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He jumped from his chair and she knew that he meant violence. This time he didn’t catch her unawares. She picked up her knife and gripped it firmly. “Don’t, Olav, else I’ll slice you.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said, watching her hand warily.
“There will be no violence, Olav. You will not hit me, nor will you ever again strike Lotti, or I will kill you. Believe me, for I mean it.”
He shrugged, hoping to salvage his pride; when she nodded and put the knife down, he drew a deep breath. “A wife shouldn’t threaten her husband.”
“But a stepdaughter can.”
He frowned at her, at the bitterness of her words. “You act the ill-treated orphan, Zarabeth. In truth, your life is easy and I leave you be to do as you wish. Any woman would wish to fill your place.”
“Will you invite your son and his wife to this wedding feast?”
At that Olav smiled. It was a malicious smile, but it didn’t touch her. She cared not what happened to Keith. Nothing had really touched her since Magnus had sailed from York. She cared not if Keith ranted and screamed at his father, if Toki shrieked and howled. “Oh, yes,” Olav said, rubbing his hands together, “I shall invite everyone.”
And he did. He spared no expense. A week later, on a sunny afternoon in May, Olav and Zarabeth were married, first according to the Christian ceremony, the bishop himself officiating to show King Guthrum’s favor, then by the vows made before the Viking gods of Odin and Thor and Frey. Olav had garbed Zarabeth in a fine silk gown of soft pink with an overtunic of a darker pink, belted tightly at her waist with a wide band of white leather. She wore two brooches at her shoulders to hold the overtunic in place, both of them of the finest silver, worked by old Crinna himself.
There were banquet tables set up in Coppergate square, covered with trenchers holding cold beef strips and bowls of apples and pears and stewed onions and split baked turnips. There were freshly baked bread and a full bowl of honey and a block of butter. So much food, and Zarabeth saw that the people admired Olav and blessed him for his generosity, and overlooked the fact that he’d wedded his own stepdaughter, who was less than half his age. He’d even given Lotti fine wool for a new gown. The little girl stayed close to Zarabeth even during the ceremony before the Christian bishop, her face pressed against Zarabeth’s thigh. Keith and Toki were there, and silent. Even Toki, never one to keep her feelings to herself, remained quiet, for she wasn’t stupid and she saw that all the neighbors and townspeople were greatly awed and pleased by Olav’s beneficence. King Guthrum himself made an appearance late in the afternoon, and Olav preened and basked in his favor.
Zarabeth accepted the envious glances from the unmarried women and the widows with outward serenity. If only they knew, she thought vaguely, if only they guessed that naught but vast emptiness filled her. She thought then of the coming night, thought of Olav naked, covering her, breaching her maidenhead, and even that didn’t overly concern her. It would be done to someone else. It wouldn’t really touch her. She felt Lotti press harder against her leg and took the little girl’s hand in hers.
She saw her new husband raise a drinking horn of fine Rhenish blue glass and drink yet more sweet honey-mead. She saw him offer the king more of the potent brew. King Guthrum, old and fat and graybearded, sat piously beside his wife whilst two of his lemans fluttered in the background, young and charm-ripe and round of arm and breast. Men and women alike were drunk now, and there was much good-natured giving of advice to Olav on bedding his new bride.
It didn’t touch Zarabeth. None of it. Even when Toki sidled up to her, a wary eye always trained on Olav, she didn’t do more than say calmly, “Yes, Toki? What wish you?”
“You think you’ve won, don’t you, Zarabeth? Well, you haven’t. Just look at Olav, so drunk he can scarce keep upright. Just listen to him laughing at the king’s inane jests! It’s pathetic, and now you will pay, my girl, surely you will pay.”
“Probably.”
“He’ll not give you a brat!”
“I hope not.”
Toki fell silent, staring at Zarabeth with drunken concentration. “You don’t care,” she said at last, and there was a good deal of bewilderment in her voice.
Zarabeth tightened her hold on Lotti’s hand. She looked toward Olav and saw that he stumbled from drink. She felt only a mild revulsion, gazing on him.
“Aye, when he pukes, you’ll care.”
Zarabeth sighed. “I’ll probably have to clean it up.”
Toki gave a malevolent look at Lotti, then took herself back to her equally drunken husband. Zarabeth held herself apart, but no one noticed, for the drink hadn’t yet run out. It was very late before two men approached her, laughing drunkenly, supporting an unconscious Olav between them.
“It will take a woman’s gentle care to rouse him!”
“Aye, mayhap ’tis best to let him lie alone. Either he’ll die or vow to become a monk on the morrow.”
They carried Olav to the house, Zarabeth and Lotti following behind. The king had spoken gracious words to her, as had the queen, and had commended her to her husband’s generosity and nobility of spirit. She felt tired after the long day, but little else. She motioned the men to place her husband on his box bed, and after they’d left, giving her leering looks, she pulled a coverlet over him and let him be. She prayed he would sleep through the night.
Olav didn’t sleep through the night. He awoke deep in the middle of the night, still more drunk than sick, realized that he was wedded to Zarabeth, and went in search of her.
He found her sleeping by Lotti and grabbed her arm, shaking her and nearly yelling, “Why sleep you here? Why are you with her and not with me? ’Tis your duty to sleep with me! I have paid dearly for you. You’re my wife!”
Zarabeth felt Lotti stiffen beside her. She hadn’t been asleep; she had heard him stumble across the room. She’d prepared herself, and now she said calmly enough, “Go back to your bed, Olav. The women told me that you would be too drunk to take me this night. I pray that you won’t be sick, for I have no wish to clean up after you. Go away now.”
Any thoughts Olav had cherished of bedding Zarabeth faded in that moment. His belly cramped and turned in on itself and he moaned, clutching his arms around himself. Zarabeth heard him stumble through to his outer shop, then out into the night. She didn’t move, merely said very softly to Lotti, “Go back to sleep, little love. He won’t bother us tonight at least.”
The next morning Keith found his father huddled against the shop front, sleeping like the dead.
