Harald roared, “Shut your mouth, Ingunn!”
Eldrid began to weep again, soft dragging sobs.
Helgi, for the first time in seven years, walked to her sister and put her arms around her.
19
Zarabeth was beyond thought. She struck his arms, his chest, fought him with all her strength, dug her bare heels into the packed earth, but it did no good. It didn’t even slow him. He had twice her strength and he was determined. On what, she didn’t know. She simply fought him. She felt as if he were pulling her arm from its socket, but she was silent, only fought him and fought him. Even as Magnus left the longhouse, he was shouting, “Rollo! Rollo!”
He was going to kill her now, she knew it. He was fetching a weapon from the blacksmith and he would kill her with it. She would die here in this alien land by the hand of a man who had once sworn to love her, a man who had wanted her to be his wife before . . .
Suddenly Zarabeth didn’t want to die. Even though Lotti was dead, the only other person in her life who had truly needed her, depended upon her, loved her without reservation, Zarabeth realized she didn’t want to die too. She didn’t want to become nothingness, she didn’t want to lose what she was, not yet, and she yelled, so panicked her voice shook, “No, Magnus, don’t kill me! I won’t let you kill me! I don’t want to die now!”
She redoubled her efforts to free herself, for the words, once spoken aloud, became real, as real as her coming death itself, as real as the blow that would strike her down. She changed tactics and suddenly threw herself at him, her hands fisted, nearly knocking him off-balance, her fists pounding at his head. She screamed at him again and again, beyond herself, “No, you can’t kill me! I don’t want to die!”
Magnus stopped cold. He felt her fists hitting him, felt the pain from her blows, but it was as nothing. Her words . . . He simply stared down at her. He clasped her wrists in his hands, still saying nothing. Finally Zarabeth stopped as well, panting, so terrified she could do naught now but look up at him helplessly.
“You think I would kill you,” he said slowly, his eyes roving over her face, studying her, and there was so much pain in his voice that it even burst through her fear and she felt it as a part of herself. But it wasn’t part of her and she was fooling herself. He would kill her, kill her . . . She couldn’t believe him.
“Aye! Why would you drag me out here and yell for Rollo if not to kill me?”
Again he simply looked at her. Then he raised his hand, and she flinched, preparing herself for the blow that would surely come now, but he only laid his palm against her cheek, cupping it gently, and said, “I won’t kill you. If you died, a part of me would die as well. No, Zarabeth, I won’t kill you. Ever, I swear it.”
She slowly nodded. She believed him, knew that he was speaking the truth. She realized suddenly that she had always believed him. He had gone to a good deal of trouble to save her life in York. Why would he take it now? She stopped her struggles. She had been a madwoman, beyond thought, beyond reason. She had been beyond him. She shuddered and stilled. He took her hand and led her into the blacksmith’s hut. She hadn’t been here before, and upon entering the hut, the heat from the circular stone furnace hit her face with such force that she fell back.
“Come, you’ll get used to it.”
Rollo was a dark man with a thick black beard and a cast in one of his black eyes, making it look a pale gray. His legs were too short, but his upper body was more muscular than Magnus’, his arms like tree trunks. He was on his knees before the furnace, pumping a huge leather bellows to heat it more. He looked up at Magnus, said nothing, then looked at Zarabeth. He rose slowly, handing a sword to Magnus.
“ ’Tis yours, sound as it was the day I fashioned it two years ago. We go again to search for Egill?”
Magnus accepted the sword, saying, “Ragnar leads twelve men now in the search. Soon I will go out again. But first, I want you to remove the collar from her neck.”
Rollo said nothing. He started to push away Zarabeth’s hair, but Magnus forestalled him. He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled it upward, baring her neck. Rollo touched the collar, saw the seam in it, and nodded.
“You will hold yourself very still, mistress, else you might lose your pretty head.”
Zarabeth’s heart was pounding. He was freeing her. She stared up at him, not understanding why but accepting it. She wanted to weep. He was freeing her.
“Kneel here. Magnus, keep all that hair free from her head. The red of it would blind me.”
It was over quickly. She didn’t flinch when the heavy iron hammer came down on the collar, once, twice, and on the third time it flew apart. She remained on her knees, her neck positioned on a block, her eyes closed, and when she heard the iron collar fall to the ground, she whispered, “I feel so light.” Magnus helped her to rise. She rubbed her fingers over her throat. The skin was abraded and red, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to feel her neck the way it had been before.
She listened to Magnus thank Rollo, listened to the men discuss Egill’s disappearance.
“We leave for another search soon, Rollo,” Magnus said again at parting, and took Zarabeth’s hand. He led her back to the longhouse.
He held her hand tightly, as if afraid she would break away from him. He said, not looking down at her, “You will wed with me now. I have rings for us, made by a jeweler in York, when you said you would wed me before.”
Zarabeth was dumbfounded. He’d had her slave collar removed, and now this? “Wed with you? But you hate me, you believe me a murderess, that I betrayed you. Lotti is dead, Egill is missing, and you wish to wed with me?”
“Aye, we will be done quickly enough.”
“But why? No one wishes you to. I bring you nothing!”
“It didn’t matter before to me and it doesn’t matter now. You could be wearing only your hair and it wouldn’t matter to me. Will you exchange your pledge of faith with me?”
“But why, Magnus? Why?”
He drew a deep breath, but still he did not look at her. His hold on her hand tightened more and she flinched in pain. He had no answer, and only repeated, “You will wed with me now. Any questions you have will wait. My son is somewhere out there and I must be after him again soon.”
She said nothing more. She wondered if he believed his son to be dead, dead like Lotti. Both of the children? How could he bear it?
“Will you, Zarabeth?”
She nodded slowly, saying nothing. It was inevitable, her bonding with this man. She’d accepted so long ago. She couldn’t deny him now.
She tried not to react when Magnus told his family of his decision. She simply closed her eyes at their collective looks of astonishment, Cyra’s white face, and Ingunn’s look of hatred. She wondered dully, standing there in their midst without a word to say, if she would spend the rest of her life dependent upon another, all decisions affecting her to be made by someone else. Then she shrugged. It did not matter, none of it, for Lotti was dead, after all, and even though Zarabeth would continue to live, continue to eat and breathe, the joy in it would be gone and would remain gone.
Soon, so soon she couldn’t quite grasp it, she and Magnus were standing facing each other and he was holding her right hand, saying, “Before these witnesses and before our gods, I pledge my lifelong faith to you, Zarabeth. You will be my wife until death claims my body, and I swear to protect you with my sword and with my body, and we will live together in peace and you will share in all that I possess and all that I will ever possess.”
He shoved a beautiful gold ring onto her middle finger.
He leaned forward and said quietly, “You will say the same words to me, Zarabeth.”
“But I am a Christian, Magnus. There is no priest here. How can these words between us make us one?”
He smiled then, and merely repeated, “Say the words. You are in my land now and there are no Christian gods here that we recognize in our souls.”
“I pledge my faith to you, Mag
nus.”
“You do well. Continue.”
Her voice strengthened. “I will live with you in peace and I will give you all that is mine to give. I will protect you with my life.”
“And your loyalty, Zarabeth? Do you pledge me your loyalty?”
“I pledge you my loyalty and my fidelity.”
“Will you give me constancy? I wonder. Now slide the ring on my finger.”
She did, and he leaned forward, grasping her upper arms, and kissed her forehead. “Your words pleased me. Would you truly protect me with your life? Would you honestly give me your loyalty? Above all others?” When she merely ducked her head, he released her, turned, and looked at his father, then at Mattias and Jon, and finally at his mother. “You are our witnesses. Is there anyone who is displeased with this joining?”
There was no word spoken.
“Good. Zarabeth, attend me now. You will remain here with my mother and you will prepare food. We will search now for my son. I know not how long we will be gone this time.”
She grabbed for him, turning him about, pulling at the cloth of his tunic. “But I would go too, Magnus! ’Twas not Egill’s fault, and he must have blamed himself and run away. Please, let me help you search for him. You must!”
The pain was momentarily banked in his eyes. He even managed a smile at her. He stroked her vivid hair as he said, “Nay, you will not. Obey me, Zarabeth.” He turned to Helgi. “Keep her safe, Mother, and keep her within the palisade walls.”
He was gone, his brothers and father following him out of the longhouse, the rest of the men hurrying after them.
Helgi hugged her new daughter-in-law. “Worry not, Zarabeth, they will find the boy.”
“He ran away because he felt guilty.” Zarabeth drew a deep breath. “He shouldn’t die because Lotti did.”
“Magnus will find his son. Your generosity toward the boy pleases me, as it pleased him, but you must understand that Magnus wants you kept safe above all else.”
Zarabeth realized she was wringing her hands, saying yet again, “But Egill wasn’t responsible, he wasn’t, Helgi. If only I could find him and speak to him.”
“Well, you cannot. You will remain here, as your husband wishes, and that is that.”
Ingunn came to stand by her mother, but all her attention was on the woman who’d taken everything from her. The woman she’d known would take everything from her the moment she’d seen her walking up the path behind Magnus, wearing that damned slave collar, her red hair vibrant beneath the bright sun. Aye, she’d known then. Magnus was naught but a fool. She said, ostensibly to Helgi, “I wish to leave Malek now. I do not ever want to come to this farmstead again. My brother was blind to what she is, and now he has pledged himself to this whore, this murderess, and his son is probably dead, and all because of her and her idiot sister.”
The fragile hold Zarabeth had on herself snapped. She snarled like an animal, deep in her throat, and leapt upon Ingunn, her hands wrapping around her throat. “You venomous bitch! I would cut out your tongue if I could. You are mean and vicious, and it should be you out there, not Egill, not that poor little boy!”
Zarabeth felt another’s hands pulling at her wrists, not a man’s hands, but a woman’s hands imbued with incredible strength, and she heard Helgi saying softly, over and over, “Enough, Zarabeth. Leave her be. Leave her be. That’s right. Come away now.”
Zarabeth’s fingers fell away from Ingunn’s throat. She was trembling with the aftermath of her rage. She saw Ingunn grabbing her throat, massaging it, and there was such hatred in her eyes that Zarabeth couldn’t bear to look at her.
Helgi looked from one to the other. “There will be no more insults or baiting, Ingunn. You have no reason to hate Zarabeth. Your brother has chosen her for his wife. You knew he would take a wife and you would no longer have that position here. Why have you chosen such a path? Ah, but ’twas a false life anyway, and not fair to you or to your brother. It is done and over with. You will accept it. You will go about your work and you will keep your foul words behind your teeth.”
“But—”
“Enough! We will find you a husband, one who is honorable, and you will forget Orm. Nay, I will hear nothing more about him! It is even said that it was he and his men who killed the men at the Ingolfsson farmstead and raped the Ingolfsson women. Would you still care to have such as he? He has proved himself an animal.”
“It isn’t true! Orm wouldn’t do such things, he wouldn’t! It is a lie made up by men like my father who are jealous of him!”
Helgi continued, ignoring Ingunn, “It is time for you to become wife and mother, Ingunn. You will forget Orm. I will say no more about it.”
Zarabeth saw the daughter bow to her mother’s command. She felt the rage flow out of her, leaving her limp and shaking.
Helgi led her to one of the wooden benches and pressed her down. Helgi studied her closely. “You truly do not blame Egill for Lotti’s death?”
Zarabeth shook her head. “He is a little boy. He was jealous of Lotti, for Magnus gave her a lot of his attention. I was wrong to believe he was truly hurting her, but something inside me simply—”
“I know,” Helgi said. She patted her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. “Why do you not go bathe now? It will make you feel better.”
But I was the one to blame, Zarabeth wanted to say. I was the one who carried her away, who put her in that boat. I am the one who killed her.
But she said nothing, for to say the words aloud would brand them forever in her soul, and she knew she wasn’t strong enough to suffer it.
When she was clean again, her hair brushed and braided, her gown fresh and unwrinkled, she found she couldn’t move, didn’t want to move. She stood there, seeing her little sister lying tangled in those water reeds, her hair floating out from her small head, and Lotti was so still, so still . . .
She didn’t realize she was crying until she tasted the salt from her tears. She turned quickly and ran into the longhouse, ran to Magnus’ chamber. She sat on the edge of the bed and cried. No one came to bother her.
She hadn’t realized there could be so many tears. They choked her, made her throat raw, burned her eyes. She whispered, “Lotti, I’m so sorry. My God forgive me, I failed you.”
The men didn’t return until nearly midnight. There was still the dim half-light of summer, giving the surrounding countryside an eerie glow that never failed to surprise Zarabeth. She was standing outside the palisade, looking over the water, knowing deep inside her that Lotti was there, gone from her forever. If only she could imagine her resting, at peace, sleeping, her small hands tucked beneath her cheek.
She rubbed her bare arms, for the night breeze had cooled and there was dampness in the air.
She saw the men in a long single line climbing up toward her. They hadn’t found Egill. She looked at Magnus, her new husband, and he looked defeated and exhausted. She felt pain twist deep within her. The two children, both gone, one because of the other and both because of her.
The tears started again.
Magnus saw her, standing there so quietly, looking toward him, her face wet with her crying. He merely shook his head and walked to her. He said nothing, merely looked down at her. He touched his fingertip to her wet cheek. Slowly he drew her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder.
“We did not find him, nor did we find any trace of him. He could still be alive.”
Zarabeth raised her face. “Then Lotti could also still be alive.”
Magnus realized the fallacy of his words, but they were all that had sustained him. They were all that kept his grief at bay.
He heard himself say, “Yes, that is true.” But he knew it wasn’t true. Lotti had drowned, her body either washed out by the current to the Oslo Fjord or still there, close by, strangled and trapped in the thick water reeds. Just as his son was dead. He didn’t know where he was, that was all. Why had the boy disappeared? Had he run away because he feared he would be blamed for Lo
tti’s death? Where could he be? The possibilities tortured him, for there were animals to kill a small child, animals to haul his body away and eat him. And there were men, outlaws, who would torture a child, and perhaps demand ransom for him, and then there could be . . . It went on and on and Magnus knew he must stop it.
He pulled back from his wife.
“We are together now as we should have been from the beginning. Whatever has happened cannot be changed. We must face what is and endure it.”
“It is difficult, Magnus.”
“Aye, I know.” He touched his fingertips to her cheeks, dry now, then glided them over her brows and her eyelids.
“I could not stop my crying.”
The men straggled around them, going into the longhouse to eat, others simply going in to fall into an exhausted sleep.
“Now that I am back, I will hold you when you cry.”
But who will hold you, she wondered, for no one sees you cry.
Magnus’ family remained two more days, the men searching for hours at a time for Egill. No one said anything about giving up the search, but there was no sign of the boy. It was as if he had vanished.
Within the longhouse, Helgi went about teaching Zarabeth those household tasks she’d had no opportunity to learn in York. She was brusque, always matter-of-fact, but never unfair or impatient.
“In York, your family was small and those things you didn’t have, you could buy or obtain in trade. But here, Zarabeth, you must know how to do everything, for the traveling merchants who visit come rarely and you cannot depend upon them. Now, to dye cloth . . . See this lovely soft reddish brown? It comes from the madder plant. Ferns and these small onions make a lighter brown. And this beautiful golden color, we make it from this lichen. You are Irish, Zarabeth, so you must have heard of the saffron dye made from bulbs of autumn crocus.”
Zarabeth concentrated, for there was no choice, and she learned, despite the hollowness deep inside her, the constant gnawing of guilt and pain.
Season of the Sun Page 23
