Dream of Me/Believe in Me (57 page)

“Survival?” She spoke the word with scorn. “As though I would be satisfied with so little. It's possible to survive in a hole in the ground but it's no way to live. I want peace for my people and yours. Peace! A chance to live with safety and hope instead of always wondering when the next attack will come, the next men carried
home dead, the next farmsteads burned. I thought you wanted peace, too, but now I think I must have been wrong. Allow me to inform you,
my
lord Hawk, the path to peace does not lie through the beds of other women!”

He stared at her dumbfounded. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You heard me and don't try to deny it! You wanted to lie with me when you thought I was a servant. That's what you would have done if all this”—she gestured at her hair—“hadn't happened.”

“I was sending you back to Vestfold so that it wouldn't happen!”

“Then you admit it, you wanted to lie with me when you had every reason to think I was another woman. You would have betrayed me with … myself.” That didn't sound quite bad enough so she hurried on. “And with who knows how many other women. Oh, I know it's common practice. But to not even be able to wait until we were decently married before violating your vows—”

His head was spinning. He, who had faced hordes of screaming Danes with perfect equanimity, slashing and hacking his way through them as though partaking of healthful exercise, couldn't seem to find his balance. His sputtering spitfire of an intended bride spoke to him as no one had ever dared. She challenged him at every turn and apparently expected him to accept such behavior as her right. Belatedly, he remembered what he'd heard about Norse women. They were headstrong and independent, as liable to cuff a man as to kiss him, and fiercely possessive of what they regarded as their own. Dragon had warned him but Hawk had thought he was exaggerating.

He had himself a termagant by the tail and unless he was very careful, she was going to upset his entire, carefully ordered existence. “Enough!” His roar shook the rafters and so affrighted the returning servants that they splashed water all over the floor. That made them even more nervous, so that in scrambling to empty the tub they
spilled yet more water. Hawk watched them in disbelief, sure he was seeing a warning of things to come.

Servants were on their hands and knees trying to mop up the mess. Others were frantically running about bringing in yet more water. People with no business in his tower were finding a reason to appear, staring into the room in horrified astonishment. The spectacle was even attracting birds, for just then a raven landed on the win-dowsill and cawed raucously.

“Be quiet,” Krysta said.

Hawk had no idea whom she meant and didn't care. Throwing his hands into the air, he stormed out. He was halfway down the tower stairs before he realized that he had done exactly what she wanted.

H
ER FIRST TASK, KRYSTA DECIDED, WAS TO SOOTHE
the servants. After all, they were to be her servants and they were obviously very upset, understandably so given their master's display of temper. Not that she could really blame him for being angry. Thorgold had warned her that men did not like to be tricked.

“Thank you for bringing the water,” she said, smiling kindly.

The servants darted startled glances at her and one another but not one said a word. They hastened about their tasks, making short work of them now that Hawk was gone, and departed swiftly. No trace of their presence remained save a few scattered drops of water around the refilled tub.

Alone, Krysta stood in the center of the room and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to still the trembling that rose from deep inside. Had she truly told her soon-to-be husband that the path to peace did not lie through the beds of other women? Had she truly scorned the very notion of survival and virtually dared him to
fulfill his pledge of peace? Had she taken leave of her senses … or what passed for them?

With a quick glance at the door the servants had closed behind them and an equally quick prayer that Hawkforte's master would not suddenly decide to return, Krysta stripped off her sodden, dye-stained gown. The water in the tub was freshly cold from the kitchen well, as Hawk had instructed, but it came as no surprise to one who was used to bathing in rivers and the pools formed by runoff from melting glaciers. Krysta settled into it with a sigh of contentment. She plucked the cake of soap from the nearby stool and began washing her hair. Within minutes, the water in the tub was black. She climbed out, emptied it through the cleverly designed drain that ran down the outside of the tower, and filled it again from the extra buckets left by the servants. This time, the water stayed clean. Having lingered as long as she dared, Krysta got out and wrapped a length of sheeting around herself just as a knock sounded at the door. She called out permission to enter, and Thorgold pushed the door open and lumbered in, dragging one of her trunks behind him.

“Raven said you'd be wanting this.”

“Thank you! I was just wondering how I would manage with no clean clothing.”

“I'd say you're managing well enough.” Thorgold grinned. “His Mightiness came down out of his tower looking like the Furies themselves were after him. You should have seen folk scatter.”

“Oh, no,” Krysta moaned. “I thought he must be angry but I hoped it wouldn't be quite that bad—”

“I wouldn't say he was angry.” Before she could make anything good of that, Thorgold added, “Enraged would be more like it, not to mention befuddled.” His laughter was a deep rumble starting somewhere around his hairy toes. When he saw Krysta's downcast eyes, he sobered.

“There now, girl, don't fuss yourself. Done's done, I always say. It's what you do now that matters.”

“I don't know what to do now,” Krysta said miserably. She sat down on the stool, wishing she could just disappear. Too well, she remembered the look on Hawk's face when he called her something a self-respecting cat wouldn't drag in. How could she hope to win the love of a man who held her in such contempt?

Yet he had desired her … before he had discovered the truth of who she was and what she had done. Innocent she might be, but she was not so ignorant as to mistake what had been between them from the beginning.

Thorgold sighed, uneasy with such female doings yet still wanting to help. He pointed to the chest. “Raven said to wear the gown that's on top.”

When he was gone, Krysta knelt beside the chest and opened it. Before her lay a gown she had never seen before. It looked like a froth of sea foam so insubstantial that a whisper of breeze would blow it away. Yet when she lifted it, it felt solid and even heavy in her hands, strangely so until she realized that the color came from uncounted crystals no larger than grains of sand stitched one by one into the fabric. At once fragile yet strong, the gown seemed to embolden her. She rose hurriedly and slipped it over her head. It molded to her form as though made for her yet she knew it must have been created for another woman, the mother Krysta had never known.

There was only one mirror in the room, set beside a basin and a rather lethal-looking razor she supposed Hawk used for shaving. Her reflection in the polished bronze showed tear-bright eyes and a mop of tangled hair. Freed from the dye, her hair had reverted to a curling, waving froth that defied all attempts at control. She could do nothing but catch up part of it with a matching ribbon and leave the rest tumbling over her shoulders.

Having bathed and dressed, she tidied up after herself, delaying the moment when she would have nothing left to do but leave the relative safety of the chamber. Rather than hasten that moment, she looked around for some—indeed, for any—way to occupy herself. Her gaze fell on the table beside the window and most especially on the object lying on that table.

A book.

Krysta had seen perhaps a half-dozen books in her life and actually owned three, thanks to the generosity of her late father. She remembered Raven telling her that Hawk could read, yet the sight of so rare and precious an object still surprised her. She approached it tentatively and for some little time was content merely to study the ornate leather cover. But inevitably, the moment came when she found herself reaching out and very gently, with the greatest care, opening the book. At some point, she sat down in the chair beside the table but she had no awareness of doing so. The book held her heedless of all else.

H
IS ANGER WAS UNRELIABLE, HAWK NOTED
. Scarcely an hour since he'd stormed out of the tower room and already the rage that had propelled him was becoming a memory. The wind blew his foul mood away as surely as it filled the sail of his skiff dancing over the waves beyond the harbor. He looked back toward Hawkforte where it lay nestled in the curve of golden beach and white cliff. The sight of the burgh never failed to make his spirits lighten whether he was returning from a short sail or a journey of many months. It was his home and his sanctuary, but more than that it was his triumph against a violent and uncaring world. He cherished Hawkforte in the private places of his heart, but now the town that lay so serenely in the embrace of land and sea had an added meaning. Within its walls was the woman
who was to be his wife, she who represented the hope of peace between both their peoples. She who he had just begun to wish might bring him a measure of the happiness he had seen was possible with his sister and her husband. She who had tricked him …

But not for long. That was balm to his pride yet he wondered how long she had thought to continue her masquerade and to what end. Why risk his anger if she was found out?

He supposed she had some reason, and perhaps he would learn of it eventually. Of rather more significance, he had met his bride at last, much good it did him. The mystery of her should by all rights be solved, but instead had only deepened.

He had lied when he claimed not to desire her but a man would be a fool not to keep some things to himself. A fool ten times over to let a woman know the power she wielded over him. He lusted after his fey Norse bride as he could not remember ever lusting after another woman, which struck him as ironic given that she had accused him of meaning to betray her with herself. The memory of how she looked as she dragged herself from the tub, wet and bedraggled yet with fire flashing in her eyes, made him chuckle. But amusement fled, giving way to something deeper and hotter, as he recalled how she looked at him when he dressed. Lust, it seemed, was not his alone.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His eyes narrowed against the glare of sun bouncing off water. He turned the skiff into the wind and raced along the shoreline. From tenderest boyhood, he had loved the sea. There was no greater freedom than those moments when he could leave the land behind and become one with the mighty currents of air and water. That such surcease from daily care could never be more than temporary made it all the more precious.

He sailed the rest of that morning and into the
afternoon. Fishermen in their small, swift hide boats waved to him. So did the captain of an incoming merchant vessel, who lowered his banner in salute when he spied the skiff's hawk-emblazoned sail. A herd of fat seals frolicked past. They had just vanished from sight when Hawk was startled by something else in the water, dark and sleek, that seemed to lift its head to look at him. For a moment, there appeared to be several of them, but mayhap they were no more than shadows for they were as swiftly gone.

Gulls circled overhead, tracking the schools of gleaming herring that looked like darting streaks of silver beneath the water. The seals chased them, too, as did the men standing in their tiny vessels to fling their seining nets far out over the swell, then pulling them back into shore fat with their catch.

The sun was slanting to the west, bathing the sea in gold, before Hawk finally turned his skiff landward. He had stolen a day and felt no remorse for it, especially not when he considered the change the hours of freedom had wrought in him. He felt far better able to deal with his trickster bride than he had that morning. Indeed, he found himself looking forward to it. The cheerfulness of his mood lasted right up to the moment he came within sight of the harbor.

Daria was waiting for him on the quay. Seeing her there, a dry specter ever ready to cry doom, Hawk almost headed back out to sea. Only stern discipline enabled him to secure the boat and climb the stone steps. Scarcely had he come into sight than Daria drew breath and let it fly like barbed arrows.

“Do you know? Of course, you must. How dare she! What game is that stupid girl playing? And the insult to you—” She moaned and clutched her breast like a mummer in a bad paschal play. “I can't imagine why you haven't had her lashed already, her and those dreadful servants.
How is she ever to learn her place if you tolerate such disrespect?”

Hawk had learned long ago that his half-sister thrived on irritation and anger, all the negative emotions. He refused to let her feed off her own fury. “Calm yourself, Daria. In your haste, you misspeak. It is for me to decide what to do and only for me.”

She ducked her head and looked up at him sideways with false humility. “Yes, of course, how foolish of me. But whatever could she have been thinking? Perhaps her mind is not as it should be. Surely, her reason must be questioned.”

He began walking down the quay briskly, forcing Daria to run to keep up with his long stride. “Her reason is for me to know and judge. For you and everyone else, it is enough that she is who she is. Make no mistake, I agreed to take the Lady Krysta as my wife sight unseen because she brings the promise of peace
and
a dowry large enough to choke a horse. A dowry to be put to swift work making the defenses of Hawkforte yet stronger against the Danes. Nothing—absolutely nothing—matters more than that. Do you understand me?”

For a moment, something deep and dark flared behind her eyes but it was gone so swiftly Hawk could not be sure he had seen it. “Surely I understand,” Daria said. “You have always been very clear as to what is important and what is not. Only my care for you compels me to say that there will be difficulties because of her. The people will not accept her readily, not after this display of foolishness. Best you be prepared for that.”