She looked back at Rollo, seeing him as a man, not just as her uncle. He was still handsome, still more forceful and stubborn as a pig, but he was old, so very many years sitting on his still-broad shoulders, too many years. She wondered idly what she would do.
22
MERRIK HELD HER head as she vomited into the basin. She was shuddering with the effort, her skin clammy and cold. She’d eaten little that morning because she’d been so nervous, and now she was heaving and jerking, but there was naught left in her belly save the twisting, grinding cramps.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said as he pulled her sweat-damp hair from her face. “You were feeling well in your ignorance.”
“Aye,” she said. “I would bless both you and my ignorance if only it would return.”
He gave her a mug of ale. She washed out her mouth, moaned and clutched her stomach again, then, to his relief, eased. “I don’t like this,” she said, looking at him with less than adoration. “You did this to me.”
“Aye, it is a man’s duty,” he said, grinning at her. “Come.” He lifted her to her feet and then into his arms. He carried her to the wide box bed and laid her down. He straightened the beautiful gown Ileria had made for her, not wanting to wrinkle it overly. He sat beside her, wishing indeed that he’d kept his mouth shut. How could her suddenly knowing she was carrying his babe make her ill? It seemed incomprehensible to him, yet she’d turned white and fainted dead away, in front of all Rollo’s people.
If he could have planned it, it couldn’t have been done better.
She opened her eyes as he covered her with a woolen blanket. “I don’t like you at this moment, Merrik.”
He leaned down and kissed her nose.
“How do you know so much about babes and such?”
“When a man can take a woman for weeks without having to stop, she is either too exhausted to say him nay, or pregnant with his babe.”
She sent her fist into his arm. He grabbed her fist, smoothed out her hand, and kissed her palm. “Thank you, Laren, for my child.”
“It is my child.”
“It is my seed and without my seed there would be no child.”
“I take your seed and nurture it into life. Without me there would be no child.”
He smiled at her. “You are right.”
“You’re just saying that because I feel so wretched.”
“Aye. Get well again so that I can argue freely with you and not suffer guilt.”
She said suddenly, sitting up, “I feel fine now. Isn’t that odd?”
She fell silent, queried her body, then said, “Aye, ’tis true, there is no more faintness, no more illness. My belly is happy.”
“I hope it stays happier than poor Otta’s.” He pulled her into his arms, and held her, kissing her ear, smoothing the tangles from her hair with his fingers, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “All will be well, you will see. Trust me in what I am doing.”
“I don’t like it,” she said again. “You are now in danger, Merrik. I cannot like that.”
“You can protect me when you’re not on your knees with your face in a bucket.”
She chuckled and it made him feel immensely relieved. He was kissing her when Rollo came running into the sleeping chamber. He was so tall he had to bend to get through the doorway without hitting his head.
“Is she all right?”
Laren looked over Merrik’s shoulder. “I am fine, uncle. I am sorry for disturbing your announcement.”
“Nay, don’t be. I am more than pleased.” He paused a moment, then said easily, “Your half sisters tell me they’re concerned about you. Ha! Helga fears you might be cursed with Ferlain’s womb. They wish to see you, they claim, both of them more serious than the Christian nuns, to welcome you home again.”
“That is very kind of them,” Laren said. “I will see them shortly.”
“Aye,” Merrik said, “I wish to meet them as well.”
Helga looked about Laren’s small sleeping chamber, the same one she’d slept in all her life. She hoped Laren had nightmares. She smiled at her half sister, thinking she looked pitiful and so very pale. It was afternoon and yet she’d vomited again. Poor Laren, she looked close to death. So very close. Carrying a babe was a dangerous thing, all knew that. A woman’s life was so fragile, more so than a man’s, curse the sods. Yet Ferlain continued to flourish after carrying eight babes. Helga wondered if her sister would carry yet another babe.
She smiled as she walked to the box bed and held out her hands. “Laren, it is really you. Even seeing you in the great hall I couldn’t be certain, for I was so anxious that it be you, but I couldn’t trust myself. You look lovely, dearest. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Helga. Ah, here is Ferlain. Hello, sister.”
Ferlain couldn’t bring herself to smile. Unlike Helga, she saw a very slender girl with magnificent red hair and a complexion that only youth occasionally granted, brilliant blue-gray eyes, and even white teeth. She hated the girl. She felt very old, and she was Laren’s half sister, not her damned mother. It galled her. She said, only a slight tremor in her voice, “I have missed you, Laren. A pity that Taby had to die so that you could survive.”
Merrik arched a dark blond eyebrow. “You sound as though Laren left Taby in a ditch somewhere so that she could have a better chance to live.”
“Did I? Surely I couldn’t mean that. Helga, I didn’t say that, did I?”
Helga gave a small laugh and moved a step closer to Merrik. He was tall, this Viking, and he smelled delicious, a man smell that was uniquely his, a scent both dark and musky that made her want to touch her fingertips to his mouth, to his shoulders, to the thick hair at his groin. “No, Ferlain,” she said, abstracted by him, “you love Laren, as do I. Naturally, she wouldn’t kill Taby to save herself.”
Laren could but stare at the two of them. Odd, but Helga seemed to look younger than she had two years ago. Ferlain looked older, petulant, downward lines about her mouth, streaks of gray in her once rich brown hair. She was fat.
She felt Merrik stiffening beside her, but just smiled. “No, of course, neither of you would ever think I would not guard Taby with my life. Merrik, would you like to pour some of the sweet wine for Ferlain and Helga?”
He nodded, and walked to the low table that was near the doorway. He poured the wine into ivory goblets, beautifully made those goblets, like none he’d ever seen before. And the heels of his boots thudded on the wooden floor. He was used to pounded earth floors, as were most normal humans. This was noisome and he didn’t like it. If he had no boots on he would have splinters in his feet. He gave each of the women a goblet of wine.
He felt the heat of Helga’s flesh when she took the goblet from him, and there was that same heat in her eyes, dark eyes, deep and mysterious.
“Where are your husbands?” he said, his eyes mirroring the same hunger in hers. He didn’t look away from her even as he slowly walked back to stand beside Laren.
Helga gave him a long, slow smile, nodding slightly as if she recognized and accepted what had happened between them, and said, “Fromm is doubtless practicing with his sword. He is a very strong man, you know—”
“He is a bully,” Ferlain said, took a large gulp of her wine and fell into spasms of coughing.
“Aye, he is,” Helga agreed easily. She looked over at Laren. “So you carry Merrik’s child. It seems you are as fertile as your poor mother was. Such a pity that she died so soon after Taby was born.”
Laren couldn’t remember her mother’s face, but oddly, she could remember her singing, her voice firm and strong and off-key. And her father had strangled her, all had seen the imprint of his fingers around her neck. She nodded, then said quickly, “Uncle Rollo spoke of how everyone believed it was his blood family from the Orkneys responsible for Taby’s and my abduction. What do you think, Helga?”
“What I think,” Helga said slowly as she sipped her wine, her eyes on Merrik, “is that whoever it was
felt some mercy. After all, you did survive, Laren.”
“Aye, I often wondered why Taby and I were spared. I never thought it an act of mercy though. Nay, I believed the person responsible wanted both Taby and me to die slowly, to suffer, for what reason I don’t know.”
Ferlain said, “I always believed it was your father, come back to take you and Taby away. He knew he would be put to death if he remained after murdering your mother, and thus he went away until he could capture you and Taby.”
“Our father,” Laren said flatly. “And it wasn’t Hallad. I cannot believe that you would think that, much less say it.”
“I do wonder what happened to him,” Helga said. “He was never the warrior Uncle Rollo was, but he was a nice man, a good father until he married your mother. Doubtless he was killed by outlaws. But enough of that. It is long in the past. You are home now, and you have brought the man who will be one of Rollo’s heirs. I wonder what the Frank King Charles will make of all this. A man who is a stranger, becoming a possible heir to the duchy of Normandy.”
“I will go pay homage to the king,” Merrik said. “Aye, and he will bless our union, doubt it not. But not just yet.” He rubbed his hands together then, and there was an opulent pleasure in his eyes, and unmasked greed, but just for the barest moment, not longer.
Helga said slowly, her eyes never leaving his face, “Ferlain and I will leave you now, Laren. We will dine with you this evening, if you are not vomiting again.”
Laren silently watched her two half sisters leave her sleeping chamber. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You are most convincing, Merrik.”
“Aye,” he said and chuckled. “Most convincing. Helga believes herself irrestible and I showed her not only my interest in her but also my boundless greed. It should prove interesting. Now we will wait and see.”
“Helga is smart though, I do remember that. You will be careful, husband.”
That night after a feast that lasted until well after the dark hour of midnight, Merrik left the palace, for he’d been given a message from Oleg, spoken softly into his ear by a small boy. He walked beneath an archway and called out, “Oleg, it is I, Merrik. What goes?”
There was no answer, nothing. He heard people speaking, but from a distance, not near here where the boy had told him to meet Oleg. The guards were some distance away. He could hear them wagering on the throw of the dice. He smiled into the still shadows around him. He prepared to wait. He looked relaxed, ill-prepared, mayhap even drunk, but he was not. He began to whistle, a man with no cares to bow his shoulders, a man to whom the world had been freely given.
When the attack came, Merrik dropped gracefully to the ground and rolled. He came up, leaping backward even as he came down solidly on his booted feet.
There were two of them, big men, garbed in coarse bearskins, their faces covered with thick beards, heavy silver bands around their upper arms. He saw the intent in their eyes even in the dim light given off by the distant rush torches and the sliver of moon overhead.
They both had curved knives like the ones Merrik had seen in Kiev, used by the Arabs, sharp knives, the silver gleaming.
He drew his own knife and tossed it from his right hand to his left then back again, his rhythm steady. His legs were planted firmly, spread. He smiled at the men.
They were coming toward him, splitting up now, and they were more silent than starving wolves in the middle of winter, stalking their prey.
He laughed aloud and called out, “You are slow and I grow weary of waiting for you to prove your prowess. Have you any skill, I wonder. You look like savages to me, naught more than slaves released just this night to kill me. You, there on my left, hopping about like a virgin maid on her marriage night, what will you do? Sing me a song? Play the lute for your friend here to chant me a story? You puking coward, come on, cease your dancing!”
The man howled, and rushed at Merrik, the other one just an instant behind in his lunge, but it was enough, and Merrik knew it was enough. He struck the big man’s throat with the flat of his hand, then spun him about. He looked at his face as he eased his knife into his chest. The man dropped without a sound, but Merrik didn’t see him, for the other man was on him, and this one was smarter, perhaps, for he wasn’t rushing in so quickly.
“I’ll see your guts in the dirt,” he said, and leapt, his balance keen, his eyes on Merrik’s eyes and the knife that still Merrik gently tossed back and forth from left hand to right hand, taunting.
Merrik took two quick sideways steps and slashed out with his knife. The other man jumped backward, the tip of Merrik’s knife only slicing through the outer bearskin he wore.
He looked down at the clean knife-cut through the skin, then back up at Merrik. “You’ll not gut me, you bastard. I’ll kick your guts out of your belly and grind them into the dirt for cutting my bearskin.”
Merrik didn’t like the image of that. He skipped sideways until he was standing just behind the fallen body of this man’s friend. Slowly, he kicked the man’s ribs, pushing him forward. Then he spat on his body.
It was enough. The man roared as he leapt forward, screaming curses at Merrik, screaming what he would do to him with his knife. He was fierce and he became a fool only for a moment. When Merrik’s knife came up underhand to his belly, he jerked his entire chest inward, nearly bowing his body. He did a complete turn, then brought down his knife in a swift arc, slicing Merrik’s arm.
Merrik felt the sudden cold of his split flesh, then the blessed numbness that followed. The man wasn’t as careless as his friend had been. He felt the warmth of his own blood, knew the bleeding wouldn’t stop, and in that, he knew he would win. He made a pained sound and staggered, his head down, grabbing his wounded arm in his other hand.
The man rushed in, his knife raised. When Merrik could breathe in the man’s rancid smell, he smashed his bloody arm into his face, rubbing his eyes, the thick warm blood momentarily blinding the man.
The man tried to turn, tried to escape, but Merrik now wrapped his good arm around his throat and spun him about. He pressed until he knew the man could scarcely breathe.
“Who is your master?”
“I have no master. Kill me. I have failed.”
“Aye, you have. Tell me your master and I will let you live.”
Merrik lightly touched his knife tip to the man’s throat. Gently, he shoved the tip inward. “Tell me,” he said.
“It is Rollo, aye, the great Rollo. He wants you dead.”
Merrik was so startled that he loosed his grip. The man lurched forward, ripping himself free. He staggered and ran full tilt into the darkness.
Merrik let him go. He stood there, clutching his arm to his chest, panting. He wanted to chase the man down but he doubted he could catch him anyway. He would probably fall flat on his face. His arm was no longer numb. It was on fire, the pain making him grit his teeth. He ripped off the end of his tunic and wrapped it around the gushing wound.
Oleg was impatiently pacing the length of the sleeping chamber. When Merrik entered, he said quickly, “Don’t worry. Laren is with Rollo and her sisters, telling them a story. Helga and Ferlain didn’t want to hear it, but Uncle Rollo gave them no choice.”
“She’s not here then,” Merrik said. “Good.”
It was then that Oleg saw his arm. “By all the gods, Merrik, you bleed like a stoat! I should have gone with you, dammit! I shouldn’t have listened to you.”
Merrik just smiled wearily at him, not bothering to interrupt his cursing. He unwrapped the wound on his arm and stared down it. It was bleeding only sluggishly, but he knew it needed stitching.
“Get Old Firren. Tell him to bring his needle and some thread.”
Not long after Oleg had helped Merrik to sit on the edge of the box bed, Old Firren walked into the sleeping chamber, looked around at the opulent hangings, grunted, and started to spit in the corner. He looked disgusted, saying, “I can’t spit, Merrik. It will sit on the damned wood like a spot on a woma
n’s face. I don’t like all this—it makes a man feel as if he’s walking on live coals. What did you do? Cut yourself, that’s what Oleg said, the lying sod. Give me your arm and let me see how bad it is.”
Old Firren studied the arm, pinched the flesh, ignoring Merrik’s pallor, and said, “The knife was very sharp, nice and clean the slice. Hurts, huh?”
“I’ll kill you, old man, if you don’t shut your mouth and get on with it.”
Laren came in, yawning. Old Firren had finished, and was now studying his long row of stitches. She looked at her husband lying on his back, his arm extended, all the blood-covered rags on the floor, and said, “I will surely kill you for not calling for me.”
“It isn’t bad, mistress,” Old Firren said quickly. “You were telling a fine tale. Oleg didn’t want to interrupt you, for surely your uncle wouldn’t have been pleased. He loses himself in your stories, Merrik says, believes himself young and strong again. Don’t worry about your husband. Merrik will survive, he always does. He’s a hardly lad.”
“I will kill him and you and Oleg,” she said.
She walked slowly to stand staring down at Merrik. “I am your wife. It is my responsibility to stitch your wounds.”
“You would use a different color thread?” Merrik said, trying very hard to make her smile.
She placed her palm on his forehead. His flesh was cool and dry. She said to Old Firren, “Leave Oleg to guard the door. You remove all this blood and yourself.”
“Aye, mistress,” Old Firren said, carefully spat into the basin of bloody water, grinned at Merrik, and shuffled out of the chamber.
“What story did you tell everyone?”
“Don’t try to distract me, Merrik. You got yourself attacked, didn’t you? You had a plan, I knew it from the way you were acting—all nonchalant, laughing overmuch, looking at me as if touching me would make me vomit. I won’t have it, Merrik. I told them a story about a high lord of Egypt who sold his wife into slavery to an Arab trader from the Bulgar. He had a dozen other wives, you see, so one wouldn’t be much of a loss to him, and he needed the silver she would bring him. Now, I will ask Helga to give you a potion so that you won’t sicken. Perhaps she has something for the pain as well.”
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