Chapter 7
THE MORNING WAS warm and balmy, the sky a bright blue, scattered with white clouds.
The water was utterly calm; the waves washed gently onto the shore.
Kerzog, a huge mongrel whose tongue was as long as a longboat plank, Rorik was used to saying, raced after the receding waves, then barked loudly as the sea rushed back in, many times curling around his hind paws.
Rorik breathed in deeply. “Were it not for all the broken branches and refuse tossed onto the shore, I wouldn’t know that just two days ago a storm tried to tear us apart. ”
“Aye, you’re right,” Gunleik said as he leaned down to pick up a piece of oddly shaped driftwood, thinking he could carve something nice for his wife, Erna. A dolphin, perhaps. “What think you of the warship, Rorik?”
Rorik straightened from his examination of the ship. “We can repair the ship well enough for the men to row it to York. The mast sheared off completely. We can do nothing about that. The rudder needs repair, but it can be done.”
“We will take one of your warships,” Ragnor said, striding across the beach. “I have looked at both of them and the trading vessels too. I believe I will have one of each. You will consider it your tribute to me.”
Rorik merely looked at Ragnor of York, who was more ragged than most of his men. None, evidently, had offered him clothing, else he simply hadn’t thought of it.
“Aye,” Ragnor said more loudly, for now Kerek and six of his warriors were behind him. “We’ll take that warship over there. It looked sound enough for us.”
“I see,” Rorik said mildly. “And will you return it to us once you’ve done with it?”
“Naturally not. It is your tribute, as I told you. We will leave after the morning meal. I told your wife and that toothless old hag to prepare extra food for us for our journey. She looked at me so strangely that I think she must be simple. I told Chessa to ready herself. Also there is a young girl who much pleases me. Her name is Utta. I will take her with me. She would be honored to be my concubine.”
Kerzog growled, showing vicious yellow teeth.
Rorik grinned and said in that same mild voice, “I doubt her husband would be honored at the notion. My dog doesn’t like it either.
The dog’s name is Kerzog. Her husband’s name is Haakon.
Perhaps you could speak to him about taking Utta.
He’s the tall man over yon, helping lift away the broken mast. I will call him for you. ”
“Nay, my lord, that isn’t necessary,” Kerek said quickly. “Lord Ragnor merely jests. He wouldn’t want a girl who was wed to another man.”
“Mayhap not,” Ragnor said, eyeing the flexing muscles of Haakon’s arms and back. “However, I will have that warship and one of the trading vessels.”
Kerek said, “My lord Rorik, this is difficult. I must get my lord Ragnor back to York, the princess with him.”
“Nay, it’s not at all difficult,” Hafter said. “You will keep your mouths shut, else I and my men will kill each of you slowly and with a good deal of pleasure. You will keep quiet until Lord Rorik decides what is to be done with you. Is that clear enough, even for you, lackbrain?”
Ragnor shrieked, “Nay, I am Ragnor of York, you cannot speak to me like that. Lackbrain? Not even my mother ever called me that. I’ll have you flogged.
” He paused a moment, eyes frightening in their anger, then he calmed, as suddenly as the sky had after it had nearly killed them in the storm.
“Listen, Rorik. You must help me. You must give me what I demand.”
Kerzog looked ready to leap. “No, down,” Rorik said, pulling on Kerzog’s ears. “Kerek, do remove him. He grows wearisome. Not my dog, your master. As Hafter says, I will inform you what you will do and when you will do it.”
“My lord, come with me. The island isn’t at all a pile of rocks. There is no mud now. It’s quite beautiful with a lot of arable land. We can explore, perhaps—”
Ragnor turned and struck Kerek hard in his mouth with the flat of his palm. “You stupid old graybeard, how dare you treat me like a witless child? How dare you take their side? I’ll flay the flesh from your coward’s back, I’ll—”
Rorik heard a furious yell. He saw Chessa scrambling down the path, running straight at Ragnor.
She was red in the face, from exertion, and from anger, he realized.
She didn’t stop, but ran right into Ragnor, shoving him hard in his chest with her fists, pushing him backward, kicking his shins with first one foot then the other, yelling into his face all the while, “You filthy bully! Kerek tries to keep you alive but you are too stupid to realize it. Leave him alone. I will hurt you badly if you strike him again.”
Ragnor tried to grab her, but she was like leaping fire, her hands flying out to hit him hard in his belly, in his chest, in his face.
He yelled when she brought up her knee and kicked him in the groin.
Then she snorted as he doubled over, and coolly shoved him off the dock into the water.
She turned and said in a voice as sweetly calm as the beautiful morning, “Are you all right, Kerek?”
He looked at her from his great height and said, “I must take you to York, Princess. Surely you realize it is the Danelaw’s only hope. You must marry the worm.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Kerek. I would kill him or he would kill me. I’m not this Boadicea or any other warrior woman you can come up with. I am nothing but an ordinary woman. Ah, Ragnor cut your cheek with that silver ring of his. Let me bathe it for you.”
But Kerek stepped back. “You are a princess. It isn’t right.”
“Let me tell you just how much a real princess I am,” she said, but was interrupted by one of Ragnor’s men who came forward and said to Rorik, “Ragnor cannot swim, my lord. Should one of us save him?”
Rorik could only stare at the man. Then he threw back his head and laughed deeply, turning only when they heard yells from Ragnor, who was clutching one of the slimy wooden supports beneath the dock.
Hafter said, “It took only two days for our people to show Ragnor’s warriors that any life is better than the one they live under that little bastard’s thumb.”
“Aye, Arek,” Rorik said on a sigh. “Save him, though it pains me to tell you to do so. He is the future king of the Danelaw and thus we have no choice but to keep him alive. Even Ragnor is preferable to rule by the Saxons.”
“The Saxons aren’t beginning to seem so bad, Rorik,” Hafter said.
Old Alna cackled by way of an answer, for she hadn’t heard the question, her hearing now wandering away from her as much as her mind.
The lovely captain Torric was drinking one of her potions that she’d sweetened with honey and ground-up almonds.
Actually it was one of Utta’s potions, for Old Alna’s eyes were too blurred to tell most ingredients apart.
“You’ll be seeing Valkyries soon,” she said, and the captain sighed, “but not real ones, just Valkyries I’ll conjure up for you with my potion. ”
“I see several now. Who is that beautiful Valkyrie giving her breast to the babe?”
“Eh? Ah, that’s Entti. Look not too interested, Captain, else her husband Hafter just might gullet you and my sweet lady’s nursing of you would all be for naught. Hafter is possessive of Entti.”
“She has a beautiful breast,” Torric said, and drank down some more of Old Alna’s potion.
“The other one is just the same.”
“Aye, ’tis probably true. Will I see it?”
“She’s not showing it to you, Torric. She’s feeding Verad, greedy little stoat, and being modest about it. It’s just that Mirana has moved to stir the huge pot of stew and thus you can see clearly. You’d best keep your eyes on my face. That will give you incredible dreams of beauty.”
Captain Torric groaned at that. Old Alna cackled. “I was once that beautiful, my breasts that full and round.”
Captain Torric groaned again and closed his eyes for Mirana had moved again to stand in front of Entti. “What is happening with Lord Ragnor?”
“My master hasn’t killed the ass yet, if that’s what you’re asking me, Captain. Aye, my lad, finish the potion. Before you sleep, you’ll believe me beautiful. You’ll want to wed with me. You’ll want to bed me.”
Torric moaned again, stared at the potion as if it had become poison.
But he drank it down nonetheless for his leg pained him a great deal.
“I’m glad Rorik hasn’t killed him. King Olric placed both Kerek and me in charge of his safety, but it is difficult, for Ragnor is difficult, nay, more than difficult.
He swaggers and boasts and all want to kick his teeth down his throat.
But it’s odd, you know. When he decides to play a man with wit and charm, even a man who’s brave, a man who feels compassion for others, he can actually do it.
Kerek told me that was how he first won the princess’s heart.
I can’t imagine any man fooling her, but he did it.
He dished himself up to her as a generous, kind man who adored her.
Ah, but then he showed his true colors. They’re not pleasant colors, at least never around me and the other men.
” He sighed, wishing he had more potion.
He was feeling sweet and soft in his belly.
He no longer felt his broken leg. He didn’t even feel his tongue.
“I don’t know what to do. Kerek wants the Princess Chessa to marry him. He’s convinced that she will make a better man of him.”
“It would be a wager I wouldn’t take,” Old Alna said. “The gods know she has little enough to start with. A man can’t be molded as can a loaf of bread.”
“Less than little enough to start with,” Torric said, and tried to shift his weight. He felt as if he were floating, his head light, his body thrumming with the pleasure of no pain. He could sell casks of the potion. He could become a wealthy man. “What was in that drink?”
Old Alna cackled.
Mirana said over Old Alna’s shoulder, “How do you feel, Captain?”