Lord of Falcon Ridge (25 page)

Cleve flinched; he couldn't help it. “His name is Varrick. You know, what I remember most clearly is the coldness. Even curled next to the fire pit, I was always cold. Everyone in that longhouse was cold. And he was the coldest one of all. He made the cold. I think he's a white gentile, just like you are, Merrik, despite the darkness of his hair. My mother was a Dalriada Scot. I can see him as if I were a small boy again, standing in front of him, staring up at him—he was a giant to me for I was small—and I knew he must hate me since my older brother and I were the heirs to Kinloch, that he must want us dead, that he would kill us, it was just a matter of time. I was terrified of him. He never hit me, never touched me. He would just look down at me as if I were something of mild interest to him, nothing more. He was big, as are most Vikings, but
he was thin I remember, for once I saw him naked in the bathing hut and I could see his ribs. He was very young, no older than I am now. As I said, his hair was dark and he usually wore it loose around his face. His face, by the gods, his face was so cold, just as he was, and he treated everyone with that same coldness, even my mother and my sisters, particularly my elder brother. Everyone was terrified of him, why, I don't know. He liked to lift me up so my face was right in front of his and he'd shake me—never hard enough to hurt me—and I'd shrivel into nothing. But then he'd smile at me and that made me all the more terrified of him. Many times he hugged me against him and I was so frightened I often forgot to breathe. I remember he told me I was his, only his, and I would be what he wanted me to be. And I wasn't to forget it, ever.

“I remember one night he came into the longhouse after standing on the edge of the promontory that overlooks Loch Ness. A storm was raging outside. He was wearing black, I think he always wore black, and there were strange blue markings on his face. No one said a word. But I remember again the coldness of him and of how he made me feel.

“I remember he hated filth. He wouldn't allow any blood to be seen on anyone. When the men came in from a kill, they couldn't show themselves until their bodies and clothes were clean. He abhorred animal flesh, I remember that clearly. I can see him looking at my mother when she once forgot and offered him a platter of roasted deer. He took the platter from her and then put it on the ground at his feet for his dogs. He looked at her and said she would regret that.

“It's strange, but before that, I remember laughter and fighting and quarreling, everyone, the men, the women, the children, and everyone shared and worked together.” Cleve sighed. “Then again, I must have been very young. Maybe I dreamed that once everything was different, mayhap it wasn't. But I do remember my mother coming to my pallet at night and holding me and telling me that one day my brother would become Lord of Kinloch and my brother
would see that I served him well and honored me. She had to know that he would rid himself of my brother and of me. She had to.”

Laren leaned forward, her vibrant red hair glistening in the light of the leaping fire, thick and damp with the mist that hung low over them. “I remember you told us your mother died. Do you remember this, Cleve? Did this Varrick kill her?”

“I don't know. She died just before I was taken. I remember thinking when I was well enough to think, Why me? Why not my brother? He was, after all, the heir to Kinloch. But I was the one struck, I was the one left for dead, I was the one found and nursed back to health, then sold as a slave.” He paused, “Look over Loch Ness. Look at how very murky it is. That's because of all the peat moss in it. Even when there's no mist, even with a bright sun overhead, you can't see very far beneath the surface. It's also said that the loch is bottomless, that any who fall into it will never come up. It's said that there are caves honeycombing the sides and that bodies wash into those caves and are held there for the monster.”

“You remember all that?” Merrik asked, knifing down one final bite of the deer stew. “Ah, Laren, that was delicious.”

Cleve grinned. “Nay, I listened to several men at the market today. A fisherman had just disappeared in the loch. They told me all about it. They made little attempt to find him since they know he's dead and there's no hope of regaining his body for burial. Never does anyone venture onto the loch after sunset.”

“This man you describe,” Laren said, “He does rather sound like this Lord of the Night, this Lord of Evil. He wore black and pranced about in raging storms, he painted his face blue. What sort of markings were they, do you remember, Cleve?”

“I only remember squares and circles. I was only five or six years old, Laren. Perhaps not even that.”

“This was all twenty years ago,” Chessa said. “That's
a very long time, but it seems your stepfather is still very much alive. I am anxious to see him. I like the notion of him wearing black and prancing about. It makes my mind spin.”

“Oh, no,” Cleve said, and slapped his hand against his forehead. “Not more chaos from you, Chessa. Be quiet, and think only calm thoughts.”

“We'll discover the truth tomorrow,” Merrik said. He turned to his wife, who was leaning against his shoulder, staring with her skald's dreamy eyes into the fire. “Have you already begun to weave your tale, sweeting?”

“Aye, my lord. It is the ending that eludes me. I want to know more about this monster.”

“There is one,” Cleve said, and every man leaned forward, silent and alert. He felt a ripple of fear, of the unknown, grip them. It gripped him as well. “It's said that the monster lives in Loch Ness and has for thousands of years. Whether it is good or evil, no one knows. The men who were speaking of the monster said he's seen not just on clear nights beneath the moonlight, but during the day as well, at any time. It's said the monster comes out during storms only when it's called. Perhaps that is why my stepfather is a fiend. They believe he calls the monster out.”

“This has all the makings of a fine tale,” Laren said, and yawned. “My lord.” She offered her hand to her husband and he pulled her up and into his arms.

There was no choice that night. Kiri would sleep with her two papas. Cleve wanted Chessa so much he nearly moaned aloud with his need for her. As for his wife, she just looked at him wistfully, kissed him when Kiri turned away, then sighed when the child whipped about and frowned up at her, jealousy clearly writ on her small face. Chessa said, “I'm a princess, Kiri. I can kiss anyone I want to. Even you.” She grabbed up the little girl, tossed her into the air, then caught her and kissed her loudly on her little mouth.

Laren said to Cleve, “She does well with Kiri. I knew that one day you would wed, but I also knew that Kiri wouldn't like it at all. You made an excellent choice, Cleve.”

“Ha,” he said. “I made no choice at all. It was she who picked me with my hideous scarred face and my eyes that don't match.”

“I wish you would stop that,” Laren said, shaking his woolen sleeve. “You're a dangerous-looking devil, aye, that's true enough, and it makes all the women shiver with the thought of what you'd do to them. As for those eyes of yours, well, if it weren't for Merrik standing not an inch behind me, I'd leap on you, just like Chessa always seems to want to do.”

“Aye, and after you'd leapt at me, Laren, Merrik would kill me,” Cleve said. “You think me dangerous, Laren?”

“Oh, aye,” she said. She said over her shoulder as Merrik just laughed and tugged at her hand, “Your eyes will very likely seal your claim to your birthright. No one could be certain you were the same child who returned as Cleve, but your gold eye and your blue eye, all would remember that.”

“She's right,” Merrik said. “I fear only that this Lord Varrick will simply stick a knife between your ribs or poison you. Now, wife, I'm weary to my bones. But not weary in other places.” He led his wife to their small tent, set apart from the other men's, her merry laughter sounding in their ears.

Chessa grabbed Cleve by his ears. “You mustn't listen to other women, husband, even Laren. Saying she would leap on you if Merrik weren't close. Bah! They will make your head grow fat and filled with thoughts of your own beauty. You must only listen to me. I will never lie to you.”

“And what will you tell me, Chessa?”

“That when you look at me I want to make you part of me forever.”

He just stared down at her. “I asked, didn't I?”

“And I would leap on you even if Merrik is close. As for Kiri—”

“Papa, I'm tired.”

“Aye, sweeting, we'll sleep now.” He sighed again, very deeply. Chessa sighed as well.

 

 

L
OCH
N
ESS GLISTENED
beneath a morning sun. There was no soft mist to bathe the surrounding green hills and sloping forests of pine and oak beneath a mysterious white veil. The land looked lonely and magical, savage and unforgiving. Chessa could easily see the undergrowth of holly and hazel from the warship. Heather was everywhere, colorful blooms rioting over rocks, very close to the shore. The land had a wild and forlorn look. A golden eagle flew overhead, an osprey close behind it. She heard buzzards squawking. It was warm, the water was calm, and the men rowed smooth and cleanly through it. It was a large loch, fresh water, and very wide. But still the water wasn't a clear rich blue like the fjords at home, no, just below that clear surface it was dark. Chessa didn't want to fall in that water.

“Is it really bottomless, Cleve?” Chessa said, gazing down into the murky water.

“That's what the men said.”

“Perhaps we'll see the monster. Did the men say what it looked like?”

“There are many descriptions, beginning with Saint Columba over three hundred years ago. A sea serpent, most say, with a long skinny neck and a small head. The men talked of humps, but none could agree on the number.”

“There it is,” Eller called out, “Kinloch.” He pointed
to the outcropping on the western side of the loch. It was high and stark and there was a huge wooden fortress atop it, no simple farmstead. It would be impenetrable, save from the land, which was a narrow strip that had been shorn of all foliage. Just a barren wide path that led to the longhouse. Only it wasn't a longhouse, it was nothing like Malverne. It was a fortress. There were no outbuildings beside it, just the stark huge wooden building that sprawled over the entire top of the promontory.

The outbuildings, at least twenty of them, were clustered around the loch at the land end of the promontory, low squat wooden buildings with sod roofs. There were pens for cattle and sheep and goats. There was a large smokehouse, a bathing hut, a privy, two slave huts. It was a huge farmstead with fields of barley and rye and oats growing thick and tall behind the outbuildings, climbing upward to the fir-covered hills beyond, the barley turning the fields gold. Surrounding the entire land was a high wooden palisade, thick pine trunks lashed together with leather cord, reaching at least eight feet high. The end of each pine was sharpened into a fearsome point.

“It is a safe place,” Merrik said. “I would never worry that my property would be overrun by the Scots or the Picts or the Britons. As you did, Cleve, I listened well in Inverness yesterday. There are always raids, just forays really. There are no longer the ferocious fights between the Vikings and the Scots and the Picts since McAlpin became king in the last century.” He turned to Chessa. “He united the Scots and the Picts and moved their center far to the west, in Scone. Their king now is Constantine.”

Cleve said slowly, staring up at that immense wooden fortress. “I remember that just to the left inside the huge doors extends a thick wooden joint in the shape of a long sea serpent head. There are deep grooves in it and the cooking pots hang from it by chains. When the meal is done, one of the women simply moves the head from over the fire pit. I remember looking up at it, terrified because it looked so very real. My mother laughed and told me the monster
served her and thus it wouldn't ever hurt me.”

“Cleve, you said your mother died shortly before you were nearly killed. Do you remember any more about her?”

He shook his head. “No, I just remember that her hair was nearly as red as Laren's, her eyes as green as yours, Chessa. She was small.”

“Now,” Merrik said, stroking his brown hand over his chin. “What do we do? I can't imagine that your stepfather particularly wants to see your face again. I imagine he believes himself long safe from you after he sent you away. He must believe you long dead. We cannot storm that fortress, Cleve. It is impossible. There's something else, and I know you've thought of it. Your brother, he must be dead, perhaps struck down when you were.”

“I know,” Cleve said. “I know. Now, I will go alone to the palisade and ask to see Lord Varrick. I will tell him that I am here to discuss matters of grave importance to him.”

“Ha,” Chessa said. “I don't like your diplomat's voice, Cleve. This man doesn't sound reasonable like my father or like Duke Rollo. There is no chance I will let you go in alone. I've thought about this as have you.”

“I'll count sticks, Papa, if you leave me,” Kiri said.

“Aye, you may accuse me of coercing your daughter,” Chessa said. “But we won't let you go in there alone. Laren and Merrik will come as well. With the women and Kiri, no one could believe us to be enemies. Also, my lord Cleve, I am a princess. Never forget that. And Laren's uncle is Duke Rollo. Surely your stepfather isn't stupid.”

That was beyond foolish, but Cleve let it pass as did Merrik's men, though they stared at their lord as if he'd just relieved himself on his own leg. None knew what could happen. But they also knew they couldn't just stand here and wait. Chessa was a princess, the gods knew they'd all suffered enough for that fact.

Cleve didn't want Chessa or Kiri anywhere near him, but when he tried again to argue with Chessa, she just looked at him and said, “Nay, don't even think it. You are my
husband. I will not let you go into that place alone. I will count sticks with Kiri.”

Cleve cursed. Their small group left all the men aboard the ships on the loch and walked to the wide palisade gates.

An old man called down to them from atop the rampart that ran along the inside of the wooden palisade. Cleve, as Chessa listened with a grin on her face, said, “I have news for Lord Varrick. As you see, we have a warship and a trading vessel and both are in the loch. All our men await us there. We mean no harm nor do we mean to attack. We are but two men and two women and a child. Take us to Lord Varrick.”

The old man spat, nodded, and opened the gate. Four men immediately appeared, ferocious-looking men in red deerskins, none of them either white or black gentiles, but men shorter than Cleve and Merrik, dark haired and dark eyed. Their faces were etched with dark blue paint in circular and rectangular patterns. They looked vicious and deadly.

Kiri tried to climb up Cleve's leg. “Papa, they're monsters.” She buried her face against his knee. “They'll cut off our fingers and roast them over a fire.”

One of the men laughed, actually laughed, and it was a terrifying sound. “Nay, little one, we're not monsters save to our enemies. Come and we will take you to Lord Varrick. Whether he will see you is another matter.”

Two of the men marched in front of them, the other two behind. Cleve's knife was secured at his waist as was his sword and axe, Merrik's as well. None of the men tried to take their weapons. A weapon was just part of a man's clothing. Chessa had her own knife strapped to her thigh, as did Laren. Neither husband knew, and the women had decided that ignorance would suit them best.

“Men,” Laren had said as she handed Chessa a piece of stout leather to secure the knife to her leg, “men just don't understand that women need to know they can protect them. They would scoff at such a notion. But Merrik is mine. I won't allow anyone to hurt him. He was stabbed
once in Rouen and didn't tell me. I wanted to kill him.”

Chessa was entirely in agreement with Laren.

It was about one hundred steps, the land slightly rising with every step, to the huge fortress atop the promontory. Cleve was right, Chessa thought, as she gazed at it. She was getting colder by the moment even though the sun shone starkly down on her head. Oddly enough, the cold was on the inside. It made no sense at all.

The man who'd spoken first to them turned at the great door and said, “You will stay here. Hold the child. There are dogs and they might run over her and hurt her.”

Cleve lifted Kiri into his arms. She was frightened, but she didn't say a word. He was proud of her.

They stood there before that huge oak door, weathered to dark brown, the iron bars on the door looking older than time itself. Surely this fortress hadn't been built all that long ago. Had his father built it? His grandfather? Cleve stared up at the fortress, trying to bring memories of it from his boyhood. It didn't seem smaller. Surely that couldn't be right. It seemed the same yet very different. He had a flash of an ancient memory—streams of people, all carrying things, chatting, yelling at each other, dogs barking, children screaming and playing. Then it was gone, replaced by this impossibly cold fortress that looked older than the hills themselves. The air itself was laden with pervasive silence. They'd seen slaves working in the fields, but there'd been no talk amongst them. There were men, some Vikings, others like these four who were short and dark and painted with the blue markings on their faces. A score of women were washing clothes, others were stringing salmon to dry for the upcoming winter. Everyone was busy but everyone was silent. It was eerie. Cleve felt Kiri shiver in his arms.

“It's all right, sweeting,” he said against her ear.

The man opened the door and said, “Lord Varrick will see you.”

They walked through the door into a huge house of darkness. The immense hall wasn't empty. Women stood over
the cooking pot at the fire pit, stirring with a huge wooden spoon. Two other women sat at their looms set against the wooden walls. There were at least a dozen men working their weapons, all of them silent. At the end of the immense hall, light flooded into the darkness through two huge open wooden shutters. The stream of light was harsh and heavy. In that stark light, standing on a wooden platform, stood a man dressed in black. He didn't move, just stood looking at them, silhouetted in the beam of bright sunlight. He remained motionless, as if he weren't really there, as if he were some sort of ghost appearing suddenly to drive them mad. Kiri whimpered softly and pressed her face into her father's neck.

There was still no movement, no talk. No one seemed to breathe.

“Come here,” the man said, his voice deep and resonant, filling every corner of the huge hall.

Cleve gave Kiri to Chessa. “Stay with your second papa. Don't be frightened. He is entertaining us just as would Laren, only he does it with light and shadow, black and white. More black than white, but that's all right.”

Cleve said aloud as he walked toward the giant of a man standing with legs spread atop that high wooden platform, “You are lucky there is no mist overhanging the land and loch today. Otherwise you wouldn't look like a demon from the Christian's hell.”

“Ah,” the man said, still not moving, just staring down at Cleve, whose face was alight with the sun and couldn't see the man's face clearly because he was in the shadows. “What you say is true, but there are other ways to make men shudder with fright, to bring them to their knees, to make them obey me. You understand this. Who are you?”

“I am Ronin of Kinloch, but I have been known as Cleve for so many years that I think of myself as Cleve of Kinloch.”

At last there was noise, people staring at him, speaking now behind their hands, none knowing what to do, how to react. Not one of the men moved from their posts. Cleve
thought Varrick had them very well trained. He had no fear of this man, just hatred, and yet he didn't know how he was going to wrest what was rightfully his away from this man who looked like a demon standing there, his face in the shadows even as the light cascaded around him. Cleve was a man of thought. He was a diplomat. He would trust his wits.

The man merely stared down at him, not moving, not speaking. There was a sudden shift of breeze from behind him, sweeping into the immense hall, and his black tunic billowed, making him look all the more terrifying.

“Where are my sisters?”

“They are here. You say you are Ronin? We have long believed you dead. You disappeared twenty years ago, surely too long a time for a child to survive into manhood. Are you truly who you say you are?”

“I remember my mother telling me I was the very image of my father. Look closely at me, Lord Varrick. Do you see resemblance between me and the man you replaced so very long ago?”

The man said in that same cold voice, “No, there is no resemblance to you and your mother's first husband. How came you by the scar on your face?”