Laren was startled by the testiness of his voice. Rollo looked old this morning, smaller somehow, burrowed down in all the furs that were piled high on the bed. His skin was deeply seamed, the veins bulging in his throat above the rich woolen bed tunic he wore. His hair was tousled, making him look faintly ridiculous. He sounded and acted like an old man with an old man’s rheums and querulousness. Ah, but it was his joints that pained him, made him peevish, all the rest of it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be.
She said carefully, despising herself for her unkind thoughts, “What will you do, uncle?”
“I will bury the damnable bully and find Helga another husband. She is looking quite fit for a woman of her years. Aye, another husband it is to be.”
“A man wants children. She is too old to bear children, sire,” Otta said.
“Aye, I am convinced that she never birthed a child because of her wicked potions. Ah, and poor Ferlain, birthing eight dead babes, none of them coming from her womb breathing. And my seed now as cold and dead as all of Ferlain’s babes. But no matter. I have William and the son his wife will doubtless birth. And I have Merrik and Laren. The man who takes Helga will be richer than he is now. Who knows, mayhap he will breach her potions and plant a babe in her womb.”
“One hears that she is distraught,” Otta said and plucked at his sleeve, his pale gray eyes on the spot of porridge spilled there just an hour before. He frowned at it. He disliked looking unkempt. His belly was always cramping and burning and forcing him to run many times to the privy. At least he could look flawless on the outside.
Rollo said, his voice peevish, “Aye, one hears many things. Leave me now, all of you save Laren. I wish you to tell me the rest of the story. You left Analea in the hands of that king in Bulgar.”
Laren smiled toward her husband, and said, “Aye, uncle, I will tell you the rest of the story.”
She was sick again, pale and sweaty, and she hated it. She rose slowly to her feet, stared down at the basin, and felt her belly knot and cramp again. She eased down on the box bed and tried to relax. The cramps continued. She tried to breathe through her mouth, slow, shallow breaths, and it helped.
Her old nurse, Risa, bent, thin, and quarrelsome, came into the sleeping chamber, clucked over her, thankfully said nothing, and took away the basin.
Laren slept. When she awoke it was nearly dark. The sleeping chamber was cast into deep shadows, and the stillness was oddly frightening. Suddenly there was no comfort here. This was a place of violence, a place of fear. The sleeping chamber was again as it was two years before.
She raised herself on her elbows, calling out quietly, her voice raw as a cold night, “Is anyone here? Merrik?”
There were whispers of sounds, surely there was something she heard, but no, there was only stillness and it seemed to grow, and with it the shadows, the encroaching darkness. She swallowed, but her throat was dry and it hurt. Then she heard it. A small noise, of little account really, but it was over there, in the far corner of the chamber, a noise that was like a wounded animal.
She held herself very still.
It came again, only closer this time. She wanted to cry out, but there was only dryness and pain in her throat. “Merrik,” she said, and wondered if his name was only in her mind for surely there had been no sound from her mouth.
“Who is there?”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, felt her belly knot and churn, and bowed her head, trying to keep from vomiting. Where was Risa? Why was she alone?
But she wasn’t alone. There was that sound again, so very soft, yet distinct, unlike any sound she’d ever heard.
“Who is there?”
It was different now, a rustling sound, no longer soft, no longer muted, and it was close. She looked toward the doorway. It seemed far beyond her, that doorway, the only way to escape this chamber and what was in this chamber and growing closer to her. When something touched her shoulder, she screamed, whirling about to see Ferlain beside her, her face as pale yet as distinct as a cold winter moon framed by utter darkness.
“How very strange you are, Laren. Why are you shaking? ’Twas you who startled me.”
There was black amusement in her voice. Laren tried to calm herself. It was but Ferlain, fat and slow Ferlain who whined and carped, but who was harmless, certainly no one to fear.
“You frightened me. Why is the chamber dark?”
“I don’t know. It was dark when I came in. I am only here to visit you. How do you feel?”
“Let us light a lamp.”
“Very well.” Ferlain held the oil-soaked wick next to a burning coal in the brazier near the box bed. Soon it burst into a small flame.
“I prefer the darkness, you know,” Ferlain said, staring at the flame. “But you don’t, do you? When I was your age I didn’t like the darkness either, but things change, you know. Always change, always grief and sorrow. But enough of that. Now you can see everything. Nothing is the matter, is it?”
Ferlain, such a common sight, comforting, the gray streaks of hair, the fat smooth hands. Surely there was nothing frightening about Ferlain. Laren said, “No, not really. I suppose when I wake up suddenly I remember that horrible night two years ago when the men came and took Taby and me.”
“Aye, that would be frightening. Helga is right. It was an act of mercy that you weren’t killed. Well, Taby died, didn’t he, but not you. No, you are safe and pregnant with that Viking’s babe and everything will be yours, if you survive the birth, that is. If your babe survives. I know that many babes never survive, Laren. Many babes are dead before they know life. My babes all died, you know.” Ferlain looked at the gleaming hot coals in the brazier, then back at her half sister. “Only it is not the same as it was before. You were to wed the prince of the Danelaw but you didn’t. He wed a Danish princess. Of course he would have taken you away from here, wouldn’t he? He would have made you live in the Danelaw. We hear that there is trouble there now, that soon the Danelaw will fall to the Saxons. The Wessex king is strong and growing stronger. Soon there will be no more Viking kings and the Danelaw will be ruled by Saxons again. The prince and his wife will lose everything. Mayhap you should have stayed away, Laren.”
“I couldn’t. Were you the one who hired the men to take us away, Ferlain?”
