She lifted her face to his. “Kiss me.” She spoke, unthinkingly, in Norse, but he understood her anyway and his lips took hers. They molded together, bodies, mouth, tongues, spirits, and her heart steadied, perhaps beating in time with his, while desire rose in a staggering wave.
“Love me,” she begged, even as she had long, long ago.
They moved to the sheltered end of the hut, where Hulda spread her cloak. Undressed themselves and each other.
Before they lay down, he turned her to face him. Beautiful he looked, standing there in the filtered light of the gloaming, holding her, holding her with his gaze. Deliberately, he lifted each of her hands in turn to his lips and dropped fervent kisses into the palms. He kissed both corners of her mouth, each cheek. He left a lingering kiss on her brow.
“Myself I do give to ye, Hulda. For all time.”
“Ja, and I—forever.”
They fell onto her cloak and wrapped themselves in each other. As it had been before, the joining seemed familiar yet new, a discovery of an old memory, an ancient song Hulda’s heart had never forgotten.
No beginning to how she loved this man, and no end. She withheld nothing of herself from him and they became, in truth, one being with one flesh.
I love you.
She whispered it to him over and over again, in two languages. Or mayhap he said it to her. Who could tell? Hulda knew only that she existed in this moment with him, and nothing else might be desired.
Time ceased to pass. If there was a wheel upon which the lives of men and women turned, it ground to a blessed halt and let them be.
“I love you,” one of them whispered again before, upon Quarrie’s chest, Hulda fell asleep.
*
Quarrie dreamed. Whilethe woman he loved slept close in his arms, he did. He was in a chariot behind a team of wild-headedponies. His best friend—a yellow-headed lad with a bright, crooked grin—was beside him, handling the traces. On their way into battle, they were. Secure in their friendship. Secure in their lives.
His friend turned to him. “When I die, will ye take good care o’ my sister?”
The scene changed, tumbled and fogged with smoke and flame. He ran toward another battle with a sword in his hand. This land he knew—it was his own stretch of shore, his own settlement. But it did not look the same. No keep stood on the knoll, only a roundhouse—a dun—and the dead lay everywhere. He stepped over them to reach his opponent.
The dream tumbled again. He saw a man, black hair streaked with gray, a cruel sneer on his face. He would fight that man to the death if he must in order to free the woman he loved.
Hulda stirred in his arms. Whimpered. It brought Quarrie from the dream.
“Hush, love. Wha’ is it?” He cradled her against him, precious to him as his own life.
“I dreamed—” Her lashes fluttered desperately. He could see her clearly. Morning must be almost come. “You were going off to fight. Ready to die for me.” She gulped back a sob. “Die.For me.”
“Aye.” Had they, after sharing so much, also shared the same dreams?
She began to fight her way free of his arms. “No man need ever fight for me. I fight on my own behalf.”
“Aye, love. Aye.”
“You were a warrior, you were always a warrior, and you tried to sacrifice yourself for me again and again.” She sat up and began to weep, this woman who, Quarrie imagined, very rarely shed a tear. She wept as if heartbroken.
“Love.” He seized her hands and tried to reason with her. “Ye canna keep a man fro’ fighting for what he loves.”
“I can. I can!”
“’Tis his God-given right, that.”
“I will never let you die for me, not again. I will stand for myself. Fight for myself.”
“Aye, so ye can.”
She cradled his face between her hands. “I do not want you to be a warrior. Not ever again.”
