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Chessa straightened to her full height. She was just as tall as the queen, and she was grateful for that.
“At least you’re no whimpering little fool,” Turella said. “I am from the House of Tur, in the Bulgar. A mighty kingdom, one that makes the Danelaw look like the remains of a feast. You may kiss my hand.”
Chessa lifted a beautiful white hand and kissed it.
The queen said, “Get up, Ragnor. Your father has stopped laughing and now you will stop mewling. Try to be a man. Get up and sit down.”
“But she attacked me, Mother. Look at my hand, she stuck me with a knife. I will punish her. I will have my men hold her and I will whip her.”
“You are a man. If you wish to whip her then you will do it by yourself.” She said to Chessa, “He looks like me, thus I cannot claim that my own child was taken away from me at birth and he put in its place. Give me some wine, Kerek.”
The queen then sat herself at the far end of the table. The king hadn’t said a word. His laughter had dried up slowly, like raisins in the sun.
“I heard that you were here now and wanted to have a look at you. Also, I am always about for meals, though I avoid one in this chamber. What did you do to make the king laugh? He’s had no laughter in him for twenty years. I had hoped you would be through eating, but you aren’t. I see that most of the food is on the floor.” She snapped her fingers and Chessa noticed three men who were standing around her chair. She spoke to them and they nodded.
Her own guard? Chessa wondered. She said aloud, “Why didn’t you dine with us, madam?”
The queen laughed, a soft musical laugh that was really quite nice. “I haven’t eaten at the same table with the king since he lost all his teeth. You see, I refused to chew his food for him.”
“Oh,” Chessa said. “I think I would have refused also.”
“I have been told that your father was once an old man like Olric here. All the skalds sing of his transformation brought about by a sorcerer named Hormuze. What do you know of this? You are the Hormuze’s child, are you not?”
“Yes, madam. You see I’m not really a princess at all. The king in his gratitude took me in and treated me like a daughter. My own father Hormuze disappeared, fading like shadows into his own wizardry, into a realm that none of us would understand.”
“This is nonsense,” the queen said. “Olric, you know she’s not a real princess. Why is she here?”
“I wish I had allowed both Ragnor and Kerek to hear me tell all the people at Hawkfell Island that I’m no princess. I have no royal blood. Hear me, Ragnor? Kerek? I am nothing but a simple woman. Release me now.”
“She is a princess in the eyes of the world, madam,” Kerek said. “Didn’t you know that Duke Rollo wants her for his son, William Longsword?”
“He wouldn’t want me now, Kerek.”
“You’re wrong, Princess. You are still the king of Ireland’s daughter, regardless of your true kinship to him.”
“That is something to think about,” the queen said, and drank deeply from a goblet of wine one of the three men placed in front of her. “You didn’t poison this wine, did you?” she said to the king, who was contentedly eating a bowl filled with smashed honeyed pears.
“No, it isn’t poisoned, not unless someone else did it. I didn’t expect you, so the wine is safe. She’ll be a good breeder,” the king said, looking over at Chessa.
“He felt her, Mother, he rubbed his hands on her belly and on her hips. He pressed his mouth against her breasts. She’s to marry me, not him. She let him do it. If I’d demanded to do it she would have killed me.”
“Aye, Ragnor, hold your tongue now.”
The king pointed to a boar steak that teetered just over the edge of the platter on the floor. “I want it,” he said to a concubine, who immediately picked it off the platter, cut it, and popped it into her mouth. Chessa looked away before she could lay the chewed up mess on the king’s tongue. So did the queen.
The queen said as she rose, “Have your hand bandaged, Ragnor. There is blood on the turnips. It is fortunate that I don’t like turnips. Princess, I will see you in the morning. You won’t try to leave the palace.”
She swept from the chamber, the three guards at her heels. The king grunted, then smacked his lips. “Another bite of the roasted boar,” he said to the concubine.
Kerek said, “Princess, I will see you to your chamber.”
The king called after them, “You will come to me before you see the queen. Forget not that I am the king. I rule. Ragnor, see to your hand.”
Chessa drew a deep breath once they’d left the dining chamber. “This is all very strange, Kerek.
”
“Aye,” he said. “You see now how badly you’re needed. The Saxon kings will overrun the Danelaw if Ragnor comes to the throne.”
