She was. They dismounted and she came down to her knees at the water’s edge, cupped her hands, and scooped up the cold water. It tasted wonderful in her raw throat.
“Better?”
“Aye,” she said, and rose, the sword clanging against her thigh.
Magnus stood looking over the viksfjord. “Egill is alive. I find it strange that I, a man of little imagination, dreamed he was alive, dreamed that he was also sold into slavery. Orm has much to answer for.”
“I am going with you.”
He turned abruptly on his heel to face her. She was standing there clothed only in his tunic, that ridiculous man’s belt hanging at her hips, the sword in its scabbard coming nearly to her foot. He smiled. “No.”
She paid him no heed. The only sign she gave that she had heard him was that her chin went up. He went to her and took her hand in his, drawing her against his side. “I will keep you safe this time. You will remain with my parents until I return.”
“Remain like a prisoner or a child with your parents? I have been a coward, Magnus, but no more. I must return with you to York. That is where we go, is it not?”
He shrugged.
“I know where Orm bought his land.”
“Where?”
“I will not tell you until you promise you will take me with you.”
“You will not force me into this, Zarabeth. I will simply ask Ingunn.”
Zarabeth lied swiftly and cleanly. “She doesn’t know. Orm told only me.”
“I will ask her anyway. Come, we have a long way to ride yet before we can stop for the night.”
Zarabeth gave a wistful look at the clear blue water. “Another bathing would be nice.”
“Perhaps this evening,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her. “If you are nice to me, perhaps I will bathe you myself this time.”
He kissed her again, then tugged her to Thorgell, who was chewing on the thick water grass.
Their return to Malek in the early afternoon was a joyous occasion. Magnus allowed Ingunn to remain the night. She would be taken, by Ragnar, on the morrow back to her parents’ farmstead. She was silent and sullen and Zarabeth wondered if the woman would ever change, if she would ever forget her own grievances long enough to be pleasant, long enough to let others enjoy themselves.
Zarabeth fell back quickly into a familiar pattern. A bountiful meal was prepared, fresh beer brought out, cold and biting from the nets lowered in the viksfjord. The women served platters of broiled deer and wild boar steaks. There were boiled peas and baked cabbage with onions and potatoes braised in the burning embers. Zarabeth ate with the women, speaking together of domestic matters while Magnus and the men drank beer and discussed their voyage to the Danelaw. They were leaving in three days. There was fitting-up of the Sea Wind to be done, supplies to be gathered and stowed, and the steering oar had yet to be finished. Zarabeth said nothing more to Magnus. She would go with him to the Danelaw. She simply wasn’t yet certain how she would manage it.
Zarabeth fell asleep curled up on the mistress’s chair, a tunic with needle and thread in her lap. Magnus stood over her, glancing at the material she was sewing. It looked to be a tunic for him, and he was inordinately pleased. The material was soft pale blue linen. Her stitches were small and perfect. He loved her so much at that moment, he wanted to shout with it. He carefully removed the sewing materials from her lap, then lifted her in his arms and carried her to their bedchamber. He didn’t light the lamp. It was dark as a pit, since the single narrow window was covered tightly.
He undressed her and himself.
He wanted to see her but decided lighting the lamp would wake her. He sighed and covered both of them. She was exhausted and he himself was feeling weary. He fell asleep, his member heavy, his thoughts of his wife, seeing her in her man’s tunic, Orm’s sword belt strapped around her hips. “It is now my sword,” she’d informed him when he’d asked her if she wanted him to take it. “I won it fairly and I shall keep it.”
He slept deeply until the voice came, soft and insistent in his ear.
“Do you remember the things you said to me in York, Magnus? You were arrogant and brash and daring and I found you vastly pleasing. You made me laugh and you shocked me and I wanted you so very much. You told me how you treated Cyra and I believed you mad. You said, so very seriously, that you wouldn’t hurt me, even if I wished you to. You were so solemn, as if conferring a great favor on me. I thought you unbelievable and bold and wonderful. I still do.”
“I also promised to please you, Zarabeth, but until now, I haven’t much succeeded.”
“Aye, you did promise, but I do not think it all your fault. You wanted me to come back to life and you could think of no other way to force me to.” She wasn’t in the least surprised that he was awake. “I have done much thinking, Magnus. It is time for me to leave—”
He sucked in his breath, fully awake now, instantly enraged with her. He lurched up, taking her with him. “I will never let you leave—”
“—or it is time for me to be your wife.”
“Ah,” he said, and she was surprised when a deep shudder went through him. He pulled her tight and they were naked and pressed against each other. He kissed her nose, her jaw, her eyes, smoothing her eyebrows with his fingertips, pushing her hair from her face, and saying, “I won’t ever force you again. I could no longer bear it were you to lie beneath me crying, your hands fisted at your sides while I came inside you. I will no longer abide that, Zarabeth.”
“Then I think you should lie on your back and I will come over you.”
She’d surprised him yet again. “Soon. I want to feel all of you against me now.” He moved over her, on his elbows, his back slightly arched, his sex rubbing against her, but not yet entering.
He leaned down to kiss her as he moved over her breasts. This time it was different. She opened to him, rubbing her hands up and down his back, down over his buttocks, and she shivered at the feel of him, the smoothness and warmth of his flesh, the depth and contour of the muscles in his back. She moved her legs, loving the heaviness of his thighs over hers, the crinkling of his hair against her.
He felt her opening, the end of her resistance to him. He lay still on her then, kissing her deeply, his hands fisting in her hair, his sex pushing against her. “Open your legs, Zarabeth,” he said into her mouth. When she eased them apart, he came up on his knees between them and looked down at her.
He cursed, for he wanted to see all of her clearly. He leaned forward and splayed his fingers, his hands covering her breasts, kneading them now, then coming downward to encircle her waist, lower still to rest on her belly, then banding around her to take her buttocks. He lifted her to his mouth. As much as he wanted her, he refused to take any chances that she wouldn’t gain her woman’s pleasure. He brought her to his mouth, and when his warm lips touched her, she cried out. He smiled as he caressed her with his mouth, and when she was thrashing beneath him, panting, he stopped a moment and whispered to her, “I want you to scream for me now, Zarabeth. I want to feel your shuddering, feel your legs stiffen, feel you opening and yielding to me.” He lowered her then and eased his middle finger into her. “I want to feel you convulse around my finger.” He began caressing her again, and his finger was moving deeply inside her, and she screamed, arching upward, her eyes wild and savage.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging into his flesh, and she screamed again, and at the moment of her scream, other screams and cries came to him . . . but no, they were within him, those screams, deep inside him, and he wanted her desperately.
Zarabeth quieted but the screams continued, more loudly now, and Magnus heard his name yelled out. He trembled to come into her now, but another yell pierced through him. He shook his head, trying to get a hold on himself, trying to understand.
“Magnus!” It was Tostig’s voice, and he yelled again, this time flinging open the bedchamber door.
“By Thor, Magnus! We’re being attacked!”
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25
Magnus leapt from the bed, grabbed his trousers, and tugged them on as he said, “Quickly, Zarabeth, dress yourself, then wait in here until I see what is happening.”
He was gone and Zarabeth heard the shouts and screams. Then she smelled smoke. The longhouse was on fire.
She was dressed in a moment and running into the main hall. The smoke was growing heavy, for the roof was afire. The thick beams still held, but for how long?
“Zarabeth! Quickly, get everyone out of here. Save what you can!”
She didn’t think, didn’t allow herself to slow. She gave orders, calmed where she could, moved quickly, not thinking, trying not to breathe in the ever-thickening smoke. Men, women, and children, all were carrying out their belongings and a chair or a chest or cooking implements. Two women were carrying out the huge upright loom, all the shuttles they could carry, and Eldrid’s distaff.
Eldrid! Where was she?
Zarabeth ran back into the bedchambers. All were empty. Save for one. Eldrid lay on her side on the dirt floor and she was unconscious, overcome by the smoke. Zarabeth grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her out into the main hall. Thank the gods one of the men was there. She shouted to him and he lifted the old woman over his shoulder as if she were naught but a bag of cabbages. Zarabeth grabbed the rest of the cooking pots, directed the others to carry whatever they could hold. Clothes and blankets were dragged along the dirt floor, outside to safety. The smoke was thick now, and her still-raw throat burned and she was coughing, her eyes watering. Magnus was there beside her then, and he grabbed her arm. “Come, it is unsafe now.”
“Your chair!”
One of the men shouted that he would fetch it.
She saw Magnus’ tunic on her own chair and she wrenched free of him, stumbling, as she ran to fetch it.
Magnus wanted to beat her, but when he saw the smile on her smoke-blackened face when she held up the tunic, he could only shake his head.
They were all outside now, all their people gathered around to watch the longhouse explode into flames. Their faces were blank with disbelief. It wasn’t possible, yet it was happening and they were watching it happen. The other huts surrounding the longhouse were made of stone, but their thatch roofs were quickly aflame. The heat grew stronger and stronger.
Zarabeth was looking around, trying to count heads, to see that everyone was safe. Eldrid was coughing, sucking in the fresh air. At least she was alive. She saw then old Hollvard, the gatekeeper, and he was lying huddled on his side, an arrow sticking obscenely out of his back. Two other men, both guards, lay near, both dead.
What had happened hit her full force at that moment. She turned to her husband, waiting for him to finish giving instructions. Then he turned on his heel and she grabbed his sleeve.
“Hollvard,” she gasped, “someone killed him, Magnus! And two others as well.”
“Aye. Stay here. We are bringing up more water from the viksfjord. It won’t help much, but maybe we can save the food-store hut and the bathouse.”
He was gone from her, and Zarabeth stood there feeling helpless and deadened. Hollvard, killed! But who? That old man who had always been kind to her, from the very first, even when she had worn the slave collar.
Then she knew. She felt such rage that she shook with it. Slowly, with no show of outward feeling, she made her way through their people, studying every face, speaking a soothing word here, a word of encouragement there.
Ingunn wasn’t there. But Zarabeth had known she wouldn’t be.
It was when she found Ragnar, near to one of the storage huts, a sword thrust through his shoulder, that she raised her voice and cried out in shock and rage.
She fell to her knees beside him. He was still alive, but the blood was flowing freely from the wound high on his left shoulder. She ran to the well, grabbing Magnus’ new tunic from the ground as she went. One of the men had filled his bucket, and she quickly dipped the soft wool into the water, wringing it out as she ran. When she reached Ragnar, she cleaned the wound as best she could and pressed the tunic against it to stop the bleeding.
She wasn’t aware that she was crying until Magnus gently laid his hand on her shoulder and said quietly, “Come, Zarabeth, let the men carry Ragnar into the open, where there is less smoke.”
An hour later, Malek’s people were still huddled in small groups near the barley fields, staring at the smoldering ruins of the longhouse and the roofless huts surrounding it. The palisade walls were standing in places, straight and upright and untouched. Just a few feet away there was naught but smoldering timber left.
Five people were dead. Ragnar was still alive and Eldrid was attending him.
The animals were safe and the fields were untouched, but the destruction within the once-secure compound was nearly complete. Zarabeth looked over at her husband. He was speaking quietly to one of the slaves, a young man whose eyes were still red and tearing from all the smoke. She watched Magnus speak to many more of the people, then saw him pull away and walk off toward the pine forest at the back of the palisade. He stopped and turned, and she saw such naked rage in his face that she drew back.
He stood there for many minutes looking at his once-flourishing farmstead. It was gone now, years of work and tending. But it was but stones and lumber, she wanted to tell him. They had saved nearly all the things from within the longhouse, including his chest. She would help him. They would rebuild. They still had their crops, their lives, their belongings. They still had each other.
Zarabeth looked away, unable to bear it. It was past dawn now, and soon everyone would be hungry. She had several men collect stones to stack around a small fire pit. Then she had long stakes hammered into the ground, deep notches cut into the tops. Then the men lowered a cross-stake carefully into the carved notches. Chains were wrapped around the top stake. Now Zarabeth could hang pots from the chains. She kept busy, kept toiling so that she wouldn’t have time to think.
Ragnar was still alive, but all of them knew it would be a close thing. Eldrid stayed with him, wiping his face with wet cloths, feeding him water, waiting for Helgi to come with her store of medicines.
It was in early afternoon that Magnus’ parents arrived, bringing no more than a half-dozen people with them. Mattias and Glyda hadn’t come. It was soon obvious why. They had had to leave their farmstead well-guarded, Mattias in charge. They would take no chances that Orm would attack while they were gone. Indeed, all wondered if that was his plan.
Zarabeth listened to Magnus and his father speaking; rather, his father was yelling and tugging at his hair.
“By Thor, that a daughter of mine could betray us thus! How could she do it? Does Orm have such an unnatural hold over her?” His question wasn’t meant to be answered. He fell into mumbling curses and shaking his head.
Helgi said in a low voice to Zarabeth, “No one suspected? You sensed nothing?”
Zarabeth remained thoughtful and silent, saying finally, “Nay. She was quiet when we returned. She stayed by herself for the most part. She did nothing to gainsay me. She made no snide remarks. Ragnar kept after her, teasing her, ordering her about, but she didn’t seem to mind it. Now, of course, when I think back, she was too quiet, as if she were biding her time, waiting.”
“But why?” Helgi struck her palm against her thigh and winced from her own blow. “If she wanted to remain with him, escape Norway with him, she didn’t have to save you! She did not have to pretend to strike him and flee with you.”
“I was certain that she struck him hard, Helgi. Now I don’t know. But she seemed overwrought when he pretended to want me and not her. He taunted her with it. I had believed she’d struck him more to punish him than to save me, to pay him back for humiliating her. But it mattered not, at least then.”
“But why plan this diversion—and that is what it was—and return to Malek? Why?”
“I will tell you why, Mother.” It was Magnus and he was standing over his mother, his shoulders squared, his
face hard as stone. “Orm probably decided that Zarabeth would be too much trouble. She would never come to him willingly. He would have had to kill her, and he wanted revenge against me more than he wanted her or her death. He also wanted more wealth before he left Norway. He must have followed us back closely. I didn’t really wonder why he hadn’t stayed and fought me, for he had only two men to my five. He may be mad, but he isn’t a fool. It wasn’t ever his plan to stand and fight. He must have somehow gotten to Ingunn—that, or it was all a sham and planned to happen just as it did.
“Why else did he continue to divert from the direct route to the fjord and his vessel? I don’t know. Zarabeth told me that Ingunn continually pressed him to hurry, that I would come. There are many questions and no answers as yet. But I do know that all my jewels are gone. All my gold and silver ornaments and coins are gone. They were kept in a cask behind a hollowed-out log near the front of the longhouse. All Ingunn had to do was wait until there was panic from the fire, then calmly retrieve the cask. Why, had anyone asked her what she was about, she could have simply said she was saving the cask for me.”
“But you could have been killed!” Helgi turned away, her shame and rage palpable.
“And Orm was waiting outside the palisade for her to bring him the jewels and coins. He killed Hollvard and is responsible for five other deaths as well.”
His mother still looked stunned and ill, and Magnus hugged her to him. “I suppose we are lucky that Orm didn’t try to take Zarabeth again. Perhaps he waited after the fire was blazing to see if she would separate herself from me. But she didn’t. The bastard was out there, Father, watching all the destruction he had brought about. Ingunn must be punished for this. I am sorry, but she is no longer my sister. She is as much my enemy as is Orm. At least my vessel is intact. There were a dozen men working on the Sea Wind, and thus Orm couldn’t take her or destroy her. I vow his death before the summer is over.”