Otta was yelling, the language of the Franks that Merrik didn’t understand, but Merrik knew Otta fully intended to kill him to get to Rollo. Otta was on him, the stallion rearing back, snorting frantically, his hooves lashing out.
Quite suddenly, Otta’s yell became an obscene gurgle. He dropped his sword nearly at Merrik’s feet and grabbed his throat. A slender knife was bedded to its hilt through his throat, its bloodied tip protruding from the back of his neck.
He stared from Merrik to Rollo, who’d risen and was standing between his brother and the damned Viking, then to Laren, who was staring at him, pale, her hand still raised.
“You killed me,” Otta said, blood making his voice slur. “You’re but a woman, yet you killed me. I should have strangled you two years ago and thrown your body in the forest for the animals to ravage. Aye, I should have killed you and that puking little brat.”
“Aye,” she said, “you should have.” She said nothing more, just stood there and watched him try to pull the knife from his throat, watched his face turn a sickly gray, watched the blood gush from his mouth and well thick and hot from his throat. He slid off his horse, dead before his body thudded to the ground.
Rollo stood over Otta’s body, staring down at him dispassionately. He smiled then at Laren. “I am glad it wasn’t Weland who betrayed me. I don’t think I could have borne that. Aye, I am more relieved than I can say. Your throw was straight and true, girl. It’s obvious I taught you well.”
“You?” Hallad said, striding forward, his long white robe brushing the low-growing grass. “I taught her, do you not remember? She was but a little nubbin of a girl when I put a knife in her hand and began to teach her.”
“Nay, your wits are more addled than you would like to think, Hallad. Attend me, for I am Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, and I never remember things awry. I taught her and I will teach Taby as well. You are naught but an old graybeard. What do your trembling hands know of knife-throwing?”
“Ha! Heed me, Rollo, I had to live with those wretched Christian monks at St. Catherine’s. I had to stoop my shoulders and mumble all the time so they would believe me holy. But no longer. No, it is I who will teach my son as I did my daughter.”
Laren looked at Merrik. She shook her head at the two men trading insults that would surely lead to some pounding.
“Let them argue in peace,” Merrik said. He looked down at Otta, sprawled on the ground. “That was a fine throw. Perhaps it was I who taught you.”
She laughed, looking up at him with all the love she felt clear and shining in her eyes. Merrik stared at her, saying nothing. He raised his hand, then lowered it. Laren shook herself, then said to Helga, “I am glad you did not betray me or Taby. I am glad you didn’t try to kill Merrik.”
Helga merely nodded, then walked to Otta’s body. She looked down at him, her mouth twisted with fury. She drew back her foot and kicked his ribs so hard she must have broken enough of them to make him scream, had he been alive to feel it.
Rollo, who had just hit Hallad in his belly, turned and said, suddenly serious, “Aye, Helga, you are innocent and that pleases me as well, for I had believed you guilty. You have not been an easy woman. I told only Weland and Otta of Hallad and where he was. But I knew that the guilty one did not act alone. I knew that you or Ferlain had to be working with the guilty one.”
“It is not I, Uncle Rollo.”
“I know,” said Hallad. “It isn’t you, Helga.”
Ferlain stood impatiently in her sleeping chamber, her hands fisted at her sides as her husband, Cardle, paced in front of her, carrying on about the damned now-dead King Alfred of Britain. She looked as if she had been saved when Weland and two of his men came into the chamber.
“But you can’t take her,” Cardle said, startled by their sudden appearance. “What are you doing here? What do you mean, her uncle wants her? This cannot be right. I was just telling her of my studies of the great Charlemagne. Or was it Alfred? No matter, they were both great men, men of courage and men of vision. Can this not wait? Cannot Rollo wait to see her?”
Weland looked from the bent scholar whose seed had birthed eight dead babes. The man’s rod was his only connection to this world. Weland said quietly, “You will see her later, Cardle. Rollo wishes to see her now.”
“He knows,” Ferlain said very quietly.
“Aye, Ferlain, he knows.”
“Knows what?” Cardle said, and scratched his head. “What is this, Ferlain?”
“Continue your study of Charlemagne, Cardle. I will return soon. Or was it Alfred? By the gods, I really don’t remember nor do I care.”
She heard Cardle gasp behind her and smiled. “I have wanted to tell him that for a long time,” she said to Weland, then became silent, her head up, her shoulders squared as she walked beside him.
“I could order you killed right now, Ferlain, but I wanted to hear you speak. I want to know why you have betrayed me. You are my blood and yet you deceived me, deceived all of us, with Otta. Do not bother to lie, for we know everything.”
Fat, plain Ferlain, with coarse white strands threaded through her dark brown hair, threw her head back, and said, her voice loud and strong, “You would have been next, Uncle Rollo. You have become a fool, a doddering old man who does not deserve to rule this mighty land.” She paused, frowning at him. “What has taken place here? You have changed again. What has happened to you? You were mad just this morning, I saw it, and knew your time was near, for you were deranged and knew not what you said. Otta assured me it was true. He assured me that now was the time to act, to rid ourselves of all of you. Aye, I expected to see you drool as you spoke your nonsense, yet here you are, hale and stout and you act like a man once again.”
Rollo merely smiled at her, remaining seated in his massive throne with its carved raven posts, a throne constructed higher than any other throne, for Rollo’s legs were so very long. Merrik and Laren stood to his right. The only other person in Rollo’s chamber was Weland, and he was staring down at the wooden floor covered with rich crimson wool rugs.
Rollo said finally, very quietly, “It was a ruse, Ferlain, naught but a ruse.”
“Where is Otta?”
“He is dead. He meant to kill me, but you knew that, did you not?”
