When she finally raised her head, he said, “You must leave me now, Helga. There will be another time.”
She smiled at him, kissed him lightly once more, and rose to stand beside the box bed. “You will be fine, Lord Merrik. Whoever tried to kill you wasn’t good enough.”
Suddenly he saw coldness in her eyes where there had been such heat but a moment before. The coldness was stark and hard and real, but gone so quickly he wasn’t certain that he hadn’t imagined it. He said nothing.
She smiled again, and left him, saying over her shoulder, “It is very late. I will come back to you tomorrow.”
It was near to dawn when Weland came to their sleeping chamber. Merrik was awake, thinking, Laren asleep, pressed against his bare shoulder. He felt very little pain and blessed Helga for her medicinal skills if for nothing else.
“My lord,” Weland said quietly.
“Aye, what is it? Rollo is all right?”
“It is Fromm, Helga’s husband. He is dead.”
23
IT WAS JUST past dawn. Rollo was still in his huge bed, piled high with reindeer furs from Norway, golden fox furs from the Danelaw, and thick white miniver from the Bulgar. Otta stood back, watching Rollo shake his head, yawn deeply, then turn his dark eyes on his face. Weland said then, “Fromm was afoot in Rouen with some of his drunken friends. I’m sorry, sire, but he’s dead. There was a fight—”
“There are always fights,” Rollo said, rubbing at the swelled joints of his fingers. Even at this early hour he knew it would rain, for the air was heavy and thick, making his joints swell, and he was already suffering from it, the moment he awoke, he suffered. By all the gods, he hated the betrayal of his body, but then again, he was still strong, he still had all his teeth and all his wits. What was a bit of pain in his joints?
He sighed, then thought, so, that bully Fromm is dead. He was much younger than I yet he is dead and I’m not. Will anyone care? Certainly not Helga. He’d made a mistake with Fromm, he’d acknowledged to himself long ago. The man had been a miserable son-in-law, giving nothing, preening and strutting about because he was now kin to the great Rollo of Normandy. He’d not even given Helga any children, but perhaps that wasn’t his fault. Rollo said to Otta, his voice emotionless, “Fights over women, over honor, over nothing worth anything. Why would Fromm die in this one? Did he not attack men smaller than he? If he didn’t, he was more careless than usual.”
“Nay, sire, there were many men smaller than Fromm, but none of them were hurt. Nonetheless, somehow, he was killed, stabbed through the throat, he was. We will bury him tomorrow if you wish it. I recommend it. We don’t want his spirit to hover here. His would be a malignant ghost.”
Rollo gave his minister an ironic grin. “You forget that you are now a Christian, Otta?”
Otta actually paled, his hands went to his belly, and Rollo laughed. “Aye, we’re all Christians, but we’ll pray that damned Christian God understands our heathen ways for a while longer. Aye, we’ll bury Fromm on the morrow. I wish Weland to question all these small men who were in the fight and managed to come out of it unscathed.”
He paused when Merrik and Laren came into his sleeping chamber.
“Sire,” Merrik said. “We came quickly. Weland told us about Fromm’s death.”
Rollo stared at Merrik’s arm, bound in soft white linen. “I find it odd. Do you not find it odd, Otta? Both Merrik and Fromm were attacked. You were the lucky one, Merrik.”
“Nay, he is simply a better fighter, uncle.”
“You are his wife and women are a fickle lot. Naturally you would believe so, at least now, at the beginning.”
Laren was startled by the testiness of his voice. Rollo looked old this morning, smaller somehow, burrowed down in all the furs that were piled high on the bed. His skin was deeply seamed, the veins bulging in his throat above the rich woolen bed tunic he wore. His hair was tousled, making him look faintly ridiculous. He sounded and acted like an old man with an old man’s rheums and querulousness. Ah, but it was his joints that pained him, made him peevish, all the rest of it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be.
She said carefully, despising herself for her unkind thoughts, “What will you do, uncle?”
“I will bury the damnable bully and find Helga another husband. She is looking quite fit for a woman of her years. Aye, another husband it is to be.”
“A man wants children. She is too old to bear children, sire,” Otta said.
“Aye, I am convinced that she never birthed a child because of her wicked potions. Ah, and poor Ferlain, birthing eight dead babes, none of them coming from her womb breathing. And my seed now as cold and dead as all of Ferlain’s babes. But no matter. I have William and the son his wife will doubtless birth. And I have Merrik and Laren. The man who takes Helga will be richer than he is now. Who knows, mayhap he will breach her potions and plant a babe in her womb.”
“One hears that she is distraught,” Otta said and plucked at his sleeve, his pale gray eyes on the spot of porridge spilled there just an hour before. He frowned at it. He disliked looking unkempt. His belly was always cramping and burning and forcing him to run many times to the privy. At least he could look flawless on the outside.
Rollo said, his voice peevish, “Aye, one hears many things. Leave me now, all of you save Laren. I wish you to tell me the rest of the story. You left Analea in the hands of that king in Bulgar.”
Laren smiled toward her husband, and said, “Aye, uncle, I will tell you the rest of the story.”
She was sick again, pale and sweaty, and she hated it. She rose slowly to her feet, stared down at the basin, and felt her belly knot and cramp again. She eased down on the box bed and tried to relax. The cramps continued. She tried to breathe through her mouth, slow, shallow breaths, and it helped.
Her old nurse, Risa, bent, thin, and quarrelsome, came into the sleeping chamber, clucked over her, thankfully said nothing, and took away the basin.