Lord of Raven's Peak

by Catherine Coulter

  He saw Merrik’s hand come down to the boy’s shoulder and gently squeeze. He saw Merrik come down to his knees and look at Taby, all the love he felt shining in eyes the brilliant blue of the autumn sky. Merrik said, “Your father lives and I have brought him back with me. What happened to him is better than any tale Laren can weave in her skald’s voice. Aye, and he will tell you about such things as he has seen when you return with him to Normandy. Come now, Taby, and greet your father.”

  Hallad saw the pain in Merrik’s eyes when he gently placed Taby’s small hand into his. “This is your father. Bid him welcome.”

  “I welcome you to Malverne, sir.”

  Merrik shook his head and laughed. “He is a stubborn little mite and loyal to his finger bones. Come, Hallad, let us go inside and have some of Sarla’s fine ale.” He lifted Taby onto his shoulder and marched up the path, back through the fields scythed flat of their crops.

  It was difficult for Hallad, Laren knew it. It was difficult for her as well, and Taby was her brother. She watched her father try to remain impassive, a smile on his face, but his little son was curled into a ball against Merrik’s chest, sound asleep, his small fisted hand clutching Merrik’s tunic.

  “They love each other very much,” she said to her father. “It is very odd really. As you know, this fat merchant, Thrasco, had bought me, and they’d pulled me away from Taby. Merrik saw Taby and wanted him. It is that simple and it goes that deep.”

  “You were both very lucky,” Hallad said. “The woman, Sarla, she is comely, very comely. And so very gentle. You told me she was married to Merrik’s brother, the former master of this farmstead?”

  Laren nodded. “He was killed. His former skald, a jealous man named Deglin, killed him and tried to blame me, for he wanted me gone. Many believed that I did it, for Erik wanted to bed me. I did not like Erik, for he was cruel toward his wife and arrogant in his actions, but to die because Deglin wanted me blamed, it is horrible.”

  “What will become of Sarla?”

  Laren smiled as she sipped her cup of sweet mead.

  “I may be just a few years older than she,” Hallad said sharply, eyeing his daughter, “but I am not dead. No segment of me is dead, daughter. I am still a man of many fine parts. Do you understand me?”

  “Aye, Father, I understand you quite well,” Laren said solemnly.

  “You should since you are carrying Merrik’s babe in your womb.” He was clearly irritated and she couldn’t help herself, she giggled. Merrik looked up and smiled widely. It had been too long since there had been lightness in her. He was enchanted, and he told her so later that night when they were finally settled beneath a soft woolen blanket in their box bed.

  “If I enchanted you then I must be a witch.”

  “Aye, you may be my witch. It has been a very long day,” he added and kissed her ear, then licked lightly inside.

  “Aye, but we are home, Merrik. How glad I am to be home at last. And alive.”

  “Your father was asking me questions about Sarla, how well placed her family was, what I planned to do with her. I told him that she would do as she pleased, that she was welcome at Malverne forever if she wished it.”

  Laren came up on her elbow above him. “My father is a man of fine parts, that each of his segments was working. He told me so. Do you think Sarla would like to marry my father? Live with him in Uncle Rollo’s palace? Be a great lady?” She giggled again, nestling her face against his shoulder, and he felt her warm breath, and squeezed her tightly against him.

  “I do not know. You told me that she and Cleve were growing close. Indeed you told me they loved each other.”

  “Aye, but now I don’t know.” She sucked in her breath, all thought of Cleve and Sarla forgotten. “I like your hand there, Merrik.”

  “Do you?” He gently cupped her breast in his hand, leaned down and began to caress her with his mouth. When she moaned, arching into him, he raised his head and smiled down at her. “You have not been ill for a week now. I am relieved. You were growing too thin again. Ah, but not here, not here.”

  “You are a man,” she said, and kissed his warm mouth, “and a man likes to caress a woman’s breasts. Ah, Merrik, I do love you. More than you can begin to imagine. I will love you until I die.” She’d said the words, she didn’t regret saying them even though he was still beside her. For just a moment he was very still, and silent, then he was kissing her frantically, his tongue stroking her mouth, his hands wild on her breasts, then his fingers were moving to her waist and belly, gently probing there, searching for a sign of the babe, then going lower still to find her and caress her.

  “It has been too long,” he said as he eased her down over him. “Far too long. By all the gods, Laren, you give me so very much.”

  The pleasure he brought her momentarily made her forget the truth of things, and that truth was always there and would always be there, even after Taby and her father left to return to Normandy. Taby would always be in Merrik’s heart, closer than any other man or woman or child. She thought of the child she carried. Merrik would love the babe, surely he would love his own son or daughter, but not so much as he loved Taby, never so much as Taby.

  She cried out in her release, shaken by its power and its sweetness as she always was, then held him to her as he took his own pleasure.

  “You please me,” he said, his voice low and deep, for he was sleepy now and sated. She felt him leave her, felt the wet of his seed, and eased down beside him. He kissed her forehead, caressed her shoulder, then he closed his eyes.

  She loved him more than she could imagine loving another human being. She would love him forever. He was her husband and in that, he would always be hers.

  “My father has been here with you, has he not, Sarla? Do you know where he is now?”

  Sarla smiled as she stirred the mutton, cabbage, and onion stew. “Aye, he was here and he made me laugh. He is a very valiant man, Laren, your father. Perhaps he is outside now, speaking to Merrik. Or perhaps he is yet again trying to gain Taby’s affections. Do you think I should add some mashed lingonberries?”

  Laren agreed, waited for Sarla to say more, but she didn’t. She went outside to the privy, then to the bathing hut. Merrik and her father and Taby were all within, their shouts loud, making her smile. When they emerged, all of them wet and well scrubbed, she saw that Taby was in his father’s arms, not Merrik’s. She looked quickly to her husband. To her profound relief, he was smiling. There was no hurt in his fine eyes, no sign of shadows.

  “Laren,” he said to her. She ran to him, flinging her arms around his back. He laughed as he hugged her to him. He continued to hold her close, waiting until Hallad and Taby were farther away. “Taby begins to accept him,” he said, and now she heard the ache in his voice, but also his acceptance. “It is the way it must be. I’ve known it for a very long time. Aye, all will be well. You and I will visit Rouen and see him and your father and Rollo. Now, sweeting, I must see Cleve. He will tell me what has happened at Malverne whilst we were gone adventuring. And I must know what it is he wishes to do now that he is a free man.”

  “You remember that Uncle Rollo told us that Cleve was welcome to come to him. He said he would see that he was rewarded.”

  “I will tell him that. Stop looking at me like that, Laren, and take your hands off me. Go now, sweeting, else I’ll take you back in the bathing hut, lather you with that sweet-smelling soap Helga made for you, and keep you there until neither of us can speak or walk.”

  She laughed and said, “I would like that better than stirring mutton stew, my lord.” Slowly, unwillingly, she released him. She stood there, watching him stride toward the fields, his hair fair and bright beneath the sun, his body strong and brown from the sweet summer.

  Merrik found Cleve chopping wood with a fine old axe that had belonged to Merrik’s grandfather. Its blade was as sharp as ever, the grip smooth from the scores of years of men’s hands gripping it. Merrik waited, watching him. He was stripped
to a loincloth and he saw him now as a handsome man, well made, his golden hair glistening with sweat and health beneath the bright sun. Even the scarring on his face no longer detracted. He wondered if Sarla would take him as her husband. Cleve or Hallad, an old man, but rich and powerful, a man of wit and learning and kindness. No man could know a woman’s mind. Suddenly Cleve looked up.

  “That pile of logs will last us a week this winter,” Merrik said. “I came to thank you, Cleve, helping Oleg look after everything here at Malverne.”

  “Naught of anything happened,” Cleve said, gently cleaned the axe blade on his tunic, and strode to where Merrik was standing beneath an oak tree that was as old as the fjord. “The crops are safely stored, the goats and cows and children are fattening well, and Taby learned to ride the children’s pony, Ebel. Your farmstead is a fine place, Merrik. You are blessed with sufficient arable land for your needs.”

  “Aye, I know it,” Merrik said. “But you also know, Cleve, it was never destined to be mine. It was Erik’s. It feels strange to me to be the lord here. Did Taby miss me and Laren?”

  “Aye, but he forgot you soon enough on Ebel’s back.” Cleve laughed and punched Merrik’s arm. He drew back instantly, a flare of the old slave terror in his eyes.

  “Nay, my friend. You are free. Indeed, I come to ask you if you wish to return to Normandy with Taby and Hallad. The great Rollo himself wishes to reward you. Whatever you wish is yours. Whatever life you choose to lead, he will see that you gain it. He is a good man, a man to admire and follow. You would have a good life there, Cleve.”

  “I shall think about it, Merrik. I thank you.”

  “Tell me what you think of Hallad.”

  “He is a good man, despite the richness of his blood. He is also a very lucky man. His brother believed in him and protected him for three long years. And now he has returned to what he knew and he has his son and daughter as well. Aye, a very lucky man is Hallad.”

  “He is those things, it is true. However, Cleve, he is not young and strong and filled with health and a young man’s vigor and eagerness for life. He is an old man. If he were to breed a child, he would probably be dead before the child reached his boyhood years.”

  Cleve grew very still. “Perhaps,” he said at last. “I trust so, Merrik, but life is always uncertain, is it not?” He looked away from Merrik, into the distance at the stark mountain peaks on the opposite side of the fjord. “There is much to consider.”

  Merrik began to stack the logs Cleve had cut. “Tell me about what you did in my absence. Tell me how many fights there were, how many men are now just growling at each other.”

  That night Laren took up her duty as Malverne’s skald once again. She told the story of an Irish merchant whose son, Ulric, was a bully, a vicious coward, and could never be trusted to act with honor. “Aye, our proud bully wanted to be a chieftain. One day he chanced upon a strange lady, and even though he was a spiteful ruffian, he wasn’t stupid. The lady was stuck in a bog and couldn’t free herself. Ulric managed to rescue her. He even decided not to rape her, such was his goodwill that day. It was a good thing, this goodwill of his, for then she told him she was a fairy and that she would grant any wish he asked for. He wanted to be chieftain, he told her, all puffed up, his eyes gleaming in his greed, for he believed her. Ulric said, ‘I want to rule all the people in all the lands hereabouts for as far as I can see.’

  “ ‘That is great deal of land and a good number of people,’ the fairy told him.

  “ ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘As far as I can see. That will be my dominion. You promised.’

  “She smiled at him and gently raised her arms to the heavens. She called upward, her voice as sweet and strong as Malverne’s honey mead, ‘Grant this man, oh mighty Odin All-Father, grant him all the land that he can see.’

  “There was a loud rumbling of thunder, flashes of lightning filled the afternoon sky.

  “ ‘It is done,’ she said, smiling upon Ulric. ‘All that you can see is yours.’

  “Then she disappeared. Ulric rubbed his hands together. He thought of the men who were his enemies. He thought of the girls who had managed to escape him, and said, ‘But it is night now and that is strange, for it was a bright afternoon when I saved you. Grant me the sunlight again so that I may see my dominion.’

  “Alas, there was no one there to hear him. The fairy was gone, but the night remained. Always.”

  Laren stopped. She said not a word more, just stood there and waited. The groans and hisses came quickly. Merrik laughed and rose to stand beside her. “It is the babe that makes her tales less courageous than before. The babe in her womb makes her moralize. She gives me sermons each night, and endless instructions on what she wishes me to do, and—”

  Laren grabbed him by his ears and pulled him down to her. She kissed him loudly.

  27

  TWO DAYS LATER, late in the afternoon, Laren was seated in front of the longhouse, loading a shuttle with thread from her distaff. Once the thread was woven into cloth, it would be a soft blue, just the color of Merrik’s eyes. She could already see the tunic she would make for him. She was humming softly, the everyday sounds so familiar to her that she scarce paid them any heed. No heed until she heard Taby yelling at the top of his lungs. She dropped the distaff and jumped to her feet.

  He was running toward her, his face utterly white, his bare legs filthy and bleeding from cuts from bramble bushes.

  “Laren! Where is Merrik? Laren!”

  She raced to him, dropping to her knees in front of him and grabbing his arms. “What is the matter, Taby? What have you done?”

  He was panting and for a moment he couldn’t catch his breath to speak. She held him, his urgency flooding her now, and she felt her heart begin to pound faster and faster.

  “Tell me,” she said, shaking him now. “What is wrong?”

  “It’s Cleve,” Taby gasped out. “He will die, you must hurry, Laren. A rope. Hurry!”

  He wrenched free of her and turned to run, screaming over his shoulder, “Hurry!”

  Merrik was there suddenly, carrying a line of herring, Old Firren beside him.

  “Come quickly!” Laren yelled at him. “Something has happened to Cleve! Bring a rope!”

  Merrik called to Oleg and a dozen other men. They were all running after Taby. They caught him quickly. Merrik raised him to his shoulder, saying calmly, “Tell us where to go, Taby. Easy, lad, tell me.”

  Taby was sobbing with fear by the time they had claimed up the narrow path to Raven’s Peak to the very top where Erik had been struck down by a rock.

  “Over the side,” Taby said, his voice small and shaking, yet Merrik understood. He set him on the ground, then raced to the edge of the cliff. He saw Cleve some fifteen feet down, his body tangled in an outgrowing bush, unconscious.

  “By all the gods, he has fallen.”

  Oleg quickly unrolled the rope. “I will get him,” Merrik said as he tied the rope about his waist.

  Oleg grabbed Merrik’s arm. “Listen to me. That bush doesn’t look very strong and you are very big, Merrik. Best to let Eller go.”

  Merrik nodded slowly. Then he shouted, “Quickly, Eller, quickly.”

  Oleg and Roran held the rope as they eased Eller down the sharp face of the cliff.

  “The bush is pulling free,” Laren said, staring down.

  “No,” Merrik said. “The bush will remain until we have freed Cleve.” And she believed him. She fell to her knees and took Taby in her arms. “You did well,” she said to him as she kissed his filthy cheek, stroking her hands up and down his back. “Can you tell me what happened? Did Cleve fall?”

  Suddenly Taby stiffened in her arms. He lowered his head.

  “Taby?” It was Merrik. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Taby said, his face still buried in Laren’s neck. She felt his tears on her flesh.

  Merrik looked baffled. He shook his head, frowning in some bewilderment down at the boy, then walked to the
cliff edge. Eller was balanced, just barely, and was tying the rope around Cleve’s waist.

  It was slow, agonizing work. Eller looked none too happy to hold on to that scrubby bush, knowing that if it gave, he would plunge some three hundred feet to the rocks and fjord below, but he worked quickly, his fingers steady and calm. Finally it was done. It was Merrik who grasped Cleve beneath his arms and dragged him over the top of the cliff. “Quickly,” he said, “get that rope back to Eller before he shames himself and pisses in his trousers.”

  Laren was at Cleve’s side. There was blood on the side of his head, over his right temple. He was still alive, thank the gods, but just barely. “Do you think he tripped and fell over the edge?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Merrik said. “What was he doing up here alone? What was Taby doing here?”

  Merrik lifted Cleve into his arms and they began their slow descent back down the long steep path to the longhouse.

  Cleve remained unconscious until late that evening. Then he was addled in his mind, crying out in a strange language, then begging for someone not to leave him, pleading until Laren thought her heart would break. She forced broth down his throat as Sarla gently bathed his face with cool water to keep away the fever.

  There was much talk, much speculation, voices not low now, for all remembered that it was there Erik had been found, dead, a rock having smashed in his head. They had all believed that Deglin had done it. Had someone else then struck Cleve and shoved him over? And what of Taby? All wondered about Taby and what he had seen, but the child wouldn’t say anything, even to Merrik.

  That night, Laren and Sarla took turns staying by Cleve’s bed. But it was Taby who refused to leave him at all, curling up beside him to sleep through the night.