“Yes, for it is never the same two days in a row.”
She took a deep breath of the briny air.
“The waves can be dark or a brilliant blue-green.
They can be thunderous or whispering to the shore.
Sometimes, they are topped by bubbles which they offer to the sand like a gift.
Other times, the foam is flung up onto the rocks.”
“We of the
Norrfoolk
are not so poetic about the sea.
For us, it is...”
He frowned for a moment.
“It
was
a tool, much as our boats and our axes and our swords were tools.
We used it to obtain what we needed to survive.”
“And as a route to conquest.”
“That is true, too.”
He turned to look at the rocks.
“There is no sign here of the battle that took place so many years ago.”
“That is good.”
He arched a brow, then moved along the crescent-shaped cove toward the end where rocks were piled higher than his head.
“If you had said that to me when we first met, I would have argued with you.”
“But you have changed your mind?” she asked as she followed.
“I have.”
He leaned his elbow on one of the boulders and stared out at the undulating waves flowing toward the shore.
“The battles that were fought here were brought about because of a loss of honor among the English, but those who
attacked the
Norrfoolk
in the Danelaw are forgotten here.
Their names and their evil deeds have been banished from history which paints the
Norrfoolk
as the villains.
It is appropriate that there is no memorial here to a betrayal of trust.”
“I am glad that you see the futility of trying to resurrect the past that has been forgotten.”
“Not all the past has been forgotten.”
His hand fisted on the stone.
“I am here to remember what was left undone.
It may be that I should keep some of those memories alive.”
His fingers uncurled as they slipped along her arm.
“I have shared the truth with you, Linnea, so that you might share it with others.”
“But who would believe me?”
“I would.”
She laughed.
“Of course, you would, for the tales are of your telling.
I wonder if anyone else would.”
“What of Tuthill?”
“
Randolph
?”
She shook her head.
“He only believes what he can see and judge for himself.”
“Yet he believes you love him.”
“I doubt he believes that.”
Nils started to answer, then paused as Scamp ran to him and leapt up against his leg.
With a laugh, Nils pulled a small stick from where some storm had driven it into a crevice among the rocks.
He flung it along the shore, and the puppy gave chase.
“Why would a man wish to marry a woman who does not love him?” he asked quietly.
“Were all marriages in your time only for love?”
“Of course not.
They created alliances between families and between chieftains, but you do not need to seek strength in numbers before going to battle.
Your king has an army and a navy to fight for
England
.”
Linnea sat on a boulder and drew on her slippers.
“You have learned much from talking to Papa and Martin.”
“They enjoy talking, and I enjoy listening.”
He knelt beside her.
“Now I am listening to how you are avoiding answering my question.”
“I did not know you asked one.”
“I asked why Tuthill would wish to marry a woman who does not love him.”
She clasped her hands in her lap so she did not reach out to twist his golden hair around her fingers.
“You have not been listening closely enough to Papa and Martin if you must ask that.”
“I assume that you are speaking of the industries and trade that your father has invested in so profitably.”
“Yes.”
“Tuthill is in need of money?”
She looked up at clouds that were rising inland in a race toward the sea.
They were darkening to dim the perfect sunshine, but she did not move as she replied, “His father was a good man, but had the bad habit of gambling unwisely with men far richer than he was.
Randolph
inherited many debts with his title.
He has paid many of them, but he wishes to regain the prestige for his title that comes from having plump pockets.”
Nils sat and leaned his head on her lap.
When she gasped at his brazen motion, he smiled up at her.
“Then Tuthill is a greater
gaurr
than I had guessed.”
“Oh, don’t use that word!”
“Why not?”
Linnea quickly explained how she had used it by accident while talking with
Randolph
.
When Nils began to laugh, she could not help doing the same.
“You are a bad influence on me, Nils Bjornsson.”
“And you still cannot speak my name correctly.”
He put his finger against her lips to halt her reply.
“Do not say that you will not speak it again, because I have come to enjoy the sound of it in your voice,
unnasta
.”
She laughed again, hoping that it would hide the pulse of delight that coursed through her each time he used that endearment.
She was silly to let him entwine her life with his even a moment longer than necessary, but she would be even more foolish to throw aside this ephemeral joy simply because it was fleeting.
“When we are alone,” she said, but she delighted in any chance to bring a smile to his lips.
Or more importantly, to bring his lips to hers.
“When we are alone, I shall use the name you first gave to me when I found you on this beach.”
Linnea gasped when Nils stood and walked back toward the center of the cove.
Jumping to her feet, she went after him.
Sand coursed into her slippers, but she ignored it.
He raised his hand as she neared, and she stopped more than an arm’s length from him.
Why was he trying to keep her distant?
“It was here,” he said.
She scanned the low cliffs burgeoning from the strand and recognized the pattern of colors in them.
“Yes, it was right here that you were when I found you.”
Mayhap it was not her he was trying to keep away, but anything to do with this time that was not his.
“It was here that I was meant to die.”
“No!” she cried.
“If you had been meant to die, you would not be here alive now.”
Turning to her, he grasped her shoulders.
“It is not that simple.”
“I know that.
You shouldn’t even be here, but you are!
There must be a reason.”
“My chieftain’s knife—”
“Could have been returned to him by someone else.”
Nils shook his head.
“The duty was mine.
It remains mine.”
His gaze drilled her as he added, “It was here that I asked Freya to send her
Valkyrja
to take me from the beach to
Valhalla
or...”
“But you are here, not in some paradise.”
“Yes.”
Linnea frowned.
Nils was occasionally taciturn, but never more so than when she brought up questions about how he had been brought to this place and this time.
Mayhap it was simply that he did not know, and he was bothered by what he could not understand.
“You are more accepting of your peculiar circumstances than I would be,” she said.
“I have no choice.”
His hands glided down her arms until his fingers laced through hers.
“But I did give Freya a choice that day.
I asked her to send me to
Valhalla
or to send me help to find my chieftain’s knife.
You see the results?”
“I have told you that I would help you, Nils.”
His lips quirked as she used his real name, but his voice lashed her.
“How soon can we leave for
London
?”
“Papa has been talking about taking the family there before summer’s end.
When he goes, we can go.”
“That will be several more weeks from now.”
“I am sorry.
I explained why I could not go with you.”
She drew her hands out of his.
“I wish I could recall when I had seen the knife like the one you have described.
I know it was at the home of someone we know well, for I must have seen it more than once if I remember it, so why can’t I remember
where
I saw it?”
“Loki.”
Linnea looked up in amazement.
“Please, do not muddle things more with nonsense.”
“It is not nonsense.
Loki seeks every opportunity to trick us mortals for his own amusement.”
“But me?
Even if I believed in that silliness, which I don’t, I am not of the
Norrfoolk
.”
Nils bit back his retort.
Why should he expect Linnea to believe in the old ways?
He had seen that what he considered true was now dismissed as mythology.
If he spoke of his conversations with the gods which once had been worshiped here as well as in the northern lands, he would be considered mad.
Maybe even by Linnea, and he could not risk her questioning his story.
She must be the guide Freya had sent to him.
Otherwise, there was no reason why he had come to this time and this place.