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“This is my home,” Merrik said. “Soon we will pass Gravak Valley. I have many cousins who live there.”
He fell silent, but she saw a smile tug at his mouth, and he shook his head.
“Will we stop?”
He shook his head. “Nay, I wish to return home. It is odd but I’ve felt something, a strange feeling that gnaws at me when my thoughts aren’t focused. I don’t like it.”
Laren had learned not to discount such feelings when they came. “What are these feelings?”
“They make my flesh itch. They make me want to hurry faster, for there is something not right at home.” He shook his head. “It is nothing, surely nothing. I grow as foolish as a female.”
“I am not foolish.”
“Very well. I grow as foolish as a female who is not you.”
“Has your home a name?”
“Aye, for generation upon generation my father’s farmstead has been called Malverne. The name is older than these mountains on either side of us, and none know what it means or from what language it comes.”
“Malverne,” she said. “ ’Tis an odd word and not one I recognize either, except that it—” Her voice fell like a stone dropped from one of the huge towering cliffs.
He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting.
She shook her head, then said brightly, her voice so false that he wanted to shake her, “Tell me about your cousins.”
“One of my cousins is wed to a woman without hearing. Her name is Lotti.”
Laren couldn’t imagine such a thing. “And she is alive? She is grown?”
“Aye. Egil, her husband and my cousin, has taken care of her since she was Taby’s age. She can read the words from your lips as you speak, but Egil has also devised signals with his fingers so they can speak together more easily. It is fascinating to watch their fingers fly about and then hear them laugh, for they can even jest in this finger language. They are very happy and have four children. Lotti is special.”
She nodded, then fell silent. The men rowed more closely to shore and the cliff loomed over them, casting shadows when it momentarily blocked the sun. “I don’t know if I should like this in the winter. I’ve heard of the winters here, of course. I’ve been told that they . . .” Again, she stopped herself and he didn’t frown this time, merely waited, impassive, looking at the mountains they were passing. She said, “They sound difficult.”
“No more difficult than most things. It’s a different sort of beauty,” Merrik said. “But you’re right, when the days are short, the mountains and trees covered with snow, there is a sameness that soon bends your thoughts. We spend much time inside during the winter months, for the snow can be so deep you could step outside and sink into snow that covers your head.” He paused a moment, then said, “Ah, but to stand alone in the midst of a forest of pine trees, and there is nothing but silence and the utter white of newly fallen snow. That is something that moves the most remote of men.”
“I have heard it said that the Vikings keep the animals in their longhouses during the winter.”
“Aye. In the winter months, else they would freeze to death. The extra animals are slaughtered, their meat smoked and dried so that we will eat well during the winter. Aye, the remaining animals are brought into the longhouse.” He grinned down at her. “The smell isn’t too bad. One becomes used to it. But when the snow stops and the sun burns overhead, and fresh air fills everything, ah, that is what makes everything perfect here. Where do you come from, Laren?”
“From Nor—” She stopped and began to slowly tug on her meager braids. “It is not important, Merrik, truly. Thank you for the clothes. I no longer feel like a man, and ’tis a foolish feeling I didn’t like. Though the freedom to run and move quickly is something I will miss.”
He let her be. He would learn everything about her and Taby soon enough. He watched her fidget with her hair, hair thick and curly that she’d somehow managed to braid—even though her hair was still too short for much plaiting—pinning the meager braids with two wooden clasps on top of her head. Tendrils of shorter hair curled about her face and several long, loose strands trailed down the back of her neck. Even with the shorter spikes of red hair sticking out of the braids, she still looked very female, and he admitted to himself, in her woman’s clothes, she was lovely. Indeed, despite the still pale y
ellow-and-green bruise on her cheek, she looked quite acceptable. By the gods, he thought, she looked beautiful, that violent red hair of hers glistening in the bright sunlight.
He looked away from her, to the shoreline that wasn’t really a shoreline at all, for the cliffs crashed from their heights right into the deep waters of the fjord, all of it continuous, without the interruption of sand or loose rocks, without break. He thought of Malverne again and felt that now familiar gnawing in his belly that left a coldness and a dread. He hated it for there was nothing he could point to, nothing to focus upon. There was nothing to do but wait.
Eller shouted, “I don’t smell anything, Merrik, but there is Malverne! I see it yon!”
The other men craned to look and shouted.
Oleg came to stand beside Merrik. “’Twas a good trading trip,” he said. “Our chests are full with silver. The women will show us much appreciation for the beautiful furs we brought them.”
Merrik grinned, dismissing his foolish feelings, now as carefree as a boy. “Aye, and the brooch I brought my mother will make her smile and feed me all her delicious meals until my belly puffs out.”
Oleg laughed. “I brought Tora an arm bracelet,” he said. “I am so skinny she will have to feed me well for a year. What did you bring your father?”
“Ah, I brought my father a knife of great value, its handle an odd ivory from beyond Bulgar.”
