Oleg merely nodded, keeping his head down, sipping only at his cup of ale. He didn’t want Deglin to see his growing rage. He wanted him to keep talking. Deglin had already drunk a good half dozen cups of the strong ale. At least now he was speaking of Laren. Oleg kept his features carefully blank. He waited. He suddenly had a clear memory of Laren lying over Merrik’s thighs while his friend cleaned the blood from the welts on her back. He wondered if Merrik could have possibly imagined that this thin pathetic girl would become his wife. He listened to Deglin speak of the worthlessness of both Laren and Taby, how they’d taken over, how they’d turned Merrik against him, how they deserved retribution, aye, and he would see that there was punishment for the bitch. The summer sun was warm on Oleg’s head, the breeze soft and sweet, filled with the scents of the ripening barley just beyond. He didn’t think it was too hot. He felt his skin warming and flexed his shoulders. He looked at Deglin then and drew back at the stark anger he saw on the man’s face, aye, and there was more. There was misery, deep pain that Oleg refused to see, misery he didn’t want to acknowledge or to understand. No, he wanted to take Deglin’s skinny neck between his two hands and squeeze the wretched life from him, but he didn’t. He sat there and listened and nodded and tried to look thoughtful from drink, a silly look, he knew.
Deglin, restless, his fingers fisting then relaxing, continued, his voice as bitter as the frigid winds of the winter solstice, “Aye, she’s a bitch and she should die. Look what she did to Erik and all have absolved her and just because she claims she is Rollo’s niece! By all the gods, it is madness to believe her, naught but a slave she is, and Merrik found her in Kiev. A slave, and that little brother of hers is probably her own child, a bastard and a slave.”
“You don’t believe she’s Rollo’s niece?”
Deglin spat on a pile of bones then kicked them. “She is a liar, and now she has won. Merrik has proven himself a weakling, easily led and gullible, not the man I believed him to be, not that he ever showed he was as brave as his poor brother, aye, he failed all of us, taking that viper to wed. I will leave. I should have gone with Thoragasson. He begged me to go with him, but I said I had to remain with Merrik, that I owed my loyalty to his family.”
Oleg wanted to tell him that all knew T
horagasson had decided he didn’t want him. If he couldn’t have Laren, he didn’t want to settle for Deglin. Thoragasson had said, his voice as cold as the Vestfold winter, “The man’s lowness offends me. I have to suffer my own daughter’s pettiness, Deglin’s I do not.” Oleg had wanted to tell him that Deglin should wed Letta and let them berate each other, but he’d been smart enough to keep quiet. Oleg said now, “Erik wanted the girl Laren very badly. It is obvious he followed her up the path to the peak. Did she strike him to protect herself? She says not. Even if she did strike him, why it would be to defend herself, would it not?”
Deglin suddenly looked austere, and it sat strangely on him since he was so drunk he could scarcely stand. “She is a slave. Erik could have raped her until his manhood rotted off. It was his right.”
Oleg just shrugged. “It matters not, for Merrik believes she didn’t kill Erik; most of the people believe her for she is Rollo’s niece and thus a lie wouldn’t be in her nature.”
“Ha! She killed Erik because she knew she had Merrik. Erik would never have set aside Sarla, so she had no choice but to kill the man who stood master of Malverne before Merrik. Aye, she wanted Malverne and now she’s won.”
“But she was unconscious. She’d knocked herself out hitting her head against a rock. I myself saw the lump on the back of her head.”
“Aye, she was unconscious, but that was after she’d struck Erik. She was running, panicked and heedless, to escape her crime.”
“I have wondered,” Oleg said thoughtfully, staring into the dregs of his ale at the bottom of the cup. “Aye, I have wondered if perhaps Erik was struck down so that Laren would be blamed for it, that she was the object of the hatred, not Erik. What do you think, Deglin?” With those words, Oleg looked directly into Deglin’s eyes. The man looked at once feverish and pale, deathly pale.
“Some dislike her, don’t trust her,” Oleg continued. “You, Deglin, hate her above all others. Did she not take what was yours? You have been skald here for five long summers. And now you are nothing. Aye, she stripped you of what belonged to you. Did she not also abuse you, make you feel less the man? Did she not make Merrik burn you when she accidentally fell into the fire?”
“Aye,” Deglin shouted, pounding his fists to his skinny thighs. “Aye, she did. I’ll tell all of it now. I have protected Merrik with my silence. But now I will speak the truth. It is time the bitch got her comeuppance, her punishment for her crime. No more protecting this family. I owe them nothing.” He drew himself up, straightened his thin shoulders. There was a pleased glitter in his eyes. There was no drunken slur to his words now, no clumsy movements. It was as if he’d suddenly become miraculously sober. “I saw her strike down Erik. Then she saw what she’d done and she ran. Aye, she knocked herself unconscious, but she killed Erik nonetheless. I swear to it. I saw it all happen. It wasn’t to protect herself from his rape, for she wanted him, and after she’d had him, when he was sated and lulled, she struck him on his head, killing him. Aye, I saw it all, I saw her murder Erik and I will swear to it.”
At that moment, Laren appeared, her face pale as the raw wool on the loom. “Why do you lie, Deglin? Why?”
“You faithless bitch!” Deglin yelled and bounded to his feet. “You have ruined everything! I had prestige and respect until Merrik found you in the slave ring. You stole everything that was mine, everything! You killed Erik. I saw you kill him, strike him hard with that rock, when he was still on top of you, his sex still between your legs, his reason still swamped with his lust. Aye, you killed him after you whored for him just as you do for his brother. You killed him because you wanted Malverne. Will you kill Merrik as well?”
She just stared at him. The violence of his hatred was numbing. She wanted to tell him that the two of them could have both told stories, that there were surely enough people to listen to both of them. Instead, all that came from her mouth was, “Why do you hate me so much?”
“I should have killed you when I saw you lying there, aye, I should have—” Deglin rushed at her, his hands outstretched, curved inward, as if already digging into her throat.
Oleg rose slowly, hurling his cup to the ground. His right hand shot out and he grabbed Deglin by his neck, raising him slowly, staring at him even as Deglin scratched wildly at his hand to free himself. “You would strangle Laren, you puling snake? You lie,” Oleg said directly into Deglin’s face. “You lie and now I know it and Merrik knows it. You killed Erik because you wanted Laren blamed. She remembered you standing over her, and you were smiling in triumph, for you had just come down from killing Erik. You are a fool, Deglin. Your jealousy and your malice have twisted your mind.”
He dropped the skald, dispassionately watching his knees buckle as he thudded hard to the ground. He was panting to gain breath, his hands rubbing wildly against his throat. Oleg raised his foot, but Merrik said, “No, Oleg, ’tis enough.”
Deglin looked up and saw Merrik. He felt the weight of the trap, felt all he’d ever known crumbling around him. He tried to speak, to defend himself, but his throat was bruised and he could only make small mewling cries. The pain brought tears to his eyes. He felt as though he were collapsing in upon himself.
“He deserves to die, Merrik.”
“Aye, Oleg, he does. He murdered my brother, his motives so base, it borders on madness. Take him to the blacksmith’s hut and have Snorri chain him near the fire pit. Let him bake in his own sweat.”
“No! I didn’t kill Erik. Aye, ’tis true that I saw her lying unconscious there on the path, and I was pleased for I had seen that Erik was dead. But she must have killed him. I know that she did!”
Laren watched Oleg drag Deglin away, his hands still clawing at his bruised throat, still trying to speak.
“It is over.”
“Aye, now I will ask you, my skald wife, what shall I do with Deglin?”
She was silent, looking over his left shoulder to the rich barley fields and the several blackbirds that were eating the crop. She saw a slave banging an iron pan with a heavy stick, startling the blackbirds, sending them squawking into frenzied flight.
“Not only did he kill Erik, he did it for the most base of reasons.”
“Aye, ’tis true. But I do not understand him. Why didn’t he simply kill me? He had no hatred for Erik. Why?”