Lord of Raven's Peak (30 page)

“ ‘That is great deal of land and a good number of people,' the fairy told him.

“ ‘Aye,' he said. ‘As far as I can see. That will be my dominion. You promised.'

“She smiled at him and gently raised her arms to the heavens. She called upward, her voice as sweet and strong as Malverne's honey mead, ‘Grant this man, oh mighty Odin All-Father, grant him all the land that he can see.'

“There was a loud rumbling of thunder, flashes of lightning filled the afternoon sky.

“ ‘It is done,' she said, smiling upon Ulric. ‘All that you can see is yours.'

“Then she disappeared. Ulric rubbed his hands together. He thought of the men who were his enemies. He thought of the girls who had managed to escape him, and said, ‘But it is night now and that is strange, for it
was a bright afternoon when I saved you. Grant me the sunlight again so that I may see my dominion.'

“Alas, there was no one there to hear him. The fairy was gone, but the night remained. Always.”

Laren stopped. She said not a word more, just stood there and waited. The groans and hisses came quickly. Merrik laughed and rose to stand beside her. “It is the babe that makes her tales less courageous than before. The babe in her womb makes her moralize. She gives me sermons each night, and endless instructions on what she wishes me to do, and—”

Laren grabbed him by his ears and pulled him down to her. She kissed him loudly.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, late in the afternoon, Laren was seated in front of the longhouse, loading a shuttle with thread from her distaff. Once the thread was woven into cloth, it would be a soft blue, just the color of Merrik's eyes. She could already see the tunic she would make for him. She was humming softly, the everyday sounds so familiar to her that she scarce paid them any heed. No heed until she heard Taby yelling at the top of his lungs. She dropped the distaff and jumped to her feet.

He was running toward her, his face utterly white, his bare legs filthy and bleeding from cuts from bramble bushes.

“Laren! Where is Merrik? Laren!”

She raced to him, dropping to her knees in front of him and grabbing his arms. “What is the matter, Taby? What have you done?”

He was panting and for a moment he couldn't catch his breath to speak. She held him, his urgency flooding her now, and she felt her heart begin to pound faster and faster.

“Tell me,” she said, shaking him now. “What is wrong?”

“It's Cleve,” Taby gasped out. “He will die, you must hurry, Laren. A rope. Hurry!”

He wrenched free of her and turned to run, screaming over his shoulder, “Hurry!”

Merrik was there suddenly, carrying a line of herring, Old Firren beside him.

“Come quickly!” Laren yelled at him. “Something has happened to Cleve! Bring a rope!”

Merrik called to Oleg and a dozen other men. They were all running after Taby. They caught him quickly. Merrik raised him to his shoulder, saying calmly, “Tell us where to go, Taby. Easy, lad, tell me.”

Taby was sobbing with fear by the time they had claimed up the narrow path to Raven's Peak to the very top where Erik had been struck down by a rock.

“Over the side,” Taby said, his voice small and shaking, yet Merrik understood. He set him on the ground, then raced to the edge of the cliff. He saw Cleve some fifteen feet down, his body tangled in an outgrowing bush, unconscious.

“By all the gods, he has fallen.”

Oleg quickly unrolled the rope. “I will get him,” Merrik said as he tied the rope about his waist.

Oleg grabbed Merrik's arm. “Listen to me. That bush doesn't look very strong and you are very big, Merrik. Best to let Eller go.”

Merrik nodded slowly. Then he shouted, “Quickly, Eller, quickly.”

Oleg and Roran held the rope as they eased Eller down the sharp face of the cliff.

“The bush is pulling free,” Laren said, staring down.

“No,” Merrik said. “The bush will remain until we have freed Cleve.” And she believed him. She fell to her knees and took Taby in her arms. “You did well,” she said to him as she kissed his filthy cheek, stroking her hands up and down his back. “Can you tell me what happened? Did Cleve fall?”

Suddenly Taby stiffened in her arms. He lowered his head.

“Taby?” It was Merrik. “What happened?”

“I don't know,” Taby said, his face still buried in Laren's neck. She felt his tears on her flesh.

Merrik looked baffled. He shook his head, frowning in some bewilderment down at the boy, then walked to the cliff edge. Eller was balanced, just barely, and was tying the rope around Cleve's waist.

It was slow, agonizing work. Eller looked none too happy to hold on to that scrubby bush, knowing that if it gave, he would plunge some three hundred feet to the rocks and fjord below, but he worked quickly, his fingers steady and calm. Finally it was done. It was Merrik who grasped Cleve beneath his arms and dragged him over the top of the cliff. “Quickly,” he said, “get that rope back to Eller before he shames himself and pisses in his trousers.”

Laren was at Cleve's side. There was blood on the side of his head, over his right temple. He was still alive, thank the gods, but just barely. “Do you think he tripped and fell over the edge?” she said.

“I don't know,” Merrik said. “What was he doing up here alone? What was Taby doing here?”

Merrik lifted Cleve into his arms and they began their slow descent back down the long steep path to the longhouse.

Cleve remained unconscious until late that evening. Then he was addled in his mind, crying out in a strange language, then begging for someone not to leave him, pleading until Laren thought her heart would break. She forced broth down his throat as Sarla gently bathed his face with cool water to keep away the fever.

There was much talk, much speculation, voices not low now, for all remembered that it was there Erik had been
found, dead, a rock having smashed in his head. They had all believed that Deglin had done it. Had someone else then struck Cleve and shoved him over? And what of Taby? All wondered about Taby and what he had seen, but the child wouldn't say anything, even to Merrik.

That night, Laren and Sarla took turns staying by Cleve's bed. But it was Taby who refused to leave him at all, curling up beside him to sleep through the night.

Hallad tried to coax his small son away from Cleve, but Taby remained stubbornly silent. He would say nothing nor would he leave Cleve.

“He will awaken, I know he will,” Laren said to Sarla, who was so pale Laren feared for her health. “Go sleep now, and I will stay with him.”

“Nay, 'tis you who are exhausted. You also carry a child and I do not. You go rest now, Laren, I will stay with Cleve.”

Laren looked into Sarla's shadowed eyes and slowly nodded. She gently shook Taby's shoulder. “Come, little sweeting, we will go to our own beds now. If you like, you can sleep with Merrik and me.”

Taby was awake immediately. He didn't blink or yawn. He looked from his sister to Cleve to Sarla.

He shook his head. “No, Laren, I wish to stay here, with Cleve.”

She started to pull him off the box bed, but the look in his eyes stayed her hand. “Very well, but remain quiet. He is very ill.”

“I know.” The child curled up against Cleve, his small palm over Cleve's heart.

 

“Sarla will become ill,” Hallad said. “She is too pale and there are shadows beneath her eyes. She is very quiet, even withdrawn. None of it is her fault. I do not
understand why she is so struck with this man's accident. Speak to her, Laren.”

“Father, I believe she and Cleve were becoming close even before Merrik and and I went to Normandy.”

Hallad just stared at her. Slowly, he raised a cup of ale to his mouth and drank deep.

“I could be wrong, for when we returned they seemed somehow distant. I don't know. He is a good man, Father, and he was there with me in Kiev. He tried to save me at the risk of his own life.”

“This man is naught but a slave, or at least he used to be. Sarla is so wondrous kind she feels pity for him, nothing more, just as she would for any of the people here at Malverne. Perhaps if he recovers he will come back to Normandy with us.”

She cocked her head to one side in question. “Us?”

“Of course I mean Taby and me,” he said, but Laren didn't trust that tone of voice she'd heard men use before. It was false in its sincerity, gentle in its sarcasm. Ah, yes, his voice was smug, that was it.

“Laren!”

She turned to see her husband striding toward her. In his hand was a rock. When he thrust it at her, she saw the dried blood on it. “Cleve didn't fall by accident. Someone struck his head with this rock and shoved him over the edge. Here is the proof of it.”

“Just as Deglin struck Erik,” Laren said and shivered. “I don't like this, Merrik. It means there is another at work here, since Deglin is dead.”

“Nor do I like it. I had to know if Cleve had simply lost his footing. I searched and searched, Oleg and Roran with me. Roran found the rock thrown behind a bush halfway down the path. But this time, the man who struck down Cleve wanted us to believe that it was an accident.”

For the first time in many days, Laren ran from the longhouse and vomited. As Merrik held her head, stroking back her hair from her forehead, she knew it wasn't from the babe in her womb. No, it was from fear. She was very afraid.

 

Taby had changed, utterly. He was no longer happy and carefree. Now he was silent, sullen, wary of anyone who spoke to him. He even avoided Merrik. He looked drawn and thin. In just a day, he had lost the glow of health from his small face. He refused to leave Cleve. Finally, Merrik pulled the boy into his arms and hauled him out of the small sleeping chamber. He carried the kicking little boy out of the longhouse. He didn't say a word until they were well beyond the palisade wall. He eased Taby down, then held him down as he sat beside him on a huge smooth boulder. “When I was your age,” he said easily, “I would come here and think. If my father had cuffed me for some wrongdoing or I had hurt someone, or I was just uncertain about anything, I would come here to think and to ponder. It is a good place, Taby.” He said nothing more, merely held Taby's hand so he couldn't run away.

“Your father is distressed because you avoid him,” Merrik said at last, not looking at the child, but speaking calmly as he gazed out over the fjord. “He believed you dead for two very long years. Then he found you again and now you avoid him. It is very strange and he does not understand.

“However, I believe I do understand, for you are closer to me than to anyone else. I have thought about this. You saw who hit Cleve with the rock. You saw who shoved him over the side of the cliff. This is why you refuse to leave Cleve, because you fear the man will come again and try to kill him. You are a brave boy,
Taby. I love you deeply and I want to help you. But you must tell me the truth for I cannot begin to guess who this man is. Do you also realize that it could be the same man who killed Erik? That Deglin was innocent of his murder?”

“It wasn't a man.”

Merrik jerked at the small voice, thin and liquid with fear and dread.

Merrik waited. He could do nothing more.

“She said she would kill Laren if I said anything. She said Laren was a fool and didn't deserve to be mistress here at Malverne. She said life had not dealt fairly with her, not until my father came. She said that was why she had to act. She said after she killed Laren, she would kill you. I couldn't say anything, Merrik, I couldn't.”

It was so very clear then, so very clear. Merrik said quietly, “Sarla.”

Taby shuddered and pressed against Merrik's side. “She will kill Laren. She will kill Cleve, for he is helpless, Merrik. He is helpless; he has not regained his wits. I must go back to him. You will take care of Laren.”

“Aye, I will, and I will take care of Cleve as well. Come, Taby. We will return now.”

“I am afraid, Merrik.”

Merrik smiled down at him. “For once, I am not afraid.”

He told Taby to remain with his father. “Aye, you have done the right thing. Now it is my turn. Stay here, Taby. Soon Laren and I will come to you.”

He heard Laren's jubilant voice as he neared Cleve's small sleeping chamber. “He is awake, Sarla! Thank the gods, Cleve is finally awake. Now we can learn what happened.”

Merrik slowly drew back the thin bearskin pelt from the doorway. He saw Laren leaning over Cleve, a smile on her face. He saw Sarla standing behind her and now she was lifting a heavy oil lamp from the floor.

“Do not even think to do it, Sarla,” he said very quietly. “Put the lamp down.”

Sarla whirled around to face him. “No,” she said. “No, Merrik, you misunderstand.”

Laren turned. “Cleve is going to be all right, Merrik. Come and speak to him. Now we will learn what happened.”

“I know what happened, Laren. But not all of it. Sarla will tell us all of it, will you not, sister-in-law?”

Laren straightened very slowly. She studied Sarla's pale face, her dulled eyes. But Sarla shook her head, saying again, “You do not understand, Merrik. It is not what you believe. Cleve, ah, it was an accident, I swear it.”

Laren said slowly, incredulously, “You, Sarla? You struck Cleve?”

Sarla said nothing, just shook her head.

“But why? I don't understand. He loved you. I saw it in his eyes before we left to journey to Normandy. And you were coming to care for him as well, were you not?” Laren stopped. She looked wildly at Merrik as she whispered, “Erik? She killed Erik as well?”

“Aye, she did. I suppose she killed him because he was betraying her yet again, this time with you. I suppose she killed him, too, because she wanted Cleve.”

“I saved Laren from dishonor. Surely you will acquit me, for I saved her.”

“That was a consequence, surely,” Merrik said, “but do not make yourself into a heroine, Sarla, for the truth does not fit itself to you. Why did you try to kill Cleve?”

His voice was low, filled with pain. “Tell him, Sarla.
Tell him the truth or I will.”

“Oh, Cleve, you are back again.” Laren whirled about to hover over him, protecting him now, Merrik saw, for she was standing between him and Sarla.