Lord of Falcon Ridge

by Catherine Coulter

  Rorik said, “Leave them be, Hafter. If Chessa is barely able to walk on the morrow, then we’ll flatten him.”

  “Aye,” Gunleik said. “I felt the same about Rorik when I realized he was husband to my sweet Mirana. I would have killed him if he’d hurt her.”

  “Sweet?” Rorik said, choking. “Mirana? Sweet?”

  “Be quiet, boy,” Gunleik said. “You’re the luckiest bastard alive.”

  Hafter, who wasn’t paying any attention, said, “Very well, we’ll wait until tomorrow to see if Chessa can walk or not. Aye, that will suit. Now, where’s Entti? I will show her just how it’s done and it will be she on the morrow to give fodder to Laren’s tale.”

  “Amaze her with your breadth, Hafter,” Rorik said, clapped his friend on the back, bade Gunleik good night, and went in search of his own wife. He wondered how much she’d had to do with this. He smiled remembering some of her more outrageous mischief, each time making him more furious than the last, each time making him laugh harder than the last, like the trousers she’d made for him with too much wool in the front. The trousers looked ridiculous with the bagging groin until he was fully aroused. He hadn’t realized what she’d done until it dawned on him that the women were looking at his crotch every time they saw him, and giggling.

  They’d been lucky over the years they’d been wedded. There’d been two raids by landless Danes and they’d lost only two men and one boy in the fighting and gained two warships. There’d been enough game to hunt, the rain had kept the crops plentiful. They had two fine boys and a little girl. He wondered, as he walked back to the longhouse, whistling, if perhaps she wouldn’t become pregnant with another babe by morning. He would try his damnedest. Five times. Five separate times. It was a goal now, despite everything.

  “By all the gods, I don’t believe this.” Cleve sat back on his heels and just stared down at his wife. “This is the god’s punishment for my finally agreeing to marry you. How many times did everyone ask you if you’d begun your monthly flow? More times than I can remember. It’s too much.”

  “My stomach hurts, Cleve.”

  He just shook his head, plowed his fingers through his thick hair, freeing it from the leather tie at the back of his neck. Then he really looked down at her, saw her pallor in the faint light coming into the small cargo space from the moon, the tensing of her mouth.

  He cursed softly, then eased down beside her. “Shall I go ask Mirana if she has something for the cramping?”

  “She’ll be with Rorik having a splendid time. I just pray there won’t be any attacks tonight, for all the men are so busy with their wives they’d never hear a thing.”

  “I’ll hear it,” Cleve said and sighed deeply. “I’ll hear every damned thing. You want me to rub your belly?”

  “No, just hold me.”

  The following morning, Chessa felt tired, for she’d not slept well. There were faint purple smudges beneath her eyes. As for Cleve, he’d not slept all that well either, because he saw her pain, hated it, and tried to distract her from it. When they left the warship after dawn, he said, “Do you always have such cramping?”

  She ducked her head down, watching the narrow winding path upward to the summit of the island. A plover raced across the path.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, more irritated with her than he could say. “By the gods, you were carrying on to everyone about my man’s size and the number of times I took you on our wedding night.”

  “This is different,” she said. “Nay, it isn’t always bad. Perhaps it was because of our wedding night. You might have pulled something loose, do you think?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m just a man, a simple man. Now, I want you to rest.”

  “But Mirana is giving me instruction on drying meat and fish.”

  “That can wait. Rest, all right?”

  He cupped her face between his palms and raised her to him. He kissed her lightly, gently rubbed his fingertips over her eyebrows to smooth them, kissed the tip of her nose, and lightly stroked his hand over her belly. “Rest,” he said again, and left her.

  “I’m sorry, Cleve.”

  “I know,” he said over his shoulder even as he grinned and shook his head. “We’ll both survive.” Odd, he thought, how marriage had focused his mind, nay, all of him, particularly his man’s parts, on sex. He couldn’t remember being so completely a slave to his body before. If he’d felt the urge, he’d slept with a woman, enjoyed himself, and hopefully given her pleasure as well, and then it was morning and time to go about his business again. But with marriage it was different. Sex seemed to be all he could think about. Or it was Chessa. No, that couldn’t be true. He liked her, admired her, was terrified of her ability to think and act and do it well. Her results weren’t always what one could wish but she never sat about and cried, unless it was a part of her latest strategy. No, this desire of his, always there, prodding at him, making him lose his concentration and look for her, it was just because they were married. She now belonged to him and that changed everything. She was his and only his. The only problem was that he couldn’t have what he was supposed to have, at least not for a number of days yet. He moaned, wanting to cry.

  “Didn’t you sleep at all?”

  It was Haakon frowning ferociously at him. Cleve thought Haakon would really prefer to be looking down at Cleve’s slain body. “You look like you’ve worked harder than a thrall for the entire night. I worked hard last night too, yet my eyes are at least open and my shoulders squared.”

  “I did sleep, Haakon. Not a spit of work for me.” He said nothing more. Damnation, it wasn’t anybody’s business what he and Chessa did at night.

  As for Chessa, the women were grouped around her, commiserating. Most of them were looking quite delighted, and Chessa knew the reason, but not how it felt to be delighted like that. Freya was punishing her for all her lies. “This will take away any cramping you may have now,” Mirana said. “Just mix this in a bit of water and drink it.”

  “Poor Chessa,” Entti said after her.

  “Poor Cleve,” Old Alna said. “He’s a randy lad and will be more randy by the moment as the hours pass. Mayhap I should stroke his fevered brow, mayhap sing to him.”

  “Please, Alna, don’t,” Mirana said.

  To Cleve’s immense relief, no word was spoken about either his size, his prowess, his endurance, or his death at the men’s hands. He noticed that the men did look at Chessa, saw that she was very tired, and wondered at it, but this time, they didn’t ask. Had they learned that the women were making sport of them? He didn’t know. He wasn’t about to ask.

  Over the late afternoon meal, Merrik said, “We leave in two days for Scotland. I’ve looked through the stores and all is ready to be stowed on the warships.”

  “I want to stop in York and kill Ragnor,” Hafter said. “That bastard, making you go to such lengths, Cleve, that you had to wear breasts and paint on your face.”

  Cleve just laughed.

  Chessa said, “He was beautiful, all the men admired him. When he came to my room he wouldn’t let me hug him because he was afraid his breasts would slip and all the paint on his face would crack.”

  “But his eyes,” Mirana said. “Didn’t you recognize him immediately, Chessa?”

  “He wore a black patch over his right eye. I just saw this whore with big breasts who finally came to my bedchamber and kissed me.”

  “And you stabbed me,” Cleve said. “Aye, she thought I was one of the guards bent on mischief and she stabbed me. Then she hugged me so hard that my breasts were in danger of falling to the floor.”

  There was much laughter, jests that made even Chessa’s ears burn. Most importantly there were no more threats of killing Cleve for his superiority.

  Kiri was invited to sleep with her two papas, Cleve told Chessa, and looked as if he would cry. They wrapped up in blankets near the fire pit, Kiri between them.

  “We’re going to a place
called Scotland,” Cleve told her, kissing her forehead. “Actually, we’re going to a place called Inverness that’s a trading town inland on the Moray Firth. There are many Vikings there, but also other peoples as well.”

  “Aye, Kiri,” Chessa said. “There are people called Picts, an old race of people about whom I know nothing at all, Britons, Saxons, the Dalriada Scots—”

  “I heard Gunleik tell Erna that none of them are clean like we are. He told her that the wool she spins is far too good for the likes of those dirty pigs. I think he kissed her then.”

  “That’s possible,” Chessa said.

  “Her arm is all strange looking but it doesn’t make any difference to her weaving,” Kiri said.

  “Nay, her arm is withered, but it doesn’t make a whit of difference,” Cleve said. “Never forget that, Kiri.”

  “Everyone loves her,” Chessa said. “Your second papa also believes you should never forget that. What a woman is has nothing to do with how she looks.”

  “A man as well,” Cleve said.

  “Ah,” Chessa said into his ear, “then you will finally know how much I love you. Not only your beautiful face and body, but your spirit, that deep richness in you?”

  “You’re mad,” he said, and kissed her, then sighed deeply.

  Kiri snuggled about to face her father, poking Chessa in the ribs with her knee. “You mean these strange people don’t have bathing huts?”

  “No,” Cleve said. “I’ve heard that many of them never bathe for as long as they live. We won’t live near them, I promise you, sweeting.”

  Chessa took Cleve’s hand, freed from Kiri’s for the moment. “They also have different beliefs, Kiri. The Vikings, like us, believe in Odin-All-Father, the chief of all our gods, the creator, the warrior, the keeper of heaven and earth. But there is Thor as well. In Dublin where I come from, we’re called the tribe of Thor. He’s our sky god, the god of thunder and storms whom our seafarers pray to for good weather. He’s closer to us than Odin-All-Father, more personal to us, I suppose.”

  “Are you going to remember all this, Kiri?”

  “Aye, Papa. Freya will see to it.”

  He moaned. “Did I ever tell you that you were too smart? Nay, don’t answer that. Now, did you know that Vikings have also become Christians? That means they have priors and monks and priests and bishops, all sorts of men who tell them what they’re supposed to believe and what they’re to do and none of them agree with the other. All they agree on is that there is only one god and He is God. They have a Valhalla just like ours, but they count on this one God of theirs to see to their fertility, their battles, their crops, everything. It’s a big chore for just one deity.”

  “Duke Rollo of Normandy and the Vikings who rule and live in the Danelaw are Christians, at least they profess to be.”

  “So you see, sweeting, we’re going to sleep now because I want very much to kiss your second papa and I can’t because it would send me very great pain. Good night, Kiri.”

  “Good night, Papa. Good night, Papa.”

  “Soon, Kiri,” Chessa said, kissing Cleve’s fingers, nibbling the pad of his thumb, “we’re sailing to Scotland for a very great adventure.”

  “Why can’t you kiss Chessa, Papa?”

  “Go to sleep, Kiri.”

  Cleve didn’t go to sleep for a good while. They were going on an adventure, that was certain. He was scared. He had no idea what they would find. How could anyone even remember him? Surely all had changed in the twenty years he’d been gone. Who was Cleve to them? A little boy maybe, that had been thought dead so many years before. What if what he remembered, all those landmarks, weren’t there anymore? What if nothing were the same? What if they went, found nothing, then what? He had a wife and a child. What would he do?

  Damn her, it was as if she’d read his thoughts. She said low, so much love in her voice that he wanted to run, “It’s all right. We’re together. It will be all right.”

  “If you’re so smart then why did you begin your monthly flow now?”

  Chessa laughed, took his hand, and kissed each of his fingers again. “I love the taste of you,” she said softly so not to awaken Kiri.

  “Why are you putting my first Papa’s fingers in your mouth, Chessa?”

  “I’m kissing them just like I’m going to kiss yours now.”

  The child laughed, turning back to Chessa, when she grabbed Kiri’s fingers and kissed each one.

  The next day was warm, the inside of the smoking hut so hot the women had tied their hair up with kerchiefs. “Now,” Mirana said to Chessa, “you see that we have enough racks here for hundreds of fish. The gods know we need them with Kerzog’s appetite. The ones here are clean and split open. We hold them open with wooden skewers hung on thin wooden rods passed through the heads. Now this fire that’s making us all miserable isn’t as hot as it could be. I’ve banked it down with sawdust and woodchips so it just keeps on smoking and smoldering. This dries the fish out very slowly.”

  “Aye,” Old Alna said. “I like my oak sawdust the best. It gives the herring a nice sharp taste.”

  Mirana laughed. “And I prefer pine and fir. You will experiment to see what you and Cleve like best. Now, all the cod, the hake, and the salmon turn yellow. See? Tomorrow, we’ll pack them in barrels with lots of salt between each layer. They’ll last probably longer than we’ll live.”

  “With all that salt,” Chessa said slowly, “I imagine the smoked fish would last longer than any of our children or our grandchildren.”

  “It does, probably forever. You see that we smoke the meat in just the same way. I’m glad you’ll be living next to both a lake and the sea. You’ll never have to worry about food. There’ll be abundant fish, trout, I’ve heard, and now you know how to make it last forever.”

  “Och,” Old Alna said, “I remember when you ruined it all, Mirana. The stench drove us from the longhouse.”

  Mirana buffeted the old woman very gently on her bony shoulder. “Old Alna’s right. You must smoke the fish long enough or else it will rot and nothing smells worse than rotted fish.” She then walked Chessa through each step in the process, Old Alna cackling advice and disagreements with Mirana often enough to keep the women amused.

  “What’s that?” Mirana said suddenly, turning toward the door of the hut. Then she smiled, pulled the kerchief from her hair and shook it out. Hair as rich and black as Chessa’s swept down her back and over her shoulders. She wiped the perspiration from her face. “It’s Kerzog barking his head off. I’ll just wager the men have killed a boar, perhaps even a deer. Let’s go see. Ah, it’s a feast we’ll have tonight.”

  20

  Moray Firth, Northern Scotland

  THE DAY WAS cool, the sun trying to burn through the light mist that stretched out over the water and veiled the land. Only the very tallest peaks poked through that heavy mist.

  Merrik said, “Kiri, my little pet, this is a fine summer day in Scotland from all I’ve heard.”

  “But there’s no bright sun like at home.”

  “As I said, a bright summer day for Scotland.”

  Kiri was sitting on his knee. “Then we’re nearly there, Uncle Merrik?”

  “Aye, Kiri. We’ll sail down the Moray Firth to the trading town of Inverness, which is nestled right there where many bodies of water come together. Then just southward is the river Ness. It’s a narrow canal that feeds finally into Loch Ness. Your papa remembers a huge circular promontory or a long arm of land and rock jutting out high into the loch on the western side. On that promontory is a large wooden house, something like Malverne farmstead.”

  “Will they know me? Will Papa have a mama who will be my grandmother?”

  “I don’t know, sweeting. So much time has passed and life doesn’t just go on and on because he would like it to. But there will be perhaps cousins and aunts. It’s been twenty years, Kiri, since your first papa left here. None of us know what we’ll find.”

  “My second papa calls it a grand
adventure.”

  “It hasn’t been so far,” Merrik said, then laughed at himself. He didn’t really want to come stern to stern with a marauding Viking warship, not with all their supplies, Chessa, Laren, and Kiri aboard. Ah, but it had been a long time since his warship the Silver Raven had rowed directly at an attacking raider. His men who were the best archers would shoot at the enemy. His men in their narrow helmets and long war coats would be on both the platforms at the stem, ready when they were close enough to leap aboard the raider’s warship and then the fighting would begin. Merrik’s hand itched for his sword, once his father’s sword and his brother Erik’s sword, called the Slasher, three feet long, its blade of iron, its hilt of bronze inlaid with silver and rubies he himself had added just three summers ago south of Kiev in a tiny trading town called Radovia.

  “No, not yet,” he said, bringing his attention back to the little girl. He looked over at Eller. “Does your nose smell anything? We’re quite close to land now. I can’t see much of anything through the morning mist. The summer morning mist that will probably last all day. By all the gods, this is a land that confuses the senses, aye, but it’s a rich land and there’s magic here, even I can sense it. Chessa is right. This will soon become an adventure.”

  Eller tapped the side of his nose, shook his head, and kept his hand firmly on the rudder. He’d done well this trip, Merrik thought, had learned nearly everything Old Firren knew. Old Firren had died the previous winter.

  “I hope Eller doesn’t get sick in his nose, Uncle Merrik,” Kiri said.

  “It happened once,” Merrik said. “We were in the Baltic Sea, just coming from Birka. His nose was all clogged up and he couldn’t smell a thing. We had a close call because of it.” Ah, that had been fun.

  “Inverness!”

  At last they’d arrived. It had taken only eight days from Hawkfell Island, thank the gods for the warm weather and the constant summer westerly winds. There had been but one brief rain squall that had passed quickly. Everyone was excited. They’d finally reached Inverness.