“I want to stay here, Rorik. I wish to sleep.”
“I care not what you want. Come.”
Mirana came up onto her knees. Her knife was at her waist. She would do what she had to do.
He took her hand and pulled her upright. He held her close, staring down at her. His eyes darkened, then cleared. “Come,” he said again, and pulled her after him from the longhouse.
They were nearly to the barn. The moon was bright overhead. Mirana knew they must leave this night. There would be no better chance, but Rorik . . . what to do with her husband, a man she no longer knew, a man whose every action frightened her?
He pulled her into the barn and closed the door. The animals were silent. He said nothing, merely pulled her down atop a pile of straw. He didn’t bother undressing her. He merely pulled up her gown to her waist and shoved up her shift. He sat back on his heels and stared at her.
“You are beautiful,” he said, frowning. He laid his palm on her belly, then let his fingers widen outward to touch her pelvic bones. He massaged her for a long time, his gaze intent, saying nothing more, then his fingers went lower, found her and she sucked in her breath at the feel of him against her flesh. She’d not imagined anything like this. It was near pain, it was so intense, and she wanted more of it, until . . . until something happened. What that was, she didn’t know, but she wanted it. She felt hot and damp-fleshed and it was disconcerting, this reaction of her body to his fingers. It was wonderful.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said suddenly, his voice filled with anger. Without another word, he pulled open his trousers and fell over her. He was pressing at her, opening her, and she began to struggle against him, all the intense feelings swamped in fear.
In that moment a cramp seized her belly and she cried out, trying to lurch up.
He came up onto his elbows. “Stop fighting me.” She was breathing hard, truly frightened now, but not of him. “What is wrong?”
“My belly,” she managed, shoving at him. He rolled off her and watched as another cramp doubled her over. She rolled to her side, her arms locked about herself, crying out softly.
He frowned. “What is wrong?”
“I don’t know. It hurts, Rorik.” The cramps came more quickly now, more viciously. Suddenly, she gagged, and came up onto her knees. She vomited her dinner, vomited until there was naught left in her belly and still she shuddered and gagged and heaved.
He held her shoulders, keeping her hair away from her sweating face. He felt the bone-deep shudders in her, the wrenching of her belly that spread throughout her body, making her weak.
Still she heaved until she was so weak she fell back against his chest.
“ ’Twas something you ate,” he said. “There must be others who are ill. Lie still. I will fetch you some water to clean out your mouth. Don’t move, Mirana.”
When Rorik returned, he held her against him and slowly fed her water from a wooden cup. She spat it out, then swallowed some. Her belly cramped immediately and she moaned.
“Asta is sick,” he said. “No one else.”
Mirana said nothing. She just wanted to die. She closed her eyes, her head lolling against his chest.
“I’m carrying you back to my sleeping chamber. My parents will sleep in the outer hall.”
But then it would be more difficult for her to escape, she thought, but it wasn’t a strong thought, merely a vague thought that went softly through her mind and was soon gone. A cramp twisted inside her and she knew then she would die. She couldn’t bear this sort of pain, no one could bear it. It was beyond anything she could have imagined.
She was ill throughout the night. She was aware that Rorik’s mother was there, and she put a cup to her lips and told her to drink, that it was an herb—the root of the brawly bush—that would help settle her belly, that it would calm her. She wondered if it were also poison that would make her sleep forever, but she didn’t care. She drank it. It tasted sour, of old milk, but it did settle her belly, and she slept until the belly cramps woke her again.
Old Alna was beside her this time, wiping her face with a cool damp cloth, and it felt wonderful. She spoke of the cheese making that would soon begin in earnest, of the growing crops that were flourishing with the rain that had fallen so heavily during the past days, of Sculla, so tall that he would walk amongst the rows of barley waving his arms, and surely this scared the birds and animals away. Mirana listened and wondered why she should care. Surely she would die soon.
She awoke once and believed she was floating above herself, feeling light and insubstantial, as unfettered as a cloud or a western breeze. She felt a strange emptiness and sought to fill herself with something that would give her meaning again, that would give her substance. Then she was within her body again and she wanted to die at the twisting, roiling cramps.
And Rorik, he was always there, either lying beside her on the box bed or speaking softly to whoever was in the chamber with them. He would hold her, lightly rubbing her back, massaging her belly, holding her when she retched and shuddered and fell against him in exhaustion, the spasms temporarily ended. But they always came back and she knew she was growing too weak to fight the pain in her mind. Her body would give up because her mind would have no more will to combat the pain.
Near dawn she fell into a deep sleep, her head lolling in near unconsciousness against Rorik’s chest. She slept until midday and awoke with no more cramping, no more pain. She lay there, waiting, distrusting, too afraid to move, but she was as she had been. Just so very weak. Her ribs hurt as did the muscles in her stomach. She had no more strength, no more will. She felt like an old woman, surely older than Alna. She wanted only to sleep.
She opened her eyes at a sound from the doorway. There was Rorik, standing there, looking at her. He said, “I have a bowl of broth for you, made by Utta. She said that her mother loved the broth and it was the only thing she could eat without vomiting before she died.”
Mirana shoved herself up in the bed. It took all her strength. How, she wondered suddenly, now firmly back into her body and into the present with all its vast complications, would she and Entti escape now?
Rorik set the large wooden tray on her lap. Steam from the broth curled upward. It smelled delicious. “Do you want me to feed you?”
“Nay,” she said, and took the spoon from him. She managed one bite, then dropped it. Her hand was trembling and her forehead was damp with sweat. Rorik took the spoon and pressed her back against the pillows. She wondered at this new gentleness in him but said nothing. There’d been none in him the previous night before she’d become so ill.
“Open your mouth.”
She did. She ate the entire bowl of beef broth. It was the best broth she’d ever tasted in her life. Her stomach felt bloated and very content.
“Why didn’t you let me die?”
“You weren’t ready to die. You’re young and strong. Speak no more about dying, Mirana.”
“Was anyone else ill besides Asta and me?”
He shook his head. He looked away.
“How is Asta?”
He was silent for a very long time. She felt panic well up. “Asta! How is she?”
“She did not survive the night. She is dead.”
“No!”
“We will bury her this afternoon.”
But Mirana was beyond understanding him now. She was shaking her head back and forth, crying, jagged, ugly sounds from deep in her throat. “No,” she said over and over, not wanting to believe it, not willing to accept it. Asta, dead, and just yesterday she had been laughing and teasing Old Alna about the blue gown, bragging about Gurd being hard in her bed, and Mirana had thought he didn’t deserve any kind words from Asta. Just last night she had stayed close to Mirana, showing Rorik’s family that she felt loyalty to Mirana, that she wouldn’t scorn her. Her laughter was so bright, her smile so natural.
Now she was dead. Just like that. Mirana couldn’t allow it to be true. It was too much. She turned awa
y from him onto her side, clutching her arms around her, becoming a ball, rocking back and forth. “No . . . no . . . she gave me her gown, Rorik. She said it was very nice on me with my black hair. She said my skin was whiter than her goat’s milk. She always treated me well, even when you first brought me here, and last night, she smiled at me and stayed near me to show your family I wasn’t a vile person like Einar. Not dead . . . not Asta. Please no, tell me it is a mistake.”
Rorik rose. He stood there staring down at her. He felt his own pain at their loss. Asta, so much a part of his life. Gurd was blank and silent. The women were preparing Asta for burial, quickly, quickly, for the dead mustn’t be allowed to remain overlong around the living, for their ghosts would return as powerful monsters and destroy them.
At least Mirana had survived. But why were only the two women struck down?
Old Alna and Tora had tried to discover which dish the two of them had eaten that others hadn’t. It made no sense.
It scared him to death.
Mirana stood beside Rorik as all the people clustered about the cliff overlooking the small inlet. They had buried Asta quickly, carrying her away from the longhouse feet first so her spirit couldn’t find its way back. They buried her in a deep moss-lined grave, quickly covering her body with the rich black earth, quickly retreating once it was done.
Away from her now, safe from the threat of her ghost, they showed their grief openly, the women crying softly, the men standing behind the women, stiff and straight, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon.
Aslak stood over Gurd the blacksmith, his hand on his shoulder. Gurd seemed beyond all of them, unwilling to believe his wife was dead. He’d said nothing. Now he fell to his knees, not crying, no, never crying, showing nothing but a blank face to all as he prayed to the gods to lead his Asta over the mortal’s bridge to Heaven.
Mirana felt Rorik’s hand firmly under her elbow. She was weaving on her feet, so weak that every moment was a challenge to keep standing upright. But she’d had to come. She owed it to Asta, to honor her, to grieve for her.
Before the last prayers to the gods for Asta’s safe journey, Rorik led her back to the longhouse.
21
RORIK SAID NOTHING as he carried her back into the sleeping chamber. He eased her gently back into the bed, pulling the wool blanket to her chin. He sat down beside her.
“You were going to escape me again,” he said without preamble. “Entti with you.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me. Merrik told me, and my mother did as well. Sira claimed you promised to leave, but she said no one could believe a slut and a liar like you.”
“No.”
He sighed, turning away from her, clasping his hands between his knees. She looked at his profile, its pure clean lines, the strong jaw, the curling golden hair that lay long on his neck. He was a magnificent man, young and powerful with strength, forceful, bursting with life and good health, but it wouldn’t always be so. He would age and his strength would lessen, but he would remain what he was, a man to admire and respect, perhaps a man to trust. Something deep and mysterious swelled deep within her, something she didn’t understand, but something she knew was there and knew she wanted to be there. It was Rorik, her husband. But she also knew there was no hope for them, not ever. And he was hurting. He was being gnawed apart from within and without. But he was still her husband, at least for today, perhaps even for tomorrow. But after that? She shook her head, silent and still.
“I would that you not lie to me.”
And because he was Rorik and her husband, she said clearly, “Very well. It matters little now that you know. Aye, I promised them I would leave. I don’t wish to die, Rorik. It is best. I won’t return to my brother—”
“Your half-brother.”
She smiled at his vehemence. “My half-brother. No, I will go somewhere else.”
He looked at her now, his expression austere, his blue eyes as cold as the winter sea. He said, his voice remote, “You will go nowhere. I don’t want you to go. You are my wife and you belong to me. You will remain my wife until I wish it otherwise. You will do as I tell you.”
“And if I tell you I no longer wish you to be my husband?”
“It would matter not. It isn’t true in any case. I wouldn’t accept any words from you to sever our ties so do not waste your meager strength saying them.”
She didn’t begin to understand him. “Listen to me, Rorik, you hate me, you must. At the very least you don’t want me here to remind you of what my brother did to your wife and your children and your people. My presence only brings you pain and the memory of your guilt because you weren’t there to save them. Understand, Einar wouldn’t have attacked your farmstead had you and your men been there. He is no fool and he is smart. He is not a coward, at least I never before thought so. Why he did what he did I don’t know. But what he did remains and cannot be changed. Your family has made you see that I am not the wife you should have. They believe this strongly. They won’t allow me to remain, Rorik.”
He rose from the bed and began pacing the length of the small chamber.
She said again, “I do not blame them for their hatred of me. I do believe they should leave go of the past and allow the wounds to heal, for their unending bitterness shows on their faces and can be heard in their voices. It is deep within them. It makes them miserable. I don’t wish them to destroy you with the past. It isn’t fair of them to do so.”
He turned then, back to her, and said, his voice harsh and low, “I won’t lie to you. I listened to them. I was beginning to agree with them. They are my family. They love me. They loved Inga and the babes.”
“I know,” she said.
“Then you were so ill. I truly do not know what I would have done. Not kill you, Mirana, never that, though I can’t expect you to believe me now. Nay, I realized that I had been a fool, that you had helped me to ease the past away, to put it where it belonged—in the past—where it would forever remain, not forgotten, nay, never forgotten, but distanced, the pain of it softened and mercifully blurred now. But then they came and it was as if the wound were slashed open again, raw inside me, and the past was the present, here with me now, full-blown and as filled with horror as it is in my nightdreams.
“My parents and brothers have kept it alive amongst themselves, and nurtured it and allowed it to feed on itself, and they wanted me to bow at the altar of their grief and hatred as well, aye, you’re right about that. And you were here, as wicked as the Christians’ devil, ready for their fury and their hate. Your presence, who you are, helped their hatred grow and burst free once again. They now had a target, not just vague images that flowed through the mind. Your half-brother is still a man without a face to them, but now, through you, they could grasp their pain and see to its depths.
“There was Sira. She’d come to wed me, with my parents’ blessing. I am not a fool. I knew it, and knew also that I would never have wed her. She is like a sister to me. How could I wed a sister? I watched her here, watching you. I watched her change, grow twisted and jealous when she looked at you, when she realized that you were my wife and who you were.
“I have never wanted her, Mirana, never given her any sign that I wanted to wed her. Her feelings are deep and violent. I see that now. I have decided that I will give her to Hafter to wed, if my parents agree. He has many times told me he believes her beautiful beyond all women, that he would want her were it possible. He can have her. Then he can take her from Hawkfell Island to the mainland. He has land there and family, near to Edingthorpe. He won’t be here to rape Entti and Sira won’t be here to torment you.”
He fell silent now. Mirana had never felt so uncertain in her life; never had she felt more reluctant to accept words that would sway her. She was too afraid to be swayed. There was too much here, far too much. Always before in her life, everything had seemed so very clear to her, which path to take neatly marked. She’d believed that there’d been no grayness, no shimme
ring lies or half-truths to make her question herself or those around her. Ah, but she’d learned that her life had been filled with naught but lies, but she’d ignored them, turned away from them, refused to see them. She’d accepted her life at Clontarf with Einar as what life must be since her parents were dead. She hadn’t recognized him for what he was, hadn’t recognized what she was to him—naught but a pawn to be used to gain him more power, naught but a plaything for his amusement. Her mouth felt very dry. She swallowed. Rorik said nothing more, just waited, patiently. Finally, she said, “You are an honorable man, Rorik Haraldsson. Even so, I was very afraid. I thought you would kill me yesterday in the bathing hut.”
“I know. I am sorry for it. My mind—I was maddened. I realized I could be as crazed as a berserker, but I wouldn’t have killed you, Mirana, never would I have killed you.
“I had forgotten the passion of my brother, Merrik. His loyalty runs as deep as do his hatreds. He is a formidable enemy and a friend to value and hold close. I fear my parents kept his hatred festering, and because of his youth, it was easily done.” He stopped then and paced the small chamber. He waited silently, patiently, as he had before.
She sifted through his words, afraid to find other meanings in them, meanings that would bring clearness, even hope. There was naught but a bitter truth, a truth that would always remain a truth no matter what she wanted or thought or wanted to believe. She had to face up to it, make him face up to it as well. By Thor, it hurt to say it, but she did, her voice low and clear, “I am relieved that you have no wish to kill me. But Rorik, your honor shouldn’t dictate the woman you should have as your wife. Or your pity. Or guilt. And I know you felt both guilt and pity for me once you learned what Einar had planned to do with me. And that is why you wed me. To protect me, to save me from that wretched old king.
“You have taken care of me whilst I was ill and I thank you for it. You went beyond what one would expect of you. But it is your family to whom you owe your loyalty, not me. I am a stranger here, an outsider, and they are right, Rorik, I am of Einar’s blood. You could never be certain that I was free of all taint. You could never trust me as you do Merrik or your parents.”