Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [141]
There was anguish on Hallad’s face. He went to her. She looked at him and the dazed expression was gone instantly from her face to be replaced by a rage so deep, so raw that Hallad flinched back from it. “Stay away from me!” she screamed at him. “You perfidious bastard, why didn’t you die? You killed my mother with your lust, and then you wed that bitch Nirea who was no older than I and you let her birth Laren and then Taby, aye, the vaunted heir, little Taby who was so very perfect, who was beloved by all, especially by Uncle Rollo who would teach him and love him and make him one of his heirs. I wanted to kill him and you. And I killed that bitch Nirea, but by the gods, not in time. Not in time, for there was Taby! And there would have been more babes, more little boys, so I did stop her, I had to and I did.”
Hallad said slowly, “You have naught but hatred and bitterness in you, Ferlain. Nirea never did anything to you. She was fond of you and Helga, and she tried, the poor girl tried to befriend you. She was so very innocent. And yet you killed her. Was it poison? Aye, I believe it was. I was accused of strangling her for there were finger marks about her white throat. But I didn’t touch her, would never have hurt her, even though we argued that day and were overheard. You took your chance and all believed me guilty and thus I had to escape to keep Rollo from having to execute me. I think you dug your fingers into her throat after she was dead. But you know, Ferlain, Rollo never believed me guilty. He hid me and then I became the old wizard two years ago. I survived. I am sorry for you, Ferlain. I would kill you if Laren and Taby were dead, but they survived. At least you spared them, though your reasons for doing so are wretched. What will you say now, Ferlain?”
“I say this, old man. If you hadn’t been accused of murdering that bitch wife of yours, then you would have wed another girl within weeks, aye, not more than several months, for you are a lustful fool for all your years, and this one would have probably been much younger than Helga or me. Then she would have birthed more boys, would she not? You always flaunted your virility before all of us. And there was Taby and then all these others, aye, you would have continued to sire babes—all of them alive and breathing and yelling the instant they came from their mothers’ wombs—and I would have had naught.”
“You have naught now,” Rollo said. “You have lost everything, Ferlain.”
“I still have Cardle.”
“Aye, he is a harmless man, a faithful man. He never knew that you had bedded with Fromm, did he? Or Otta?”
“He wouldn’t know anything if I didn’t tell him,” she said, her voice filled with contempt. “You, Rollo, you wed me to that imbecile. He would not even bed me unless I took him in my mouth and brought him to a man’s size. I had to thrust him into me, uncle, for he would just gaze at me, and I knew his mind was in the past, thinking of all those miserable Romans or King Alfred or that gallant fool, Charlemagne. At least Fromm and Otta were men with men’s appetites and men’s knowledge. I would that you would die, Uncle Rollo, but you will not. You will continue forever, I know it.”
Very slowly, she slipped to her knees. She bowed her head and held her arms around her, slowly rocking back and forth.
“Why did you try to kill Merrik?” Rollo said, quiet now, his voice oddly soothing. “He did nothing to you, nothing.”
She was silent for a very long time. Rollo started to ask her again, when she raised her head and looked toward Merrik, as if he were a stranger. “He would have been another damned heir. If I couldn’t produce a son, I wouldn’t allow the possibility that he would rule, his son after him.”
“He would never rule, Ferlain,” Rollo said, and his voice was that of the ruler of Normandy, cold and decisive and no one would gainsay him and live. “He will never rule. Taby is alive. Your father told you but you didn