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She wondered if she believed it herself. How could she return when she didn’t know the face of her enemy? She wondered, as she had countless times during the past two years, what home was like now.
* * *
With loud cheers and equally loud prayers of thanksgiving to Thor, the men finally shoved the longboat into the Gulf of Riga six days later. They’d been slowed by a violent storm that had shredded the men’s tempers and tested their strength, but it had only lasted a day and a half, nothing all that dreadful, but dreadful enough. When the longboat slid smoothly into the clear blue water of the gulf, she and all of the men breathed a deep sigh of relief.
No one had attacked them.
Thor had given them a safe portage, they’d earned a lot of silver from their trading, and all were thankful. When they camped that evening, she decided she would make them a delicious dinner.
Her back was healed now, but still, she tired too quickly, and it angered her, this weakness, this continued betrayal by her body. Merrik had merely laughed at her that morning when she’d cursed her weariness in language as colorful as the brightly plumed birds they saw in the forest. As for Taby, she could now look at him without pain. His cheeks were no longer sunken, but were rounding out again. He walked upright, no longer bowed down with hunger. There was light in his eyes, not the dull blank acceptance, or silent questions to her that she couldn’t answer. And his laughter, that was the best of it all. Just a few moments ago when the men were cheering their safe portage, Merrik had suddenly lifted Taby high in the air, swinging him over his head. Taby had shrieked with laughter. Laren had simply stood there, watching them and listening to her little brother’s joy.
They brought her venison for supper. She cut the meat into thick steaks and seasoned them with snow berries and juniper roots, then wrapped them in wide maple leaves rubbed with venison fat.
After the meal, the men, their bellies full and content, shouted for Deglin to finish his tale of Grunlige the Dane.
But Deglin was sulking. Merrik had told him earlier that he would be in charge of keeping the furs brushed and clean, and most importantly, to make certain they were kept dry in the hold of the longboat. Deglin had thought himself above such a chore, but Merrik had held firm, and Deglin had grumbled endlessly as he’d done it, making the men want to yell at him and Merrik want to break his neck.
So Deglin refused to do anything now, telling Merrik and the men that it was his genius that enabled him to tell them stories and that the genius had been overworked by brushing and cleaning the furs, a task that didn’t merit his skills and talent. He was a skald and was to be revered, not worked like a slave, and he’d looked at Laren, who was busy adding vegetables to the buck the men had killed and said she was a slave, she should have tended the furs. Merrik said, “There are few furs, only those we are taking back to our families as gifts. Your tasks were light, Deglin, and the furs important.”
But Deglin sniffed and said his bowels weren’t happy with the foul offal she had made them eat. He took himself off into the pine trees and relieved himself for an hour. The venison steaks had been delicious, but she didn’t say anything. The men grumbled at Deglin’s perversity. Several began throwing pebbles in a test of their accuracy. After a while, though, they were bored.
It was then she said, “I have thought about Grunlige the Dane. Perhaps I can continue the story in Deglin’s stead.”
The men looked at her as if she’d lost her wits. She could cook. She was a woman. They stared at her.
She merely looked back at them gravely, saying nothing more.
It was Taby, sitting between Merrik’s legs, leaning back against his chest, who said, “Do tell us, Laren, your stories are wonderful.”
“Aye,” Oleg said, with no real conviction. “We’ve naught else to do. Tell us what you can.”
“I’m full with venison and care not what comes to my ears,” Old Firren said. “Go ahead, girl.”
Merrik said nothing. He held Taby. But she knew that he, like all the other men, believed that no woman could spin a tale to hold a man’s interest, for all knew women had no talent for it. The skalds were men, only men, and all knew . . .
Laren pitched her voice low and smooth and leaned slightly toward the men to gain their full attention, something she’d seen her uncle’s skald do many, many times. “When Grunlige said, ‘I cannot feel my hands,’ and all his men were saddened at the sight of the hideous shrunken claws his hands had become, it seemed that all his mighty strength, his miraculous courage, would be no more. It took not many months for him to grow shorter, for his shoulders and head were always bent, his eyes on the ground, since there was no hope in his heart to look to heaven.
“All his friends fell silent when he was near. Not long thereafter, Grunlige went off by himself and many believed that he had gone off to die, for what reason was there for him to continue? He had no more strength and, thus, no more pride, and therein lay his own knowledge of his worth and his sense of his own greatness. But after three days he returned, blank-faced and silent.
“His enemies rejoiced, but in private, for they knew that Grunlige was popular with many people, far and near, and it wasn’t wise to speak happily of what had befallen him. Some of them began to make their plans. Evil men they were, and they knew not honor. They weren’t Vikings, not valiant warriors, but rather Saxon raiders, mean-spirited and petty, and they knew only betrayal and treachery. They decided to raid his holdings.
“Thus in the months that followed, they seized his warships, stole his slaves, his silver and gold. They would kill his people and steal cattle and sheep. One even wanted to kidnap Grunlige’s beautiful wife, Selina.
“And so it began and continued. His men cried out, begging Grunlige to help them, but Grunlige said nothing, merely bowed his head and drank his ale until he was senseless and his slaves had to carry him off to his bed. Then one day, ah, it was just after dawn on a hot morning in the summer, Parma, an evil Saxon raider from Wessex, managed to steal into the main farmstead where Selina lived. He was a tall man, dark visaged, his eyebrows so thick they met over his eyes. He hated Grunlige and knew his best revenge on him wouldn’t be his own death but the loss of his beloved wife. Grunlige had killed his brother when the man had been drunk on mead and flogged to death one of Grunlige’s favorite horses. Thus the reason for Parma’s hatred. On that morning, Parma saw her and she was alone, sitting quietly beside a stream, staring at nothing really, thinking about her husband, and the ill fate that had befallen him. He snuck up on her, making not a single sound, and when he stood right behind her, he said, ‘My name is Parma and I have come to take you, Selina, wife of Grunlige. I will treat you as I would treat Grunlige were he my prisoner. I will have you on your knees begging for mercy. Then I will flog you just as Grunlige flogged my brother.’
“She showed no fright, but
turned to look up at this evil man and said, ‘If you touch me, Parma, you will regret it until the moment breath leaves your lungs.’
“He laughed loudly, for she was but a woman, slight, of no account at all. Just a woman, but she was Grunlige’s woman and thus Parma wanted her. He leaned down to grab her. But when his hands touched her arms something very strange happened.”
Laren smiled and turned to Merrik. “My brother is very nearly asleep. I will continue the tale, if you wish me to, tomorrow night. I trust I haven’t bored you.”
The men were staring at her. Then they grumbled. Then Roran called out, “Aye, but what happened? The only thing strange when a man touches a woman is that he wants her and that isn’t strange.”
“Taby isn’t tired, are you, boy?”
“What magic is this?”
