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“I know, but it doesn’t make me miss him less.”
“I will tell him his brother-in-law misses him so much that he failed to thrash a former slave.” Cleve thought about that time five years before. Merrik had been trading in Kiev. He’d wanted to buy a slave for his mother, but had seen a small boy in the slave ring and been drawn to him. He’d bought Taby and then rescued both Cleve and Laren, Taby’s sister, from the merchant who’d brought her. Merrik had loved Taby more than any other human being, save his wife, Laren, even more than his own sons.
Cleve waited until Merrik smiled at that, then continued. “I think Rollo wants to send me to Ireland to see King Sitric, at least that’s what his messenger hinted at. Sitric was once a very old man near to death. Yet when we visited Rouen last year, Rollo told me that Sitric is again a man in his prime. Magic was wrought by a foreign magician called Hormuze, who disappeared after he’d wrought this change in the king. I can’t believe it, but most do. Odd, all of it. Do you know anything about this King Sitric, Merrik?”
“I? Know about Sitric? Nay, Cleve, not a thing. Not a single thing.”
Cleve knew Merrik was lying. He also knew he wouldn’t ever find out why or what precisely he was lying about. Not unless he could find out from this King Sitric himself or if he could manage to find more guile than Merrik possessed. He doubted that would happen.
“Laren and I are pleased that you’ve become Rollo’s emissary. You have a wily tongue and a quick mind, Cleve. Rollo is lucky and he knows it.”
“I could be an utter fool and Rollo would still reward me since he believes I saved his beloved Laren and Taby.”
“Rollo is fortunate,” Merrik said, and clapped Cleve on the back. “Since you aren’t a fool, he can make good use of you as well as reward you.”
2
Dublin, Ireland
Court of King Sitric
A.D. 924
THE FIRST TIME Cleve saw her she was arguing with another woman, a woman older than she, a woman endowed with the most glorious silver blond hair he’d ever seen. It wasn’t her mother, but perhaps an older sister. He couldn’t make out their words, but there was enmity in the air—bitterness and resentment of longstanding.
The young one said, anger thick in her voice, “You evil witch, I won’t let you hurt her again, do you hear me?”
“Just what will you do, you interfering little bitch? Go whining to your father? Mind your manners, show me the respect I’m due, or I’ll make you regret it.”
“Just living with you is the biggest punishment anyone could endure.”
Suddenly, without warning, the older woman, so exquisitely beautiful in her pale blue robe, that incredible hair long and loose to her hips, swung her arm as hard as any man and struck the girl’s cheek. The girl staggered back, lost her balance and hit her hip against a stone bench.
He was poised to run to her, to do something, he didn’t know what, when the girl bounced back, ran straight at the older woman and grabbed a good amount of that beautiful hair in her fists. She tugged hard and the woman began to yell, hitting her, struggling madly, but the girl didn’t let go. She was as determined as that scrappy little dog Kiri had begged him to keep when they’d been in Rouen just three weeks before.
It couldn’t go on and it didn’t. The older woman finally pulled free. She stepped back, panting, her face pale with rage and undoubtedly pain. Her beautiful hair was disheveled and tangled. “You’ll be sorry for that, Chessa. By all the gods, I’ll make you sorry. You think you’re so important here, so above me and my sons. Well, you’re not. Your father’s important, not you. His sons are important, not you. And I’m more important than all of them. Aye, you’ll regret this.” She turned and strode from the garden through a small door Cleve hadn’t noticed before.
“Are you all right?”
The girl turned at the sound of his voice.
“Who are you?”
Her breasts were heaving. They were nice breasts, full, straining against the soft linen of her gown. She was smaller than he’d first thought, seeing her leap at the older woman without a shadow of fear. Her eyes were as green as the wet moss beside the river Liffey. She looked ready to leap at him and pull out his hair, too. He said mildly, in his soothing diplomat’s voice, “My name is Cleve of Malverne, messenger from Duke Rollo of Normandy.”
She looked him up and down, all disdain and unveiled dislike. He waited for her to recoil, to say something that would hurt. He knew she would. After all, she’d certainly spoken her mind to that other woman with the incredible hair. But she said instead, more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “Not just a messenger from what I hear. You represent the duke, don’t you? You’re his emissary. You’re here to negotiate some sort of agreement with the king.”
“I suppose you could say that.”
The sarcasm thickened. “All of you emissaries, you talk like limpets, don’t you, so low and quiet, your words slicker than wet skin. You come here from your kings or from your dukes and you want something. A fat minister from King Charles’s court in Paris was here just last month. He was oily and kept looking at me as if my robe was lying at my feet. He made me want to bathe. None of you say anything, but you say it nicely and hope the other person is stupid. Well, I’m not stupid. At least you’re not oily and I feel like I still have my robe on. Now, why were you spying on us? What do you want?”
“That was quite a lot you just said.” He smiled at her, and still waited for her to flinch, to step back from him, but she didn’t. He continued, more than curious now because she hadn’t flinched, hadn’t looked at him and recoiled. “Actually I was merely learning my way about. I heard voices and came into this beautiful garden. I’m rather glad you didn’t succeed in pulling out that other woman’s hair. It’s far too beautiful to be left in knots on the ground.”
“It is her pride, that hair of hers.” She sighed. “Her hair is strong, curse her. I did try, I yanked as hard as I could but it did no good. It’s the first time I’ve managed to get so close, and I failed. The gods know what she’ll do to me now. She always manages something that hurts.”
He took a step closer. He could see the red hand print on her left cheek. He reached out his hand, then realized what he was doing, and withdrew it. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes. She’s struck me so many times that now I hardly even notice. This time was different though, but still, we fight whenever we’re within the same chamber.”
