“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 lee
red 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?”