Season of the Sun

by Catherine Coulter

Helgi taught her to cure fish. She held up a trout that she had just cleaned and gutted. “We will smoke-dry it and then salt it. When there is a fierce storm and fishing is impossible, then you will have a good reserve of dried fish and thus won’t go hungry. You see here, Zarabeth, you hold the fish open by these wooden skewers, and we hang them up by these tiny wooden rods passed through the heads.”

  Helgi taught her to comb flax fibers, making them fine and soft and free of all tangles. Zarabeth knew how to spin her thread on spindles, but Helgi knew ways of twisting the fibers more tightly together so that the thread was stronger and more enduring.

  Ingunn did nothing more than her mother instructed her to do. She watched, and there was no more fury on her face, just blankness and a strange kind of stillness. It was the stark absence of feeling rather than the bouts of rage that bothered Zarabeth.

  Cyra had decided that she would take Horkel, and announced it to Zarabeth. She seemed to have forgotten that she herself was a slave, for after all, Zarabeth had also been a slave, yet now she was mistress of the farmstead. As for Horkel, he ignored Cyra whenever he saw her during the day, but each night he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the longhouse. In the morning she was smiling and looking well-pleased with herself. Magnus said nothing, and his silence was in itself agreement with whatever Horkel wished.

  Cyra did what Zarabeth bade her do, without complaint, as did the other servants and slaves.

  Life went on, continuing with such an air of normalcy, with such obliviousness of what had happened, that Zarabeth realized with the force of someone striking her that she could not be a part of it. It was beyond her to pretend that everything was normal and the same as it had been before. She watched all the men and women, listened to them speak and laugh and argue. She couldn’t bear it. She was plunged into such a depression that she simply withdrew into herself. She worked and she oversaw all the cooking and cleaning and planting, for it was her responsibility. But she remained apart from it. Still, she realized that the different tasks, the plain hard work, the monotonous chores, did grant her something—they dulled her mind.

  Aunt Eldrid continued with her weaving; it was all that she did, and she did it well. She played with the children, instructing the girls, but there were harsh lines bracketing her mouth now and her eyes were bleak. Helgi avoided her sister, and Zarabeth wondered at it, as would someone who was vaguely curious, nothing more.

  She worked until she was so tired she wasn’t even hungry. Magnus said nothing to her about it. When she fell into bed, he merely took her into his arms and held her. As for Magnus, life had never seemed so completely out of his control, nor had he ever experienced such endless pain as he did now. His son, his little boy who was only eight years old, was gone from him. His features remained impassive with the knowledge of it, but deep inside, he wondered if he would survive it. And as he lay in bed during the long hours of the half-twilight night, he tried to fill his mind with memories.

  He hadn’t spent many summers at home, for the sea and trading had blossomed early and passionate in his blood. Indeed, this was the first summer in five years he had been here, hunting, helping in the fields, for like Zarabeth, he found that the harder he worked, the easier the time passed. And he knew he couldn’t leave her, not yet. As he lay there in his bed, Zarabeth’s gentle breath warm against his heart, he shifted from memories to his brother, Jon. He wondered where Jon was traveling to this summer. He had taken his boat, Black Raven, and his twenty men, young and brave and eager, all of them, and had left just the week before. Magnus wondered if he would be raiding near Kiev, for he enjoyed the savages of those strange regions, particularly did he enjoy fighting them and killing them and taking slaves and earning more and more gold and silver through his trading skill when he sold them to the Arabs and to the wealthy men who lived in the golden city of Miklagard.

  Magnus wished he was there now, with Jon, with the wind on his face and a fight to consider. He wished he had never met Zarabeth, never become ensnared with Lotti’s loving nature, never allowed himself to go back for her. But it had happened, and as he had told Zarabeth, nothing could change what had happened. But acceptance remained hard, for both Lotti and his son were dead. Dead and gone from him. But he couldn’t accept it. It held on to his mind, eating at him.

  Zarabeth stirred, moaning softly, and he tightened his hold on her and kissed her temple. His wife.

  On the morning of the third day, his parents packed their chests and prepared to leave.

  “I have taught Zarabeth much,” Helgi told her son. “She is a bright girl, and willing. You have chosen well, Magnus.” She paused a moment, stroking her long fingers over her son’s soft white tunic. “But she is so hurt and raw. She tries to hide it, but it is hard for her. I watch her sometimes and I can tell that she has gone away, deep inside herself, where the pain lessens. As for you, Magnus, it isn’t as hard for you to hide what you feel, but your pain goes as deep as hers. You are more withdrawn than she is. The two of you together can heal each other, if you will but allow it. I don’t suppose you have yet told her that you care for her?”

  He shook his head. “I do not care for her,” he said, and his voice was firm and strong and the lie was so evident to his mother that she had to duck her head away to hide her incredulous smile. “It is true. I had no choice. I was responsible for all that happened. It was my duty to fix what could be fixed. I could not allow Lotti’s sister to continue as a slave.”

  Helgi continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Zarabeth is also a girl who has not known much affection, at least since her mother died. Thus, she lavished all her love upon the child. If you would let her, she would confer all that love on you. Can you imagine such love?”

  “She should give me her love, and she will. She is my wife. She owes me her loyalty. She pledged it to me, you will remember.”

  “You always were a stubborn boy,” Helgi remarked with some amusement. “But, my son, facts have a way of coming to look one in the face. Do not keep your eyes closed for too long a time, Magnus.” Helgi kissed him, found Zarabeth standing alone at the end of the hall, and hugged her close, saying, “Don’t forget that woad dyeing is very unpleasant in its process and in its smell, for ’tis such nasty stuff. But once you have bathed the cloth two times—forget not, Zarabeth, two times—then the beautiful blue will appear and you will think that it was worth it. It is, also, a very handsome color on Magnus. It matches the vivid blue of his eyes.”

  “Two times,” Zarabeth said, and gave her mother-in-law a small smile.

  Helgi blinked. It was the first time she had seen Zarabeth even attempt a smile. It transformed her face. She said a brief silent prayer and turned to her husband.

  Ingunn left with her parents. Before she left, she said to Zarabeth, “I will find a way, you whore. Oh, aye, I will find a way.”

  Zarabeth stared at her but said nothing. Ingunn was leaving. She wouldn’t have to deal with her again.

  Even though fifty people lived and worked at the Malek farmstead, without Magnus’ parents and brother and their retainers, it seemed quiet, too quiet. Zarabeth found herself going every morning, after Magnus and his men had left to hunt, to the sacred place. It was a temple set inside a small circular wooden fence at the back of the farmstead. She didn’t know the rituals of the Viking religion, and no one bothered to tell her if what she did was right or not. Actually, she treated the small wooden temple as she would a Christian church. She knelt inside and prayed.

  It brought her a measure of peace. She wished she could ask Magnus about it, but she didn’t. He was distant, seldom within her hearing and sight, and very quiet even when he was there. There was not much laughter now at Malek.

  He offered her comfort and she recognized it in his silence, in the gentleness of his hand when he touched her shoulder. It was as if he knew when the black despair overcame her.

  He didn’t touch her save to offer support and consolation. She was grateful, but she had no words to express that
gratitude. She existed, and endured.

  She had been his wife for nearly two weeks when Magnus realized suddenly one morning, just looking at her, that lust once again was swelling his member. He wanted her. He watched her reach up to pull down an iron pot from a hook. The movement drew her gown tightly across her breasts. He looked and felt the familiar swelling of his member.

  He drew a deep breath and slowly rose from his chair.

  20

  Zarabeth turned at his approach. Without thought, without conscious decision, she smiled at him.

  Magnus came to a dead halt. Her smile warmed him to his heart, and he found that he was smiling back at her. Then, as he watched her, it seemed that she realized that she was smiling, realized that it was wrong of her to smile, for Lotti and Egill were dead, and the smile fell away, leaving that damnable blankness in her expression.

  He shook his head and came to her then where she was stirring porridge in the huge iron pot. He leaned down, lifted the thick braid off her neck, and kissed her. Her flesh was moist with the heat from the fire and sweet with the scent that was hers. The slave collar was gone. Her flesh was soft and smooth again. She tried to draw away, for there were many in the longhouse, and she hated to think that they were looking and seeing Magnus kiss her. Nor did she want him to touch her. It made her want to shrink inside herself, to pull the coldness deeper and keep it close.

  “Don’t move,” he said against her throat, and kissed her again, his mouth firm and smooth.

  She stopped her stirring, and her hand fell away from the long-handled spoon.

  She waited; she suffered him. He stopped then, and he pressed his forehead against hers. Then he raised his head and simply looked down at her. It was as if he were trying to make a decision, trying to figure something out. She said nothing, merely waited.

  “You are my wife,” he said, and kissed her mouth. “Don’t forget that, Zarabeth.” He kissed her again, lightly, gently, not trying to part her lips, then released her. She started back, her face pale, her hands in front of her as if to ward him off. He said nothing.

  That evening when Magnus and his men returned with a freshly killed wild boar, he went immediately to the bathhouse, as was his wont. When he came into the longhouse, he strode to her as if she were the only person in the room, and took her in his arms. He kissed her in front of all his people, and if he was aware that she was stiff and unresponsive, he made no sign of it. Again she suffered him, not moving. He hugged her, kissed her eyebrows, her nose, her jaw. When he released her, he looked grave, but still he said nothing.

  Whilst they ate veal stew, scooping up the thick gravy with fresh warm bread, Magnus turned to her and said, “What did you do today?”

  She stared at him. Such a mundane inquiry. It shook her, this realization that life continued with no pauses in its allotment of minutes and hours, no differences to show that death had come. She was silent for many moments.

  “The meal is good. You prepared it well.”

  “Thank you, your aunt Eldrid helped me with the herbs. I . . . I have done the mending today. There were several of your tunics that were in need of my needle. There was blood on another one from one of your kills. Your mother showed me how to remove bloodstains.”

  He smiled at her and took another bite of veal stew.

  “I also had Haki make a figure stuffed with grass and straw and stick him on a wooden pole to frighten away the birds. They would eat all our apples if I hadn’t done something. Perhaps it will also be useful in the barley fields. I had heard about it from a traveling merchant in York. The farmers in King Alfred’s Wessex use them.”

  In the past, one of the servants would remain in the orchard banging on a brass plate to keep the birds away. Now that servant could be used elsewhere, if her straw figure worked. “It is a good idea, and we will see if the birds agree. I am very fond of apples. Will you make apple jelly this fall for the winter?”

  She nodded.

  “Is all in readiness for Horkel and Cyra?”

  “Aye, very nearly. Aunt Eldrid is making more of her special beer.”

  Since Eldrid’s beer was actually from his mother’s own recipe, Magnus merely nodded.

  “What did you do today?”

  “I killed a wild boar.” He paused a moment, scooping up peas with his spoon. “I set several of the women to preparing the meat.”

  When she would speak, he added, “I knew you had no experience in it. There will be time. You need no more to do right now.”

  It was kind of him, she knew. She sighed and took a sip of milk. After the meal she directed the women to their duties and listened absently to the men speak of the day’s hunt.

  She heard Ragnar, a man who still held her in dislike, say suddenly, fury in his voice, “It is Orm—even his father knows it, and has rejected him. It seems he failed to kill everyone on the Ingolfsson farmstead. One of the women survived. She will speak against him at the meeting of the thing. He will be banished, if he isn’t killed first by one of the Ingolfsson men, and all that he owns will be forfeit for the lives he has taken.”

  The man Ingunn had wanted to wed, Zarabeth thought. Orm Ottarsson, the man she still swore was innocent. Zarabeth tried to stir up a bit of pity for Magnus’ sister, for this man was worthy of no one, but she could find none.

  The other men added their thoughts and opinions—there were many, for they had drunk much beer—until one of them, a slender fellow named Hakon, who seemed to wear a perpetual frown, said, “Magnus, you agree, do you not? You will go to the thing, won’t you?”

  “Aye,” Magnus said after some moments. “I suppose I must go. My father has asked it of me.”

  Ragnar made a rude noise. “He scarce hears you, Hakon, for his mind is on her.”

  Magnus didn’t allow his anger to show. He smiled and rose. “What you say is true, Ragnar. She is beautiful and she is gentle, and she is my wife.”

  Zarabeth was sitting near the far wall, sewing a tunic for Magnus, when suddenly he was there, standing over her.

  “It is time to retire. Come.”

  She nodded, set aside the fine soft blue woolen material, and rose. She followed him to his chamber, not pausing until she was in the room itself. She remembered then his kiss of the morning and stilled.

  The room was cast in the dim light of the summer half-night.

  “Zarabeth? Come to me now.”

  She didn’t want to. She wanted no reminders that she was flesh and blood, that feelings coursed through her, that she had felt deep passion at one time, a time when she had been whole, a time when she had wanted all of him, all of those unknown emotions. She wanted to live, that was true, she wanted to continue, and to feel life, but this losing of oneself in another . . . no, she didn’t want him to touch her and come inside her.

  “Zarabeth, I will not tell you again.”

  She knew there was no choice. She took off her gown but left on her shift. It came nearly to her knees.

  She lay on her back, staring up into the darkness. Magnus said nothing, merely propped himself on his elbow and leaned over her. “I would take you now, Zarabeth. It is time. We have need of each other. Let me give you comfort and pleasure.”

  She didn’t move. She felt Magnus’ mouth touch first her cheek and then her mouth. He was gentle, his tongue lightly probing against her closed lips.

  Magnus realized very quickly that she had locked herself away from him. It infuriated him even as he understood it. He kissed her harder, forcing her now, furious that she would be cold as a stone when he was so hot, his mouth burning, his member throbbing with need against her thigh. Why was she doing this to him? He was her husband.

  He touched her breast lightly, with just his fingertips, and was further enraged because she still wore her shift. He wanted to rip it off her, but he didn’t.

  He was surprised at the calm of his voice when he said, “Take off the shift, Zarabeth. There is never to be anything between us at night.”

  When she didn
’t immediately obey him, he forced her upright and began to work the shift up over her hips. She yielded to him then, and soon he had pulled the shift over her head and tossed it to the floor. “Now,” he said.

  She lay on her back, cold and alone, nurturing the emptiness inside her, focusing on it. She was fully aware of his warm hands on her body, of his mouth touching her breast. When his fingers found her and began a gentle rhythm, she felt a burgeoning awareness in that emptiness, a beckoning in the deepest part of her, and she tried to jerk away from him. These feelings weren’t right, she didn’t deserve them.

  He held her down, his fingers splayed on her belly. “I know there is passion inside you, for I have tasted it and felt it and taken it into me. Why do you punish me with your coldness? Why do you punish yourself?”

  “I cannot,” she whispered against his shoulder, her fisted hands against his chest. “Please, no, Magnus, please.”

  He gave an animal growl and came over her, pressing her legs apart and settling himself between them. He kissed her again, teasing her, using all his skill to make her respond, but she was locked against him. He hated it and he hated her in that moment, and with a growl of fury he reared back, lifted her hips in his hands, and came into her. She wasn’t ready for him and he felt her pain and the stretching of her woman’s flesh. But he didn’t stop until he touched her womb. He looked down at her and saw in the dim light that her eyes were tightly closed. “Damn you,” he said, “open your eyes!” He began to move. Soon her flesh eased and dampened and he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer. She was so cold and still beneath him, so very apart from him. His body pulsed with an anger that grew and grew, and with it, his endless need for her, a need that he now accepted. Though he wanted to curse her and dominate her and force her to accept him with a passion to match his own, he knew this time he had failed.

  He concentrated on his own passion, on the swollen need, and on the release when it came. He arched his back and cried out, and in that instant he forgot all but this moment of pleasure, this instant of sheer feeling that blotted out the damnable pain. He rolled off her and away onto his back. He said nothing for many moments, not until his heart slowed and he knew he was again in control.