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“I’ve seen it. Forget not that I was a slave for fifteen years. I saw everything.”
“Ah, but everything is different now. You have me.”
“It appears so,” he said, and laughed. He patted her cheek and rose from the box bed. “Sleep and don’t try to come up with your own plans. I don’t want to have to follow after you and put out fires. I will decide what it is we will do. Obey me in this, Chessa, or it will not go well for you.”
Everyone treated her with great deference, including the guard that trailed after her everywhere she went. In two days she was to marry Ragnor. She’d seen Isla flirting with Ragnor, giving him mead, but he’d made no move to see her.
Cleve had told her to leave everything to him. Why? She wasn’t stupid or helpless. An entire day had passed and nothing had happened. She had to do something. If she managed to save herself, why then, she could save Cleve too. She was whistling when she was shown to the queen’s garden.
It was just beyond dusk, at that shadowy moment before darkness came. The beautiful garden, with its brilliant flowers, didn’t look as wildly glorious as it did in full sun. There were shadows in the corners. Everything seemed dull and lackluster, as if every flower, every shrub, every tree, would crumble into dust the moment darkness fell.
Was she being fanciful because she was pregnant? She laughed as she remembered Sira would defend her tantrums by claiming the babes were making her fanciful.
The queen said, “Ah, you’re here at last, Chessa. Do come and sit down and let’s enjoy the quiet of the evening. Then you will dine with the king and Ragnor, as I think I’ll do this evening as well. One of my people told me that the king is displeased with the concubine who stands at his left hand. It appears he forgot to have her taste something for him and thus could have been poisoned. It is her fault, of course. Aye, I’ll go dine with the king and the court and see what’s happening. I don’t want him to hurt her. Now, sit down, my child.”
“I’m not a child and I’m not yours.”
“You soon will be mine, but enough. You will learn that life doesn’t always give you what you want it to. Just look at me.”
“I’m looking, lady, and I see a woman who has everything she could possibly want. I see a lady who rules and meddles to her heart’s content. I see a lady who dislikes her only son so much she wants to wed him to a woman who loathes him, a woman who would never let him touch her, a woman pregnant with another man’s child. I think I prefer my stepmother, who is truly rotten. At least she’s honest in her rottenness.”
Turella felt a stab of anger. No, she thought, the girl was just trying to enrage her. And she was succeeding because what she said was true. She sighed. “Here is some lemon ale that is very good. Would you like some?” As she spoke, Turella calmly poured herself a goblet of the ale and drank it down.
“Aye,” Chessa said after Turella had swallowed all of it.
They sat together on the stone bench as the shadows deepened, Turella telling her about the Bulgar and the immense stretches of barren land that lay between settlements, the trade routes that were jealously guarded and fought over, the Swedes who controlled Kiev and were even now extending their rule to the south and to the east.
Chessa listened to her words. They were becoming more distant and were so very soft. Merrik had brought Laren, her little brother, Taby, and Cleve out of Kiev. She would like to visit such a strange city. It sounded magical. She listened to the gentle buzzing of insects that flew near but never touched her. She began to smell the hyacinths and Turella’s magic roses though she wasn’t close to them. The flowers didn’t die when it was night. That relieved her. When the darkness fell, she felt the softness of the night, the sweetness of the air around her. She was smiling when she slowly fell off the bench onto the ground.
Turella rose and looked down at her. “When I was your age, Princess, I would have fa
llen into the same trap. You will think yourself stupid to have been duped, but you aren’t. I wouldn’t ever wait to the last minute to take action. If I had, you would have never touched that lemon ale even after watching me drink it.”
The queen called to her guards. One of them wrapped Chessa in a warm blanket and hefted her over his shoulder.
“Follow me,” the queen said.
The following afternoon, Baric, Isla at his side, gave Ragnor another lesson on a new harp and taught him another love poem.
“I don’t want to learn another love poem,” Ragnor said. “I’m to marry the princess tomorrow. Thus I don’t have to lie to her, quoting any more of your silly poems. Besides, I won’t see her again until the moment she’s to agree to be my wife. My mother has her hidden away so she won’t try to do something stupid. I hope my mother forgets where she hid the princess, but I know she won’t. She never forgets anything.”
Isla said easily, looking at Ragnor as if he were a succulent roasted boar, “Ah, my lord, it’s a pity that you must marry such a bitch. She has no stature, no gratitude for what you offer her. She has no appreciation for your finer qualities. I still don’t understand why she must be forced. It makes no sense.”
Baric strummed on the harp, humming, looking down at his shoes.
Ragnor shrugged. “I don’t understand it either. She claims she loves another man, but how could that be possible? She’s seen me, surely that is enough. Once she liked me, but then she changed, for no reason I can think of other than that I tried to seduce her and she didn’t want to succumb. She’s stubborn.” He sighed deeply. “I think she’s just like my mother.”
“The queen appears properly cowed by the king. You will deal with the princess in just the same way.”
“Ha,” Ragnor said. “You don’t know my mother, Isla. You don’t understand.”
“Would you like some of my mead, my lord? I thought of you whilst I brewed it. It tastes rich and dark, just like a woman should taste. Just like I taste. That bitch probably tastes like goat weed.”
Ragnor felt saliva pool in his mouth. He watched Isla draw another goatskin from beneath her gown. He stared at her big breasts. He didn’t like all the cosmetics she wore on her face, but she’d probably had a disease when she’d been a child and thus her face was badly pocked. As for the patch over her eye, he didn’t care about that either. It wasn’t important. Her mead was important. Her worship of him was important as were those big breasts of hers.
He drank deeply, knowing she was smiling at him. He wiped his mouth and said, “Your mead is better than Utta’s. Will you bed with me after I am married to Chessa? Will you continue to make me mead?”
“I will think about it. You know, Ragnor, mayhap you need a woman who isn’t at all like your mother to tell this silly princess how very lucky she is. Mayhap I should visit her. I would make her see reason. I would make her appreciate how blessed she is, how honored she is that you will take her to wife. Mayhap she isn’t really pregnant with this other man’s child. Mayhap it is just another ploy, and this Kerek is quite wrong. I could get her to tell me the truth.”
