Dream of Me/Believe in Me (73 page)

“The tide turns at dawn, lord. He will be gone.” The steward paused delicately. “Leastways, he will be if a crew can be found to man his ship. It seems few who came with him are eager to continue in his service.”

“Give them coin enough to make it worth their while and chains to clap him into if he causes them any trouble, but get him gone from here!”

Edvard smiled then and hastened to do Hawk's bidding. That done, the master of all he surveyed slumped back in his chair for a moment and looked at the woman beside him. Krysta was pale and drawn, her mouth trembled, and she plucked at the arm of her chair with nervous fingers.

He signaled to the servants to bring forth supper and turned to her. Leaning close, his voice for her ears only, he said, “Forget him, he is nothing. We will be wed on the morrow.”

She turned startled eyes to him. “We cannot. You heard what he said, I have no dowry.”

“I care not. Your dowry is the peace our marriage will help to bring. Naught else matters.”

“How can you say that? You told me yourself that a lady is a woman of property and position. I have neither and you cannot marry other than a lady, peace or not.”

“I can marry anyone I please,” Hawk declared. He bit the words out and glared at her as though daring her to disagree.

“You say that now but how will you feel later?”

“Vindicated. Have you given a moment's thought to what will happen to your father's weak-minded whelp when Wolf gets wind of this? He will have the news by fast ship to Sciringesheal, I promise you, and when he does there will be no more talk of mere dowry. Fully half and more of what your father left will pour out to you in recompense for this insult.”

“You assume the jarl will still think this marriage desirable. Why would he do that when he hears what Sven has to say?”

“What he has to say? You mean that changeling tale? You can't think Wolf foolish enough to believe it.”

“What if it is true? Have you thought what that would mean for you … and for the children I bear you?”

Though they spoke in low murmurs, her words resounded through him with the force of a thunderclap. He looked at her narrowly. “You're not serious? Perhaps your ears were filled with some tale as a child, but you are a woman now and you must know it to be false.”

“You weren't certain the tale Dragon told was false. You thought it a strange story, true enough, but you did not dismiss it.”

“It was an amusement told around the fire, nothing more! Dragon is an entertaining fellow, leastways unless you're trying to best him on the training field. But he makes no claim that his stories are fact.”

She turned her head, looking off to the side. Raven was there, dark and shining, gazing at her with unblinking eyes. Thorgold would be somewhere nearby, unless he had crept off beneath his favorite bridge to nurse his ale and his worry.

“You have seen my servants.”

“A loyal pair. What of them?”

“Don't you find them … unusual?”

“There have been times when the sun coming up of a morning strikes me as unusual, mainly because I didn't expect to live to see it. Living without fighting is unusual, waking in the morn with nothing more to do than see to my lands and people is still unusual though I have been doing it for years now.” He leaned yet nearer and his voice was a caress. “Lying with a woman who makes me believe all things are possible is unusual, to say the least. So what care have I for your servants, whoever they may be?”

Krysta's throat was so tight she doubted she could speak, yet she tried. He was so far beyond her dreams, so much more than she could ever have hoped for. She loved him with all her heart and soul, and with that love she could do naught else but set him free.

“I will not marry you.”

He paled, he who had faced screaming hordes of Danes without flinching, and slammed his goblet against the table. Silence fell in the hall yet he did not notice it, so swept was he by … what? Anger, disappointment … fear. Not fear! He was a man and a warrior, no woman could make him afraid. But he had touched something with her, glimpsed it in those hours on the beach, and now it was being snatched away. And he was afraid.

“Damn you.”

The words reverberated through the hall and straight through Krysta. She sucked in her breath and gripped the sides of her chair as though the sheer force of his anger might hurl her from it. A wave of coldness swept over her. In its path, she felt clammy and sick, gripped by a fever of the soul.

“I am sorry.” So weak and inadequate but there was nothing else she could say. She was sorry for it all—her mother, herself, her foolish hopes and dreams. Sorry for everything except the stolen hours on the beach. Those she would treasure forever.

“I will go.” She hardly knew what she said as she rose from her chair on legs that threatened not to hold her. Desperately, she glanced around for Raven but she was gone. How could she be, she who was ever faithful? Yet gone she was and there was no sign of Thorgold. Krysta stood alone before the eyes of the enraged Hawk and all his people.

Edvard had come back to the hall, his mission to dispatch Sven accomplished. Hapless Edvard, who knew not what he walked into. Hawk pinned him with his gaze. The steward came forward swiftly.

Hawk stood. He loomed over Krysta, a dark and powerful presence like night on a storm-tossed sea. “You will go nowhere,” he said, and gestured to Edvard. “Take the Lady Krysta to her quarters and secure her there.”

“L-lord?” Edvard stammered, he who had seen the tender regard his master had for this lady.

“You heard me. She goes nowhere. In time, this will all sort itself out. Meanwhile, what love and honor cannot bind, a solid iron lock will keep.”

“You cannot…. !” Krysta cried, but Edvard's hand was on her arm and already he was drawing her away. Hawk's lieutenants were on their feet, cold and stern-faced men who would obey his commands in a heartbeat, and all the others in the hall were watching her with somber, disappointed gaze.

All save Aelfgyth, who looked upon Krysta with shocked sympathy and touched the hem of her sleeve to tear-filled eyes.

E
DVARD LINGERED IN THE TOWER ROOM, SENDING
servants for more coal for the braziers and water for the ewers, fussing over the shutters across the windows, inquiring as to whether there were enough bedcovers, enough oil for the lamps, enough of this and that and everything.

“You have not eaten,” he said at length when all else was done and he had no other reason to tarry.

“I cannot,” Krysta said, moving her lips with effort.

“Oh, well, as to that, you must.” He looked with relief to Aelfgyth, who was at the door that stood, for the moment, open.

“You must eat, my lady,” Aelfgyth agreed. “Look at what I have brought you.” She held forth a tray. “The ten-derest greens plucked fresh this eve with the vinegar you like the best to season them, a round of your favorite cheese, loaves of bread warm from the oven, raspberries from the bushes by the cove—you know they are the best—and smoked herring that Cook swears you will like above all else.” She set the tray on the table and smiled
encouragingly. “How could you say no to this? Oh, and cider kept lowered down the well until scant minutes ago so that it is crisp and chill.” She paused for a moment, looking at Krysta, and her smile crumbled. “Please, my lady, you truly must eat.”

“Later,” Krysta said, because she did not want to hurt her friends as they still seemed to be, despite all. “I will eat later. Now, if you don't mind, I would as soon rest.”

They left with backward glances and admonitions that she must take care of herself. After the door closed, she heard the iron lock clang into place and thought that she heard Edvard sigh as he obeyed his master's order.

Then there was nothing left to do save stand for a while in the center of the room, not moving and scarcely breathing, as she struggled to understand all that had happened. In the space of hours to go from virgin to woman, betrothed to … what? … was more than she could encompass. What was she now? Hawk still insisted on their marriage but she knew better. He would have time to think and in that time he would come to realize he could not take the risk of marrying one such as she … whoever and whatever she was. He would be glad, when all was said and done, to have turned away from her.

But he was a stubborn man, she reminded herself, and his pride was hurt. He would not give in easily. She walked to the door and tried to turn the handle, so as to leave no hope in her mind that she was other than a captive, the room her prison.

For a moment, her spirit rebelled like the wings of a bird beating frantically against its cage. She desperately needed to be free, to feel the wind and sea, to run and dive and leap, to vanish far from this life. As her mother had needed to do, in the end when she had known that love was not to be.

Krysta walked over to the windows. There were many of them around the curved walls of the tower, most looking out toward the sea. Edvard had closed the shutters but she opened a pair now and gazed out. The night was moonless and the water very dark. She leaned out the window and looked at the stars blazing overhead. Long ago, her father had taught her about their shapes. She knew how to pick out the huntsman and the bear, among others, and she could reckon by the star that never moved, always showing the way north. The way barred to her now by Sven's decree. He was head of the family and he had the right to disown her. No one would dispute that, whatever Hawk believed. As for the dowry, she knew not what the Wolf would do but it scarcely mattered. Sven had forced her to confront what she had tried so desperately to deny, that the mystery of her past threw a shadow over her entire life and made it impossible for her to nurture the hopes and dreams common to ordinary women.

Her throat was very tight and she knew she was perilously close to tears. The long, tumultuous day had left her exhausted. She went to the table and managed to eat a very small amount of what Aelfgyth had brought. Not wishing to worry her maid, she crumbled up the bread and threw it out the window for the birds to find in the morning. Wondering again where Raven was, Krysta lay down on the bed, in the place where Hawk had been. Weeping, she slept, and sleeping, she wept. The two entwined in dreams of loss that haunted her throughout the night.

Aelfgyth came in the morning with fresh water, more food, frowns of concern, wobbly smiles and—wonder of wonders—several books. She herself carried the books, unwilling to trust them to the lesser servants who had brought yet more food and water as well as their own
curious, worried glances. When they had departed, Aelfgyth set the books on the table with tremendous care, then breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped back.

“His lordship handed them to me just as I was on my way up the stairs, otherwise I would have gotten Edvard to carry them. I never thought to touch a book in my life and heaven knows I don't ever want to do so again. What if I bent a page somehow or left a smudge? But there his lordship was, pressing them into my hands and telling me to bring them up to you.” Aelfgyth shook her head somberly. “I must say, the poor man doesn't look well. I warrant he didn't sleep a wink.” She peered at her mistress to see how this news was received but Krysta was too distracted by the books.

He had sent her books. After damning her and locking her away, he had sent her objects more valuable to her than jewels, and apparently trusted her to look after them properly. She turned away quickly lest the finely turned leather covers be stained by her tears.

“Oh, there, now,” Aelfgyth clucked. “Everything will be all right, you'll see. The Hawk's not one to stay angry and he's good to his word. If you look out the window, you'll see the fastest ship he has setting sail for Sciringesheal. Your half-brother is leaving, too, but I don't think he's going to enjoy the trip. Word is his crew has already put him in irons, judging Lord Wolf will only reward them for it.”

“Do you really think that will matter?” Krysta asked.

The question surprised Aelfgyth. “How not? The dowry must be paid, it's only proper, and Lord Wolf will see to that. Lord Hawk doesn't blame you for the delay, not really, or he never would have sent the books.”

“But the dowry is only part of it,” Krysta said slowly. “What of the story my half-brother told?”

“About you being a changeling?” Aelfgyth blushed at her boldness. “It's true everyone is talking about that. All
agree he isn't anywhere near as good a teller of tales as the Lord Dragon. Why, I believed
his
story about the Irish lord and his bride from the sea. So did most folks. Sends a shiver down your back, doesn't it, to think such a thing could be? But no one actually expects to meet someone like that, not in real life.”

“You mean … it couldn't have to do with me?”

“Of course not.” Aelfgyth grinned at the thought. “Although Dreadful Daria is tearing about, moaning about demons and all manner of nonsense. The more she spouts it, the less anyone believes.”

So because the people of Hawkforte knew her, and because they both knew and despised Daria, Krysta was rendered innocent. Even as she marveled at that, Aelfgyth went on. “It's only natural to be nervous about marrying, or so I'm told. And of course you don't want to go to your husband without a dowry, what woman would? But it will all sort itself out, as Lord Hawk said.”

For a brief moment, Krysta thought of confiding the truth—that the story might not be false, that there was more to the “real” world than Aelfgyth wanted to believe, that it might be fundamentally wrong for her to marry Lord Hawk for reasons that had nothing to do with the missing dowry. But she kept silent, unwilling to burden the young woman and to expose so deep and painful a part of herself.

Aelfgyth went away a short time later, trailing behind her reminders to eat, to rest, and not to worry. She would be back in just a few hours, she could stay with Krysta if she was lonely and wanted company, she could bring more amusements. When the door finally closed behind her, Krysta breathed a small sigh of relief. Much as she appreciated Aelfgyth's concern, the strain of concealing her true fears was difficult to bear. Alone, she did not have to conceal anything, including how touched she was that Hawk had sent the books.