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When Laren had finished, Rollo said, “Send him to me. I will see that he never wants again in his life.”
“He is now free,” Merrik said. “He told me that he wanted to stay in Norway.”
Rollo frowned at that, for in his long experience any man offered a chance to come to him would have murdered his own brother to gain it. He said, “He doesn’t know yet what I have to offer him.”
“There is a woman, my lord,” Laren said and Rollo sighed, throwing a meaty pheasant bone to one of the huge hunting dogs who were surprisingly calm and quiet.
Rollo said, as he took a handful of honeyed walnuts, “Tell me about the old woman who taught you to cook.”
And she did, the story coming alive, for she was a spellbinder, and when she told of the old woman tasting her seasoned onions baked in honeyed maple leaves with peas, Merrik could nearly taste it himself, at this very moment.
Rollo would never have enough, Laren thought, as he said now, “Tell me about this merchant Thrasco who bought you.”
She did, her voice curt now, and she left out the beating, but Merrik wouldn’t allow it.
“He believed her a boy, sire,” Merrik said, his voice hard and rough. “He was going to give her to Khagan-Rus’s sister, Evta, a woman who liked boys. Laren was frantic to get back to Taby and thus she spoke with insolence to him. He beat her quite savagely. Fortunately he did not discover she was a girl.”
“But you saved me, Merrik,” she said, seeing the red flush on her uncle’s face, seeing the gnarled blood lines that veined his neck swell and pulse. She wouldn’t ever want to be his enemy.
“Nay, not really. I merely caught you.” He wanted Rollo to understand the horror she had endured, but he didn’t want him so enraged he wouldn’t listen to reason. He said now to Rollo, “She had managed to escape Thrasco’s compound when I came along to rescue her. She’d already rescued herself. She is of your seed, sire, she would never give up.”
Rollo laughed, thank the gods, he finally laughed, Laren thought.
“She is a woman to reckon with,” Merrik said when Rollo had become still again.
Laren didn’t stare at Merrik, though she wanted to. Did he really believe these wondrous things he was saying about her to her uncle? He’d never said naught about her being a woman to reckon with.
“She always was, even as a little mite,” Rollo said. “I knew she could tell stories—but a skald! It is an amazing thing.”
Their talk went on into the late hours. Rollo wanted every incident, every detail of the past two years. Finally, Weland was allowed into the chamber. He said, “Sire, we must speak of other things. By tomorrow, Helga and Ferlain will have heard about these guests and wonder about them. Even now there are scores of questions about the twenty Vikings who are now here and treated well by you. Aye, they’re not stupid. And their husbands have men loyal to them, doubt it not, particularly Fromm. I know he pays dearly for his traitors.”
Rollo was stroking his chin with his joint-swollen fingers. It was odd, but his joints didn’t ache like the Christian hellfires this night. No, he felt renewed. He’d been given more than a man deserved. He knew it and marveled that either the Christian God or his Viking gods had granted him his greatest wish.
“Aye,” he said finally. “We must talk.”
“I have a plan, sire,” Merrik said, leaning forward on his elbows.
Ferlain paced to and fro in front of her sister, Helga, but Helga paid her no heed She was mixing a potion and the measures had to be precise.
Ferlain said for the third time, “Who are these Vikings? There is also a girl with them, but none know who she is. Who is she, Helga? You must do something. Look at me! Ask your miserable smoke concoctions! Look into that silver bowl of yours.”
Helga finished her measuring. Only then did she look up at her sister. Then she looked down again and began to gently stir the thin mixture in the small silver bowl. She said in her low, soft voice, “I can see why your husband avoids you so much, Ferlain. All you do is screech and whine, all to no account, and worry and fret. It is tiring. Sit down and hold your tongue behind your teeth. I must finish this or it will be ruined.”
Ferlain, tired and worried, sat. They were in Helga’s tower room where servants were forbidden to enter. None came in here save Ferlain, not even Helga’s husband, Fromm. He didn’t like it, either, always raged about it, but Helga held firm. He could do nothing. Indeed, Ferlain thought, staring at her sister’s intent expression as she stirred one of her vile potions, he was afraid of his wife, ’twas the only thing that stilled his vicious bully’s hand against her. She wondered what the potion was.
Perhaps a poison for Rollo, damn the old man for continuing forever and ever. Why wouldn’t he simply die? He had lived fifty-six years, but still, despite his painful joints, he appeared healthy as a stoat, his teeth strong, his head covered with thick hair, his back straight.
No, it wasn’t poison. It had to be a potion for Helga’s own use. Ferlain looked at her older sister and knew that she looked much younger than she, Ferlain, did. There were no wrinkles on her face, and her flesh was soft and resilient. Her hair was rich and full, so light a brown that it was nearly blond. And her waist hadn’t thickened over the years. She was nearly thirty-five years old. Ferlain was twenty-nine and she looked old enough to be Uncle Rollo’s wife, not his niece.
Ferlain started to jump to her feet, to pace again, just to move, but her sister looked over at her in that moment, and she stilled. Her fingers began violently pleating the folds of her skirt. She couldn’t bear not to be moving, to be doing something, ah, but it was difficult now because she was so very fat. All those babes she’d carried, and all of them dead, leaving her nothing save the unsightly flesh that weighted her down and made her ugly. “Are you finished yet, Helga?”
“Aye, I am.” Helga straightened, eyed that damned potion of hers that looked like nothing more than a light broth, and smelled of nothing at all. “Now,” she said, picked up the potion and drank it down. She wiped her hand across her mouth. A spasm of distaste distorted her features, but just for an instant. Then she lightly touched her fingertips to her throat, to her chin, and finally to the soft delicate flesh beneath her eyes. Then she said calmly, “All right, Ferlain, we have strangers visiting. Rollo and that fool Weland aren’t telling anyone who they are. Even Otta is resolute in his silence. Is that correct?”
“Aye, who are they?”
Helga shrugged. “We will know soon enough. Why does it bother you?”
“I know it’s her.”
