“Is it really bottomless, Cleve?” Chessa said, gazing down into the murky water.
“That’s what the men said.”
“Perhaps we’ll see the monster. Did the men say what it looked like?”
“There are many descriptions, beginning with Saint Columba over three hundred years ago. A sea serpent, most say, with a long skinny neck and a small head. The men talked of humps, but none could agree on the number.”
“There it is,” Eller called out, “Kinloch.” He pointed to the outcropping on the western side of the loch. It was high and stark and there was a huge wooden fortress atop it, no simple farmstead. It would be impenetrable, save from the land, which was a narrow strip that had been shorn of all foliage. Just a barren wide path that led to the longhouse. Only it wasn’t a longhouse, it was nothing like Malverne. It was a fortress. There were no outbuildings beside it, just the stark huge wooden building that sprawled over the entire top of the promontory.
The outbuildings, at least twenty of them, were clustered around the loch at the land end of the promontory, low squat wooden buildings with sod roofs. There were pens for cattle and sheep and goats. There was a large smokehouse, a bathing hut, a privy, two slave huts. It was a huge farmstead with fields of barley and rye and oats growing thick and tall behind the outbuildings, climbing upward to the fir-covered hills beyond, the barley turning the fields gold. Surrounding the entire land was a high wooden palisade, thick pine trunks lashed together with leather cord, reaching at least eight feet high. The end of each pine was sharpened into a fearsome point.
“It is a safe place,” Merrik said. “I would never worry that my property would be overrun by the Scots or the Picts or the Britons. As you did, Cleve, I listened well in Inverness yesterday. There are always raids, just forays really. There are no longer the ferocious fights between the Vikings and the Scots and the Picts since McAlpin became king in the last century.” He turned to Chessa. “He united the Scots and the Picts and moved their center far to the west, in Scone. Their king now is Constantine.”
Cleve said slowly, staring up at that immense wooden fortress. “I remember that just to the left inside the huge doors extends a thick wooden joint in the shape of a long sea serpent head. There are deep grooves in it and the cooking pots hang from it by chains. When the meal is done, one of the women simply moves the head from over the fire pit. I remember looking up at it, terrified because it looked so very real. My mother laughed and told me the monster served her and thus it wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
“Cleve, you said your mother died shortly before you were nearly killed. Do you remember any more about her?”
He shook his head. “No, I just remember that her hair was nearly as red as Laren’s, her eyes as green as yours, Chessa. She was small.”
“Now,” Merrik said, stroking his brown hand over his chin. “What do we do? I can’t imagine that your stepfather particularly wants to see your face again. I imagine he believes himself long safe from you after he sent you away. He must believe you long dead. We cannot storm that fortress, Cleve. It is impossible. There’s something else, and I know you’ve thought of it. Your brother, he must be dead, perhaps struck down when you were.”
“I know,” Cleve said. “I know. Now, I will go alone to the palisade and ask to see Lord Varrick. I will tell him that I am here to discuss matters of grave importance to him.”
“Ha,” Chessa said. “I don’t like your diplomat’s voice, Cleve. This man doesn’t sound reasonable like my father or like Duke Rollo. There is no chance I will let you go in alone. I’ve thought about this as have you.”
“I’ll count sticks, Papa, if you leave me,” Kiri said.
“Aye, you may accuse me of coercing your daughter,” Chessa said. “But we won’t let you go in there alone. Laren and Merrik will come as well. With the women and Kiri, no one could believe us to be enemies. Also, my lord Cleve, I am a princess. Never forget that. And Laren’s uncle is Duke Rollo. Surely your stepfather isn’t stupid.”
That was beyond foolish, but Cleve let it pass as did Merrik’s men, though they stared at their lord as if he’d just relieved himself on his own leg. None knew what could happen. But they also knew they couldn’t just stand here and wait. Chessa was a princess, the gods knew they’d all suffered enough for that fact.
Cleve didn’t want Chessa or Kiri anywhere near him, but when he tried again to argue with Chessa, she just looked at him and said, “Nay, don’t even think it. You are my husband. I will not let you go into that place alone. I will count sticks with Kiri.”
Cleve cursed. Their small group left all the men aboard the ships on the loch and walked to the wide palisade gates.
An old man called down to them from atop the rampart that ran along the inside of the wooden palisade. Cleve, as Chessa listened with a grin on her face, said, “I have news for Lord Varrick. As you see, we have a warship and a trading vessel and both are in the loch. All our men await us there. We mean no harm nor do we mean to attack. We are but two men and two women and a child. Take us to Lord Varrick.”
The old man spat, nodded, and opened the gate. Four men immediately appeared, ferocious-looking men in red deerskins, none of them either white or black gentiles, but men shorter than Cleve and Merrik, dark haired and dark eyed. Their faces were etched with dark blue paint in circular and rectangular patterns. They looked vicious and deadly.
Kiri tried to climb up Cleve’s leg. “Papa, they’re monsters.” She buried her face against his knee. “They’ll cut off our fingers and roast them over a fire.”
One of the men laughed, actually laughed, and it was a terrifying sound. “Nay, little one, we’re not monsters save to our enemies. Come and we will take you to Lord Varrick. Whether he will see you is another matter.”
Two of the men marched in front of them, the other two behind. Cleve’s knife was secured at his waist as was his sword and axe, Merrik’s as well. None of the men tried to take their weapons. A weapon was just part of a man’s clothing. Chessa had her own knife strapped to her thigh, as did Laren. Neither husband knew, and the women had decided that ignorance would suit them best.
“Men,” Laren had said as she handed Chessa a piece of stout leather to secure the knife to her leg, “men just don’t understand that women need to know they can protect them. They would scoff at such a notion. But Merrik is mine. I won’t allow anyone to hurt him. He was stabbed once in Rouen and didn’t tell me. I wanted to kill him.”
Chessa was entirely in agreement with Laren.
It was about one hundred steps, the land slightly rising with every step, to the huge fortress atop the promontory. Cleve was right, Chessa thought, as she gazed at it. She was getting colder by the moment even though the sun shone starkly down on her head. Oddly enough, the cold was on the inside. It made no sense at all.
The man who’d spoken first to them turned at the great door and said, “You will stay here. Hold the child. There are dogs and they might run over her and hurt her.”
Cleve lifted Kiri into his arms. She was frightened, but she didn’t say a word. He was proud of her.
They stood there before that huge oak door, weathered to dark brown, the iron bars on the door looking older than time itself. Surely this fortress hadn’t been built all that long ago. Had his father built it? His grandfather? Cleve stared up at the fortress, trying to bring memories of it from his boyhood. It didn’t seem smaller. Surely that couldn’t be right. It seemed the same yet very different. He had a flash of an ancient memory—streams of people, all carrying things, chatting, yelling at each other, dogs barking, children screaming and playing. Then it was gone, replaced by this impossibly cold fortress that looked older than the hills themselves. The air itself was laden with pervasive silence. They’d seen slaves working in the fields, but there’d been no talk amongst them. There were men, some Vikings, others like these four who were short and dark and painted with the blue markings on their faces. A score of women were washing clothes, others were
stringing salmon to dry for the upcoming winter. Everyone was busy but everyone was silent. It was eerie. Cleve felt Kiri shiver in his arms.
“It’s all right, sweeting,” he said against her ear.
The man opened the door and said, “Lord Varrick will see you.”
They walked through the door into a huge house of darkness. The immense hall wasn’t empty. Women stood over the cooking pot at the fire pit, stirring with a huge wooden spoon. Two other women sat at their looms set against the wooden walls. There were at least a dozen men working their weapons, all of them silent. At the end of the immense hall, light flooded into the darkness through two huge open wooden shutters. The stream of light was harsh and heavy. In that stark light, standing on a wooden platform, stood a man dressed in black. He didn’t move, just stood looking at them, silhouetted in the beam of bright sunlight. He remained motionless, as if he weren’t really there, as if he were some sort of ghost appearing suddenly to drive them mad. Kiri whimpered softly and pressed her face into her father’s neck.
There was still no movement, no talk. No one seemed to breathe.
“Come here,” the man said, his voice deep and resonant, filling every corner of the huge hall.
Cleve gave Kiri to Chessa. “Stay with your second papa. Don’t be frightened. He is entertaining us just as would Laren, only he does it with light and shadow, black and white. More black than white, but that’s all right.”
Cleve said aloud as he walked toward the giant of a man standing with legs spread atop that high wooden platform, “You are lucky there is no mist overhanging the land and loch today. Otherwise you wouldn’t look like a demon from the Christian’s hell.”
“Ah,” the man said, still not moving, just staring down at Cleve, whose face was alight with the sun and couldn’t see the man’s face clearly because he was in the shadows. “What you say is true, but there are other ways to make men shudder with fright, to bring them to their knees, to make them obey me. You understand this. Who are you?”
“I am Ronin of Kinloch, but I have been known as Cleve for so many years that I think of myself as Cleve of Kinloch.”
At last there was noise, people staring at him, speaking now behind their hands, none knowing what to do, how to react. Not one of the men moved from their posts. Cleve thought Varrick had them very well trained. He had no fear of this man, just hatred, and yet he didn’t know how he was going to wrest what was rightfully his away from this man who looked like a demon standing there, his face in the shadows even as the light cascaded around him. Cleve was a man of thought. He was a diplomat. He would trust his wits.
The man merely stared down at him, not moving, not speaking. There was a sudden shift of breeze from behind him, sweeping into the immense hall, and his black tunic billowed, making him look all the more terrifying.
“Where are my sisters?”
“They are here. You say you are Ronin? We have long believed you dead. You disappeared twenty years ago, surely too long a time for a child to survive into manhood. Are you truly who you say you are?”
“I remember my mother telling me I was the very image of my father. Look closely at me, Lord Varrick. Do you see resemblance between me and the man you replaced so very long ago?”
The man said in that same cold voice, “No, there is no resemblance to you and your mother’s first husband. How came you by the scar on your face?”
“A woman, my lord. She struck me with a whip when I refused to bed with her.”
The man laughed. It was a cold rusty sound, and quickly stopped. Chessa saw several of the men stare openly up at their master.
“Why?” he asked. “One woman is much as another. Why did you refuse her?”
“She was with three other young male slaves, all of them naked surrounding her. She wanted me to pleasure her, then to mount her and show them how it was done. She said she’d seen me with another girl and had decided then that she would have me as well. I wouldn’t do it. She was enraged. She took her whip and sliced open my face. I bled on her.”
“I would have killed her for maiming me.”
“I had not that chance,” Cleve said. “I was a slave. But you know that, don’t you, Lord Varrick?” He stepped forward. “Let us continue, Lord Varrick. Do not think you can crush me like you did the small boy twenty years ago. Do not think I am a nightmare come only for the space of a single hour to torment you. I am here to stay. This is my home and I belong here. Where is my brother? No, I see that he isn’t here. You killed him as you tried to kill me, didn’t you?”
“You will crush me beneath your heel, Cleve?”
“I will come to an agreement with you, my lord. But I will not fade away. This is my wife, Chessa, she is the daughter of King Sitric of Ireland. This is Lord Merrik of Malverne. His wife is the niece of Duke Rollo of Normandy. If something happens again to me, you will be crushed, your magnificent platform that sets you above all others torn asunder, this fortress leveled. You will have nothing left, no huge windows at your back to give you presence and terrify people with your magic. I tell you this so that you will not act precipitously.”
Chessa felt the intensity of his eyes on her. Like Cleve, she couldn’t see him clearly for the sunlight blinded her.
“You are Hormuze’s daughter,” he said to her. “Are you truly of his blood?”
“Aye. I was very young when he gave King Sitric back his youth. I loved him dearly, but he left me, disappeared into the mists of time, giving me into the guardianship of the newly reborn king.”
“He is the greatest magician I have ever met,” Lord Varrick said. “Were any of you present when he worked this feat of magic on King Sitric?”
Merrik said, “My brother, Lord Rorik of Hawkfell Island, was there. It occurred just as Hormuze had promised. King Sitric wedded the virgin Hormuze selected for him. The following morning, he greeted his soldiers and the people at Clontarf as a young man, vital, handsome, the greediness of the old man melded back into the nobility of the young man.”
“And you are his daughter.”
“Aye, he taught me as well.” Chessa raised her chin just a bit. “He taught me potions and spells. But I was a child and learned only a little.”
Cleve said, “I want no battle with you, Lord Varrick. I want only what is mine and should have been mine. I spent fifteen years as a slave. I didn’t remember who I was until the dreams came to me over the past three years. Now I know who I am. I want what is mine. I will kill you if I must to regain it.”
At those words, the men very quietly stood, their weapons at ready. The man with his black tunic billowing out from the breeze coming through those open windows said, “You needn’t threaten me. I know you are your father’s son. I recognize you as your father’s son. Now look upon me, Ronin of Kinloch.”
“I am Cleve of Kinloch.”
Varrick merely nodded as he stepped down from that high wooden platform, and for the first time Cleve saw him clearly.
“By all the gods,” Merrik said. “I don’t believe this.”
“You are his stepfather,” Laren said. “His mother married you after his father died. This isn’t possible.”
Cleve stared into the man’s eyes—one golden eye and one blue eye. He stared into his own face.
“You are my son. I believed you lost to me for twenty years. You are home again.” Lord Varrick stretched out his hands and clasped Cleve’s upper arms. “You are my son,” he said again. “You are mine.”
“Papa,” Kiri said loudly. “I don’t like this. I want to count my sticks.”
A soft voice came from behind them, “She is the image of you, Cayman, the twin of you when you were small. She is beautiful. My brother, welcome home.”
Cleve had turned at the woman’s voice. He knew his sister, indeed he recognized her. She looked like their father, like a Viking woman, tall and blond and fair skinned. “You are Argana? Truly?”
“Aye, Cleve.”
Still, he didn’t touch her. She was only h
is half sister, he thought, still reeling, feeling the nearness of his father, the man he’d believed all these years to have sold him as a slave, to have taken what he’d wanted, not caring, only taking. This man in his black robes, standing on the platform, calling forth monsters during storms. It was difficult to think. He could feel Chessa beside him, questions flowing through her, no fear now, just all these questions and surely there had to be sense in all this. “Argana,” he said again. “It was our grandmother’s name, I remember mother telling me, for it is an odd name. I am only your half brother.”
“Our mother is still the same. What difference?”
“It is all too new to me as yet. I don’t know.”
“These are my sons, Cleve,” Argana said, turning to show him three boys standing behind her, protecting her, knives in their hands, the eldest nearly a man, the youngest about twelve years old. Cleve nodded to each of them. He froze at the sight of the youngest boy. He had one gold eye and one blue eye. His father was this boy’s father as well? He’d mated with Cleve’s sister?
Chessa said clearly, “I am Chessa and this is my stepdaughter, Kiri. You say she looks like Cayman. Who is Cayman?”
“She is my younger sister. Come here, Cayman.”
She was the most beautiful woman Chessa had ever seen in her life, all blond and white, with eyes so blue they pierced the gloom of the great hall. Her coloring was identical to Merrik’s, to most Vikings’, yet there was great fascination in her face, a face that surely looked younger than it really was. Would Kiri truly become this beautiful when she reached a woman’s years?
“Cayman,” Cleve said. “I remember you were skinny and your hair was always in tangles around your face. You were ten years old when I left.”
But surely that was impossible, Laren was thinking. She looked impossibly young and pure and so very innocent and at the same time alluring.
“Aye,” Cayman said. “And now I am nearly thirty years old, little brother. I am glad you’re not dead. None have spoken of you in many many years.” Suddenly, Lord Varrick said, “I have no small daughters. Kiri, you are my first grandchild. Will you come to me?”
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