Season of the Sun

by Catherine Coulter

  “If you cry, I will surely beat you.”

  She had stuffed her fist into her mouth. She turned on her side, away from him.

  He knew she was crying, could feel her trembling, but he also knew that she was trying to keep silent, and thus he ignored it. “I will take you every night, Zarabeth, every single night, until you come back to me. I will not accept this. You must allow me to come back to you.”

  She felt the wetness of him on her thighs. She nurtured the pain he had inflicted deep inside her, for it gave her more reason to stay within herself, within her own emptiness.

  Magnus slept finally. When the dreams came, they were bright and vivid and filled with a fierce sense of truth. He saw his son, he actually saw Egill, and the boy was ragged and dirty, but he was alive. He saw a man strike him and he felt the blow as it landed on the boy’s shoulder. He cried out in rage.

  “Magnus, wake up! Wake up, you’ve had a nightmare!”

  He was trembling, his flesh damp and cold. He jerked upright. He shook his head to clear the visions away. He whispered, even as he clutched Zarabeth to his chest, “I saw him, I saw Egill, and he is alive, I am certain of it. I saw a man strike him. By God, I saw it, Zarabeth, and it was clear and it was real.”

  Zarabeth finally made out his features in the dim light of dawn. A dream, and he believed it true? She had heard of such things. Seers had visions. He was trembling, and she pressed herself more closely against him, giving him what comfort she could, without thought, without decision. She recognized only that he needed her.

  Magnus drew a deep breath. He was here, in bed, Zarabeth against him. But the dream had been so solid. He eased away from her and rose. He left the longhouse, naked, and walked to the temple.

  He remained there until the sun was bright in the morning sky. There had been no answers and he was left tortured by what he had seen.

  Horkel and Cyra married that day and left Malek to return to the small farmstead Magnus had allotted to Horkel in return for his service. Many of Magnus’ men itched to be off trading, for the summer was full upon them and it wasn’t right that they remain here doing the work of the slaves and the women. They wanted to make their fortunes.

  But Magnus didn’t want to leave Zarabeth. The next evening Ragnar drank more than was wise and said loudly, “We become weak and fitful as women here! We waste the long hours of summer when we could be making ourselves rich and richer yet. What say you, Magnus? A quick raid to the south, at the mouth of the Seine. We sail in and take what we want from those rich villages on the coast. We’ll be home before September comes and be richer than we are now.”

  Magnus didn’t respond. He was thinking back to his dream. He hadn’t told any of his men about it, not even Horkel or Tostig, but it preyed on him endlessly.

  “Aye,” said Hakon. “Or we could go trading to Birka. We have many soapstone bowls of fine quality.”

  Ragnar drank more. He got no response from Magnus and it enraged him. He walked to where Zarabeth was sitting with three other women, shelling peas. “Aye, tell him to go, mistress, for ’tis because of you that he stays. Perhaps he fears you will flee him. He can bring you back gold and silver and Rollo can melt it down and give you all the jewels you could desire. Isn’t that what you want? By Odin, answer me! We all know that you give him nothing!”

  Zarabeth raised weary eyes to the man who still disliked her simply because she’d bested him so long ago. “I want nothing, Ragnar.”

  “You certainly don’t want Magnus. Aye, I hear his cry of release, for I am still awake here, thinking, but I hear nothing from you, mistress, not a sound, not even the slightest moan, and before . . . ah, before, when he first took you, we all heard your cries, those mewling sounds you made to draw him in. All a lie, for you are cold and a murderess and you felt naught for him. You used him, used me, and I trusted you, fool that I was, as did he.”

  Suddenly Magnus was there and he was gripping Ragnar’s shoulder, gripping tighter and tighter until the man cried out at the fierce pain.

  “You dare,” Magnus said, pulling Ragnar to within inches of his face. “She is my wife and you insult her as if she were a common slave.”

  “She is a murderess and was a common slave until she enslaved you!”

  Magnus struck him, and Ragnar went down like a stone.

  The other men were on their feet in an instant, crowding around, speaking all at the same time. Magnus stood over Ragnar and thought as he rubbed his knuckles: You were my friend, despite your hot blood and your quick rages, but now . . . He shook his head. Now there was naught but strife. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.

  Aunt Eldrid said in a sour voice from behind them, “I would that all of you seek your beds! ’Tis unsavory in its lateness. You disturb me, all of you drunken louts!”

  He took her, quickly this time, silently, for he was upset by Ragnar’s words, and savagery still pounded thick in his blood. When he had finished, he pulled away from her. He ignored the harsh pull of her flesh, knowing he had hurt her again, but not wanting to recognize the pain or that he had caused it.

  Zarabeth lay there feeling the wet of his seed on her thighs, feeling the soreness deep inside her, thinking of the anger and violence between Magnus and Ragnar. She knew they were friends. She didn’t want them to be enemies, not because of her. She said, “I was told that you were never here in the summer months, that you were off trading and did not return until the early fall. I will not run away if that is why you remain now, Magnus, I swear it to you.”

  “I know you would not, Zarabeth. After all, where would you go? Back to York? Back to Keith and Toki? Perhaps to be taken and executed for your crime? No, I am certain you wouldn’t leave Malek. I am a fool, but my foolishness does know some boundaries.”

  “No, I wouldn’t leave. But, Magnus, I will be all right if you choose to go trading.”

  He felt his belly churn in anger and frustration, and it spilled over into his voice, despite his efforts. “Cease the show of virtue and nobility, Zarabeth, for it is a lie that will gain you nothing. You want me to leave so that you will not have to endure my touching you!”

  When she didn’t respond, Magnus turned quickly, coming over her, grabbing her arms, and pulling her upright. “Isn’t it the truth? Admit it, Zarabeth, admit that you loathe and despise me. You would probably kill me if you could but have a chance to escape with your life.”

  He shook her again, and her head snapped back. “Answer me, Zarabeth!”

  “I have never killed anyone in my life!”

  He heard fury in her voice and it goaded him further, this anger of hers, for it gave him purchase for his own anger, unlike her show of emptiness that left him floundering and weak and gentled until he was no longer a man.

  “Ah, haven’t you? You did not murder Olav? You did not sneak poison into his food from the day you wedded him? Tell me true, Zarabeth, did you kill him because the thought of him taking you sickened you? And he would have had the right, for he was your husband. Or did you kill him for his worldly goods?”

  “I didn’t hurt him! I cared for him even when he was vilely ill! It was Toki, by my Christian God, I swear it to you! She poisoned him. She and Keith came by everything that was Olav’s, not I.”

  He released her and pushed her back. He was on his knees beside her, his hands on his thighs.

  “So there is still some passion in you if one prods you enough.”

  She lay there staring up at him, her mind sick with her anger and with herself. “You did that on purpose?”

  He shrugged. “I know not, nor does it matter now.”

  “Leave, then, Magnus. You have it right. I do not want you to touch me. It sickens me.”

  He wanted to strike her. It was powerful, the feeling of violence in him. Instead, he flattened his hand over her belly. “I wonder if a babe grows inside you yet.” She pulled at his wrist, trying to dislodge his hand. He took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his swelled member.

  S
he sucked in her breath. Her entire body stilled. He felt her fingers tighten and he groaned at the pleasure of it, all the while wondering what was in her mind, hoping that some part of her was responding to him.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Aye,” he said, breathing hard now. He took her hand from his sex, clasped both her wrists in one of his hands, and jerked them over her head. “I would take you again, Zarabeth, because I am your husband and it pleases me to do so.” His fingers were between her thighs and sliding into her. She was still wet with him, and stretched, and his fingers probed and worked deeper into her.

  She bucked her hips, and he laughed, deeply, fully. Then he released her hands suddenly and pulled her up to her knees. He lifted her then, widening her legs about his flanks, and came up into her even as he held her tightly against his chest. He found her mouth and probed deep with his tongue even as he worked deep inside her body.

  He moaned, jerking as his release hit him, so quickly, nearly without warning, and he crushed her to him. He quieted finally, but he continued to kiss her shoulder, her throat, savoring the taste of her, the heat of her flesh, in his mind removing the evidence of the iron collar he’d forced her to wear. He rubbed his chest against her breasts, felt his heart pound anew at the feelings it brought to him. He knew he loved her, he accepted it now, praying that all the pain in their lives would ease with the passage of time, praying that the time would come when she would forgive him and forgive herself for being alive when Lotti was dead.

  She was limp against him, her cheek pressed against his shoulder.

  He felt her tears hot against his skin. He hugged her legs to his flanks and gently lowered her onto her back. He was still deep inside her, deeper now as he pushed forward. He balanced himself on his elbows above her. “Why do you cry? I didn’t hurt you, not this time, for you were still wet with me. Why, Zarabeth?”

  She looked up at him. “It is too much, Magnus, and I cannot bear it.”

  “And if I tell you I understand you, will you consent to believe me?”

  She felt the force of his words pushing at the emptiness with which she’d filled herself. It frightened her. “I would that you would leave. Vikings kill and raid in the summer months. You have not had your fill of it.”

  He went hard into her now, her words filling him, pulsing through him, heating his blood and his anger. Harder and harder he drove into her, until he again found his release. When he rolled off her, he said, “I will take my men and leave after the meeting of the thing. Wear your grief like a badge of pride, Zarabeth, flaunt it, and let all know that you suffer, that you grieve endlessly, and that all those around you must respect this, else you will turn on them. And when you weep with your self-pity, I would that you choke on it.”

  21

  Magnus and three of his men left four days later for the meeting of the thing, held near Kaupang in a valley belonging to King Harald Fairhair. They were riding, not going by the Sea Wind, for she was being repaired, her steering oar being replaced. Zarabeth saw him mount his stallion, Thorgell, a huge beast bred by Magnus’ father. The slave holding the reins abruptly dropped them at Magnus’ nod and Thorgell pranced to the side, then reared onto his hind legs. Magnus laughed and patted the great beast’s neck even as he clamped his thighs around the stallion’s belly. He looked magnificent in his thigh-length tunic of lavender wool over trousers of dark brown wool. Cross-gartered brown leather boots came to his knees. A wide leather belt studded with silver and gold was around his waist. His blond hair shone in the morning sunlight, and in that bright light his features were so clean and pure that it hurt Zarabeth to look at him.

  She turned away, tired and depressed and already lonely, which was stupid, because she had wanted him to go, wanted more than anything to be left alone with her grief and with her emptiness.

  He called out her name. She turned to see him riding toward her. In the next moment he had leaned down and pulled her up and was holding her against him. Thorgell danced to the side, and Magnus only laughed. He kissed her hard and released her. She stared after him until he was gone from her sight around the outjutting point of land.

  She worked, and worked harder still, hoping to so exhaust herself that she would sleep at night. More often than not, she lay there staring up at the beamed roof into that muted half-light of the summer nights and wished for blankness.

  On the third day, she came out of the longhouse at the shout from a slave. It was Helgi, accompanied by six men, and she was clearly upset.

  “Ingunn is gone!”

  Zarabeth stared at her, and she said again, “Ingunn is gone!”

  “Come inside, Helgi.”

  Helgi saw her sister, Eldrid, and turned quickly away, her hand on Zarabeth’s sleeve. “Sometime during last night, she ran away, that, or she was kidnapped. Have you seen her, Zarabeth? Have you heard anything?”

  “Nay, nothing. Why would she leave her home?”

  “Orm Ottarsson!” Helgi’s broad handsome face, flushed from her exertions, was now flushed with anger. “I knew she was lying when she assured her father she would obey him, I knew it because I know her. She wanted Orm and she refused to believe that he was an outlaw, a man without honor! By Thor, he’ll shame her and our family.”

  “Where is your husband?” Zarabeth struck her hand to her forehead. “Oh, he is at the thing, as is Magnus.”

  “Certainly Harald is at the thing! Ingunn waited, she isn’t a fool, though I would like to beat the girl until she weeps at my feet! Ah, Zarabeth, then you have neither heard nor seen anything of her?”

  Zarabeth shook her head. “I’m sorry, Helgi. Here, drink some ale, it is newly brewed and cool.”

  Zarabeth saw Helgi glance over at her sister once again, then immediately turn away. “Would you care to remain here, Helgi? We can send a messenger to your husband and to Magnus. He told me it was but a day’s ride away.”

  “You’re a good girl, Zarabeth.” Helgi sighed, the harsh color leaving her face. “Nay, I will return home. Perhaps the stupid girl has come back, though I doubt it. I suppose what’s done is done.” She rose, again sighing deeply. As if it had just occurred to her, she smiled and said, “You are all right, Zarabeth?”

  Zarabeth nodded, stiffening without conscious thought, awaiting the words she knew would come, and Helgi said, her voice cool and emotionless, “Time lessens the pain, you will see.”

  Zarabeth looked into the older woman’s eyes—Magnus’ light blue eyes—and said what was in her heart: “Nay, I don’t believe that it will. There is too much of it, you see, and I am not strong enough to allow it to lessen.”

  Helgi recognized that honesty. “There has been too much change for you in too short a time, too much pain, too much uncertainty. It has nothing to do with your strength or your weakness, Zarabeth. But I will tell you this, daughter, you will carry your pain and your grief until you rid yourself of your guilt. You cannot really begin to be my son’s wife until you deal with this. Now, tell me, how does Magnus deal with Egill’s loss?”

  “He dreamed he saw Egill alive, but in some sort of captivity.”

  Helgi touched the amulet she wore around her throat. “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps.”

  After Helgi and her men had left, Aunt Eldrid came to where Zarabeth stood, looking off into the distance at nothing in particular, and said, “It is odd—this tale about Ingunn, I mean. Ingunn isn’t stupid. At least she wasn’t stupid until you came, then she became a vindictive creature I scarce recognized. Normally, Ingunn always acts for a reason. No, my dear sister doesn’t know her daughter as well as she believes she does. Aye, it is odd.”

  She would say nothing more, even when Zarabeth questioned her closely. Sour old woman, she thought, and went about preparing some turnips to roast beside the herring just caught in the viksfjord.

  The next day, it rained, a thick cold rain that gave a hint of the harshness of winter. Zarabeth shivered, wondering about those cold, dark months that would surely come. Wh
at would life be like then? She watched the heavy dark clouds billow over the mountains. The waters of the viksfjord churned and heaved. She wondered what Magnus was doing, what he was feeling. It surprised her that she wondered about him.

  Zarabeth found herself hoping that he was warm and protected from the rain. A wifely thought, she realized. A very wifely thought. By the Viking gods, she was a fool.

  Late that afternoon the rain stopped and the sun came out. Everyone breathed a sigh of pleasure and poured out of the longhouse. No one cared about the large pools of mud that pockmarked the ground both inside and outside the palisade. The slaves went into the fields, women washed clothing in huge wooden tubs beside the bathhouse, and the children wrestled and shouted and fought and did the tasks assigned to them. Rollo’s hammer rang out loud and solid from the smithy’s hut. Eldrid spun the fine flax into stout threads.

  The air of normalcy had returned. All was as it should be again, except that it wasn’t. Suddenly, as before, Zarabeth couldn’t bear it, this everyday laughter, the common jests and talk that surrounded her. She walked through the palisade gates and down to the shore. No one said anything. She walked to the water’s edge. The water still swirled, its color darkened from the churning. She looked at the boat, the one she had taken, the one from which Lotti had jumped—jumped to save Magnus—and she felt herself folding inward. It was a strange sensation, one that allowed her to feel exactly what she was doing. Head down, she began to walk up the shore, not caring where she was going. She simply wanted to be alone for a while. Suddenly she heard a dog bark and looked up. There, in front of her, stood a young man, tall, as well-formed as Magnus, his hair a rich wheat color, his complexion fair, his eyes a startling silver blue. He held a sword loosely in his hand and he was merely standing there staring at her.