He just stared at her, his expression bemused, saying nothing as she walked from the chamber.
He awoke to see Helga sitting beside him. She was staring at him, her eyes hot. He wanted to tell her that she was the last woman on earth he would willingly touch, but caught himself in time. He tried to smile at her, an effort he hoped she appreciated.
“You are awake,” she said, and touched her fingertips to his face, caressing his cheek, his jaw. “I have looked at your arm. It is clean. I have made a potion for you. Here, let me help you.”
He drank slowly until all the potion was gone. It tasted sweet, and that surprised him.
“In a few moments you will feel no more pain.”
“Where is Laren?”
“The poor child is with Rollo. He can’t seem to let her out of his sight, the silly old man. You will rule shortly, Lord Merrik, doubt it not. Is there more pain?”
He shook his head. “What did you give me?”
She shrugged, her hand now stroking over his throat. “Ah, a bit of sweet basil, some barley water, hemlock—”
He sucked in his breath, and she added easily, “Just a bit on the end of my finger. Scarce enough to kill a fly, but not a man like you, Merrik. Other things whose names you don’t know. Ah, and a dollop of honey to make it taste good.”
“I feel no pain now,” he said, and was surprised.
“Good,” she said and leaned over him. She kissed him, her mouth soft, her breath sweet and warm. He felt her tongue gently pressing against his closed mouth, and he allowed her entrance. He responded to her, knowing there was no choice really.
The man had said that Rollo had wanted him dead.
He brought up his good arm and pulled her closer. Her breasts were full and very soft against his chest.
Why would Rollo want him dead? Surely the man lied. Aye, he lied, and Merrik was back to having nothing, and thus he continued kissing Helga, letting her do as she wished with him. When her hand smoothed down his belly to touch him, he stayed her hand. “Nay, my wife. I know not where she is. She is Rollo’s niece. I am her husband and one of Rollo’s heirs. Is it true that William Longsword is a paltry young man?”
“I have always believed so, but then I also believed that Laren and Taby were dead. I have been wrong about many things. If William has his father’s wretched longevity, why then, he won’t die until the next century.”
She kissed him again, her tongue warm and searching in his mouth.
When she finally raised her head, he said, “You must leave me now, Helga. There will be another time.”
She smiled at him, kissed him lightly once more, and rose to stand beside the box bed. “You will be fine, Lord Merrik. Whoever tried to kill you wasn’t good enough.”
Suddenly he saw coldness in her eyes where there had been such heat but a moment before. The coldness was stark and hard and real, but gone so quickly he wasn’t certain that he hadn’t imagined it. He said nothing.
She smiled again, and left him, saying over her shoulder, “It is very late. I will come back to you tomorrow.”
It was near to dawn when Weland came to their sleeping chamber. Merrik was awake, thinking, Laren asleep, pressed against his bare shoulder. He felt very little pain and blessed Helga for her medicinal skills if for nothing else.
“My lord,” Weland said quietly.
“Aye, what is it? Rollo is all right?”
“It is Fromm, Helga’s husband. He is dead.”
23
IT WAS JUST past dawn. Rollo was still in his huge bed, piled high with reindeer furs from Norway, golden fox furs from the Danelaw, and thick white miniver from the Bulgar. Otta stood back, watching Rollo shake his head, yawn deeply, then turn his dark eyes on his face. Weland said then, “Fromm was afoot in Rouen with some of his drunken friends. I’m sorry, sire, but he’s dead. There was a fight—”
“There are always fights,” Rollo said, rubbing at the swelled joints of his fingers. Even at this early hour he knew it would rain, for the air was heavy and thick, making his joints swell, and he was already suffering from it, the moment he awoke, he suffered. By all the gods, he hated the betrayal of his body, but then again, he was still strong, he still had all his teeth and all his wits. What was a bit of pain in his joints?
He sighed, then thought, so, that bully Fromm is dead. He was much younger than I yet he is dead and I’m not. Will anyone care? Certainly not Helga. He’d made a mistake with Fromm, he’d acknowledged to himself long ago. The man had been a miserable son-in-law, giving nothing, preening and strutting about because he was now kin to the great Rollo of Normandy. He’d not even given Helga any children, but perhaps that wasn’t his fault. Rollo said to Otta, his voice emotionless, “Fights over women, over honor, over nothing worth anything. Why would Fromm die in this one? Did he not attack men smaller than he? If he didn’t, he was more careless than usual.”
“Nay, sire, there were many men smaller than Fromm, but none of them were hurt. Nonetheless, somehow, he was killed, stabbed through the throat, he was. We will bury him tomorrow if you wish it. I recommend it. We don’t want his spirit to hover here. His would be a malignant ghost.”
Rollo gave his minister an ironic grin. “You forget that you are now a Christian, Otta?”
Otta actually paled, his hands went to his belly, and Rollo laughed. “Aye, we’re all Christians, but we’ll pray that damned Christian God understands our heathen ways for a while longer. Aye, we’ll bury Fromm on the morrow. I wish Weland to question all these small men who were in the fight and managed to come out of it unscathed.”
He paused when Merrik and Laren came into his sleeping chamber.
“Sire,” Merrik said. “We came quickly. Weland told us about Fromm’s death.”
Rollo stared at Merrik’s arm, bound in soft white linen. “I find it odd. Do you not find it odd, Otta? Both Merrik and Fromm were attacked. You were the lucky one, Merrik.”
“Nay, he is simply a better fighter, uncle.”
“You are his wife and women are a fickle lot. Naturally you would believe so, at least now, at the beginning.”
Laren was startled by the testiness of his voice. Rollo looked old this morning, smaller somehow, burrowed down in all the furs that were piled high on the bed. His skin was deeply seamed, the veins bulging in his throat above the rich woolen bed tunic he wore. His hair was tousled, making him look faintly ridiculous. He sounded and acted like an old man with an old man’s rheums and querulousness. Ah, but it was his joints that pained him, made him peevish, all the rest of it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be.
She said carefully, despising herself for her unkind thoughts, “What will you do, uncle?”
“I will bury the damnable bully and find Helga another husband. She is looking quite fit for a woman of her years. Aye, another husband it is to be.”
“A man wants children. She is too old to bear children, sire,” Otta said.
“Aye, I am convinced that she never birthed a child because of her wicked potions. Ah, and poor Ferlain, birthing eight dead babes, none of them coming from her womb breathing. And my seed now as cold and dead as all of Ferlain’s babes. But no matter. I have William and the son his wife will doubtless birth. And I have Merrik and Laren. The man who takes Helga will be richer than he is now. Who knows, mayhap he will breach her potions and plant a babe in her womb.”
“One hears that she is distraught,” Otta said and plucked at his sleeve, his pale gray eyes on the spot of porridge spilled there just an hour before. He frowned at it. He disliked looking unkempt. His belly was always cramping and burning and forcing him to run many times to the privy. At least he could look flawless on the outside.
Rollo said, his voice peevish, “Aye, one hears many things. Leave me now, all of you save Laren. I wish you to tell me the rest of the story. You left Analea in the hands of that king in Bulgar.”
Laren smiled toward her husband, and said, “Aye, uncle, I will tell you the rest of the story.”
She was sick again, pale and sweaty, and she hated it. She rose slowly to her feet, stared down at the basin, and felt her belly knot and cramp again. She eased down on the box bed and tried to relax. The cramps continued. She tried to breathe through her mouth, slow, shallow breaths, and it helped.
Her old nurse, Risa, bent, thin, and quarrelsome, came into the sleeping chamber, clucked over her, thankfully said nothing, and took away the basin.
Laren slept. When she awoke it was nearly dark. The sleeping chamber was cast into deep shadows, and the stillness was oddly frightening. Suddenly there was no comfort here. This was a place of violence, a place of fear. The sleeping chamber was again as it was two years before.
She raised herself on her elbows, calling out quietly, her voice raw as a cold night, “Is anyone here? Merrik?”
There were whispers of sounds, surely there was something she heard, but no, there was only stillness and it seemed to grow, and with it the shadows, the encroaching darkness. She swallowed, but her throat was dry and it hurt. Then she heard it. A small noise, of little account really, but it was over there, in the far corner of the chamber, a noise that was like a wounded animal.
She held herself very still.
It came again, only closer this time. She wanted to cry out, but there was only dryness and pain in her throat. “Merrik,” she said, and wondered if his name was only in her mind for surely there had been no sound from her mouth.
“Who is there?”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, felt her belly knot and churn, and bowed her head, trying to keep from vomiting. Where was Risa? Why was she alone?
But she wasn’t alone. There was that sound again, so very soft, yet distinct, unlike any sound she’d ever heard.
“Who is there?”
It was different now, a rustling sound, no longer soft, no longer muted, and it was close. She looked toward the doorway. It seemed far beyond her, that doorway, the only way to escape this chamber and what was in this chamber and growing closer to her. When something touched her shoulder, she screamed, whirling about to see Ferlain beside her, her face as pale yet as distinct as a cold winter moon framed by utter darkness.
“How very strange you are, Laren. Why are you shaking? ’Twas you who startled me.”
There was black amusement in her voice. Laren tried to calm herself. It was but Ferlain, fat and slow Ferlain who whined and carped, but who was harmless, certainly no one to fear.
“You frightened me. Why is the chamber dark?”
“I don’t know. It was dark when I came in. I am only here to visit you. How do you feel?”
“Let us light a lamp.”
“Very well.” Ferlain held the oil-soaked wick next to a burning coal in the brazier near the box bed. Soon it burst into a small flame.
“I prefer the darkness, you know,” Ferlain said, staring at the flame. “But you don’t, do you? When I was your age I didn’t like the darkness either, but things change, you know. Always change, always grief and sorrow. But enough of that. Now you can see everything. Nothing is the matter, is it?”
Ferlain, such a common sight, comforting, the gray streaks of hair, the fat smooth hands. Surely there was nothing frightening about Ferlain. Laren said, “No, not really. I suppose when I wake up suddenly I remember that horrible night two years ago when the men came and took Taby and me.”
“Aye, that would be frightening. Helga is right. It was an act of mercy that you weren’t killed. Well, Taby died, didn’t he, but not you. No, you are safe and pregnant with that Viking’s babe and everything will be yours, if you survive the birth, that is. If your babe survives. I know that many babes never survive, Laren. Many babes are dead before they know life. My babes all died, you know.” Ferlain looked at the gleaming hot coals in the brazier, then back at her half sister. “Only it is not the same as it was before. You were to wed the prince of the Danelaw but you didn’t. He wed a Danish princess. Of course he would have taken you away from here, wouldn’t he? He would have made you live in the Danelaw. We hear that there is trouble there now, that soon the Danelaw will fall to the Saxons. The Wessex king is strong and growing stronger. Soon there will be no more Viking kings and the Danelaw will be ruled by Saxons again. The prince and his wife will lose everything. Mayhap you should have stayed away, Laren.”
“I couldn’t. Were you the one who hired the men to take us away, Ferlain?”
“I? My dear girl, why ever would I do that?” She laughed then, a fat merry laugh, but somehow it wasn’t funny, that laugh. Laren wished desperately for Merrik, for Risa, for anyone.
“I don’t know. I wish to leave the chamber now.”
“Oh, not just yet, Laren, not just yet. I wanted to speak to you, to warn you.” She leaned close, her heavy fingers closing about Laren’s upper arm. “Listen to me, Laren, for I have your best interests at heart. It is Rollo who is your enemy. He is old and bitter and he hates all of us, including you, including that Viking husband of yours. He hated Taby most of all because he was of Hallad’s seed and not his. He sired but one male and one female whilst Hallad’s seed was wild in its potency. Aye, Rollo hated his own brother. Did you know that he wanted your mother? Aye, ’tis true, and Hallad discovered that she, the faithless bitch, wanted to be the duchess of Normandy. Thus she wanted our father dead. She wanted Rollo. Did our father kill her? It seems very likely, does it not? Our father did run away, disappeared. But beware of Rollo. He is quite mad and he became madder still after she died and our father left. Aye, Laren, you should leave too.”
Laren stared up at her, felt her belly heave, and ran for the basin. She heard Ferlain laughing behind her as she retched and retched.
Fromm was buried with many of his favored belongings in a deep mossy grave on a hillside overlooking the Seine. His old slave was killed and laid beside him, his arms crossed over his chest, a rough wooden cross in his hands, a token sop to the Christian God, Rollo said. All of Fromm’s weapons, his clothing, and his prized chair posts were wrapped carefully and placed into the grave with him.
Helga was a magnificent widow, tall and beautiful, her face set and still, aye, a tragic brave figure. Fromm was buried quickly, despite the Christian tenets, for the Vikings believed deeply in the return of the corpse’s spirit as a ghost, a monster, who would bedevil them. And Fromm hadn’t been a good man when alive. What could his spirit be upon his death but a malicious ghost?
“It is over,” Rollo said, and turned away from the heavy mound that held no marker, no adornment, as was again the Viking way. When grass covered it once again, no stranger would know that it covered a body and riches. There would be a marker, but it would be placed near to the palace, where people would see it and know of all Fromm’s good works and bravery.
Rollo looked at Helga and Ferlain, then at Laren who stood close to Merrik. “I dreamed of Hallad last night,” he said. “I dreamed he came back and that he was angry at me. He wasn’t old, but as young and strong a man as I once was. Odd, but he even looked like me, and that isn’t right, for Hallad was very different from me, you remember that, don’t you, Helga? He wasn’t strong or fierce. And his hair was that damnable red, and thicker than a mink’s pelt. Ah, but the women loved Hallad, all of them, even those—”
Rollo looked down at his fingers. He began to rub the joints. Weland said quietly, “Sire, it is time to return to the palace. There is a man, a blacksmith by trade, who has asked to see you. It seems he knows about Fromm and the fight. I questioned the other men and none admit to any knowledge, just the violence and it was over quickly and Fromm was dead, nothing more than that, they all swear to it.”
Rollo nodded and followed his lieutenant. He said over his shoulder, “My sweet Laren, you and Merrik will dine with me, just you two. I would speak to Merrik about King Charles and his sly ministers, pigs all of them, so William tells me. Merrik must know all of this before he travels to Paris to meet William and the Frankish king. Otta knows many of them for he has spent much time in
King Charles’s court in Paris.”
Merrik smiled down at his wife. “How do you feel, sweeting?”
She listened inward for a moment, then laced her fingers through his. “Your babe is sleeping, thank the gods.”
“I spoke to Helga. She said that this illness will not last many more weeks. She said the sicker you are now, the more the signs say that you will birth a boy. But I care not, Laren. I just want you smiling again, or yelling. Then I can argue with you without worry or guilt, and you can shout at me and insult me.”
“Aye, that I would like, for you are growing very settled in your ways. You are too confident in your own opinions since I am too busy retching to gainsay you.” She touched her fingers to his sleeve. “There are other things I miss as well, my lord.”
His eyes darkened and she knew that look, that need in him that brought him so very close to her. For those moments, he was hers and only hers. She could pretend that he loved her, for he was generous in the giving of pleasure, and the words he spoke to her in his passion moved her and brought her to her own pleasure. Aye, the deepness of his voice moved her unbearably and the movement of him over her and within her as he spoke to her. She wanted him desperately.
Not long thereafter, in their sleeping chamber, Merrik walked her toward the box bed with its magnificent miniver spread. He eased her onto her back and unfastened the brooches at her shoulders. He quickly undressed her, saying nothing, just watching his fingers as they removed her clothing, watching his fingers as they touched her bare flesh. When he caressed her breast, balanced over her on his elbow above her, she arched up into his palm.
“Your nipples are larger and darker,” he said, and very gently took her into his mouth. His tongue, hot and skilled, scraped over her flesh, making her gasp at the pleasure such a simple action could bring her. She finally cupped her hands around his face, pulling at him. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his mouth wet, his eyes deep and bluer than she’d ever seen them. He was beautiful, this man who was hers, at least here, when he wanted her.
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