Lord of Falcon Ridge (Viking Era 4)

At those words, the men very quietly stood, their weapons at ready. The man with his black tunic billowing out from the breeze coming through those open windows said, “You needn’t threaten me. I know you are your father’s son. I recognize you as your father’s son. Now look upon me, Ronin of Kinloch.”

“I am Cleve of Kinloch.”

Varrick merely nodded as he stepped down from that high wooden platform, and for the first time Cleve saw him clearly.

“By all the gods,” Merrik said. “I don’t believe this.”

“You are his stepfather,” Laren said. “His mother married you after his father died. This isn’t possible.”

Cleve stared into the man’s eyes—one golden eye and one blue eye. He stared into his own face.

“You are my son. I believed you lost to me for twenty years. You are home again.” Lord Varrick stretched out his hands and clasped Cleve’s upper arms. “You are my son,” he said again. “You are mine.”

“Papa,” Kiri said loudly. “I don’t like this. I want to count my sticks.”

A soft voice came from behind them, “She is the image of you, Cayman, the twin of you when you were small. She is beautiful. My brother, welcome home.”

Cleve had turned at the woman’s voice. He knew his sister, indeed he recognized her. She looked like their father, like a Viking woman, tall and blond and fair skinned. “You are Argana? Truly?”

“Aye, Cleve.”

Still, he didn’t touch her. She was only h

is half sister, he thought, still reeling, feeling the nearness of his father, the man he’d believed all these years to have sold him as a slave, to have taken what he’d wanted, not caring, only taking. This man in his black robes, standing on the platform, calling forth monsters during storms. It was difficult to think. He could feel Chessa beside him, questions flowing through her, no fear now, just all these questions and surely there had to be sense in all this. “Argana,” he said again. “It was our grandmother’s name, I remember mother telling me, for it is an odd name. I am only your half brother.”

“Our mother is still the same. What difference?”

“It is all too new to me as yet. I don’t know.”

“These are my sons, Cleve,” Argana said, turning to show him three boys standing behind her, protecting her, knives in their hands, the eldest nearly a man, the youngest about twelve years old. Cleve nodded to each of them. He froze at the sight of the youngest boy. He had one gold eye and one blue eye. His father was this boy’s father as well? He’d mated with Cleve’s sister?

Chessa said clearly, “I am Chessa and this is my stepdaughter, Kiri. You say she looks like Cayman. Who is Cayman?”

“She is my younger sister. Come here, Cayman.”

She was the most beautiful woman Chessa had ever seen in her life, all blond and white, with eyes so blue they pierced the gloom of the great hall. Her coloring was identical to Merrik’s, to most Vikings’, yet there was great fascination in her face, a face that surely looked younger than it really was. Would Kiri truly become this beautiful when she reached a woman’s years?

“Cayman,” Cleve said. “I remember you were skinny and your hair was always in tangles around your face. You were ten years old when I left.”

But surely that was impossible, Laren was thinking. She looked impossibly young and pure and so very innocent and at the same time alluring.

“Aye,” Cayman said. “And now I am nearly thirty years old, little brother. I am glad you’re not dead. None have spoken of you in many many years.” Suddenly, Lord Varrick said, “I have no small daughters. Kiri, you are my first grandchild. Will you come to me?”

He held out his arms to her. Kiri, as was her wont, studied him closely, his flowing black linen tunic with its billowing sleeves, his face that was like her papa’s, yet thinner and older. “You’re my grandfather?”

“Aye, I’m your grandfather. I am an old graybeard.”

“Will you let me stand in the light like you did? Will you let me look like a demon as you do?”

“Aye,” he said, and there was that same coldness in his voice, in the very presence of him, that made Chessa draw back. “I will let you stand in the sun if you like.”

Kiri slowly held out her arms to him.

Still, there was utter silence in that huge fortress. There were many men, women, and children standing about now, but they were saying nothing at all. Argana’s three boys were perfectly still and silent. Chessa watched Lord Varrick carry Kiri to the huge open shutters. He turned then and held her, facing them, the harsh sunlight streaming over both of them, sending their faces into shadows. Kiri’s head became a halo of spun gold.

22

CLEVE DISCOVERED WHEN darkness came that his wife was dangerous. She didn’t give him a chance, just jerked him into the small chamber Lord Varrick had offered to them, and pulled him down onto the box bed atop her. He’d never realized how a woman could tangle herself so completely with a man, but she did it. He was breathing hard, and she was biting his chin, kissing his ear, his jaw, all the while pulling madly at his clothes.