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Cold! It was laughable. She turned to stand more closely to the well in Coppergate square. She knew that Olav watched from the tanner’s shop just feet away. She knew that he could see her face clearly, her face and Magnus’. She knew he could hear her and Magnus. She knew she had to tread carefully, for Lotti’s life, her own future, depended on it.
“I’m not cold. I am glad you are here, Magnus Haraldsson. I would speak to you. I will not mince matters. I am here to tell you that I do not wish to wed with you. I was mistaken in my feelings. I have decided I don’t want you. I don’t wish to see you again.”
Magnus saw her pallor, heard the tension in her voice. He didn’t accept her words. He didn’t understand her and he was not willing to be patient at her game. He threw back his head and laughed. “This is a show of your wit, sweeting? I like it not. We will jest of many things, but not of this. This is our life, not some sort of joke to be tossed about heedlessly.”
“Your conceit is bloated as the rain clouds overhead, Viking. I speak the truth to you. I treat you not to my wit. I don’t want you. I bid you good-bye.” She turned on her heel to leave him, but he grasped her arm and pulled her back. She felt anger in him now. He would believe her, he would.
He spun her about to face him. He said nothing for a very long time, just looked down at her, studied her face, her expression. She wished she could whisper the truth to him, but she held herself silent. She filled her eyes with contempt, and hoped she did it well. She would take no chance with Lotti’s life. She would make it up to him later. There had to be a later. She’d prayed until the full morning light for a later.
“So,” he said at last with slow deliberation. “So, at last I find a girl who is all that I wish and she tells me she doesn’t want me. I find it passing strange, Zarabeth, this sudden change in you. Why, you would have gone with me to my vessel last night, I think, had I insisted upon it. Do you deny it?”
She probably would have, she thought blankly, pain so sharp her chest ached with it. She looked him up and down and smiled, that same ghastly smile, and filled her voice with insolence. “I admire your manliness, Viking, so perhaps I would have thought to sample your offerings. But to become your wife, to leave York, to journey to a savage land where there are naught but savage people who would look upon me as a foreign oddity? No, Viking, I won’t do that. I was temporarily mad, but no more. As for the other, a man is to be enjoyed at a woman’s whim. I had nearly decided to enjoy you, ’tis true, but then . . .”
She shrugged, and that one small movement enraged him, and she knew that Olav saw he was enraged. It was enough; she’d won Lotti’s life.
She made to leave him then, but Magnus enraged was frightening, and she faltered. She flinched even as his grip on her arm tightened painfully.
“Listen to me, Zarabeth. I don’t believe this act of yours. You are under threat from Olav, are you not? Tell me the truth, for I can put a stop to any threats he has made.”
She shook her head, afraid to open her mouth for fear of what would come out. She turned her head to the side. “Olav the Vain threaten me? Surely you can’t believe that, Viking. I won’t be threatened by any man.” She spit onto the ground. “Not even by you.
“Call me not a liar, Viking! I think you a conceited fool. Leave me now, for I find your presence tedious and your hold on my arm officious.”
He flung her arm away from him and she stumbled. She didn’t fall, but she realized that if she had fallen he wouldn’t have helped her. He was staring down at her, his face without any emotion at all that she could see. He looked savage and cold and utterly ruthless. He looked as if he would enjoy killing her. He looked like, finally, he believed her utterly.
When he spoke, finally, his voice was as hard and cold as his face. “Perhaps I should take you to my vessel. I can give you a good taste of a Viking man. I won’t disappoint you, Zarabeth, but I doubt I would receive any pleasure from our coupling. You’ve played with me magnificently, pulled me in with gentleness and a candor I had not believed possible in a woman. I have been a conceited fool, aye, ’tis true, but at least I didn’t marry you.” He shook his head and then threw back his head and laughed.
“To think I considered myself the luckiest of men to have found you. I saw you and I wanted you. Ah, I thought it so easy, so straightforward, this love business. I thought it was fate intervening to give you to me.” He laughed again, deep and harsh. “Aye, and I was so pleased that fate had determined me to be worthy of such a fine creature as you. The irony is beyond reason and beyond pain.” Then he turned and strode away. He paused, but didn’t turn back as he said over his shoulder. “You are a bitch, Zarabeth, and I devoutly hope you gain what you deserve.”
Then he was gone, his cloak billowing behind him, and she watched him, unmoving, and felt such pain that she wanted to scream with it. She got a hold on herself. She’d succeeded, and now Lottie would be safe. Once she had Lotti, she would go to Magnus and explain. All would be well again. He would understand.
She didn’t turn when she heard Olav say softly, “You did well, Zarabeth. I wondered if your selfishness would prevent it, but it didn’t. Now, my dear girl, let us return home. Soon you will have Lotti back. Then all will be as it was.”
She walked away from him.
“Hold, Zarabeth! Where are you going?”
“To Keith and Toki. I will fetch Lotti myself.”
“They cannot give her to you. She is not with them, but hidden in another place. Nay, you must wait for me to fetch her.”
Zarabeth didn’t know what to do. Indeed, she could think of nothing to do, at least at the moment. “Then come with me now, Olav.”
He shook his head. “Nay, on the morrow. I will give you a day to settle yourself.”
Zarabeth acquiesced, for she had no choice, and she saw that Olav was pleased with her meekness. Then she waited only until he was busy in his shop with several local men who wanted to buy furs, but when she was on the point of slipping from the house, she heard Olav shout, “Stay here, Zarabeth. You must stay or you and the child will regret it.”
She stayed and she fretted. That evening she served Olav stew filled with onions and potatoes and small chunks of beef. And in his bowl she poured a sleeping draft. He spoke to her as though she were his wife and all was normal between them. It was chilling, the possessive way he behaved toward her. She held her tongue and waited. Not ten minutes after he’d eaten the stew, his head fell forward onto the wooden table. Zarabeth rose slowly and walked to him. He was soundly asleep, snoring loudly, and would remain so for hours.
Finally.
She quickly left the house and made her way over to Skeldergate, where Keith and Toki lived. Keith was a trader, like his father, and not a very good one. A year before, a visiting Viking trader had nearly killed him, for he had sold him some furs that had moth holes in them. She knew that Olav gave his son gold and furs from time to time. As for what Keith really thought of her, she was afraid to know. If he only knew what it was his father wanted of her, he would surely kill her. She quickened her pace. She and Lotti would be gone and it wouldn’t matter what happened between Keith and his father after she had left. It was dark now and there were men of all kind out, many of them bent on mischief. She arrived to the small wooden house, then drew to a stop. There was one window covered with a stretched animal membrane. She could hear through it, at least, and if she pressed her face close, she could make out vague outlines.
“I tell you, you weak bleating fool, that she’ll have him yet!”
It was Toki’s voice, loud and shrill. Zarabeth leaned closer against the membrane.
“I promised him to hold the child,” Keith said, his voice slurred from ale. “I will hold her until he comes for her. My father will be pleased that we have done as he asked. He will reward us for it.”
