stayed in her bed, Utta with her.
“You will be safe now,” Rorik said when he came into the sleeping chamber after it was done. “Sira will not soon forget the pain of her punishment. It should slow her anger in the future, make her pause before she loses her control.”
No, Mirana thought, it might slow her outwardly, but her anger and hatred would fester. She said, “You are certain she tried to poison me, Rorik?”
He stared at her. “Who else would it be? Forget not that she tried to kill you before you were poisoned, and then Entti last night. Aye, she had to be the one to put the poison in your food. She has learned a lesson. She will obey my father and mother now. She will do as she’s told and keep silent.”
“I spoke to the women. None were certain, but Utta told me that Sira didn’t come near the broth.”
“Utta is a child. She cannot be certain. Don’t forget that Asta died. I told Gurd that he could whip Sira as well, for she has no silver to pay him Danegeld for Asta’s life and he refused to accept payment from my father. He also refused to whip Sira. He said that I would provide the punishment. He said he didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t stay to watch. He grieves for Asta. It pained me to see his sorrow.”
He paced the room several times, frowning ferociously. “Sira continued to swear she hadn’t poisoned you, either time. Even as I brought the whip down on her back, she screamed that she hadn’t done it. Had I not seen her attack on you and then on Entti last night, I might have believed her.”
“I am sorry for all of it, Rorik,” Mirana said. She’d brought him such misery, she thought, suddenly exhausted, too exhausted to think more, to reason out what she should do. She had never been so weak in her life. Even rising from the bed to relieve herself made her legs tremble and sweat break out on her forehead. She closed her eyes. She was asleep within minutes, a deep sleep without dreams.
Rorik sat on the bed beside her. He just looked at her for a very long time. He remembered what she’d said before she’d fallen ill again the previous night. She’d made him laugh and she’d much enjoyed doing it. She enjoyed his laughter as much as she enjoyed his rages. She’d also made him hard as a stone. And what she’d said to him—did she really believe him beautiful? His legs and his belly? Did she really want to touch him?
Life, he thought, still staring down at his wife, perhaps life could be just curious enough to bring trust and love to an unlikely man and woman. He prayed that it was so.
He also thought she would appreciate kindness and gentleness from him again, if just for a day or two.
The next day Hafter and Entti were wed. Gurd had sent all of Asta’s clothes to Entti.
Sira lay on her stomach in the longhouse, her back coated with the white cream that leached out much of the pain from the lashes.
Rorik eased Mirana onto a blanket in the shade, her back against the longhouse wall. He brought her food and joined her, giving her a goblet of Rhenish wine. Kerzog lay at her feet, his head on her ankles. The dog’s belly was stretched taut with all the food he’d eaten. He snored.
Rorik frowned down at his dog. “The brute wanted to stay with Entti, but Hafter told him to wait his turn for her affection. Thus he comes here and you feed him until he falls into a glutton’s swoon. Damned hound.”
“He is fond of Entti,” Mirana said and patted the dog’s neck.
“You are too pale. Drink this and smile at me and tell me that you believe my arms are beautiful, mayhap even more beautiful than my legs and my belly.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, for she was staring at the food, and he saw her fear.
He picked up a piece of mutton and took a bite. He chewed it slowly, then nodded. He closed his eyes a moment and waited. Then he opened his eyes, smiled, and held the mutton toward her. Kerzog raised his head, sniffed, looked at the mutton, then barked. Rorik gave him a piece, just shaking his head as he did so. The dog, as was his wont, grabbed the mutton from Rorik’s fingers, coming within a whisper of his flesh. He snarled and worried the mutton as Rorik made a show of trying to hold it from him.
“Did he ever bite your fingers?”
“When he was a pup, aye. But not now, ’tis a game with him.”
“That dog,” she said, staring at Kerzog, “was never a pup.”
She ate then, but not enough.
“Kerzog is getting fat,” Rorik said as the dog finished Mirana’s mutton and gave him a look that clearly said he deserved the mutton and much more. Rorik punched him lightly on his shoulder. Kerzog belched and slept again, but not before he’d looked about to find Entti. Seeing her laughing with Hafter, kissing him, feeding him bits of food, the dog let his head fall back onto Mirana’s ankles.
Rorik gave her more wine. When she was smiling and laughing at nothing that was funny, just laughing because the wine had loosened her thoughts and her tongue, he fed her honeyed almonds. He didn’t leave her until she, like Kerzog, was asleep. He hoped her head wouldn’t feel like bursting when she awoke from all the wine. He’d stopped drinking the wine in good time.
All the men had begun to build Hafter and Entti a small house of one chamber on the north side of the barley fields where all his married warriors and their wives slept during the summer months. All his people ate together in the longhouse, and lived there during the coldest months, but the married men liked their privacy with their wives when it was warm enough. There was at least a roof over the beams so the two of them would sleep there this night. The jesting was in fun and there was no mention that many of the men had already plowed her belly when she’d been a slave and seemingly a half-witted woman who hadn’t cared who did anything at all to her.
Entti sought out Mirana before she went with Hafter to their small hut.
“She sleeps, Entti,” Rorik said. “She is nearly well again, thank the gods and her dislike of the broth.” He leaned over and kissed Entti’s cheek. “You are a good woman. I am the lord of Hawkfell Island. You are free now, Entti, forever. You are now one of us. You are now a Viking woman and a Viking warrior’s wife.”
“Hafter is crowing like a rooster, Rorik. I have not heard him laugh much before. It is a nice sound. He will never regret this marriage, I vow it to you.”
That night Sira disappeared.