Ragnor of York had been lucky to escape. He smiled at that. He wondered if Turella had removed the king finally, setting Ragnor nominally in his place, with her ruling, naturally.
Chessa’s hand tightened on him and he moaned deep within himself. He said as calmly as he was able, “Listen to me, Chessa. You’re my wife, but I won’t allow you to control me. I am myself. You will not dominate me, so you may forget your machinations.” He thought he heard her yawn. Aye, a close eye on this wife of his who was too smart and had as much ingenuity as he did, which was bothering, but he’d accepted her, as had his daughter. Kiri was sleeping with Laren and Merrik, a good punishment for them, he’d told Merrik, who’d wondered aloud to him how Cleve was ever going to know his bride again. And Laren, beautiful red-haired Laren, closer to him than these two sisters of his, took Kiri and asked her if she’d consider a skald for her third papa. Merrik had stared at the vaulted ceiling high above them and sighed.
There was so much Cleve had to learn. And there was his wife, whose hand was holding him, and he knew she was awake, for her breathing had quickened. He grinned and rolled over atop her.
“I did promise,” he said, and began kissing her. She was warm and willing. He expected that, but he knew it would take her time to accustom herself to the pleasure he would bring her every time they came together. When she finally cried out softly in his mouth, his fingers slick on her warm flesh, he felt in that instant free and whole and complete. It was frightening and it pleased him enormously. He said again, softly against her parted lips, “You won’t ever try to control me, Chessa. Don’t forget what I’ve said. You may try, it will give me amusement, but don’t forget I’m like no man you’ve met before in your life.”
She hugged him. The witch hugged him. He would have to be careful of her. And that seemed an interesting thing to do.
She would have killed Ragnor of York.
As for William of Normandy, Cleve was grateful William had never laid eyes on her. William wasn’t stupid like Ragnor.
Argana looked at Cleve closely. “Strange,” she said, “that when you were a small boy I never realized that your eyes were exactly like Varrick’s—one gold, one blue. Perhaps they weren’t then and changed over time.”
“I don’t know,” Cleve said. “I don’t remember ever looking at myself.”
“I believed our mother when she said you were the son of my father. But then he died a violent death, as most men do. Varrick killed him. I’ve never doubted that. And Varrick married our mother.”
“I know,” Cleve said. “I’m merely surprised that my father would then wed his wife’s daughter. It isn’t usually done. If you were Christians, I believe it would be forbidden.”
Argana, nearly as tall as Cleve, straight limbed, eyes as blue as the summer sky, dimples in her cheeks, didn’t smile. “Mother died. I was almost thirteen, nearly ready for a husband. Varrick didn’t touch me until I was fourteen, then he told me that he would bed me, to test my innocence, to see if I would respond to a man’s touch. He told me if I proved to be what he wished, he would wed me. I asked one of the women how I should behave. She told me exactly what to do. Varrick was pleased. Understand, Cleve, there was no one else. We are isolated, except for trading at Inverness and to the northward islands. The men naturally trade southward at York and enjoy themselves raiding Pict and Briton holdings. I had believed my eldest son, Athol, would be the Lord of Kinloch upon Varrick’s death. But you’re back, Cleve, and Varrick is more pleased than I’ve ever seen him. I mourned you for a very long time. I’m glad you’re alive even though my son is no longer the heir to Kinloch.”
He looked at her closely, heard the disappointment in her low musical voice, felt the pain she felt for her son. “I spent fifteen years in the Christian’s hell, Argana. Surely I didn’t deserve that. I was a boy of five and I was cast forth only to become a slave. Surely I deserve to have what now is rightfully mine. Athol is a fine boy, nay, he’s nearly a man. He is also my half brother. I pray he will feel no hatred for me, that he will recognize what is mine. But heed me, Argana, what is mine is mine. Surely you must agree with that. You’re my half sister.”
“Aye, it is a logical thing you say, but there is still Athol, nearly a man grown as you said, and now he has nothing. You don’t remember my father but I do. His passions ran deep and strong. He believed in his family, in his sons. Then he died, fighting outlaws, so it was said, but as I told you, I believe Varrick killed him.”
“Athol will make his own way, as most sons do. I would have had nothing if our brother had lived. Varrick told me last night that Ethar disappeared soon after I had gone, that all believed him to have fallen into the loch and the monsters drew him down into its depths and devoured him.”
“It is more likely that he was sucked into one of the caves that honeycomb the loch. I know not, but our mother died, then you were gone, and finally Ethar. There was Varrick, always Varrick. I soon realized that our mother lusted after him. She came to fear him. He was sometimes harsh with her. Of course, all of us fear him. It is what he wants. It is what pleases him. He is a strange man, his origins murky, cast in dark tales, but my mother took him and that was that.”
“Do you still fear him?”
She smiled then, her white teeth strong and straight. She was still a lovely woman, not of the same beauty as Cayman, but she seemed more real than Cayman, as if there were more substance to her, more sheer force and will. The lines on her face were from living, from suffering, aye, it made her more human, and thus more to be feared, perhaps, or to be studied, before Cleve came to a decision about her. He was nothing to her, merely a small boy who’d disappeared so many years before. He remembered adoring her when he’d been just a babe. Ah, how she’d made him laugh.
“Fear Varrick? Certainly I fear him. Everyone fears him. It pleases him to have the stench of fear around him, created by him. He expects all to worship at the veil of darkness that he sweeps over himself.”
“You speak eloquently, Argana,” Varrick said.
She started, but she didn’t pale or move back from him. She said, “I have been wedded to you for a very long time, Varrick. You have taught me as much eloquence as a woman can learn. Have I done it well enough to suit you?”
Cleve watched Varrick reach out one hand, the long pale fingers so slender, so finely carved as if by a Rune master, no callouses, no sign of any labor, nothing but the purity of white flesh. “Nearly eighteen years,” he said. “It’s a long time, Argana, a very long time. Athol is sixteen, as you said, nearly a man grown. He will revere his brother, Cleve, who has come back to us magically, as if transported by the netherworld gods. Cleve will follow me now, not Athol. You understand that, do you not, Argana?”
“Actually,” Cleve said to Varrick, “my escape and rescue was far more practical. The netherworld gods would have spat upon the dullness of it.” Aye, this man was his father, looking at him was like looking at his own image, and it surprised him deep inside, and was also frightening.
“By the winter solstice,” Varrick said, “your escape from Kiev with Lord Merrik and his lady, Laren, will reach even the limits of a skald’s talents. Tell me, Cleve, why did you not try to return here the moment you were free?”
“I’d forgotten everything until the dreams came to me. Finally I remembered almost everything. I remember now that I was riding my pony when a man stopped me. I was speaking to him when someone struck me hard on the head and left me for dead on the eastern side of Loch Ness. A trader found me, nursed me back to health, named me Cleve, and sold me. I remembered nothing of this life until the dreams began three years ago.”
“Fetch me porridge, Argana,” Varrick said. “Mayhap I sent the dreams to you, Cleve. I have that power and it comes to me when I am not even aware of it.”
“If it pleases you to believe so, then why not?”
Argana gave Cleve a look that clearly told him to be careful, but she said nothing, merely nodded and walked to the huge fire pit whose flames burned sluggishly in the summer morning. The iron pot was huge, much larger than those on Hawkfell Island or at Malverne.
“How many people live at Kinloch?”
“There are nearly one hundred. My men produced many children after I married your mother. Aye, I can see it in your eyes. You are my son, yet you remember the man you believed was your father, an animal of a man, a man of little reason, really, something of a warrior, but without the brains to keep himself safe. I forced your mother, Cleve, forced her because I wanted her and she was bathing in the loch and I took her and you were the result. Since your father didn’t know of me, he saw your different colored eyes as a gift from the Dalriada god. Ah, my porridge. Come and sit with me, Cleve. We have much to discuss. I wish to hear all about the dreams.
