Lord of Falcon Ridge (Viking Era 4)

“I doubt that not,” Turella said, “but you beat the monster, Kerek. As for the princess, she looks none the worse for her adventure.”

“I had her bathed and newly garbed,” Kerek said. “She is beautiful, sire, is she not?” He would tell Turella all that had happened later, after Chessa and Ragnor were married, when they could finally be alone. He wondered if she would believe it, or just smile at him in that mysterious way of hers.

“Aye, she’s well enough, but she’s still not Utta,” Ragnor said, his first words to her. “This mead is foul.” He threw the empty glass from him and it crashed onto a bare plank and shattered.

Turella sucked in her breath. “That belonged to my mother,” she said. “I brought it from the Bulgar.

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“She was an old crone,” Ragnor said. “I remember she hit me when I was a small boy. She only came to York that one time, and she hit me. I will break all of them since I know now where they come from.”

Turella said gently, “Chessa will be your wife, Ragnor. You will wed with her this evening. Kerek has agreed to travel to Hawkfell Island and memorize the way this Utta prepares mead. Then you will have a queen who will breed your heirs, and the mead that suits you so well.”

“I still don’t have Isla,” Ragnor said.

“No, and you never will,” his mother said. She tightened her hand on his shoulder and he winced. “Now, my son, tell the princess that she’s lovely and that you desire above all things to have her for your wife.”

Ragnor looked at Chessa, a sullen look, but then suddenly that looked changed. He stared at her breasts. There was lust in his eyes. Her breasts were fuller now, from the baby, and she saw that he wanted her.

She said loudly, her voice clear and carrying far, “I can’t marry you, Ragnor, no matter how much I would wish to since you’re such a splendid man, since you would give me jewels and splendid clothes, and the gods know that’s what I’ve always wanted in life, but listen, Ragnor, I’m pregnant with Cleve’s child.”

Why had she said it? she wondered, watching Ragnor laugh until he was holding his sides. It was unfortunate that lies always seemed to come back to torment.

Turella said to Kerek, “Will anyone be looking for her?”

“Aye, Cleve will search everywhere for her, but he won’t even consider that we came for her. It would be a mad thought. If he thinks about it, he will dismiss it. Eventually he will have to believe she’s dead, perhaps fallen into that miserable loch and drowned.”

“She is married to Cleve?” Turella said.

“So, the bastard’s still not dead,” Ragnor said, and shouted to one of the men, “Bring me more mead! Pour it into one of the blue glass goblets.”

“Aye,” Chessa said. “I’m married to Cleve. He’s very much alive and he’s returned to his home on Loch Ness. But he’ll come after me. He’ll search for me, not find me, and then he’ll sit down and think. He’ll realize you kidnapped me again and he’ll come to York and kill all of you. He should have killed Ragnor before but he held his own anger in check because he believed the Danelaw should remain in Viking hands as long as possible. Aye, he’ll come for me and all of you will regret it. If you don’t believe that, you’re all fools, you most of all, Turella. You met Cleve. You know the kind of man he is.”

Ragnor looked at his fingernails and frowned at the hangnail on his thumb. “I wanted to kill him, but Kerek, you stopped me, then told my mother to stop me.” He sent his mother a drunken frown. “How do you know Cleve? Surely he didn’t come to you, did he?”

“Nay, son, the princess is mistaken. Don’t think of it further.”

“I tried to kill him before, but the damned assassin failed. I would have slit his throat had not Cleve killed him first. Who would have believed a damned diplomat could be skilled as a warrior?”

Chessa stared at him. She said very quietly, “What do you mean, ‘you tried,’ Ragnor?”

“Your beautiful bitch of a stepmother. Aye, Sira. Both she and I wanted him dead. He came to negotiate a marriage between you and William of Normandy. She didn’t want it. She wanted her son to marry into the French royal family. By then I decided that I would take you. But Cleve killed the assassin and there was no other chance.”

Chessa felt rage strangle her. She opened her mouth, but there were no words. She was on Ragnor in an instant, her fingers closing around his throat, squeezing, screaming at him, “I saw it all, you damned coward! I myself threw a knife into the assassin’s back, but Cleve’s knife went into his throat and you’re right, he killed him. It was you? It was that wretched stepmother of mine? The two of you plotted his death? Oh, aye, I believe it. I saw her too, hiding in the shadows. I didn’t recognize who it was. Damn you, Ragnor, I’ll kill you now!”

She would have killed him if Kerek hadn’t pulled her off. Even he needed help. She was held against his chest, panting, rage unbanked in her eyes, wanting only to kill him. “I wouldn’t marry you no matter what you threatened. If you force me to somehow, I’ll kill you, Ragnor, and unlike the assassin you and Sira hired, I won’t fail.”

“Stop it,” Turella said very calmly. “Quiet, child. Come now, I didn’t know about this. You must be calm. You must think of the child.”

“Child?” Ragnor said, staring at her breasts again. “That’s just a simple jest, Mother. Chessa has been pregnant many times and it’s never true. No one ever believes her. Now she tried to kill me. If I weren’t a man who was gentle with weak and fragile women, I wouldn’t have let her touch me, but I didn’t want to hurt her. You understand, don’t you, Mother?”

“Aye,” Turella said. “I understand, my son. Chessa, come with me and we will speak together. Just you and I, two reasonable women.”

But Chessa just smiled at her and shook her head. “Nay, my lady. I won’t speak with you. I won’t do anything.”

“You’ve changed,” Turella said, frowning at her. “Ah, Ragnor, here’s your mead. Why don’t you take it and go speak to Captain Torric. We will leave in the morning at first light. You and Chessa will wed tonight.”

Ragnor, Kerek holding his arm, managed to stagger from the enclosed space. He drank down the mead in another blue glass goblet, looked back at his mother, and threw the goblet over the side of the warship. He giggled.