Gunleik smiled at her. “You’re happy, Mirana, and it pleases me. Rorik is a good man. You’ve also more dirt on your face than this monster here.”
Mirana looked at Kerzog, who was blissfully rolling about on the ground.
She laughed, kissed Gunleik on the cheek, and ran to the bathing hut. She heard Rorik calling her name behind her and knew he would be with her very soon and that they would bathe together and very probably they would do other things as well. She turned and waved to him.
“Where is Mirana?”
Entti looked up, frowning at Rorik’s question. “Gunleik said she went to the fields to look at the barley and rye, but that was hours ago. I haven’t seen her in a while, Rorik, but she should return soon for there is the evening meal to prepare.”
Rorik merely nodded and went to the bathing hut. Two days in a row now they’d been very lucky at their hunt—killed a wild boar and six fat partridge. Three of his men were in the bathing hut, naked, shouting, throwing water on each other, insulting each other’s prowess. They hadn’t seen Mirana.
“Come bathe, Rorik!” Sculla yelled at him.
“Aye, you smell like overripe boar!” Kron made to throw a bucket of water on him, but Rorik held up his hand.
“Let me find my beautiful wife first, then I’ll be back.”
“Poor little girl,” Sculla said, shaking his big head mournfully, “soon she’ll not be able to walk if Rorik has his way.”
“Ha, he will have his way until she is so large with child he dare not continue.”
Rorik didn’t laugh, though he did smile at the thought of Mirana’s belly filled with his child. It warmed him and he called out her name again and again. He went to the fields, but she wasn’t there. He went to the cow byre, then to the small houses his warriors had built just beyond the fields.
He couldn’t find her. He stood next to the palisade walls, breathing in the soft sweet air, looking over his island. Suddenly, he felt something cold and dark twisting deep within him, and it scared him witless.
He immediately raised the alarm. He set guards on the longboats immediately, not knowing why he felt it so important, just doing it.
Mirana was shivering. Her hair was still damp, tangled around her head and down her back. She wore only a wet shift, all that he’d allowed her when he’d taken her from the bathing hut several hours before.
He looked at her now, rocking back and forth on his heels. There was such rage in his eyes that she had to look away from him.
“ ’Tis your fault,” he said. “I vowed I would avenge my Asta if you returned. Aye, I prayed for your return, mistress, prayed you wouldn’t die, prayed that I would be the one to kill you and avenge my Asta.”
“But why would you want to hurt me, Gurd? I did nothing to Asta. I loved her as I would a dear sister.”
“You let her eat your food, you murdering sly bitch!” He jumped to his feet and she thought he would kill her then, but he didn’t, just kicked her ribs, sending her sprawling onto her back, her chest heaving with the pain.
“Why did you let her touch your food? You knew—I saw it in your eyes and I see it now—you wanted her to eat it. You knew she would die.”
It was clear to her then, all very clear and very frightening. “You poisoned my food.”
Gurd stared down at her, his hands fisted at his sides. “Aye, I did, but you didn’t die, you let my Asta die instead, and you did it apurpose, and I swore I would make you pay for that. The gods sent you back to me so I could make you pay.”
“You tried to poison me again but the taste was awful and thus I ate only a few bites. Sira was blamed for it.”
“Aye, poor little Sira, a beautiful girl who didn’t deserve your cruelty or Rorik’s. Such lovely hair she had. I couldn’t bear it when he whipped her. I wanted to strike him when he offered to let me whip her, too, believing I would want to hit her and force her to her knees for Asta’s death. I left then, for her cries smote me, and that was your fault, too, for you convinced everyone that she was guilty.”
She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t done anything save lie in her bed and vomit until her face was blue, her throat so raw with pain that she couldn’t talk, her belly so knotted with agony that she’d wanted to die more times than she could count. She said instead, “Why did you want to kill me? What did I ever do to you, Gurd?”
He came down next to her on his haunches. She didn’t move, remained on her back, her arms covering her ribs as best she could. He raised his hand, then slowly lowered it as he said, “You dared to keep me from Entti. You made her change, made her sneer at us, made her refuse us, made her refuse me. I wanted her and I’d had her before you came, before you made yourself the mistress and gave your insolent orders and stuck your proud nose in the air, treating all of us like we were thralls.
“Aye, I wanted Entti, and I’d had her before you came and Asta knew and it pleased me that she knew, her anger and jealousy pleased me, but I had to show Asta that I was a man and that she couldn’t have the ordering of me, ever. Always Asta laughed and I knew she laughed at me, even though she swore it was only her nature to laugh, to jest, that she loved me. But she changed and she taunted me and I knew it well. I needed Entti to prove to her that I was her master and she would never have a say in what I did.”
“But that’s madness,” Mirana said, then instantly regretted the words, for he was on her, straddling her, leaning over her so close that she could smell the rage on his breath, see the wildness in his eyes, and he was locking his hands around her throat now, and she knew then that she would die. She’d come home, all right. Home to die.
Suddenly he leapt off her, panting hard, backing away from her as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her, the feel of her. She sat up, rubbing her hands over her throat. The thick rope around her left wrist had rubbed it raw, but she no longer noticed the grinding pain of it, nor the pain in her ribs.
“No,” he said, more to himself than to her. “No, you’re not to die here, not like this. It must appear an accident so that none will suspect me.”
“Asta loved you!”
“Aye, she did, and you killed her.”
She could only stare at him.
“You killed Asta and you forbade Entti to come to me.”
“Please Gurd, listen to me. It is Entti who refused to be the whore any longer. If you had taken Entti, it would have been rape, do you understand me? If you had forced her, she would have killed you herself. It is true, I swear it to you.”
He was shaking his head even as he yelled, “Nay, ’tis a lie! Entti was mad for me! She begged me to take her, told me again and again that I was a better man than all the others on Hawkfell Island. But then you refused to let her to come to me. Then you killed my Asta.”
Now it was her turn to yell and she did, so frustrated and afraid that she couldn’t help herself. “But why would I want Asta to die? There is no sense in that! I loved her as a sister!”
He was silent a moment, his brow furrowed. “It matters not. You did it. You made her eat most of the food from your plate. I didn’t realize what you were doing until it was too late. I had to watch her laugh and jest and knew that soon she would be dying because of what you did. You knew about the poison. You cajoled her. Perhaps it was jealousy of her that made you kill her, I know not. You are a woman and women are creatures beyond a man’s understanding. You killed my wife and now I will avenge her.”
“You fool! Do you think me stupid? Do you think I would chance killing myself as well as Asta? It makes no sense! I did not know the food was poisoned!”
His huge upper body tightened in his rage, but he forced himself to calm with a shrug, for he was the victor and knew it. “It matters not how you knew. I just know that you did. And my Asta is dead and Entti is wedded to Hafter. There is nothing here for me now.”
What else was there to say? She lowered her head, the weight of hopelessness heavy on her, defeating her, numbing her mind. She felt beyond herself in those
moments, and beyond Gurd, beyond the pain that would take her from life, and she knew it was because she was preparing herself to die, preparing herself to leave this earth, to leave Hawkfell Island, to leave Rorik.
She didn’t want to leave Rorik.
She drew a deep steadying breath. She felt herself planted firmly within her own mind and body again. She would not die without a struggle. Gurd was the strongest man on Hawkfell Island, his years upon years as blacksmith making his chest and arms so powerful that few of the men ever wanted to wrestle with him, even in games. Rorik would laugh and say he had no wish for Gurd to break his back.
What could she do?
She could run. She looked about, careful to keep her head lowered so he couldn’t see her eyes, guess at her intent. He was standing over her, breathing hard.
He’d brought her to the thick woods at the eastern end of the island, she recognized it now, for dunlin were flying low overhead, screeching and angry, for they nested here and were worried about their young. If she could run and hide in the deeper part of the woods, then she could sneak back toward the farmstead.
“Let us go,” Gurd said. He grabbed her left arm and jerked her to her feet. He quickly untied the rope at her wrist. “You look like a witch.”
Her damp hair was filled with twigs and leaves and dirt, her damp shift filthy from the ground. He held her there, his long thick fingers closing completely around her upper arm. He shook her, bringing her close to him.
“Aye, you’re beautiful, Mirana, daughter of Audun, and you should have remained at Clontarf. You had your chance to wed with that damned foreigner who is now the king, but you didn’t. You wanted to return here and make my life a misery, to brag about how you killed my Asta, to taunt me with your knowledge and how you’d succeeded in escaping punishment for what you did. And you’ve turned Entti against me.”
“You won’t escape, Gurd. You will die too.”
He pulled her to him, kissed her hard, then his huge hand was rubbing over her breasts and down to her belly, then he dropped his hand and turned about. He was walking toward the cliff, dragging her now, for she knew his intent, and she had no intention of going quietly to her death. She screamed and yelled and grabbed at bushes and low-lying tree branches, but he just jerked at her and kept pulling her, her left arm shooting with pain now, and she wondered if he would wrench it from the socket. She dug in her heels, but that was useless.
They cleared the trees. The cliff edge was but twenty yards away. It was steepest here, the drop sheer, the bottom thick with tumbled black rocks, ancient and scarred with time, with surf striking against them hard, sending spumes of spray thirty feet into the air. She would die, for there was no ledge or outcropping of bushes to break her fall to those rocks.
She felt the black hopelessness curl through her, recognized it, and refused to accept it. She wasn’t dead yet. She began cursing again, yelling again at the top of her lungs. “Rorik! Rorik! Help me, help me!”
Again and again she yelled. Gurd only laughed, shouting over his shoulder that she should scream herself voiceless for there were none to hear her, that the men still hadn’t returned from the mainland, and when they did return she still wouldn’t be missed for more hours. It would be a long time before they began to search for her. Perhaps, he said, screaming at her now, just perhaps the tide would wash her out into the sea and none would ever find her. Ah, and he would search for her as well, his face as downcast and worried as all the rest of them. Aye, he liked the thought of that, for she had pretended grief at Asta’s death. He would pretend grief at hers.
Closer and closer he dragged her to the cliff edge. She yelled at him, “I will be found! I am wearing only my shift. Rorik will never believe I was out here in the woods wearing only my shift and fell to my death. He will not believe the sea could have pulled my clothes off me. He will find you out, Gurd.”
He stopped in his tracks, whirled about and jerked her hard against him. “Aye, you’re right,” he said, and he grabbed her shift by the neck and ripped it off at her shoulder, a long single rent. “Now if your body is found, all will think the tides did rip your clothes off you, for they will see that even your shift is ripped. Mayhap even the fish will enjoy you.”
Then he draped the ripped shift around her, fastening it securely over her left shoulder.
“Aye, that will suffice,” he said.
Ten more yards, naught more, just ten more yards. He was jerking her and she was trying not to cry, trying to keep her wits about her, but it was difficult, so very difficult. Suddenly, she saw a loose rock just ahead of her. Without hesitation, she leaned down, grabbed up the rock and began again to yell Rorik’s name.
So very close to the cliff edge now. She held the rock firmly, readying it and herself, and let him drag her just to his side. “Gurd,” she said softly, and waited for him to turn.
Just as he did, she raised the rock and brought it down hard on his temple. It cracked loud against his head. He stared at her, just stood there, not releasing her left wrist, just staring at her, saying nothing.
“Let me go!” she yelled into his face. “I hit you! Die, damn you!”
He smiled at her then and dragged her another step toward the cliff. She cried out and brought the rock down on his head again. The rock cracked apart and this time blood spurted from his head. He slowed, he stood there quietly, gently weaving back and forth.
Finally, he dropped her wrist. But he didn’t fall. He just stood there. Blood flowed over his forehead, into his eyes, dripped to his chest and to the ground, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Mirana threw the two pieces of rock against his chest with all her strength, then turned and ran, her ripped shift flapping around her.
It was at that moment that Rorik, Hafter and Sculla behind him, burst through the line of woods. He saw his wife and he saw Gurd, standing there near the edge of the cliffs. He didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter.
“Mirana!”
He grabbed her to him, saw that she was all right, and quickly gave her to Hafter. He went in a dead run toward Gurd, who had now turned to the setting sun in the west, and he was still standing there, just staring off into the sky, so still he was, and the blood continued to stream down his face, dripping onto his feet and onto the ground.
“Gurd!”
He turned very slowly and watched Rorik run toward him.
“I’m sorry, Rorik, but I had to do it,” Gurd said. “I had to kill her. She’s below on the rocks. I wanted to strangle her, but it had to look an accident. Aye, Rorik, she’s on the rocks below and she’s dead. ’Tis justice, for she murdered my Asta. Aye, ’tis done now.”
Rorik stared at the man he’d known all his life. He was standing there so quietly, his great hands limp and open at his sides.
“Gurd, this makes no sense.”
Gurd raised his head and stared at Rorik. Then he looked beyond and saw Mirana. His eyes widened. “How is she there?” he said. “She is dead. I threw her over the cliff. I heard her scream. I heard her bones crush against those rocks.”
Then Gurd yelled, a soul-curdling yell that filled the air. In the next instant, he ran at Rorik, his massive arms going around Rorik’s chest, squeezing him, harder and harder yet, crushing him. He lifted Rorik, his face against Rorik’s throat, for Rorik was the taller, but he hadn’t Gurd’s massive strength.
“Rorik!”
It was Hafter and Sculla who were on Gurd, each gripping an arm, pulling with all their strength. It did no good.
Rorik felt blackness filling him, felt it mask the awful pain from his ribs, knew his back would break, yet at the same time, he felt calm and detached from the man whose ribs were being crushed. He grabbed Gurd’s head between his hands, gritted his teeth against the intense pain, and pressed with all his might. It did no good. Rorik drew back his hands, and with his last cogent thought, he fisted them, drew his arms back as far as he could, then drove fists against Gurd’s ears.
Gurd screamed. His a
rms fell away and he staggered, yelling, crying now, and he took Hafter and Sculla to the ground with him. Blood flowed from both ears, mingling wildly with the blood from his head. Rorik stood over him, his ribs on fire, light-headed from lack of breath. He heaved and groaned and stood there, staring down at the man who had very nearly killed Mirana and him.
He saw Mirana coming slowly toward him, her eyes on Gurd, who lay on the ground, howling and bawling like a child. Hafter and Sculla backed away from him, and it was in that instant that Gurd flung himself away from them, fell again to his knees, then forward onto his face, and rolled over the edge of the cliff.
He made no sound. They heard nothing over the crashing sound of the waves against the rocks below.
Rorik drew her against him. He kissed her and pulled her away.
Epilogue
THE SKALD TAMAK, famous for his melodious kennings and his wondrous speaking voice, arrived at Hawkfell Island at the beginning of a winter storm, a storm that presaged such ferocity that Lord Rorik had ordered even the cows, sheep, chickens, and the three goats brought into the longhouse for safety after he’d looked at the roof of the stable. The longboats and two warships were dragged beyond the narrow beach to the higher ground and covered with thick oak branches.
The longhouse was filled with the warmth from the fire pit, a pale blue haze of smoke, and smelled of the rich hot flatbread just removed from the hot embers.
Tamak accepted a cup of rich mead from Entti, smiled at her too hopefully, bringing her husband, Hafter, closer, his eyes narrowed. Tamak, not a stupid man, then turned swiftly to the lord of Hawkfell Island, and said, “Lord Rorik, I am not here by happenstance. ’Tis the king himself who has sent me to recount to you all that has happened.”
He saw the lord’s wife grip her husband’s hand and turned to smile down at her when she said, “Which king?”
Tamak shook his head, cleared his throat, drank more of the mead, regarded his audience for a long moment, preparing them and himself, then began to speak.