“Then Lotti would surely be dead by the morning.”
Zarabeth rubbed her palm over her cheek. It was still stinging. She said dully now, uncertain, more afraid than she’d ever been in her life, “You want me to wed with you?”
“Perhaps soon. Not now. Now I would simply have you remain in my house. When you are more comfortable with me, I will bed you. Then, if I wish it, you will become my wife.”
It was nearly too much to understand. She shook her head, but the pounding only increased, and with it, her despair.
His voice softened and he came down on his haunches beside her. “Listen to me, girl. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t force me to. I want you willing and smiling. I want you the way you were before you met the Viking.” He frowned at his own words. No, he didn’t want her to return to being the way she’d been before the Viking—she’d been unconscious of him, not really seeing him, suffering his presence, actually.
She lay there, balanced up on her elbow, unconsciously pulling back from him. She smelled the sweet violets she had sprinkled into the rushes that covered the packed earthen floor. She looked toward the glowing embers in the fireplace. She looked at her neatly stacked pails and pots and wooden trenchers on the wide shelf in the cooking area. Everything looked so blessedly normal. Yet she was afraid, she felt paralyzed with fear. All the violence in Dublin, all the killing and hatred between the Viking rulers and the petty Irish chieftains, all was but a vague memory. Even the battles between King Alfred and King Guthrum seemed unsubstantial to her now, though the battles had scarred every family she knew, bringing death and tears and torn bodies. No, it was far away, that violence. The true violence was here in this house, and this was real. She stared at Olav, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do.
Lotti. The child had no one but her, no one to understand her, to care for her. No one but her sister, Zarabeth.
She felt tears spring to her eyes and sniffed them back. Crying was good for naught. Crying was for the helpless, and she wasn’t that, at least not yet.
Olav spoke again, his voice more wheedling, more cajoling. “Come, Zarabeth, say you’ll bid this Viking farewell. Say you’ll tell him you’ve decided against marriage with him. He’ll sail away, and all will become again as it was. It’s so easy, Zarabeth. Just promise me you will tell him. You’ll see him tomorrow in the square, and you will tell him you don’t want him for your husband.”
She shook her head. “No, Olav. I won’t tell him that. I want him and I think I will come to love him. I won’t lie to him for you.”
He rose then, with finality, and dusted off his trousers. He said in an emotionless voice, “Then Lotti will be dead by tomorrow morning.” She stared up at him. His cross-garters had come down and were bunched at his ankles; his fine woolen hose were wrinkled and bagging at the knees. He looked disheveled and old. Aye, he looked like an old man, a tired old man who wasn’t getting his way, and wanted a victim to lash out at.
“Nay, I won’t tell him that I don’t want him. If you harm Lotti, he will kill you.”
Olav shrugged and looked at her with lifeless eyes. “It matters not, then, does it? The idiot child will be dead, I will be dead, and you will have your Viking. You will sail to Norway with him, alone, with nothing but the clothes on your back. And you will know that your selfishness meant death to two people who love you.”
“Love! You miserable old liar! You threaten to kill my little sister and you say that you love me? By all the gods, I would that I could kill you right now!”
She rolled over and came up onto her knees. Her face was flushed with anger, with disbelief, and Olav took a quick step backward, for he saw violence in her eyes.
Then he smiled at her, and shrugged. “Believe what you will. You are a woman and thus your thoughts are beyond a man’s logic. But know this, Zarabeth: the child will be dead by tomorrow at noon if you do not do my bidding. ’Tis up to you, girl. I offer you the child’s life for that miserable Viking’s lust.” He paused a moment, stared at her, and she fancied she could see the pounding of his blood in the pulse in his neck. “Did you let him cover you tonight? Did he take your maidenhead?”
“Hush your filth! You are much worse than your son!”
“So ’tis your lust for your little sister’s life. You’re just like your whore of a mother, aren’t you? You aren’t so much of a loving sister after all. You’re nothing but a fake.”
“ ’Tis enough, Olav. You won’t kill Lotti because you don’t want to die. I know you. I know that all tradesmen here in Coppergate snigger at you behind your back and call you Olav the Vain. You prance and strut about, extolling your brilliance at trading—at cheating the unwary, more’s the truth—and you spend all your gold on finery to adorn your sagging old body! Look at you, garbed like King Guthrum himself! Yet even he, an old man like you, doesn’t glitter like a conceited fool!”
“You will be quiet, Zarabeth!” He was shaking with fury, the life back in him at full strength at her insults.
“Nay, not now, not when I would tell you the truth, you dirty old man! I won’t remain here, wondering if you will try to crawl into my bed and molest me. I won’t pretend to be your loving stepdaughter when I know what it is you’re really thinking. I won’t suffer your hatred for Lotti anymore, your contempt, your neglect. I won’t listen to your lies about my mother. You didn’t deserve her, damn you! Now, you will tell me where you’ve hidden Lotti and I will fetch her and be gone. I never want to see your ugly face again.”
Olav was silent for many moments. Then he raised his hand in a sort of benediction, and said in a voice that was certain and cold, “The idiot child will die, slowly, and I will know pleasure from the knowledge of it. I swear it on Odin, our All-Father, and I swear it on the Christian God as well.”
She felt the room pitch sideways. In that instant she believed him. He wasn’t lying. He spoke as calmly as an insane man who would be pushed no further.
Aye, she believed him. This was the point beyond which he wouldn’t retreat. She knew him. He would have Lotti killed or he would kill her himself. He wouldn’t care. She could see Keith strangling the child with one hand, lifting her and crushing the life out of her with but one of his big hands. She could see him tossing her out as one would refuse. She could see him whistling even as he finished his murder. No, no, not Keith, she thought, not gentle weak Keith. Toki, his wife, it would be she who murdered Lotti.
Zarabeth wasn’t overly religious, and thus, in that instant, she prayed to Odin, to Thor, and finally to the Christian God for good measure. What to do?
“Go to sleep now, Zarabeth. You have much to consider. I will know your answer on the morrow. Oh, think not to kill me during the night, for if you do, the child will die very quickly after me and you will have gained naught but death yourself, for all will know you killed me, and none other.”
She moved slowly to behind the thin bearskin that separated hers and Lotti’s sleeping chamber from the rest of the room. She looked at the box bed. She slowly unfastened her wide leather belt and stripped off her soft woolen gown. She remained in her linen shift and crawled between two wool coverlets. She lay there, her eyes wide and fixed, staring into the darkness, not knowing what to do.
It was near dawn when she knew that she could not sacrifice Lotti’s life for her own happiness. Even if it meant Olav’s death as well. It was then that tears flowed down her cheeks, their salty wetness in her mouth. And it was later still, after the sun had risen over the harbor, that she changed her mind and felt hope build in her.
Zarabeth forced a smile. Her heart was pounding so loudly she thought he would hear it. Aye, a smile, for even in the short time she’d known Magnus, she realized that he knew her very well indeed. She had to persuade him, she had to leave no doubts at all in his mind, so that Olav would be convinced, and then she would act and both she and Lotti would be safe. She prayed to Odin that Magnus would forgive her lie even as he believed it. She prayed to her own Christian God that Magnus would forgive her when he discovered what she’d had to do.
Magnus saw that smile of hers, that ghastly smile, and said without preamble, “What troubles you, Zarabeth? Are you cold? There is rain in the air this morning.”