ep his life. He said, ‘If you are truly a hero, if Odin All-Father truly deemed you brave and worthy, why then go perform a deed that would prove your greatness. Do not crush my neck with your foot. That would be nothing, it would be more the act of a coward. Aye, go, Grunlige, and prove yourself. Go in a vessel into the seas east of Iceland. Once again, shred the ice floes, once again, aye, and see if you are truly the gallant hero you believe yourself to be.’
“Selina cried out, ‘Listen not to him, Grunlige! His tongue is wily and he wants only to mock you, to make you lose your sense of what is right! Don’t heed him!’
“But Grunlige had lifted his foot from Parma’s neck. He stepped away from Parma, who didn’t move at all, who resembled a statue, so still did he lie. Grunlige gazed upward at the heavens. He threw back his mighty head and shouted, ‘Odin! Hear me, oh mighty lord of the heavens and of all warriors! I will go again to prove myself and when I return you must grant me what it is I deserve!’
“Suddenly, a great white flash of lightning streaked through the sky, turning the air itself to vapor. Again and again there was that sheer white filling the air, filling their lungs. It was followed by crash after crash of thunder that shook the ground itself. Selina fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Parma felt fear, but now he also felt hope. He stared at Grunlige.
“Grunlige was smiling. ‘I hear you, Odin. I go to prove myself yet again to you.’
“Before he strode away, he grasped Parma by the throat and hauled him upright. He shook him until Parma believed his neck would break apart from his body. Grunlige said, ‘If you touch my wife again or any of my belongings or any of my people, I will peel the flesh from your body. I will then fling you onto an ice floe and there your seeping blood will freeze and you will know more agony than a man can bear.’
“He strode to his wife, drew her to her feet and embraced her. Then he was gone, his shoulders straight and strong, his stride quick and sure.”
Laren stopped then, and smiled, first down at her clasped hands, then at each of her audience in turn.
“I will not accept this dithering,” Erik shouted at her. “Finish the damned tale! Finish it!”
She just shook her head.
It was Sturla, Erik’s huge warrior, who said now, “Nay, my lord, leave her be. I like this suspense, it teases my wits and makes me wonder what will happen next. Aye, perhaps tomorrow night she will continue the tale. Mayhap she will even finish it for us.”
Erik subsided. He sat in his lord’s chair, fingering the magnificently carved chair posts that had come through the family for two hundred years. The oak was smooth as silk with the many fingers that had stroked it, but the images of Odin and Thor and Frey were still clear, the expressions on their carved faces still sharp.
He waited, was content to wait. He watched Sarla dismiss the slaves, watched all the children herded off to the small sleeping chamber where they slept, watched his men and Merrik’s men roll themselves into blankets. He waited until all was nearly silent. He prepared to rise, but stopped. Merrik was walking to where Laren was lying near the fire pit, her blanket wrapped closely around her, Taby tucked in the curve of her belly. He came down beside her on his haunches.
He said low so as not to awaken Taby, “You are my concubine, I have heard said today. I think it is the only thing that might save you from my brother’s lust. You will give Taby to Cleve and come with me. We will sleep in my sleeping chamber.”
She stared up at him in the dim light cast by the dying embers. “Will you hurt me?”
“I will look at your leg and at your back and probably apply more healing cream to both. Then we will see.”
“I don’t want you to see,” she said. “I don’t want to be your concubine, Merrik, ’tis just that I could think of nothing else to say.”
“I know, but you are the one who said it. Therefore we must continue as you began, else Erik will be beside you within another instant. Well? What do you wish?”
She didn’t look at him, just said calmly, “Where is Cleve?”
Merrik smiled at her. “I will fetch him.”
10
ERIK STOOD OVER her, oblivious of his brother and their people who stood near. “Give the child over and come with me.”
“I fear she cannot, brother,” Merrik said. He turned to Cleve. “Take Taby for the night. I would keep his sister with me.”
Cleve said nothing as he gathered up the sleeping child, nor did Laren. She waited there on the floor, wrapped in her blanket, watching the two men.
“I want her,” Erik said, and she heard the petulance, the covetousness in his voice.
“She is my concubine and she is my slave as well, Erik. When I tire of her, I will consider selling her to you. Come along, Laren.”
“She said you didn’t want her because it was her monthly flow. She said you wouldn’t want her until she had finished it. And I’ve watched you, Merrik, you haven’t touched her, even scarce looked at her since you came home. All you care about is that damned boy.”
Merrik said slowly, consciously relaxing his hands from fists at his sides, “It is true that I like not taking her at those times, but I am in much need and thus will make do. I try not to look at her, because whenever I do it makes my lust rise. I do not like to torment myself. But tonight I will not wait longer. It is my will that prevails here, for she is my slave, not yours. I bid you good night, brother. I see Sarla awaiting you.”
“Damn you, Merrik, ’tis not just that I want to plow her belly, I would have her tell me what happened to Grunlige the Dane!”
If she hadn’t been so afraid, Laren would have laughed.