1
York, Capital of the Danelaw
Her name was Zarabeth. She was the stepdaughter of the Dane Olav the Vain, a rich fur merchant of Jorvik, or York, as the local Anglo-Saxons called it. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. His slave, Cyra, was more enticing, more magnificently endowed, than this woman. Unlike most men and women from his homeland, indeed, unlike many people here in the Danelaw, she didn’t have hair so blond it was almost white in the noonday sun. No, her hair was blazing red, a stark vivid red, a red dark as blood when there was no sun to lighten it. She wore it tumbling down her back in loose waves and curls or, when the day grew hot, in two thick braids wound together atop her head. That hair, he thought, had to be the result of a mother from that western island called Ireland. He’d visited the garrison in Dublin several years earlier to buy slaves and trade sea ivory, furs, antlers, and soapstone bowls and ornaments. He’d been told that the Irish bred like dogs, and this bold, rich coloring was many times the result. Her eyes were also an odd color, a strange green, a hue he hadn’t noticed in Ireland, a green that reminded him of wet moss. He had but to look at himself in a polished silver plate to know that his eyes, like those of most of his countrymen, were a sky blue when his mood was even, a blue as deep as the Oslo Fjord when he was angry. His mother, Helgi, had told him, much to his embarrassment, that the blue of his eyes was soft and warm as a robin’s egg.
Zarabeth was tall, perhaps too tall for a woman, but he was a big man and he still had half a foot above the top of her head, so he didn’t care a bit. His first wife, Dalla, had been small, the top of her head reaching only his shoulder, and he’d felt many times holding her that she was a child, not a woman, not a wife.
He had managed to come close to Zarabeth for a few moments, and had seen that her flesh was white and unblemished as a patch of fresh mountain snow, save for those two dimples that deepened in her cheeks when she smiled, a smile that drew him the moment he saw it. Aye, he thought, not at all dissuaded, she wasn’t from his Viking stock, and he didn’t care a bit.
No, she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but he wanted her more than he’d ever before wanted a woman. He thought of bedding her, of coming deep into her woman’s body and coming to his release, but he also thought of talking to her and sharing his dreams and plans with her. He thought of sailing with her to Hedeby, that southern trading port that lay on an inlet of the river Schlei and gave directly onto the Baltic. And beyond Hedeby, through the small islands, lay the rough bottom toe of Sweden, but two days’ sailing away. He thought of sailing through the Great Sound that opened south into the Baltic Sea, and turning inland into the penetrating River Dvina that led to the Upper Dnieper and Kiev. Perhaps he could even take her beyond Kiev to that golden city on the Black Sea known to the Vikings as Miklagard, and to the others as Constantinople. And then, just as suddenly, with just as much clarity, he thought of children with her, of girls with bright red hair and boys with his own thick blond hair. Odd, but he envisioned a boy with eyes as green as wet moss.
He, Magnus Haraldsson, was a twenty-five-year-old karl, the second son of Earl Harald. He held a farmstead called Malek, passed on to him by his grandfather. The soil was rich, unlike much of the craggy unarable land in southern Norway, and yielded good crops of barley, wheat, and rye. Magnus was also a trader, occasionally a sharp-witted one, his father told him fondly, and he owned his own vessel, the Sea Wind. He also owned a dozen slaves as of his last trip, and many jarls now worked for him in return for small parcels of land to raise food for their families. Many of these jarls were his friends, and they not only sailed with him to trading centers but brought their goods to sell as well.
Magnus had been married at the age of seventeen, a marriage arranged by his parents, and he had a son, Egill, who was now nearly eight years old. His wife, Dalla, scarcely more than a child herself, had died two years after the boy’s birth. He had mourned her as he might have a lost playmate, and over the years, as he had grown older and taken his pleasure with many different women, decided that he had no need of another wife or of more children. He had come to look upon married men as weak-willed and hearth-bound, even if they were off raiding four months of the year. Now, suddenly, he was beginning to think quite differently. He realized that he was no longer interested in his current mistress, Cyra, though she was even-tempered, at least around him, and could make his body clench with pleasure.
He told himself as he looked at Zarabeth that he had a son who now needed a mother. He was honest enough to admit to himself that considerations for Egill didn’t come first in his mind.
Oh, aye, he wanted her and he would have her.
Magnus raised his eyes to her face when he heard her sudden burst of laughter. Sweet and deep, her laugh, and free. He saw the smile, the dimples, the white teeth, and was charmed. Her breasts moved with her laughter. It warmed him, that laugh of hers; it made him hard as a stone, that movement of her breasts; it made him want to haul her over his shoulder and take her deep into the woods and mount her beneath the drooping branches of the thick fir trees.
Since her stepfather, Olav the Vain, was rich, Magnus knew her brideprice would doubtless be high, higher than most men could afford to pay. But he’d pay it, even though he despised Olav the Vain, known to many Viking traders as Olav the Cheat. He made grandiose gestures, dazzling those around him with sudden bursts of generosity, then turned about with no rhyme or reason to cheat those same people on small things. He was difficult, his behavior annoying; he was arrogant yet petty, wide-armed yet mean. Magnus wondered how he treated his stepdaughter.
First, Magnus thought, he had to meet this girl named Zarabeth, a name tha
t was difficult for him to say aloud, a name that was foreign-sounding and exciting and mysterious too, just as she was. He had acted unlike himself since he had first seen her two days before, hanging back, watching her like an infatuated wolf cub, not taking control as was his wont. It surprised and angered him, this sudden fear, this sudden lack of confidence. After all, she was but a woman and would respond to a man’s authority, accept a man’s commands to keep her on the right path, but he hadn’t yet put himself in the middle of that path. The myriad feelings she evoked in him were unnerving. But there was something about her that aroused protectiveness in him, that called forth tenderness. Then, just as quickly, he would see a gleam in her green eyes that made him want to smile, for she was thinking wicked thoughts and he wanted to know what they were. He also knew, deep down, that those thoughts of hers would please him and make him laugh. She confounded him and he was pleased.
And he would tell himself again that she was but a woman and his will would prevail and she would soon belong to him. Her laughter would be only for him. That free movement of her breasts would fill only him with lust. He was Magnus Haraldsson, master of his own farmstead, a trader, owner of a sound trading vessel and twelve slaves. He pictured her at his farmstead, in charge of his household. She would find Malek beautiful, the Gravak Valley beyond compare. She would not feel isolated, for his parents and older brother were nearby and they were only a day’s sail from Kaupang, a trading town on the western coast of Norway, just inland from the Oslo Fjord.
He saw that she was leaving and he quickly straightened from the door frame where he’d been standing. He saw her take the hand of a small girl who had been standing silently beside her, lean over to speak quietly to her, using strange hand gestures as she spoke. She straightened, said smiling good-byes to the people she’d been speaking with, and left the local square that held the town well. He watched her walk gracefully about mud puddles and piles of refuse, swat away insects that buzzed about the refuse, that glorious red hair of hers glinting like fire beneath the early-afternoon sun. She was slender, but he knew that beneath that soft wool gown of hers, her buttocks would be soft and white and firm, and his fingers tingled at the thought of kneading her flesh.
Then he frowned. She wasn’t a young girl. No, she was at least eighteen years old, older than most females who were already wedded and suckling their own babes at their breasts. But not her, not Zarabeth, stepdaughter of Olav the Vain. Was her stepfather holding out for too high a brideprice for her? Why was she still unwedded? Was she a shrew? Had he completely misjudged her?
Many times a woman was allowed to refuse a suitor. Perhaps Olav the Vain had granted her this right and she simply hadn’t yet seen a man she wanted for a husband.
He smiled then. She would want him; he had no doubt about it. He would see to it.
Magnus watched her stop and speak to a local jeweler in Coppergate, the Street of the Woodworkers, a man whose father and grandfather before him had fashioned beautiful arm bracelets and rings of amber from the Baltic and jet from Whitby, intricately set in the finest silver and gold. Again she took her leave, walking more quickly now, and he knew she was going to her own home, a comfortable house with walls of thick oak planking and a roof of finely layered wooden shingles slightly further down Coppergate. All the houses here in York were set close together, the alleys between them malodorous, dark, and often dangerous. Olav’s house was larger than most, but still there was darkness in the narrow alleys on either side of it.
Magnus paused a moment, pulling his wolfskin cloak more securely around his shoulders. He unconsciously fingered the carved gold brooch that held the cloak together at his shoulder, a brooch he’d traded three otter skins for in Birka the previous year. It was early April, yet York held a sharp wind today and he was thankful for the wolfskin cloak. The sun, covered by gray clouds, denied its warmth. It wasn’t really cold, it was just that he knew uncertainty, a feeling that made him start with surprise and feel shame, for he was, after all, not only a rich farmer and trader but the son of an earl, a leader, a karl trained to control and command.
He’d been brought to uncertainty by a woman with a strange name, strange coloring, laughter that made him feel warm inside, and breasts that made him feel lusty as a young wolf. He flung off his fur cloak, disgusted with himself, and returned to his ship, the Sea Wind.
2
Magnus decided to meet her at the well that lay in the middle of Coppergate, a social place where the men lounged about in the late afternoons, gossiping and telling tall stories that had no more truth now than they’d had a hundred years before. The women drew water and sat near the men, sewing their wool cloth into jerkins and gowns and watching the children. The children played near them, their laughter heard all the way to Micklegate. It was a brief time of ease after a hard day, and a time for talk.
Magnus strode into the wide square, eyeing the small groups of men, an unconscious reaction, for in his experience just two men could attack unwary prey and dispatch that prey easily and quickly. He’d waited until he saw Zarabeth, coming now to the well to draw water in her wooden pail. She was alone; the little girl wasn’t with her.
He walked to her, determination in every step, sparing not a word to any of the others, and said, even as she was lowering her pail into the well, “My name is Magnus Haraldsson. I am a farmer merchant and I and my family live near Kaupang in Norway. I am not a poor man, nor am I cruel or vicious, and I wish to wed with you.”
Zarabeth dropped the bucket. She stared down in dismay into the darkness of the well, at last hearing the pail thunk into the water. She straightened and turned slowly to the man who’d startled her.
She found herself looking at his throat; then she lifted her face until she met his eyes. That in itself was a surprise, for she was used to staring men straight in the face. “I beg your pardon? You what?” She shook her head, wanting to laugh at what she’d thought he had said. “Nay, surely I mistook your words. Forgive me, but I thought you said that . . . But no. What did you say to me, sir?”
Magnus said again, still patient, for he was enchanted with the laughter and sweetness of her voice, “I said I want to wed with you. My name is Magnus Haraldsson. Your name is difficult for me, but I will say it now and come to say it with ease soon enough—Zarabeth.”
He accented it charmingly, at least to her ear, and she smiled, despite his outlandish words and his beyond-foolish proposal, if he indeed were serious, which she strongly doubted. He didn’t look like a man who’d drunk too much mead or ale. It had been a long, tiring day, and his words cheered her, serious or no. He was a handsome man, rugged and hewn from strong stock, young and tall and well-made, as blond as most other of his countrymen, his hair a thick deep blond, and his eyes were as blue as a summer sky over York, clear and unleached by shades of gray.
She tilted her head to the side, still smiling. He was brazen, this Viking. She peered down the well. “My bucket is lost. What am I to do?”
Magnus looked down at her, fascinated by how that smile of hers lit and warmed her green eyes. “I’ll get your bucket for you. My name is Magnus—”
“I know,” Zarabeth said. “Magnus Haraldsson, and you are a farmer and a trader and you are not cruel or vicious and you want to wed with me.”
He frowned. She was forward, this woman with her foreign name and her laughing smile. She was mocking him, pretending to seriousness, and he didn’t like it. “Aye,” he said, his voice cool now. “I want to wed with you. Now I’ll retrieve your pail for you.”
She stepped back and watched whilst he strode like a conqueror to the smithies’ forge just to the other side of the square. He returned almost immediately with a long wooden pole, hooked on one end. He leaned over the well, and she heard the water swishing about below. She heard him speak, but it wasn’t loud enough for her to make out the words. She imagined that he was cursing. He tried, she gave him that, really tried to retrieve her wooden pail, but it had sunk deeper than the pole would re
ach. Finally he gave it up and straightened, turning to face her.
“I could not reach it. I will replace your pail since my words made you drop it.”
Zarabeth was charmed. “There is no need for you to do that. My own clumsiness caused its loss. You just startled me, ’twas your only fault.” She paused a moment, smiling up at him. “You know my name, but you haven’t really met me. I am Zarabeth, stepdaughter of Olav the fur merchant, and—”
“And you would like to wed with me now that you’ve met me,” he finished for her, his voice utterly matter-of-fact. “You are decisive. That is good in a woman.”
“I beg your pardon?”