Free Season of the Sun by Catherine Coulter Page A

contempt for the child and scorned her. She felt fear, thick and raw, fill her, slow her thinking, make her react sluggishly.
    She had to get back to Magnus. He would get Lotti back. He would know what to do. “Magnus,” she said very quietly, but Olav heard her.
    â€œDon’t think it, girl. I will kill her the moment you go back to that bastard Viking. Now I will tell you more truths, Zarabeth. Lotti is not of my flesh, did you know that? No, that whore mother of yours, my dear wife, Mara, slept with another man, the same fool man she ran away with, but she left you, choosing herself and her bastard get over you, her only legitimate child. But the whore died and the little bastard is an idiot—”
    â€œShe isn’t! She was perfect until you struck her that night when you brought her home! And all because she was crying for her mother, you struck her, so hard that she was unconscious for two days! You are the bastard, rotten to your black soul, and you don’t deserve to—”
    â€œâ€”and she will also die if you don’t do exactly what I tell you to do.”
    Zarabeth raised her eyes to Olav’s face. “I wish I had a dagger. I would kill you.”
    â€œThen Lotti would surely be dead by the morning.”
    Zarabeth rubbed her palm over her cheek. It was still stinging. She said dully now, uncertain, more afraid than she’d ever been in her life, “You want me to wed with you?”
    â€œPerhaps soon. Not now. Now I would simply have you remain in my house. When you are morecomfortable with me, I will bed you. Then, if I wish it, you will become my wife.”
    It was nearly too much to understand. She shook her head, but the pounding only increased, and with it, her despair.
    His voice softened and he came down on his haunches beside her. “Listen to me, girl. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t force me to. I want you willing and smiling. I want you the way you were before you met the Viking.” He frowned at his own words. No, he didn’t want her to return to being the way she’d been before the Viking—she’d been unconscious of him, not really seeing him, suffering his presence, actually.
    She lay there, balanced up on her elbow, unconsciously pulling back from him. She smelled the sweet violets she had sprinkled into the rushes that covered the packed earthen floor. She looked toward the glowing embers in the fireplace. She looked at her neatly stacked pails and pots and wooden trenchers on the wide shelf in the cooking area. Everything looked so blessedly normal. Yet she was afraid, she felt paralyzed with fear. All the violence in Dublin, all the killing and hatred between the Viking rulers and the petty Irish chieftains, all was but a vague memory. Even the battles between King Alfred and King Guthrum seemed unsubstantial to her now, though the battles had scarred every family she knew, bringing death and tears and torn bodies. No, it was far away, that violence. The true violence was here in this house, and this was real. She stared at Olav, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do.
    Lotti. The child had no one but her, no one to understand her, to care for her. No one but her sister, Zarabeth.
    She felt tears spring to her eyes and sniffed them back. Crying was good for naught. Crying was for the helpless, and she wasn’t that, at least not yet.
    Olav spoke again, his voice more wheedling, more cajoling. “Come, Zarabeth, say you’ll bid this Viking farewell. Say you’ll tell him you’ve decided against marriage with him. He’ll sail away, and all will become again as it was. It’s so easy, Zarabeth. Just promise me you will tell him. You’ll see him tomorrow in the square, and you will tell him you don’t want him for your husband.”
    She shook her head. “No, Olav. I won’t tell him that. I want him and I think I will come to love him. I won’t lie to him for