He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting.
She shook her head, then said brightly, her voice so false that he wanted to shake her, “Tell me about your cousins.”
“One of my cousins is wed to a woman without hearing. Her name is Lotti.”
Laren couldn’t imagine such a thing. “And she is alive? She is grown?”
“Aye. Egil, her husband and my cousin, has taken care of her since she was Taby’s age. She can read the words from your lips as you speak, but Egil has also devised signals with his fingers so they can speak together more easily. It is fascinating to watch their fingers fly about and then hear them laugh, for they can even jest in this finger language. They are very happy and have four children. Lotti is special.”
She nodded, then fell silent. The men rowed more closely to shore and the cliff loomed over them, casting shadows when it momentarily blocked the sun. “I don’t know if I should like this in the winter. I’ve heard of the winters here, of course. I’ve been told that they...” Again, she stopped herself and he didn’t frown this time, merely waited, impassive, looking at the mountains they were passing. She said, “They sound difficult.”
“No more difficult than most things. It’s a different sort of beauty,” Merrik said. “But you’re right, when the days are short, the mountains and trees covered with snow, there is a sameness that soon bends your thoughts. We spend much time inside during the winter months, for the snow can be so deep you could step outside and sink into snow that covers your head.” He paused a moment, then said, “Ah, but to stand alone in the midst of a forest of pine trees, and there is nothing but silence and the utter white of newly fallen snow. That is something that moves the most remote of men.”
“I have heard it said that the Vikings keep the animals in their longhouses during the winter.”
“Aye. In the winter months, else they would freeze to death. The extra animals are slaughtered, their meat smoked and dried so that we will eat well during the winter. Aye, the remaining animals are brought into the longhouse.” He grinned down at her. “The smell isn’t too bad. One becomes used to it. But when the snow stops and the sun burns overhead, and fresh air fills everything, ah, that is what makes everything perfect here. Where do you come from, Laren?”
“From Nor—” She stopped and began to slowly tug on her meager braids. “It is not important, Merrik, truly. Thank you for the clothes. I no longer feel like a man, and ’tis a foolish feeling I didn’t like. Though the freedom to run and move quickly is something I will miss.”
He let her be. He would learn everything about her and Taby soon enough. He watched her fidget with her hair, hair thick and curly that she’d somehow managed to braid—even though her hair was still too short for much plaiting—pinning the meager braids with two wooden clasps on top of her head. Tendrils of shorter hair curled about her face and several long, loose strands trailed down the back of her neck. Even with the shorter spikes of red hair sticking out of the braids, she still looked very female, and he admitted to himself, in her woman’s clothes, she was lovely. Indeed, despite the still pale yellow-and-green bruise on her cheek, she looked quite acceptable. By the gods, he thought, she looked beautiful, that violent red hair of hers glistening in the bright sunlight.
He looked away from her, to the shoreline that wasn’t really a shoreline at all, for the cliffs crashed from their heights right into the deep waters of the fjord, all of it continuous, without the interruption of sand or loose rocks, without break. He thought of Malverne again and felt that now familiar gnawing in his belly that left a coldness and a dread. He hated it for there was nothing he could point to, nothing to focus upon. There was nothing to do but wait.
Eller shouted, “I don’t smell anything, Merrik, but there is Malverne! I see it yon!”
The other men craned to look and shouted.
Oleg came to stand beside Merrik. “’Twas a good trading trip,” he said. “Our chests are full with silver. The women will show us much appreciation for the beautiful furs we brought them.”
Merrik grinned, dismissing his foolish feelings, now as carefree as a boy. “Aye, and the brooch I brought my mother will make her smile and feed me all her delicious meals until my belly puffs out.”
Oleg laughed. “I brought Tora an arm bracelet,” he said. “I am so skinny she will have to feed me well for a year. What did you bring your father?”
“Ah, I brought my father a knife of great value, its handle an odd ivory from beyond Bulgar.”
Oleg only laughed louder. “And I brought Harald a cask for his jewels and I will have the runemaster engrave it to him.”
Merrik punched his arm. Oleg hit him in the belly. The longboat rocked. The men laughed and shouted advice.
The two men grappled, grunting from each other’s blows, and the longboat tipped first one way and then the other.
Laren watched them, smiling, until she saw that Merrik was perilously close to a loose sharp-edged oar. She called out just as Oleg shoved him and he lost his balance. He flailed at the empty air, looked utterly astonished and went overboard.
The men hooted with laughter even as they fished him out. He came dripping into the longboat, and shook himself as would a mongrel dog.
“You think it funny?” he said to Laren, who was holding her sides with laugher.
“Aye, you have the look of a drowned god.”
His own laughter died in his throat. A god? She believed he looked like a god? He turned quickly, uncomfortable with her words, at the sound of Taby’s laugh. The child was laughing and pointing and trying to get to Merrik. “Keep your distance, Prince Taby,” he called. “I do not want you to become as wet a god as I.”
When they arrived at the long single dock that lay at the base of a winding pathway up to the huge farmstead atop, the men could no longer contain their excitement, for there were their wives and children awaiting them on the dock, shouting to them.
Merrik scanned the gathered people for his father and mother. He saw his brother, Erik, and from this distance he didn’t see any welcoming smile on his brother’s handsome face. His heart began to pound, slow deep strokes. The foreboding he’d felt, no, it couldn’t be true.
But it was. Both his father and mother were dead of a virulent plague that had struck the farmstead a month before.
8
