Dream of Me/Believe in Me (80 page)

So Mercia lacked a king but did have a ruler of sorts, married to the strong-willed daughter of King Alfred of Wessex. No doubt that suited the royal house of Wessex
well, but Krysta could not help but wonder if it also suited the noble families of Mercia, including Esa's.

Carefully, she asked, “Are there many Mercians at court?”

“They come and go, although Athelflad is not able to visit as often as I would like. Others are here rather more often than I would prefer, but I understand that my husband wishes to keep them close.”

“Is there anyone in particular he wishes to … keep close?”

Eahlswith looked at her shrewdly. “Are you thinking of Lord Udell and the Lady Esa?”

“They are the only Mercian nobles I know,” Krysta admitted.

“Esa has made herself unpleasant, as usual, but I hope you will pay her no mind.”

“I do not wish to give her any importance at all but I did wonder … what is Mercia's role in King Alfred's efforts against the Danes?”

“The ealdormen and the bishops of Mercia provide men, arms, and taxes to support the army, as do those of Kent, Essex, and many other lands. They also lend their wisdom to the resolving of disputes and the judging of legal cases. All this is important to the king.”

“Since your own daughter is married to the Ealdorman of Mercia, I thought perhaps they were most important.”

“Not most, I would not say that. But Mercia is a rich land. I am certain Alfred counts on their support.”

“Then did he ever consider other marriages to assure the loyalty of the Mercians?”

Eahlswith sat back on the bench and looked at Krysta carefully. “He may have, but if you are asking me whether he encouraged Lord Hawk to look with favor upon marriage to the Lady Esa, no, he did not.”

“May I ask why not?”

The queen hesitated but then she clearly came to a decision. “Alfred is a very practical man—he has had to be in order to preserve the kingdom. But he is also deeply loyal to those he believes deserving of it. That combination of practicality and loyalty would make it impossible for him to urge such a marriage upon one who has served him as valiantly as Lord Hawk has done.”

After a moment's thought, Krysta realized that the queen had just told her that marriage to Esa would be a poor reward for Hawk's endeavors on behalf of the crown. She could scarcely agree more, yet did she wonder what Alfred's opinion would be if he learned of her own shadowed past, assuming he had not already.

“There is one thing I am curious about,” Eahlswith said. “You told me that you came to England believing that despite your past, you would be able to make your marriage a success. What happened to change your mind?”

Krysta did not answer at once. The rustling of the old oak's leaves seemed to whisper of time's fleeting passage. She thought of the queen sitting on the same bench, watching her children play, and years later still seeing the shadows of those they had been, now forever beyond her reach.

Softly, she said, “Love is a cursed blessing.”

“Or a blessed curse. I have never been able to decide which.” She put her hand over Krysta's, squeezing gently. “I thought that might be it.”

They sat a little while longer until the slanting rays of the sun reminded them of the passage of time and the ever-present duties that could not long be shirked. Then they returned inside, the daughter whose mother had fled into the sea and the mother whose children had flown into the great world. Just before they stepped inside, Eahlswith plucked a last rose tucked away in the shelter of the wall and handed it to Krysta.

“I invite very few into this garden,” the queen said. “But you, Krysta of Vestfold, are always welcome here.”

H
AWK LEFT THE SMALL, PRIVATE CHAMBER WHERE
he had been speaking with Alfred. He passed several nobles of his acquaintance but without seeing them. Those worthies were left to wonder what so preoccupied the great Hawk of Essex that he neglected even the simple courtesies.

He was outside in the courtyard before he became aware of his surroundings and even then he did not stop until he was beyond the walls of the town itself, surrounded by no more than trees and the gurgle of the passing river. There he stopped, and without an instant's thought slammed his fist repeatedly into the trunk of an impassive oak.

Damn her!
How could he have thought her such a gentle, if misguided, woman? How had he imagined she would be malleable to his hand? His for the persuading and the winning. He had even thought to woo her! What a mockery on the poor benighted fool twice tricked by that scheming vixen of the northlands.

She had gone to the queen. Without a word to him, without a hint of what she intended, she had laid her case at Eahlswith's feet and somehow persuaded that good woman to take up her cause.

And now—what was it Alfred had said?
Perhaps she would be better suited to an abbey.
A place where she could put to use her love of learning and do good works. One marriage of disappointment, why risk another? There were other maidens in Vestfold worthy to be his wife. A word to the Wolf to set it right and then …

No, by God!
A thousand times
No!
She was his, given to him by her wastrel brother, and he was damned if he would ever let her go. No one, not even the king, could
take from him that which was his. Never had he spoken to his lord in such a way, never had Alfred known the heat of his rage. The king had borne it well, even smiling after a small start of surprise. But Alfred had not relented. Indeed, he had gone on to say a great deal more.
Not worth the risk. Too much at stake. Why take the chance if the lady herself is unwilling?

The lady
would damn well do as she was told. She had lain with him, held him in her arms, welcomed him into her body, matched his passion with her own and in the process given him a glimpse of paradise he did not think to relinquish. And all the while she had plotted to end their betrothal. Incredible.

He slumped against the abused tree, rubbing his forehead into the rough bark, and tried to think how a warrior and leader of his experience had been so gulled. He was no untried boy when it came to women. Always they had come to him eagerly and he had treated them well, within limits. Limits
he
set. Perhaps some had hoped for more from him and been disappointed, but he had never given any cause for such hope. Yet he had a sudden sense of how a woman might feel when she finally and irrevocably realized that he was slipping from her.

As Krysta thought to slip from him, for whatever reason, that nonsense about her mother, some natural fear of marriage in a far land, whatever. He cared not, it made no difference. She would not leave him! But, an inner voice whispered, she could do just that with the support of the king. She could vanish into an abbey, surrounded by her beloved books, no doubt rising one day to a position of authority, and he would be powerless to stop her.

It was that revelation of his inability to control events that struck him to the core and brought a fresh surge of anger. Not since tenderest childhood in the midst of savage war had he felt so unable to control his destiny. Was it for this that he had fought and striven, sacrificed and
endured? To have snatched from him the one thing he had ever wanted purely for himself?

Damn her!
How much better if she had never come, never tantalized him with a glimpse of a future he should have been too wise to believe could ever be, never stirred his heart to fierce tenderness.

Fine then, let her go into an abbey. Let her wrap her spinsterhood about herself, wear out her eyes and bow her shoulders, dry up her passion and let her youth become no more than flecks of parchment vanished on the wind.

He would forget her, take another woman to wife, sire a dozen sons, and never wake of a night yearning for the soft sound of her breathing close beside him. Oh, yes, and as easily would he sprout wings and fly like the ravens who clustered in the nearby trees, cawing their raucous song.

Damn birds.

He turned to go with no clear idea of exactly where and almost stumbled over the squat fellow sitting on his haunches near where the river turned. Thorgold looked up, sighed, and shook his head.

“Yer in a rare state.”

Of an instant, Hawk reached down, grabbed hold of him, and yanked him off the ground. “Just who I was looking for before I left Hawkforte,” he snarled, “you and your black-garbed friend. Where the hell were you?”

Thorgold looked in no way disconcerted to be dangling several feet in the air. He picked a stray bit of something or other from between his teeth, and said, “Making ourselves scarce, of course, leastways till your anger cooled.”

“Then you've picked the wrong moment to reappear because my anger is hotter than ever. God's blood, man, do you have any idea what she's done?”

“She told ye she couldn't marry ye.”

“How do you know that? Where were you lurking when I locked her away?”

“Ye've a very nice bridge 'bout half a mile outside of town but never mind about that. Didn't keep her locked away long, did ye?”

“I was summoned here. I could hardly leave her where she was.”

“Aye, ye could have. She wasn't goin' anywhere locked away like that. Ye just didn't want t'be parted from her.”

Hawk didn't even try to deny that. He set Thorgold down and took a deep breath, seeking to calm himself and finding only regret instead. “More fool me for it.”

“Love turns any mortal into a fool.”

“Who said I was in love with her?”

“I'll warrant ye haven't said it, least not to her, and why not I'd like t'know.”

“Place a weapon like that in her hands? Are you mad, man? It's bad enough I've got this … temporary disordering of my thoughts. I've no intention of making it worse.”

Thorgold made no effort to hide his reaction. He hooted with laughter. The ravens cawed right along. Slapping his knees, he grinned broadly. “Now there's a way to describe it, temporary disordering of yer thoughts. I'll have to remember that one.”

“It's no joke,” Hawk protested. “She went to the queen and enlisted her aid. I could actually lose her.” He heard himself and scowled. “And why not? Good riddance to her. Who needs a wife who causes so much trouble?”

“You do,” Thorgold said flatly. “But ye'll have to work that out for yerself.” He turned as though to go.

Hawk caught him by the scruff of his leather vest and noticed absently the odd little bits hanging from it—
several brooches, a couple of belt buckles, colored bangles and beads, pins of all sizes, glittering crystals hanging in woven bags, feathers, all swaying right along with their owner.

“You told Krysta those half-wit stories about her mother, didn't you? You and the old woman. Why did you do it?”

“Half-wit? Is that what ye think? Well, then what should we have told her?”

“The truth.”

Released, Thorgold turned his neck this way and that, making it crack loudly. “Which truth is that?”

“The
truth. There's only one.”

“Is there now? What a simple world ye live in. Must be nice sometimes … but I don't know, chances are I'd get bored right quick.”

“Stop nattering and just tell me, what really happened to her mother?”

“She was called to the sea.”

Hawk paled. Suicide was anathema to the Church, utterly forbidden. If Krysta's mother had taken her own life … “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying she was called to the sea.”

“What does that mean? She … took her own life?”

Thorgold sighed very loudly. “The sea abounds with life. Ye sail it enough to know that.”

“For God's sake, you know perfectly well what I mean! No mortal woman can live in the sea.”

Thorgold peered at him from beneath bushy brows. “Suppose she was a mortal woman but one with a rare gift, that of calling into this world beings from the other realm. But suppose the gift had another side to it, that
she
could be called from this world if the unhappiness she found here became too much for her to bear.”

Hawk was silent for a long moment. He knew something about women with rare gifts who could suffer because
of them. Yes, by God, he did know about that. Even so, he said, “People cannot go and live in the sea, no matter how much they might want to.”

“Ah, but they don't want to, there's the thing, because they believe they cannot. They carry their bodies about with them from the day they're born an' they get to thinking there is nothing else fer them. But life …” Thorgold gestured to the surrounding trees thick with leaves soon to fall, to the river rushing by so swiftly no droplet of water could be seen for more than an instant, to the sudden shower of seeds borne on milk-white clouds that wafted past them and vanished as though it had not been.

“Life is always transforming itself,” Thorgold said. “That's what life does, nothing more and nothing less. The trick is noticing.”

Hawk's mind turned that over, turning and turning, getting nowhere. It was important somehow, he knew that, but the notion was like gossamer, uncatchable.

“You spun this tale to make Krysta feel better,” he tried. It was logical, even compassionate. He couldn't blame the odd pair too much if that was what they'd done.

“If you like.”

“I don't like! But I think I understand. If she suspected the truth—”

“Whose truth, what truth, truth's truth? Open yer mind, Hawk of Essex. It has wings ye've yet to unfurl.”

And with that, Thorgold was gone. One moment he was standing there and the next he was not. Hawk looked around swiftly in all directions but not so much of a glimmer of the little man remained to be seen. However, listening closely, Hawk thought he caught the jangle of brooches and buckles, bangles and beads dancing on the air.