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“Nay, but still—”
Kerek rose to stand in the opening. “I have come to know you in the past days. You will grow and learn. Ah, it begins to rain. The wind has suddenly risen. We will see if the navigator can truly sniff out the stars to keep us in the right direction.”
“I would just as soon he ran us aground.”
Kerek said quietly over his shoulder, “I would take you again for Ragnor. Know that I do it for the Viking Danelaw, not for that puffed-up little prince.”
Chessa eased back down onto the mat, pulling the blanket to her chin. He believed her a warrior woman? Kerek was mad.
They left Rouen to sail up the Seine into the Channel with two warships and two trading vessels. Merrik had said, “We have soapstone bowls of fine quality and reindeer combs and beautiful armlets fashioned by Gyre the Dane. York is a fine trading center. We will gain much silver.” He grinned down at his wife. “Besides, I wish to find you a gown of scarlet, a color you have never managed to get right with all your dyes.”
Naturally, the trading vessels also carried household goods—clothing, chests, fishing nets, seeds for planting—for none of them knew what they would find when they reached Scotland and sailed into the trading town of Inverness that sat at the end of the Moray Firth. Cleve had willingly given Kiri over to Laren, who grudgingly accepted being in charge of one of the trading vessels and his daughter.
“I want to stay with you and Merrik,” Laren had said, eyes narrowed on his face.
Merrik said easily, “The men would welcome your presence and your skald’s tales, but Oleg has begged me to allow you to oversee the second trading vessel. We haven’t enough leaders, he told me.”
“You lie with the ease of a dying man who swears he will sin no more.”
“It is why you adore me.”
She laughed, she couldn’t help it, swooped down, and swung Kiri up into her arms. “Come, love, you will see your papa tonight.”
Later, as the men rowed into the Channel, Merrik said, “It worries me that Kiri is with us. You should have left her at Malverne with the boys, or even here with Rollo.”
“Nay,” Cleve said. “We are going home, Merrik. I will protect her. Besides, you know that she doesn’t like to be apart from me.”
“That’s not the half of it and you know it. She doesn’t eat, she won’t play with the other children. She does the chores Laren gives to her but there is no joy in her. She looks like a pinched little ghost. It scares everyone to see this little girl waste away when her papa isn’t there.”
Cleve said, “You see, I am right to bring her with me, despite any risks. Choosing the correct number of days I’ll be gone is beyond difficult. I’d rather worry having her with me than worry having her waste away if I didn’t return in the time I promised her.”
“I doubt not we will manage to get Chessa back, but there will be problems, Cleve. We will have to take her to Rouen before we can voyage up to Scotland.”
“Aye, I know it, and I dislike the delay, but this girl Chessa is a good sort, as women go. She is bright. She is really quite beautiful. Her eyes are greener than the hills behind Oslo after a heavy rain.”
Merrik eyed his friend thoughtfully. “You like her?”
“Aye, I like her. She was open and friendly.”
“But you didn’t trust her.”
“I would have to be an ass to give my trust to another woman.”
“Cleve, you must forget Sarla.”
“It isn’t to the point, Merrik. It makes no difference if I believed her a crone or a Christian’s angel. She’s a princess. She is to wed William. It is good for William that she is open and friendly, or at least pretends to it.”
“If Ragnor of York has raped her, no man of high rank will wed her and you know it.”
Cleve just looked at his friend, his hand unconsciously going to the beautifully worked knife at his belt.
This was interesting, Merrik thought. He made his way to where Eller sat, tapped him on the shoulder, and took over his oar. Soon he was stripped to his loincloth, his back glistening with sweat.
6
THE SKY WAS darker than the bottom of a witch’s caldron. The storm was close now. There was no wind, no movement of any kind. The huge wadmal square sail was hanging loosely as the flesh on an old man’s neck. It was hard to breathe, the air was so thick and still. It seemed that the earth had simply stopped.
The storm was closer now. It had to be because surely they couldn’t continue like this, the warship like a ghost, eerie and silent in the water, no sound, no squawking of gulls overhead, no lapping of waves against the overlapping oak plank sides of the ship. Even the sea serpent’s head that stretched up above the prow looked strangely ghostly, as unearthly and terrifying as it must to the natives when they saw a Viking warship coming out of the fog, a demon come to take them to hell. But now it was different.
