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“Nay, my friend. You are free. Indeed, I come to ask you if you wish to return to Normandy with Taby and Hallad. The great Rollo himself wishes to reward you. Whatever you wish is yours. Whatever life you choose to lead, he will see that you gain it. He is a good man, a man to admire and follow. You would have a good life there, Cleve.”
“I shall think about it, Merrik. I thank you.”
“Tell me what you think of Hallad.”
“He is a good man, despite the richness of his blood. He is also a very lucky man. His brother believed in him and protected him for three long years. And now he has returned to what he knew and he has his son and daughter as well. Aye, a very lucky man is Hallad.”
“He is those things, it is true. However, Cleve, he is not young and strong and filled with health and a young man’s vigor and eagerness for life. He is an old man. If he were to breed a child, he would probably be dead before the child reached his boyhood years.”
Cleve grew very still. “Perhaps,” he said at last. “I trust so, Merrik, but life is always uncertain, is it not?” He looked away from Merrik, into the distance at the stark mountain peaks on the opposite side of the fjord. “There is much to consider.”
Merrik began to stack the logs Cleve had cut. “Tell me about what you did in my absence. Tell me how many fights there were, how many men are now just growling at each other.”
That night Laren took up her duty as Malverne’s skald once again. She told the story of an Irish merchant whose son, Ulric, was a bully, a vicious coward, and could never be trusted to act with honor. “Aye, our proud bully wanted to be a chieftain. One day he chanced upon a strange lady, and even though he was a spiteful ruffian, he wasn’t stupid. The lady was stuck in a bog and couldn’t free herself. Ulric managed to rescue her. He even decided not to rape her, such was his goodwill that day. It was a good thing, this goodwill of his, for then she told him she was a fairy and that she would grant any wish he asked for. He wanted to be chieftain, he told her, all puffed up, his eyes gleaming in his greed, for he believed her. Ulric said, ‘I want to rule all the people in all the lands hereabouts for as far as I can see.’
“ ‘That is great deal of land and a good number of people,’ the fairy told him.
“ ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘As far as I can see. That will be my dominion. You promised.’
“She smiled at him and gently raised her arms to the heavens. She called upward, her voice as sweet and strong as Malverne’s honey mead, ‘Grant this man, oh mighty Odin All-Father, grant him all the land that he can see.’
“There was a loud rumbling of thunder, flashes of lightning filled the afternoon sky.
“ ‘It is done,’ she said, smiling upon Ulric. ‘All that you can see is yours.’
“Then she disappeared. Ulric rubbed his hands together. He thought of the men who were his enemies. He thought of the girls who had managed to escape him, and said, ‘But it is night now and that is strange, for it was a bright afternoon when I saved you. Grant me the sunlight again so that I may see my dominion.’
“Alas, there was no one there to hear him. The fairy was gone, but the night remained. Always.”
Laren stopped. She said not a word more, just stood there and waited. The groans and hisses came quickly. Merrik laughed and rose to stand beside her. “It is the babe that makes her tales less courageous than before. The babe in her womb makes her moralize. She gives me sermons each night, and endless instructions on what she wishes me to do, and—”
Laren grabbed him by his ears and pulled him down to her. She kissed him loudly.
27
TWO DAYS LATER, late in the afternoon, Laren was seated in front of the longhouse, loading a shuttle with thread from her distaff. Once the thread was woven into cloth, it would be a soft blue, just the color of Merrik’s eyes. She could already see the tunic she would make for him. She was humming softly, the everyday sounds so familiar to her that she scarce paid them any heed. No heed until she heard Taby yelling at the top of his lungs. She dropped the distaff and jumped to her feet.
He was running toward her, his face utterly white, his bare legs filthy and bleeding from cuts from bramble bushes.
“Laren! Where is Merrik? Laren!”
She raced to him, dropping to her knees in front of him and grabbing his arms. “What is the matter, Taby? What have you done?”
He was panting and for a moment he couldn’t catch his breath to speak. She held him, his urgency flooding her now, and she felt her heart begin to pound faster and faster.
“Tell me,” she said, shaking him now. “What is wrong?”
“It’s Cleve,” Taby gasped out. “He will die, you must hurry, Laren. A rope. Hurry!”
He wrenched free of her and turned to run, screaming over his shoulder, “Hurry!”
Merrik was there suddenly, carrying a line of herring, Old Firren beside him.
“Come quickly!” Laren yelled at him. “Something has happened to Cleve! Bring a rope!”
Merrik called to Oleg and a dozen other men. They were all running after Taby. They caught him quickly. Merrik raised him to his shoulder, saying calmly, “Tell us where to go, Taby. Easy, lad, tell me.”
Taby was sobbing with fear by the time they had claimed up the narrow path to Raven’s Peak to the very top where Erik had been struck down by a rock.
