Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [60]
Merrik agreed that this was true.
Olaf Thoragasson frowned. “I wonder why her mother isn’t so, well, bountiful.”
Merrik wisely kept his mouth shut.
“You have reached your twenty-fifth year, Merrik,” Thoragasson said, his voice fraught with meaning.
Merrik only smiled. “I am not ready to lose my teeth or my virility just yet.”
“Ah, but to have children relieves a man’s mind, for there are his progeny to succeed him if he falls in battle of if struck by illness. Aye, a wife and children make a man’s life fuller and richer.”
Merrik agreed that this was probably so.
“A man needn’t just cleave to a wife,” Olaf said, lowering his voice, giving Merrik an understanding leer. “I know your brother Erik surrounds himself with women and enjoys all of them. A man may do whatever he wishes if he has the silver for it.”
“My father was always loyal and faithful to my mother.”
“He was, but he didn’t have to be. Heed me, Merrik, your father very much wanted to unite our families. He himself looked upon my little Letta and chose her for you. Surely you admired your father, surely you trusted his judgment.”
“In most cases, certainly,” Merrik said.
“Is not my little Letta a gem?” Thoragasson said, his voice sharp now, pressing, for he scented that things weren’t going as he wished.
“Surely a gem of more value than to be wasted upon a younger son who has no land.”
“Aye, but my Letta is a Viking woman. She would follow her husband wherever he wished to settle. Besides, there is more than enough land for you near our farmstead. The Bergson Valley is rich enough to support you and a family.”
Merrik hated the Bergson Valley. It rained too much; fog shrouded the fjord most days. He didn’t like the Thoragasson men. He looked over at Letta, who was seated next to Ileria, the old woman who had worked the loom for all his life. The soft gray tunic he was wearing she had woven for him during the spring from the finest wool. It was to be his lucky tunic for when he traded with the savages, she’d told him. Letta was helping Ileria, loading a shuttle with thread from a distaff. She looked competent doing it.
“Even now, she seeks more knowledge to make your life comfortable,” Thoragasson said near to Merrik’s ear. “She is always learning, always asking her elders what is right, what is good. She is a fine girl. She would be submissive to your wishes.”
Merrik doubted that, but said nothing. He even managed to smile. Thoragasson, pleased with himself, took himself off to speak to Erik. It wasn’t until after a quickly prepared feast that night that he sat back, patted his belly, and looked toward Deglin.
“Well, Deglin, what say you? Have you a special tale for me this night?”
Erik said in a loud voice that brought him everyone’s attention, “Nay, it is the girl here who is now our skald.”
There was immoderate laughter from Thoragasson, his family, and his men. “Who?” one of the men shouted. “That thin little wisp of a beggar that I could crush with one hearty breath?”
“Your breath could fell an oak tree,” one of his friends shouted.
There was good-natured banter, until one of Erik’s men insulted one of Thoragasson’s men with too much eagerness, and a fight broke out. It ended quickly, but one man’s arm was broken and another’s nose was bleeding profusely.
There seemed to be blood everywhere, not just from that single nose. Laren looked about the large room, at the havoc wrought in such a short time. Was it always so with men? Were they only content when they were eating, rutting women, or breaking each other’s bodies? They loved to yell and curse and strike each other. Then, suddenly, Erik rose from the floor, where he’d been pummeling one of his own men, reached for Megot and fondled her breasts in front of everyone. He kissed her hard, then smacked her bottom and told her to fetch him more beer.
Laren watched Sarla oversee the bandaging, watched another woman, Bartha, tend to the bleeding nose. She watched Megot give Erik his beer. She watched him fondle her buttocks and