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“Aye,” Kerek said, “but at least she was alone and I had not a bit of trouble with her.”
“I don’t believe you. She would fight the forces of the Christian’s devil before she would meekly give in to any man, despite his size.”
“Very well,” Kerek said, and there was admiration in his voice. “I did have to think quickly, but I won, for she is here.”
“Aye, and in my power at last. Hello, Chessa. Didn’t you think you would see me again?”
5
CHESSA STARED AT Ragnor of York.
“Aye, I’ve got you now, you little bitch, and you’ll not escape me.”
“What do you want, you miserable piece of swamp weed?”
Ragnor stood slowly, took two steps toward her, and slapped her hard. She fell to the rug-covered wooden planks. Pain seared through her hip. He stood over her, his hands on his narrow hips, looking down at her. He was quite pleased with himself. He was smiling down at her.
“I like you at my feet, your face down. It becomes you. You will never again speak to me with any words save modest ones. Do you understand, Chessa?”
She looked up at him, standing there over her. She swallowed words she knew would only lead to more pain, though she wanted to shriek at him, tell him what she thought of him, throw herself on him, and pound that smirk off his silly face.
“I asked you a question, Chessa. Answer me.”
Still, she couldn’t get her throat to work, couldn’t seem to make meek words come out of her mouth.
He kicked her in the ribs. She jerked at the pain and pulled in on herself, hugging her arms around her.
“Answer me,” he said, his voice shrill now.
Kerek said, “You don’t want to risk killing her, my lord. Perhaps she has no breath to answer you, perhaps—”
“Keep your opinion in your throat, Kerek. She’s willful, stubborn, and has more pride than any hundred women. I will enjoy breaking that pride of hers. Aye, and I will. She fed me poison. She would have killed me if I hadn’t been so strong.”
She got herself to her knees, her palms on the floor, the pain in her ribs pulling and prodding at her, but she managed to draw her breath. She looked up at him then and said, “Why did you bring me here?”
He raised his foot, but Kerek grasped his arm, saying urgently, “It is a modest question. She doesn’t realize why you have taken her. If you tell her, the knowledge will make her even more modest, even more sweetly meek.”
Kerek was blind. She would never be meek and Ragnor knew it, but he did slowly lower his foot. When he’d raised it, she’d flinched, and that had pleased him. Perhaps Kerek was right. Perhaps he’d shown her that she would come to accept him as her master. “Attend me, then,” he said, and sat himself again in his chair. She was on her hands and knees in front of him, her hair loose from its thick braid, all that sinful black hair, as black as the hair of the heathen Picts who lived northward in that savage land of Scotland, the damned feral beasts who stole sheep and cattle and women from the outer farmsteads. At least her hair was shiny and clean, unlike the greasy matted hair of the Picts. He supposed she was comely enough. Her eyes were an odd green, near moss green, and that made her more acceptable to him as a wife. He’d wanted to bed her, but that hadn’t happened, and in instances of rare honesty, he knew it had been foolish of him to try to seduce her. She was a princess and even the future ruler of the Danelaw didn’t bed a princess and walk away.
But he didn’t want to marry her. He wanted Inelda, the daughter of a Norwegian jewelry merchant in York, her hair so blond it was nearly white, her eyes the palest blue. By Freya, he wanted her, but his father demanded that he wed Chessa, that damned bitch who’d turned him down, who’d poisoned him, who’d made him puke up his guts. Inelda only turned him down because she was so very innocent, so shy. And she really hadn’t said nay to him, only whispered that she was afraid, not of him, oh, never of him, but of what would happen if he got her with child. What would she do? Ah, she was so very afraid. He adored her for her fear, knew that once he’d wedded Chessa, he would return to Inelda and make her his wife in everything but name. He would take care of her. She could breed a dozen children, he didn’t care. He just wanted her.
“Attend me,” he said again when Chessa raised her head to look at him. To look up at him. “You asked why I had you brought to me. I’m taking you back to York. You will wed with me. You will be the future queen of the Danelaw.”
“So,” she said slowly, the pain in her ribs less now, “your father still orders you about, does he?”
He leaned forward, grabbed her braid and yanked it upward until her face was at the level of his knees. “You will keep silent or I will make you regret it.” He was shaking with rage. “By all the gods, I would like to beat you senseless. But I won’t. Instead I’ll do what I did in Dublin. I’ll bend you to my will with my words again, and you, you silly girl, will listen to me and believe me. Admit it, Chessa, you wanted me, you loved me, you wanted to marry me then. You wanted me to bed you.”
To his surprise, she nodded. “Aye, I believed you loved me and thus I was open to you. I believed that you were honest and sincere. I believed you were a good man. But then I saw the truth in you and it sickened me. You sickened me. I sickened myself because I’d believed you. Would that I had more malle leaves and fist root. You liked that drink, didn’t you, since I added ginger? You puked and puked, I heard, and it pleased me no end. It wasn’t poison, but I’m pleased you were so ill you believed it was.”
He was utterly still. “I wanted to kill you for that.”
“You deserved it. You were a liar. You deceived me. You were dishonorable.”
“I merely wanted to bed you without having to see your damned face every day. You poisoned me.”
“I told you that I didn’t. If I’d wanted to kill you, I could have. I just wanted you to be so sick you’d want to die but you wouldn’t.”
He dropped her braid. He remembered too well the awful pain in his belly, the unending cramps, the bile, the smell of himself after days of sickness. He would pay her back for that. But let her guess now what was in his mind though he wanted to strangle the life from her. “No more honeyed words for you, Chessa. I wanted to bed you and I will, and I don’t care if you like it or not. You try to harm me again and you will have an accident and I will make a good show of grief when I tell of it to my father.”
