Viper's Nest

by Rachel Ford

  She sat there for a long moment in silence, and then laughed. “Oh, my love. Do you know, I’ve spent all morning bracing for you to decide that accepting this was one ask too many? That finally this secret was too big, the sins of my family too great at last?”

  He squeezed her hand and laughed too. “Frigg. You have no idea how much you scared me. I thought…well, that you had some truly dark secret, or else you were telling me it was time I moved on.”

  She lifted a hand to his cheek. “Move on? My love, I wanted to ask you to stay. Not just now, but – well, for the rest of my life.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Tryg had been beside himself with joy, plastering her with so many kisses she could scarcely catch her breath. And that was before she told him about the baby.

  Not that she could do that right away. It took several minutes of giggles and kisses before either were ready to carry on anything like a semblance of a conversation. But, when she could, she said, “There’s something else, Tryg.”

  He’d turned questioning eyes to her, and she’d taken his hand and placed it on her stomach. He stared, confused, for half a minute. Then, his eyes went wide. “You mean…a baby?”

  She nodded, and he scooped her up again, spinning her round and round. “My Cass, my love.”

  She loved him. She’d known that for a while. But in his arms now, hearing the sweet words he said, seeing the love in his eyes and feeling it in his touch, her heart ached with pure pleasure. It was a pleasure she had never known before, a pleasure so rich and full and pure that it almost overwhelmed her.

  “I love you, Tryg.”

  They locked the door after that, and spent the morning expressing their love in more physical terms. Then, half-starved and fighting to keep their hands to themselves, they joined a worried court for lunch. The empress alleged a headache – too much wine the night before – and all was forgotten. However her head might have made her suffer, her appetite had clearly not been impacted, because, between them, Cassia and the Northman ate enough for a small army.

  Then, they returned to her chambers, and worked at the divorcement settlement details. She wanted to have a plan ready before she ever broached the topic with her husband – something that provided for his victims, restored the empire’s independence, and otherwise left Faustus alone. It needed to make right his wrongs, but also be something he would sign.

  The afternoon waxed long, and Cass felt reasonably certain that she’d covered everything. She’d figure out who among the city’s legal experts she trusted enough to run it past tomorrow. For now, she had it, and that was enough.

  She turned her attention back to Trygve. The Northman had grown quiet and thoughtful as the day ran on, but this, she’d assumed, was due to his lack of knowledge of the particulars of Stellan divorce law.

  Now, though, he seemed to be staring at a book he regarded as an enemy, so poisonous was the gaze he’d fixed on it. She was surprised to see it. “Tryg? What’s wrong?”

  He started at the sound of her voice. “Oh. Nothing.”

  This, of course, was not – could not – be true, and she moved to his side and took his hands in hers. “What is it, my love?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry it took so long. But I think we have a good plan.”

  “It’s not that.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “I know you have to work, my love.”

  “Then what is it?”

  He loosed a long sigh. “I don’t know. I just…” He shook his head. “I’m going to be a father.”

  “Yes.” She smiled, but he didn’t mirror the reaction. “You…you do want to be, don’t you?” She hadn’t considered that. Tryg’s reaction earlier had been pure joy, so she hadn’t had to consider anything else. But now she wondered.

  “I do. I just…” He searched her face with troubled eyes. “Frigg, it’s me we’re talking about, Cass. I’m going to be raising a child.”

  She laughed. “Oh my love, she couldn’t ask for a better father.”

  He smiled, and though the crease didn’t entirely leave his forehead, he did seem to relax. She noticed an absentmindedness in him at dinner, as he missed his name more than once. She could detect none of it, though, when they went to bed that night. He was as attentive and passionate as a new lover, mad with desire and eager to please.

  She had no trouble later that night falling asleep, his body pressed against hers, her head tucked into the crook of his arm.

  She woke some hours later, noticing first the loss of that warmth she’d come to expect. “Tryg?” she murmured. But the bed was empty.

  She sat upright, glancing around the bedroom. At first, she could see nothing. But then, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. A sliver of autumn moonlight slipped past the curtains, and she could see the shapes and shadows of her chambers.

  She could see that Tryg was nowhere among them.

  Cass tried to push down the rising anxiety she felt at that. It wasn’t like her lover to vanish in the dark of night. Had he heard something? Had something – or someone – drawn him out of their room?

  She rose quietly and stepped into the other room. Her eyes rested on the silhouette against the far window immediately, and her pulse quickened at the sight of it. It was a large figure, black against the moonlight, and unmoving. Then, as she caught sight of the cut of the shoulders, and the dark outline of facial hair, she breathed out a sigh of relief. “Tryg?”

  The figure started and turned toward her. “Cass? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just…what’s the matter?”

  He’d crossed the distance between them and was scrutinizing her in the dim moonlight. “What? Oh, nothing. I just…couldn’t sleep. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

  But Cassia didn’t move. “My love, talk to me. What’s wrong?” He started to assure her that nothing was wrong, but she interrupted. “You promised you wouldn’t lie to me. Do you remember.”

  He fell silent and nodded.

  “Tryg, talk to me. Please. Is it…are you worried that it’s not yours? I haven’t been with Faustus in months. Only you.”

  “No. Gods, no, Cass. I know that.” He took her hands in his and pressed them to his lips. “I know that.”

  “Then…what is it? Are you…angry that I’m pregnant? That it’s so soon?” She hadn’t meant for that to happen. Minerva, it hadn’t even occurred to her. How many years of trying and hoping had it taken her and Faustus? The idea that it could happen all at once? She couldn’t remember the idea even crossing her mind.

  But they hadn’t discussed kids. Maybe he didn’t actually want them. Maybe he didn’t want them with her.

  He, though, pressed her close against him. “Oh Cass, no. I’m – I’m thrilled. But…it’s not you. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s…I told you earlier. It’s me. This baby, she’s going to have me for a father.”

  “And I told you, Tryg: she’ll be lucky.”

  “No.” He pulled away from her, shaking his head. In the moonlight, she could see the dark shadows on his face from worry lines. “No, my love. This morning, you told me you didn’t want any secrets between us. That was not a way to start a relationship. You remember?”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s…there’s something I haven’t told you.”

  She swallowed hard at the gravity in his tone. “Tell me, Tryg. Anything you want.”

  “I told you about what I did, why I got banished.”

  “Yes.”

  “I…I didn’t tell you the whole story. I didn’t tell you the full truth.”

  She brought a hand to his cheek. “Then tell me now. I will not love you less, whatever it is.”

  He shook his head miserably. “You haven’t heard it yet.”

  “I don’t need to. You’re a good man, and I know that. Whatever mistakes you’ve made.”

  He snorted. “Oh Cass. I wish I could believe it. But…well, I told you what I did, trying to kill my father, I did it to save Ingi
e, my sister.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “That wasn’t true. It was, but not all of the truth. It wasn’t for Ingie. It wasn’t just for Ingie. I hated him, Cass. I think on some level I hated her. Because I was his firstborn, but she was first in his heart. Because I’d endured a lifetime of slights, of contempt from him.

  “So what I did – yes, I meant to save her when I started. That was the reason I gave, anyway. But I hated him. I hated him for what he did to her, but I hated him for what he’d done to me.”

  “You were jealous,” she said, and her voice was soft. “But you wouldn’t have done if not to save your sister, would you?”

  “No,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t have. But I don’t think I would have done it if I hadn’t resented him, either. But that’s not even the worst of it.”

  She drew him closer, wrapping her arms around him. “Tell me.” He needed to get this off his chest, it was clear. So far, he hadn’t told her anything that materially changed what she already knew. But the sooner he’d shared this, she hoped the sooner he could forgive himself.

  “I…I would have killed Ingie. When she found out what I was doing, she came back home to save Bjarne. She drew her sword, and, Cass, I think in the moment I would have killed her too.”

  “But you didn’t,” she reminded him. “You were scared, Tryg. You were angry. You’d been caught, and they were trying to kill you. You were wrong – but you didn’t cross that line.”

  “No, I didn’t. But not because I’m a good man. I didn’t cross it because I couldn’t. She’s a better swordswoman than me.

  “You see, Cass, that’s who I really am: a failed murderer.”

  It had taken a long time, but in the end, Cassia coaxed him back to bed. He wept in her arm and told her the full story: how he’d planned to kill his father to spare his sister from an unwanted arranged marriage to a man he felt would destroy her life. How he’d slipped up and risked discovery by his sister’s future father-in-law, and so tried to kill him too. How his sisters had found him out and come rushing home to save their father. How he’d fought and would have killed them if it had come to that. How Ingie had disarmed him and spared his life when their father commanded her to take it. How he’d left in disgrace, with nothing but a few loyal men, Gunnar and his ship.

  There were times when his portrayal of himself, so unflinching in its criticisms, was hard to reconcile to the man she held in her arms.

  This man had risked everything for her, when he thought he had nothing to gain. This man had been there for her through thick and thin, when no one else had.

  Could he really plan a cold-blooded murder?

  But who was she fooling? Everyone had their secrets. Everyone had their weaknesses and everyone had their breaking points. No one was entirely good or evil.

  “Tryg,” she’d told him at last, “we are not our thoughts or what we might have done. We’re our actions. You made mistakes. But you didn’t kill anyone. No, don’t interrupt. I know you wanted to. But you didn’t. That’s the difference, the line that makes a murderer or doesn’t.

  “You’re not a murderer. You can move on from what you almost did.”

  “Are you sure, Cass?”

  “I hope so. I have to believe you can, because it means I can too. Because what am I, Tryg, but a woman who let her own misery blind her to what was happening under her very nose? What am I, but a wife who couldn’t see what her own husband was doing, an empress who was blind to what the emperor was doing to her own empire?

  “You recognize your mistakes. Good. Then you have learned from them, my love. As I have learned from mine. It’s too late to change the past. But the future – that’s ours to write.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Trygve stared at the blank page. Frigg knew, he’d looked at a thousand pages just like this one, willing words onto the parchment. Words that wouldn’t come.

  He dipped the quill in ink and stared again at the paper. It was still blank, still empty: a void that seemed uncrossable.

  He drew a long breath and let it out. Then he touched the tip of the pen to paper.

  Dearest Ingie,

  I’m sorry for everything. I wish I had an excuse, or reasons to justify what I did.

  But I don’t. I am sorry – so very sorry. I hope you and Lucia and Karina are well. I hope Danil is adjusting to the North, and married life is treating you both well.

  I miss you all more than words can ever convey. I love you.

  Trygve

  The Northman put away his quill and sealed the letter before he had a chance to think better of sending it. And if he shed tears before he left to find a courier to relay the missive, only the walls bore witness to his sorrows.

  Chapter Sixty

  Cassia heard the far door of her chamber burst open, and she smiled. She supposed it must be the Northman. It had been two weeks since she’d asked Tryg to be her partner in life, and his enthusiasm seemed to grow with every passing day. “There you are,” she said, glancing up from the letter she’d been drafting. “I was wondering –”

  She cut off suddenly, though. It wasn’t Trygve at all, but Faustus. And he was looking rather frazzled. “Faustus.”

  She’d sent a messenger to locate her husband, with an urgent summons to return to the capitol two weeks ago – as soon as she’d drafted her articles of divorcement. She’d had no word since and supposed that Faustus was taking his time in returning out of some sense of injured pride. Still, seeing him here without warning rather threw her off her guard.

  It didn’t help that his manner was quite unlike anything it had been at their last meeting. Gone was the frosty, bare civility. Gone was the distance. He beamed at her, and crossed the rooms separating them at a near run. “Cass.”

  Before she knew it, he was at her side, and then pulling her out of her seat. “What in Minerva’s name are you doing?” she demanded.

  But her husband silenced her protests with a kiss – a deep, passionate, and entirely unwelcome kiss. One hand held her head in place, and the other eagerly explored her lower back.

  Cassia brought an elbow down sharply on Faustus’s arm, and a knee into his thigh. He cried out, more in surprise than pain she thought. Still, it was enough to get away. “What in the gods’ names are you doing?”

  At the same time, he cried out, “Ow. What the hell, Cass?” She repeated her query, and he, wincing as he rubbed his arm, explained, “I got your message.”

  She snorted. “It took you long enough to get back here.”

  “I was hunting when it arrived. But, Cass, is it true?”

  His eyes sparkled, and she frowned. Her first fear at seeing his agitated state was that he’d heard something of the divorce. That seemed unlikely, given his excitement. “Is what true?”

  He grinned and moved toward her. She took a step back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Oh wife, you’re not still upset about Iulius’s wedding, are you?”

  She hadn’t been thinking of it, but a shadow crossed her face at the memory. “Of course I’m upset.”

  He sighed. “Alright, I’m sorry. I admit, I acted badly.”

  “Badly?” She almost spit out the word. “Badly? Is that all you have to say for yourself, Faustus?”

  He, though, seemed in no humor to dwell on it. “Come on, Cass: I’m on pins and needles here. Is it true? We’re pregnant again?”

  She blinked, and felt her jaw go slack. How in Minerva’s name does he know that?

  This, of course, was all the confirmation he needed, because he whooped out loud and took full advantage of her discombobulation. Once more, he was pressing his tongue into her mouth, and grabbing handfuls of her derriere and squeezing. He’d pressed her against the wall this time, perhaps out of some sense of self-preservation, and she didn’t have room to maneuver her leg. She could still strike with her arms, though – and she did, two or three times.

  A particularly sharp blow landed on his shoulder, and he drew back again, winc
ing and cursing. “For the gods’ sakes, Cass, calm the hell down. I know you’re mad at me, but I already apologized. You know I want to make it right, now that we’re going to have a baby. Can’t you just tell me what you want, instead of – well, hitting me?”

  There were more than a few aspects of that statement that she might have taken issue with, but one in particular stood out. “How do you know I’m pregnant?”

  “It’s why you called me back, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not an answer, Faustus. How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “Your nurse. She mentioned that you missed your last cycle.”

  “My nurse?” She gaped again. “You mean, you hired my own nurse to spy on me?”

  “Not spy. Come on, Cass. You’re my wife. I’ve a right to make sure you’re alright, don’t I? Especially when you’re being a baby.”

  “A baby? Faustus, you tried to – to rape me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh come off it, Cass. I’m your husband. You can’t hold out on your husband forever.” Her eyes blazed, and he seemed to realize his misstep, because he flashed her his most charming smile. “I’m joking. Like I said, I know I was wrong. And I’m sorry.

  “But Minerva’s blessed us from it anyway: she’s giving us another child.”

  She’d had a calm, collected speech she was going to make. She was going to lay out her case, and some of the more damning evidence Luke had collected. She was going to make her demands and tell him exactly how it would be.

  But in the moment, she forgot all of that. In the moment, she could only see the smug, satisfied face of a man who thought he’d raped her. A man who thought her child was his, and a product of the rape he’d attempted.

  And in that moment, she hated Faustus even more than she’d hated him that night. He’d been drunk then. He wasn’t drunk now. The man who had tried to violate her was the man who smirked now, thinking he’d been successful.

  She wished Tryg was here. She’d sent him and Gunnar on their morning walk – both because the cat was getting restless, and he was getting restless. She’d needed to finish her correspondence, away from his tantalizingly distracting kisses.