Chapter 11
THERE WASN’T A sound in the longhouse. Even the children were silent. Kerzog was sprawled on his belly, his head on his paws, not moving except for his tongue lolling out.
“Did you hear what I said?” Chessa said, staring at all the men and women around the huge chamber.
“I said I wasn’t a princess. Before my father killed King Sitric of Ireland, he was Hormuze the magician.
I’m his daughter.” She couldn’t understand why people weren’t shocked, weren’t yelling that such a thing couldn’t be true.
Of course, she thought. Everyone knows. They’ve known since the beginning. Their only surprise was that she would admit it.
Mirana said, “Chessa, everyone knows the truth. Just after your father Hormuze married Sira and became the king of Ireland—renewed and young again—he sent a skald here the following winter solstice and he told the incredible tale of how the mystic Hormuze had wrought the change in the king and made him young again and given him a wife who would give him sons. All believed it. Those who didn’t realized that your father would be an excellent king and thus kept their mouths shut.
You see, your father wanted us to know that everything had come about just as he’d predicted.
If I remember aright, Sira was pregnant with the first son. ”
Cleve looked at Merrik. “When I asked you about that tale, you denied any knowledge.”
“Naturally. It was never to have been spoken of and hasn’t, until now. Thank the gods we got Kerek and Ragnor out of here. Chessa was right, I wouldn’t trust Ragnor any more than I’d wager Mirana could outrun Kerzog.”
“It’s true?” Cleve asked, now looking at her. “Chessa isn’t a princess?”
“Actually,” she said, clearing her throat loudly.
“I’m from that far-away land to the south called Egypt, the land Laren spoke about last night.
My father wanted Mirana for his wife because she looked so much like my mother, but she had already married Lord Rorik.
” She sighed. “So he took Sira. Papa was so certain he could improve her. She was wild and vicious and ruthless, excellent qualities, I believe, in a king, but not in a queen. I don’t think he dwells on it much now.
” She looked at Cleve now. “I’m not a princess.
I’m just me, no royal blood, nothing to interest William of Normandy, nothing to interest Ragnor of York.
My father even changed my name because he didn’t want anyone to remember Hormuze or that I was his daughter or to take the chance that someone might think that King Sitric had the look of Hormuze. ”
Cleve said, “Now I know the full story. It’s an excellent story.
Nay, I believe it. I have but to look at Rorik’s face to know it’s true.
As for your not having royal blood, why then, neither does William.
His father, Duke Rollo, wasn’t royal until he negotiated the treaty with King Charles III.
But now he is royal simply because of that treaty, just as you are a princess simply because your father is now a king.
None of it makes any difference. I gave my word to Duke Rollo that I would bring you to him.
I will keep my word. You will begin your monthly flow. ”
She looked at him straightly, holding herself very still. “I will marry no man but you.”
Cleve strode to the door of the longhouse.
“Where are you going?”
He turned to look at her, standing there, her hands clasped in front of her, her black hair loose down her back, braided strands threaded with strips of yellow linen, her linen gown of soft saffron making her skin look golden, making her eyes look greener, which surely wasn’t possible.
She’d just said it in front of everyone.
She would marry no man but he. She was beyond foolish.
She was beyond blind. Just looking at his face should have turned her against such a notion.
It was an infatuation. Surely she would wake up one morning soon and realize that she didn’t want him, and perhaps wonder how she could have ever believed that she had.
“I must think,” he said, and fled the longhouse. No one said anything until they no longer heard his retreating footsteps.
Chessa just stood there after he was gone, just stood there seeing nothing really, hearing the voices around her becoming thick now, louder, for now everything must be discussed and argued about. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone would be heard.
She heard Rorik say to Mirana, “You should have told her it wouldn’t work. To claim a man like that with no warning, especially a man like Cleve, who doesn’t really know who or what he is, a man who doesn’t want a wife, and that’s understandable given what was done to him.”
“Why doesn’t Papa want a wife?”
“Oh, dear,” Laren said as she scooped Kiri up in her arms. “Your papa, sweeting—well, it isn’t that he doesn’t want a wife, he just—”
She stalled and Merrik said, patting Kiri’s golden hair, “Your papa has much to do, Kiri. You know that. We are going to Scotland to return to where he was born. All this is uncertain, thus he can’t have a wife right now.”
“Why not? She could help him just like Aunt Laren helps you. She could tell him the right of things when he gets confused, just like Aunt Lar—”
“I know, Kiri,” Merrik said quickly, trying not to laugh. “It’s just that things are, well, very difficult right now.”
Chessa said, “Kiri’s right. Why can’t he marry me?”
“Chessa,” Rorik said, “be quiet.”
“No, I won’t. Kiri, your papa can have me for a wife right now, this afternoon if he wishes it.
This evening if Mirana must have time to prepare for a celebration.
I would help your papa learn about where he came from and why he was left to die as a small boy, then sold as a slave like your Aunt Laren. ”
“I don’t know if you should marry Papa,” Kiri said, looking at Chessa. “You look just like my Aunt Mirana.”
“That just makes her very lucky, Kiri,” Mirana said and grinned.
“Maybe my papa doesn’t want a wife because he loved my mama so much. Maybe my papa just doesn’t like you. I don’t know.”
She wiggled out of Merrik’s hold and ran to the doorway.
“Sweeting,” Laren called after her, “just play outside with your cousins. Don’t go beyond the palisade.”
Cleve returned in early evening, a sleeping Kiri in his arms. “We spent the afternoon on the eastern cliff, watching the dunlin and oystercatchers.” He said nothing more, paid no attention at all to Chessa until late that night when everyone was preparing to sleep.
He walked to her, just stared down at her, but said nothing for a very long time.
There was a food stain on her bosom, her hair was loose, her face flushed from the heat of the fire pit.
“Look at my face,” he said.
She looked at his face.
“What do you see?”
She smiled up at him. Slowly, she raised her hand and traced her finger over his mouth, his nose, his eyebrows, smoothing them, then at last, she lightly traced her fingertip down the curved scar.
“I see you,” she said. “I see the man I want, the only man I will ever want. I see you and I want to smile and laugh and perhaps do a little dance. I want to kiss you and touch you. What I see is the man the gods fashioned just for me. Now, Cleve, look at my face.”
He looked at her face.
“What do you see?”
He didn’t touch her as she had him. He said, “I have never seen eyes the color of yours. I had thought your eyes like Mirana’s, but it isn’t true.
The green of your eyes is different, darker, nearly black in this dim light, and there is a slight tilt to the corners of your eyes that makes you look like you’re keeping secrets, that you know things that other people don’t know. Is that true, Chessa?”
“Nay.”
She wanted very much to kiss him. She’d kissed Ragnor several times and thought it strange, this touching of mouths.
“Cleve,” she said, standing on her tiptoes. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was certain he must hear it. She spread her palms on his chest, feeling the heat of his body, feeling the steady pounding of his own heart.
“Do you see anything else, Cleve?”
“I see a woman who will not do as she’s bid.”
“That’s all you see? Strange eyes and a woman who won’t be led about by the nose? I feel your heart, Cleve. It’s beating very fast now.”
“If you were closer you’d feel how hard my sex is. It means nothing, Princess. I’m a man and a man is always ready to bed a comely woman. It’s no more than that.” Then his hands were on her wrists and he was gently pushing her away from him.
He stepped back from her. “Merrik, his men, and I are taking Ragnor, Kerek, and Torric back to York. It should only take five days, no longer than eight days, depending on the weather, depending on things I can’t begin to think of.
When we return then we’ll go to Rouen. In the meantime you will begin your monthly flow.
I don’t think you’re pregnant. After all, you don’t want to bear Ragnor’s child.
No, I feel that you are just being stubborn.
You refuse to obey your father’s wishes and thus this is how you go about gaining your own way.
If you refuse to wed William, I will return you to Sitric. ”
“But didn’t you hear me? I’m not a princess.”
He shrugged. “I said it before and it’s true. Since you are the King of Ireland’s daughter you are thus a princess. You could have left Ragnor in here and told him that. He could have told the world. It makes no difference. Now, we’re leaving in the morning. I bid you good night, Princess.”