Chapter 22
MERRIK HELD HER head as she vomited into the basin. She was shuddering with the effort, her skin clammy and cold. She’d eaten little that morning because she’d been so nervous, and now she was heaving and jerking, but there was naught left in her belly save the twisting, grinding cramps.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said as he pulled her sweat-damp hair from her face. “You were feeling well in your ignorance.”
“Aye,” she said. “I would bless both you and my ignorance if only it would return.”
He gave her a mug of ale. She washed out her mouth, moaned and clutched her stomach again, then, to his relief, eased. “I don’t like this,” she said, looking at him with less than adoration. “You did this to me.”
“Aye, it is a man’s duty,” he said, grinning at her.
“Come.” He lifted her to her feet and then into his arms. He carried her to the wide box bed and laid her down.
He straightened the beautiful gown Ileria had made for her, not wanting to wrinkle it overly.
He sat beside her, wishing indeed that he’d kept his mouth shut.
How could her suddenly knowing she was carrying his babe make her ill?
It seemed incomprehensible to him, yet she’d turned white and fainted dead away, in front of all Rollo’s people.
If he could have planned it, it couldn’t have been done better.
She opened her eyes as he covered her with a woolen blanket. “I don’t like you at this moment, Merrik.”
He leaned down and kissed her nose.
“How do you know so much about babes and such?”
“When a man can take a woman for weeks without having to stop, she is either too exhausted to say him nay, or pregnant with his babe.”
She sent her fist into his arm. He grabbed her fist, smoothed out her hand, and kissed her palm. “Thank you, Laren, for my child.”
“It is my child.”
“It is my seed and without my seed there would be no child.”
“I take your seed and nurture it into life. Without me there would be no child.”
He smiled at her. “You are right.”
“You’re just saying that because I feel so wretched.”
“Aye. Get well again so that I can argue freely with you and not suffer guilt.”
She said suddenly, sitting up, “I feel fine now. Isn’t that odd?”
She fell silent, queried her body, then said, “Aye, ’tis true, there is no more faintness, no more illness. My belly is happy.”
“I hope it stays happier than poor Otta’s.” He pulled her into his arms, and held her, kissing her ear, smoothing the tangles from her hair with his fingers, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “All will be well, you will see. Trust me in what I am doing.”
“I don’t like it,” she said again. “You are now in danger, Merrik. I cannot like that.”
“You can protect me when you’re not on your knees with your face in a bucket.”
She chuckled and it made him feel immensely relieved. He was kissing her when Rollo came running into the sleeping chamber. He was so tall he had to bend to get through the doorway without hitting his head.
“Is she all right?”
Laren looked over Merrik’s shoulder. “I am fine, uncle. I am sorry for disturbing your announcement.”
“Nay, don’t be. I am more than pleased.” He paused a moment, then said easily, “Your half sisters tell me they’re concerned about you.
Ha! Helga fears you might be cursed with Ferlain’s womb.
They wish to see you, they claim, both of them more serious than the Christian nuns, to welcome you home again. ”
“That is very kind of them,” Laren said. “I will see them shortly.”
“Aye,” Merrik said, “I wish to meet them as well.”
Helga looked about Laren’s small sleeping chamber, the same one she’d slept in all her life.
She hoped Laren had nightmares. She smiled at her half sister, thinking she looked pitiful and so very pale.
It was afternoon and yet she’d vomited again.
Poor Laren, she looked close to death. So very close.
Carrying a babe was a dangerous thing, all knew that.
A woman’s life was so fragile, more so than a man’s, curse the sods.
Yet Ferlain continued to flourish after carrying eight babes.
Helga wondered if her sister would carry yet another babe.
She smiled as she walked to the box bed and held out her hands. “Laren, it is really you. Even seeing you in the great hall I couldn’t be certain, for I was so anxious that it be you, but I couldn’t trust myself. You look lovely, dearest. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Helga. Ah, here is Ferlain. Hello, sister.”
Ferlain couldn’t bring herself to smile.
Unlike Helga, she saw a very slender girl with magnificent red hair and a complexion that only youth occasionally granted, brilliant blue-gray eyes, and even white teeth.
She hated the girl. She felt very old, and she was Laren’s half sister, not her damned mother.
It galled her. She said, only a slight tremor in her voice, “I have missed you, Laren. A pity that Taby had to die so that you could survive.”
Merrik arched a dark blond eyebrow. “You sound as though Laren left Taby in a ditch somewhere so that she could have a better chance to live.”
“Did I? Surely I couldn’t mean that. Helga, I didn’t say that, did I?”
Helga gave a small laugh and moved a step closer to Merrik.
He was tall, this Viking, and he smelled delicious, a man smell that was uniquely his, a scent both dark and musky that made her want to touch her fingertips to his mouth, to his shoulders, to the thick hair at his groin.
“No, Ferlain,” she said, abstracted by him, “you love Laren, as do I. Naturally, she wouldn’t kill Taby to save herself. ”
Laren could but stare at the two of them. Odd, but Helga seemed to look younger than she had two years ago. Ferlain looked older, petulant, downward lines about her mouth, streaks of gray in her once rich brown hair. She was fat.
She felt Merrik stiffening beside her, but just smiled. “No, of course, neither of you would ever think I would not guard Taby with my life. Merrik, would you like to pour some of the sweet wine for Ferlain and Helga?”
He nodded, and walked to the low table that was near the doorway.
He poured the wine into ivory goblets, beautifully made those goblets, like none he’d ever seen before.
And the heels of his boots thudded on the wooden floor.
He was used to pounded earth floors, as were most normal humans.
This was noisome and he didn’t like it. If he had no boots on he would have splinters in his feet.
He gave each of the women a goblet of wine.
He felt the heat of Helga’s flesh when she took the goblet from him, and there was that same heat in her eyes, dark eyes, deep and mysterious.
“Where are your husbands?” he said, his eyes mirroring the same hunger in hers. He didn’t look away from her even as he slowly walked back to stand beside Laren.
Helga gave him a long, slow smile, nodding slightly as if she recognized and accepted what had happened between them, and said, “Fromm is doubtless practicing with his sword. He is a very strong man, you know—”
“He is a bully,” Ferlain said, took a large gulp of her wine and fell into spasms of coughing.
“Aye, he is,” Helga agreed easily. She looked over at Laren. “So you carry Merrik’s child. It seems you are as fertile as your poor mother was. Such a pity that she died so soon after Taby was born.”
Laren couldn’t remember her mother’s face, but oddly, she could remember her singing, her voice firm and strong and off-key.
And her father had strangled her, all had seen the imprint of his fingers around her neck.
She nodded, then said quickly, “Uncle Rollo spoke of how everyone believed it was his blood family from the Orkneys responsible for Taby’s and my abduction. What do you think, Helga?”
“What I think,” Helga said slowly as she sipped her wine, her eyes on Merrik, “is that whoever it was felt some mercy. After all, you did survive, Laren.”
“Aye, I often wondered why Taby and I were spared. I never thought it an act of mercy though. Nay, I believed the person responsible wanted both Taby and me to die slowly, to suffer, for what reason I don’t know.”
Ferlain said, “I always believed it was your father, come back to take you and Taby away. He knew he would be put to death if he remained after murdering your mother, and thus he went away until he could capture you and Taby.”
“Our father,” Laren said flatly. “And it wasn’t Hallad. I cannot believe that you would think that, much less say it.”
“I do wonder what happened to him,” Helga said.
“He was never the warrior Uncle Rollo was, but he was a nice man, a good father until he married your mother. Doubtless he was killed by outlaws. But enough of that. It is long in the past. You are home now, and you have brought the man who will be one of Rollo’s heirs.
I wonder what the Frank King Charles will make of all this.
A man who is a stranger, becoming a possible heir to the duchy of Normandy. ”
“I will go pay homage to the king,” Merrik said. “Aye, and he will bless our union, doubt it not. But not just yet.” He rubbed his hands together then, and there was an opulent pleasure in his eyes, and unmasked greed, but just for the barest moment, not longer.
Helga said slowly, her eyes never leaving his face, “Ferlain and I will leave you now, Laren. We will dine with you this evening, if you are not vomiting again.”
Laren silently watched her two half sisters leave her sleeping chamber. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You are most convincing, Merrik.”
“Aye,” he said and chuckled. “Most convincing. Helga believes herself irrestible and I showed her not only my interest in her but also my boundless greed. It should prove interesting. Now we will wait and see.”
“Helga is smart though, I do remember that. You will be careful, husband.”