Oleg only laughed louder. “And I brought Harald a cask for his jewels and I will have the runemaster engrave it to him.”
Merrik punched his arm. Oleg hit him in the belly. The longboat rocked. The men laughed and shouted advice.
The two men grappled, grunting from each other’s blows, and the longboat tipped first one way and then the other.
Laren watched them, smiling, until she saw that Merrik was perilously close to a loose sharp-edged oar. She called out just as Oleg shoved him and he lost his balance. He flailed at the empty air, looked utterly astonished and went overboard.
The men hooted with laughter even as they fished him out. He came dripping into the longboat, and shook himself as would a mongrel dog.
“You think it funny?” he said to Laren, who was holding her sides with laugher.
“Aye, you have the look of a drowned god.”
His own laughter died in his throat. A god? She believed he looked like a god? He turned quickly, uncomfortable with her words, at the sound of Taby’s laugh. The child was laughing and pointing and trying to get to Merrik. “Keep your distance, Prince Taby,” he called. “I do not want you to become as wet a god as I.”
When they arrived at the long single dock that lay at the base of a winding pathway up to the huge farmstead atop, the men could no longer contain their excitement, for there were their wives and children awaiting them on the dock, shouting to them.
Merrik scanned the gathered people for his father and mother. He saw his brother, Erik, and from this distance he didn’t see any welcoming smile on his brother’s handsome face. His heart began to pound, slow deep strokes. The foreboding he’d felt, no, it couldn’t be true.
But it was. Both his father and mother were dead of a virulent plague that had struck the farmstead a month before.
8
MERRIK SAT SILENT and still, hunched over on the long bench, a cup of mead between his cupped hands.
His brother Erik sat beside him, silent as well. Finally, Erik said, “Their passing was swift. They did not suffer overly. It struck so quickly, I cannot tell you how it was, not really. Death was here and you could smell it and feel it in the very air around you, and there was naught anyone could do, save look on and watch the ones we loved die.” Erik paused a moment, shaking his head. “Sarla was ill but she recovered. I believe it was she who gave the illness to our mother, for Mother tended to her. And then it struck our father who wouldn’t leave Mother’s side for an instant. Aye, and Sarla survived it.”
Merrik wanted to tell him not to be stupid, that it wasn’t Sarla’s fault, but words stuck in his throat. He felt his control slipping and swallowed, lowering his head even more.
Erik continued after a moment. “The older people, well, they were struck hard and most of them died. Our parents were amongst the first. Ten of our people died, eight slaves. It wasn’t a good time. I wish you had been here, but perhaps it was better that you were not. I would not wish to have lost you.”
“Did it strike any of the other farmsteads?”
“You mean our cousin Egil? Nay, he and his family were spared. It came here and stayed, then was gone suddenly like a ghost that fades away in the stark light of day. All of Gravak Valley was spared, save us.”
Sarla appeared at Merrik’s elbow, and said quietly, “You must eat, Merrik. I have prepared the stewed venison you very much like, at least that is what your mother told me. I have not her skill, but it is tasty enough, I think.”
He smiled up at her, this shy wife of his brother’s, so slight, quite pretty really when one looked at her closely, but she was so quiet that it was easy not to notice her. Her hair was a dark, rich blond, her eyes more gray than blue, her skin fair and pure. She was also dominated completely by Erik, as most were. He was glad she had survived. “Thank you, Sarla, but I have no hunger. Please see to the other men.” He realized then that he had forgotten about Laren and Taby. “Sarla, please see as well to the woman and child I brought with me. The man’s name is Cleve. They will sleep here in the longhouse.”
She nodded, touched his sleeve, and asked if he wished more mead. Before he could reply, his brother said, his voice cold with impatience, “If he wishes you prattling about him, Sarla, he will tell you. Get you back to your duties.”
She said nothing, merely bowed her head and left the brothers. Erik said, “You bought them in Kiev, so Eller told me.”
“I bought the child. The woman and man came to me free.” For a moment, his grief fell away from him and he smiled at his brother. “Actually, we had to flee Kiev before an enraged merchant discovered he’d just lost a boy and a man.”
“Boy? She is very obviously a girl.”
“Aye, but then she was a boy, thin as a stick and dressed in ragged breeches and tunic. Even I didn’t realize she wasn’t a boy until I had to tend her back. This merchant Thrasco had beaten her very badly.”
“She is a slave, then,” Erik said, satisfaction in his voice. Merrik said nothing, indeed, he hadn’t heard his brother, for his thoughts were on his parents again.
“She is still thin,” Erik said, and Merrik looked up to see his brother’s eyes on Laren, seated near the fire pit, Sarla standing beside her. “But she doesn’t look sickly.”
“No, she doesn’t. You should have seen her when I managed to flee with her. She was naught more than bones covered with white flesh. The child, too, was so thin it would make you cry, Erik.”
“The child?” He looked toward Taby who was playing with a leather ball. “Surely he is more a burden than anything. Did the girl beg you to buy him? Did she promise to be your whore if you bought him? But none of that would matter, for a man does as he pleases with a woman, and a slave is of no account at all. Why in the name of the gods did you buy a child, Merrik?”
Merrik said slowly, “I don’t know. I saw him and I knew I had to have him. Laren had nothing to do with it. She’d already been bought by the merchant. I bought Taby.” Merrik shrugged. “Aye, he is mine now. I saved her because she is Taby’s sister.”