Zarabeth concentrated, for there was no choice, and she learned, despite the hollowness deep inside her, the constant gnawing of guilt and pain.
Helgi taught her to cure fish. She held up a trout that she had just cleaned and gutted. “We will smoke-dry it and then salt it. When there is a fierce storm and fishing is impossible, then you will have a good reserve of dried fish and thus won’t go hungry. You see here, Zarabeth, you hold the fish open by these wooden skewers, and we hang them up by these tiny wooden rods passed through the heads.”
Helgi taught her to comb flax fibers, making them fine and soft and free of all tangles. Zarabeth knew how to spin her thread on spindles, but Helgi knew ways of twisting the fibers more tightly together so that the thread was stronger and more enduring.
Ingunn did nothing more than her mother instructed her to do. She watched, and there was no more fury on her face, just blankness and a strange kind of stillness. It was the stark absence of feeling rather than the bouts of rage that bothered Zarabeth.
Cyra had decided that she would take Horkel, and announced it to Zarabeth. She seemed to have forgotten that she herself was a slave, for after all, Zarabeth had also been a slave, yet now she was mistress of the farmstead. As for Horkel, he ignored Cyra whenever he saw her during the day, but each night he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the longhouse. In the morning she was smiling and looking well-pleased with herself. Magnus said nothing, and his silence was in itself agreement with whatever Horkel wished.
Cyra did what Zarabeth bade her do, without complaint, as did the other servants and slaves.
Life went on, continuing with such an air of normalcy, with such obliviousness of what had happened, that Zarabeth realized with the force of someone striking her that she could not be a part of it. It was beyond her to pretend that everything was normal and the same as it had been before. She watched all the men and women, listened to them speak and laugh and argue. She couldn’t bear it. She was plunged into such a depression that she simply withdrew into herself. She worked and she oversaw all the cooking and cleaning and planting, for it was her responsibility. But she remained apart from it. Still, she realized that the different tasks, the plain hard work, the monotonous chores, did grant her something—they dulled her mind.
Aunt Eldrid continued with her weaving; it was all that she did, and she did it well. She played with the children, instructing the girls, but there were harsh lines bracketing her mouth now and her eyes were bleak. Helgi avoided her sister, and Zarabeth wondered at it, as would someone who was vaguely curious, nothing more.
She worked until she was so tired she wasn’t even hungry. Magnus said nothing to her about it. When she fell into bed, he merely took her into his arms and held her. As for Magnus, life had never seemed so completely out of his control, nor had he ever experienced such endless pain as he did now. His son, his little boy who was only eight years old, was gone from him. His features remained impassive with the knowledge of it, but deep inside, he wondered if he would survive it. And as he lay in bed during the long hours of the half-twilight night, he tried to fill his mind with memories.
He hadn’t spent many summers at home, for the sea and trading had blossomed early and passionate in his blood. Indeed, this was the first summer in five years he had been here, hunting, helping in the fields, for like Zarabeth, he found that the harder he worked, the easier the time passed. And he knew he couldn’t leave her, not yet. As he lay there in his bed, Zarabeth’s gentle breath warm against his heart, he shifted from memories to his brother, Jon. He wondered where Jon was traveling to this summer. He had taken his boat, Black Raven, and his twenty men, young and brave and eager, all of them, and had left just the week before. Magnus wondered if he would be raiding near Kiev, for he enjoyed the savages of those strange regions, particularly did he enjoy fighting them and killing them and taking slaves and earning more and more gold and silver through his trading skill when he sold them to the Arabs and to the wealthy men who lived in the golden city of Miklagard.
Magnus wished he was there now, with Jon, with the wind on his face and a fight to consider. He wished he had never met Zarabeth, never become ensnared with Lotti’s loving nature, never allowed himself to go back for her. But it had happened, and as he had told Zarabeth, nothing could change what had happened. But acceptance remained hard, for both Lotti and his son were dead. Dead and gone from him. But he couldn’t accept it. It held on to his mind, eating at him.
Zarabeth stirred, moaning softly, and he tightened his hold on her and kissed her temple. His wife.
On the morning of the third day, his parents packed their chests and prepared to leave.
“I have taught Zarabeth much,” Helgi told her son. “She is a bright girl, and willing. You have chosen well, Magnus.” She paused a moment, stroking her long fingers over her son’s soft white tunic. “But she is so hurt and raw. She tries to hide it, but it is hard for her. I watch her sometimes and I can tell that she has gone away, deep inside herself, where the pain lessens. As for you, Magnus, it isn’t as hard for you to hide what you feel, but your pain goes as deep as hers. You are more withdrawn than she is. The two of you together can heal each other, if you will but allow it. I don’t suppose you have yet told her that you care for her?”
He shook his head. “I do not care for her,” he said, and his voice was firm and strong and the lie was so evident to his mother that she had to duck her head away to hide her incredulous smile. “It is true. I had no choice. I was responsible for all that happened. It was my duty to fix what could be fixed. I could not allow Lotti’s sister to continue as a slave.”
Helgi continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Zarabeth is also a girl who has not known much affection, at least since her mother died. Thus, she lavished all her love upon the child. If you would let her, she would confer all that love on you. Can you imagine such love?”
“She should give me her love, and she will. She is my wife. She owes me her loyalty. She pledged it to me, you will remember.”
“You always were a stubborn boy,” Helgi remarked with some amusement. “But, my son, facts have a way of coming to look one in the face. Do not keep your eyes closed for too long a time, Magnus.” Helgi kissed him, found Zarabeth standing alone at the end of the hall, and hugged her close, saying, “Don’t forget that woad dyeing is very unpleasant in its process and in its smell, for ’tis such nasty stuff. But once you have bathed the cloth two times—forget not, Zarabeth, two times—then the beautiful blue will appear and you will think that it was worth it. It is, also, a very handsome color on Magnus. It matches the vivid blue of his eyes.”
“Two times,” Zarabeth said, and gave her mother-in-law a small smile.
Helgi blinked. It was the first time she had seen Zarabeth even attempt a smile. It transformed her face. She said a brief silent prayer and turned to her husband.
Ingunn left with her parents. Before she left, she said to Zarabeth, “I will find a way, you whore. Oh, aye, I will find a way.”
Zarabeth stared at her but said nothing. Ingunn was leaving. She wouldn’t have to deal with her again.
Even though fifty people lived and worked at the Malek farmstead, without Magnus’ parents and brother and their retainers, it seemed quiet, too quiet. Zarabeth found herself going every morning, after Magnus and his men had left to hunt, to the sacred place. It was a temple set inside a small circular wooden fence at the back of the farmstead. She didn’t know the rituals of the Viking religion, and no one bothered to tell her if what she did was right or not. Actually, she treated the small wooden temple as she would a Christian church. She knelt inside and prayed.
It brought her a measure of peace. She wished she could ask Magnus about it, but she didn’t. He was distant, seldom within her hearing and sight, and very quiet even when he was there. There was not much laughter now at Malek.
He offered her comfort and she recognized it in his silence, in the gentleness of his hand when he touched her shoulder. It was as if he knew when the black despair overcame her.
He didn’t touch her save to offer support and consolation. She was grateful, but she had no words to express that
gratitude. She existed, and endured.
She had been his wife for nearly two weeks when Magnus realized suddenly one morning, just looking at her, that lust once again was swelling his member. He wanted her. He watched her reach up to pull down an iron pot from a hook. The movement drew her gown tightly across her breasts. He looked and felt the familiar swelling of his member.
He drew a deep breath and slowly rose from his chair.
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