“Rolf said, ‘The horn is pure gold?’
“If a unicorn could smile, this one did, and it said, ‘Aye, of the purest, Rolf. Why do you ask?’
“ ‘My brothers gave me advice. They told me to either kill you and steal your golden horn or capture you and then your mate and thus have both of you and then your offspring.’
“ ‘I do not think I like your brothers,’ the unicorn said. ‘What do you wish to do, Rolf?’
“ ‘I wish to speak to you, to learn who and what you are. I have never before seen a creature like you. Who sent you?’
“ ‘It’s true I am magical,’ the unicorn said. ‘But I am also more. I am also your former slave, the one you smote with your sword.’
“Rolf stared at the creature. He drew his sword for he was certain the beast would try to kill him. He’d come back for revenge. He stood there, his sword poised in his hand, and the unicorn did nothing, didn’t gallop away from him or attempt to protect himself in any way. Rolf raised the sword, then slowly, very slowly, he lowered it, and said, ‘I cannot do it. When I killed you before, I knew such horror at myself that I came here to the forest to die. But you found me instead. Tell me what to do, for I wish to atone for taking your life. If you choose to kill me, I will make no move against you.’
“The unicorn nodded his beautiful white head, the golden horn glistening in the bright sunlight. Then, quite suddenly, he seemed to fade into nothing more than shadow and light, until Rolf knew he could see the sunlight through the creature’s body, so pale had it become. He knew terror such as he’d never known. He fell to his knees, and clasped his arms around himself, waiting to die. But then as the unicorn was disappearing, something else was coming together and gaining darkness with the light and substance with the shadows. It was the slave he had smote with his sword. He held out his hand to Rolf and lifted him up. He said, ‘The gods have granted us both another chance. Come with me, Rolf, and we will journey together back to my family, for they miss me sorely. Come.’
“Rolf’s two brothers never saw him again. They mourned him even as they believed him to have lost his wits, for surely the unicorn had killed him, and he’d trusted the beast, trusted him, and look what it had gotten him.
“But then there came a story into Vestfold told by a very old skald, toothless and scrawny, with thin bowed legs. All doubted he had anything worthwhile to say, but when he opened his mouth, all fell under his magic. He told about a man called Rolf the Viking, a man who was strong and fierce, a man to be trusted in all things, a man splendid of body and of face, and a man who was wiser than most men should be at such a young age. All honored him, all knew they could trust him, for it was known that once Rolf had been tested and had finally learned the way to true honor and worthiness.
“And his brothers wondered, even as they shook their heads in disbelief at their thoughts. Surely, they reasoned, there were many Rolfs who were tested and found worthy, but nonetheless, both wanted to question the old skald the next morning. When they went to search him out, he was gone, the men at the palisade gates said, gone with the rising of the sun, ah, but he hadn’t disappeared with the sun, but rather into it, fading and fading, becoming as gold as the brilliance of the growing dawn light until he was simply gone. The brothers looked at each other. From that day onward, neither of them ever again mentioned either their brother or the strange appearance and disappearance of the old skald and his tale of Rolf the Viking.”
Laren smiled directly at Merrik quite without realizing it. He looked at her, then down at Taby who was wide-awake, watching his sister, a frown on his small face. Taby said quite clearly, “Laren, I remember the unicorn.”
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SHE STARED AT Taby, then said, her voice as smooth as the soft hair on Merrik’s belly, “That’s because I’ve told you stories about magical creatures. I must have told you about a unicorn. Come now, sweeting, go play with Eila. See, she wants to throw the ball to you. Do play with her, Taby, it will keep her thumb out of her mouth.”
Merrik started to say something, then stopped. He watched Taby run over to the little girl who was able to hold the feather-filled leather ball in one hand, and keep the thumb of her other hand in her mouth.
Laren quickly moved away from him, not wanting his questions, at least now. Olaf Thoragasson said to her, “You brought us into your story. It is good. No skald has ever before done that. I will speak to Merrik about buying you.” Before she could say anything, before she could do naught more than shudder, he’d left her and was walking toward Merrik, rubbing his big hands together.
Letta frowned after her father. When she turned back to Laren, she said, “It has stopped raining. Merrik and I will go for a walk down to the fjord. I think I will let him kiss me. He will know what it is like to kiss an innocent virgin.”
“Ah, so you will let him practice on you, Letta?”
The girl moved quickly, whirling about, the palm of her hand cracking hard against Laren’s cheek. Laren stumbled back with the force of the blow, and Letta hit her again, this time shoving her onto the ground.
Laren knew she should accept the blows, knew indeed that she’d called them upon herself with her mocking words, but she couldn’t stop herself. She jumped to her feet and was upon Letta in an instant. She wrapped Letta’s two thick braids around her hands, winding and winding, until the girl was yelling and crying and but inches from Laren’s face.
“Listen to me, you ill-bred witch. You will not ever strike me again. If you dare, I will remove all your pretty white teeth, one by one.”
She quickly unwound the thick braid and gave Letta a shove. She fell back into Merrik’s arms. Letta saw quickly who it was who was holding her, burst into tears, and whipped around, pressing herself against him, sobbing into his chest.
Merrik looked at Laren over her head. He saw the imprint of Letta’s hand on her face, and the rage, and then he saw the instant she realized what she’d done.
Olaf Thoragasson lunged forward like an enraged bull. He saw Erik rubbing his hands together. Quickly, Merrik lifted Letta off the ground and handed her to her younger brother, the one who had so charmingly and witlessly given Laren his mother’s brooch, and not, Merrik doubted, for the wondrousness of her tale. He stepped to Laren, grabbed her arm, and hauled her against his side.
He said both to her and to all who were staring at them, “She is my slave. I will see to her punishment.”
Erik said, “And her punishment, brother? I wonder how severe it will be.”
“Were she stronger I would whip her. But she isn’t strong enough yet to survive it. She will cook for the next three days. Sarla, will you make her obey you when I am not present to do so?”
Sarla grinned widely at her and shook her fist. “Aye, Merrik, I will hit her with a pot if she doesn’t willingly do the cooking.”
“No insolence from you, Sarla!” Erik was flushed with anger as he strode toward his wife, his right hand a sudden fist.
“It wasn’t insolence, brother,” Merrik said, jerking Laren with him as he moved into Erik’s path. “She was simply jesting. A simple jest, nothing more.”
“Still, I won’t have her speaking to you like that.”
“If I took offense then I would tell her so. Forget it, Erik.”
“ ’Tis none of your affair, brother.” Erik paused a moment, then turned quickly, sidestepped his brother, and struck Sarla open-palmed on her face. “There,” he said, watching her struggle to keep her balance, her hand rubbing her cheek. “You will mind your tongue in the future.” He turned to Merrik. “You see how you must treat a wife. No more will I have to bear her insolence, no more.”
Merrik’s hands were fisted at his sides. Laren ran to Sarla, but Erik shoved her aside. “Keep away from her, slave. By all the gods, you push me to violence.”
There was no sound for several moments—just the sight of Sarla, tears running down her face, the men and women all still in their places, afraid to say a word. Even the children were qui
et, staring at their parents, uncertain what to do.
Then Letta shrieked, “She said she would pull all my teeth out! One by one! Hit her, Merrik, she deserves it.”
Merrik easily controlled the laughter welling up inside him, laughter mixed with his absolute fury at Erik. It was a helpless fury, for he knew he couldn’t gainsay his brother in his own longhouse. He realized in that moment that he had to leave, he had to find a new home where he would be master. He turned to Letta and said, “You gave as good as you got, Letta. She is a skald. Of course she could frighten you with the imagery of her words. Hold your peace now, ’tis over.”
He turned to look at the faces of his men; at Deglin, who looked disappointed that he wasn’t whipping her right then, right there; at Old Firren who was whittling a chair post, his eyes fixed on his work; and finally at Cleve, whose face was white with the effort it cost him to keep still. Taby, thank the gods, as well as the other children, had turned away, all of them playing again, shouting and arguing, seeing nothing now. Thoragasson’s men looked uncertain, many looking in any direction if Letta wasn’t in it. He imagined they didn’t have much affection for Letta, and they much more enjoyed Laren’s stories. Merrik looked at Sarla. Her head was down, and he knew she was humiliated, crushed by her husband’s actions.
He saw that Letta would say more, and quickly added, “Until it is time for her to sweat over the fire pit, I will take her to the fields and she can work there.” He didn’t add that he would be working next to her.
Without another word, he dragged her out of the longhouse. He knew she would have willingly gone with him, but he thought an impression of reluctance, perhaps fear, on her part, would calm everyone’s ire.
The sun was bright overhead. The ground was still damp, but the sun had dried most of the mud puddles. She suddenly dug in her heels and yelled, “Stop dragging me!”
He turned and grinned down at her. “It was a good act. But now there’s no more need for it.” He released her arm and said over his shoulder, “Follow me and be quick about it.”
She moved swiftly after him. He said over his shoulder, not slowing, “Remove all of her teeth, one by one. I like that. It’s a very effective threat.”
“I thought so,” she said, skipping to come alongside him.
He was silent.
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I hate Erik. He is a bully, and without conscience. He struck her, Merrik, struck her just to prove he was the stronger and that she was nothing. I’m sorry since he is your brother, but I hate him. He is a bully and an animal. I know another man just like him.”
“Who is he?”
She went still. Then she just shook her head, saying nothing more.
Merrik said slowly, not looking at her, “Erik has changed.”
“I am relieved you didn’t strike him after he’d hurt Sarla.”
“I wanted to. It wouldn’t have been wise. I have no say in his longhouse and I must remember that.”
“I don’t want to stay here.”
“I have been thinking of that as well.”
She waited, but he said no more. Laren said, with some reluctance, “I’m sorry I wanted to pull her hair from her silly head, but she enraged me and I lost my temper.”
“One would think that after two years of retaliation and punishment, you would have learned to keep your tongue behind your teeth.”
“Aye, one would think that would have happened.”
“But it didn’t. I remember too clearly your back after Thrasco had beaten you for your lack of wisdom.”
“Aye, ’tis a fault that will probably kill me.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She said that she would walk with you and perhaps let you kiss her so you would know what it was like to kiss an innocent virgin.”
“I see. I don’t suppose you said anything back to her to make her slap you?”
Laren shrugged, not looking at him, but at the waving barley in the field. “Naught much of anything really, just something about her letting you practice on her. It made her very angry.”
He laughed. “Aye, that was naught of anything. You mocked her apurpose. ’Twas not well done of you, Laren.” He shook his head at her. He looked away from her then, and gazed upward where the fir trees were thick and full-leafed. “I had never heard of a unicorn before.”
“As I told everyone, they’re mythical creatures, magical.”
“With horns on their foreheads of pure gold.”
“Aye.”
He paused a moment then said as he stroked his hand over a barley stalk, “Your tale interested me. I don’t suppose by any chance it was a test?”
“Aye,” she said, looking at him steadily. “I know you won’t sell Taby back to me, no matter the amount of silver I have.”
“You are finally right about something. I am pleased that finally you understand I will never let him go.”
“And when you marry Letta? Merrik, please think. She would hate him just because he is my brother.”
“You will not worry about that.”
Laren said nothing more. When they reached the center of the barley field where others were working, he set her to looking closely at the birds flying overhead. “Keep them away from the crop.” He said nothing more to her. She found herself staring at him, not wanting to really, but still she stared, watching him bend over, then straighten and stretch, his body strong and powerful, the sweat gleaming off his flesh beneath the afternoon sun. She wanted him. She knew a sharp feeling of hunger and knew it was him she wanted. But she held her peace. She had to hold herself away from him.
He dismissed her in the middle of the afternoon to eat. The sky was no longer overcast, the rain of the morning long before moved northward. The sun was brilliant overhead. Laren thought of food, realized there was something more important to her than warm bread for the first time in two years, and walked quickly toward the trail that led upward to the summit of an outjutting cliff that stretched out over the fjord. She’d looked at it several times in the past days, wanting very much to climb to the top to see the magnificent scenery, but knowing that her body wasn’t yet strong enough. Her body was strong enough now. She set out at a brisk walk, keeping her eye on the sun. She didn’t want to be gone too long from the field.
She didn’t want to be gone too long from Merrik’s side. She thought about that, thought about him smiling at her, laughing, stripping off his clothes, coming into her body, holding her close, giving her pleasure until he’d hurt her, but surely that wasn’t his fault, but her own body’s, unused to a man.
She wanted him again, very much. It was stronger now, this wanting. She looked at him and felt a quickening that was both frightening and exhilarating. But she would be a fool to allow herself the pleasure of him.
The path steepened; it was narrow with deep ruts and strewn rocks on it. Her breath was becoming labored. She hated it, this weakness of her body.
She looked at the top, not too far distant now, and kept looking until she was there, finally, breathing hard, a stitch beginning in her side. But she’d made it.
She straightened and walked to the edge. The view was more magnificent than she’d imagined. The fjord below made many turns, curving inward, then winding sharply outward, the dark blue flowing forever beyond the eye. She gazed at the fir-covered uplands opposite the fjord where no one had touched the land, for it was too steep, too irregular, with sharp faces falling hundreds of feet to the water. She turned now to gaze down at Malverne with all its slightly sloping or flat land given entirely over to farming. The wooden palisade looked like a near perfect circle from her vantage point, with its pointed wooden spikes standing high that would surely gut any enemy who tried to scale them. All the buildings within looked sound and solid, surrounding the large rectangular longhouse. Smoke snaked upward, a thin blue line that disappeared into the sweet air, and she fancied she could smell Sarla’s cooking. Toward the back of the enclosure, she saw the burial site and the t
emple. She knew Merrik had visited his parents’ graves many times, always returning to the longhouse quiet, his head and shoulders bowed. She knew he grieved deeply for them, but she’d said nothing. What could she say? She couldn’t speak to him of her own parents’ deaths because he would want to know who they were and he would push her and push her. She knew she would tell him soon. He’d been right about her tale being a test. She could trust him; she had to, it was that simple.
She sat down, not too far from the edge of the cliff, and leaned back against a rock. She hoped Sarla was all right. She hoped Letta’s scalp hurt. Then she thought of Merrik and wondered if many lovers had come up here in the past, aye, many, she thought, as her eyes slowly closed.
“I saw you come up here. I waited to see if my brother would come after you but he didn’t. Then I followed you.”
She heard his voice in a half-sleep, far away, a caressing voice, one filled with satisfaction, but still only a voice and it couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t frighten her.
“No one else saw you, or me, come up here. This place is called Raven’s Peak. In recent years there have been fewer attacks by other Vikings, thus it is no longer much used as a lookout point. No, it is a lovers’ place now, and you are here, Laren.”
More than a voice now. There was gloating in it and pleasure, the sort of pleasure a man would find if he caught a woman alone, unawares, a woman he knew was his for the taking. She felt her heart begin to pound.
“I know you are awake, Laren. I thought perhaps you were coming here to meet a man—as I said, it is that sort of place—but you are alone. I am pleased. You turned Merrik away or didn’t he want you in the middle of the day?”
She opened her eyes and stared up at Erik. It was hard to see his face because the sun was directly behind him. If she didn’t know him, she would have believed, briefly, that he was a god, golden and radiant, so very big. Slowly, Laren eased up, scraping her back against the rock. It made her wince, but she said nothing, merely moved up until she was sitting. Then, very slowly, she stood, her hand back against the rock.
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