“I? My dear girl, why ever would I do that?” She laughed then, a fat merry laugh, but somehow it wasn’t funny, that laugh. Laren wished desperately for Merrik, for Risa, for anyone.
“I don’t know. I wish to leave the chamber now.”
“Oh, not just yet, Laren, not just yet. I wanted to speak to you, to warn you.” She leaned close, her heavy fingers closing about Laren’s upper arm. “Listen to me, Laren, for I have your best interests at heart. It is Rollo who is your enemy. He is old and bitter and he hates all of us, including you, including that Viking husband of yours. He hated Taby most of all because he was of Hallad’s seed and not his. He sired but one male and one female whilst Hallad’s seed was wild in its potency. Aye, Rollo hated his own brother. Did you know that he wanted your mother? Aye, ’tis true, and Hallad discovered that she, the faithless bitch, wanted to be the duchess of Normandy. Thus she wanted our father dead. She wanted Rollo. Did our father kill her? It seems very likely, does it not? Our father did run away, disappeared. But beware of Rollo. He is quite mad and he became madder still after she died and our father left. Aye, Laren, you should leave too.”
Laren stared up at her, felt her belly heave, and ran for the basin. She heard Ferlain laughing behind her as she retched and retched.
Fromm was buried with many of his favored belongings in a deep mossy grave on a hillside overlooking the Seine. His old slave was killed and laid beside him, his arms crossed over his chest, a rough wooden cross in his hands, a token sop to the Christian God, Rollo said. All of Fromm’s weapons, his clothing, and his prized chair posts were wrapped carefully and placed into the grave with him.
Helga was a magnificent widow, tall and beautiful, her face set and still, aye, a tragic brave figure. Fromm was buried quickly, despite the Christian tenets, for the Vikings believed deeply in the return of the corpse’s spirit as a ghost, a monster, who would bedevil them. And Fromm hadn’t been a good man when alive. What could his spirit be upon his death but a malicious ghost?
“It is over,” Rollo said, and turned away from the heavy mound that held no marker, no adornment, as was again the Viking way. When grass covered it once again, no stranger would know that it covered a body and riches. There would be a marker, but it would be placed near to the palace, where people would see it and know of all Fromm’s good works and bravery.
Rollo looked at Helga and Ferlain, then at Laren who stood close to Merrik. “I dreamed of Hallad last night,” he said. “I dreamed he came back and that he was angry at me. He wasn’t old, but as young and strong a man as I once was. Odd, but he even looked like me, and that isn’t right, for Hallad was very different from me, you remember that, don’t you, Helga? He wasn’t strong or fierce. And his hair was that damnable red, and thicker than a mink’s pelt. Ah, but the women loved Hallad, all of them, even those—”
Rollo looked down at his fingers. He began to rub the joints. Weland said quietly, “Sire, it is time to return to the palace. There is a man, a blacksmith by trade, who has asked to see you. It seems he knows about Fromm and the fight. I questioned the other men and none admit to any knowledge, just the violence and it was over quickly and Fromm was dead, nothing more than that, they all swear to it.”
Rollo nodded and followed his lieutenant. He said over his shoulder, “My sweet Laren, you and Merrik will dine with me, just you two. I would speak to Merrik about King Charles and his sly ministers, pigs all of them, so William tells me. Merrik must know all of this before he travels to Paris to meet William and the Frankish king. Otta knows many of them for he has spent much time in King Charles’s court in Paris.”
Merrik smiled down at his wife. “How do you feel, sweeting?”
She listened inward for a moment, then laced her fingers through his. “Your babe is sleeping, thank the gods.”
“I spoke to Helga. She said that this illness will not last many more weeks. She said the sicker you are now, the more the signs say that you will birth a boy. But I care not, Laren. I just want you smiling again, or yelling. Then I can argue with you without worry or guilt, and you can shout at me and insult me.”
“Aye, that I would like, for you are growing very settled in your ways. You are too confident in your own opinions since I am too busy retching to gainsay you.” She touched her fingers to his sleeve. “There are other things I miss as well, my lord.”
His eyes darkened and she knew that look, that need in him that brought him so very close to her. For those moments, he was hers and only hers. She could pretend that he loved her, for he was generous in the giving of pleasure, and the words he spoke to her in his passion moved her and brought her to her own pleasure. Aye, the deepness of his voice moved her unbearably and the movement of him over her and within her as he spoke to her. She wanted him desperately.
Not long thereafter, in their sleeping chamber, Merrik walked her toward the box bed with its magnificent miniver spread. He eased her onto her back and unfastened the brooches at her shoulders. He quickly undressed her, saying nothing, just watching his fingers as they removed her clothing, watching his fingers as they touched her bare flesh. When he caressed her breast, balanced over her on his elbow above her, she arched up into his palm.
“Your nipples are larger and darker,” he said, and very gently took her into his mouth. His tongue, hot and skilled, scraped over her flesh, making her gasp at the pleasure such a simple action could bring her. She finally cupped her hands around his face, pulling at him. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his mouth wet, his eyes deep and bluer than she’d ever seen them. He was beautiful, this man who was hers, at least here, when he wanted her.
She said clearly, “Give me your mouth, Merrik.”
He did. He kissed her and caressed her until she thought she’d surely die from the delight of it, but she didn’t, of course. Her body was alive with wanting and she knew more would come, even that ultimate pleasure that would catch and hold her, blurring what was real and what wasn’t, just leaving the two of them, clasped together.
She urged him with her hands, parting her thighs, tugging at him, saying his name again and again, and he just smiled at her, but didn’t yet come to her. He lay on his back instead and lifted her over him. He came up into her slowly, so very slowly, not allowing her to take him deeply inside her, holding her above him as he moved upward into her. And when he was touching her womb, his fingers found her and she stared down at him, frozen in that instant, feeling the slickness of her flesh, the rough softness of his fingers, and then, without her knowing that it was near, her body exploded into pleasure.
As she heaved over him, her pleasure swamping her, wanting more and yet even more, arching, then folding inward, her hair spilling onto his face, he thought of his child within her and his breath caught in his throat and his body shook, tensed, and he believed in those moments that there could be nothing more to match this, but then there was, and he couldn’t believe the intensity of the sensations that were binding him to her. He yelled, his hips jerking upward, his body trembling and shaking, and she took him even more deeply and caressed his face with her fingers as his release took him.
It was over, yet he knew it wasn’t, it would never end, this sorcery between them. And he was content.
It was then, in the fading afternoon light, that his vision cleared and he looked up to see Helga standing at the edge of the shadows, gazing at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes avid on his face.
He went still as a stone in shock. Very slowly, Merrik shook his head at her. She turned then, looking at them one last time, and disappeared from his sight. He felt his heart pounding, not from the wildness of his release, but with the utter fury he felt. Helga had watched them, had watched him bring Laren atop him, watched him slowly thrust upward into her, watched Laren yell in her pleasure as his fingers caressed her, watched his face turn bloodred as he reached his own release.
He wanted to kill the bitch.
“Merrik?”
“Aye?”
“You are all stiff. What is wrong?”
He forced himself to ease, forced the muscles in his arms to loosen, forced his legs to sprawl. She raised herself atop him again, placed her hands on her hips, and smiled down at him, a superior smile, one filled with satisfaction. “Now I know how it is that you feel when you are above me, the one who decides when one is to do what and for how long.”
“Do you really believe that, sweeting?” As he spoke, his hands stroked up her legs, upward until he was touching her and himself still inside her. He felt the dampness of her and of his seed and closed his eyes a moment against the deep, deep joy it brought to him. Then he touched her again and she lurched over him and sucked in her breath.
