“Nay, Princess. My leg didn’t heal straight. I’d rather let you swim away than drown.”
“Good,” she said, and ran toward the side of the warship. She didn’t get far. Kerek’s hand closed over her upper arm. “You would ruin your beautiful gown, Chessa,” he said. “Come now, you must wed with Ragnor.”
She stared down at his blunt fingers holding her. She knew then, knew exactly what she would do. Cleve was near. Aye, she knew what she would do. She smiled up at him. “I have no choice, just as you said, Kerek. Let’s get it done.”
“Why are you smiling?”
She shrugged. “Why not? If this is to be my fate, then so be it. Are you not pleased that I will obey? Don’t you want me to marry Ragnor now?”
Kerek frowned after her. She was walking briskly, as if she were looking forward to wedding Ragnor. Only a slug would look forward to wedding Ragnor. He felt something different about her. He felt a shock of fear. It angered him. He went after her and grabbed her arm again and pulled her back. He would have to watch her carefully.
The ceremony took very little time. Chessa stood beside Ragnor, who was already nearly stumbling with drink, but he said in a loud, clear voice, “I take you, Princess Chessa of Ireland, as my queen. You will bear my children and the future heirs of the Danelaw. You will be submissive and obey me. If you please me, you will have a long and pleasing life. I, King Ragnor of York, vow this to you.”
She didn’t strike him, but it was close. Instead, she smiled up at him and placed her hand on his forearm. “I, Chessa of Ireland, will come to York with you, Ragnor, and be the queen of the Danelaw. Being what you are, life will not continue as it has. All know this. If anyone doesn’t know this by now then he will learn it soon enough.”
She stopped, nodded to Turella and then to Kerek. “There is nothing else to say,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
Ragnor called out, “She’s now the queen, Mother. You can leave and take the rest of those blue glass goblets with you. Chessa, bring me more mead and then we will retire and I will take you as I should have that first time, only Kerek stopped me. I still haven’t punished him sufficiently for that. Now you’re not even a virgin. Aye, I’ll punish him for that as well.”
“Certainly, my husband,” Chessa said, her voice sweeter than the mead that she handed to Ragnor. “To be taken by you is something I’ve scarce ever even imagined. Here is your mead. Drink deeply, husband. I will think of a punishment for Kerek. He shouldn’t have abused you so.”
“Mayhap you shouldn’t drink more,” Kerek said. He knew that Ragnor would fall into a stupor very soon now and that was when Chessa planned to try her escape. Was he to watch them throughout the night? He cursed to himself. Ragnor turned on him. “I am the king of the Danelaw and you are naught, Kerek. After we return to York, I will take men to Hawkfell Island and we will destroy that miserable pile of stone and bring back Utta. Come, Chessa, it’s time I was your husband, at long last.”
“Certainly, my husband,” she said again, tucked her hand through his arm and helped direct him toward the enclosed cargo space.
Turella stood beside him, staring after them. “She will try to outsmart me, Kerek, but she won’t succeed. Don’t worry so. If Ragnor is too sodden with drink to take her tonight, why then, he’ll do it when he’s sober, tomorrow. Besides, once he’s taken her, then we will just keep him drunk. It will make things easier.”
Kerek turned to Turella. “I don’t like this, you know that. I never did.”
“You are too soft,” she said. “Come now, there is nothing she can do. The men are everywhere and there are at least a half dozen on watch all through the night.”
***
Cleve motioned the men to hunker down within the deep shadows of the fortress walls. “Stay back, all of you. I don’t want to take the chance that any of their warriors will see us. We don’t need to see the warship. Varrick will tell us what we need to know.”
“I see eight men, holding these watches,” Varrick said. He drew the men’s positions in the sand, all their men hunkered down in a circle to look. “Ragnor is in a drunken stupor in the enclosed cargo space. It’s here. Chessa is sitting next to him, waiting.”
“Waiting?” Igmal said.
“For us,” Cleve said. “For me. Then she plans to act. That frightens me. I think Turella would rather kill her than let her go.”
“Nay,” Varrick said.
Cleve frowned at the certainty in his father’s voice, but said instead, “Each of you pick your man. We must kill them quickly and with no noise. Allow none of them to fall into the water. I will get Chessa. We must be fast and silent for this to succeed. Does anyone have any questions?”
But the warship wasn’t tied securely to the long wooden dock as Varrick had told them it was. It lay at least fifty yards out, moored to the dock by stout ropes, held in place with an iron anchor. There were three more men pacing forward and back in front of the boarding plank. They looked alert. They were well armed. There was no chance Cleve and his men could swim to the warship without being seen, no chance at all. Besides, four of the men couldn’t swim.
Cleve cursed.
Varrick looked puzzled. “This isn’t right,” he said. “When did they move the warship away from its moorings? Damnation, I saw the warship moored to the dock.”
Igmal just shrugged.
Igmal said, “What will we do? Your plan can’t work now, Cleve.”
Cleve looked toward his father and said, “Can you do it?”
Varrick merely smiled. He withdrew theburra.He walked away from the men to higher ground at the far end of the fortress wall that protected Inverness. Cleve didn’t know if his father left them because he wanted himself to appear more the sorcerer or because he needed it. He stood on the high ground, closed his hands over theburraand raised it high in the air in front of him. He began to chant the strange words he’d learned so many years before. Soon a slash of lightning knifed through the still night, striking the wooden dock, not many feet from where one of the warship guards was pacing, sending smoke gushing into the night air. The man froze, then yelled.
