“Yes, I did tie you up, but I sent someone to free you. And it looks like he reached you.”
When he and his band had gone a suitable distance, Ragnar had secretly paid a peasant to free Absolon from his bondage.
“You sent him?” This fact seemed to upset Absolon more than anything else. “You sent the Devil to me? It was you who brought this curse upon my life?”
“What devil? What curse? He was just a peasant, missing a couple of fingers on his left hand, but otherwise no different from any other man.”
Absolon’s jaw tightened. “It was not he who found me.”
Then who had?
What did it matter? Absolon had been freed and sought his revenge.
“If that is so, then it was not I who brought you misfortune, merely God or fate.” He tried to say it with strength, but a child’s breath could have knocked it over.
Absolon knew the flimsiness of his argument too and glared with an intensity that closed Ragnar’s throat.
“It is your weakness that has brought us here, Ragnar. I am just a weapon of justice.”
“Blather! At least admit this is all your own doing, and I am to die because of your hurt pride.”
“My pride?” Absolon’s voice lowered until it rumbled with a growl. “This has nothing to do with my pride, but what you have done to my life.”
Ragnar would not keep his voice in check, however. “And what about what you have done to the lives of those men in the forest? You took them all with not a moment’s thought, even men who had never done you wrong. What had Malik ever done to you? Or Åke? I tell you he was better with the horses than ever you were.”
“If he was as bad with your cock as he was with the horses, you should be grateful I killed him.”
Ahhh, old jealousy reared its head. “Åke knew more than you ever did because Åke knew his place.”
“And it was not in the cold confines of your heart.” Absolon stabbed at the air with his finger. “You shed no tears for his disappearance, no sadness at his possible treachery. He was merely a plaything for you to discard. Like I was.”
Only Absolon had not been so easily discarded, and when he went, he took a piece of Ragnar’s heart with him. But no matter. It had shriveled. Absolon was his enemy now and all enemies must fall.
“Would that you had stayed discarded and accepted you were unwanted and unneeded.”
Absolon rushed towards him until his face was a mere inch from Ragnar’s own. “You needed me then as you needed me at the beginning, only your ambition became my undoing. Now it will be yours as well. Finally, that cold and wicked soul you keep locked inside your body will do some good, and its poison will be my elixir. Mark your remaining days well, Ragnar, because they will be your last.”
Absolon vanished out the doorway. The door slammed shut behind him and the lock turned. Ragnar didn’t move; Absolon’s hate had turned him to marble. His hot breath on his face, the grimace of his vitriol, the rage quivering through his body, all swamped Ragnar’s own with terror.
Absolon hated him, truly, utterly, deeply, and there was no end to what evil he could visit upon him.
When the fear drained from his body, he sucked the water from his shirt and realized that Absolon’s passion would be his greatest weakness. He sneered at the hurt his former lover so readily displayed, at the pathetic performance of it, but thanked the opportunity it presented.
A berserker’s fit and a lover’s spite were both made of the same volatility and so could be fashioned to another’s designs. If Absolon’s head had not been filled with woe over past wrongs, he would not agonize so over killing the one who had done him such injustice. If he were calm, Absolon would have slaughtered him in the forest because death was the only certainty. Instead, he waited and allowed his passions to be stoked.
Absolon didn’t want him dead at all. He wanted an apology. Why else keep him alive for another month if not to wring a confession he so obviously and desperately needed? What else could the curse he spoke of be? Ragnar’s abandonment had been the curse and now Absolon wanted it lifted.
If it meant freeing himself from these shackles, then Ragnar could do it, as unheroic as it was. Not that it mattered. Once he was free, no one but he would be left alive to know the tale.
Absolon stayed away until midway through the next day, bringing with him two buckets—one with water, the other empty—and a loaf of bread. No plate.
Absolon’s nose wrinkled from the stench; Ragnar had grown used to the stink of his own body and he’d shit as far from himself as he could. He would not apologize for it and stayed seated with his back against the wall to be the first thing Absolon saw when the door opened.
He placed both buckets at the edge of his reach and held out the loaf of bread. “Here.”
Ragnar would not crawl like a dog now that Absolon’s had run away, even though his hunger had sharpened, and his thirst had brought him close to delirium. He struggled to his feet, wavered a little as he found his balance, and walked towards his former subordinate. He took the bread out of Absolon’s hand, surprised at finding it soft and fresh.
“Thank you.”
He couldn’t keep the emotion of his gratitude escaping his mouth and turned from the shame of it. He stuck the bread in his mouth to stop anything else coming out. His stomach growled from the smell and he barely chewed before swallowing. Maybe he’d choke on it before Absolon could do his worst.
Absolon slipped from the room and returned with a shovel and another bucket to clean what Ragnar had left behind. Like he was a stabled horse.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s for my comfort, not yours.”
Ragnar closed his jaw tight. Absolon never used to speak to him in such a manner. The younger man had been nothing but reverent, thankful for everything that Ragnar had given him, every encouraging word, every firm stroke, every deep ploughing. He could not let it rankle him.
“Thank you all the same.”
Absolon stopped and studied him with a quizzical frown. He picked up the bucket and walked towards the door. Of course, he would be suspicious. Ragnar knew enough of himself to know he was not one to show gratitude. But damn, did Absolon mistrust him so much? If so, then he had a long way to go to win him over, and he may not have enough days left to achieve it.
Absolon left the bucket outside and leaned the shovel against the wall opposite. He began to pull the door closed. As the light retreated, it wrenched Ragnar’s words from his body.
“I’m sorry, Absolon.”
He stopped.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you, and I’m—”
“Say it.”
“What?”
Absolon opened the door a little wider. He straightened his spine and broadened his chest. “Say what you did to me, so I know you understand.”
“I’m sorry I locked you in that farmhouse and left you behind.”
“Wrong answer.” His hand tightened on the door.
“I’m sorry I left you for dead,” Ragnar blurted. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back for you. I wanted to. I did. I never wanted to leave you there in the first place.”
Absolon filled the doorway. “No one has ever made you do anything you didn’t want to do. You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know you? Tell me why. I want to hear the truth.”