Lord of Raven's Peak

by Catherine Coulter

  Suddenly she felt his fingers on her burned flesh, felt his fingers lightly rubbing in the cream. She wanted to scream as loud as a blast of thunder, but she forced herself to lie still, to bear it. The cream brought the strangest mixture of pain and relief, of hot and cold, then blessed numbness, just as it had on her back. She held herself still, concentrating on keeping her mouth shut.

  When he was finished, he sat back on his heels. “You will be all right. The burn isn’t that bad. My mother makes the cream, with elderberry juice, she told me. You will like my mother, she can be fierce as a warrior one moment and gentle as a child the next. She knows all about potions and medicines. When I was a boy, I was fighting with Rorik, my older brother, and fell in the fire pit and she . . . ”

  She was aware of what he was doing, distracting her, trying to make her focus on his voice and his words, not on the pain from the burns. She did hear his voice, deep and soft, and she tried, she truly tried to think about what he was saying, but it was beyond her. Finally, when he was quiet a moment, she said, “You love your mother.”

  “Aye, she and my father are the finest parents I know. Even when they hate, they do it better than anyone else. They are not without flaw, don’t misunderstand me. I remember how they hated Rorik’s Irish wife, believing her evil. But they changed because they saw the justice of it, realized they had been wrong about her.”

  She nodded, then said, “I have few body parts left unscathed. Thank you, Merrik. You are kind.”

  “Keep those parts sound. This was the same cream I used on your back. After this I don’t wish to use it again on you. I haven’t much left, for my mother can only make the cream in the fall months.”

  “What else could happen? You are not that far from your home now, are you?”

  “Aye, ’tis true. Still, you must learn to be faster.”

  “Aye,” she said, feeling the flesh grow cool and numb. “Next time I will be the one to inflict the pain.”

  “A slave doesn’t inflict pain,” he said in an utterly emotionless voice. He turned and called out, “Oleg, bring a cup of mead.”

  When Oleg came into the tent, he said nothing, merely stared down at her, then nodded. He handed the mead to Merrik and was quickly gone again.

  When he put the cup to her lips, she drank.

  “All of it,” he said. “It will make you sleep.”

  And she did.

  They survived a storm of two straight days in the Baltic Sea before turning northward up the Oslofjord to Kaupang. Oddly, Laren hadn’t been particularly frightened. She was too busy trying to keep Taby reassured. He was as wet and miserable as they all were, there was naught she could do about that. She told him one story after the other. Her cheek had turned purple and yellow from the blow and had swelled. It didn’t hurt, just made her look a witch, she imagined. It was her leg that hurt and throbbed, but then again, so did Deglin’s and each time she thought of that, the pain seemed to lessen. Merrik made him row as long and hard as all the other men.

  Laren wondered if he would die, for he moaned over his oar and complained endlessly, but the men ignored him. But he was tough, and on that fifth morning when the sun was hot in the sky and the winds had quieted into soft breezes that were just heavy enough to fill the sails, she saw that he hadn’t sickened, nor was he complaining anymore. He was silent, and she distrusted that. Silent men, in her experience, usually were thinking of revenge. He saw she was looking at him and she quickly looked away. Since that night, none of the men had asked her to tell them about Grunlige the Dane. She wondered if she would continue the tale if they did ask her. She was nodding even as she wondered. Deglin deserved nothing from her.

  There were seagulls overhead, screeching as they dove close to the longboat, then swooped away at the last instant. She heard one man yell when a seagull’s wing hit his face. Scores of cormorants flagged their progress, the large birds in loose formation off their bow. There was a new quickened vitality to the men’s conversation. All their talk was of home, of their wives, their children, their crops. And they spoke of their wealth, each man richer than he was but four months earlier.

  As for Merrik, he would look at her cheek and frown. At night he continued to rub more cream into her leg, even though she could do it now, and she told him that she could. But he had merely shaken his head and continued with the task.

  The trading town of Kaupang was protected by a wooden palisade made of lashed-together sharply pointed wooden poles, set in the shape of a half circle. There were a good half dozen wooden docks that stretched out into the inlet and it was at the nearest one that Merrik had the men row the longboat. When they stepped onto the dock, there was a loud cheer. They were home, or very nearly.

  They would do no trading here this time, but the men wanted women and there had been no slave women for their use on the trip back from Kiev. They were hungry and they wanted one last night of wildness and freedom before they returned to their families. Laren saw it and understood it. They were men and that was simply the way they were. She didn’t hate them for it, she was simply relieved that none of them wanted her. And that was thanks to Merrik.

  She said to him even as he set her down on dry ground, “Thank you for protecting me.”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Deglin hurt you badly.”

  “That isn’t what I meant. The men—they will relieve their lust here. They didn’t relieve their lust on me. I thank you for that.”

  He said nothing to her, merely turned to shout to the men remaining on the longboat to protect their silver, “Keep sharp. We will be back in six hours and ’twill be your turn.”

  He looked down at her. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded.

  “Cleve will keep Taby close. Would you like a bath?”

  They were allowed through the large double gates, and she found herself in a bustling area crammed with people and small wooden dwellings and shops, all connected with wooden walkways, and it seemed that everyone was busy selling something or making something to sell or yelling with another to buy or trade or barter. It seemed that everyone was talking. She smiled, wanting to stop, just a moment, just long enough to look at the beautiful soapstone bowls displayed in front of one wooden shop, but Merrik didn’t pause. She saw a collection of weapons, and wished she could buy a knife, but she imagined her four small pieces of silver wouldn’t be enough, and she had nothing else. Merrik took her to a bathing hut where an old woman looked not at all at her face, but only at her worn trousers and dirty tunic, tsked through her rotting teeth, and told Merrik to take his wife inside.

  It was difficult, but within an hour, she had managed to wash her hair and her body and keep her leg dry. She was wearing only the same dirty tunic when Merrik entered the dimly lit bathing hut. He tossed a linen shift in her lap.

  “It’s clean. Put it on. Here is a dress and an overtunic. I don’t wish to arrive at my home with you looking like a starved boy.”

  She just stared up at him. “Thank you,” she said.

  “When you are finished, we will see the cobbler. You need shoes.”

  When they returned to the longboat some three hours later, her belly was full, she was well clothed, and there were soft leather shoes on her feet. She hadn’t felt like this for two years. She felt like a . . . She couldn’t find in her mind how exactly she felt.

  “I’m afraid,” she said to him finally as he walked slowly beside her. She was limping, but he made no move to carry her or assist her. She appreciated his restraint. The soft wool of the gown didn’t hurt her healing leg, for which she was grateful.

  “Why?”

  “What will you do with me and Taby? What will you do with Cleve?”

  He frowned then, but said only, “You will know when I tell you. I wish to see if Cleve bought Taby the proper clothes.”

  Her little brother looked clean and as well garbed as she did. But what surprised her was that Cleve also was wearing a new tunic and new trousers and there were leather shoes on
his feet with soft leather straps criss-crossing up his calves. He looked magnificent. He grinned at her and puffed out his chest. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile. She was overwhelmed. She scarcely saw the scar that was even more hideous when he smiled. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t Cleve, this was, and she was glad, so very excited.

  She couldn’t have prevented it even if she’d thought about it. She turned to Merrik and shouted. Then she threw her arms around him, squeezing his back tightly. “Thank you,” she said, her arms still around him, but she was looking up at him now and she realized in that instant what she had done, that she had touched him, that she was, in fact, holding him hard, treating him as she would a trusted friend, a relative, a husband. And what she realized fully in that moment was that he was a man, a big man, a handsome man, and to be pressed against him, to feel his flesh beneath her fingers, brought her pleasure, a strange pleasure she’d never felt before, but it was there and it was deep within her, and she was shocked at its intensity. But she didn’t release him. If anything, she pressed closer, feeling him, feeling the pleasure it brought her.

  He didn’t touch her. If anything, he stiffened. His arms remained at his sides. He said nothing. Finally, Laren realized that he was still as a stone. She had shamed him with her actions. She was nothing but a slave even though he had protected her. She was nothing at all to him. She quickly released him and stepped back, her head down.

  But Taby wasn’t aware that anything was amiss. Cleve put him down and he took Laren’s place quickly enough, tugging on Merrik’s tunic until he leaned down and picked him up. The child hugged his thin arms around Merrik’s neck, squeezing him as hard as he could, laughing and laughing. “I’m a prince,” Taby said. “You bought clothes for a prince. Someday I will reward you.”

  Merrik felt something sharp and sweet unfold deep inside him. He held the child close, smelling his child’s sweet scent, loving the sound of his laughter. He wanted this child and he would never let him go, never.

  “I thank you, Prince Taby,” he said against the child’s soft cheek, a cheek not so thin now.

  He looked at Laren. She was standing there, Cleve beside her, and she was just looking at him and at Taby and he saw something on her face that he didn’t understand. It was fear, he realized at last. Was she afraid of him? Surely not. She had thrown herself at him, no fear there. Or did she realize that Taby was his? What he had felt when she had pressed herself so willingly and completely against him, he discounted. It didn’t matter. He’d felt a shock of lust only because he hadn’t had a woman in a very long time. He looked away from her and caressed Taby. He kissed his cheek, felt him with his big hands and frowned because he was still too thin, his small bones still too prominent, his ribs too sharp.

  He closed his eyes a moment, just feeling the warmth of the child seep into him, filling him with a sense of rightness, a sense that this small human being had been born for his care, for his guardianship. As for Laren, she was naught more than Taby’s sister. He wondered yet again who Laren and Taby were.

  Vestfold was a huge land. Steep cliffs hugged the fjord, soaring upward, drowned many times with low-lying clouds. The hills and mountains were covered with firs and oak, many so steep and sharp that she couldn’t imagine ever making her way to the top of some of those tall peaks. The fjord was like smooth glass, but the current was with them and the men spoke and jested whilst they rowed.

  The air was warm and smooth, the sun high and brilliant. It was an incredible land. She’d never imagined anything like this. She couldn’t look away from the endless stretch of cliffs, seemingly larger with the rounding of each turn in the fjord.

  “This is my home,” Merrik said. “Soon we will pass Gravak Valley. I have many cousins who live there.”

  He fell silent, but she saw a smile tug at his mouth, and he shook his head.

  “Will we stop?”

  He shook his head. “Nay, I wish to return home. It is odd but I’ve felt something, a strange feeling that gnaws at me when my thoughts aren’t focused. I don’t like it.”

  Laren had learned not to discount such feelings when they came. “What are these feelings?”

  “They make my flesh itch. They make me want to hurry faster, for there is something not right at home.” He shook his head. “It is nothing, surely nothing. I grow as foolish as a female.”

  “I am not foolish.”

  “Very well. I grow as foolish as a female who is not you.”

  “Has your home a name?”

  “Aye, for generation upon generation my father’s farmstead has been called Malverne. The name is older than these mountains on either side of us, and none know what it means or from what language it comes.”

  “Malverne,” she said. “ ’Tis an odd word and not one I recognize either, except that it—” Her voice fell like a stone dropped from one of the huge towering cliffs.

  He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting.

  She shook her head, then said brightly, her voice so false that he wanted to shake her, “Tell me about your cousins.”

  “One of my cousins is wed to a woman without hearing. Her name is Lotti.”

  Laren couldn’t imagine such a thing. “And she is alive? She is grown?”

  “Aye. Egil, her husband and my cousin, has taken care of her since she was Taby’s age. She can read the words from your lips as you speak, but Egil has also devised signals with his fingers so they can speak together more easily. It is fascinating to watch their fingers fly about and then hear them laugh, for they can even jest in this finger language. They are very happy and have four children. Lotti is special.”

  She nodded, then fell silent. The men rowed more closely to shore and the cliff loomed over them, casting shadows when it momentarily blocked the sun. “I don’t know if I should like this in the winter. I’ve heard of the winters here, of course. I’ve been told that they . . .” Again, she stopped herself and he didn’t frown this time, merely waited, impassive, looking at the mountains they were passing. She said, “They sound difficult.”

  “No more difficult than most things. It’s a different sort of beauty,” Merrik said. “But you’re right, when the days are short, the mountains and trees covered with snow, there is a sameness that soon bends your thoughts. We spend much time inside during the winter months, for the snow can be so deep you could step outside and sink into snow that covers your head.” He paused a moment, then said, “Ah, but to stand alone in the midst of a forest of pine trees, and there is nothing but silence and the utter white of newly fallen snow. That is something that moves the most remote of men.”

  “I have heard it said that the Vikings keep the animals in their longhouses during the winter.”

  “Aye. In the winter months, else they would freeze to death. The extra animals are slaughtered, their meat smoked and dried so that we will eat well during the winter. Aye, the remaining animals are brought into the longhouse.” He grinned down at her. “The smell isn’t too bad. One becomes used to it. But when the snow stops and the sun burns overhead, and fresh air fills everything, ah, that is what makes everything perfect here. Where do you come from, Laren?”

  “From Nor—” She stopped and began to slowly tug on her meager braids. “It is not important, Merrik, truly. Thank you for the clothes. I no longer feel like a man, and ’tis a foolish feeling I didn’t like. Though the freedom to run and move quickly is something I will miss.”

  He let her be. He would learn everything about her and Taby soon enough. He watched her fidget with her hair, hair thick and curly that she’d somehow managed to braid—even though her hair was still too short for much plaiting—pinning the meager braids with two wooden clasps on top of her head. Tendrils of shorter hair curled about her face and several long, loose strands trailed down the back of her neck. Even with the shorter spikes of red hair sticking out of the braids, she still looked very female, and he admitted to himself, in her woman’s clothes, she was lovely. Indeed, despite the still pale y
ellow-and-green bruise on her cheek, she looked quite acceptable. By the gods, he thought, she looked beautiful, that violent red hair of hers glistening in the bright sunlight.

  He looked away from her, to the shoreline that wasn’t really a shoreline at all, for the cliffs crashed from their heights right into the deep waters of the fjord, all of it continuous, without the interruption of sand or loose rocks, without break. He thought of Malverne again and felt that now familiar gnawing in his belly that left a coldness and a dread. He hated it for there was nothing he could point to, nothing to focus upon. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Eller shouted, “I don’t smell anything, Merrik, but there is Malverne! I see it yon!”

  The other men craned to look and shouted.

  Oleg came to stand beside Merrik. “’Twas a good trading trip,” he said. “Our chests are full with silver. The women will show us much appreciation for the beautiful furs we brought them.”

  Merrik grinned, dismissing his foolish feelings, now as carefree as a boy. “Aye, and the brooch I brought my mother will make her smile and feed me all her delicious meals until my belly puffs out.”

  Oleg laughed. “I brought Tora an arm bracelet,” he said. “I am so skinny she will have to feed me well for a year. What did you bring your father?”

  “Ah, I brought my father a knife of great value, its handle an odd ivory from beyond Bulgar.”

  Oleg only laughed louder. “And I brought Harald a cask for his jewels and I will have the runemaster engrave it to him.”

  Merrik punched his arm. Oleg hit him in the belly. The longboat rocked. The men laughed and shouted advice.

  The two men grappled, grunting from each other’s blows, and the longboat tipped first one way and then the other.

  Laren watched them, smiling, until she saw that Merrik was perilously close to a loose sharp-edged oar. She called out just as Oleg shoved him and he lost his balance. He flailed at the empty air, looked utterly astonished and went overboard.