Merrik, Cleve, and all twenty of the Malverne men left the following dawn. All the Hawkfell Island men and women were there to see them off. Chessa, Laren, and Mirana stood close together on the dock as the men loaded the warship with provisions. Entti handed Merrik a large skin filled with ale, saying, “This isn’t intended for Ragnor’s gullet. It’s for the first night you’re sailing from York, having rid yourself of these three.”
Old Alna was there to say good-bye to her Captain Torric. She patted his bound wrists and cackled. “Aye, my pretty boy, you would have fought to have me. I was more beautiful than those young twittering crows who stand here with me.”
Captain Torric said, “But Alna, if you were ever that beautiful, then it would have been my grandfather to have fought to have you and perhaps then I would have been your grandson.”
She cuffed his ear, then cackled. “You keep that leg straight, Captain, it will heal faster, and take this potion.” She handed him a small vial. “If you weren’t leaving, my pretty boy, I’d give you another vial and it would be a love potion and you would fall in love with your grandmother.” She laughed and laughed, and Captain Torric looked desperately toward Merrik, who just grinned and said, “ Consider Old Alna a gift from the gods, Torric.”
Laren smiled at her husband, but didn’t say anything. She’d already told him ten times to keep a keen eye, for she didn’t trust Ragnor at all. As for Kerek, he was even a greater danger, for he was obsessed with having Chessa for Ragnor, for the Danelaw.
Cleve said nothing to Chessa, but stood off to the side, speaking to his daughter. He kissed her, set her down, and told her to go to her aunt Laren.
He waved at her, and the men shoved off. Within minutes, the bright blue-and-white striped wadmal sail was but a dot in the distance. The Hawkfell men gathered up their weapons, their tools, and took themselves off to hunt.
“Look at the pinwheels,” Mirana said. “They’re fighting with the gulls. I find them fascinating. They soar and dive and drive the other birds wild.”
Chessa looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Forgive me, Chessa, but I’ve always had a fondness for birds, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re feeling.” She sighed.
“You’re not a damned princess like I am,” Chessa said. “How could you begin to know what I feel?”
Mirana laughed. “That’s better. Cleve will return and then we’ll see.”
Chessa looked at all the women’s faces surrounding her. “Oh, dear,” she said. “There’s something else I’m not.”
Mirana stared fixedly at two curlews who were racing away from a spraying wave. “I don’t think I want to know.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“You began your monthly flow?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. It’s worse than that.”
“What is this?” Laren asked as she came upon the two of them.
“She started her monthly flow,” Mirana said. “She isn’t pregnant with Ragnor’s child.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” Laren said. “When at last you have Cleve for your husband, you won’t have to worry that you carry Ragnor’s child.”
Chessa looked from Mirana to Laren and to the other women who were clustered close. She said on a miserable sigh, “I’m a virgin. I lied. I hoped no one would expect me to go to William if I wasn’t pure. I was wrong.”
“But that’s wonderful,” Utta said, then her eyes widened. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“Aye, this is a new twist to the problem,” Entti said. “If Cleve knows you’re a virgin, he’ll carry you off to Rouen and you’ll be wed to William before you know it. Oh, dear. What do you think, Amma?”
That tall strong woman with the strength of many of the Hawkfell Island men looked ready to swim after the departed warship. “What I think,” she said slowly, “is that you must bed Cleve the moment he returns from York.”
All the women gathered around on the dock, arguing for a good long time. There were no jests.
Laren said at last, “Listen, all of you. It’s not Chessa, it’s Cleve. I told Chessa about Sarla, but not all the wretched details of it. It will help her and the rest of you understand why he is running as fast as he can away from her.”
“Sarla tried to kill him,” Old Alna said, spitting off the dock, interrupting Laren because she was, after all, older than anyone on Hawkfell Island, and thus she could do as she pleased, and Laren bowed to her to continue. “You know that, Chessa. What you don’t know, sweeting, is that she lured him with love words up to the top of Raven’s Peak, made passionate love with him, then when he was lying there blissfully happy, believing her happy as well, she struck him on the head with a rock, and shoved him over. The gods saved him. He landed on a ledge. Laren’s little brother, Taby, saw it all, but Sarla threatened him, told him that she would kill Laren and Merrik if he told anyone what he’d seen. But in the end, he told Merrik, and thus Cleve was saved, but barely in time. That’s enough to make a man’s innards cramp when he thinks about a new woman. Aye, I hear that when he beds any of the women at Malverne, there is always an oil lamp burning. When he is through, he sleeps alone. He has less trust for a woman than the men had for that Ragnor.”
“Tell me how you know all that, Alna,” Laren said. “You were here on Hawkfell Island when it all happened, far away from Norway.”
“I gave your beautiful husband a potion that loosened his tongue. He told me everything, smiling the whole time. He even told me how lovely I looked.”
