“I may be just a few years older than she,” Hallad said sharply, eyeing his daughter, “but I am not dead. No segment of me is dead, daughter. I am still a man of many fine parts. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, Father, I understand you quite well,” Laren said solemnly.
“You should since you are carrying Merrik’s babe in your womb.” He was clearly irritated and she couldn’t help herself, she giggled. Merrik looked up and smiled widely. It had been too long since there had been lightness in her. He was enchanted, and he told her so later that night when they were finally settled beneath a soft woolen blanket in their box bed.
“If I enchanted you then I must be a witch.”
“Aye, you may be my witch. It has been a very long day,” he added and kissed her ear, then licked lightly inside.
“Aye, but we are home, Merrik. How glad I am to be home at last. And alive.”
“Your father was asking me questions about Sarla, how well placed her family was, what I planned to do with her. I told him that she would do as she pleased, that she was welcome at Malverne forever if she wished it.”
Laren came up on her elbow above him. “My father is a man of fine parts, that each of his segments was working. He told me so. Do you think Sarla would like to marry my father? Live with him in Uncle Rollo’s palace? Be a great lady?” She giggled again, nestling her face against his shoulder, and he felt her warm breath, and squeezed her tightly against him.
“I do not know. You told me that she and Cleve were growing close. Indeed you told me they loved each other.”
“Aye, but now I don’t know.” She sucked in her breath, all thought of Cleve and Sarla forgotten. “I like your hand there, Merrik.”
“Do you?” He gently cupped her breast in his hand, leaned down and began to caress her with his mouth. When she moaned, arching into him, he raised his head and smiled down at her. “You have not been ill for a week now. I am relieved. You were growing too thin again. Ah, but not here, not here.”
“You are a man,” she said, and kissed his warm mouth, “and a man likes to caress a woman’s breasts. Ah, Merrik, I do love you. More than you can begin to imagine. I will love you until I die.” She’d said the words, she didn’t regret saying them even though he was still beside her. For just a moment he was very still, and silent, then he was kissing her frantically, his tongue stroking her mouth, his hands wild on her breasts, then his fingers were moving to her waist and belly, gently probing there, searching for a sign of the babe, then going lower still to find her and caress her.
“It has been too long,” he said as he eased her down over him. “Far too long. By all the gods, Laren, you give me so very much.”
The pleasure he brought her momentarily made her forget the truth of things, and that truth was always there and would always be there, even after Taby and her father left to return to Normandy. Taby would always be in Merrik’s heart, closer than any other man or woman or child. She thought of the child she carried. Merrik would love the babe, surely he would love his own son or daughter, but not so much as he loved Taby, never so much as Taby.
She cried out in her release, shaken by its power and its sweetness as she always was, then held him to her as he took his own pleasure.
“You please me,” he said, his voice low and deep, for he was sleepy now and sated. She felt him leave her, felt the wet of his seed, and eased down beside him. He kissed her forehead, caressed her shoulder, then he closed his eyes.
She loved him more than she could imagine loving another human being. She would love him forever. He was her husband and in that, he would always be hers.
“My father has been here with you, has he not, Sarla? Do you know where he is now?”
Sarla smiled as she stirred the mutton, cabbage, and onion stew. “Aye, he was here and he made me laugh. He is a very valiant man, Laren, your father. Perhaps he is outside now, speaking to Merrik. Or perhaps he is yet again trying to gain Taby’s affections. Do you think I should add some mashed lingonberries?”
Laren agreed, waited for Sarla to say more, but she didn’t. She went outside to the privy, then to the bathing hut. Merrik and her father and Taby were all within, their shouts loud, making her smile. When they emerged, all of them wet and well scrubbed, she saw that Taby was in his father’s arms, not Merrik’s. She looked quickly to her husband. To her profound relief, he was smiling. There was no hurt in his fine eyes, no sign of shadows.
“Laren,” he said to her. She ran to him, flinging her arms around his back. He laughed as he hugged her to him. He continued to hold her close, waiting until Hallad and Taby were farther away. “Taby begins to accept him,” he said, and now she heard the ache in his voice, but also his acceptance. “It is the way it must be. I’ve known it for a very long time. Aye, all will be well. You and I will visit Rouen and see him and your father and Rollo. Now, sweeting, I must see Cleve. He will tell me what has happened at Malverne whilst we were gone adventuring. And I must know what it is he wishes to do now that he is a free man.”
“You remember that Uncle Rollo told us that Cleve was welcome to come to him. He said he would see that he was rewarded.”
“I will tell him that. Stop looking at me like that, Laren, and take your hands off me. Go now, sweeting, else I’ll take you back in the bathing hut, lather you with that sweet-smelling soap Helga made for you, and keep you there until neither of us can speak or walk.”
She laughed and said, “I would like that better than stirring mutton stew, my lord.” Slowly, unwillingly, she released him. She stood there, watching him stride toward the fields, his hair fair and bright beneath the sun, his body strong and brown from the sweet summer.
Merrik found Cleve chopping wood with a fine old axe that had belonged to Merrik’s grandfather. Its blade was as sharp as ever, the grip smooth from the scores of years of men’s hands gripping it. Merrik waited, watching him. He was stripped
to a loincloth and he saw him now as a handsome man, well made, his golden hair glistening with sweat and health beneath the bright sun. Even the scarring on his face no longer detracted. He wondered if Sarla would take him as her husband. Cleve or Hallad, an old man, but rich and powerful, a man of wit and learning and kindness. No man could know a woman’s mind. Suddenly Cleve looked up.
“That pile of logs will last us a week this winter,” Merrik said. “I came to thank you, Cleve, helping Oleg look after everything here at Malverne.”
“Naught of anything happened,” Cleve said, gently cleaned the axe blade on his tunic, and strode to where Merrik was standing beneath an oak tree that was as old as the fjord. “The crops are safely stored, the goats and cows and children are fattening well, and Taby learned to ride the children’s pony, Ebel. Your farmstead is a fine place, Merrik. You are blessed with sufficient arable land for your needs.”
“Aye, I know it,” Merrik said. “But you also know, Cleve, it was never destined to be mine. It was Erik’s. It feels strange to me to be the lord here. Did Taby miss me and Laren?”
“Aye, but he forgot you soon enough on Ebel’s back.” Cleve laughed and punched Merrik’s arm. He drew back instantly, a flare of the old slave terror in his eyes.