummeting downward, but gliding smoothly and slowly, ah, he felt like a magician, and began to wonder if it had been he who had raised himself, if he had finally come into his own. Aye, it had to have been he who had climbed upward and begun to fly.
“He believed this, now smiling as he drew closer to the ground. He was warm again, feeling the blood course through him. He waved his arms about to change his direction. He changed direction. He laughed aloud with his marvelous discovery. Ah, there was nothing he couldn’t do now. The gods had granted him the power. He kicked his feet and rushed forward through the silent warm air, then slowed. He laughed aloud and set about to test his new abilities. But before he could wave his arms again or kick his feet, he fell like a stone the remaining short distance to the ground, as if he’d been released and thrown downward, landing at the feet of a large bearskin-clad man, a warrior, perhaps even a berserker, huge and strong, a mighty sword held in a bandaged hand.
“That warrior was Grunlige the Dane. His hands were still bandaged, but he seemed to hold that sword easily. He stood straight and tall, as proud as he had been before the tragedy had struck him. And he said, ‘You are Parma and you dared to touch my wife. Do you know what I will do to you?’
“Parma stared up at Grunlige, openmouthed in disbelief. He shook his head dumbly, unwilling to believe it was really Grunlige. It couldn’t be Grunlige. He gained courage. He said, his voice brash and arrogant, ‘You should be dead. You went off to die. You are dead. You are merely some remnant of a man, some lost shadow that has yet to fade into oblivion. This is naught but your shell, for you are nothing, just a voice and an illusion propped up by the air that surrounds us. I have raided your holdings, stolen your cattle, and plundered your ships. You were not there when your men cried out for your help.
“ ‘Now we are far away from your homeland and mine. What is this place? Where are we? You cannot be Grunlige, for he stands not tall and proud anymore. He is pathetic, probably dead now by his own hand.’
“Grunlige stared down at him, unmoving, and smiled. ‘Shall I tell you, Parma, exactly what I am and where we are? What would you like to hear first, you vile coward?’
“ ‘I will fly away from you, and then I will come back and slay you!’ Parma jumped to his feet, flapped his arms, but nothing happened. He climbed atop a high rock and jumped off, flailing his arms wildly, kicking his feet. He heard Grunlige the Dane laugh, a laugh as wicked and frightening as a laugh from the Christians’ hell. Parma didn’t soar into the heavens, he fell hard once again at Grunlige’s feet. He screamed with rage, ‘It is the witch again! She has stolen my powers. Damn her for all time!’
“Grunlige said very softly, even as he raised his foot above Parma’s head, ‘Heed me, fool. You have no powers, only vanity and guilt and a stupid man’s arrogance. Now you will gain what you deserve.”’
Laren stopped. She smiled at the men and women and children, all of whom were staring at her, their attention focused solely on her. Cleve was smiling and nodding at her, Taby asleep on his lap.
“Continue,” Erik bellowed. “I grow tired of your waiting! Damn you, what happened? What did Grunlige do? Did he send his foot into Parma’s skull? Where in the name of the gods are they?”
She shook her head. “I am but a woman, my lord Erik, and must rest now. Forgive me. My brain and my throat are sore and need to recover. Perhaps by tomorrow night I will be able to continue.”
There were murmurs of protest, and Erik looked as though he would explode, for even as a child, he would sit before the skald listening so intently that their mother could call him and he would not hear her. Merrik laughed as he rose, and said quickly, “Nay, all of you be quiet. It is her way. She stops not because she has any supposed weakness of a woman, nay, she leaves you purposely dangling, hooked like bait on a fishing line. Don’t wriggle about. Yawn and tell her she did fairly well but you really don’t care what happens next. It will drive her mad with doubts and make her less arrogant in her skills.”
He laughed again and turned to Erik. “Well, brother, what do you think of my new skald, my female skald?”
Erik just looked at Laren. Suddenly, Merrik didn’t like the way he was gazing so intently at her. He didn’t want that kind of trouble. By all the gods, he didn’t want to have to quarrel with his brother, tell him to leave her alone, but he would have to if Erik decided he wanted to bed Laren. He didn’t know why he would have to, but he knew he would. He looked at Sarla, who was, in turn, staring at her husband. She knew, Merrik thought, she knew. Indeed, it was difficult for her not to know. Two of Erik’s bastards were here in the longhouse, both boys, although the youngest had not yet gained a year. But Kenna was strong and healthy and the very image of his father. And their mothers were there, too, and as far as Merrik knew, both Megot and Caylis still shared his brother’s bed.
But Sarla had no children as yet. She and Erik had been wed for two years now and as yet her
belly hadn’t swelled with child. Merrik sighed. He didn’t like this. He walked to Cleve and held out his arms for Taby.
He gathered the child to him, then went to search out some blankets, Taby held securely in the crook of his arm. He saw Laren looking at him. It was the first night he had kept Taby with him. He walked to her and said, “I will see to Taby tonight.” He paused a moment, studying her upturned face. Her face was flushed from the heat and from her success. He smiled at her, and to his surprise, she smiled back. It was a lovely smile and he felt the warmth of it all the way to his belly. Yet he wanted to see her smile again and yet again. But not now, not at him. So he turned away, saying as he did so, “You will stay close to the longhouse. Remain by Sarla’s side. I will decide where we will go soon.”
In her hand were seven small silver pieces. She closed her fist over them, holding them close. They tingled against her flesh. Perhaps they were enough to buy her freedom and Taby’s and Cleve’s. She said, “I would speak to you, Merrik, perhaps on the morrow. It is important.” Then she was uncertain. She had eleven pieces of silver. Surely that was a lot of silver, but she had no idea what she or Cleve were worth in the slave market. “Perhaps I can speak to you not tomorrow, but later, perhaps in three or four days. Or perhaps I can question you about certain things, about the value of things.”
She’d said nothing about Taby, sleeping soundly, now cupped in one of his arms against his shoulder, and that surprised him. “Your meaning is as clear as a piece of bog ore. Nay, don’t try to confuse me or yourself more. Now, I would have a promise from you. Do you swear you will stay close to the longhouse and to Sarla?” She frowned at him, then nodded, not understanding. He knew she didn’t, but said nothing more.