The Enchantment (31 page)

She was a
warrior
and a
woman.
Was it possible for her to have two hearts within her breast? He strolled toward the pole shed, then turned back to watch her with a massive ache in his chest, which was spreading into his loins. He wanted them both, woman and warrior. And deep in his heart he sensed that in some way he needed them both, as well.

At the front of one stall in the shed, he fished the hay out of the stone manger and felt clumsily around in the bottom for a handhold in the stone. A moment later he replaced the stone slab and carried two swords out into the cold sun and around the slope to the spot where Aaren worked at scraping the wolf pelts.

“Aaren.” He waited for her to turn to him, then held out her blade to her, across his bandaged hands. She started at the sight, then looked up at him and wiped her hands on a skin before reaching for it. “I thought perhaps you should have it . . . for protection.” He smiled with a bittersweet edge as he indicated his wounds. “I will not be ready to fight wolves again for a while. You may have to do it next time.”

Aaren folded her blade to her breast and smiled up at him with shining eyes. She wasn't entirely sure what the return of her blade signified between them, but it seemed that he was acknowledging her skill with a blade . . . and her right to wield one. As she turned back to her work, she felt a new sense of hope.

It was only much later, after dark, in the firelit lodge that night, that she glimpsed his own sword resting on its point in the far corner, and recalled that he had been carrying it when he gave her back her blade. The sight of it, with its great, snarling wolf head, sent an inexplicable chill through her and she glanced at the shelf where her own blade lay sleeping among the blue-silver fox furs. Her heart slowed, then lurched to beat much faster.

She had her sword; he had his. The presence of both blades within the same lodge now seemed an unsettling portent.

For the next two days, Aaren provided food and care for Jorund, tending the hearth and changing the bindings on his wounds, which were healing quickly. He was openly warm and teasing with her, complimenting her hearth-skill and her tanning-craft, and admiring her resourcefulness in augmenting their supplies with gatherings of roots and pine nuts and a few dried berries she located in an old briar patch near the meadow. Her customary response to his praise, which he heard so often he began to repeat with her, was: “It is only what one warrior would do for another.” But even as she answered with warriorlike bluster, she blushed in a decidedly girlish fashion and could scarcely meet his gaze.

The new pleasure she took in doing “womanly things” for him and the delight she took in his teasing admiration preyed on her pride. But she could not resist exploring this tantalizing new side of herself. She found herself watching his movements, looking for a chance to be his hands, seeking a way to place her body near his so that she might explore the contrast in their shapes and discover more of what it was like to be a woman in relation to a man. And she privately savored those quiet moments in the mornings and evenings when she unwrapped his hands and cleaned and inspected his wounds, or helped him tie on his boots or strap on his belt. Each small task deepened the intimacy between them and made it all the harder for her to lie in her chilled, solitary furs at night, knowing that his generous, pleasurable heat lay only a few steps away.

On the fourth morning after the wolf-slaying, Jorund was restive and eager to reclaim his mobility. He insisted Aaren remove the bindings on his hands and he flexed them and pronounced them healed enough to withstand a climb up to the cliffs overlooking the valley.

“I am not so sure, Jorund,” she said, shaking her head. “There has been no festering—you were lucky there. But if you reopen one of them . . .”

He grinned and leaned close to her ear with a tempting rumble. “Then you must come with me . . . and make sure I behave.”

Thus, he led her on a climb up the steep slopes that led to the top of the cliffs far above the meadow. They moved slowly, testing each foothold, pausing frequently to catch their breaths. Once they reached the top, Aaren knew why he had been so eager to come. The view was breathtaking. Mountaintops, some craggy and some worn smooth, stretched around them into a blue-shrouded distance that seemed to blend with the sky-vault itself. Below them spread a richly textured cloak of dark green, fawn brown, and birch gold. And above them, seeming close enough to snatch from the deep sky-pool, were wispy clouds shaped like the tails of the mares the Valkyrs were known to ride.

“It is beautiful,” she breathed, turning from one vista to another, drinking it in with all her senses.

“Yea, it is that,” he said, delighted by the wonder in her eyes. “This is the place I come when I want to set my mind at sea . . . to voyage through dreams and memories.”

She looked at him with puzzlement and he laughed, turning her shoulders and pointing her toward the golden Sky-Traveler, who had only just begun his day's journey. “Look there . . . where Norsemen have ‘traveled eastway.' Such lands lie there—a distance of many months of sailing—which would dazzle your eyes with riches, tickle your tongue with new tastes, and delight your skin with strange textures. After sailing up rivers and carrying the long ships over a number of great falls, you come to Byzantium . . . a land of swarthy people with dark eyes and unending summer. The men know the secrets of gold-working and silk-weaving, and live in great, soaring halls covered inside and out with brightly colored glass and beads and stones. They ride swift horses and worship one god and fight like demons . . . and they have many wives, who all wear rings in their ears, chains of golden coins at their throats, and jewels in their bellies.”

Aaren's eyes widened as his words conjured pictures in her mind and she clasped his arm, insisting, “You have seen such things?”

“I have,” he said, smiling, glancing at her hand on his arm. “I have sailed on a number of . . . voyages.”

“The women truly have jewels in their bellies?” She slid her other hand speculatively down her abdomen and searched his face for some sign he was teasing her.

“I saw them.” He nodded. “Their scribes write in strange runes and their traders deal in spices—Borger brought a number of their spicemeats back with him, though they are seldom used. The women wear silk and dance wildly to the music of drums and harps and pipes. And they—” He halted and grew a wicked grin. “They are fascinated by men with light hair and eyes.”

She released his arm with a good-natured shove. “No doubt you speak from experience.”

He laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, turning her a quarter turn so that she faced another distant vista. “And this is the southway for trading and raiding. After a dozen sailing days, you come first to the lands of the Danes.” He made a face. “More quarrelsome than Borger, they are. Short of stature and dark-eyed and treacherous. But they make a special wheel of curds that is a delight to the tongue.” He bent closer to her face and extended a hand to sweep the distance away and bring images closer to her mind.

“Then with more sailing you come to the land of the Franks. Christians, mostly. The sun lingers long in their land and in the warmth they grow berries called ‘grapes' and make the juice into wine. And they grow much wheat and barley and have whole fields full of apples and plums.” Their noses were almost touching. “Have you ever tasted a plum?” When she shook her head, tantalized by his nearness, he explained: “They are round and sweet, like honey-soaked apples. Have you ever tasted wine?” She answered with another shake of the head and a sigh. “When we get back to the village, I will see that you do. Old Borger has a taste for wine and often strikes bargains with the coastal traders for it.”

“Where was I?” he murmured, brushing her hair with his nose and pouring warm breath into her ear. “Ahhh. The Franks trade and weave all manner of cloth, and they dye silk and make tapestries—great cloths woven with pictures that tell stories. And the colors they produce would make the rainbow bridge of Asgard quake with envy.” He grinned at her shock. “And the women . . . they like men with light hair, too. It was from them that I learned how to kiss.”

Her eyes flew to his mouth and her lips parted, feeling thicker and warmer. For a moment they stood half embraced, his head near hers, their cheeks almost touching. Need that sank through her core like a stone-weight, dragging her stomach with it, made her stiffen. He considered her sudden tension and drew back, turning his face toward the horizon.

“I come here to think . . . and to see to the ends of the earth . . . to visit again in dreams and visions,” he said, rubbing her shoulder gently with his fingertips. “Eastway, southway . . . there is a way west, as well, into the greatest sea of all . . .”

“And which whale's pathway did you travel, when you left your blood upon an enemy's blade?” she asked quietly, praying he would not hate her for asking. The need to know more about his past burned inside her, for she sensed that it was in the fields of his past that the seeds of their future had been sown. He stilled, then straightened, but did not move away. She summoned the courage and raised her gaze to him. His expression was grave and his look was searching. Heartened by the fact that he had not denounced her or pushed her away, she ventured more.

“Will you not tell me how you took the battle-scars you bear?” she whispered.

She asked about his scars, but he knew, in truth, that she asked much more. And he looked down into those warm amber eyes and knew that someday he would have to tell her. Perhaps if she knew the truth, she would understand why he did not fight . . . why he could never fight her.

“You have been on raiding voyages,” she prompted in low, solemn tones. “You have gone a'viking, have you not?”

He expelled a ragged breath and nodded. Then he urged her toward an outcropping of rock nearby and bade her sit. He sank to his knees in the dried grass before her, resting his battered hands on his thighs and staring off toward the distant azure realms of the southway.

“I sailed with Borger and his men for seven years,” he began. “And in that time I left the dew of my wounds on several shores. From the time I was old enough to lift a blade, Borger saw that I was taught the ways of the warrior: weapon-skill, strategies of battle, and how to survive in the wilderness. I learned well . . .” His voice lowered as his thoughts fled back in time. “I was but ten and three when I killed my first man on a raid. He had only a knife to defend his home and I . . . I had a long-blade. Borger celebrated.” He looked away. “I emptied my stomach.”

He paused and his hands curled painfully. “After a time, I learned not to see their faces . . . not to hear their cries . . . not to see their blood. And I learned to talk of it afterward as all warriors talk: words of glory that painted images of courage and cunning and honor. The raiding grew less profitable; again and again we came to settlements of other Norsemen, and then to fortified towns where our usual lightning-quick raids would not succeed. We had to rely more on trading furs and sea-ivory, and we profited less, for Borger was not half so cunning a trader as he was a fighter. Then came one season when the trading failed completely. We had spent the entire winter in the southway, seeking profits and finding none. With empty bellies and nothing left to trade, we sold our sword arms to a king of the southern Franks.”

His voice and his eyes grew distant as sights and sounds boiled up out of memory, filling his senses again. “The fighting was hard . . . we were greatly outnumbered. Every way we looked, defeat bore down on us. I saw my kinsmen falling . . . I felt death's chilled breath upon my neck.” His fists clenched, his jaw muscles worked tautly, and his eyes began to glow with that same fierce light that had shone in them as he fought the wolves.

“I raised my wolf-blade one last time and began to swing it with every burst of battle-strength and hatred I could summon. I felt death itself invading my arms . . . pouring itself out through the edge of my steel. They came at me and I set my feet and slashed and hacked through that storm of iron and flesh. My senses clogged with the blood and the screams and the strain of fighting, until I heard nothing more, saw nothing more, and felt nothing at all. I just went on wielding my blade and drawing blood . . . killing . . . and maiming.”

Aaren's stomach knotted as she watched him and realized he was speaking of the battle-fury that came over him . . . the state he had been in after he killed the wolves. Sliding onto her knees beside him, she laid her hand on his bulging arm.

“It is the battle-fury, the berserker rage, Jorund. It happens to the mightiest of warriors in the throes of fighting. It is naught to be ashamed of. Most warriors are proud—”

“Proud?” His eyes were fierce, his shoulders trembling. “Behind me and all around me lay a swath of death and destruction. Everywhere I trod, blood was knee-deep, bodies lay twisted and mangled . . . They lost count of how many I killed that day. I was so blood-maddened I could not stop. I swung at everything, everyone that came near . . . killed some of the king's men along with the enemy, and even wounded one of my own kinsmen. Then, when there was no one left to slay, I staggered into the woods, slashing at trees—at the air itself—until I collapsed.”

She listened with her heart as well as her ears. In her mind, she saw him again as he had been with the wolves: white-eyed, snarling . . . deadly. And she saw him as he had been years ago.

She understood that strange narrowing of the senses during combat; she had experienced it herself. And she had felt the burn of battle-fire in her blood, which was a foretaste of the consuming blood-rage that had roared in his. Suddenly she shared with him a compelling oneness of feeling, which let her experience some of the pain he was reliving. Then in the silence the tension and anxiety began to fade and she was left with a knot in her throat and an ache in her heart.