Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [41]
He smiled up at her, this shy wife of his brother’s, so slight, quite pretty really when one looked at her closely, but she was so quiet that it was easy not to notice her. Her hair was a dark, rich blond, her eyes more gray than blue, her skin fair and pure. She was also dominated completely by Erik, as most were. He was glad she had survived. “Thank you, Sarla, but I have no hunger. Please see to the other men.” He realized then that he had forgotten about Laren and Taby. “Sarla, please see as well to the woman and child I brought with me. The man’s name is Cleve. They will sleep here in the longhouse.”
She nodded, touched his sleeve, and asked if he wished more mead. Before he could reply, his brother said, his voice cold with impatience, “If he wishes you prattling about him, Sarla, he will tell you. Get you back to your duties.”
She said nothing, merely bowed her head and left the brothers. Erik said, “You bought them in Kiev, so Eller told me.”
“I bought the child. The woman and man came to me free.” For a moment, his grief fell away from him and he smiled at his brother. “Actually, we had to flee Kiev before an enraged merchant discovered he’d just lost a boy and a man.”
“Boy? She is very obviously a girl.”
“Aye, but then she was a boy, thin as a stick and dressed in ragged breeches and tunic. Even I didn’t realize she wasn’t a boy until I had to tend her back. This merchant Thrasco had beaten her very badly.”
“She is a slave, then,” Erik said, satisfaction in his voice. Merrik said nothing, indeed, he hadn’t heard his brother, for his thoughts were on his parents again.
“She is still thin,” Erik said, and Merrik looked up to see his brother’s eyes on Laren, seated near the fire pit, Sarla standing beside her. “But she doesn’t look sickly.”
“No, she doesn’t. You should have seen her when I managed to flee with her. She was naught more than bones covered with white flesh. The child, too, was so thin it would make you cry, Erik.”
“The child?” He looked toward Taby who was playing with a leather ball. “Surely he is more a burden than anything. Did the girl beg you to buy him? Did she promise to be your whore if you bought him? But none of that would matter, for a man does as he pleases with a woman, and a slave is of no account at all. Why in the name of the gods did you buy a child, Merrik?”
Merrik said slowly, “I don’t know. I saw him and I knew I had to have him. Laren had nothing to do with it. She’d already been bought by the merchant. I bought Taby.” Merrik shrugged. “Aye, he is mine now. I saved her because she is Taby’s sister.”
“Ah,” Erik said and fell again silent. “Why is there a bruise on her cheek? It is nearly gone now but still I can make it out. Was she insolent? Did you have to strike her?”
Merrik didn’t want to answer his brother’s questions. He wanted only to feel his grief and not be further distracted from it. “No,” he said shortly, rising, “I did not strike her. I am going outside for a while, Erik. I must be alone. I suppose I need it for a little while.”
Erik thoughtfully watched his brother walk to the wide oak doors of the longhouse and go outside. He looked again toward the female Merrik had brought with him from Kiev. She was laughing softly at something the child said. Her face lit up as she hugged the little boy close to her. She stood back again to toss the ball to him.
Erik rose. He looked about the large outer chamber that was filled with the soft blue haze of smoke from the fire pit. A thin thread of blue smoke trailed upward, disappearing through the small circular hole in the roof of the longhouse. As a child he’d stared and stared at that slender blue line that seemed unreal, so steady was it and so unchanging, and so very blue. Some things didn’t change, he thought, just the people looking at them did. He felt tears burn his eyes, but they didn’t overflow, not now, not in over a week now.
The large outer room was warm, filled with conversation. Some laughter, but quickly muted, some angry words, children being scolded,