“And his men wrapped his hands in furs and skins, but it was too late. His hands were frozen. When they thawed with the coming of spring, they were withered and looked like small animal claws, the fingernails still the blue of the sea, and there was no more strength in them. All grieved for Grunlige’s plight, save his enemies who rejoiced in secret and feasted and plotted against him.” Deglin paused, then smiled toward Taby. “And that is all I will tell you tonight.”
Taby, as well as all the men, were sitting still as stones, bent forward, toward Deglin. There was a collective sigh and moans, for all knew he couldn’t be cajoled or bribed to finish the tale until he wanted to.
“’Tis a new tale just for you, Taby,” Merrik said to the child, who was lying in his arms, his cheek against Merrik’s chest. “Thank you, Deglin. You will tell us more soon?”
“Aye, Merrik. The boy needs to sleep now. I did not wish to waste my words on these sods when Taby is so sleepy he can’t appreciate my greatness.”
Laren slipped back into the tent, her heart pounding with excitement at the story she’d just heard, and with words and ideas of her own that jostled and tumbled about, words that wanted to spew out of her mouth. She hugged them to her as she eased down between two thick wolf hides to sleep. What a wondrous tale, but it was important that it continue with . . .
“Taby will sleep with us,” Merrik said, easing the child down beside her. He said nothing more, merely arranged himself to his own comfort and was soon asleep.
When she screamed, he had his sword in his right hand and his knife in his left hand within seconds.
6
HE WAS LEANING over her, so close to her that she could feel his breath hot on her face and smell the stale wine he’d drunk.
She wasn’t afraid at first, no, just confused, for it was the dead of night, and she’d been sleeping soundly and who would want to come into her chamber in the dead of night to see her? His face was very close now, she could hear his breathing, and she forced her eyes to open to stare up at him, and in the dim light. She saw him clearly, and what she saw sent bile into her throat. For an instant she was frozen with fear. She wanted to scream, but there was naught but desert dryness in her throat. His hands were on her then, rough hands, and it jolted her. She reared up, trying to jerk away from him, to run, but his hands were hard around her arms now, holding her down, his fingers digging so deeply into her flesh she felt the pain to her bones. He was grinning at her, and she realized this wasn’t a dream or someone’s jest and that this man was here to hurt her.
Taby!
He’d been lying beside her, his child’s restless nature having sent him into her chamber, and she’d held him close and soothed him and sung to him of the valiant deeds of his uncle and his father until he’d fallen asleep again.
“Aye,” the man said, “I’ve got her.”
Fighting him now would gain her nothing. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she forced herself to go limp. To her unspeakable relief, the man’s hands eased and he grunted, “I think the little girl fainted from fright.”
Another man said, “She saw your ugly face. It’s good she fainted. I was told she’s wild as a wolf. I have the child. He’s no larger than a loaf of flatbread. Tie her arms and legs, then bring her. There are too many guards about for my liking, more than promised. Not close, but still, I want to finish this quickly.”
She waited another moment, forcing herself to be utterly slack, just for a brief instant. She counted slowly, each second, feeling the terror cramp her muscles, feeling her throat close, wanting to suck in air, but she didn’t dare, not yet. Finally the other man had moved off with Taby. She grabbed the bronze candle holder beside her bed, lifted it, and smashed it against the man’s head. He yowled, hurtling away from her. She was on her feet then, and she was kicking him in his belly and his legs, striking him again and again, sending him to his knees. She saw blood gush from a blow against the side of his head. Then the other man whirled about, stared in astonishment at the scene, and came running back and she knew she had no chance against the two of them. He dropped Taby on the bed, then turned to her, his hands out toward her. She leapt back away from both of them, hurled back her head and screamed as loud as she could, screamed and screamed . . .
But they were both on her now, their hands digging into her flesh, making her screams real cries of pain, and it wouldn’t stop for they were violent with anger and still she screamed and screamed. The man struck her hard in the jaw, but still she cried out until the blackness covered her mind, and she wondered even as all thought slipped away from her: Why hasn’t anyone come to help us?
“Damnation, wake up!”
The scream broke off, dissolving into a deep moan. Merrik dropped his sword and knife and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “Wake up!” he shouted in her face.
“Don’t you hurt my sister!”
Taby was suddenly on Merrik’s back, beating his fists against his shoulders, jerking at his hair. Laren awoke fully, saw the man over her and screamed again. She raised her fists to strike at him. No, no, wait, wait . . . It was Merrik and Taby was on his back, yelling at him, hitting him, all the while sobbing, tears streaming down his thin cheeks, sounds so ragged she wanted to howl with the pain it brought her.
Now she’d terrified him with her stupid screams, illusion screams that had no meaning, that had naught to do with anything save her fear from that long-ago night. She felt the humiliation of it go deep inside her, that and her anger at herself for succumbing and crying out like a fool. It had been months since she’d dreamed of that night, but it had come again, more intense this time, but still she was used to it, should be used to it enough that she wouldn’t squeal like a stoat. Aye, she should be used to the terror it brought her, terror still as fresh in her mind as the night it had been real. Only this time she’d awakened Merrik and frightened her little brother. She drew a deep breath, tried to make her voice calm, and said, “Taby, it’s all right, sweeting. No, don’t hit Merrik. He was trying to wake me up. I had a nightmare and it was so very real, but it’s over now. Come on, Taby, it’s all right. Come to me.”
Merrik hadn’t moved. He simply waited until she had the child in her arms, unaware until that moment that he had been straddling her, his bare thighs locked against her sides. No wonder Taby thought he was attacking his sister.
Slowly he eased off her and came down on his side to look at her in the dim light of dawn. She was facing him, holding Taby against her, rocking him, and singing to him, her face buried in the child’s neck. She sensed him looking at her, and gazed over at him.
“Tell me,” he said.
She ducked her head down and continued to rock Taby. The child pulled away from her, and came up on his knees beside her. He leaned down and touched his fingers to her face. “Was it the bad men again?”
“Aye, but still just a dream, Taby, just a dream.”
“What bad men?” Merrik said.
“It was only a dream, a dream that comes to me when I’m very tired. I’m sorry I woke you. I’m a fool. But it was just a silly dream, nothing more, Merrik.”
“I see,” he said, and stood. He looked down at her in the pale light, saw that chin of hers go up so high that by all rights she should be forced to stare at the top of the tent, then left her.
She heard the men grumble when Merrik shouted at them to wake up. She hugged Taby tightly against her, then said, “You mustn’t say anything to Merrik about that other time. Besides, you don’t remember it very well. He wouldn’t understand. It was a long time ago, Taby, a very long time ago.”
“Why do you still have bad dreams about it?”
A child, she thought as she kissed his cheek, always went directly to the hidden core. “It was a bad time,” she said honestly. “A very bad time, but we are safe now.”
“Merrik will take care of us.”
She hated the confidence in his voice, his child’s utter certainty. She also hated having to rely on a ma
n, particularly this man who was a Viking, surely one of the most ruthless and vicious of men on this benighted earth. Aye, she didn’t want to rely on him, not for her safety, not for all her needs and Taby’s needs. During the past two years, she’d learned men were vicious and brutal, not to be trusted, taking what they wanted, feeling no remorse, having no conscience. Also she’d learned that to trust in anything or in anyone could leave one dead or worse, though at the moment she couldn’t think of anything worse than death. She remembered Thrasco’s beating. That had been close. She unconsciously flexed her shoulders as she stood, and leaned first to the right and then to the left. There was only a little pulling, nothing to draw her down into that choking pain.
She said to Taby, “I don’t want him to take care of us.” Her voice was too sharp and Taby flinched back from her. “Nay, sweeting, it isn’t Merrik’s responsibility to care for us. He is a man and men don’t feel comfortable about caring for those who aren’t part of their blood family. He’s caring for us just for now, that’s all. Then I will take care of both of us. We are still a long way from home, but soon, perhaps very soon, we will return.”
She wondered if she believed it herself. How could she return when she didn’t know the face of her enemy? She wondered, as she had countless times during the past two years, what home was like now.
* * *
With loud cheers and equally loud prayers of thanksgiving to Thor, the men finally shoved the longboat into the Gulf of Riga six days later. They’d been slowed by a violent storm that had shredded the men’s tempers and tested their strength, but it had only lasted a day and a half, nothing all that dreadful, but dreadful enough. When the longboat slid smoothly into the clear blue water of the gulf, she and all of the men breathed a deep sigh of relief.
No one had attacked them.
Thor had given them a safe portage, they’d earned a lot of silver from their trading, and all were thankful. When they camped that evening, she decided she would make them a delicious dinner.
Her back was healed now, but still, she tired too quickly, and it angered her, this weakness, this continued betrayal by her body. Merrik had merely laughed at her that morning when she’d cursed her weariness in language as colorful as the brightly plumed birds they saw in the forest. As for Taby, she could now look at him without pain. His cheeks were no longer sunken, but were rounding out again. He walked upright, no longer bowed down with hunger. There was light in his eyes, not the dull blank acceptance, or silent questions to her that she couldn’t answer. And his laughter, that was the best of it all. Just a few moments ago when the men were cheering their safe portage, Merrik had suddenly lifted Taby high in the air, swinging him over his head. Taby had shrieked with laughter. Laren had simply stood there, watching them and listening to her little brother’s joy.
They brought her venison for supper. She cut the meat into thick steaks and seasoned them with snow berries and juniper roots, then wrapped them in wide maple leaves rubbed with venison fat.
After the meal, the men, their bellies full and content, shouted for Deglin to finish his tale of Grunlige the Dane.
But Deglin was sulking. Merrik had told him earlier that he would be in charge of keeping the furs brushed and clean, and most importantly, to make certain they were kept dry in the hold of the longboat. Deglin had thought himself above such a chore, but Merrik had held firm, and Deglin had grumbled endlessly as he’d done it, making the men want to yell at him and Merrik want to break his neck.
So Deglin refused to do anything now, telling Merrik and the men that it was his genius that enabled him to tell them stories and that the genius had been overworked by brushing and cleaning the furs, a task that didn’t merit his skills and talent. He was a skald and was to be revered, not worked like a slave, and he’d looked at Laren, who was busy adding vegetables to the buck the men had killed and said she was a slave, she should have tended the furs. Merrik said, “There are few furs, only those we are taking back to our families as gifts. Your tasks were light, Deglin, and the furs important.”
But Deglin sniffed and said his bowels weren’t happy with the foul offal she had made them eat. He took himself off into the pine trees and relieved himself for an hour. The venison steaks had been delicious, but she didn’t say anything. The men grumbled at Deglin’s perversity. Several began throwing pebbles in a test of their accuracy. After a while, though, they were bored.
It was then she said, “I have thought about Grunlige the Dane. Perhaps I can continue the story in Deglin’s stead.”
The men looked at her as if she’d lost her wits. She could cook. She was a woman. They stared at her.
She merely looked back at them gravely, saying nothing more.
It was Taby, sitting between Merrik’s legs, leaning back against his chest, who said, “Do tell us, Laren, your stories are wonderful.”
“Aye,” Oleg said, with no real conviction. “We’ve naught else to do. Tell us what you can.”
“I’m full with venison and care not what comes to my ears,” Old Firren said. “Go ahead, girl.”
Merrik said nothing. He held Taby. But she knew that he, like all the other men, believed that no woman could spin a tale to hold a man’s interest, for all knew women had no talent for it. The skalds were men, only men, and all knew . . .
Laren pitched her voice low and smooth and leaned slightly toward the men to gain their full attention, something she’d seen her uncle’s skald do many, many times. “When Grunlige said, ‘I cannot feel my hands,’ and all his men were saddened at the sight of the hideous shrunken claws his hands had become, it seemed that all his mighty strength, his miraculous courage, would be no more. It took not many months for him to grow shorter, for his shoulders and head were always bent, his eyes on the ground, since there was no hope in his heart to look to heaven.
“All his friends fell silent when he was near. Not long thereafter, Grunlige went off by himself and many believed that he had gone off to die, for what reason was there for him to continue? He had no more strength and, thus, no more pride, and therein lay his own knowledge of his worth and his sense of his own greatness. But after three days he returned, blank-faced and silent.
“His enemies rejoiced, but in private, for they knew that Grunlige was popular with many people, far and near, and it wasn’t wise to speak happily of what had befallen him. Some of them began to make their plans. Evil men they were, and they knew not honor. They weren’t Vikings, not valiant warriors, but rather Saxon raiders, mean-spirited and petty, and they knew only betrayal and treachery. They decided to raid his holdings.
“Thus in the months that followed, they seized his warships, stole his slaves, his silver and gold. They would kill his people and steal cattle and sheep. One even wanted to kidnap Grunlige’s beautiful wife, Selina.
“And so it began and continued. His men cried out, begging Grunlige to help them, but Grunlige said nothing, merely bowed his head and drank his ale until he was senseless and his slaves had to carry him off to his bed. Then one day, ah, it was just after dawn on a hot morning in the summer, Parma, an evil Saxon raider from Wessex, managed to steal into the main farmstead where Selina lived. He was a tall man, dark visaged, his eyebrows so thick they met over his eyes. He hated Grunlige and knew his best revenge on him wouldn’t be his own death but the loss of his beloved wife. Grunlige had killed his brother when the man had been drunk on mead and flogged to death one of Grunlige’s favorite horses. Thus the reason for Parma’s hatred. On that morning, Parma saw her and she was alone, sitting quietly beside a stream, staring at nothing really, thinking about her husband, and the ill fate that had befallen him. He snuck up on her, making not a single sound, and when he stood right behind her, he said, ‘My name is Parma and I have come to take you, Selina, wife of Grunlige. I will treat you as I would treat Grunlige were he my prisoner. I will have you on your knees begging for mercy. Then I will flog you just as Grunlige flogged my brother.’
“She showed no fright, but
turned to look up at this evil man and said, ‘If you touch me, Parma, you will regret it until the moment breath leaves your lungs.’
“He laughed loudly, for she was but a woman, slight, of no account at all. Just a woman, but she was Grunlige’s woman and thus Parma wanted her. He leaned down to grab her. But when his hands touched her arms something very strange happened.”
Laren smiled and turned to Merrik. “My brother is very nearly asleep. I will continue the tale, if you wish me to, tomorrow night. I trust I haven’t bored you.”
The men were staring at her. Then they grumbled. Then Roran called out, “Aye, but what happened? The only thing strange when a man touches a woman is that he wants her and that isn’t strange.”
“Taby isn’t tired, are you, boy?”
“What magic is this?”
Merrik said nothing. He just looked at her, a small smile on his mouth. Then he laughed. Then he raised his voice and cheered, and suddenly all of them were cheering and shouting. Before she went into the tent for the night, four small silver coins had been pressed into her hand. She stared down at them lying brightly on her palm.
Four coins for telling them a story. As she fell asleep, she wondered what it was that Parma felt when he touched Selina’s arms.
They rowed into the Baltic Sea a day later, for there was no wind, the water as calm and unruffled as Merrik’s temper. He was quiet, thoughtful, perhaps thinking of new adventures, Old Firren thought, as he carefully steered the longboat past a nearly sunken log.
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