Lord of Falcon Ridge (7 page)

“I told you that I didn't. If I'd wanted to kill you, I could have. I just wanted you to be so sick you'd want to die but you wouldn't.”

He dropped her braid. He remembered too well the awful pain in his belly, the unending cramps, the bile, the smell of himself after days of sickness. He would pay her back for that. But let her guess now what was in his mind though he wanted to strangle the life from her. “No more honeyed words for you, Chessa. I wanted to bed you and I will, and I don't care if you like it or not. You try to harm me again and you will have an accident and I will make a good show of grief when I tell of it to my father.”

“You won't touch me, Ragnor, or I'll kill you, I swear it. Ah, how I wish I could have seen you puking up your guts. Aye, I heard about it and I laughed and laughed because you got what you deserved. You wronged me, Ragnor. I merely took my revenge. Is that not what a man would do? Why not a woman, then?” She stopped then, knowing that more pain would come because his face was pinched, his eyes red with rage. But she couldn't keep the words unspoken. It was the truth and she had to say it. Now she would pay for the truth.

The air around her thickened with his anger. He dropped to his knees in front of her. He took her throat between his hands and tightened his fingers. She grasped his wrists, trying to pull loose, but he only tightened his grip. She struggled, jerking sideways, pulling him down with her. Suddenly, he released her throat, shoved her onto her back and came down over her. “This is all I ever wanted from you,” he said, pressing his palm into her belly. “This is what I will have from you.”

He ground himself against her and she froze. She felt the weight of him, the shape of him, the hardness and force of his body, and she hated it.

“My lord, the captain wishes to leave now. He wishes to speak to you. Please, my lord.”

Ragnor had forgotten that Kerek was there, standing only a few feet away, watching. His father believed the damned Danish bastard to be such an excellent bodyguard for him. He called Kerek a man of good sense and reason. Now here he was trying to intercede on the princess's behalf. What did he know of anything? He was an old man, lust in him long dead.

Ragnor reared off Chessa and rolled to his feet. He looked down at her, lying there, her arms over her chest, her face pale. She lacked the lovely pallor of Inelda; Chessa could only pale to a dull golden color. He looked at her eyes, that odd green that looked so mysterious with her black hair, mysterious and veiled, hiding knowledge from him. Her eyes weren't warm and inviting as Inelda's eyes were.

He shook himself. “I will return to you. If you are good to me, I will give you no reason to complain to my father. If you hide your arrogance well from me, I will wait to take you until we are wed. If you displease me at all, if you speak to me with insolence, I will strip you and take you in front of any of the men who wish to look. Do you understand me, Chessa?”

“I understand you,” she said, her only thought of how she would escape him.

“You look like the filthiest of my father's sluts. Kerek will bring you water to bathe yourself. I don't know if it will be enough, but you will make do. I have brought clothing for you. Array yourself so that I can bear to look upon you.”

“If I hadn't been fishing at the river, I would have been safe from you. That I look like a slut from my exercise was to your advantage, otherwise this man couldn't have taken me.”

“Oh, I'd have gotten you, Chessa,” Ragnor said with a laugh. And with that, he left her.

 

 

Rouen,

Duke Rollo's Palace

 

 

“She's been taken,” Bjarni said, still out of breath, for he'd run from the dock to the palace. “Stolen away without a trace. The king is frantic.”

Rollo turned to Cleve. “Could she have run away? Did she not wish to wed William?”

“What she wanted didn't matter. It wasn't her decision to make. It was her father's.” Cleve sighed. “Someone took her. Who would benefit the most?”

Bjarni said, “King Sitric believes it to be Ragnor of York. He said that the Danelaw king, Olric, wanted her to marry his son.”

Cleve laughed, unable to help himself. He told Rollo what Chessa had done to Ragnor of York. “Thus, sire, I cannot imagine that Olric ever planned to negotiate with Sitric, for he knew it wouldn't work. Nay, he simply took her. He will wed her to Ragnor and it will be done.”

William, who should have been profoundly distressed by the news, said in an almost cheerful voice, “Aye, it is most probably Ragnor of York. Lothaire the Bald, one of King Charles's ministers, also told me that Olric of the Danelaw wanted her for his son. Even King Charles wants her, though his eldest son is only eleven years old.”

“You never said a word of this to me,” Rollo said, bending those compelling dark eyes of his on his only son.

William merely shrugged. “The French want one of Sitric's sons to wed into their family. They don't want the Irish alliance with Normandy that Chessa would bring. Thus it wouldn't surprise me that Charles assisted Olric and Ragnor to kidnap the girl.”

“This
girl
is to be your wife, William.”

“Does it really matter, Father? She will not be dishonored. She will one day be a queen. I will continue as I have. I have my son dear Margaret gave me. Eilder will
follow me. He will survive. I need no more sons.”

Duke Rollo looked at his son, who was thirty years old, and said, “You are a fool. To love a dead woman so much that you put a dynasty into danger makes me want to search inside your head for reason.”

Cleve, scenting an old squabble, cleared his throat, and said, “I will go after her.”

“Aye,” Rollo said. “You will fetch her back here, Cleve. William will do his duty by her and wed her and he will have a dozen more sons. It is necessary. Our line won't die out, not because of your love of this damned dead woman.”

Cleve cocked his head toward William.

William said slowly, knowing there was no hope for it, “Aye, Cleve, bring her back. The matter was agreed to and I will honor it.”

“Merrik will enjoy the adventure,” Cleve said.

“As will I,” Laren said quietly from behind him. “As will I.”

“Papa,” Kiri said, and held out her arms to him. Laren released her and Cleve knew that he would have to be very careful in his rescue.

 

It was very dark. Chessa heard the men talking outside as they bent over their oars. They complained that the wind had died and now all of them would have to exhaust themselves with the rowing. They complained that Ragnor was pushing them too hard. He wanted to be in York in another four days. They were sailing in the Channel between Normandy and England, she thought, so very close. Soon they would turn northward and sail past East Anglia into the North Sea until they reached York. Then she would escape.

She wondered if Cleve knew yet she'd been taken. She wondered what he thought, if he worried about her, if he wished to see her again, safe and unharmed. She wondered if he ever thought about her the way she did about him. She saw his beautiful face clearly, the clean gold of his
hair, the fascination of his one golden eye and his one blue eye. She didn't wonder at all what William or Duke Rollo thought.

She sighed, settling herself on the mat, pulling the woolen blanket more closely about her. As she had for the past three nights, she worried that Ragnor wouldn't keep his word. She worried that he would come and rape her. She knew Kerek couldn't stop him if he decided to force her, but she believed now that he would try to aid her. Kerek's thick red hair was whipped by the wind, his face deeply seamed from years in the sun. He was as strong as a much younger warrior, but there was softness in him, kindness that made her think frantically of how to get him to help her. He couldn't bear Ragnor, that was clear.

He had spent much of his time with her during the past three days. To protect her in the only way he knew how. He brought her food, water, and stiff conversation, for he was but a man of modest means and place, and she was, after all, a princess.

She was a princess only because her father was brilliant, she thought, smiling to herself. All these kings wanted her for her pure northern bloodlines and her father's strength. If only they knew the truth.

“Princess.”

“Aye, Kerek. It is very dark tonight. There is no moon at all. How does the man at the tiller know where the men should set their oars?”

“There is the faint glitter of the North Star. The navigator is a man who's eyes know every speck in the heavens. Were it raining, I vow he would still be able to see the right path.”

“What do you want, Kerek?”

He didn't answer immediately, and she said again, “Why are you here?”

“To keep him away,” he said at last. “He has drunk too much mead. He talks to the men. He laughs and he boasts. He claims he will break you in before he takes you to wife. He claims if you aren't to his liking, he will give you to
the men, then throw you overboard and claim an accident to his father, Olric. He doesn't like you overmuch. He won't ever forget how it was you who made him sicker than an asp biting the Christian devil.”

“But he needs me,” she said, wondering exactly how true that really was.

“Aye, but he doesn't know it. He wants his father's throne. He is tired of the restraints his father places on him. Ragnor is a man with a boy's passions and a boy's selfishness and greed. The Danelaw grows weaker. Soon the Saxons will conquer York, take all our lands, and there will be no more Viking kings, all will come under the kingdom of the Saxons. It is but a matter of time. When Olric dies, Ragnor won't have the ability or the skill to keep the Saxons at bay.” He was silent for a good number of minutes, sitting cross-legged beside her now beneath the thick leather tarp. “I believe you could keep the Saxons from defeating the Danelaw.”

“I? I am naught but a woman.”

“That is true. But there have been other women who were strong, warrior women who led men into battle and overcame the enemy.”

“Aye,” she said quietly. “I've been told stories about Boadicea, the queen of the Iceni. She fought bravely against the Romans, but she lost eventually, Kerek. She died, and thousands of warriors with her.”

“Men followed her into battle. It is said her warriors killed seventy thousand Romans before they themselves were defeated and put to the sword.”

“You believe me another Boadicea?”

She could feel his eyes on her in the darkness. He said, “You are still very young. It is too soon to tell. But I saw the cold disdain in your eyes for Ragnor. You spoke fiercely to him even knowing that he would hurt you. You didn't cry or whimper. You showed no fear.”

“That doesn't mean I am a warrior woman. That simply means that I am stupid.”

“You avenged yourself. You didn't seek out a man to use for your revenge.”

“It was naught to grind up the malle leaves and the fist root.”

“How did you convince him to drink it?”

She laughed. “He believed I would still let him bed me, though I had told him earlier he was goat offal and a river snake. He simply didn't believe that a woman could ever mean what she said. Thus, when I smiled at him and offered him a ginger drink, he leered at me and drank it down. He didn't become ill until late the following day. He didn't realize what I had done.”

“He was sicker than a river snake tied into knots. The men laughed behind their hands.”

“I am still a woman, Kerek,” she said. “I believed him, you see, truly believed that he loved me. No, I am no brave female to save anyone. I was nothing but a fool.”

“Had you ever known another man before?”

“Nay, but still—”

Kerek rose to stand in the opening. “I have come to know you in the past days. You will grow and learn. Ah, it begins to rain. The wind has suddenly risen. We will see if the navigator can truly sniff out the stars to keep us in the right direction.”

“I would just as soon he ran us aground.”

Kerek said quietly over his shoulder, “I would take you again for Ragnor. Know that I do it for the Viking Danelaw, not for that puffed-up little prince.”

Chessa eased back down onto the mat, pulling the blanket to her chin. He believed her a warrior woman? Kerek was mad.

 

They left Rouen to sail up the Seine into the Channel with two warships and two trading vessels. Merrik had said, “We have soapstone bowls of fine quality and reindeer combs and beautiful armlets fashioned by Gyre the Dane. York is a fine trading center. We will gain much silver.” He grinned down at his wife. “Besides, I wish to find you
a gown of scarlet, a color you have never managed to get right with all your dyes.”

Naturally, the trading vessels also carried household goods—clothing, chests, fishing nets, seeds for planting—for none of them knew what they would find when they reached Scotland and sailed into the trading town of Inverness that sat at the end of the Moray Firth. Cleve had willingly given Kiri over to Laren, who grudgingly accepted being in charge of one of the trading vessels and his daughter.