Mirana and Rorik could only stare, as did all their other people.
“This is passing strange,” Rorik said, then clasped Mirana’s fingers with his. “Why doesn’t Hafter clout her? Why does he just look at her so pathetically? By the gods, he would kill a man if he struck him, much less tried to destroy his manhood.”
“He has a care for his hide, though he did sound as though he were dying,” Mirana said.
“He was, or at least he prayed that he would. The pain is beyond normal suffering. It is worse than belly cramps, worse than a knife wound in the shoulder. I wonder what he will do to her once he recovers himself sufficiently. Unlike Hafter, when you tried to unman me, I was fast and saved myself from dire pain. Poor Hafter didn’t have a chance. Entti still surprises me.”
“She cooks very well.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. All you damned women—”
She giggled. It was an odd sound, an unexpected sound. He stared down at her. Slowly, he smiled, showing his even white teeth. Then he leaned down and lightly kissed her mouth.
“Let us go to the food tables and leave Hafter and Entti to sort themselves out.”
It was late. The beautiful day had become somber, with dark storm clouds thickening overhead. The wind was whipping up the crops and making the more narrow fir trees bend and sway. The birds had quieted as had the animals and the children. Even Kerzog was still, lying with his big head on his front paws, asleep, for he’d eaten every scrap of food thrown to him, and still begged for more.
The rain began. It was quickly dark. Rorik was smiling like an idiot, Mirana walking at his side, toward his sleeping chamber.
He fastened a rush torch light to the holder in the wall, then turned to face his wife. Her face was flushed for she’d drunk a bit of his small store of wine from the rich vineyards south of the Seine herself. She looked beautiful. She pleased his eyes and his senses. At the moment, he didn’t care why he’d married her. If something was done it was done and nothing could change it, a philosophy his sire had dinned in his ears since he was a boy.
It was indeed done, and now he would have her, surely an excellent consequence of this marriage.
“I have only one other gown,” Mirana said, fingering the fine cream wool of her overtunic. “This beautiful tunic and gown I will pack in your trunk. I was careful not to stain it.”
“Aye, you were,” he said. “Let me remove the brooches for you. It is one of Asta’s gowns, from many years ago. She told me she’d been saving it, for what she didn’t know, just that she was far too stout to wear it now.”
“The women have all been more than kind to me.”
“Aye. I didn’t understand it. Perhaps someday one of you will explain it to me. But it is good now that you are my wife and their mistress.”
As he unfastened the brooches, Mirana said, “I have no weapons.”
“No, you don’t. But I do.”
“I always had my own knife, since I came to Clontarf. Gunleik gave it to me.”
“Ah, the one you used to prick my throat?”
She nodded.
“If you don’t wish to use it to torment me or to flay the flesh from me, then what is your reason for having it?”
He laid the brooches on top of his chest, and stepped back to watch her as she eased the tunic down over her hips, stepped out of it, and carefully folded it. He watched her lay it gently in his chest, placing the brooches on top of it.
She straightened then and turned to say very seriously, “It was just a part of what I wore every day, like my gown or my shoes.”
“You’re a woman.”
“Aye,” she said, standing very close to him now, her gown very much still in place. “This is very strange, Rorik. Are you certain about the king? Would Einar truly have dishonored me by selling me to him?”
“That is what Kron said.” He waited, wishing she would tell him that her fear of that hadn’t pushed her into marriage with him. She said nothing. Well, he’d given her an excellent reason for accepting him, and if it had been her reason, why then, it was his own fault, his own doing. She slipped off her shoes and toed them across the floor until they were lying against the trunk.
She looked up at him then. “Many girls are sold in marriage, their consent unimportant. Perhaps Einar thinks he honors me. The man is, after all, a king. Perhaps—”
“Don’t weave a false thread, Mirana. Einar had no more notion of honoring you than would a bear.”
“You’re right. If he believed it would honor me, why then, he would have told me, bragged of his negotiations to me, of his brilliance. He kept silent.”