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“That’s what the men said.”
“Perhaps we’ll see the monster. Did the men say what it looked like?”
“There are many descriptions, beginning with Saint Columba over three hundred years ago. A sea serpent, most say, with a long skinny neck and a small head. The men talked of humps, but none could agree on the number.”
“There it is,” Eller called out, “Kinloch.” He pointed to the outcropping on the western side of the loch. It was high and stark and there was a huge wooden fortress atop it, no simple farmstead. It would be impenetrable, save from the land, which was a narrow strip that had been shorn of all foliage. Just a barren wide path that led to the longhouse. Only it wasn’t a longhouse, it was nothing like Malverne. It was a fortress. There were no outbuildings beside it, just the stark huge wooden building that sprawled over the entire top of the promontory.
The outbuildings, at least twenty of them, were clustered around the loch at the land end of the promontory, low squat wooden buildings with sod roofs. There were pens for cattle and sheep and goats. There was a large smokehouse, a bathing hut, a privy, two slave huts. It was a huge farmstead with fields of barley and rye and oats growing thick and tall behind the outbuildings, climbing upward to the fir-covered hills beyond, the barley turning the fields gold. Surrounding the entire land was a high wooden palisade, thick pine trunks lashed together with leather cord, reaching at least eight feet high. The end of each pine was sharpened into a fearsome point.
“It is a safe place,” Merrik said. “I would never worry that my property would be overrun by the Scots or the Picts or the Britons. As you did, Cleve, I listened well in Inverness yesterday. There are always raids, just forays really. There are no longer the ferocious fights between the Vikings and the Scots and the Picts since McAlpin became king in the last century.” He turned to Chessa. “He united the Scots and the Picts and moved their center far to the west, in Scone. Their king now is Constantine.”
Cleve said slowly, staring up at that immense wooden fortress. “I remember that just to the left inside the huge doors extends a thick wooden joint in the shape of a long sea serpent head. There are deep grooves in it and the cooking pots hang from it by chains. When the meal is done, one of the women simply moves the head from over the fire pit. I remember looking up at it, terrified because it looked so very real. My mother laughed and told me the monster served her and thus it wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
“Cleve, you said your mother died shortly before you were nearly killed. Do you remember any more about her?”
He shook his head. “No, I just remember that her hair was nearly as red as Laren’s, her eyes as green as yours, Chessa. She was small.”
“Now,” Merrik said, stroking his brown hand over his chin. “What do we do? I can’t imagine that your stepfather particularly wants to see your face again. I imagine he believes himself long safe from you after he sent you away. He must believe you long dead. We cannot storm that fortress, Cleve. It is impossible. There’s something else, and I know you’ve thought of it. Your brother, he must be dead, perhaps struck down when you were.”
“I know,” Cleve said. “I know. Now, I will go alone to the palisade and ask to see Lord Varrick. I will tell him that I am here to discuss matters of grave importance to him.”
“Ha,” Chessa said. “I don’t like your diplomat’s voice, Cleve. This man doesn’t sound reasonable like my father or like Duke Rollo. There is no chance I will let you go in alone. I’ve thought about this as have you.”
“I’ll count sticks, Papa, if you leave me,” Kiri said.
“Aye, you may accuse me of coercing your daughter,” Chessa said. “But we won’t let you go in there alone. Laren and Merrik will come as well. With the women and Kiri, no one could believe us to be enemies. Also, my lord Cleve, I am a princess. Never forget that. And Laren’s uncle is Duke Rollo. Surely your stepfather isn’t stupid.”
That was beyond foolish, but Cleve let it pass as did Merrik’s men, though they stared at their lord as if he’d just relieved himself on his own leg. None knew what could happen. But they also knew they couldn’t just stand here and wait. Chessa was a princess, the gods knew they’d all suffered enough for that fact.
Cleve didn’t want Chessa or Kiri anywhere near him, but when he tried again to argue with Chessa, she just looked at him and said, “Nay, don’t even think it. You are my husband. I will not let you go into that place alone. I will count sticks with Kiri.”
Cleve cursed. Their small group left all the men aboard the ships on the loch and walked to the wide palisade gates.
An old man called down to them from atop the rampart that ran along the inside of the wooden palisade. Cleve, as Chessa listened with a grin on her face, said, “I have news for Lord Varrick. As you see, we have a warship and a trading vessel and both are in the loch. All our men await us there. We mean no harm nor do we mean to attack. We are but two men and two women and a child. Take us to Lord Varrick.”
The old man spat, nodded, and opened the gate. Four men immediately appeared, ferocious-looking men in red deerskins, none of them either white or black gentiles, but men shorter than Cleve and Merrik, dark haired and dark eyed. Their faces were etched with dark blue paint in circular and rectangular patterns. They looked vicious and deadly.
Kiri tried to climb up Cleve’s leg. “Papa, they’re monsters.” She buried her face against his knee. “They’ll cut off our fingers and roast them over a fire.”
One of the men laughed, actually laughed, and it was a terrifying sound. “Nay, little one, we’re not monsters save to our enemies. Come and we will take you to Lord Varrick. Whether he will see you is another matter.”
Two of the men marched in front of them, the other two behind. Cleve’s knife was secured at his waist as was his sword and axe, Merrik’s as well. None of the men tried to take their weapons. A weapon was just part of a man’s clothing. Chessa had her own knife strapped to her thigh, as did Laren. Neither husband knew, and the women had decided that ignorance would suit them best.
“Men,” Laren had said as she handed Chessa a piece of stout leather to secure the knife to her leg, “men just don’t understand that women need to know they can protect them. They would scoff at such a notion. But Merrik is mine. I won’t allow anyone to hurt him. He was stabbed once in Rouen and didn’t tell me. I wanted to kill him.”
Chessa was entirely in agreement with Laren.
It was about one hundred steps, the land slightly rising with every step, to the huge fortress atop the promontory. Cleve was right, Chessa thought, as she gazed at it. She was getting colder by the moment even though the sun shone starkly down on her head. Oddly enough, the cold was on the inside. It made no sense at all.
The man who’d spoken first to them turned at the great door and said, “You will stay here. Hold the child. There are dogs and they might run over her and hurt her.”
Cleve lifted Kiri into his arms. She was frightened, but she didn’t say a word. He was proud of her.
They stood there before that huge oak door, weathered to dark brown, the iron bars on the door looking older than time itself. Surely this fortress hadn’t been built all that long ago. Had his father built it? His grandfather? Cleve stared up at the fortress, trying to bring memories of it from his boyhood. It didn’t seem smaller. Surely that couldn’t be right. It seemed the same yet very different. He had a flash of an ancient memory—streams of people, all carrying things, chatting, yelling at each other, dogs barking, children screaming and playing. Then it was gone, replaced by this impossibly cold fortress that looked older than the hills themselves. The air itself was laden with pervasive silence. They’d seen slaves working in the fields, but there’d been no talk amongst them. There were men, some Vikings, others like these four who were short and dark and painted with the blue markings on their faces. A score of women were washing clothes, others were
stringing salmon to dry for the upcoming winter. Everyone was busy but everyone was silent. It was eerie. Cleve felt Kiri shiver in his arms.
“It’s all right, sweeting,” he said against her ear.
