Cleve said, “This is my home. Chessa insists that where I am she will be also. She swears to me that she loves this savage land, that the mist now caresses her face like a lover’s fingers.”
“Did I truly say that, Cleve?”
“Perhaps not so eloquently,” Cleve said. “We will stay. It is my home, my birthright. There is nothing for me at Malverne, Merrik. You are lord there and Laren is lady. Aye, Chessa, Kiri, and I will remain here. We must. And I have an idea that I hope my father will approve.”
“You could return to Duke Rollo’s court in Rouen,” Laren said. “My uncle believes you to be the greatest of all diplomats, Cleve.”
“Chessa dislikes me as a diplomat.”
“Aye, he’s like a snake his tongue is so smooth. If he weren’t so beautiful I would never have paid attention to him at my father’s court.”
Merrik laughed, shaking his head, but it ended quickly. He looked out over the loch. “The mist is rolling in from the sea again. It never ends. In Norway, there is frigid weather and more snow than a man can sometimes bear, but in the summer months, then the sun scarce ever leaves the sky, it is more beautiful than Laren’s eyes.”
“We will become accustomed,” Chessa said. “Now, you wonder what to do. You fear to leave us here alone. If Varrick wanted us dead, then he would see that all of us were killed. Your men would make no difference. Leave, Merrik. Return to Malverne and your children. This is now our home.”
Merrik just shook his head, took his wife’s hand, and said, “We will leave in two days, if nothing more happens.”
“I want to speak to Kiri,” Laren said, and hurried off after the child, who was trying to pat a sheep that was grazing on a hillside near a clump of heather.
“She wants to see that damned monster again,” Merrik said. “I pray she will, else my life will be a misery.” He smiled and walked swiftly after Laren.
25
THE FOLLOWING MORNINGChessa took a final bite of porridge, and slowly licked the wooden spoon, for Argana’s honey was as sweet as Cleve’s kisses. She offered to assist Argana but the woman only shook her head. “Once you live here and aren’t here as a guest, then you will have duties you select but not before then. Is it true that Merrik and Laren and all the Malverne men will leave soon?”
“Aye,” Chessa said. “There is no reason for them to remain. This is my husband’s home, not Malverne.”
Argana gave her a look she couldn’t begin to understand.
“What will you do, Argana?”
“What do you mean, Chessa? Do about what? About Varrick, my husband of eighteen years, the man who would have killed me with little regret? I will do nothing. What can a woman do about anything, save serve and hold her tongue when she’s angry, mayhap even bite her tongue until it bleeds?”
“You could tell him he’s a swine.”
Argana stared at her, then threw back her head and laughed. She couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Chessa began to laugh with her. All looked at them, mouths agape, eyes furtively searching out the Lord of Kinloch. Chessa said, “Why is there no joy here? No laughter? You laughed and it is very nice, Argana, yet look at your people. They are shocked that we laughed and perhaps even frightened.”
“Cayman laughs sometimes,” Argana said. “But she goes off by herself to do it. I’ve seen her in the hills, walking about, picking flowers just as your Kiri does, and she’ll sniff the flowers and then smile, then perhaps she will laugh. It is a sweet sound. Cayman was always a sweet child and a sweet girl, but she has lived here all her life, and that, Chessa, is too long. You saved my life. I’ve said nothing about it to you because I—” She paused, staring down at the cut on her thumb. It was red and swelled. “I wonder how I did this. I have no memory of it.”
“It’s ugly and must be tended. I have some cream that Mirana of Hawkfell Island gave me. You will rub it into the cut. It will heal.”
She left her then to go to the small chamber. In the sea chest at the foot of the box bed, she found the medicinal herbs Mirana had given her. She fetched the cream back to Argana and handed it to her. “Rub it in well, at least three times a day, and keep it clean. Mirana said healing comes more quickly if left to the open air.”
As Argana touched the white cream to the cut, there came a shadow that covered both of them. Chessa shivered, looking over her shoulder to see Varrick watching his wife as she smoothed the cream into the cut. “What are you doing, Argana?”
“I seem to have cut my finger, though I don’t know how I did it. Chessa gave me some healing cream for it.”
Varrick looked for a brief instant as if he would grab the cream from her and hurl it into the fire pit, but then he only shrugged and said, “Chessa, I would speak to you. Cleve is with Kiri and Igmal, both of them teaching her to ride the pony I had Athol bring back to her from Inverness.”
Argana didn’t even look up. If her finger that was smoothing in the cream paused a moment, that was the only sign that she’d even heard what her husband had said.
“All right,” Chessa said, smiling at Argana. “Don’t forget, rub in the cream at least three times a day. The cut will heal very soon. Now, Lord Varrick, what is it you wish to say to me? Something that will make me laugh? You need some laughter here at Kinloch.”
“I wish to speak to you of Caldon. I called to him early this morning, but he didn’t come to me.”
“Perhaps Caldon is female,” Chessa said, her voice as cold as the spring to the south of the loch, surrounded with mossed rocks and slippery grass and overhung with full-leafed branches of maple trees. “Perhaps she grows tired of your orders and your domination.”
“Perhaps,” he said, and his voice was even colder. “Come walk with me, Chessa.”
