Chapter 28
KIRI SCREAMED. SHE woke the other six children who all slept pressed against each other in the large box bed.
She screamed again, arms thrashing, her body heaving.
Torik began to cry. Eidalla, a year older than Kiri, shook her arm.
“It’s a nightmare, nothing more. Be quiet, Kiri. Hush, wake up now and stop crying.”
But Kiri threw herself out of the bed and ran to her father’s small chamber where he was already in the doorway, pulling on his trousers.
“Papa!”
Cleve grabbed her up into his arms and rocked her. Men and women surrounded them now, shaking hair from their eyes, concern on their faces. Cleve just shook his head. “Nay, it’s all right. She’ll be fine. She’s afraid for Chessa and dreamed a bad dream. Isn’t that right, sweeting?”
But Kiri was shaking her head against Cleve’s neck. He felt her tears on his skin, felt the cold of her flesh. He kissed her ear, the top of her head.
He walked back into his sleeping chamber and sat down on the bed, holding her on his lap. He pulled a woolen blanket around her. “Tell me what happened, Kiri.”
She shuddered, then whispered, “Papa, Caldon is trying to save Chessa.”
“What?”
He saw she was confused. She huddled against him, shivering violently. “It’s all right, Kiri. It was a dream, just a bad dream.”
Kiri shook her head and burrowed deeper against her father’s chest. “No, Papa, I did dream, but it wasn’t really a dream. There was Caldon and she heard Chessa calling to her. Chessa’s in a boat on the loch with Kerek and some other men. What does it mean, Papa?”
He didn’t know. By all the gods, was he to be surrounded by wizardry?
By things he didn’t understand but had to accept?
He hugged his small daughter tightly. She said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, “I’m proud of Caldon for trying to save Chessa, but she doesn’t always do what I ask her to.
I wanted her to bring her children so I could play with them, but she didn’t. I hope she saves Chessa, Papa.”
He didn’t know what to say. Was it all Kiri’s imagination?
Laren hadn’t thought so, neither did Varrick.
He found himself asking her to tell him more about Caldon.
She did, but her answers were becoming more vague and her eyes soon closed again on sleep.
He sat there, holding his now-sleeping daughter, her small head pressed close to his heart.
He simply didn’t know. He couldn’t bring himself to believe this monster business, but what else could he believe?
What else made even a whit of sense? One thing he did believe was that Chessa was indeed on the loch in the middle of the night.
And that made his belly cramp with fear.
He knew none of the men would go out on the loch at the word of a child after darkness fell. Or at his word either, despite his conviction that she was indeed there and that there were only six men holding her. Their fear was too deep, and he supposed it was a healthy fear, for it kept them alive.
He didn’t doubt the existence of the monster, of Caldon, as Varrick and Kiri called it.
But that it could feel a human being’s thoughts, that it could be beckoned by Varrick’s burra—he didn’t want to believe it, but he was holding proof of it on his lap.
His small daughter somehow knew what was happening.
He now accepted what she’d dreamed, or the vision that had come to her whilst she slept.
He said quietly, shaking her slightly until she was again awake, “I’m sorry, sweeting, but this is important.
I want you to lie still, Kiri, and think of your second papa.
Can you see her? Is she still in that boat with the other men? Is Caldon near?”
Kiri drew a deep breath and sank down into her father’s arms. “That’s it,” he said. “Breathe deeply, sweeting. Close your eyes and think of Chessa. Do you see her?”
“Now I see Lord Varrick. He’s staring at Pagan. He’s fitting his fingers into the holes those circles and squares make, Papa. He’s humming and his eyes are closed.”
“What’s Pagan?”
“The stick, Papa. It’s what Lord Varrick—”
“He’s your grandfather—”
“Aye, I know that, but he doesn’t like it. He told me to call him Lord Varrick. He told me he was young, younger than you even, that years fell away from him, that he would still be as he was when I was grown and had babes of my own.”
“Then he sees Chessa as well?”
“Aye, I think somehow he sent thoughts to Chessa and to Caldon. I don’t know, Papa.”
“What do you—”
Kiri screamed and struggled from the woolen blanket. “Caldon hit the boat. She butted it with her head! Everyone is screaming, Papa!”
It was just a soft nudge, but the men nearly fainted from fear in that first moment, then screamed in the next. “Row!” Kerek yelled as loud as he could. “Damn you cowards, the shore is nearly beneath our feet. Row!”
There was another nudge. Oh, no, Chessa thought, Caldon was pushing the longboat to shore, not away from it. Well, if she forced them to shore, then there would be a chance of escaping.
It was then that the men yelled with relief, all of them leaping from the longboat into the shallow water, thrashing to the shore just feet beyond them.
Kerek grabbed Chessa’s arm and pulled her after him.
He lifted her over his shoulder and climbed over the side of the boat. He yelled to the men to pull it ashore.
But they were too late. Once Kerek set Chessa’s feet on the pebbly beach, Caldon rose from the water beside the longboat.
The mist cleared, forming a frame for that long curving neck, the small head.
The mouth opened and Caldon trumpeted loudly.
The men dropped the ropes to the boat and froze into statues, staring, too frightened to scream, too frightened to move.
Chessa grinned as Caldon lowered her mighty head and shoved at the side of the boat, butting it away from the shoreline back out into the loch.
Kerek yelled and strode into the water, screaming at the monster, who was now lost in the thick mist again, the longboat as well.
There was silence and the smell of fear.
Finally, Kerek said loudly, breaking through to the men, “The monster is gone and has taken our longboat. All of you come out of your damned fear now. Shake yourselves. Bring your brains back into your heads. It’s over.
We must stay here until it is morning. Halak, see to building a fire.
The rest of you gather wood and branches.
We will stay warm, at least, until the sun comes out tomorrow. ”
“I wonder if it will,” Chessa said loudly, turned, and gave Kerek a big smile. “Did you forget, Kerek, that I am the daughter of the greatest wizard who ever lived?”
He stared down at her, fear making him pale, the thick mist leaching the rest of the color from his face.
His hair was wet around his head. He was soaked, as were the rest of the men.
She was completely dry, save where Kerek had pulled her over his shoulder to carry her ashore.
He shivered. She didn’t know if it was from cold or from fear.
She never stopped smiling up at him. He hated the fear, she knew it, and it pleased her.
The men built a huge fire. By the time they lay down beside the banked embers, they were dry. Chessa was still wrapped in the woolen blanket. The mist was soft on her face, like damp fingers tracing over her flesh.
Kerek left to go into the woods to relieve himself.
The moment he was out of hearing, she said to the men, “You saw my magic. You saw the monster. The only reason Caldon didn’t kill all of you was because I was in the boat and she was afraid I would be harmed.
When it is light, if I allow the sun to shine on the morrow, you must return me to my home.
If you obey Kerek, then you will all perish. ”
“Don’t listen to her.” It was Kerek and there was deep anger in his voice.
“She isn’t a witch or a wizard or anything else.
The monster lives in this loch, all of us knew that.
It simply came to our boat and wanted it.
Nothing more. Now, the sun will be bright and hot on the morrow, despite its being fall and the leaves are now golden and red and yellow.
I swear it to you. Sleep now and don’t listen to her. ”
Then he said, “You wonder why Queen Turella wants her. I will tell you. It is because of her strength, it is because of what she is that she will wed Ragnor and she will rule, not that fool. The Saxons won’t overrun the Danelaw once she is there.
You have seen witness of her strength. Think of that whilst you sleep. ”
Chessa said, “Kerek has said two very different things. Which will you believe? Look at me. Do any of you think I’ll allow Ragnor to be my husband?
” She shook her head and spit into the fire, causing the embers to hiss and spew.
“I will by myself destroy the Danelaw. I will by myself give it over to the Saxons. You don’t want me for the king’s wife. ”
“Better the fool dies,” one of the men said.
“Aye,” another said. “Kill him.”
Chessa sighed. There were so many currents here and she didn’t know which way to swim. She’d decided upon wizardry and threats to kill Ragnor but it hadn’t worked. These men wanted him dead. She looked at Kerek, who was smiling very slightly at her.
“The princess is of great value,” he said. “Now, go to sleep, all of you. The sun will be upon us soon.”
She slept. She didn’t want to, but she did, deeply, with no dreams. She awoke when Kerek shook her arm.
“Look at the bright sun, Princess,” he said, thick pleasure in his voice, or was it stark relief? She didn’t know. “Aye,” he said, “bright sun, just as I promised.”