Éire’s Captive Moon (21 page)

Agnarr’s arm tightened with the sudden, almost overwhelming need to strike her. How dare she defy him in that way? He lifted his arm, not caring that her face was already bruised, intending to show her how wrong she was.

But he stopped, hand midair, and stared at her, unable to strike. That damnable impassivity was still there. She did not even flinch from his ire. He dropped his hand, fist clenched. Did she have a hold over him?

That night, he took her under the warm covering of his furs. More than a full moon had come and gone since he had taken her the first time. She did not fight him any longer, but that was the only improvement he could see in her demeanor. Neither had she conceived. The reminder made him ask her a question.

“I can’t have children,” his
leman
replied, her face stiff where a vague echo of light touched it.

“Have you never had any? How long were you married?”

“Oh!” she gasped.

Before he knew what was happening, Agnarr found himself thrown to the floor, furs in a pile under him. “What was that for?” A flash of anger, like a shower of sparks, lit his mind and again he felt himself prevented from actually striking her.

She glared at him. “I will not talk about my men with you. I will not discuss children. I cannot have them. I will never have them.” Her voice was like ice on stone, and Agnarr could not reply.

With a gesture, he indicated she could sleep alone that night. He did not sleep much himself; his mind was rolling over the puzzle of his healer. Did she have powers? Had she cursed Magda? Was the monk right about her? Was she a witch?

He fell asleep, still wondering.

The next morning, his brother pulled him aside. “Agnarr,” Arknell began, stroking the bristly brown mustache he prized. “You slept alone last night.” A question was unasked, but brothers often communicated without words.

Agnarr shrugged, and went to the stewpot where his mother—or, perhaps, Eir—had begun a meal to break their fast. Steam curled in the cool air above the pot, which was suspended over an open fire by three sturdy poles that intersected and were bound securely. “So did you,” he finally said in reply to his brother. “Your point?”

A small smile. “So are you tired of her or is it just her time of the month?” In the communal environment of the longhouse there were no secrets. “She pushed you right off the bed,” Arknell went on, scooping some meaty broth into a bowl for himself. “Can’t believe you didn’t beat her for that. I would have.”

Agnarr wondered about that. “Would you?” he murmured, thinking hard. “
Could
you have?” he added under his breath before gulping down some stew. Did the woman have some sort of control over him? Imagine having had two mates. It would not be tolerated here. Had she had control over them, too, to enable them to—to share her?

The questions buzzed in his mind like so many confused bees as he left his home. The sunshine didn’t dissipate them; the fresh air didn’t clear his head. He was still dwelling on these new thoughts as he approached Balestrand’s practice square to meet the young men for weapon training. Was she bewitching him?

The very last person in the village he would have expected approached him just as he reached the packed earth of the practice square.

“Pardon me, Lord Agnarr.” Magda’s
slave
, Bran the monk, stood before him, bowing with so much effort that Agnarr wondered if the man was quite right in the head. “My lady told me that she and your—” the monk’s face curled with obvious distaste, “your servant had a bit of trouble yesterday.” The slave’s Norse was almost unaccented, and Agnarr was reminded briefly of Kingson.

“I do not see that it is any of your concern,
trell
,” Agnarr said, and he attempted to get around the subservient man. “I have work for men now, and you are not welcome.”

“What, fighting?” Bran eyed the gathering crowd of joking young men with the same distaste he’d shown for Eir. “I am a man of God, Lord Agnarr. I would not want to bring someone before God prematurely.”

“Either way, get out of my way,” Agnarr said, pushing the slave from his path. “This is no place for you. I’m sure your mistress has duties for you.”

“The pale woman is a witch, you know,” Bran said, his voice like the soft rustle of a snake in tall grasses. “You should have seen her work on me. She ordered her husbands around like slaves. She spoke and they obeyed. She had magic in her home, idols to her dark gods, and she wanted to use a deadly plant to make my mind go to sleep while she tried to heal me.”

Agnarr was caught in the flow of the slave’s words. His healer did occasionally exhibit a total control over her patient, and yes, he had seen men offer to help her in the village. Kingson had been one, Agnarr thought, and Erik was another. Men who behaved as if they were trapped, it seemed to the
Ostman
now.

Yet, he had seen old women in his own village who were as skilled, who could set bones, treat fevers, and skin lesions as well as battle wounds. Had they been different from his Eir?

Not liking the inky shadow of suspicion that had crept into his mind, Agnarr shoved the monk roughly from him. “Be gone!”

Agnarr strode quickly to the pile of wooden weapons—no steel, today—and greeted the would-be warriors.

“Bruised today?”

“
Ja
!”

It took an effort, but Agnarr pushed his suspicions about his healer from the upper surfaces of his mind. A true warrior worthy of Thor’s hammer—as Agnarr believed himself to be, and the iron hammer charm he wore proclaimed him to be for others—would not let himself be distracted by a woman.

The healer had been the downfall of her husbands, Agnarr reminded himself before he pushed her face away. He made a vow to the All-Father:
I will not let her be so to me!

The weeks passed. Charis watched the sun take longer to appear over the mountains to the east and saw it set earlier and earlier in the west. The winds blew more harshly over land and water, and Charis wove and embroidered a heavy cloak such as the Northmen wore. Cold rains fell and she scavenged the local fields, trying to find as many of her herbs as she could that were still growing. Clover, dandelions, chamomile. These and others would provide tonics to keep people from becoming ill when fresh foods were not available. The winters, Gerda had told her many times, were harsh.

Agnarr continued to train the young men in their weapons. Wood had been replaced with iron, bruises with open wounds on occasion. Such wounds were what Charis had been raised treating. Achan had taught her surgery on such injuries. She well understood how to stitch skin and poultice raw muscle.

But there was something wrong of late in the village. The men were not coming to her for their wounds to be treated. They had at first, a moon ago or so. She had set wide cabbage leaves on the bruises and staunched the bleeding when one of the men, Snorri, had a tooth knocked from his head.

Charis wondered at the new reluctance to be treated at her hands. Though she hated being in this land, she was content to heal the wounded and treat the sick as she counted the days to spring.

This day, the sun was a weak presence in the sky. Charis sat in front of Agnarr’s family home and pounded dried flower petals into powder for teas. She hummed to herself, a song that Achan’s wife, Nuala, had sung to her before the older woman had died. It was a plaintive melody, telling of the cycle of life and death, of winter and spring, of sickness and healing. It was a good song, making Charis feel as if her life served a purpose, even as far off from her people as she was.

The wooden bench she sat on was smooth from years and years of use. Carvings told a story of Odin the All Father. Even the gods of the Northmen made no sense to her. She smiled in satisfaction at her herbs. “Yes, you make sense,” she whispered above the crushed petals.

She portioned out the herbs into separate piles and slid them into the prepared linen pouches. Embroidery helped her identify the different types of medicines, since crushed herbs often looked similar to one another.

A shadow fell across her lap and she looked up, an ominous tingle up the back of her neck that made her stiffen. It was Bran. Again.

He spoke to her in quiet, rapid
Gaeilge
. “Your magic shows you for what you are, Charis, daughter of none. I have heard of your birth, and I know who and what you are!”

“You’re an adder, Bran,” she spat. “And I see your poison drip from your lying tongue!”

His eyes narrowed, but he shut his mouth with a snap. She glared at him before sitting again, tucking her herbs away. The peace of the afternoon was stolen from her.

“
Bhaen sidhe
,” he hissed, very much like the adder she had called him. “Your words and magic bring death. You breathe it like the
fae
of the old legends. I can see it. My God says that we cannot allow a witch to live and neither can we the
bhaen sidhe
!”

With a cry that rose from her gut, Charis lunged to her feet again. “How dare you? I am not one of the evil ones! I never have been! You, who believe in your dead god, can dare to call down the wrath of the
sidhe
?”

She bent to retrieve her herbs, holding the thyme that had spilled out of its pouch, and would have gone indoors, but his hard hand stopped her. “Don’t walk from me,” he insisted. “I want to see you saved, don’t you see? Saved from the evil of your birth. If you would just give your life to Jesu the Christ—”

“Silence!” she roared, infuriated. “I healed you, monk.
I
did. Not your god or his son. Me! And I will hear nothing more of him!”

“Do not tempt the wrath of God,” he growled, with none of the feigned peace he usually wore like a mantle.

When his hand moved to slap her, she stood tall before him. He thought she was of the
bhaen sidhe
? So be it. In a high, powerful voice, she shouted: “You will die here, Bran, cousin of Colum.” She flung him back from her, open handed, forgetting about the loose herb she carried. It flew in his face. “You will die alone and unlamented in a land far from your fathers and no one will mourn you save the grass over your head!”

The coward crossed himself and tried to spit on her before rubbing at his face and turning to run from her. She heard him shouting to anyone who would listen that “an evil one” had been set loose in their midst.

Chapter 16

“Eir!”

The healer sighed, but felt her gut clench in tension. She was just a slave here. But then, so was Bran. She did not understand the laws, but she did understand that a
trell
had no standing in their society, save what their master bestowed upon them.

She gathered her herb packets and put them in her assorted pockets. Then she brushed her hands free of any lingering traces of her plants; she did not want to cause one of these warriors any unlucky reactions. She met the warriors on her feet, but she was a little afraid, for she was unsure about what would happen.

Besides, Agnarr was not among the warriors, and she was his. If nothing else, she knew he would not hurt her; he valued her highly.

She knew the leader of this group of men, for he was Agnarr’s brother, Arknell. He made her nervous; she had seen his eye on her in the longhouse and knew he had already offered to buy her from Agnarr when the marriage to Magda Elsdottir was solemnized. The notion made the healer shudder even to think of. Agnarr was bad enough, but he had always treated her well, in accordance with his ways. Yes, he had killed her men, but she had come to a place where she could make it through a day without grieving over that.

To do otherwise could have driven her mad.

Arknell stood in front of her, though he was not standing close. Behind him was Magda’s father, Els. Bran was nowhere to be seen. He was likely trying to flush the thyme from his eyes, which would be the best thing he could do.

Agnarr’s brother spoke. “Eir. Els, here says you cursed the slave of his daughter. I have seen evidence that you have caused him damage to his eyes, and he claims you have called down power from dark gods to smite him.”

In spite of the seriousness of the charge, and in spite of the array of warriors staring at her in a blend of fear, loathing, and a strange fascination, Charis had to smile at Arknell. “I honor no gods, dark or not, lord,” she said, trying not to smile more broadly. Really, these men were so ready to believe a Christian storyteller. “And I am sure there is no permanent damage to Bran’s eyes. He and I did not agree earlier, but I never touched him except to keep him from striking me.”