“You will eat, Laren, that is all you may do until you are stronger.”
“She is a slave,” Erik said, coming up behind her. “Give her tasks to perform, Sarla. You are mistress here, it is time you acted like one.”
Sarla said calmly, without hesitation, “There are spoons in the soapstone bowl on the ledge yon. Please place them beside the plates, Laren.”
Erik grunted and went out.
Laren felt anger rise from deep inside her. Erik was like Helga’s husband, Fromm. He was a tyrant, a bully, proud because of his bloodline. He was a man who would be beyond dangerous were there not others to restrain him. She wondered how much Erik had tempered his swaggering and commands when his father had been alive and master here at Malverne.
The feast passed off well enough, Merrik supposed, sipping on the sweet mead that Sarla made so very well. His mother had taught her just about everything else, he remembered, but not how to make mead. He complimented her.
Erik said, “There is too much honey in it for my taste.”
“It is perfect,” Merrik said. “What think you, Oleg?”
“I will drink ten more cups and then tell you.”
There was only a chuckle or two, but it was a start. Erik said, “After we have supped, Deglin will tell us a tale, perhaps about my young brother’s brave exploits in Kiev.”
There was silence, brutal cold silence, uneasy silence, with darting glances. The men murmured and fidgeted, waiting for Merrik to speak.
Erik raised a blond eyebrow, staring first at Merrik, then down the long table to Deglin.
Merrik said mildly, “Deglin tells us no more tales, Erik. He has discovered he no longer enjoys being a skald.”
“Aye,” Eller said quickly. “He trained another, this girl here. It is she who now tells us stories.”
Erik said, “That is nonsense. She is a girl, naught more. She cannot—”
“You will listen to her before you make your pronouncements.”
Erik looked as if he would clout his brother, but he didn’t. He subsided in his chair—what had been his father’s chair—his face flushed, his eyes narrowed. He now looked at Laren, who was sitting beside Old Firren. “You fancy yourself a skald, girl?”
She looked up at him, and regarded him dispassionately, as though he were of little account at all. She shrugged then and it enraged him. “I fancy myself nothing at all. You will tell me, aye, doubtless you will tell me what I am.”
Sarla sucked in her breath. She was seated next to her husband, and felt the quick rage pulsing through him. She said quickly, her voice too loud, fright sounding through, she knew it, but couldn’t prevent it, “Do you like the herring, my lord? Roran Black Eye caught it just this afternoon.”
Erik forced his eyes away from the female slave. “Roran always has luck with the fish,” he said, and drank deeply of the mead.
So it was that after the interminable meal, Laren was asked to stand before them and begin the tale of Grunlige the Dane from the beginning. She saw Deglin leave from the corner of her eye and was relieved. Just looking at him brought a wave of pain to her burned leg. She noticed that he limped and knew that he blamed her for it.
She thought of silver coins, took a sip of beer, smiled at all the assembled company and said, “Once there was a valiant warrior whose name was Grunlige the Dane.”
She embellished the beginning of the story so that all of Rorik’s men were sitting close now, listening carefully, all their low conversation stilled.
“ . . . And when Parma leaned down to grab Selina, when his hands touched her arms, something very strange happened.”
She paused apurpose, looking at each man and woman and child—those children who were still awake. Her eyes sparkled, she leaned close, as if about to tell a secret, she wet her lips with her tongue.
It was Oleg who said finally, “Enough, girl! Tell us else I will steal your beer and you will have no more for two seasons!”
The men cheered and Eller said loudly, “Give the girl a chance. I smell a good tale acoming.”
9
LAREN SAID, HER voice low and filled with emotion, “Aye, when Parma touched Selina’s arms, he felt as though Thor himself had sent a bolt of lightning through him. He fell back, trembling, and suddenly he was brutally cold, his hands shaking. His hands felt seared, pain surging through them, yet there were no marks on them. They felt numb, then they ached and throbbed. He looked from his hands to Selina. She said quietly, ‘I told you not to touch me.’
“As the moments passed, so did his memory of his fear, the memory of the strange scorching pain in his hands,