Season of the Sun

by Catherine Coulter

  Zarabeth looked at him. “If I refuse to wed with you, you will kill Lotti?”

  “Aye.”

  He would use Lotti for as long as she lived. Zarabeth looked away and sliced off a piece of the warm bread. She spread butter and honey on it and took a bite. She said nothing, merely ate, one bite after the other.

  “Answer me, Zarabeth!”

  She took the last bite, then wiped her mouth. “I don’t recall your asking me a question. Was there something you wanted, Olav?”

  “Damn you, you will wed with me!”

  “That isn’t a question.”

  He jumped from his chair and she knew that he meant violence. This time he didn’t catch her unawares. She picked up her knife and gripped it firmly. “Don’t, Olav, else I’ll slice you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said, watching her hand warily.

  “There will be no violence, Olav. You will not hit me, nor will you ever again strike Lotti, or I will kill you. Believe me, for I mean it.”

  He shrugged, hoping to salvage his pride; when she nodded and put the knife down, he drew a deep breath. “A wife shouldn’t threaten her husband.”

  “But a stepdaughter can.”

  He frowned at her, at the bitterness of her words. “You act the ill-treated orphan, Zarabeth. In truth, your life is easy and I leave you be to do as you wish. Any woman would wish to fill your place.”

  “Will you invite your son and his wife to this wedding feast?”

  At that Olav smiled. It was a malicious smile, but it didn’t touch her. She cared not what happened to Keith. Nothing had really touched her since Magnus had sailed from York. She cared not if Keith ranted and screamed at his father, if Toki shrieked and howled. “Oh, yes,” Olav said, rubbing his hands together, “I shall invite everyone.”

  And he did. He spared no expense. A week later, on a sunny afternoon in May, Olav and Zarabeth were married, first according to the Christian ceremony, the bishop himself officiating to show King Guthrum’s favor, then by the vows made before the Viking gods of Odin and Thor and Frey. Olav had garbed Zarabeth in a fine silk gown of soft pink with an overtunic of a darker pink, belted tightly at her waist with a wide band of white leather. She wore two brooches at her shoulders to hold the overtunic in place, both of them of the finest silver, worked by old Crinna himself.

  There were banquet tables set up in Coppergate square, covered with trenchers holding cold beef strips and bowls of apples and pears and stewed onions and split baked turnips. There were freshly baked bread and a full bowl of honey and a block of butter. So much food, and Zarabeth saw that the people admired Olav and blessed him for his generosity, and overlooked the fact that he’d wedded his own stepdaughter, who was less than half his age. He’d even given Lotti fine wool for a new gown. The little girl stayed close to Zarabeth even during the ceremony before the Christian bishop, her face pressed against Zarabeth’s thigh. Keith and Toki were there, and silent. Even Toki, never one to keep her feelings to herself, remained quiet, for she wasn’t stupid and she saw that all the neighbors and townspeople were greatly awed and pleased by Olav’s beneficence. King Guthrum himself made an appearance late in the afternoon, and Olav preened and basked in his favor.

  Zarabeth accepted the envious glances from the unmarried women and the widows with outward serenity. If only they knew, she thought vaguely, if only they guessed that naught but vast emptiness filled her. She thought then of the coming night, thought of Olav naked, covering her, breaching her maidenhead, and even that didn’t overly concern her. It would be done to someone else. It wouldn’t really touch her. She felt Lotti press harder against her leg and took the little girl’s hand in hers.

  She saw her new husband raise a drinking horn of fine Rhenish blue glass and drink yet more sweet honey-mead. She saw him offer the king more of the potent brew. King Guthrum, old and fat and graybearded, sat piously beside his wife whilst two of his lemans fluttered in the background, young and charm-ripe and round of arm and breast. Men and women alike were drunk now, and there was much good-natured giving of advice to Olav on bedding his new bride.

  It didn’t touch Zarabeth. None of it. Even when Toki sidled up to her, a wary eye always trained on Olav, she didn’t do more than say calmly, “Yes, Toki? What wish you?”

  “You think you’ve won, don’t you, Zarabeth? Well, you haven’t. Just look at Olav, so drunk he can scarce keep upright. Just listen to him laughing at the king’s inane jests! It’s pathetic, and now you will pay, my girl, surely you will pay.”

  “Probably.”

  “He’ll not give you a brat!”

  “I hope not.”

  Toki fell silent, staring at Zarabeth with drunken concentration. “You don’t care,” she said at last, and there was a good deal of bewilderment in her voice.

  Zarabeth tightened her hold on Lotti’s hand. She looked toward Olav and saw that he stumbled from drink. She felt only a mild revulsion, gazing on him.

  “Aye, when he pukes, you’ll care.”

  Zarabeth sighed. “I’ll probably have to clean it up.”

  Toki gave a malevolent look at Lotti, then took herself back to her equally drunken husband. Zarabeth held herself apart, but no one noticed, for the drink hadn’t yet run out. It was very late before two men approached her, laughing drunkenly, supporting an unconscious Olav between them.

  “It will take a woman’s gentle care to rouse him!”

  “Aye, mayhap ’tis best to let him lie alone. Either he’ll die or vow to become a monk on the morrow.”

  They carried Olav to the house, Zarabeth and Lotti following behind. The king had spoken gracious words to her, as had the queen, and had commended her to her husband’s generosity and nobility of spirit. She felt tired after the long day, but little else. She motioned the men to place her husband on his box bed, and after they’d left, giving her leering looks, she pulled a coverlet over him and let him be. She prayed he would sleep through the night.

  Olav didn’t sleep through the night. He awoke deep in the middle of the night, still more drunk than sick, realized that he was wedded to Zarabeth, and went in search of her.

  He found her sleeping by Lotti and grabbed her arm, shaking her and nearly yelling, “Why sleep you here? Why are you with her and not with me? ’Tis your duty to sleep with me! I have paid dearly for you. You’re my wife!”

  Zarabeth felt Lotti stiffen beside her. She hadn’t been asleep; she had heard him stumble across the room. She’d prepared herself, and now she said calmly enough, “Go back to your bed, Olav. The women told me that you would be too drunk to take me this night. I pray that you won’t be sick, for I have no wish to clean up after you. Go away now.”

  Any thoughts Olav had cherished of bedding Zarabeth faded in that moment. His belly cramped and turned in on itself and he moaned, clutching his arms around himself. Zarabeth heard him stumble through to his outer shop, then out into the night. She didn’t move, merely said very softly to Lotti, “Go back to sleep, little love. He won’t bother us tonight at least.”

  The next morning Keith found his father huddled against the shop front, sleeping like the dead.

  8

  Olav’s face was gray. His eyes burned and wept. A line of cold sweat threaded above his upper lip. His jowls hung and his clothes looked now like they belonged to another man, a bigger man, a healthy paunchy man.

  The pain in his belly had increased, and now he could no longer work in his shop. He sat the whole day now in the living area watching Zarabeth go about her work. Occasionally he would moan softly and run from the room, clutching his belly. His friends came by, but they couldn’t drink or eat or jest with him, for he was silent in his pain and withdrawn from their concerns. Thus they left him to go about their own business. Few came around anymore. The women visited Zarabeth, giving her advice, looking sadly toward Olav, and shaking their heads.

  Olav looked at Zarabeth now. It was the middle of the day and she was cooking—likely bland soup for him, curse her. Bl
and soup and bread soft enough for an old man with no teeth and a liquid gut. Damp tendrils of hair framed her face. She was silent, so very silent, never raising her voice even when he screamed at her in his pain and fear and his frustration, for he couldn’t bring her to heel as a man should his wife, and he became more afraid by the day. Lotti played near her feet, stacking trenchers, then counting them in that ugly slurred voice of hers, then unstacking them. Repeating and repeating until he wanted to yell. But he didn’t; he didn’t have the strength.

  Every once in a while Zarabeth would bend down and caress the little girl’s face, speak to her softly, then smile. Not one of her sweet smiles was ever for him. She was his wife, and yet it meant nothing.

  A vicious cramp made him gasp, and he hobbled from the room, bent over like an old man, holding his belly. Zarabeth looked up, frowning after him. He’d been ill since their wedding two weeks before, and now he looked like an old man, frail and gaunt, and he acted like an old man, querulous and spiteful. At first, she knew, Olav had believed his belly pains simple retribution from too much mead and ale consumed at his wedding feast, but the pain in his stomach had continued, and he suffered greatly from bloody bowels.

  He wasn’t capable of taking her. One night he had ordered her to disrobe in front of him. He’d wanted to see her, to caress her; it was his right as her husband. She hadn’t done it. Zarabeth shook away the memory.

  Keith and Toki came every day, the son to help his father with his goods and Toki to gloat and ridicule, only in Zarabeth’s presence of course, mocking the failing old man and his sweet new bride who hadn’t been bedded, his new bride who wouldn’t breed a babe.

  Zarabeth stirred the soup, mashing the potatoes as she stirred. Olav could eat the soup, and he appeared to enjoy it, even though he cursed under his breath and crabbed and complained. She had asked the ancient old crone Ungarn about Olav’s pain, and she had scratched the flaking skin on her arm and muttered that Zarabeth should give him ground-up garlic and smashed onions mixed together inside a bay leaf. The combination sounded nauseating to Zarabeth, but she’d done it. Oddly, it had seemed to make him feel a bit better. But no longer did it have any effect.

  She looked up to see Toki saunter into the living area as if she were the mistress. She soon would be, if Olav died, for Zarabeth would have no rights. Surely Olav had willed with the York council to leave all his earthly goods to his son. Zarabeth nodded to Toki, wishing she would simply turn about and leave, and continued her stirring. She felt Lotti move closer to her, leaned down and gave the child a reassuring pat on her head. Lotti had kept her distance from Toki ever since that night so long ago.

  “The old man looks ready for a burial. All he needs is a winding sheet.”

  “I think he does a bit better today,” Zarabeth said. “But it is slow and mean, this strange illness he has.”

  Toki shrugged and looked down at the soup Zarabeth was stirring. “More tasteless pap for the old beggar? What a pity you must eat what he does. Your ribs must be knocking hard against your skin.”

  Zarabeth said nothing, merely stared into the soup. She mashed another potato to pulp.

  “He still hasn’t bedded you, has he?”

  The long wooden spoon stilled. Slowly Zarabeth turned to face her new daughter-in-law, a woman several years her senior. “Keep your tongue away from things that are none of your business, Toki. I shan’t tell you again. You will cease your insults of Olav. Without him, as you once told me, you and Keith would starve.”

  Zarabeth turned away, fearing her own anger, ignoring Toki’s soft hiss of anger.

  At times, life was nearly comforting, for it had become so predictable. Zarabeth took care of her husband, endured Toki’s ill-humor and Keith’s constant questions about his father’s health. She thought of Magnus only in the dark of the night when it was still and warm and she couldn’t keep him out of her mind. The pain of his leaving didn’t lessen. It was sharp and deep and always with her, waiting to flood her with sadness and despair. She supposed that the pain would fade, for pain always did lessen with time. Perhaps by the end of the summer, or perhaps the fall. But for now his face was still clear in her mind, and she could still feel the strength of him when he’d held her, the teasing in his voice, the tenderness, and that bold way he had of saying things that made her dumb with surprise and delight.

  She shook him away. It was the middle of another day, not the silence of night. Keith and Toki had come, as usual, for the evening meal. Toki was complaining, as usual. Lotti tugged on Zarabeth’s gown, wanting her attention. Zarabeth ignored Toki and came down on her haunches beside her little sister.

  It was the wooden trenchers. One of them had a splinter and Lotti had torn the flesh on her middle finger. Zarabeth teased her and petted her and washed the scratch, then kissed the fingertip, all while Toki was sitting in Olav’s large carved chair, complaining of her lack of attention, complaining of the miserable meal she would surely have to endure for yet another evening, and telling Zarabeth that the child was stupid and didn’t deserve such attention.

  Zarabeth rose slowly to her feet. It would never stop, never. Toki’s mouth rode on fast and sure wheels, her complaints and her meanness unending. To gain control, she took time to smooth her damp hair back from her face, to smooth down the skirt of her gown. She hated the bickering, the confrontations, but she simply couldn’t let it go this time. Then she said to Toki, “Get out of Olav’s chair, Toki. Even ill, he fits it better than do you. You will not again speak with malice of either my husband or my sister. Now, do you understand me?”

  Toki swung her crossed leg and folded her thin arms over her breasts. She smiled. “You slut! You stand there gloating because all this is yours, but not for long. You won’t be the mistress here forever, nay, not even for another month, I’ll wager. The old man won’t ever bed you. Never. You won’t bear a child to take away all that is Keith’s. That foolish old beggar won’t last, you’ll see. He’ll soon have ashes in his mouth and worms gnawing at his bones, and you’ll starve, you and that brat with you!”

  Zarabeth was weary to her bones, her anger now spent. She just shook her head, only to jerk around at the sound of Olav’s furious voice.

  “You bitch!” He came into the room, his shoulders straighter, his gray face flushed with anger. “Don’t you ever again speak to Zarabeth like that! You malignant shrew. By Thor’s wounds and Freya’s goodness, I never fully realized what my son must endure. Or do you keep your wretched tongue sweet for him? Aye, I wager that you do. How long have you tormented Zarabeth? And she has protected you with silence, you worthless bitch. By Thor, you are the one who should die!”

  “Father, it isn’t true,” Keith said, coming quickly into the room, more quickly to his wife’s defense. “Toki only cares that you are well-taken-care-of, nothing more. She distrusts Zarabeth, for she is naught but the daughter of that runaway whore, Mara. She is concerned because Zarabeth is young and heedless and cares naught for you save your wealth. Surely—”

  Keith got no further. Zarabeth leapt at him, her fingers going around his throat, and she was screaming, “You aren’t worthy to speak her name! My mother wasn’t a whore! Say no more, else I’ll kill you!”

  Zarabeth felt Olav’s hands pull hers away from Keith’s throat. Toki was yelling, Lotti was cowering in the corner, and Keith simply stood there, his face pale, uncertain what he should say or do.

  Olav gently pulled Zarabeth back. He looked first at Toki, then at his son. He said then, his voice low and calm, “Both of you will leave my house. I feel pity for you, Keith, for you are weak and pitiful, letting this woman tell you what thoughts should be in your head, tell you what feelings should fill your heart. I would beat her soundly were I you. Mayhap I would beat her unto death for her viper’s tongue. Since I am not you, however, and since you are in the world’s eyes a man grown, you will suffer what it is you wish to suffer without my interference. Neither of you is welcome here again. Leave now, both of you.”
/>   “Father, no, you can’t mean—”

  Olav raised a tired hand and merely shook his head. “Leave, Keith, and take this cursed witch with you.”

  Toki was silent for once in her life. She was trembling with rage, but she held her tongue, knowing that words now would only further endanger her in her husband’s eyes. She mustn’t allow that to happen. By the saints, he was her only chance, this man who was her husband and thus superior to her, though he was a dolt and couldn’t trade a walrus tusk for a rag without losing gold. She would reason with him later; she would convince him to make peace with his father, and quickly. She had no choice but to convince him. Everything depended on it.

  Otherwise, Toki wouldn’t be able to continue slipping the poison in the old man’s nightly food.

  Ah, but she couldn’t tell Keith that, the squeamish fool, for he was weak of spine. No, she’d spin a tale to turn his head, and he would end up praising her generosity of spirit. She’d been imprudent to attack Zarabeth with the old man in the outer shop. She wouldn’t be stupid again. She would play the silly sow, and beg dear Zarabeth’s forgiveness.

  After Toki and Keith had left, Olav was silent. He remained silent during the evening meal. He ate slowly, as if studying each bite to be certain the soup wouldn’t make him immediately ill. But as he ate his second bowl, he began to eat more rapidly. “It is amazingly good,” he said, picking up his bowl and drinking the remaining liquid, making loud slurping noises.