Lord of Raven's Peak by Catherine Coulter

log. The longboat shuddered and rocked.
    â€œWhat do you mean your tent, girl?” Deglin called out, his skald’s voice deep and clear and cold as the layers of water beneath the longboat. “Merrik sleeps there with you. We should ask you not to cry out so loudly when he plows your belly at night.”
    Merrik said very calmly, “That is enough, Deglin. Your own vanity and conceit deprived you of the men’s interest. You went off to sulk, to punish us by refusing to continue the story. Blame not the girl.”
    â€œShe is no skald!” Deglin yelled. “She is nothing—a slave, a pathetic scrap you should have killed and left in Kiev! I don’t wish to hear her befoul my skills with her foolish attempts. She is naught but a woman and a woman has no use save for what is between her legs and the skill she brings to the cooking pot. She shows those skills, ’tis enough.”
    Very slowly Merrik rose. He handed the still-sleeping Taby to Cleve, who’d been silent as a tomb.
    He loomed over Deglin, who now looked uncertain, though there was still fury and hatred in his eyes and he was looking toward Laren.
    â€œI told you not to blame her,” Merrik said again.
    â€œBut she—”
    Merrik leaned down and grasped Deglin’s tunic. He drew him upright and held him very close. “No more else I will make you regret it.”
    Deglin said, his skald’s voice soft now and pleading, filled with deep sincerity, “Nay, my lord, I wish noinsult to you, but she . . . ah, you have the right of it. I should have done what you wished without showing my displeasure, without showing vexation. I will continue the tale. I don’t wish to deprive the men further. There is no need to listen to her again.”
    Merrik was in a quandary. He released Deglin and returned to sit down on his own sea chest. He looked at Laren, but her head was down and he couldn’t see her expression. Deglin was the recognized skald. He saw no choice. He said then, “Tonight Deglin will continue the tale of Grunlige the Dane.”
    No one said anything. Merrik seated himself again. The longboat righted and ran along smoothly in the water. Aye, everything was just as it should be again and Laren felt rage build within her. But she’d learned during the past two years to hide her rage, though with Merrik she hadn’t succeeded very well. But now she must. She didn’t want to, but she looked toward Deglin. He was smiling at her and it wasn’t a nice smile.
    The four silver coins. There would be no more to add to them.
    That night, she worked beside Old Firren and Cleve to prepare the evening meal. She paid little attention to the men’s talk as they went about their familiar tasks. She worked, saying nothing, knowing she must be grateful because she was alive and Taby was alive. The night was clear overhead, the stars brilliant, the moon nearly full. They were camped close to shore, the longboat pulled onto the narrow beach and covered with pine branches. The tents were up, several fires lit, and now the smells from her venison stew filled the soft evening air.
    After the meal, when the men lay about on their furs, warm by the fires, their bellies full, Deglin rose, stretched to his full height, which wasn’t all thatimpressive, then coughed behind his hand to soothe his voice and took a small sipping drink of ale. He stared at all the men, gaining their full attention, then he said, “When Grunlige the Dane killed his hands with the ice, he knew that he had failed himself. He had believed himself safe and secure in his own strength and now he had killed part of himself; not his enemies, but he himself had done it. He was a proud man, a man without rival, a man with great strength and skills, but he had only himself to blame for the death of his hands. He looked down at them, saw the withered claws, the fingernails that were blue and ridged, curling up about