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She came to a stunned halt and stared at the trading vessel in front of her. She’d never seen it before. There was no carved raven on its bow. She looked frantically to the next vessel and the next, but it was no use. The brutal, magnificent Sea Wind was gone.
Magnus had left.
She couldn’t take it in. Lotti whimpered, and she gently stroked the child’s back. He’d left . . . he was gone, and he believed she had betrayed him. He believed her faithless, a liar. There was no one to tell him otherwise.
Suddenly everything seemed very clear. It was over, all of it. There was nothing more for her. Zarabeth dropped to her knees on the wooden-planked dock. She gathered Lotti into her arms and rocked her, crooning sounds meant to comfort, not the child, but herself.
When Olav found her, it was nearly dawn.
“I’ve come to a decision,” Olav said. Nearly a month had passed since the Viking had sailed away from York, and Olav felt good. Zarabeth was herself again—ah, quieter perhaps, more passive, but he didn’t care a whit, for he didn’t like a woman’s sharp tongue. She was here and she served him and she obeyed him without question. Her submissiveness pleased him completely.
She looked at him now without interest. He didn’t like that, and frowned. Perhaps too much passiveness wasn’t quite what he wanted from her.
“Aye, I’ve decided what I will do.”
Lotti said her name in that slurred way of hers and Olav looked at the child impatiently. “Can’t you teach her to at least say your name clearly?”
Zarabeth gave him a clear, emotionless look. “It is very clear to me.” Then she shrugged, saying something that made him rock back in surprise. “Of course, I am young and of clear hearing.”
Olav held to his temper.
Zarabeth leaned over and handed Lotti a soft piece of bread she’d just baked an hour before. It was still warm and she’d smeared sweet honey on it.
“What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? Don’t you care to hear about my decision?”
“You will tell me soon enough, I imagine.”
“Very well. I’ve decided to marry you.” She didn’t move, she didn’t change expressions, but her mind squirreled madly about. Why didn’t he simply tell her that he would bed her? Why marriage? Bedding him was obscene; marrying him was even worse. She said nothing now, fearing
what would come from her mouth if she did speak. When he had spoken to her a few moments ago, she had given her thoughts words and spoken what was in her mind. It had surprised and angered him, but she hadn’t cared. But this decision of his to wed her, it was a travesty, it was mad and pathetic. She kept her head down.
“I’ve spoken to King Guthrum’s counselors, and then to the king himself. You see, I managed to find for him exquisite bird feathers that came from the Lapps. I even traded them with only a narrow profit for myself. He was thus most favorably disposed toward me when I sought his advice. ’Tis true that one of his concubines shares his blood; he bows before the Christian God, but never think any set of gods, no matter their supposed origin, would distract him from what he wants. Thus, when I told him I wanted to wed with you and you carried none of my blood, he said even the Christian bishops couldn’t object.”
“Why do you want to wed with me? You know I despise you. Why?”
“Tread carefully, Zarabeth, for the child hears what you say. The child could also hear me tell you what I would do to her were you to resist me and what I wish.”
Zarabeth didn’t care. It was really as simple as that. She simply lived now, endured, for there was naught else for her to do. She supposed she would have simply lain down and died were it not for Lotti. But Lotti needed her, and thus she had to continue. She had to pretend at life. She looked at Olav and said nothing more, her expression now calm and blank as her heart.
“ ’Tis either bedding me as my wife or as my whore.”
She shrugged. “Aye, your whore, then.”
She shouldn’t have said that, he thought, eyeing her with growing irritation. She should be grateful to him, curse her, on her knees to him that he was willing to wed with her, a female with no dowry of any sort, nothing save that damned idiot child. She’d caught him in a lie of his own weaving and now he must admit to it. “Nay, I would not have you as my whore, it would not be good for my business. People would gossip about me, perhaps question my honor and my judgment, for you are very young and I, well, I am not quite so young as I was. No, it wouldn’t be good for me to have you as my whore. You will be my wife—then none can criticize me. All will believe me honorable. We will wed soon now. I will have a new gown sewn for you and you will wear it, Zarabeth, and you will look pleased and you will smile and speak gently to me, and you will compliment me to all who ask you.”
Zarabeth looked at him. “If I refuse to wed with you, you will kill Lotti?”
“Aye.”
He would use Lotti for as long as she lived. Zarabeth looked away and sliced off a piece of the warm bread. She spread butter and honey on it and took a bite. She said nothing, merely ate, one bite after the other.
“Answer me, Zarabeth!”
She took the last bite, then wiped her mouth. “I don’t recall your asking me a question. Was there something you wanted, Olav?”
“Damn you, you will wed with me!”
“That isn’t a question.”
