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Slowly Zarabeth got to her feet. She straightened her gown and pulled back her shoulders. Her chin went up. She knew her life hung on her words.
“I will say the truth, sire. I did not kill Olav. I tended him faithfully during his illness. He was kind to me. You were there at our wedding and you saw that he was pleased. That night he was drunk, as were all the guests. The next day, he became ill and his illness remained for weeks and each day he worsened. I did all I could for him. Then there was an evening when Keith’s wife, Toki, was more than passing cruel to me and Olav ordered both his son and his wife from his house. They were not to come back. Almost immediately Olav began to improve. He was nearly well when he forgave Keith his wife’s ill-temper and they returned yet again to share our evening meals. He became ill and died that same night. I did not poison him, sire, but I imagine that Toki did, and now she has convinced her husband to have me blamed.”
The king said naught, sat there stroking his gnarled fingers over his chin.
“We have heard speech from both Keith and Toki and now we have heard your words. A young wife seeks to have her husband’s wealth but she doesn’t want him, for he is old and no longer comely. She wishes to free herself of him and his demands on her.”
At least part of it was the truth, and Zarabeth felt herself paling under the king’s gaze. Then she shook her head. “You will ask Arnulf about my husband’s wishes. He wanted to leave to me all his earthly goods, not to his son, for he felt no more kinship for him. This is why Keith and Toki blame me for it. They are responsible, there is no one else! They want what is mine, what is my sister’s!”
The king raised his voice then, and it was stern and cold, cutting her off. “I have heard how you wished to leave Olav’s house to travel away with a Viking, a man young and comely and finely hewn, but then you changed your mind, for Olav had offered to wed with you. You decided to stay and have your wealth, for you saw it there and did not wish to take a chance on offerings in a faraway land.”
“That is not true! Where did you hear this, sire?”
Arnulf poked her in her ribs. “Watch your tongue, stupid wench!”
“Hold,” the king said, lifting a beringed hand. “Leave her be, our good Arnulf. She deserves to know all the proof against her, then perhaps she will beg and plead for forgiveness. Now, girl, I heard it from the man you encouraged, then scorned, for you could not be certain that he would give you all that you wanted. Aye, I have it from Magnus Haraldsson that you are a perfidious, faithless wench who, in our view, decided to make Olav jealous, and thus prodded him until he promised to wed with you. And then you dismissed the man who wanted you and promised you all his loyalty and his wealth. And thus there will be no consideration for you. Olav’s son deserves his father’s possessions, not a young wife who wedded him only to gain his wealth, a young woman who eagerly turned away another man, a young man with true honor, and taunted him with her decision in full view of York’s citizens so his humiliation would be all the greater.”
Zarabeth stopped thinking, nearly stopped breathing, for as the king spoke, the deep crimson silk curtain behind his chair parted, and Magnus came through to stand beside Guthrum. He stared at Zarabeth and she saw the coldness in his eyes, the loathing for her in his heart. She felt shock at the sight of him, an instant of wild hope, then despair. Only he could have told the king these things.
“It isn’t true,” she heard herself say in a low whisper.
“Well, girl, speak if you would, for I would have this done and punishment meted out!”
“Olav made me dismiss Magnus! He forced me to do it!”
“And how did he do this?”
“He threatened to kill Lotti, I swear it!”
Keith yelled, “ ’Tis a lie, a damnable lie! My father loved the little girl, gave her all that she wished to have. He favored her and played with her. Zarabeth killed him and now she lies! My father was a sainted man. Never would he threaten a child!”
The king said aught for several minutes. Then he turned slowly to Magnus and said something in a low voice. Zarabeth waited, so terrified that she couldn’t have moved in any case. She saw Magnus lean down and reply to a question.
Then slowly Magnus straightened and looked directly at her. He said nothing. Then he smiled as the king rose and said, pointing a finger at Zarabeth, “Your punishment for murder should be death, but Magnus Haraldsson, a young man of good faith and fine family, has convinced me otherwise. You, Zarabeth, who could have once been his wife and lived a life of honor, are now his slave to do with as he pleases. If he pleases to kill you, then so be it. If he pleases to beat you until you are senseless, then so be it. Go with your master and never again return to the Danelaw, for death awaits you here if ever you return.”
“No,” Zarabeth said, “no.”
She stood still as Magnus strode toward her, his face set and cold, nothing but contempt in his eyes.
10
Magnus stared at her from behind the crimson curtain. He felt such pain he thought he’d choke on it. As he watched her, his pain cleansed itself into pure anger. Even though she was dirty, her hair straggling down about her face, her gown torn at the shoulder whe
re someone had ripped off a brooch, still, she looked proud and unbending.
By Odin, he had missed her, had dreamed of her more nights than he could remember now, for she always seemed to be there with him, in his mind, soft beneath his hands and whispering his name only the way she could; and yet she was naught but a fraud, the woman who had played him for a fool, the woman who had betrayed him.
He listened to her speak, so impassioned she was, and felt the pain return in full measure, but not with pity or longing for her, but with building rage. She had wronged him. She deserved to suffer for it, and she would.
When he came out to stand beside King Guthrum, when she saw him, he thought she would faint. For an instant he thought he saw joy in her expressive eyes, and hope . . . nay, it was surprise and chagrin he saw, for he was here now, to face her. It was guilt too, he realized, for what she’d done to him, perhaps even a moment of remorse.
Had she killed Olav?
He hadn’t wished to believe it, had initially dismissed it as absurd, but the witnesses were many and their words rang true to his ears and to the king’s ears as well. They reported how Olav had told all of his love for the little girl, how Olav had wanted Zarabeth and the little girl to be protected and thus he wedded with her, how Olav had planned to give Zarabeth all upon his death because of her hold on him. Did that make her guilty of murdering him? Did that mean she had turned Olav away from his own son? Evidently most believed so.
But then, many witnesses also spoke of Zarabeth’s kindness, her care of Olav during his illness, and her love for her little sister. Still, he found himself looking again and again at Keith and Toki. Again he found himself going over Zarabeth’s story in his mind, and he looked toward Toki. The woman’s eyes were lowered now, modestly, her mouth a tight line, but he felt something malignant about her, something that was cold and unwholesome.
Not that it really mattered to him. He was glad Olav was dead, truth be told. The man was no longer Zarabeth’s husband and she was free now to be whatever he, Magnus, wished her to be. He had come in time to save her, and that should have amused him. He, the man she’d betrayed, saving her. Aye, there was humor in that. But when he tried to find the humor, he failed. The thought that if he had been just several days later she would have been dead made him nearly double over at the empty blackness her death would bring him. But he refused to dwell on that. No, what would happen now would give him pleasure, great pleasure. She would get the punishment she deserved.
