Isn’t she supposed to be her lady’s most trusted friend? Like sisters, she said they were. There aren’t supposed to be any secrets between them. Not ones as big as this.
‘I should have said, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think you’d understand.’
‘Of course I’d understand. Whatever made you think I wouldn’t?’
Merewyn shakes her head. ‘An eye for an eye. It isn’t lawful. It isn’t just. What would Father Thorvald say? But when I heard Orm say those things about Skalpi, about how his father’s death was his fault, I couldn’t help myself. I was so full of rage that I couldn’t suffer him to live any longer. All I wanted was revenge.’
She turns to Guthred. ‘God will understand, won’t he, Father? He’ll forgive me. There must be some penance I can undertake. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’
Absolution. That’s what she wants. All he has to do is say the words.
But the priest doesn’t seem to hear. He sits, staring at the ground, unblinking.
‘Father?’
Guthred looks up. ‘I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. But I fear that gift is not mine to grant. Not any longer. I can pray with you, if you wish. I can help you find the words. But I can’t promise you any more than that. I’m sorry.’
She nods, sniffing. ‘I am too.’
*
‘That’s not how it happened, is it?’ Tova asks later, when they are alone.
The others are back at the camp; the two of them have gone together to gather more wood for the fire. The pile is getting low, and they’re going to need plenty if it’s to keep burning through the night. The rain has stopped and the skies are beginning to clear. There’ll be a thick frost come the morning.
Merewyn picks up another branch and tucks it under her arm. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I know it isn’t true – what you said. About Orm. About what happened that night. If it were, you’d have told me already. You wouldn’t have kept it from me until now.’
‘Tova,’ Merewyn says in that warning voice that she has grown to know.
But Tova will not be deterred. She will not be put in her place. Not this time. Even as her lady was telling her story, she thought that there were some things that didn’t quite make sense. Now that she’s worked it out, she’s not going to stop until she has answers.
‘He didn’t try to attack you, did he? All that about the lock on the door—’
‘You have no right to speak to me like this. To accuse me.’
‘Of what? That’s why you didn’t want me there that night, isn’t it? Because you had it all planned. He didn’t come to your chamber on some whim; he came for a reason. He came because you’d invited him there, hadn’t you?’
Saying afterwards that she never meant to do it. Of course she did. She knew exactly what she was doing. Tempting him to his death.
‘Don’t lie to me any more, please,’ Tova says. ‘Just tell me. You trust me, don’t you?’
Merewyn hesitates and then says quietly, ‘I left him a message on a scrap of parchment. I wrote that he should come to my chamber that night after everyone else was asleep.’
‘You deceived him. You lured him with false promises so that you could kill him.’
‘No!’ Merewyn protests. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as simple as that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did it so that I could find out the truth. About what happened to Skalpi. A part of me had long suspected, I suppose, ever since Orm returned. It was a feeling I had, nothing more than that. Not until that day when they took Heldeby from me and gave it to him, and I saw that hateful smirk on his face. Then I started putting things together. Why, when I said how Skalpi wasn’t sure if Orm was his own son, he acted as he did. Because he’d guessed it himself, long ago. He knew that if Skalpi ever disowned him, by claiming he wasn’t of his blood, then he’d lose all right to Heldeby. And that’s why he did it. Not just because he hated Skalpi, but to make sure he didn’t come back. To make sure that no one ever found out.’
‘It was true, then?’ Tova asks.
‘Maybe it was. Who knows? Skalpi had wondered ever since he cast ?lfswith out. The longer their quarrels went on, the greater his doubts grew.’
‘That doesn’t mean Orm killed him, though.’
‘That’s why, before I did anything, I had to be sure. I knew he’d never admit the truth normally, but I thought that if I gave in to him, if I could gain his confidence, then he would tell me.’
And Tova understands. ‘No,’ she says under her breath. ‘You didn’t. You can’t have.’
She can’t say it. She doesn’t even want to think it.
Merewyn’s back is turned. ‘I did. Yes, I did. It makes me sick to think about it. But it was all I could do. I needed the truth.’
Tova wants to retch. The thought that Merewyn might willingly have offered herself, allowed him to . . .
‘And did he really say those things?’
Merewyn nods.
‘You could have told me. You could always have told me, even if you didn’t want the others to know.’