“Nay, son, the princess is mistaken. Don’t think of it further.”
“I tried to kill him before, but the damned assassin failed. I would have slit his throat had not Cleve killed him first. Who would have believed a damned diplomat could be skilled as a warrior?”
Chessa stared at him. She said very quietly, “What do you mean, ‘you tried,’ Ragnor?”
“Your beautiful bitch of a stepmother. Aye, Sira. Both she and I wanted him dead. He came to negotiate a marriage between you and William of Normandy. She didn’t want it. She wanted her son to marry into the French royal family. By then I decided that I would take you. But Cleve killed the assassin and there was no other chance.”
Chessa felt rage strangle her. She opened her mouth, but there were no words. She was on Ragnor in an instant, her fingers closing around his throat, squeezing, screaming at him, “I saw it all, you damned coward! I myself threw a knife into the assassin’s back, but Cleve’s knife went into his throat and you’re right, he killed him. It was you? It was that wretched stepmother of mine? The two of you plotted his death? Oh, aye, I believe it. I saw her too, hiding in the shadows. I didn’t recognize who it was. Damn you, Ragnor, I’ll kill you now!”
She would have killed him if Kerek hadn’t pulled her off. Even he needed help. She was held against his chest, panting, rage unbanked in her eyes, wanting only to kill him. “I wouldn’t marry you no matter what you threatened. If you force me to somehow, I’ll kill you, Ragnor, and unlike the assassin you and Sira hired, I won’t fail.”
“Stop it,” Turella said very calmly. “Quiet, child. Come now, I didn’t know about this. You must be calm. You must think of the child.”
“Child?” Ragnor said, staring at her breasts again. “That’s just a simple jest, Mother. Chessa has been pregnant many times and it’s never true. No one ever believes her. Now she tried to kill me. If I weren’t a man who was gentle with weak and fragile women, I wouldn’t have let her touch me, but I didn’t want to hurt her. You understand, don’t you, Mother?”
“Aye,” Turella said. “I understand, my son. Chessa, come with me and we will speak together. Just you and I, two reasonable women.”
But Chessa just smiled at her and shook her head. “Nay, my lady. I won’t speak with you. I won’t do anything.”
“You’ve changed,” Turella said, frowning at her. “Ah, Ragnor, here’s your mead. Why don’t you take it and go speak to Captain Torric. We will leave in the morning at first light. You and Chessa will wed tonight.”
Ragnor, Kerek holding his arm, managed to stagger from the enclosed space. He drank down the mead in another blue glass goblet, looked back at his mother, and threw the goblet over the side of the warship. He giggled.
“He is paltry,” Turella said. “I don’t know how I could have birthed him. But Olric, you know, my child, he was weak, and stupid, wanting only to wench and to drink.”
“You have already told me that. I’m sorry, my lady, but I won’t help you. You’re right, I’ve changed. I’m a wife and I love my husband. We live at a new farmstead on Loch Ness, near his father’s. That is where I will spend my life, where I will live with my husband and raise our children, not in York.”
“You are pregnant, truly, this time, you are pregnant. When Kerek nodded to me I understood. I also see, just as he does, just as you do, that you will protect this babe in your womb. You will wed Ragnor to save the babe. No one will ever know that Ragnor isn’t your true husband. Even if you bleat it about, why then, can you really believe that anyone would care? There’s really nothing more I have to say to you. You’re not stupid, Chessa. You know when to retreat.”
29
“BY ALL THEgods, I don’t believe this,” Cleve said, wanting to yell with relief. “Are you certain?”
“Aye,” Varrick said. “They’re still here in Inverness and Chessa is still their prisoner.”
The old woman at the bathing hut had told them about the little sweeting whose hair she’d plaited with lovely yellow ribbons. “Looked like a princess, she did,” the old woman had said.
If only she knew, Cleve had thought, giving her a piece of silver.
Igmal slipped around the side of a jeweler’s stall to join them. “Ragnor and Chessa are to wed tonight. A mock ceremony, but none will question it. I overheard one of the queen’s men telling another whilst they traded here in Inverness. They plan to sail back to York at first light in the morning.”
“There are sixty men,” Igmal said, “more or less. Queen Turella is with them.”
“Even if she weds him, it means nothing,” Varrick said. He said to Cleve, “I see from your face that your plan won’t work now. It is time for Pagan.” He drew theburraslowly from its sheath. He held it up in front of him, fitting his fingers into the circles and squares. Cleve didn’t want to watch, but he did, and it did seem that his fingers were sinking down into those markings, as they would into soft wax, though he knew that wasn’t possible. Varrick said quietly, “I see Chessa. She’s seated beside Turella beneath the cargo covering. By the gods, either Turella or that idiot son of hers has brought the king’s chair. Has the woman no sense? Chessa is all right. She’s thinking, trying to decide what to do. I can feel purpose flowing through her, and anger and determination to return to you—and to me, naturally. Ah, yes, she knows we’re here. I can feel the quickening in her. She knows and now she’ll look for a way to aid us to get to her.” Varrick fell silent, his eyes closed now, but he was still seeing on board that warship through the magic of theburra.
Cleve stared at him with the fascination of a man cornered by a snake. This snake with his magic stick was his father.
It was Varrick, Chessa thought, and he was calling to her, but now she realized that it wasn’t really Varrick, it was Varrick using theburra,calling through that ancient magic. She felt calm flow through her. She’d been thinking and thinking, trying to figure out how to escape and had decided that her best chance would be once she was alone with Ragnor after the wedding. She thought of him touching her and grinned. She’d break his fingers if he tried.
What to do? She knew they’d have to wait until it was dark. She rose, stretched, and walked from the covered cargo space. She said idly to Captain Torric, “Will there be a moon tonight, do you know?”
“A half-moon,” Torric said and no more. He was uncomfortable. He hadn’t wanted this, not after Rorik, Merrik, and Cleve had saved him and Kerek, even that ass, Ragnor. He looked up at Chessa, thought her beautiful with her hair in soft plaits, the saffron ribbons matching her tunic and falling around her face. “I’m sorry about this, Princess. So is Kerek, it’s just that he—”
“Why do you call me that when you know it isn’t true, Torric?”
“Habit,” he said, and spat over the side into the dark water of Inverness harbor.
“If I jumped into the harbor would you jump after me, Torric?”
