Lord of Falcon Ridge (29 page)

Cleve just stared down at her for the longest time. He knew no one else had seen that wink, just him. He said finally, his voice low and deep, “Now I understand exactly what Kerek meant. But heed me, Chessa, you play with things you don't understand. It frightens me and angers me. You will take care and you will act only when it is necessary, only when I am not present—”

He broke off, shaking his head, for she'd been in the right of it. He'd been gone. She'd been alone and she'd acted. She'd done exactly what he would have done. “Damnation, what is a man to do with a woman who could
have led soldiers into battle against the Romans?”

“That is Kerek's nonsense and you well know it.”

“Do I?” he said. “I wonder.” He added very quietly, “I suppose I shall just have to keep you close to me. I suppose I shall just have to love you. Will you accept that?”

She stared up at him. She'd wanted these words from him for so very long. She said only, “Aye, I'll accept that, husband, just as I accept you, forever.”

 

Three days passed without incident. Athol gave all of them a wide berth. As for Argana, she said nothing at all to Chessa, but since she'd never said anything in any case, nothing had changed. As for Cayman, she seemed more beautiful as each day passed, her flesh glowing, her eyes brighter than the gleam of the noonday sun. It was odd, but it was so, and she too remained silent.

Ah, but Varrick. He held himself apart from all except Cleve. It was as if he knew if he didn't make Cleve trust him, he would lose everything.

On the fourth day, Merrik said to Cleve and Chessa as they walked along the narrow path beside the loch, “Laren and I begin to believe we should return to Malverne. The men are restless. No, I will be honest with you. They are afraid of this place, of this monster Lord Varrick calls Caldon. They don't want to leave you here, Cleve, but they are afraid.”

Cleve looked at Laren, who was looking over the loch, searching for the monster, he knew. She spent all her time studying the loch at different times of day, searching, always searching.

Merrik said, “She wants to see the monster again. She remembers it vividly from that day of the attack, but she says it isn't enough. She wants it to come to her so she may speak to it. She will weave a skald's tale that will last until more generations than we can imagine believe in this monster and search for it as she does. She tries to seduce the beast from the depths of the loch.”

“I saw the monster just yesterday,” Kiri said, and everyone stopped and stared down at her. She was holding a piece of bright purple heather, sniffing it, and nodding up at them. “Caldon isn't a monster. Igmal is right. Caldon is a mother and she has many children, just like my two papas will have. She came to me and smiled. She has a very long neck, but she can bend it low enough so I can see her face. I told her that Lord Varrick isn't like my papas. I don't think she wants to come when he calls to her. She looked sad. She made me feel that there is something even beyond her that beckons her to him. Then she just sank beneath the water and I didn't see her again.”

Cleve stared down at his daughter, wondering if this story was real, knowing that it couldn't be, yet pleased that Kiri could tell such a splendid tale. Perhaps she had skald's blood in her as did Laren.

Laren said, “Kiri, you will tell me everything before you go to sleep tonight, all right?”

“Yes, Aunt,” Kiri said, and skipped away to break off more heather, as purple as the bruise on Chessa's upper thigh from Cleve's loving the previous night.

Cleve said, “This is my home. Chessa insists that where I am she will be also. She swears to me that she loves this savage land, that the mist now caresses her face like a lover's fingers.”

“Did I truly say that, Cleve?”

“Perhaps not so eloquently,” Cleve said. “We will stay. It is my home, my birthright. There is nothing for me at Malverne, Merrik. You are lord there and Laren is lady. Aye, Chessa, Kiri, and I will remain here. We must. And I have an idea that I hope my father will approve.”

“You could return to Duke Rollo's court in Rouen,” Laren said. “My uncle believes you to be the greatest of all diplomats, Cleve.”

“Chessa dislikes me as a diplomat.”

“Aye, he's like a snake his tongue is so smooth. If he weren't so beautiful I would never have paid attention to him at my father's court.”

Merrik laughed, shaking his head, but it ended quickly. He looked out over the loch. “The mist is rolling in from the sea again. It never ends. In Norway, there is frigid weather and more snow than a man can sometimes bear, but in the summer months, then the sun scarce ever leaves the sky, it is more beautiful than Laren's eyes.”

“We will become accustomed,” Chessa said. “Now, you wonder what to do. You fear to leave us here alone. If Varrick wanted us dead, then he would see that all of us were killed. Your men would make no difference. Leave, Merrik. Return to Malverne and your children. This is now our home.”

Merrik just shook his head, took his wife's hand, and said, “We will leave in two days, if nothing more happens.”

“I want to speak to Kiri,” Laren said, and hurried off after the child, who was trying to pat a sheep that was grazing on a hillside near a clump of heather.

“She wants to see that damned monster again,” Merrik said. “I pray she will, else my life will be a misery.” He smiled and walked swiftly after Laren.

 

 

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
Chessa took a final bite of porridge, and slowly licked the wooden spoon, for Argana's honey was as sweet as Cleve's kisses. She offered to assist Argana but the woman only shook her head. “Once you live here and aren't here as a guest, then you will have duties you select but not before then. Is it true that Merrik and Laren and all the Malverne men will leave soon?”

“Aye,” Chessa said. “There is no reason for them to remain. This is my husband's home, not Malverne.”

Argana gave her a look she couldn't begin to understand.

“What will you do, Argana?”

“What do you mean, Chessa? Do about what? About Varrick, my husband of eighteen years, the man who would have killed me with little regret? I will do nothing. What can a woman do about anything, save serve and hold her tongue when she's angry, mayhap even bite her tongue until it bleeds?”

“You could tell him he's a swine.”

Argana stared at her, then threw back her head and laughed. She couldn't seem to stop laughing. Chessa began to laugh with her. All looked at them, mouths agape, eyes furtively searching out the Lord of Kinloch. Chessa said, “Why is there no joy here? No laughter? You laughed and it is very nice, Argana, yet look at your people. They are
shocked that we laughed and perhaps even frightened.”

“Cayman laughs sometimes,” Argana said. “But she goes off by herself to do it. I've seen her in the hills, walking about, picking flowers just as your Kiri does, and she'll sniff the flowers and then smile, then perhaps she will laugh. It is a sweet sound. Cayman was always a sweet child and a sweet girl, but she has lived here all her life, and that, Chessa, is too long. You saved my life. I've said nothing about it to you because I—” She paused, staring down at the cut on her thumb. It was red and swelled. “I wonder how I did this. I have no memory of it.”

“It's ugly and must be tended. I have some cream that Mirana of Hawkfell Island gave me. You will rub it into the cut. It will heal.”

She left her then to go to the small chamber. In the sea chest at the foot of the box bed, she found the medicinal herbs Mirana had given her. She fetched the cream back to Argana and handed it to her. “Rub it in well, at least three times a day, and keep it clean. Mirana said healing comes more quickly if left to the open air.”

As Argana touched the white cream to the cut, there came a shadow that covered both of them. Chessa shivered, looking over her shoulder to see Varrick watching his wife as she smoothed the cream into the cut. “What are you doing, Argana?”

“I seem to have cut my finger, though I don't know how I did it. Chessa gave me some healing cream for it.”

Varrick looked for a brief instant as if he would grab the cream from her and hurl it into the fire pit, but then he only shrugged and said, “Chessa, I would speak to you. Cleve is with Kiri and Igmal, both of them teaching her to ride the pony I had Athol bring back to her from Inverness.”

Argana didn't even look up. If her finger that was smoothing in the cream paused a moment, that was the only sign that she'd even heard what her husband had said.

“All right,” Chessa said, smiling at Argana. “Don't forget, rub in the cream at least three times a day. The cut will heal very soon. Now, Lord Varrick, what is it you wish to
say to me? Something that will make me laugh? You need some laughter here at Kinloch.”

“I wish to speak to you of Caldon. I called to him early this morning, but he didn't come to me.”

“Perhaps Caldon is female,” Chessa said, her voice as cold as the spring to the south of the loch, surrounded with mossed rocks and slippery grass and overhung with full-leafed branches of maple trees. “Perhaps she grows tired of your orders and your domination.”

“Perhaps,” he said, and his voice was even colder. “Come walk with me, Chessa.”

She nodded. There was no reason not to. This man was her father-in-law. She would know him until he died. Unfortunately, at this moment, he looked fitter than the goat that was chasing Kiri into Igmal's arms. For an instant, she wondered about his magic, if there was such a thing, and she looked at the
burra
in its sheath at his belt. She remembered clearly the stark cold and frightening heat of it, and the image of her mother. She said to Argana, “I will walk with my father-in-law, Argana.” She felt him stiffen beside her, knew he hated her saying that, and it pleased her. She was determined that soon there would be laughter at Kinloch, that there would be normalcy—bickering, arguing, jesting, wrestling, children yelling at each other, all of it, all of what life was meant to be, not this coldly oppressive atmosphere that Varrick had brought to Kinloch.

“So, you wish to speak of Caldon?”

He said nothing until they were beyond the hearing of any of the Kinloch people. “The sun is bright this morning,” he said finally. “It is a fine day.”

She laughed. “Not for long, I wager. Every time I've believed that the sun would remain strong and bright, the mist rolled in and reduced it to nothing in but minutes. Should you care to wager about this, Varrick?”

“Why don't you call me lord?”

“You're my father-in-law. Why should I? Don't you know that I respect you since you're my husband's father?”

He looked as if he wanted to strangle her. “I will wager
that the sun remains high and strong today,” he said, his white slender hands still fisted at his sides. “If I am right, I want something from you.”

“What would that be?”

“I want you to bear my child.”

“You what?” She stared up at him, so surprised that no other words formed in her mind. “You
what
?” she said again.

“I can't kill my own son and take you. Thus you will be my concubine and bear my child. Cleve will never know. But the child we produce will have more skill in the magic arts than I have, than your father had, Chessa. You owe it to the force of all that remains hidden from mortals to produce a child who will claim an inheritance no man has ever possessed. Forget the stupid wager, I did not mean to say it. This is more important than you or your husband or anything. Tell me, Chessa, will you be my concubine? Will you bear my child who will be a great sorcerer?”

She stared up at him and said very calmly, “So Cleve was right. You would have killed Argana to have me. But it was a stupid plan, Varrick. Cleve was right again. What would you have done then? Killed your own son?”

“Nay, he wasn't right. I would have killed Argana because it was a matter of honor. I want you, but not as my wife since you are married to Cleve. Answer me now, Chessa. Will you bear my child?”

What was she to say? To do? She forced herself to say calmly, “Perhaps sometimes in the future, Varrick.”

“Nay, we mustn't wait. Men die in the flicker of an eyelid. It must be now.”

“I can't, Varrick,” she said, still calm, now smiling at him. “I am pregnant with Cleve's child.”

 

“You
what
?” Cleve stared down at her, too many memories running riot in his mind, unable to take in what she'd said. He'd been kissing her, caressing her breasts when she'd told him, just blurted it out without adornment. He just shook his head at her. He cupped her chin in his hand,
which was difficult to manage since he was on top of her. “Again, Chessa? Yet again you carry my child? I had believed we were well beyond your games by now. At least it isn't Ragnor's child this time.”

“Listen to me, Cleve, and you'll understand how clever I've been. Your father decided he wanted me to bed with him and bear his child.”

“He
what
?” Cleve smote his forehead with his palm, nearly falling on her. “You wait until you're making my eyes cross with pleasure and then you tell me that my father wants a babe by you? He's an old man, curse him. I'll slit his damned throat for this. He's as perfidious as Ragnor, just smarter, but this wasn't very smart. He wants to bed you? I'll kill him, Chessa, and you'll not gainsay me.”

“Nay, I won't gainsay you, Cleve. But listen to me. Varrick doesn't really want
me,
he just believes with all his soul that a child we would produce would be the greatest magician ever to live. He is old enough to be my father. When he wanted to speak to me, I looked at him and then at Argana and agreed that I'd go walking with my father-in-law. I thought he would choke me, but he didn't. He had this on his mind, you see. No, when he told me that the child he and I would produce would be the sorcerer of the millennium, that was when I told him I couldn't do it since it was your babe I carried in my womb. I don't know if you should kill him just yet.”

Cleve lifted himself off her. His desire was like the cool ashes in the fire pit, banked for the night. He sat on the edge of the bed, naked, his hands clasped between his knees. “My father wants my wife. Aye, I knew that, but after you stopped him from killing Argana, I believed it over. He knew that all of us realized his motive, thus I believed you safe from him. But this. By all the gods, what am I to do? I should kill him. That would end it once and for all. Ah, but that would leave Argana and her sons alone as well as all his people.”

She came up on her knees and hugged her arms around his chest. She kissed the back of his neck, breathed in the
scent of his flesh, the scent of his golden hair. She kissed the scar that ran down the side of his face. This time, to her joy, he didn't flinch away from her. She kissed his shoulder. “I'm sorry I told you when I did. You now have no more interest in matters of the flesh, do you?” She was looking over his shoulder.

He grunted but didn't turn to her.

“I told you, Cleve, because you must make me pregnant. We can no longer just think of lust, as we did last night and the night before and the night before that. We must now think very hard of a babe.”

He did turn back to her then, shoving her onto her back and coming over her. He balanced himself above her on his elbows. “My life has taken many strange turns. You're the strangest, Chessa. Nay, don't argue with me, you know it's true, you know that you've twisted me about and made me question everything that I was, everything that I ever wanted to be. You've been pregnant more times without producing a child than any woman alive. Now you've done it again. I have to think lustful thoughts. Every time I look at you I think of loving you, caressing you with my mouth, coming into you. A child follows when these thoughts become actions. There is naught more either of us can do. I don't suppose you told him how many months you were pregnant with my child?”

“He didn't ask,” she said, kissing Cleve's chin. “I think he was so surprised, that what I'd said was so unexpected, that it didn't occur to him. He's probably been thinking about it all through the afternoon and evening,” she continued, trying to pull him back down to her, but he wouldn't move, just stared down at her, now balancing himself on his hands. She stroked her hands down his back to his buttocks. He frowned at her, but she just squeezed and smiled up at him. “You feel so very nice,” she said, and arched up, but it didn't encourage him. Her fingers were between his thighs now, lightly touching him, searching, enjoying him.

“Don't,” he said, shaking his head at her. “I love you,
aye, that's true enough, though I never wanted to, but now that I do, I will just have to accept it, but even with this love I have for you I still have no interest in this, at least right now. Pay attention, Chessa. You must know that my father is at this very moment deciding what he will do. It worries me, Chessa, for he is ruthless. He wants you. By all the gods, must every man on this wretched earth want you? Must I constantly look at every man to see if there is lust in his eyes and that his eyes are fastened on you?”

“Ragnor didn't really want to marry me. He wanted to marry Utta or you.”

“I wish you'd say that another way. Now, be quiet and stop doing that with your hands. I mean it, Chessa, I must think, I must decide what is best to do. You're right, I can't kill him yet. Tomorrow you may be certain he'll want to know when the babe will be born. Oh, damnation, part your legs and let me take you. Perhaps my seed will come deep into your womb and you will accept it.”