He stared from Merrik to Rollo, who’d risen and was standing between his brother and the damned Viking, then to Laren, who was staring at him, pale, her hand still raised.
“You killed me,” Otta said, blood making his voice slur. “You’re but a woman, yet you killed me. I should have strangled you two years ago and thrown your body in the forest for the animals to ravage. Aye, I should have killed you and that puking little brat.”
“Aye,” she said, “you should have.” She said nothing more, just stood there and watched him try to pull the knife from his throat, watched his face turn a sickly gray, watched the blood gush from his mouth and well thick and hot from his throat. He slid off his horse, dead before his body thudded to the ground.
Rollo stood over Otta’s body, staring down at him dispassionately. He smiled then at Laren. “I am glad it wasn’t Weland who betrayed me. I don’t think I could have borne that. Aye, I am more relieved than I can say. Your throw was straight and true, girl. It’s obvious I taught you well.”
“You?” Hallad said, striding forward, his long white robe brushing the low-growing grass. “I taught her, do you not remember? She was but a little nubbin of a girl when I put a knife in her hand and began to teach her.”
“Nay, your wits are more addled than you would like to think, Hallad. Attend me, for I am Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, and I never remember things awry. I taught her and I will teach Taby as well. You are naught but an old graybeard. What do your trembling hands know of knife-throwing?”
“Ha! Heed me, Rollo, I had to live with those wretched Christian monks at St. Catherine’s. I had to stoop my shoulders and mumble all the time so they would believe me holy. But no longer. No, it is I who will teach my son as I did my daughter.”
Laren looked at Merrik. She shook her head at the two men trading insults that would surely lead to some pounding.
“Let them argue in peace,” Merrik said. He looked down at Otta, sprawled on the ground. “That was a fine throw. Perhaps it was I who taught you.”
She laughed, looking up at him with all the love she felt clear and shining in her eyes. Merrik stared at her, saying nothing. He raised his hand, then lowered it. Laren shook herself, then said to Helga, “I am glad you did not betray me or Taby. I am glad you didn’t try to kill Merrik.”
Helga merely nodded, then walked to Otta’s body. She looked down at him, her mouth twisted with fury. She drew back her foot and kicked his ribs so hard she must have broken enough of them to make him scream, had he been alive to feel it.
Rollo, who had just hit Hallad in his belly, turned and said, suddenly serious, “Aye, Helga, you are innocent and that pleases me as well, for I had believed you guilty. You have not been an easy woman. I told only Weland and Otta of Hallad and where he was. But I knew that the guilty one did not act alone. I knew that you or Ferlain had to be working with the guilty one.”
“It is not I, Uncle Rollo.”
“I know,” said Hallad. “It isn’t you, Helga.”
Ferlain stood impatiently in her sleeping chamber, her hands fisted at her sides as her husband, Cardle, paced in front of her, carrying on about the damned now-dead King Alfred of Britain. She looked as if she had been saved when Weland and two of his men came into the chamber.
“But you can’t take her,” Cardle said, startled by their sudden appearance. “What are you doing here? What do you mean, her uncle wants her? This cannot be right. I was just telling her of my studies of the great Charlemagne. Or was it Alfred? No matter, they were both great men, men of courage and men of vision. Can this not wait? Cannot Rollo wait to see her?”
Weland looked from the bent scholar whose seed had birthed eight dead babes. The man’s rod was his only connection to this world. Weland said quietly, “You will see her later, Cardle. Rollo wishes to see her now.”
“He knows,” Ferlain said very quietly.
“Aye, Ferlain, he knows.”
“Knows what?” Cardle said, and scratched his head. “What is this, Ferlain?”
“Continue your study of Charlemagne, Cardle. I will return soon. Or was it Alfred? By the gods, I really don’t remember nor do I care.”
She heard Cardle gasp behind her and smiled. “I have wanted to tell him that for a long time,” she said to Weland, then became silent, her head up, her shoulders squared as she walked beside him.
“I could order you killed right now, Ferlain, but I wanted to hear you speak. I want to know why you have betrayed me. You are my blood and yet you deceived me, deceived all of us, with Otta. Do not bother to lie, for we know everything.”
Fat, plain Ferlain, with coarse white strands threaded through her dark brown hair, threw her head back, and said, her voice loud and strong, “You would have been next, Uncle Rollo. You have become a fool, a doddering old man who does not deserve to rule this mighty land.” She paused, frowning at him. “What has taken place here? You have changed again. What has happened to you? You were mad just this morning, I saw it, and knew your time was near, for you were deranged and knew not what you said. Otta assured me it was true. He assured me that now was the time to act, to rid ourselves of all of you. Aye, I expected to see you drool as you spoke your nonsense, yet here you are, hale and stout and you act like a man once again.”
Rollo merely smiled at her, remaining seated in his massive throne with its carved raven posts, a throne constructed higher than any other throne, for Rollo’s legs were so very long. Merrik and Laren stood to his right. The only other person in Rollo’s chamber was Weland, and he was staring down at the wooden floor covered with rich crimson wool rugs.
Rollo said finally, very quietly, “It was a ruse, Ferlain, naught but a ruse.”
“Where is Otta?”
“He is dead. He meant to kill me, but you knew that, did you not?”
“Aye, I knew it. He told me there was some tale you had told him of my father being alive. I did not believe it. I still do not believe it. My father killed that foolish bitch, Nirea. He is long dead, for he is nearly as old a man as you, uncle.”
“Aye, ’tis true I am old, daughter, but I still breathe. I still walk and I can still reason.”
Ferlain sucked in her breath, but she didn’t move. She showed no fear, no elation at Hallad’s sudden presence. She stood there, staring at her father as he strode toward her. “I didn’t kill Nirea and you know it. She was a sweet girl, not the faithless bitch you created in your own mind.”
Ferlain merely shrugged. “Then it was Helga. She hated Nirea and she has even bragged to me once about sticking a thin knife into her neck. She didn’t mind that you got blamed for it. She hated you because you wed Nirea and kept producing children. Neither of us wanted you to have more children, yet you wouldn’t listen.”
“Helga is beyond foolish but she didn’t kill Nirea either.”
Laren said, “You told me that Uncle Rollo was in love with Nirea, that he was mad with jealousy, that—”
“Be quiet, you stupid girl!”
Laren stared at her half sister. Never had Ferlain raised her voice, never had she heard such venom.
“By all the gods, I was stupid. I should have had my men kill you and that brat our father sired off Nirea. But no, I let the men sell you to slave traders from the south. I wanted you to suffer as I suffered and I wanted you to know pain and hunger and hopelessness. Otta wanted to kill you but I didn’t let him. By all the gods, he was right.”
“We did suffer, Ferlain,” Laren said, but Ferlain wasn’t listening to her, just continued over her, saying, “They told me they didn’t gain much with your sale to slave traders, but with what I added, the villains did well enough. Otta then killed them, for he didn’t trust them to keep silent. He never gave me my silver back.”
“Why, Ferlain, why?” It was Hallad and there was pleading in his deep voice, and such sorrow that Laren couldn’t bear it.
Ferlain held silent. She was smiling, taunting them with her silence. “I didn’t do anything. It was all Ott
a. I am innocent. I am like Helga, making myself important by teasing you with half-truths. I am more a skilled skald than Laren is. Aye, I am innocent and that is all there is to it.”
“You are as innocent as an asp and as deadly,” Rollo said. “Why did you kill Fromm? Why did you send men after Merrik? Why, Ferlain? You have always gotten what you wished from me. Your dead babes, it was always a tragedy, but these things happen. Women don’t turn into monsters because of dead children.”
“All of them died,” Ferlain said, her voice calm, too calm, staring now beyond Rollo, at the thick crimson draperies behind his throne. “Dead in my womb, all of them. Not a single cry when each of them emerged. All dead.” She turned back to look at him. “I believed it was Cardle’s fault, all my dead babes, and thus I took Fromm to my bed, and he sired the last three, but they were dead too. My body killed them, all of them. They rotted in my womb until I thrust them out. The pain, uncle, the pain would have bowed the strongest man, but I wanted a babe to live, so very badly, and that babe would have come after you, and I made myself thrust out those dead and rotted scraps, praying each time that there would be a cry of life, that there would be arms and legs that would move, eyes that would see something other than death, and I endured the pain and made myself try again and again.”
“Ah, Ferlain, I am so very sorry,” Hallad said. “I had no idea.”
“You wonder why I killed that miserable bully Fromm? He threatened to tell you he had bedded me. Even now, after two years, he threatened to tell you. The fool was jealous when he found out I had taken Otta to my bed. He made no sense. ’Twas he who told me after that third and last babe died that I was fat and ugly and he didn’t want me anymore. Why would he care what I did? Ah, but he did because he was afraid I would find Otta more to my liking than I had found him. Not that Otta did much of anything, the braying fool. He could not even sire a dead babe. All he did was hold his belly and whine of his incessant pain. Or perhaps now it is my fault and not Otta’s. Perhaps now I am too old to plant more babes in my womb.”
There was anguish on Hallad’s face. He went to her. She looked at him and the dazed expression was gone instantly from her face to be replaced by a rage so deep, so raw that Hallad flinched back from it. “Stay away from me!” she screamed at him. “You perfidious bastard, why didn’t you die? You killed my mother with your lust, and then you wed that bitch Nirea who was no older than I and you let her birth Laren and then Taby, aye, the vaunted heir, little Taby who was so very perfect, who was beloved by all, especially by Uncle Rollo who would teach him and love him and make him one of his heirs. I wanted to kill him and you. And I killed that bitch Nirea, but by the gods, not in time. Not in time, for there was Taby! And there would have been more babes, more little boys, so I did stop her, I had to and I did.”
Hallad said slowly, “You have naught but hatred and bitterness in you, Ferlain. Nirea never did anything to you. She was fond of you and Helga, and she tried, the poor girl tried to befriend you. She was so very innocent. And yet you killed her. Was it poison? Aye, I believe it was. I was accused of strangling her for there were finger marks about her white throat. But I didn’t touch her, would never have hurt her, even though we argued that day and were overheard. You took your chance and all believed me guilty and thus I had to escape to keep Rollo from having to execute me. I think you dug your fingers into her throat after she was dead. But you know, Ferlain, Rollo never believed me guilty. He hid me and then I became the old wizard two years ago. I survived. I am sorry for you, Ferlain. I would kill you if Laren and Taby were dead, but they survived. At least you spared them, though your reasons for doing so are wretched. What will you say now, Ferlain?”
“I say this, old man. If you hadn’t been accused of murdering that bitch wife of yours, then you would have wed another girl within weeks, aye, not more than several months, for you are a lustful fool for all your years, and this one would have probably been much younger than Helga or me. Then she would have birthed more boys, would she not? You always flaunted your virility before all of us. And there was Taby and then all these others, aye, you would have continued to sire babes—all of them alive and breathing and yelling the instant they came from their mothers’ wombs—and I would have had naught.”
“You have naught now,” Rollo said. “You have lost everything, Ferlain.”
“I still have Cardle.”
“Aye, he is a harmless man, a faithful man. He never knew that you had bedded with Fromm, did he? Or Otta?”
“He wouldn’t know anything if I didn’t tell him,” she said, her voice filled with contempt. “You, Rollo, you wed me to that imbecile. He would not even bed me unless I took him in my mouth and brought him to a man’s size. I had to thrust him into me, uncle, for he would just gaze at me, and I knew his mind was in the past, thinking of all those miserable Romans or King Alfred or that gallant fool, Charlemagne. At least Fromm and Otta were men with men’s appetites and men’s knowledge. I would that you would die, Uncle Rollo, but you will not. You will continue forever, I know it.”
Very slowly, she slipped to her knees. She bowed her head and held her arms around her, slowly rocking back and forth.
“Why did you try to kill Merrik?” Rollo said, quiet now, his voice oddly soothing. “He did nothing to you, nothing.”
She was silent for a very long time. Rollo started to ask her again, when she raised her head and looked toward Merrik, as if he were a stranger. “He would have been another damned heir. If I couldn’t produce a son, I wouldn’t allow the possibility that he would rule, his son after him.”
“He would never rule, Ferlain,” Rollo said, and his voice was that of the ruler of Normandy, cold and decisive and no one would gainsay him and live. “He will never rule. Taby is alive. Your father told you but you didn’t heed him. Aye, Taby is alive and happy as a child should be. He is safe in Norway, in Vestfold, at Merrik’s farmstead.”
Ferlain jumped to her feet. “No! You lie! It is Merrik who now holds your favor, it is he who will—”
“Taby is alive. Merrik found both Laren and Taby at the slave market in Kiev. I would that I could have sired a son like Merrik, for he is honorable above all things. But then so is William, and it is he, Ferlain, it is William my son who will rule after me. Taby will be at his side, loyal to him and brave, his arm and his mind strong and sure.”
Ferlain said nothing. She merely stared first at Rollo, then at Laren and Merrik. She didn’t look at her father.
Finally, Rollo said, “Weland, return her to her sleeping chamber. Post two soldiers near. We will decide what is to be done with her.”
It was Helga who came to their sleeping chamber late that night. She didn’t look as young in the dim shadows. “Come quickly,” she said, shaking Merrik’s shoulder. “Come.”
Rollo and Hallad were there before them, looking down, both silent. Ferlain lay on the box bed, a soft pillow beneath her head, an exquisite embroidered robe covering her, smoothed by loving hands over her body. Her face was smooth with renewed youth in death, her eyes closed by gentle fingers. Her hair was brushed until it shone and braided very neatly, the long ropes lying over her breasts. Her arms were at her sides, palms up.
“Cardle is gone,” Rollo said to Merrik and Laren. “She has been dead for a long time.”
“How did she die?” Laren said.
“I do not know,” Rollo said. “There is no blood. Her face is without pain, without struggle. Helga came to visit her early this morning and found her thusly. The guards said she hadn’t tried to leave the chamber. Cardle left late last night. They had no reason to stop him.”
“Bury her,” Hallad said suddenly. “Leave her be and bury her now, this morning.”
Rollo slowly nodded.
“What of Cardle?” Helga said. “He killed her, he did it. What will you do, Uncle Rollo?”
“I will tell you soon,” Rollo said. “Aye, I will tell you soon.”
26
TABY WAS SITTING on the
bench next to Cleve, tying a knot under his direction. There was sudden loud commotion from outside the longhouse. Taby raised his head like a young animal trained to the sound.
“Is it Laren?”
“Let us see,” Cleve said and took the boy’s hand. But he couldn’t keep up. Taby scampered away with Kenna and both boys bounded through the now wide palisade gates, through the fields now flat and dull, their barley and rye harvested, past the slaves who were mending the palisade walls with tight cord, wet and then dried three times over for added strength, and down the path to the fjord.
Taby saw Merrik, shouted at the top of his voice, and hurled himself at him. Merrik, laughing, caught the child in time and threw him high into the air, then caught him and held him tightly against his chest. Laren watched from behind him, saw him close his eyes as he buried his face against Taby’s hair. She felt the familiar bittersweet longing as she watched. Then Taby raised his head, kissed Merrik’s cheek, a loud smacking kiss that made him laugh, then saw his sister.
“Laren!” he shrieked. She was then the one to have his child’s arms around her neck, his wet kisses on her face.
“You are like a puppy, Taby,” she said, knowing tears were in her eyes and trying to swallow them back. “Stop wriggling so. Soon you will be licking my face like that massive beast Kerzog. Will you grow as big as that monster?”
The child laughed at that. All was as it should be.
“I have something to tell you,” she said to Taby and set him on the ground. “Our father is alive. Hallad came back here with us.”
The child grew very still, his eyes wary. “No, no, Laren. I don’t remember my father, Laren. Merrik is my father.”
“Oh no, sweeting. Merrik is your brother. Do you not remember? No, here is your father and my father as well.”
Hallad hung back, staring at the little boy who looked up at him, his expression suspicious.
“You are nearly six now, Taby,” Hallad said, then wondered where that had come from. He hadn’t seen his son since he was a babe. Now a little boy stood in front of him, a sturdy little boy who looked just like him when he’d been young. He watched the boy take a step back and stop when he hit Merrik’s legs.