They believed Hormuze an old man. Thus he was an old man. When he finished he rose from his rosewood chair and fastened the three layers of soft feather padding, belting it about his lean belly. He dressed himself, then looked at himself again closely, as was his wont, in the polished brass mirror. He was pleased. He looked as he was expected to look. The long straggly beard covered the strong cords of his neck. The door opened and Eze stood there, her head cocked to one side, staring at him.
“You are a true graybeard, Papa,” she said, then came to him and lightly kissed his wrinkled cheek.
“Quietly, Eze,” Hormuze said, as he stroked her soft black hair. “Ah, you are so beautiful, my little one. Just like your poor mother. It won’t be long now. You are keeping your own council?”
“Aye, Papa,” the child said, and kissed him once again. “Be careful, Papa.”
“Aye, always.”
Outside the small window, Kron drew back, stunned by what he’d seen. Lord Rorik had been right, but only in a part of it. By all the gods, this was strange, this young man who made himself old. Ah, and the little girl. Kron shook his head. And they’d spoken the strange language between them. Kron quickly pulled the guard’s body from sight. He stole the man’s boots and his beautiful pounded silver armlet. A robbery, all would believe it a robbery.
27
THE NIGHT WAS black. Bloated clouds roiled through the heavens. The air was heavy and thick with rain, the wind becoming colder by the moment.
Mirana waited patiently. She knew Gunleik would come. Still, it seemed an eternity since he’d nodded to her, just after the evening meal. Where was he?
Suddenly, from behind her, he said, his voice soft as a summer’s breeze, “What do you out here, Mirana? You ate very little, yet the women prepared all the dishes you like. I do not wish your charms to waste away. Come inside and let me feed you roasted fowl from my own plate.”
He sounded so very loving and tender. It scared her to near speechlessness. But when she turned to face Einar, there was a sweet smile on her face. She touched her fingertips to his arm, feeling his flesh ripple beneath her touch, feeling the strength of him. “I thank you, brother, but I fear my stomach is displeased. It was doubtless something I ate earlier. I will be well again on the morrow.”
But he was frowning. “Sira told of how Rorik’s family had poisoned you, how you nearly died that first time, how another woman did die. I don’t like this, Mirana. Are you certain your ailment is a mild one?”
She nodded. “Aye, I am certain.”
“You are here at last. By all the gods, I was worried. Endlessly, I worried for you. Gunleik became an old man. I beat him for his failure. Then I sent him after you. He is wily and cunning, smarter than any of my other warriors. I knew he would find you if you still lived.”
“Ah, that is why you didn’t beat him to death?”
“Aye,” he said, “that and he is still useful to me.” He pointed toward a lone gull who sat perched on a piling near the end of the wooden dock. “Lella loves birds, just as you do. She feeds that one daily. She calls him Gorm. I scold her, sometimes discipline her for her benefit, but she is young and filled with excitement over foolish things.”
Mirana laughed softly. “You mean the young lad who dresses like a girl?”
He stiffened and she felt a tremor run through him. “How do you know, Mirana?”
“Your Lella wanted to meet me. She came to my chamber last night and took off her clothes to show me she was different from the others, that you would never tire of her, that you loved her because of her differentness, because she could give you pleasure a woman couldn’t give. Your Lella is a lovely boy, Einar. How odd that I did not know this about you. Odd that everyone else did know yet no one told me.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, utterly without judgment, without revulsion or disgust. It was difficult, but she managed it, and she saw that he eased slowly, but he did ease.
“I will beat the boy,” he said mildly. “He shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t think I had to tell him to keep away from you. He acted on his own. Aye, I will beat him for that. As I said, he is young and needs firm discipline. I would have told you in my own time, that or I would have tired of him and it would have made no difference, for I would have sold him and he would have been gone.”
She shrugged. “It matters not what pleasures you seek or where you seek them. Surely a man should do as he chooses. And you are a leader of men, Einar.” She watched him preen with her words. She had to learn well to dole them out—the flattery, then the spurs. It was finding the balance that would be difficult.
“Did Rorik do as he pleased with you?”
She felt her blood gathering, pounding through her. “What do you mean, Einar?”
“I was thinking about what Sira has told me, what Gunleik and the others have told me as well. You claim you were married to Rorik Haraldsson, that you are no longer a virgin, and thus you cannot wed the king. You will now tell me you lied. And you will tell me why you lied. I wish to hear the words from you, Mirana.”
She looked at him, her eyes clear. She realized that she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Einar to stick a knife in her heart and twist it upward with a flick of his wrist when she sent him into a rage with the truth. She saw herself clearly in that instant falling to the ground, a knife deep in her heart. No, she thought, no.
So she said, her voice firm and steady, “Aye, I lied. I didn’t want to marry an old man, Einar, be he king or pauper. I have no care for jewels or slaves, you know that. I would say anything to prevent marrying that old man, even claiming to be wed to our enemy, Rorik Haraldsson. Aye, I would claim to be married to Gunleik were it to save me from marrying him. I beg you, don’t force me to do this.”
“There are things you don’t understand,” he said, and looked up into the heavens. A star appeared through a brief clearing in the clouds. “It is the North Star. There are men on the sea who are cheering at this moment, doubt it not.”
She prayed one of those men was Rorik.
“What things?”
“I cannot tell you as yet. Just trust me, Mirana. What I do benefits not only me but you as well. Trust me.”
She let her voice grow smooth and mocking, for pleading would never gain anyone anything with Einar. “And if I tell you I don’t trust you, brother? What would you do to me then? Beat me? Kill me?”
“Nay, for the time is too short when the king and his advisor, an old ancient named Hormuze, will arrive at Clontarf to fetch you. What I will do, though, is examine you myself. I cannot take the chance of the king finding you unchaste after he has married you. I want my own finger to feel your maidenhead, Mirana. You will come with me now. If you wish it, I will even give you pleasure as well. You’ve never known a woman’s pleasure. Come.” He held his hand out to her.
She stared at it as if it were a snake to bite her.
She continued to stare at his hand as she said, “I told you the truth, Einar. I lied about a marriage to Rorik Haraldsson. Nor did Rorik touch me. I was his hostage, a valuable hostage to be used against you. He did not ravish me. He had no interest in me in that way.”
She realized then that this was but a pretense. Einar wanted to touch her, perhaps for his corrupt pleasure, perhaps to humiliate her, she wasn’t certain, nor did she care. She’d been a fool not to see it immediately. Now she saw the darkness in him so clearly, shining as black as the night in his eyes, beautiful green eyes full to brimming with a strange intensity, and knew in that instant that he’d placed her in the center of his dark soul, that the boy Lella was quite wrong.
She felt the perversity in him reaching out to her, remembered many times now when she’d seen the depravity, the darkness of him overflow onto others, causing pain and humiliation and even death. And now she was his focus. She remembered believing that Rorik would kill her. Now she wondered if her half-brother would as she said calmly, “No, Einar.”
He smiled at her. He lifted her hand in both of his and
stroked her palm with his thumbs. She was deadly cold yet her palm was sweating.
“I am your brother, Mirana, and until you wed the king, I am your master. You will always do as I bid you.”
Again, she said, “No. It isn’t right. It isn’t normal or natural. You are my brother, I remind you of it and remind you of its significance and obligations. You will not touch me in such a way.”
“It is because I am your brother that I do not wish to humiliate you by having another man do it.”
“Then it will be a woman if you disbelieve me. If you truly think I am lying to you now, we will ask Hannah to do it.”
“You lied before. You claimed he was your husband. A husband plows his wife. The women love you and would do anything you asked of them. I could not believe what Hannah would tell me. You lie and you don’t lie. I no longer see what is right, what is the truth. Which is which, Mirana?”
She drew herself up. She looked skyward and said, “If you do this to me I will not wed your king.”
He slapped her, hard, his open palm smacking loud against her cheek. Her head jerked back. She would have fallen had he not held on to her arm. He pulled her upright, jerking her against him. He held her there, whispering against her temple, “Do not go against me again. Now, come, for I wish to see you and feel you. I have waited a long time for this. I will not be denied. No longer.”
She drew back and spat at him in the face.
She said softly, “Kill me now, Einar. I don’t care. Or mark me, then you will fail, for the king won’t have me then, will he? He is an old man but I do not believe he is blind. Ah, and then he would kill you, wouldn’t he, because you would have failed in your agreement with him. Aye, kill me, Einar, then follow me into death.”
He was shaking with rage and incredulity. He said, “You spat on me,” and he looked at her as if she were something he couldn’t comprehend, something alien and not of his experience. Slowly he wiped his face. He looked at her, her face pale in the night, so very pale, so very beautiful, and how he wanted her in those moments. He saw her fear of him, tasted that fear. It drove him mad. He reached for her, but she flung herself away from him. She ran across the inner courtyard and up the wooden ladder to the fortress ramparts.
“Mirana!”
She paid him no heed. He raced after her, his blood hot, his anger burning even hotter. He reached the wooden walkway, only to stop, for she was not ten feet from him and she looked suddenly calm, suddenly accepting, and he was terrified, for she’d been right. If she died so would he.
“You will swear upon the head of our dead mother that you will not touch me. If you do not swear, I will jump. I will be dead and you will lose everything. I have heard it said that the king has little patience for failure, beginning with your worthless life. He is much like you. Swear now to me, Einar, or I will be dead and you will lose.”
He took a step toward her.
The king was tired, so very tired, for the day had been long. He’d had little appetite for the evening meal. He wanted to be young again, a vigorous man in his prime. Hormuze had promised him this again and again. But he felt so weary, his body flaccid and weak. He was afraid he would die. He wanted to go now to fetch Mirana, daughter of Audun, but Hormuze had cautioned against it, always against it, as he did now.
“Nay, sire, we must wait. It isn’t yet time. I have consulted the stars and their paths and formations, and done my calculations. Soon now we will fetch her, but not sooner than is right, for then you would not have what you want. Nay, we must wait, then you will be as I promised. Ah, sire, the sons you will fashion in this woman’s body.”
The king listened to Hormuze speak of the sons he would sire, these sons who would rule until the world ceased to be and then beyond, perhaps, for his progeny would challenge the gods in their perfection. He listened to Hormuze until a slave was brought to him. Then he turned from his advisor to watch her.
She was young, not more than fifteen, and she was supple and talented in her dance. Soon she was naked and soon she was crouched before him, leaning up to stroke his bony knees, gently caressing his thighs, upward, to finally touch him, and this time, this once, he felt himself swell.
He yelled for Hormuze to leave him. His advisor smiled and left the chamber. The girl continued to caress him, to make him swell and swell until he fell forward on top of her and was able to enter her body. When his release came, he swooned with the pleasure of it.
When he awoke, Aylla was holding him against her, stroking his head, singing her soft incantations. He nestled against her soft breasts, nuzzling close. He was happy and proud that he was still a man.
“I pleasured her,” he whispered against her soft flesh.
“Aye, she spoke of your sweetness, sire, of how you made her scream with pleasure.”
“Aye,” he said, and kissed Aylla’s breast.
“Soon, sire, very soon now, you will have your wife in your bed and you will pleasure her and she will give you such fine sons and you will be changed. You will be vigorous and ready to fight again, to crush your enemies, all those petty chieftains who nibble at our people’s lands and steal their goods.”
Then he slept, her sweet insistent voice sounding the chant in his ear, and he believed the words she said, believed them to his very soul, and was glad.
Mirana leapt up to grasp the two sharp-pointed wooden poles that lined the ramparts. She would probably kill herself simply trying to get over them to jump. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t allow Einar to touch her. It was too much, simply too much, and she knew if he did, she would be irrevocably damaged in her spirit. No, she preferred death.
Suddenly, she heard Gunleik shout from below, “My lord Einar! You must come now, the boy Lella has attacked the new slave, Sira! Come, the men are hesitant to interfere. None want to meet Ingolf’s fate.”
Einar stared at her. She saw the frustration in his eyes, saw the truth of her threat as well. “I do not believe you would jump,” he said slowly, but she knew in that moment that he didn’t believe his words. She’d convinced him. He continued, “But you will be safe from me now, I swear it. I won’t touch you.” He turned on his heel and climbed back down the wooden ladder, not looking back at her.
Mirana stood there for a very long time, watching him stride back to the longhouse. She rather hoped that Sira would slit the boy’s vicious throat. But then what of Sira? That made Mirana laugh. She nearly fell to the ground when Gunleik said quietly, “It is true, the two are fighting. Now we have a few moments before Einar remembers you and asks for you. I am sorry, Mirana, for not believing you. What shall we do?”
“I won’t marry that old man, king or not.”
“Aye, I know. We will escape then. This Rorik is your husband?”
“Aye, he is.” She turned away from Gunleik. “I pray he will come, but I cannot be sure of it. I know that his family will want to come for Sira. It is all uncertain, Gunleik.”
“You are no virgin.”
“Oh no.”
“Then you cannot wed with the king. Your virginity, I am told, is why he wishes to have you, that and who you are, or so Einar has claimed.”
“But I am nobody, Gunleik! Why me?”
He shrugged. “None know, even Einar. He pretends it is your beauty and your purity, but there is no belief when he says it. Once he even tried to convince me it was because he was your half-brother that the king wanted you.”
“Since it is a fact, I suppose there is no reason why we must understand it as well. There is really little hope, is there?”
“I will think of something,” Gunleik said. He glanced down at the whistle from one of his men. “It is Ivar. We must go.” He paused a moment, then added, his voice low, “Do not give up, Mirana.”
28
SIRA WAS STRADDLING Lella, her breasts smothering him as she stretched forward to jerk and twist his wrists above his head. He was throwing himself upward, arching madly, striking her back with his knees. She slapped him hard, but befor
e he realized he was free, she’d grasped his wrists again, then dipped down and bit his cheek.
He shrieked. She bit him again, on his other cheek. The boy stopped struggling. He was whimpering.
“Ah, at last you will be quiet, you wretched little fool. Don’t dare try to hit me again else I’ll rip your pullet’s throat out.”
Sira looked up to silence. There was Mirana staring at her, Gunleik at her side. Einar was there also, and he was smiling, stroking his long fingers over his chin, watching, saying nothing, merely watching. For how long?
“There is blood on your lips,” Einar said to Sira.
“I know, and it is a foul taste, for it comes from this little savage.”
“Is that what you are, Lella?” Einar said, coming down to his haunches to stare at the boy whose eyes were overflowing with tears. “Are you in truth a little savage?”
The boy looked up at his master, his lover, and his tears streaked down his face, running in crooked rivulets over the bloody bites on his cheeks. “She marked me,” he whispered. “She has ruined my beauty.”
“Get off Lella,” Einar said to Sira. He offered her his hand and pulled her to her feet. “Now, tell me what brought this to pass.”
Lella started to open his mouth, but Einar shook his head, and turned to Sira. “Tell me.”
“This smug little bitch told me she would kill me if I tried to seduce you to my bed. I told her, my lord, that I wasn’t a whore like she was, that I am a virgin, that I am a cousin to Harald Fairhair, the king of Norway. I told her I wouldn’t willingly seek your bed until you married me.”
There was utter silence following Sira’s words. Every eye was on Einar, waiting for his reaction. Would he whip the new slave right now, his eyes darkening to near black when she screamed from the bite of the oil-soaked leather strips? Or would he shove his knife into her breast and watch as she bled to death?
Einar looked at Sira, at her hair—ah, that beautiful hair, thick and long and almost silver—now disheveled and spilling wildly down her back and over her shoulders. He looked at the passion in her pale blue eyes, at her full mouth, open now for she was panting from her exertions, and her heavy breasts, pushing against her gown that Lella had ripped. He saw the line between her breasts. There would be bruises soon on her white throat, for Lella had gotten a few good hits before Sira had beaten him. He knew Lella was strong; it pleased him that this new slave was stronger, that she hadn’t hesitated to retaliate, and viciously. By the gods, she’d bitten Lella on his cheek twice, and he was bleeding, and there was blood on her mouth, and she had as yet made no move to wipe it away. He didn’t disbelieve her for an instant—oh aye, she was a virgin and she was kin to the king of Norway. How odd that she would also be kin to Rorik Haraldsson, a stupid man whose honor would one day most likely kill him.
Lord of Hawkfell Island Page 26
