Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [147]
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