Helgi listened to Ingunn and her endless stream of complaints without comment until she knew she could not allow it to continue. She set her away and said sharply, “Hush now, daughter, I grow weary of your grievances, for they show me the depths of your selfishness. You have grown mean, Ingunn, and are filled only with your own importance. Get you to work now, for your brothers are hungry. I will speak to you of your future later.”
It was Helgi who took a tray of porridge and fresh warm bread to Zarabeth. She was surprised to see the young woman clothed, sitting on the edge of Magnus’ bed. She was, however, just sitting there, staring straight ahead, making no movement, making no sound.
“Zarabeth, heed me. Do you remember me? I am Helgi, Magnus’ mother.”
Zarabeth looked at her without interest. “Is it true that Egill is missing?”
“Aye, ’tis true.”
“Both of them. Egill and Lotti, both of them gone. It is too much, Helgi.”
But there was no expression on Zarabeth’s face. Her words could have concerned the porridge that steamed from the wooden bowl.
“Come and eat, Zarabeth. I brought you a tray only because I believed you would still be abed. But you are dressed. Come, now.”
Zarabeth simply looked at her. “Must I?”
“Aye.”
Zarabeth shrugged and rose. Her red hair was thick and wild down her back, dry now, cascading over her shoulder to cover her breast. She looked like a pagan, Helgi thought, her coloring richer than the most vivid threads on a tapestry. But her
green eyes, a green rich and deep, were dull and vague.
Zarabeth followed Helgi from the chamber and into the main hall. When she saw Magnus seated beside his father, she stopped abruptly.
“I cannot,” she said. “I cannot.”
Magnus sensed her, nay, felt her before he saw her. It was odd, this effect she’d had on him since the first moment he ever saw her. By Thor, it seemed decades upon decades ago, yet it was just moments, just a few weeks of time in the past. He stared at her and silently willed her to look at him. She did.
Then slowly she raised her hand to her throat. He watched as she fingered the iron collar around her neck, the slave collar he’d had the blacksmith fasten on her. Then, just as suddenly, she went wild She began pulling at the collar, jerking at it as if it were choking her, as if she were strangling. She tugged and yanked, saying nothing, making no sound at all. She was like a madwoman. All eyes were turning toward her, talk ceasing. Magnus rose quickly and strode to her.
He grabbed her wrists, pulling her arms down, holding her. He saw how she’d torn the flesh of her throat with her own fingernails, and he saw the scratches that now trickled blood, and he yelled, “Stop it!”
She looked straight ahead, at his throat, strong and brown and unfettered, and said, “I would kill you if I could.”
He felt anger then, cleansing anger, and shook her until her head jerked back on her neck. “The same way I saw to it that your life was saved? The same way I brought both you and Lotti out of York? You are not being fair, Zarabeth.”
“I care not. There is nothing now.”
Magnus closed his eyes and loosened his hold on her. She jerked free and made a soft keening sound, her fingers pulling and jerking again at the collar. He grabbed her arms once again and drew her very close. He stared down at her pale face, into the depths of her vague, wild eyes. Then he said, “Enough! Come with me. Now.”
He dragged her from the longhouse.
His father raised a thick blond brow at his wife. She merely shook her head, turning when Ingunn said, “He’ll kill her now. Finally he realizes that she has ruined everything. She killed Egill, she—”
Harald roared, “Shut your mouth, Ingunn!”
Eldrid began to weep again, soft dragging sobs.
Helgi, for the first time in seven years, walked to her sister and put her arms around her.
19
Zarabeth was beyond thought. She struck his arms, his chest, fought him with all her strength, dug her bare heels into the packed earth, but it did no good. It didn’t even slow him. He had twice her strength and he was determined. On what, she didn’t know. She simply fought him. She felt as if he were pulling her arm from its socket, but she was silent, only fought him and fought him. Even as Magnus left the longhouse, he was shouting, “Rollo! Rollo!”
He was going to kill her now, she knew it. He was fetching a weapon from the blacksmith and he would kill her with it. She would die here in this alien land by the hand of a man who had once sworn to love her, a man who had wanted her to be his wife before . . .
Suddenly Zarabeth didn’t want to die. Even though Lotti was dead, the only other person in her life who had truly needed her, depended upon her, loved her without reservation, Zarabeth realized she didn’t want to die too. She didn’t want to become nothingness, she didn’t want to lose what she was, not yet, and she yelled, so panicked her voice shook, “No, Magnus, don’t kill me! I won’t let you kill me! I don’t want to die now!”