br /> “Aye, I enjoyed it.” Cleve then sent his fist into Athol’s belly, doubling him over, and then he kicked him, sending him sprawling to the rocky ground. Cleve turned to Varrick’s man, Igmal, and said, “We will take him back to the fortress. Varrick will decide what to do with him. I don’t want his blood on your hands any more than I want it on my wife’s hands. Do you agree, Igmal?”
Igmal looked down at Athol, who was lying on his side, knees drawn up, hugging his belly. He looked both sad and yet not surprised. “I saw him come from his mother’s womb, whole limbed, squalling, ready for life. I watched him grow tall, but he didn’t grow straight. A darkness grew in him, a cramped black place I didn’t understand. I’ve watched him since you came, Cleve, watched the fear in him, knowing he would lose everything, then I saw the calculation, the hatred, the determination. And now he would have killed you, his flesh and blood, the women, and the little girl who makes me laugh. This is a shame that drowns all of us.” Without saying another word, Igmal pulled a short slender knife from its scabbard, leapt from his horse, and bent down. Cleve grabbed his arm even as it was descending to Athol’s heart. “No, Igmal, no. This must be up to Varrick. He must decide. You speak of shame. It isn’t your shame, but my family’s. We must return him to Varrick.”
“As you will, Cleve,” Igmal said, and straightened, slipping that knife back into its scabbard. “You will be master and lord here someday.” He turned to spit down at Athol. “He saved you,” he said, staring down at Athol as if still uncomprehending that the boy had done such a thing. “You would have killed him, yet he saved you. He saved you from his wife and from me.” Igmal spat on Athol, then turned his back and motioned his men back onto their horses.
“Igmal,” Kiri called out.
The ugly man looked at the child and gave her a ferocious smile that showed those blazing white teeth of his. “Aye, little one?”
“I will ride with you back to the fortress.”
Merrik just shook his head and handed Kiri over to Igmal, who tucked her neatly in the crook of his huge arm. “I begin to believe all of us are here just for her pleasure.”
Cleve nodded, then said, “Let’s get him on his horse. I don’t know what Varrick will do.”
Athol, now alive and knowing Cleve wouldn’t kill him, looked about for the outlaws, then said, “My father loves me. He will take my side. He will forgive me.”
“Actually, he won’t,” Chessa said. “Or if he does, then he has no more wisdom than you do.”
“You’re a damned witch. My mother said you were a witch after she saw you holding the burra, and I knew then it would be best if you died, your evil with you. You’re just a woman, yet you would have stuck that knife in me.”
“Mayhap you’re right that I’m a witch,” she said, just smiling at him. “You’re a fool, Athol, if you think you can ever overcome me. Don’t forget that. Your father knows me for what I am. You’re stupid if you forget it.” She knew he was watching her with fear and hatred as she walked to her mare. She stood there, waiting for Cleve to hand her up.
One of the men gave a shout. “It’s the monster. It’s Caldon! By all the gods, it’s Caldon.”
Chessa whirled about to look out over the loch. There was naught but the heavy gray mist, veiling everything in sight.
“Over on the eastern side, just yon!”
Then she saw it, a shadow, a long neck, it seemed, with perhaps a head atop that long curving neck, a small head that looked upward, then slewed about and looked toward them. But then she couldn’t be certain, for the mist divided that long neck into three parts, showing dark mottled flesh and then thick sheets of mist, mingled together until nothing was clear, nothing was certain.
The men murmured amongst themselves. They believed they saw Caldon. They believed they saw the monster of Loch Ness.
Chessa didn’t know what she saw. She looked toward Cleve, who had managed to get Athol atop his horse. He just shook his head, saying nothing.
Kiri was staring in silence toward the loch, just staring, her head cocked to one side. Igmal said to her, “The monster is a good creature, Kiri. There’s nothing to fear from it. It has a family, babies, just like you.” He paused, and Chessa knew he’d lied, and he’d done it well, cleanly and without hesitation. She wanted to kiss him, for Kiri just nodded and leaned back against his chest. Suddenly she straightened and said, “Igmal, the bearskin smells bad. I’ll wash it for you.”
The ugly man just stared down at the little girl on his lap. “You’ll wash it for me?”
“Aye, unless you have a wife. You don’t have a wife or the skin wouldn’t smell, would it?”
“You’re right about that,” Igmal said. He looked over at Chessa. “Cleve is blessed in his women.”
Athol screamed, “He’s a damned bastard! He’s nothing. You’ll see, Igmal, my father will kill you for trying to harm me. He’ll kill Cleve and he’ll kill that damned witch.”
“I wonder if he’ll leave anyone alive,” Igmal said. “Be quiet, Athol, else Cleve just might break your jaw, and I think all the men would like that.”
Chessa wondered if Athol’s mother, Argana, knew what her son had planned. She prayed it wasn’t so, but there was the woman’s silence, the woman’s utter devotion to her son. Argana was Cleve’s half sister, but still, blood was blood. She didn’t want to return to Kinloch. She didn’t want to see Varrick.
24
WHERE THE HELL was Kiri? Cleve had looked in the sheep byre, in the privy, in the bathing hut. Where was she? He turned to look back toward the fortress, but he didn’t see her amongst all the people standing there. He strode toward the barley fields. He’d shake her good for disappearing like this.
Inside the huge fortress, Varrick, as was his wont, stood on the raised dais, regarding the fifty-some people in the great hall. He said in a calm voice that seemed to ring from the blackened wooden beams above, “Argana, you will come here to me now.”
Chessa frowned. Where was Cleve? Why was Varrick calling Argana to him? She looked to see Athol, standing next to Igmal and his men, but he didn’t look frightened. Indeed, there was a stark look of pleasure on his thin face. He looked triumphant. She frowned, puzzled. What in the name of the gods was going on here?
Argana walked tall and proud to the dais, to her husband. She stood below, flinging back her head to look up at him. “Yes, Lord Varrick? What is your pleasure?”