Hauk pulled Merewin through the opened doorway into a dark interior. After the bright sunlight outdoors, the darkness blinded. Merewin felt the stuffed humanity in the room. The smell of smoke from a central fire pit mixed with the aroma of cooking meat and the tang of unwashed bodies.
Hauk’s voice boomed out, making her jump. “I present Merewin from Northumbria, daughter to the Witch of the Woods, and reputed healer.” He pulled her forward, still talking. “I claim her as thrall, as is my right as commander of the raid.” He pulled her up before him, back pressed against his chest, his hands clamped tightly over slender shoulders showing his mastery.
Somehow this blatant show of dominance didn’t annoy Merewin as much as it should. In fact it calmed her somewhat. As she adjusted to the dimness, the faces of curious Danes came into view. Warriors and women shooed children out the door. Those remaining stared, waiting. Merewin put her hand to her mouth and coughed.
A man with a long mustache stepped forward. Those around him parted, allowing him to walk freely. His stride was purposeful, strong, his mouth grim. He stopped.
“Welcome to my fire, healer from Northumbria. I am Ragnar Lothbrok, the one responsible for bringing you here.”
What exactly was the proper response to that? Merewin wasn’t sure so she bowed her head slightly and then looked up again into the man’s tired eyes. His physical need pulled at her. She felt his exhaustion and worry like it was a disease weighing against his whole spirit. He seemed to hold his breath as he measured her.
Hauk’s voice once again jarred her. “Merewin is ill from the cold and exhaustion of our difficult voyage.”
On cue, Merewin sneezed, glancing down at the last moment so as not to spray the king. The king stepped back.
“She cannot heal until she is well,” Hauk explained.
A shrill voice bit out through the hush. “If she were a true healer, she would not be ill. She is useless to you, Ragnar.” A woman, approximately Merewin’s own age, stepped out of the gloom. She had long, braided blond hair and fine features, but her expression turned her visage predatory, ugly. She smiled seductively at Hauk. “I’m sure Hauk will agree with me.”
Hatred flashed through Merewin. She didn’t even know this woman, but every bit of intuition Merewin possessed labeled her an enemy.
“Svala, you don’t know that yet,” another woman said and walked forward. This second woman was plumper, with soft features and dark circles below red rimmed eyes. As she neared Merewin, the heaviness of the woman’s heart nearly took her breath away. The mother. Merewin swallowed hard. It was the same pain she had felt in the other mother, pain born of intense worry and guilt. She stopped before Merewin and tried to smile.
“I am Aslaug, wife of Ragnar Lothbrok, and mother of Ivarr. You are here to save my son, and I welcome you with all my heart.” She reached to take Merewin’s hands but Ragnar pushed them away.
“She is ill, Aslaug. Don’t touch her until she is well,” her husband said.
“Again,” Svala said from her place several paces behind the royal couple. “I must protest. This woman,” she said eyeing Merewin with disdain as if the word wasn’t worthy of her, “is a mere illusionist. No healer would be ill.”
Merewin watched Aslaug stiffen. The pain the woman caused was cruel. Or was it? Was it not more cruel to give Aslaug hope?
“I am a healer,” Merewin started evenly, staring into Aslaug’s eyes. Hope flared there and Merewin’s stomach rolled. “But I have limits.” She had to warn them. She’d rather die than build up hope in another set of parents just to watch their pain when their child died.
Aslaug continued to stare with anticipation.
“Limits,” Svala scoffed. “Illusionists couldn’t heal my husband and couldn’t heal your family, Hauk.”
Ragnar held up his hand and the bitter woman stopped.
Merewin took a deep breath. “I have healed many adults, but not children. The younger a child is, the harder it is to heal.”
“He is past a year,” Aslaug said quickly. “Almost to two now.”
Ragnar squeezed his wife’s arm.
Merewin nodded because it felt impossible not to in response to the desperation in Aslaug’s voice.
Ragnar looked at Merewin. “Hauk has told you our history?”
“Nay,” Hauk said. “I thought it best coming from you.”
Ragnar bent to Aslaug’s ear. She nodded and walked away as Ragnar spoke quietly.
Merewin followed Aslaug peripherally as she glided over to several women near a raised platform against a wall. A child lay under a fur there.
“Aslaug has born me three children. Ivarr being the last. Each of them seems normal when they are born, but weaken over time. The other two only made it to two years before they died. Ivarr shows the same weakness. I fear that when,” Ragnar paused, and ran his hand over his forehead. “If,” he corrected. “If he dies, Aslaug’s mind will die with him.” He cleared his voice thick with emotion. “So I sent for you because the gods have foretold that you can save my son and my wife. You are the healer that will do what others could not. You will save my son—” he stopped to stare intensely at Merewin “—because you must.”
Merewin tried not to lower her eyes, but it was difficult under such intensity. For a moment, she glimpsed the strength in this man, this king. A strength that could build a man up or crush him. Aye, he could crush her in his retaliation against nature and what it was doing to his family.
Still looking in his eyes, Merewin gave a brief nod. “I will do all I can for yer son. That I can promise. The results will be up to the Earth Mother.”
Ragnar looked above her to Hauk’s face.
“Her god,” Hauk supplied.
Ragnar gave a brisk nod and turned in dismissal.
“I,” Merewin called. “I would like to see the child.”
“She’s ill; she will make him ill,” Svala said.
Who was this woman? Her sneer had a strangely familiar cast to it.
Hauk leaned down so his lips brushed Merewin’s ear.
“Bjalki’s sister and sister-in-law to the king. Her husband died of disease three years ago,” he said, and it took Merewin a breath before the words registered past the sensations his touch thrummed through her body. Bjalki’s sister. Now she saw the family resemblance.
“I willna harm him,” Merewin added. “I must know what I will need to bring with me once I am well. I would like to prepare.” Perhaps she could use herbs and techniques she had learned from Navlin to help him. Traditional, non-magick.
Ragnar nodded and pointed to where Aslaug stood, holding a little limp hand.
Svala huffed loudly and addressed Hauk. “I didn’t think you would claim a thrall who lies that she is a healer, Hauk, not after…”
Bera’s voice interrupted Svala. “Enough of your venom, Svala. We are all tired and your voice wears on us.”
Svala’s mouth closed and opened and closed again like a mackerel gasping for air.
Merewin tried to take a step toward Aslaug with Hauk still pinned to her back.
He relaxed the hold on her shoulders and walked behind.
Some of the other women stepped back as she approached. One nursemaid sat next to the boy while Aslaug held the small hand.
Merewin noticed a small twitch in the boy’s other hand.
He laid there, his eyes open but blank. His expression was not pained or happy, really not any expression at all, as if he were asleep.
“We wonder sometimes if he can still see,” Aslaug said, as she ran her hand down his cheek.
Merewin nodded. “Can ye pull back the fur so I can see him better,” She held up her hands. “I willna touch him.”
Aslaug nodded and the nursemaid pulled back the fur.
The child’s stomach was distended.
Merewin looked at it without touching. “Did this happen recently?”
Aslaug nodded and Merewin saw the tears in her eyes. “It was the same in my other babies,” A
slaug said, and Merewin heard the guilt in her voice.
She looked at Aslaug while the nursemaid covered Ivarr back up.
“My Lady,” Merewin said softly. “Ye do know that ye are not at fault for this.”
Aslaug’s eyes filled, the tears overflowing her lashes. “Of course it is my fault. I am cursed to lose my babies. Why else would this happen three times?”
“Nay,” Merewin shook her head and kept her voice even. “Nature is cruel, sometimes without reason, at least a reason that we can understand. But if ye have done naught to intentionally harm yer children, ye are not at fault for this. It is beyond yer control, and it has nothing to do with yer goodness as a mother.” Merewin nodded to emphasize her point. “In fact, from what I’ve seen of ye so far, ye have done all ye can to help yer child.”
Merewin looked back to the little boy, so still except for a twitch here and there. “A bad mother would abandon him, but ye fight for him.” Merewin looked back to Aslaug. “Like a warrior.” Merewin smiled reassuringly. “And he needs yer strength, Aslaug.” Merewin looked behind them to where Ragnar watched closely. “And I think yer husband needs yer amazing strength as well.”
Aslaug’s voice was soft but steadier. “I am weak. I have put two babes in the ground, and—”
Merewin cut her off, “and ye are still standing. That makes ye the strongest woman I know.”
Aslaug wet her lips and ran a hand up over mussed hair. She nodded slightly as if conceding the point. “Warrior you say?”
Merewin smiled and nodded. “The bravest I’ve seen.”
Aslaug wiped the tears and gave a small smile still filled with sadness. She looked back to Ivarr. “I will pray to the gods then and thank them for sending you.”
Merewin tensed and breathed deeply. In helping this woman hold on to her sanity was she raising her hopes?
Finally Merewin nodded. “I will do what I can to help him. Meanwhile, as all good warriors do, pray for strength, too.”
Aslaug tipped her chin forward as if in prayer.
“I willna touch him,” Merewin said and moved her hands several inches away from the boy’s skin. She closed her eyes and let the magick of the earth beneath her feet flow up. Like opening a floodgate, the power rushed up her legs, through her hands. She just needed to touch the disease that filled the wee body.
She coursed over the lines that ran through his small frame, through the muscles, along the bones. It was as if the normal energy that gave the body movement was blocked, deadened, so the energy couldn’t move. It stagnated in spots causing the twitching, Merewin thought. The belly distended because the muscles of the stomach and intestines were not working properly. The boy’s heart still beat, but its pulse was being weighed upon. There was no doubt that this boy was to die.
With the power pulsing upward Merewin reached out to pull some of the thick coating of disease from his muscles. She slid the invisible thread through the boy, twisting it around the blockage. Nothing released. She pulled harder and felt her force slip, falling away from the disease. Merewin’s breathing increased as she fought for hold on the disease wrapped around and through his entire body. But she couldn’t get a good grip. She looked at him.
Ivarr’s gaze remained expressionless. He should feel the warmth of her magick in him, feel the tingling along his small muscles. Yet he laid still, an occasional twitch in his hands.
Merewin’s strength seeped out as she tried once more to pull at the heaviness in the boy. She grew weaker, until her legs buckled. She pulled her arms back as she plopped on the dirt floor next to the ledge.
“Merewin?” Hauk bent to pick her up.
Bela, jarred from the fall, pawed her way out of Merewin’s hair.
“A rat!” the nursemaid screamed causing shrieks to run through the ladies nearby.
Several ran away as Bela jumped up on the ledge to sniff the little boy.
Hauk picked Merewin up in his arms.
“Doona harm her,” Merewin called. “She’s my pet and quite tame.” Merewin reached for Bela.
Just as Merewin pulled her pet away, the child turned his head in the mink’s direction and smiled. It was slight, but it was there. A smile, more like a curious grin.
Bela scurried up to sit in Merewin’s lap as Hauk carried her toward the door.
Merewin stroked the soft fur under her hand as she thought.
Hauk paused near the door where Ragnar stood. “Merewin will recover at my holding.”
“Bjalki challenges you for her,” Ragnar said.
Merewin’s look snapped up to the king. She hadn’t seen the cruel looking man in the hall, only his sister.
Svala stepped up in his place. “Aye, for some reason my brother has an interest in the thrall,” she drawled, looking down her nose at Merewin. Svala dripped dankness like a diseased beast.
If Merewin weren’t the obvious target of her bitterness, she would have pitied the woman.
Svala eyed her as if she were nothing more than a dirty mongrel. “I suppose we can care for the creature until she is recovered enough to tend Ivarr.”
Hauk’s voice was low, belying the tightening of his arms. He looked directly at the king. “I meet his challenge, but first Merewin goes to my holding. She is weak and I am responsible for her health.”
Merewin’s heart slammed in her chest.
If Bjalki and his rabid sister took her, she would die a slow, cruel death.
Merewin leaned closer into Hauk’s body.
Hauk stared into the king’s face until Ragnar nodded. “As much as I would like to witness the challenge to my arrogant brother-in-law—” Svala gasped but Ragnar ignored her “—there will be no challenges until the healer is well enough to heal my son. Then you two can slash each other to bits so that the gods can choose where the healer will live.”
Aslaug stepped into the tight circle and touched Ragnar’s arm. She whispered something fierce in his ear.
Ragnar’s bushy eyebrow arched upward. He looked at Merewin. “To add to your incentive—” he stressed the word “—to save my son, if you bring him to health, I will pay for your freedom.”
Svala muttered something like a curse and turned away.
Hauk’s arms squeezed just a bit tighter. “Her price will be set too high, even for you.”
Ragnar’s other eyebrow rose to join the first.
Hauk turned to step out into the light.
“Wait,” Merewin said. She tried to wiggle out of Hauk’s arms, but he held her tight and turned back.
She felt foolish being carried, but if she began to fight Aslaug would return to the boy. Merewin had a glimmer of a plan.
“Yer son, he likes animals?”
Aslaug nodded. “He has a dog and loved to play with him before, when he could.”
“Ye still have the dog?”
“Aye,” Ragnar said. “We keep him out of the hall.”
Merewin looked at Ragnar, her earlier thoughts beginning to solidify in her mind. She shook her head and tried to sit up straighter in Hauk’s arms. “Doona keep them apart.”
Ragnar and Aslaug looked confused.
Merewin tempered her words, not wanting to add false hope. “Yer son is very ill. But I think having things around that he loves will help.” Could help me help him, she mused silently.
Aslaug dropped Ragnar’s arm. “Asta, find the pup,” she directed one of the ladies. “Bring him here to Ivarr,” she said and walked to her son.
Ragnar watched Aslaug go, and then looked to Merewin.
“Whatever you said to her,” he indicated the direction where his son lay, “over there. She seems stronger.”
Merewin stroked Bela in her lap again as the small weasel balled up against her stomach. “The strongest people I’ve ever met are mothers fighting for their children, King Ragnar.” Hadn’t she seen that in her own mother who had sent her daughters away with her powers, leaving her to face the demons as a helpless woman? She’d certainly seen it in Northumbria whenever a mother c
ame to beg Navlin’s services for her child. Merewin looked toward Aslaug where she kissed Ivarr’s forehead. “When they give up or turn their hatred from the sickness toward themselves, they punish themselves, beat themselves down, as if they’re the ones to destroy. I just tried to remind her that she was not the enemy and that yer son needs her to be his warrior.”
“You’ve healed her with mere words?” Ragnar asked softly.
“There’ll be time to question her later,” Hauk said, frustration edging his voice. He turned without giving her or Ragnar a chance to say more. He stepped with her out into the crimson glow of the lowering sun.
“Ye can put me down, Hauk.”
“Nay, you are weak.”
“Not weak enough to walk.”
“Weak enough to fall on the floor.”
He approached a tall horse and pushed her upon it. Merewin grabbed quickly to the mane while Bela scampered up to her shoulder. Merewin’s fingers wound in the bristly hair, her legs clasping the wide girth of the beast. She had only been on two horses her entire life and both times she had feared for her life.
Hauk swung up behind her, his powerful thighs flanking her own. His arms locked on either side as he tapped the horse’s sides. They leapt into an easy run. After several minutes of dodging pedestrians and animals, they moved into an open field. Merewin relaxed into Hauk’s strength at her back. She knew he wouldn’t let her fall. His pride in protecting his property wouldn’t allow it, she mused.
The wind whipped against her cheeks, washing through, cleansing her after the drain of Ragnar’s hall. They loped to the edge of the woods, and Hauk slowed his horse to a walk. As they stepped from the deepening dusk behind them into the shadows of the great trees, Hauk leaned forward, his voice a deep whisper against her ear.
“These groves are sacred. We walk through them.”
“Magical trees? I thought ye doona believe in magick.” She tried to ignore the sensation of his breath against the delicate skin of her ear, tried not to will that warm breath to move down her neck.
Magick (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 2) Page 9