“Aye, he is,” Helga agreed easily. She looked over at Laren. “So you carry Merrik’s child. It seems you are as fertile as your poor mother was. Such a pity that she died so soon after Taby was born.”
Laren couldn’t remember her mother’s face, but oddly, she could remember her singing, her voice firm and strong and off-key. And her father had strangled her, all had seen the imprint of his fingers around her neck. She nodded, then said quickly, “Uncle Rollo spoke of how everyone believed it was his blood family from the Orkneys responsible for Taby’s and my abduction. What do you think, Helga?”
“What I think,” Helga said slowly as she sipped her wine, her eyes on Merrik, “is that whoever it was felt some mercy. After all, you did survive, Laren.”
“Aye, I often wondered why Taby and I were spared. I never thought it an act of mercy though. Nay, I believed the person responsible wanted both Taby and me to die slowly, to suffer, for what reason I don’t know.”
Ferlain said, “I always believed it was your father, come back to take you and Taby away. He knew he would be put to death if he remained after murdering your mother, and thus he went away until he could capture you and Taby.”
“Ourfather,” Laren said flatly. “And it wasn’t Hallad. I cannot believe that you would think that, much less say it.”
“I do wonder what happened to him,” Helga said. “He was never the warrior Uncle Rollo was, but he was a nice man, a good father until he married your mother. Doubtless he was killed by outlaws. But enough of that. It is long in the past. You are home now, and you have brought the man who will be one of Rollo’s heirs. I wonder what the Frank King Charles will make of all this. A man who is a stranger, becoming a possible heir to the duchy of Normandy.”
“I will go pay homage to the king,” Merrik said. “Aye, and he will bless our union, doubt it not. But not just yet.” He rubbed his hands together then, and there was an opulent pleasure in his eyes, and unmasked greed, but just for the barest moment, not longer.
Helga said slowly, her eyes never leaving his face, “Ferlain and I will leave you now, Laren. We will dine with you this evening, if you are not vomiting again.”
Laren silently watched her two half sisters leave her sleeping chamber. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You are most convincing, Merrik.”
“Aye,” he said and chuckled. “Most convincing. Helga believes herself irrestible and I showed her not only my interest in her but also my boundless greed. It should prove interesting. Now we will wait and see.”
“Helga is smart though, I do remember that. You will be careful, husband.”
That night after a feast that lasted until well after the dark hour of midnight, Merrik left the palace, for he’d been given a message from Oleg, spoken softly into his ear by a small boy. He walked beneath an archway and called out, “Oleg, it is I, Merrik. What goes?”
There was no answer, nothing. He heard people speaking, but from a distance, not near here where the boy had told him to meet Oleg. The guards were some distance away. He could hear them wagering on the throw of the dice. He smiled into the still shadows around him. He prepared to wait. He looked relaxed, ill-prepared, mayhap even drunk, but he was not. He began to whistle, a man with no cares to bow his shoulders, a man to whom the world had been freely given.
When the attack came, Merrik dropped gracefully to the ground and rolled. He came up, leaping backward even as he came down solidly on his booted feet.
There were two of them, big men, garbed in coarse bearskins, their faces covered with thick beards, heavy silver bands around their upper arms. He saw the intent in their eyes even in the dim light given off by the distant rush torches and the sliver of moon overhead.
They both had curved knives like the ones Merrik had seen in Kiev, used by the Arabs, sharp knives, the silver gleaming.
He drew his own knife and tossed it from his right hand to his left then back again, his rhythm steady. His legs were planted firmly, spread. He smiled at the men.
They were coming toward him, splitting up now, and they were more silent than starving wolves in the middle of winter, stalking their prey.
He laughed aloud and called out, “You are slow and I grow weary of waiting for you to prove your prowess. Have you any skill, I wonder. You look like savages to me, naught more than slaves released just this night to kill me. You, there on my left, hopping about like a virgin maid on her marriage night, what will you do? Sing me a song? Play the lute for your friend here to chant me a story? You puking coward, come on, cease your dancing!”
The man howled, and rushed at Merrik, the other one just an instant behind in his lunge, but it was enough, and Merrik knew it was enough. He struck the big man’s throat with the flat of his hand, then spun him about. He looked at his face as he eased his knife into his chest. The man dropped without a sound, but Merrik didn’t see him, for the other man was on him, and this one was smarter, perhaps, for he wasn’t rushing in so quickly.
“I’ll see your guts in the dirt,” he said, and leapt, his balance keen, his eyes on Merrik’s eyes and the knife that still Merrik gently tossed back and forth from left hand to right hand, taunting.
Merrik took two quick sideways steps and slashed out with his knife. The other man jumped backward, the tip of Merrik’s knife only slicing through the outer bearskin he wore.
He looked down at the clean knife-cut through the skin, then back up at Merrik. “You’ll not gut me, you bastard. I’ll kick your guts out of your belly and grind them into the dirt for cutting my bearskin.”
Merrik didn’t like the image of that. He skipped sideways until he was standing just behind the fallen body of this man’s friend. Slowly, he kicked the man’s ribs, pushing him forward. Then he spat on his body.
It was enough. The man roared as he leapt forward, screaming curses at Merrik, screaming what he would do to him with his knife. He was fierce and he became a fool only for a moment. When Merrik’s knife came up underhand to his belly, he jerked his entire chest inward, nearly bowing his body. He did a complete turn, then brought down his knife in a swift arc, slicing Merrik’s arm.
Merrik felt the sudden cold of his split flesh, then the blessed numbness that followed. The man wasn’t as careless as his friend had been. He felt the warmth of his own blood, knew the bleeding wouldn’t stop, and in that, he knew he would win. He made a pained sound and staggered, his head down, grabbing his wounded arm in his other hand.
The man rushed in, his knife raised. When Merrik could breathe in the man’s rancid smell, he smashed his bloody arm into his face, rubbing his eyes, the thick warm blood momentarily blinding the man.
The man tried to turn, tried to escape, but Merrik now wrapped his good arm around his throat and spun him about. He pressed until he knew the man could scarcely breathe.
“Who is your master?”
