Éire’s Captive Moon (34 page)

Charis had moved to the bench that fronted the house and was sitting on it, collapsed and breathing heavily. Her face was the same pale, morning-fog color it had always been, but bruises of various intensities made ugly patches on it.

Bruises. He had never seen bruises on her before. As far as he knew, Agnarr had never beaten her. Had things changed in this house once Agnarr’s betrothed had moved in? Cowan got to the bench in two quick strides and sat lightly next to the healer. “Charis, lass, who did this to you?” He immediately turned to Bran, but the monk—coward that he had proven himself to be— backed off, assuming the penitent, pious demeanor that he put on like an old cloak. Cowan rose to his feet, feeling anger harden every muscle in his body.

“What happened?” he managed to get out, sounding strangled even to his own ears. He advanced on the slave, who was now trying to be conciliatory.

“Nothing, sir, nothing at all. She, ah, insulted my mistress, is all. To her face. And as you know, a
trell
may not do that. She was beaten. That is all.”

Cowan clenched his jaw shut. Behind him, Charis sighed. “Don’t worry over it, Cowan,” the healer rasped, sounding as if her throat weren’t fully open. “It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

Bran’s boots squelched in the sucking mud as the monk turned to go back inside. Cowan grabbed his tunic, pulling him back by the shoulder. “Did you lay a hand on her?” he demanded.

“No, by the God I serve,” Bran swore meekly.

Cowan let him go, feeling dirtier for having touched him. “Get out of my sight,” he snapped.

Bran bowed and made the sign of the cross in the air between them before turning to enter the house once more. Cowan kept the walking stick and sat down again, planting the stick upright like a battle banner between his knees. “What happened?” he asked again. She did not look as if she would be up to traveling anywhere.

The healer leaned her head against the wood of the house and closed her eyes. Cowan saw faded yellow patches on her skin near her collarbones, darker bruises on her jaw, and one of her eyes was turning that dark plum-purple he had seen on warriors after a practice session. He traced the edges of the yellowing bruises with a gentle finger.

“Tell me,” he insisted.

Her uninjured eye opened slowly. “I called Magda a troll. One of those from the old stories.”

In spite of himself, Cowan snorted in laughter at the image of the dark-eyed girl living in the dense forest and stalking hapless wayfarers. “Oh, aye. Doesn’t she not just fit that?” Charis’s smile was lopsided and swollen on one end. Cowan lost his laughter. “Whether she does or not doesn’t matter, I guess. I’m leaving in two days. Will you wait for me?”

Both her eyes opened. “Wait for you?” With a pained expression, she glanced around. “Come, away from the house,” she said.

They got up and walked through the mud toward the well at the center of the village. “Tuirgeis says we are to leave. I am hoping to return soon, and I want you to wait for me before you try to leave.”

Charis shook her head. “I cannot. I’ll kill them all some night, and if you’re not here, then too bad for you.” She sliced him a look. “I told you I can escape on my own.”

“And I told you that I’ll keep you safe once you do. Believe me, Healer, my God has shown me that I cannot leave on my own. I have to have your help.”

“Your God?” Charis reached the stones of the well and she leaned against them, obviously needing the support. Cowan could only speculate what other injuries she bore. She made some inconsequential motion with one hand. “Well, it seems your God has some sense, anyway. Which is more than I had thought.”

Cowan just shook his head. “So, will you wait?”

“Will you be ready to go in two days?” she inquired, arching one brow.

He was struck dumb for a few moments as he realized the implications. “Are you telling me,” he said on a low whisper, “that you are ready to go already?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all winter—embroidering?” She made a disgusted sound. “No, I’ve had work to do. I can gather herbs as we go, I’m sure, but I am ready now.”

Cowan stilled. “And you have transportation? There is something called an ocean we had to cross to get here.”

“I know it. But there is more than one way to cross the water at the end of winter.” With that, she started back to Agnarr’s longhouse.

“Wait!”

She stopped, crossing her arms under her breasts. “What?”

“You can’t go back in there.”

“He won’t hurt me. He has never been there when she did this,” Charis informed him casually, as if it didn’t matter. Didn’t she feel any pain? “I can live for two more days, Son of Branieucc.”

He sincerely doubted that the winter ice would hold for them, but he could pray that it would. It would be the only way they could cross the water without a full crew for a longship.

“Oh, God in Heaven,” he breathed, watching her make her muddy way back to the home of her captor. “Please let it freeze. Please.”

Then it occurred to him; she had never said he’d be joining her.

Frustrated with her and himself, Cowan could only watch her walk away. And pray.

Chapter 25

It was not quite morning and it was not quite spring. This seemed to be the perfect time.

Charis, swathed in a dun-colored cloak, fur-lined leggings, and heavy outdoor boots, was at the water’s edge, where the boats were. The longships had been brought on land, to prevent their being crushed by the winter’s ice in the
fjørd
, so they provided a measure of concealment as the healer slipped from land to ice to test it. The Norsemen called it “black ice”. Treacherous, they said it was.

She pushed on it. Hit it with her fist, feeling no pain. The ice was still firm here, close to the shore. She could see the waves further out, melting the ice; she was going to need a fishing boat to cross. There was land just south of here. She knew it. She remembered when the Northmen had landed for a last filling of fresh water and a hot meal before going home. Even then, she had been planning on escaping. She remembered the place.

She was also absolutely terrified of sailing to reach it.

Her fear stretched back to her earliest memories, when she’d been a very young girl of perhaps three summers. The other children of Ragor had gone to the shore with the adults. It was time to learn to fish and to swim.

Charis smiled for a moment on the frozen shore of Balestrand. Devin and Devlin had been among the older children then. Older, already in training to be warriors, they had come with the younger children to the seashore. They had come to watch out for her, told to do so by Healer Achan. When she had stepped into the ocean for the first time, and a wave had splashed up to soak her small shift, Charis had frozen in abject terror. The children had laughed at her, but she hadn’t been able to move. Even her throat had closed, as if to keep her from crying for help.

The water had risen, and no one had noticed her, because Devin and Devlin had started playing in the water and helping with gathering small shellfish for the village. Charis remembered the way her heart had pounded that day.

It was pounding like that now, as she stared over the dead whiteness of the ice that stretched into the
fjørd.
How would she do this?

I’ll have to sail. But I won’t do it until I’ve gone as far as possible over the ice on foot. I’ll just have to bring a small boat with me. It will slide on the ice
 . . . Yes, but it would also scrape on the ice, making a quiet escape impossible.

Wind blew up from the south, across the Strait. It curled under her cloak and chilled her. Or was it fear?

“Where is she?” Agnarr rumbled as he drank a cup of hot tea. Eir had left a cup of tea for him. She usually did, unless she was particularly angry with him. Lately, she had seemed—softer, somehow. As if she had finally come to understand her place as his
leman
as well as her role as healer. She had not fought him when he had brought her to him in the night. She had been yielding and even receptive.

Agnarr’s pleasant remembrances turned hard in the next moment. His medicine woman was not being pleasant to everyone in his home, though. She had been beaten by Elsdottir. Beaten badly. Badly enough that her face and body sustained bruises for days.

“What happened to you?” he had demanded at the first sign of bruising on her jaw.

Eir had just looked at him. That weighty gaze that made him wonder if she was entirely human. “Magda Elsdottir happened to me.”

“She struck you?” Agnarr remembered his muscles tightening at the thought.

Eir had just cocked her head. “No, she used your axe. Yes, she struck me. I disobeyed. It was her right.” The words were proper for a slave, but the tone was flat and unemotional.

To Magda, he had nothing to say. Women’s affairs were women’s affairs. A slave was a slave. It ill-suited him to guard Eir again—rumors were already circulating in the village, and he could not be seen as weak.

Within himself, Agnarr felt less guilty because he was certain that Eir could have prevented the beatings had she chosen to, but then . . . 
why hadn’t she?

For whatever reason, she had not. Perhaps this poorer treatment by Magda Elsdottir compelled Eir to treat him, her lord, with more consideration. Agnarr had no other reason, nor would he inquire of Eir for one. It was enough that she was coming to accept her life with him.

So the fact of her absence was not cause for alarm this morning. Perhaps she, too, had felt the call of near-spring and had gone looking for new growth that might be pushing its way through the winter’s ground. He remembered her habits from the warmer time of the year, before the cold killed all of what she would call her “tools”.

He tossed back the rest of his mint tea, stood and stretched. He smiled to hear his bones and muscles protest in his body. It was time for him to gather the warriors and work on their skills. Today might be a good day for it.

“Bjørn!”

“I don’t know where she went, brother,” Bjørn said, in answer to his question. “She made your tea, put on her cloak, and said she was checking the ground.”

Agnarr nodded. “I want to get the warriors together today. When the sun is in the sky, we can work on their skills. I think a run might be good, too.”

Bjørn brightened at the prospect of the outdoor work. He set down his bowl. “You know, Agnarr, that the winter’s snow can return at any time.”

“
Ja, ja
, but I don’t think it will today.”

Els, in the bed next to Agnarr’s own, sat up slowly. “I must get ready to depart, Agnarr. Magda and I have relatives in Tjølling, and we will go to them. The gods have spoken.”

“Father! No! We cannot go there.” Magda turned to Agnarr, who was leaning against the supporting post between his bench and the one on which Els slept. “Tell him, Agnarr. Tell him we can stay here!”

“He is free to make his choices, Magda,” Agnarr said, his voice even. How had he ever consented to marry the girl? She had worn him out with her wants and pouts and her incessant references to their future marriage, when all the village knew he had set that aside, with the blessings of those who mattered in Balestrand.

She jumped from her own bench, which was across the house, nearest to Gerda’s bed. “But what about me?” she whined.

Agnarr had been trying, for weeks, to make her understand. Her slave, though, had seemed to be permanently attached to her elbow, so they had had little time of conversation. That would end.

“Get dressed,” he instructed. “Then come join me outside. Leave him,” he added with a jerk of his hand toward her storyteller. “Come alone,” he added for emphasis, for she was a willful girl.

He tugged her out of doors once she had her cloak and boots on. “I am not marrying you,” he stated without preamble. “You will go with your father and you will obey him, as is your duty.”

“But Agnarr . . .!”

“Enough! He and I have reached an agreement. I will allow him to keep the bride price, to help you in a new home, but Thor has spoken, Magda.”

She turned on him, her eyes narrowed and flashing fire as the sun finally rose into the sky. “You are an oath-breaker, Halvardson!”

He just watched her, leery of hands that were curving into something resembling claws. “Are you finished?” he asked at last.