Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [31]
Laren smiled and turned to Merrik. “My brother is very nearly asleep. I will continue the tale, if you wish me to, tomorrow night. I trust I haven’t bored you.”
The men were staring at her. Then they grumbled. Then Roran called out, “Aye, but what happened? The only thing strange when a man touches a woman is that he wants her and that isn’t strange.”
“Taby isn’t tired, are you, boy?”
“What magic is this?”
Merrik said nothing. He just looked at her, a small smile on his mouth. Then he laughed. Then he raised his voice and cheered, and suddenly all of them were cheering and shouting. Before she went into the tent for the night, four small silver coins had been pressed into her hand. She stared down at them lying brightly on her palm.
Four coins for telling them a story. As she fell asleep, she wondered what it was that Parma felt when he touched Selina’s arms.
They rowed into the Baltic Sea a day later, for there was no wind, the water as calm and unruffled as Merrik’s temper. He was quiet, thoughtful, perhaps thinking of new adventures, Old Firren thought, as he carefully steered the longboat past a nearly sunken log.
“We will be at my home in five days if a good wind rises,” Merrik said to her late that afternoon when she came forward to stand beside him. He’d been teaching Taby how to row and now the child was fast asleep on Merrik’s legs. He rested his elbows on the huge oar and turned to face her, saying, “The men have decided that Thor demands a sacrifice from us to give us wind enough to fill the sail. I have decided it will be up to you.”
She nearly tripped as she lurched backward.
She felt a man’s hand on her back and jumped forward to escape him. She fell against Merrik. He didn’t touch her, merely looked at her and grinned.
“The sacrifice isn’t a virgin one. You must continue the story of Grunlige tonight else Thor won’t cooperate and give us wind for our sails.”
“After you finish preparing our meal,” Eller said. “We cannot decide which we prefer if we have to choose.”
“You can already smell that meal, can’t you?” black-eyed Roran said, and laughed.
“Aye, I dream of some pheasant, perhaps stewed with greens and peas and mushrooms.”
All they thought about was food, Laren thought, smiling now, her fear, surely ridiculous, well tamped down. “I will fill your gullets,” she said, then stopped cold at the sight of Deglin’s face. There was cold fury there and she knew fear of him because she wasn’t stupid. A man’s fury could quickly turn into violence. Deglin wasn’t a warrior as Merrik was, but he was just as frightening, for he was a man and a skald and the two were together in his mind, and she had poached on what was his. She had as good as attacked him physically. She thought of the four silver coins that lay snug in the lining of her trousers. She could only buy her freedom from Merrik with silver. Not with sweet womanish smiles and good cooking. No, only with silver.
She said slowly, “I will tell you what happened next only if you promise not to snore so loudly outside my tent.”
Old Firren laughed so hard he swung the rudder deep and sharp and accidentally swiped another sunken log. The longboat shuddered and rocked.
“What do you mean your tent, girl?” Deglin called out, his skald’s voice deep and clear and cold as the layers of water beneath the longboat. “Merrik sleeps there with you. We should ask you not to cry out so loudly when he plows your belly at night.”
Merrik said very calmly, “That is enough, Deglin. Your own vanity and conceit deprived you of the men’s interest. You went off to sulk, to punish us by refusing to continue the story. Blame not the girl.”
“She is no skald!” Deglin yelled. “She is nothing—a slave, a pathetic scrap you should have killed and left in Kiev! I don’t wish to hear her befoul my skills with her foolish attempts. She is naught but a woman and a woman has no use save for what is between her legs and the skill she brings to the cooking pot. She shows those skills, ’tis enough.”
Very slowly Merrik rose. He handed the still-sleeping Taby to Cleve, who’d been