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He jerked back as if she’d struck him. What she said was madness, surely . . . He stared at her, then at her loose-fitting gown and overtunic, not old or ragged, for it was Sarla’s, just very plain and too big for her, not garb the future queen of the Danelaw would wear. Something violent moved within him, something he didn’t understand, but accepted, just as he’d accepted her and he knew he’d accepted her for a very long time now, for probably longer than he realized. He believed her, tamped down on the fury raging deep within him, and said mildly, “The truth at last. Tell me the rest of it.”
“Taby is indeed a prince. He and I were abducted from my sleeping chamber two years ago, and sold to a slave trader in the Rhineland.”
“Who is your father?”
“Our father, Hallad, is dead. However, Taby is the second male in line to succeed his uncle.”
“His uncle, Laren?”
She drew in a deep breath. “I haven’t said his name aloud in two years. Our uncle is Rollo, called the first duke by the Frankish king, Charles the Simple. As you know, he ceded Normandy to Rollo so that he would defend France against the raids of other Vikings.”
This time he didn’t feel as if she’d struck him; he felt as if he’d been kicked by a horse. “The famous Rollo,” Merrik said more to himself than to her. “I was raised on tales about the brave and ferocious Rollo. He is truly your uncle?”
“Aye, my father was his older brother. Rollo was wedded to a girl from a royal family in Spain. He loved her, so I have been told. She bore him some six children, three of them boys. However, only the second son, William Longsword, lived to manhood. Thus, Taby is second in line after William. His older brother, Hallad, my father, had four children, three daughters and one son, Taby. Unfortunately our mother died when Taby was only a year old. Our sisters, by my father’s first wife, are much older. They are wed to men of high rank and all live in Rouen at my uncle’s palace. Someone betrayed us. One or both of my sisters, or their husbands. I don’t know who. William Longsword was out of Normandy at the time of our abduction, at the Frankish court in Paris. Also, I trust William. He would no more harm Taby or me than he would harm his own father. He realizes Taby’s importance in the scheme of things. He, too, has a wife, but she has borne him no children as yet and they’ve been wed for five years. At least this was true when we were abducted. Perhaps by now he has a son. Perhaps by now Taby isn’t so very important. But until we know, Merrik, Taby is very important to Rollo, very important to Normandy.”
He said nothing for a very long time. Then, “At least they didn’t murder you out of hand.”
“No, that is why I believe it must be one of my sisters, or both of them, or their husbands. It would salve their consciences were Taby and I only to be sold as slaves, not killed outright. They surely must believe that they have won, Merrik. They haven’t, unless William Longsword has died leaving no son, but I have heard naught about it. If there is no direct heir, why, then one of the husbands would become the heir to Rollo.”
“That is what you meant when you told me you understood vengeance.”
“Aye, I have lived with the thought of it strong and sweet in my mind. Aye, and on my tongue. I can nearly taste it. As long as I’m alive they haven’t won.”
“No, they haven’t. You have spent the last two years surviving, keeping Taby with you, keeping him alive.” He looked back up the winding path to Malverne, now his farmstead, enclosed within its mighty wooden palisade. He saw smoke rising from the hole in the roof of the longhouse. Then the barley, hay, and rye fields, surrounding the palisade, the crops nearly ready for harvest. An endless cycle. “Life is not at all what a man expects it to be. I suppose it is better that way. My parents are struck down by a plague, my brother is murdered, the assassin still unknown, and now the child I want as my son is in line to the great Rollo.” He paused a moment, looking down at his brown feet. “It is almost more than I can accept.”
“And I am his niece. It is all true, Merrik.”
“Aye, I do not doubt you. But I do doubt myself. I went to the slave market in Kiev to find a comely female slave for my mother. Instead I found you and Taby. As I told you, you have made my life a confusion. And now I learn you are Rollo’s niece. I am impressed with your lineage. Who you are will convince my people that you could not have murdered Erik. Your blood is too purified, too noble, to stain your hands on a man of Erik’s station.”
“You will now return me to Normandy? With Taby?”
He became very still. He looked down at her, at the shifting expressions on her face, his own face unreadable to her. Finally, he said, with no emotion in his voice, his eyes flat, not meeting hers, “If it is your wish.”
He watched her scuff the toes of her leather shoes against the pier. They were an old pair belonging to Sarla. He could see a hole along the side of her foot. “Ah, then you don’t wish to wed me now.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what do you want, Merrik?”
He clasped her left hand in his and flattened her palm over his chest, laying his hand over hers. “I won’t return Taby to your uncle Rollo until I have found out who betrayed you. The danger is still there. To return both you and Taby there now would simply result in your deaths this time, doubt it not. I will not take that chance.”
“Perhaps, but still, I must go back. I will find out. Uncle Rollo will punish my sisters, if it is they who had us abducted. If it is their husbands, they will be killed. I would protect Taby as would Uncle Rollo. Taby could be the future duke of Normandy, if something happens to my cousin before he breeds an heir. He must go back. My uncle grows no younger. He must train Taby, teach him, just as he did William.”
“I had not expected this,” Merrik said slowly, now looking beyond at the distant sheer cliffs, her hand now clasped in his at his side. “I hadn’t expected you to be an innkeeper’s daughter, however. I just didn’t imagine that you would be royalty. I imagine that your Danelaw prince, Askhold, believes you long dead. I imagine he is wed to another by now.”
“Aye, it is possible. He needed a wife to bear him children.”
“What is he like?”
“I don’t know. I never met him, but I heard my sisters talking about him. They said he was thirty and his first wife had died, and she had given him five daughters. He wanted a young girl. He thought I would produce sons for him. Uncle Rollo and the king negotiated the alliance.”
“I do not want you for his reasons. You know me. I have saved your life. You have given me your virginity.”
“Aye, that is true.”
“This prince wouldn’t want you if he knew you were no longer a virgin. That is the way of things.”
She could only stare at him. “Aye, you are probably right.”
