Season of the Sun (Viking Era 1)

He bared himself quickly and she saw how very thin he was, his flesh hanging loosely on him, his man’s rod flaccid and small, nestled in the thick gray-gold hair of his groin.

She watched him touch himself, watched as he tried frantically to bring himself to life, but his man’s rod remained as it was.

He looked up at her then and saw the disgust on her face, the revulsion she couldn’t hide. He felt fury and frustration in equal amounts. “Didn’t that damned Viking show you his man’s rod? Didn’t you touch him, caress him with your hands, take him in your mouth? Was his rod so great, then, Zarabeth? Aye, he is young and vigorous, but I tell you, even he is sometimes like this. Touch me, damn you!”

She took a step back, then another. She was shaking her head, covering her breasts with her hands. “Please, Olav, I cannot. I am a maid. I have never before seen a man’s body, nay, not the Viking’s. Please, you cannot want me to caress you now . . . not like this.”

He stared down at himself and knew it was no good. He was shriveled and dead. Then he looked up at her, saw that she’d covered herself again with her nightshift, and laughed, at himself, at the irony of his life.

“A beautiful young wife . . . just look at you, all that red hair, and your body, so glorious and soft, so very white your flesh, and I can do nothing save gaze upon you. Ah, yes, you’re a maid, Zarabeth, and I offend you by showing you my limp manhood. Go to bed. I wish to sleep. I will regain my strength, you will see. I will cover you and come inside you and you won’t have to see me like this again. A

ye, I’ll be a man again and you’ll be obedient to my demands.”

She fled, dumb with relief.

Magnus stood on the high mound outside his fortified farmstead, Malek, and looked west toward the upper end of the Gravak Valley. It was high summer, and there was much work to do in the fields. Soon would come the harvest and he would join all his men and women and work from dawn until twilight dimmed the night skies and he fell exhausted into his bed. He looked at the steep fir-tree slopes on the far side of the fjord, immensely beautiful land that dropped gradually into water that was in many places over one hundred feet deep at the shore. The green of the tree-thick mountains was vivid against the crystal blue of the water. It was his home and he’d know no other. It was always with joy that he returned here to the valley of his birth, the valley that had belonged to his family for more generations than he could remember. There were many people in the valley now, and soon, like so many other Norwegians, they would be land-hungry, for the earth could not feed their numbers. But for now, the land was fertile and the weather had blessed them with rain aplenty and the wheat and rye and corn grew deep and rich in the soil. It would be another generation, at least, perhaps his son, who would leave the valley to conquer new lands and settle them and rule them.

Upon his return to the valley this time, his wealth had further increased, but it had brought him no joy, for there was the gnawing emptiness and savage fury that mingled in seemingly equal parts within him. He moved, restless now, striding to the edge of the cliff that formed the outward boundary of his farmstead, and felt the pain of it, the sheer rage of it fill him. By Odin’s wounds, what was wrong with him that she would scorn him? Was he so repellent of character? So scrawny of body that she didn’t like the notion of bedding with him? Perhaps it was just that, in the end, she found she couldn’t leave her home to journey to an unknown foreign land. Perhaps she simply hadn’t trusted him enough. Perhaps she had lied throughout.

He slammed his fist against his thigh and winced with the pain of his own blow. Damn her! He should have simply taken her and brought her back with him. He’d given her choice, and she’d turned on him. To give a woman choice was foolishness. He hadn’t been a man with her, he hadn’t taken away her fanciful, capricious choices as his father would have done, as both his brothers would have done. Aye, they would have laughed at her if she had dared to dismiss them so plainly, and carried her away screaming, paying her no heed. Aye, he’d been a fool.

What was wrong with him that she would scorn him? No woman before had scorned him. Why Zarabeth? Why the one woman he’d wanted to wed?

He turned at his sister’s voice. “Aye? What is it you want, Ingunn?”

“You brood. It worries me, Magnus. It worries all of us, your men included. You say so little, criticize your men more than is their due, and yell and scowl at your slaves. You don’t even take Cyra to your bed as you used to.”

“Ha! I did naught but plow her belly when I came home. I took her until she could scarce walk.”

“Aye, but then you dismissed her. She feels sorely tried, as if she’s failed you in some way.”

He shrugged, not looking at Ingunn, but staring fixedly toward the northern side of the fjord. Why in the name of Thor’s hammer Ingunn should care a whit about Cyra’s feelings was beyond him.

“It’s a woman, isn’t it? You met a woman on your travels and she gnaws at you.”

He laughed at that. “You make me sound like a bone our father’s hound would tease.”

He felt her fingers on his tunic sleeve. “Nay, brother, jest not, for our father also wonders what eats at you. He said you weren’t interested in the men’s drinking or the tale-singing at his hall. He said you moped and said aught and acted a morose lovesick boy. But he always says there is a raging anger in you, great anger, and there will be bloodletting before your anger finishes its course.”

Again Magnus shrugged. It was true, all of it, yet it was a private matter and he wanted to hold it to himself alone. He supposed he should be pleased that the men who knew of Zarabeth had kept their mouths firmly closed. It concerned none other, not his father, not his brothers, certainly not Ingunn.

Suddenly he smiled, a grim smile, a vicious smile. He turned then with sudden irrevocable decision, and felt that a rock had lifted from his chest. “I am leaving on the morrow. Prepare food enough for a journey of thirty days for twelve men. I will do more trading in Birka. Hurry now, Ingunn.”

She didn’t want to obey him, but she had no choice. She disbelieved him. Birka was the last place he was going. She left him without another word to do his bidding. She turned once to see him standing in the same spot, staring off at the fjord, but not looking at the clear cold water.

What was he seeing?

9

Olav was dead. He had died early in the morning, just after dawn, whimpering and clutching his belly. All during the night Zarabeth had stayed with him, helpless and frightened, afraid to leave him, yet knowing there was nothing she could really do if she stayed. He hadn’t even been able to rise and relieve himself. Toward the end, he hadn’t known her. He raved of her mother, how he’d loved her and how she had betrayed him. Zarabeth had held his hand.

It made no sense. He had been well the previous evening, whistling even as he sorted through goods he had traded during the day. And now, only twelve hours later, he was dead.

Zarabeth helped Imara and Lannia, two older women who’d seen their share of death and prepared their share of corpses, ready his body. She was numb, doing the simple tasks Lannia assigned her, not really understanding when Toki came into the living area, sniffed, and said, “By Thor, it stinks in here! Can’t you do something, Zarabeth?”

Imara turned on Toki and gave her a malignant frown. “Mind your tongue. ’Tis a place of death, and it will remain so until the morrow.”

Zarabeth turned then to face Toki. She was so tired, all she wanted to do was crawl onto her box bed next to Lotti and dream away all the horror. But she couldn’t. She had to assume the responsibility of Olav’s burial; she had been his wife. She said, more puzzled than angry, “Why did you hate him so much? He allowed you to come back, he forgave you. You shared our evening meals with us again. Why do you speak so cruelly of him now?”