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“If the child cannot hear, how came she to enter in here?”
Zarabeth didn’t bother to look up. “I do not know. I suppose that she saw you come in and pull the skins down. She is afraid of you. She sought only to protect me. I ask that you do not hurt her.”
“I have told you before that I do not harm children.”
“That is a lie. I know of Vikings such as you, and of your raids and the fighting madness that consumes all of you. You kill without reason and with no hesitation. King Alfred must continually fight you to keep his lands intact and his people from slaughter.”
He was silent for a moment, for that was true. He shrugged then. “It is our way. Sometimes things happen that are not what I would wish. But it is the way such things are. Why do you feel pity for Alfred? He is naught to you, a chimera, a fable with no substance, spoken of by unhappy Saxons over their fires during winter nights. If Alfred were their king, he would abuse them endlessly. Guthrum is your king and their king and your dead husband’s king. Your loyalty is to a Viking, not to the Saxon king.”
She shrugged. “I hate all of you, truth be told, your senseless violence that leaves people dead or broken or slaves. All of you are savages, and I doubt not that the noble Alfred is just as savage as are you. You are right about that.”
“Now you are the slave of a savage. I will hear no more of your plaints.”
“I do not wish you to rape me.”
“I don?
?t particularly wish to force myself on you, but I will if you so foolishly continue to fight me. If you do, your pain will be but worse. I care not about your pain, but perhaps you will wish to think about it. I will take you, Zarabeth, make up your mind to it. What you want, what you feel now, make no difference to me. You are still a maid, are you not?” He did not wait for her to answer, merely spoke his thoughts aloud. “You were stretching around my fingers. Aye, no man has been inside you yet. So, you wed with an old man . . . perhaps you knew he couldn’t take you and that you would not have to suffer him mauling you? Aye, or is it true that you began to poison him the very day you wedded him so you wouldn’t have to suffer him in your bed? That he would not have the strength?”
“You speak with the voice of a mindless savage. Aye, it smacks of such truth, does it not? That I would prefer an old man to wed with rather than become your wife?” Her voice was weary and mocking and he wished he had simply kept quiet. “Aye, look at what I would have gotten had I not been so stupid . . . a strong man, so tender and gentle that he will rape an unwilling woman. All those wondrous words you spoke to me, they were lies, naught but a Viking’s savage lies.”
He rose suddenly to his feet, towering over her. “I did not lie! I would have loved you and guarded you with my life, I would have given you all that I was, all that I owned, but you chose that old man. Oh, aye, you murdered him, Zarabeth, of that I am certain. You see, I heard all the witnesses before you even came into King Guthrum’s chamber. They all said the same thing, that you wanted the old man’s wealth, that you knew you could control him, for he desired you and had even granted you all his earthly goods upon his death. Mock me no more.”
He left the cargo area. She sat there still holding Lotti close, not moving now, frozen, wishing that somehow she could die but knowing that she couldn’t, for there was Lotti, her brave little sister. She heard no man’s laughter from without. Surely they would have guessed what had happened. She heard naught of anything. She held Lotti closer and rocked her back and forth. The child had saved her this time. And the next time? Magnus would never make such a mistake again. She knew too that he would have his way eventually. Again she was without choices.
Magnus would have killed any of the men if one had dared taunt him, if one had dared even look at him with a sly grin. He was frustrated and his body was tense, and his scalp was throbbing where Lotti had tried to yank out his hair. He strode down the center plank, then stopped and said to the silent men, “The child cannot hear. If you wish to play with her, you must be careful that no harm comes to her.”
Tostig looked surprised. “Of course she cannot hear. Think you we are stupid?”
“Aye,” Horkel said, “but the little one is not slow of learning. I taught her a word—‘raven.’ She can very nearly say it now.”
“Aye, she’s a sharp little tick,” Ragnar said, albeit grudgingly. He wouldn’t hold the child in disfavor because of her bitch of a sister. His head still hurt from the blow she’d struck him. “She counted all my fingers and toes.”
“Then why did you let her—?” Magnus broke off, shaking his head. He said nothing more, but walked to the stern of the vessel and set himself to brooding.
By Odin, he had been a fool. He’d seen the child, but he hadn’t realized she couldn’t hear, yet his men had known very quickly. His blindness appalled him. He was the master of this vessel, and all its men looked to him, he was their leader, yet he hadn’t even seen something so obvious as the child’s lack of hearing.
“The child saved her sister,” Horkel said to no man in particular, looking after Magnus and his stiff back. “But he will have her soon enough, I wager.”
“Aye, but he won’t harm the child to do it.”
Lotti did not again leave Zarabeth.
That night it stormed and the sky was rent with lightning, slashing white bolts that left Zarabeth so terrified she could do naught but hold Lotti on her lap and, by soothing her, soothe herself. The vessel was sound, she knew, but it seemed to lurch up to crest the waves, only to careen wildly into the deep churning troughs with sickening loud thuds. She could hear the water washing over the sides, knew the men were bailing out the bottom of the vessel as quickly as they could. She heard Magnus’ voice shouting above the din. She heard the creaking of the mighty mast as the men took it down so it wouldn’t be broken in the storm. Zarabeth felt strangely calm. She didn’t understand her feelings toward Magnus, for they seemed to shift continually. But she knew deep inside herself that if they survived the storm, it would be his doing. In this, she trusted him.
Oddly, she went to sleep.
When Magnus entered the cargo area near morning, the storm almost spent, he very nearly smiled to see Zarabeth on her side, Lotti pressed against her, the both of them soundly sleeping. Without meaning to, he pulled a woolen blanket over them, for the early-morning air had become chilled with rain and wind. Zarabeth awoke suddenly and she stared up at Magnus. He said nothing, merely turned about and left the cargo space.
Late that afternoon the Sea Wind sailed into the harbor at Hedeby, a deep-cut inlet protected from the sea by wooden palisades built in a protective curve far out into the water. There were tall earthen fortifications around the town, like a wide half-circle ending at the water’s edge. There were at least a dozen Viking trading vessels pulled up onto the land, for there was but one pier built out, and a trading vessel was docked on each side of it. Smoke rose from the number of huts that filled the inside of the fortifications. Smells mingled, bringing a heaviness to the air. There were wooden walkways through the town, connecting all the buildings to each other. And more people than Zarabeth had imagined, many more than in York. And all of them busy and talking and hurrying here and there on their separate tasks.
She clasped Lotti safely to her as the men leapt out into the water and dragged the Sea Wind out of the water and safe onto the shore. She didn’t have a long time to wonder what Magnus intended. He called to her then. “Carry Lotti in your arms to protect her. Follow me.”
Within a few moments her feet were on dry ground, and Lotti was staring wide-eyed at the endless stream of people. Men greeted Magnus and his men, and they returned the greetings. But Magnus didn’t stop. He said curtly to Zarabeth, “Stay close. Hurry. I have not time to waste on you.”
She followed him, silent and staring as intently as Lotti. She saw slaves hauling goods on their backs and women carrying water in wooden pails from a central well. There were stout merchants hawking their wares before their shops. There was a runemaster carving his special letters on a bronze cask, a smithy hammering at a sword. Magnus finally came to a halt before a small wooden hut.
There was an old woman within, and she gave Zarabeth a toothless smile. “This is a bathing hut,” Magnus said. “You will wash yourself and Lotti. I will return soon. Go nowhere else.”
