Lord of Raven's Peak (8 page)

M
ERRIK DUMPED
T
ABY
onto the ground and leapt to his feet, but Cleve was faster. He raced to Laren and dragged her from the fire. She was still senseless from the blow Deglin had struck her. Her right trouser leg was burning, sluggish flames that were seeping into the dry wool, seeking better purchase, billowing up black smoke from the material. He knocked her onto her face and dug dirt up with his fingers, flinging it onto her leg. Then he pressed the dirt into the trousers, rubbing furiously. Merrik pulled Cleve aside, jerked off his own tunic, and flattened it against her leg. He raised it and looked down at the burned wool, peeling back, now gaping about her flesh. She turned slowly onto her side and he looked at her face.

“Are you all right?”

She stared at him a moment, her face without color, her fingers digging into the earth, spasmodically, with no reason, just digging and digging. She winced, lightly touching her fingertips to her cheek where Deglin had struck her. Then she shook her head, as if to clear it. The blood pounded deep and hard, fear clogging her brain, and she smiled and said, “I wasn't fast enough.”

Merrik just stared at her, shaking his head. “Is your jaw broken?” Even as he spoke, he touched her cheek,
his fingers light and gentle, then nodded. “No, but there will be a bruise.” He looked at her leg again. “Sit up,” he said. He was aware of the men's angry voices all around them. Good, they wouldn't stand behind Deglin, not that it mattered to Merrik.

She did, saying nothing.

He ripped back the wool, baring her leg. Her leg wasn't too badly burned, but the flesh from her ankle to her knee was dark red. He imagined the pain must be great, but when he looked at her face again, he saw only blankness, and realized she hadn't yet given over to it, hadn't yet realized fully what had happened and what the consequences were going to be. “Stay still,” he said and rose. He turned. Oleg was holding Deglin.

The skald was panting, struggling against Oleg, but Oleg was strong, as strong as Merrik, and he was very angry.

Merrik walked to him slowly. He stood there in front of him, saying nothing, merely stared down at him. Deglin stopped struggling. He said, “I did not mean to harm her, just to punish her. She deserved the blow to her face, but she tripped into the fire, it wasn't my fault. She is a slave, my lord, there can be no retribution.”

Cleve snarled behind Merrik, his hands fisted, his body tensed, ready to leap. The men were all on their feet, their shock at what had happened quickly changed to fury. But they were willing to wait to see what Merrik would do. It was his decision, not theirs.

Merrik heard Taby crying and turned to see the child crawling toward his sister.

He said calmly, “Cleve, take the child to his sister. Oleg, bring our skald here, to the fire. He is doubtless cold, at least he's proved his brain is cold and without reason or sense. I will warm him, as he did Laren.”

Oleg smiled and dragged Deglin to the fire. The men
all drew near, making a circle about them, saying nothing now, waiting.

“Give him to me,” Merrik said. Oleg shoved Deglin to Merrik. Merrik grabbed him about his neck and forced him to the ground. Without warning, he grabbed Deglin's right leg and shoved it into the flames, holding it there.

Deglin stared in horror at the flames lashing upward around and through his leg. He felt the awful scalding heat, felt the material burn from his leg, felt the flames go into his flesh. He screamed and thrashed, struggling wildly against Merrik.

Merrik released him only after the cloth had burst into flames and turned to ashes. He watched him dispassionately as he scrambled away, rolling in the dirt, screaming, gasping for breath, choking.

He just looked at him, then said, “You have less sense than a snail, Deglin. Your lack of control is offensive. I won't kill you this time. But heed me, never again harm another without my permission. Do you understand me?”

Deglin was filled with pain, filled with the shock of the pain, the disbelief of what had happened, of what Merrik had done to him simply because he'd struck a slave. He smelled his own burned flesh. His craw filled with vomit and loathing. He said on a gasp, “Aye, my lord, I understand you.”

“Good,” Merrik said, then turned away from him. He saw that Laren was sitting up now and staring down at her burned leg. Her fingers were hovering above the reddened flesh. She was afraid to touch herself. Cleve was beside her, holding Taby, who was gulping down tears, speaking quietly to both of them. Merrik said to Eller, “Fetch me the healing cream my mother sent along in the herb pouch in my tent. Quickly.”

Merrik came down on his haunches. He grasped her chin between his fingers and lifted her face. “The cream will leach out the heat and pain. It is the same cream I put on your back, and it eased you, did it not?”

She nodded, words stuck in her craw. She couldn't keep from staring at her burned leg.

“You are doing well.”

And he expected her to continue doing well, she thought, and knew that she would. She smiled again, more difficult than she would have thought, and said, “I should have been faster. During the past two years I've learned to duck quick as a flea and dodge blows with the spryness of a horse about to be gelded.” She sighed, and he saw color come back into her face, too much color on her cheek. It was now turning a pale purple. He knew that she was calming, that her mind would tell her quickly enough that there was a goodly amount of pain to come.

It wasn't fair. She'd suffered too much already, and now this.

Eller handed him the cream. “I have only one other pair of trousers, Merrik.”

“Bring them. She cannot be naked around an army of men.”

Merrik saw that she was just staring at that cream and she was afraid of his touching her burned flesh, afraid of the pain, and he didn't blame her. When he'd rubbed it into her back, it had hurt, and she remembered that, too well.

He said nothing, merely took the cream in one hand and grasped her beneath her arm with the other. He half carried her to the tent. When he laid her onto her back, he said, “I'm going to pull these trousers off you.”

She didn't want him to for she was naked beneath the trousers. But her leg was hurting now, throbbing,
the pain deep and becoming deeper and stronger by the moment. What did it matter? He'd already seen her body, already tended to her back, bathed her. She said nothing, merely turned her head away. He was kneeling over her now, his expression intent. She couldn't look at him. She closed her eyes as she felt his hands at her waist, unknotting the rope that was holding up Eller's trousers. She felt the cool night air on her bare flesh as he pulled them down. He was very careful, she'd give him that, but when a bit of charred wool clung to her leg, she lurched up, crying out with the sharp pain of it.

“I know it hurts. I'm sorry. Lie down.” He pressed her back down, his fingers splayed on her bare stomach.

She lay there, feeling pain, feeling helpless, and she hated it. He laid a blanket over her, leaving only her leg bare. She wanted to thank him for that, but she couldn't. It took all her resolve to keep cries buried in her throat, not to moan or whine, not to let him see that she was weak.

Suddenly she felt his fingers on her burned flesh, felt his fingers lightly rubbing in the cream. She wanted to scream as loud as a blast of thunder, but she forced herself to lie still, to bear it. The cream brought the strangest mixture of pain and relief, of hot and cold, then blessed numbness, just as it had on her back. She held herself still, concentrating on keeping her mouth shut.

When he was finished, he sat back on his heels. “You will be all right. The burn isn't that bad. My mother makes the cream, with elderberry juice, she told me. You will like my mother, she can be fierce as a warrior one moment and gentle as a child the next. She knows all about potions and medicines. When I was a boy, I
was fighting with Rorik, my older brother, and fell in the fire pit and she . . . ”

She was aware of what he was doing, distracting her, trying to make her focus on his voice and his words, not on the pain from the burns. She did hear his voice, deep and soft, and she tried, she truly tried to think about what he was saying, but it was beyond her. Finally, when he was quiet a moment, she said, “You love your mother.”

“Aye, she and my father are the finest parents I know. Even when they hate, they do it better than anyone else. They are not without flaw, don't misunderstand me. I remember how they hated Rorik's Irish wife, believing her evil. But they changed because they saw the justice of it, realized they had been wrong about her.”

She nodded, then said, “I have few body parts left unscathed. Thank you, Merrik. You are kind.”

“Keep those parts sound. This was the same cream I used on your back. After this I don't wish to use it again on you. I haven't much left, for my mother can only make the cream in the fall months.”

“What else could happen? You are not that far from your home now, are you?”

“Aye, 'tis true. Still, you must learn to be faster.”

“Aye,” she said, feeling the flesh grow cool and numb. “Next time I will be the one to inflict the pain.”

“A slave doesn't inflict pain,” he said in an utterly emotionless voice. He turned and called out, “Oleg, bring a cup of mead.”

When Oleg came into the tent, he said nothing, merely stared down at her, then nodded. He handed the mead to Merrik and was quickly gone again.

When he put the cup to her lips, she drank.

“All of it,” he said. “It will make you sleep.”

And she did.

 

They survived a storm of two straight days in the Baltic Sea before turning northward up the Oslofjord to Kaupang. Oddly, Laren hadn't been particularly frightened. She was too busy trying to keep Taby reassured. He was as wet and miserable as they all were, there was naught she could do about that. She told him one story after the other. Her cheek had turned purple and yellow from the blow and had swelled. It didn't hurt, just made her look a witch, she imagined. It was her leg that hurt and throbbed, but then again, so did Deglin's and each time she thought of that, the pain seemed to lessen. Merrik made him row as long and hard as all the other men.

Laren wondered if he would die, for he moaned over his oar and complained endlessly, but the men ignored him. But he was tough, and on that fifth morning when the sun was hot in the sky and the winds had quieted into soft breezes that were just heavy enough to fill the sails, she saw that he hadn't sickened, nor was he complaining anymore. He was silent, and she distrusted that. Silent men, in her experience, usually were thinking of revenge. He saw she was looking at him and she quickly looked away. Since that night, none of the men had asked her to tell them about Grunlige the Dane. She wondered if she would continue the tale if they did ask her. She was nodding even as she wondered. Deglin deserved nothing from her.

There were seagulls overhead, screeching as they dove close to the longboat, then swooped away at the last instant. She heard one man yell when a seagull's wing hit his face. Scores of cormorants flagged their progress, the large birds in loose formation off their
bow. There was a new quickened vitality to the men's conversation. All their talk was of home, of their wives, their children, their crops. And they spoke of their wealth, each man richer than he was but four months earlier.

As for Merrik, he would look at her cheek and frown. At night he continued to rub more cream into her leg, even though she could do it now, and she told him that she could. But he had merely shaken his head and continued with the task.

 

The trading town of Kaupang was protected by a wooden palisade made of lashed-together sharply pointed wooden poles, set in the shape of a half circle. There were a good half dozen wooden docks that stretched out into the inlet and it was at the nearest one that Merrik had the men row the longboat. When they stepped onto the dock, there was a loud cheer. They were home, or very nearly.

They would do no trading here this time, but the men wanted women and there had been no slave women for their use on the trip back from Kiev. They were hungry and they wanted one last night of wildness and freedom before they returned to their families. Laren saw it and understood it. They were men and that was simply the way they were. She didn't hate them for it, she was simply relieved that none of them wanted her. And that was thanks to Merrik.

She said to him even as he set her down on dry ground, “Thank you for protecting me.”

“I didn't,” he said. “Deglin hurt you badly.”

“That isn't what I meant. The men—they will relieve their lust here. They didn't relieve their lust on me. I thank you for that.”

He said nothing to her, merely turned to shout to the
men remaining on the longboat to protect their silver, “Keep sharp. We will be back in six hours and 'twill be your turn.”

He looked down at her. “Can you walk?”

She nodded.

“Cleve will keep Taby close. Would you like a bath?”

They were allowed through the large double gates, and she found herself in a bustling area crammed with people and small wooden dwellings and shops, all connected with wooden walkways, and it seemed that everyone was busy selling something or making something to sell or yelling with another to buy or trade or barter. It seemed that everyone was talking. She smiled, wanting to stop, just a moment, just long enough to look at the beautiful soapstone bowls displayed in front of one wooden shop, but Merrik didn't pause. She saw a collection of weapons, and wished she could buy a knife, but she imagined her four small pieces of silver wouldn't be enough, and she had nothing else. Merrik took her to a bathing hut where an old woman looked not at all at her face, but only at her worn trousers and dirty tunic, tsked through her rotting teeth, and told Merrik to take his wife inside.