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She redoubled her efforts to free herself, for the words, once spoken aloud, became real, as real as her coming death itself, as real as the blow that would strike her down. She changed tactics and suddenly threw herself at him, her hands fisted, nearly knocking him off-balance, her fists pounding at his head. She screamed at him again and again, beyond herself, “No, you can’t kill me! I don’t want to die!”
Magnus stopped cold. He felt her fists hitting him, felt the pain from her blows, but it was as nothing. Her words . . . He simply stared down at her. He clasped her wrists in his hands, still saying nothing. Finally Zarabeth stopped as well, panting, so terrified she could do naught now but look up at him helplessly.
“You think I would kill you,” he said slowly, his eyes roving over her face, studying her, and there was so much pain in his voice that it even burst through her fear and she felt it as a part of herself. But it wasn’t part of her and she was fooling herself. He would kill her, kill her . . . She couldn’t believe him.
“Aye! Why would you drag me out here and yell for Rollo if not to kill me?”
Again he simply looked at her. Then he raised his hand, and she flinched, preparing herself for the blow that would surely come now, but he only laid his palm against her cheek, cupping it gently, and said, “I won’t kill you. If you died, a part of me would die as well. No, Zarabeth, I won’t kill you. Ever, I swear it.”
She slowly nodded. She believed him, knew that he was speaking the truth. She realized suddenly that she had always believed him. He had gone to a good deal of trouble to save her life in York. Why would he take it now? She stopped her struggles. She had been a madwoman, beyond thought, beyond reason. She had been beyond him. She shuddered and stilled. He took her hand and led her into the blacksmith’s hut. She hadn’t been here before, and upon entering the hut, the heat from the circular stone furnace hit her face with such force that she fell back.
“Come, you’ll get used to it.”
Rollo was a dark man with a thick black beard and a cast in one of his black eyes, making it look a pale gray. His legs were too short, but his upper body was more muscular than Magnus’, his arms like tree trunks. He was on his knees before the furnace, pumping a huge leather bellows to heat it more. He looked up at Magnus, said nothing, then looked at Zarabeth. He rose slowly, handing a sword to Magnus.
“ ’Tis yours, sound as it was the day I fashioned it two years ago. We go again to search for Egill?”
Magnus accepted the sword, saying, “Ragnar leads twelve men now in the search. Soon I will go out again. But first, I want you to remove the collar from her neck.”
Rollo said nothing. He started to push away Zarabeth’s hair, but Magnus forestalled him. He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled it upward, baring her neck. Rollo touched the collar, saw the seam in it, and nodded.
“You will hold yourself very still, mistress, else you might lose your pretty head.”
Zarabeth’s heart was pounding. He was freeing her. She stared up at him, not understanding why but accepting it. She wanted to weep. He was freeing her.
“Kneel here. Magnus, keep all that hair free from her head. The red of it would blind me.”
It was over quickly. She didn’t flinch when the heavy iron hammer came down on the collar, once, twice, and on the third time it flew apart. She remained on her knees, her neck positioned on a block, her eyes closed, and when she heard the iron collar fall to the ground, she whispered, “I feel so light.” Magnus helped her to rise. She rubbed her fingers over her throat. The skin was abraded and red, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to feel her neck the way it had been before.
She listened to Magnus thank Rollo, listened to the men discuss Egill’s disappearance.
“We leave for another search soon, Rollo,” Magnus said again at parting, and took Zarabeth’s hand. He led her back to the longhouse.
He held her hand tightly, as if afraid she would break away from him. He said, not looking down at her, “You will wed with me now. I have rings for us, made by a jeweler in York, when you said you would wed me before.”
Zarabeth was dumbfounded. He’d had her slave collar removed, and now this? “Wed with you? But you hate me, you believe me a murderess, that I betrayed you. Lotti is dead, Egill is missing, and you wish to wed with me?”
“Aye, we will be done quickly enough.”
“But why? No one wishes you to. I bring you nothing!”
“It didn’t matter before to me and it doesn’t matter now. You could be wearing only your hair and it wouldn’t matter to me. Will you exchange your pledge of faith with me?”
“But why, Magnus? Why?”
He drew a deep breath, but still he did not look at her. His hold on her hand tightened more and she flinched in pain. He had no answer, and only repeated, “You will wed with me now. Any questions you have will wait. My son is somewhere out there and I must be after him again soon.”
She said nothing more. She wondered if he believed his son to be dead, dead like Lotti. Both of the children? How could he bear it?
“Will you, Zarabeth?”
She nodded slowly, saying nothing. It was inevitable, her bonding with this man. She’d accepted so long ago. She couldn’t deny him now.
She tried not to react when Magnus told his family of his decision. She simply closed her eyes at their collective looks of astonishment, Cyra’s white face, and Ingunn’s look of hatred. She wondered dully, standing there in their midst without a word to say, if she would spend the rest of her life dependent upon another, all decisions affecting her to be made by someone else. Then she shrugged. It did not matter, none of it, for Lotti was dead, after all, and even though Zarabeth would continue to live, continue to eat and breathe, the joy in it would be gone and would remain gone.
Soon, so soon she couldn’t quite grasp it, she and Magnus were standing facing each other and he was holding her right hand, saying, “Before these witnesses and before our gods, I pledge my lifelong faith to you, Zarabeth. You will be my wife until death claims my body, and I swear to protect you with my sword and with my body, and we will live together in peace and you will share in all that I possess and all that I will ever possess.”
He shoved a beautiful gold ring onto her middle finger.
