Season of the Sun (14 page)

Egill looked at the woman with the very red hair and eyes so green they looked like wet water reeds. “I don't care what a slave thinks. You will hold your tongue, woman.”

Zarabeth drew back, silent as a stone. The boy was right. She had no right to speak her mind, she had no rights, she had nothing at all. She held out her arms to Lotti, and her little sister immediately pulled away from Magnus. Zarabeth moved away from Magnus, holding herself away from the hurt.

She saw the slave Cyra immediately take her place. The woman was but a few years older than Zarabeth, and her hair was long to her hips and as black as a moonless night. Her eyes were a dark brown and her flesh a soft peach color. She was exquisitely beautiful and Zarabeth wondered from whence she had come. Ha, where she had been captured was more to the point. She was also a slave, but there was no collar around her throat. A slave prized for her work in the master's bed.

“I have worked with the flax,” Cyra was saying to Magnus, pointing to a long rectangular field to their left. “I will make you fine trousers and shirts.”

Cyra wore a gown of white, full-cut, belted at her narrow waist. The material was a fine wool, not harsh and coarsely woven. It was as fine a garment as Ingunn was wearing.

Zarabeth was tired and depressed. She wanted to be alone, away from Magnus, away from the dozens of talking people who lived and worked and spent their lives on this farmstead. She hated it.

She touched her fingertips to the cold iron of the collar and kept walking.

When Ingunn said loudly that Cyra would show Zarabeth to the slave hut, Magnus did not contradict her. He had no intention of allowing Zarabeth to remain there even one night, neither she nor Lotti, but he would handle the situation in private. It wouldn't hurt to peel away a bit more of her lamentable pride, that stiff aloofness of hers that infuriated
him. Let her believe for a while that she would stay in that mean hut.

He paused a moment, though, when he heard Cyra say to Zarabeth, “I do not sleep in there. I sleep in the longhouse, with Magnus.”

And Zarabeth said with sweet laughter, “I am pleased for you, Cyra. You will continue to bed the savage, and I will be free from his attention.”

Blood pounded through him. He wished now that he had taken her that day, that he had ignored Lotti and just taken her and been done with it. Damn her, he wanted to hurt her. He was shaking as he walked into his longhouse. No, he could not have done that; he couldn't have taken her in front of the child, nor could he have abused Lotti in any way. But he would have her soon. There would be naught for her to do about it.

Did she really believe he would allow Lotti to sleep with the other slaves in that cold damp hut?

He watched Egill run to Horkel, who had followed him into the house.

Everything looked familiar; everything felt exactly the same, smelled the same. But it wasn't. Life had changed now, and no matter how he had thought to shape it according to his own whims, he knew in that instant that the future was no longer his to control.

 

Zarabeth was wearing one of her gowns, a soft pink wool with a white overtunic that she had worn in York. Then she had fastened it with two finely worked brooches at the shoulders. They were gone; she assumed that Toki had taken them. Now she'd knotted the ties of the overtunic at her shoulders. Her hair was combed and hung freely down her back. Ingunn had told her to serve the guests all the mead and ale they wished. She had merely nodded, half her attention on Lotti, who had come to a beginning
understanding with several of the small children who played freely throughout the longhouse. She didn't know who the children were; it seemed not to matter. They were all thrown together and there was always an adult who chided them or played with them, or gently pushed them out of the way.

Magnus' longhouse was rather like a low, wooden barn. The floor was of beaten earth, so hard that walking on it raised no dirt or dust. There were smooth slabs of stone around the perimeter of the room, set firmly up to the walls. The walls were made of split tree trunks set side by side in a double layer, standing upright. Zarabeth looked up to see that the roof was supported by big wooden beams and sloped sharply. At the close end of the long room were rows of clean wooden tables where all the family and guests were now sitting eating beef and mutton, venison and wild boar. There were trays of peas and cabbage and potatoes, and huge bowls of apples and pears and peaches. Over the huge rectangular fire hearth, bounded with thick stones that rose a good three feet high, were two huge iron pots suspended by chains that were hooked to the ceiling beams. One pot was filled with veal stew, the other with a mixture of potatoes and onions and garlic and beef. There were iron bars over the bed of hot coals upon which thick slabs of boar meat spit and sizzled. On a low table at the end of the fire hearth stood at least six bowls filled with a variety of herbs.

The men were drinking from carved cow horns. The women drank from wooden cups, except for Magnus' mother, who drank from a fine glass from the Rhineland. Zarabeth moved silently with the heavy wooden pitcher that held sweet wine from France that Magnus had traded for at Hedeby. She was very careful with it, for she knew the wine was valuable. She walked slowly toward the main table, where Magnus' father,
Earl Harald Erlingsson, sat in Magnus' own carved chair, his wife next to him. He was as tall as his son, so fair that his hair seemed white in the dim rushlight. He looked as hard and lean as a man of twenty. It was very likely, she thought, that Magnus would look like him in some years.

“Wench,” Harald called out. “Bring me more of my son's wine!”

He had done it on purpose, she thought vaguely. He had seen her approaching with the wine, yet he had chosen to call attention to her presence. In that instant Magnus looked up at her. He frowned. It was hot in the longhouse and he saw the glistening perspiration on her forehead, the wet tendrils of hair that curled around her face. Her face was flushed from the heat and she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her. He felt a clenching deep within him and quickly said to his older brother, Mattias, “I am sorry your babe died, but Glyda looks well again.”

Mattias cast a worried eye toward his pale-faced girl-wife. “She is very young,” he said. “She knows not how to carry a babe.”

“What is there to know?” Magnus said, giving his brother a questioning look. “She is young, yea, that is true, but you get your seed in her and a child grows and is birthed. What else is there?”

“She was foolish whilst she carried the babe.”

“How?”

“She wished always to take me into her, if you would know the truth, Magnus!”

Magnus stared at his brother and then a smile tugged at his mouth. “You complain because your wife likes to bed you?”

“The babe came early and was born dead.”

Magnus shook his head. “You seek to blame where you should not. Stop it now, Mattias. Glyda is a sweet girl. She will bear you other children, healthy
children.” He shrugged, looking toward the gaggle of boys and girls who played in the corner, far away from the fire hearth, two of the women near them. Four of them were Mattias' children from his first marriage. “Besides, even if she does not bear you other children, what does it matter? You have cast your seed to the four corners of the Vestfold already.”

“More wine?”

Mattias stilled his tongue to gaze upon Magnus' new slave. All his brother had said was that he had bought her in York. Mattias wanted to reach out his hand and touch her magnificent hair. The color was so unusual, so rich and deep, its redness incredible. “Aye, more wine,” he said only. He turned to speak to his brother, when he stopped cold. There was hunger in Magnus' eyes, and something else . . . it was pain and anger and perhaps frustration. There was a mystery here. Mattias continued to study the woman after Magnus had waved her away. He heard his father call out to Magnus, “I wish to buy the wench from you, Magnus. How many silver pieces do you want for her?”

Magnus said easily, “You do not want her, Father, for with her she brings a little girl who is without hearing. A responsibility that I doubt would give you pleasure.”

“Then why did you buy her if all this responsibility weighs so heavily on you?” It was his mother, Helgi, who asked the question. “The little girl with the ginger hair is hers?”

“Aye, her little sister.” He waited until Zarabeth neared his younger brother, Jon, and said loudly, “I knew not the little girl was deformed until it was too late.” He watched and was pleased to see Zarabeth react. He saw her hand shake; he saw her whirl about to face him, and she took a step toward him, stumbled
on a child's feather-stuffed leather ball, and dropped the wine pitcher to the ground.

“Stupid wench!” Ingunn was on her feet in an instant and at Zarabeth's side. Before anyone knew what she was about, Ingunn struck her hard on the face. Zarabeth reeled back, coming perilously close to the fire hearth.

“Watch out!” Magnus leapt from his chair and ran for her, grabbing her arm as she flailed the empty air to regain her balance.

“Let her fall,” Ingunn said in disgust. “ 'Twould serve her right to have a burn or two, the clumsy slut! The wine, 'tis gone now, and not in our bellies as it should be. Nearly half a pitcher!”

Zarabeth was breathing hard. She tried to pull away from Magnus, but he didn't immediately release her. She looked up at him, fury in her pale face. “You lied, Magnus! 'Tis true you didn't know Lotti could not hear, but you had already agreed to bring her. You lied to your father!”

He shook her. Didn't she care that Ingunn had struck her hard? His sister's palm imprint was red and clear on her cheek. He could imagine that it still stung. He shook her again, angry at her for accepting his sister's attack. Then he drew himself up. With his actions, he was giving all his people and his family a great many bones to chew upon.

“Be more careful in the future,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “I do not want you to harm yourself. I paid too much silver to have you.”

He flung her arm away then and strode back to his table. His brother Mattias merely arched a thick blond brow at him. As for his father, Harald, he was laughing, huge gulping laughs that made Magnus flush. He wanted the interminable meal to be done with. He saw Cyra approaching him, her eyes narrowed, for she had witnessed what he had done, and he knew that
he would have to speak to her soon. She was bearing a huge tray of baked beef smothered with cumin and juniper berries and mustard seeds and garlic. It smelled delicious, but Magnus had lost his appetite.

Cyra served him, her smile deep and warm. He looked away from her. His mother said, “Cyra, come here. I wish more meat.”

The evening continued. Magnus presented his mother with a beautiful carved jewel box he had traded several soapstone bowls for in Hedeby. He gave it to his father's runemaster to carve his mother's name on the bottom of it. He gave his father a silver arm bracelet, thick and heavy and finely carved. Soon the singing began. Then Horkel, a master skald, began the story of a girl who managed to wed an old man only to poison him when he tried to bed her. Magnus tried to catch Horkel's eye. To his relief, Horkel neatly shifted the focus of the story and the girl ended up a slave in Miklagard, in an Arab's harem.

There were jests to be told then, but Magnus simply could not keep his mind on the revelry. He saw Zarabeth make her way to where Lotti was sitting alone, for the women had taken the other children and put them to bed. They hadn't touched Lotti. He felt anger burn in his gut but knew there was no logical reason for it.

Zarabeth picked up the drowsing child, only to look around. It was clear she did not know what to do.

Magnus rose and tried to make his way with great nonchalance toward her. “Zarabeth,” he called out quietly. “Lotti will remain here in the longhouse. Let me show you where she will sleep.”

Her relief was evident, but she only nodded. Magnus led her to the far end of the hall, where there were small chambers, partitioned off from each other on either side of the longhouse, leaving a narrow corridor in the middle. “In here,” he said. Inside the
small chamber was a single large box bed upon which lay four young children. They were sleeping soundly. “Here,” he said, and neatly picked up one child after the other, pushing them more closely together. He lifted the woolen cover and held it silently until Lotti, smiling sleepily up at both of them, closed her eyes.

“Thank you,” Zarabeth said, not looking at him.

“You would not be pleased if she slept in the slave hut and you slept here.”

She looked up at him then, but remained mute.

“Aye, Zarabeth, you will sleep in my bed tonight, and any other night it pleases me to have you there.”

“Y
ou have Cyra. She's beautiful and she wants you. Why would you want me?”

Suddenly, without warning, Magnus ran his fingers through his hair, standing it on end, and he cursed long and fluently. Then he had to laugh at himself. He'd clearly lost his head and forgotten the circumstances. He said aloud, “It is a feast night, and all will remain here until the morrow. My parents, aye, they will have my bed.” He laughed again, shaking his head at himself.

“You will not make Lotti leave, will you?”

He heard the fear in her voice and it angered him more than he could ever have imagined. “Don't you care about yourself? Of course Lotti will remain where she is. Come, now, you have tasks to do. Tonight you will sleep wrapped in a blanket in the hall.” He sighed again as if he were sorely put upon, and she had an odd urge to laugh.

Ingunn put Zarabeth to scrubbing wooden plates and bowls and iron pots and spoons, which she did willingly, for it kept her to herself and away from the men. When she heard a woman's voice, she didn't at first attend. The woman said again, “Your name is Zarabeth?”

Zarabeth looked up to see Helgi, Magnus' mother. Her face was flushed from the warmth of the hall and the wine she'd drunk. Zarabeth looked closely, but
she saw no meanness in her fine blue eyes. Zarabeth remembered Magnus telling her about how his mother rocked and shook the huge butter churn. There had been love in his voice when he'd spoken of Helgi. She was a large woman, deep-bosomed, her hair silver, it was so light. She had a deep cleft in her chin, which she'd given to her son.

Zarabeth nodded.

“I have listened to Magnus' men telling all about how he saved you from a certain death, for you had murdered your husband.”

“He saved me, that is true.”

“The other is not true?”

Zarabeth shook her head wearily. “No, it isn't, but it matters not. He won't ever believe me.” She shook back her damp hair and bared the slave collar. “I am nothing to him now. Nothing save a slave.”

Helgi sucked in her breath. She hadn't seen the collar before, for the woman's hair was long and the neck of her gown high. Why had Magnus done such a thing to this woman? “Why did he save you?”

“I believe he wanted revenge.”

“Mother! Leave her be. Don't listen to her. She doesn't ever speak the truth.”

Helgi turned to her Magnus. “It isn't true that you bought her to gain revenge?”

“It matters not why I bought her! She is here, and here she will remain.”

“Yes, that is true,” Zarabeth said, her voice loud. “I have no choice, for so long as he holds my little sister, there is naught I can do.”

Magnus forgot his mother was standing in front of him. Furious, he grabbed her wrist, jerking her close to him. “You will not say that again, damn you! I have told you that Lotti will never be a lever for me to use, for anyone to use. The child is under my protection.”

“I do not believe you. You will threaten the child when you think it will bring me to heel.”

Helgi watched the two of them and wondered what would happen. Never had she seen Magnus so lost to control. Of her three sons, he was the one who remained firmly in command of himself in any situation. He prided himself on his mastery of others and of himself. He was always calm, his voice easy and low. Whenever he felt strongly about something, his voice deepened even more, but he never, never bellowed in rage, as he was doing now. Now he was acting like his younger brother, Jon, who yelled and cursed and carped with frustration and irritation and didn't care if the whole farmstead knew of his feelings. It was a marvel to see this. Obviously Magnus cared deeply for the young woman with the wild nimbus of red hair around her face. He just didn't realize it yet. Or perhaps he did, and he was fighting it as hard as he was her. Helgi laid her fingers on her son's arm. “Release her, Magnus. You have never before abused a slave. You should not begin now.”

“Aye, go to your Cyra!”

He smiled down at Zarabeth then, but it was not a smile his mother liked. “No, I shan't abuse you. And no, I shan't go to Cyra.” He turned on his heel and went back to his father and brothers, who were singing loudly of King Harald Fairhair and how he had slain the rapacious Gorm of Denmark by strangling him with his long thick hair.

Time passed slowly. Zarabeth was so tired she felt light-headed. Yet there were always more bowls, more plates, more trays, more goblets. An endless stream. She saw from the corner of her eye that the other slaves were gone to their hut. But she was being punished. Many of the men were asleep, their heads on the tables, snoring loudly. The fire was banked, and no more smoke went upward to the hole in the roof.
Many guests were stretched out in neat rows, each wrapped in his blanket. Ingunn came over to her, yawning loudly. “You work slowly, slave. You will not close your eyes until you have completed this.”

Zarabeth remembered Magnus' words.
Lotti is under my protection.
Very well, then. She would believe him in this. Her little sister wouldn't pay for anything she did. She smiled at Magnus' sister and said, “Nay, I think not, Ingunn. I am weary and will seek out my bed now, as all the other slaves have done.”

Ingunn drew in her breath sharply. She hadn't expected this. Her anger flared. “You dare?”

“Aye, I dare.” Zarabeth shrugged and turned away from the wooden tub filled with dirty dishes.

“I will flay the flesh from your back, you slut!”

Zarabeth saw the flash of unrestrained fury in the woman's eyes, but she paid her no heed. She walked quickly away, toward the large wooden doors on the longhouse. She shoved them open and went out into the night. But the strange thing was that it still wasn't night, not like night at home. This was the time of year when night didn't fall. It was well past midnight, yet the sky was still gray with dim light, as if it were late afternoon and rain was coming at any moment.

It was warm, with a mild breeze blowing up from the viksfjord. In the distance, across the water the mountains were shrouded in magnificent shadow and low clouds. She vaguely remembered the endless dipping and rolling green hills from her home in western Ireland, and that billowing mist that blew off the sea, always warm and always damp. Here it was dry and warm and so beautiful she wanted to weep with the irony of it all. But there was really no irony in it at all.

She lowered her face into her hands and sobbed.

She felt his large hands encircle her arms, felt him draw her back against his chest. The sobs wouldn't
stop. She felt weak and out of control, and she supposed, vaguely, that she was, and she didn't care.

Slowly Magnus turned her to face him and drew her into his arms. He felt the force of her tears, felt the convulsive shudders go through her body.

“You're tired,” he said after a long moment. “You are tired, and that is why you are crying.”

She raised her face and looked up at him in the dim light. “Is that what you wish to believe, Magnus?”

He lowered his head then and kissed her. He tasted the salty wetness on her lips. It hurt him deeply, this pain of hers. He brought his hands up her back to hold her still, and his fingers closed around her throat. And stilled at the touch of the slave collar.

He'd had the smithy put it on her. He'd watched as the smithy placed the collar Magnus had selected around her throat. He'd watched her become paler and paler until her face had seemed washed of color. And when the collar was around her neck, he'd watched her eyes become blank and empty.

But it was her fault. She had enraged him, trying to seduce another man. He'd had no choice.

Slowly he pushed her away from him.

He didn't want to, but he looked down at her. Her cheeks glistened wet and her eyes still brimmed with unshed tears.

“Why did you betray me? Why?” He took a quick step back, away from her, appalled at his weakness, at the anguish in his voice. By Odin, that she could have brought him to this.

Zarabeth watched his face change, watched his eyes grow cold, watched him distance himself from her.

“I didn't betray you.”

“Liar. Get inside the longhouse. You will sleep now, for there is much that will require your attention on the morrow.”

He turned on his heel and left her, not returning
inside, but striding toward the gates of the palisade. She watched him speak to the guards, then pull up the thick wooden shaft that barred the gates.

She turned slowly and walked back into the longhouse. There was no free place for her to sleep on the floor. Men snored loudly, as did some of the women. There were two couples who were caressing each other, but they were too sodden with drink to do much about it. Zarabeth stood irresolute for a moment, then made her way to the small chamber where Lotti and the children were sleeping. She lifted her sister and slipped into the bed. The other children obligingly shoved more closely together. Zarabeth was asleep within moments, Lotti snuggled close to her body.

 

Magnus believed she had left him. He searched every sleeping body in the large hall. She wasn't there. He looked in every chamber, his temper and his fear for her growing in equal measure. Finally, when he saw her asleep with the children, he thought he would collapse with the relief he felt. He shook his head at himself and took a blanket outside in the cool of the night. When sleep finally came, there was a woman in his mind, as real as the deep strokes of his heart, and she was taunting him, laughing at him, and when she turned, she had no face. She threw back her head, lifting her hair, and there was an iron collar around her neck.

It was late the following morning before all the men had left to return to their families. Magnus' brothers and parents remained until after the midday meal before taking their leave.

Zarabeth served them, silent and stiff, dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her gown was wrinkled and soiled from spilled food and her cleaning from the night before. Magnus wondered why she had not garbed
herself in fresh clothing, why she hadn't washed herself in the bathhouse. Her hair was in a thick braid that hung between her shoulder blades. He noticed that every few moments her eyes searched out Lotti, who was playing with the other children. He saw his son watching the little girl, and there was meanness in Egill's clear blue eyes. He sighed. If only the boy would understand. He cursed softly, then turned to his brother Mattias, who said calmly as he chewed on a piece of warm bread, “You must deal with the woman. This cannot continue.”

“It has only begun. What mean you?”

“You, Magnus, freely offer me your impertinent advice about my wife. To do you justice, I admit that I did allow Glyda to enjoy herself last night with my body. I felt her womb when I spilled my seed into her. Perhaps this time she will bear me a live child.” Mattias paused a moment, staring toward Zarabeth. “I am not blind, nor am I particularly stupid. You watch this woman with her strange red hair like a hungry wolf who wants to devour her or strangle her. Then you gaze at her as though you would give your life to protect her. You can explain it to me, brother. Have you lost your wits and your manhood to this wench who poisoned her husband?”

“It is none of your concern.”

“Father wished to know all of it, and so Horkel was bound to tell him what had happened. He says that you have acted with great honor.”

“Horkel knows little of anything. He knows almost nothing, and yet he brays on and on.”

“He knew that you wished to marry the wench and that she betrayed you.”

“Enough, Mattias. I see Jon over there teasing one of my women. I will go best him with swords. He grows audacious as he gains his man years.”

Mattias watched his brothers buffet each other on
the shoulder and proceed to insult each other with easy fluency. He watched them draw their swords and go into mock battle. Jon was built more slightly than his powerful brother, but he was faster, his movements agile. Both of them were laughing, mocking each other's skills. There would be no spilled blood, not today, not between these brothers. Men began to gather around them and shout advice.

“I would speak to Magnus about Orm,” Harald said to his eldest son, Mattias. “I trust not the whelp. He will try to take Ingunn, I doubt it not.”

“Ingunn would not go with him.”

“Ha! I am not so certain of that. She mouths all the right words, Mattias, but she wants him. The girl is sullen and gives me evil looks. Her temper has always been uncertain; it becomes more uneven now that I have refused her Orm. And even if she obeyed me and rejected him, he would force her, and then I would have to kill him.” Harald sighed deeply. “What if he gets her with child before I can kill him?”

Mattias laughed. “Father, you weave a tale with an ending that suits you not, even before the tale can come to its beginning! Magnus is here now. He will not allow Orm to come within the palisade gates.”

Harald grunted, but was still frowning as he looked toward his daughter, Ingunn, who was talking to Zarabeth. She was angry, he could tell from even this distance. He hoped she would not strike the woman again. There would be trouble, though, he scented it in the air, just as he knew Orm would move on Malek to take Ingunn.