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‘Our son.’ He raised his hand. ‘Hear me out. Please. Then you decide.’
Kara reluctantly nodded.
‘All you will do is to create temptation by forbidding something. Rurik will get used to defying you. Virvir is his best friend at the moment. I used to defy my father to see my friends.’
Kara rolled her eyes. ‘You’re spouting nonsense.’
He covered her hand with his. A warm current ran up her arm. ‘I speak from experience. Rurik needs time to create a new god to worship. In time he will see this Virvir for the false friend that he surely is, but you have to allow him the opportunity to make that discovery on his own.’
‘You? You want to be his new god?’ she enquired softly, clenching her hands together. She couldn’t allow her attraction to Ash to override her judgement. She knew what it was like to have Ash as a god and how he could destroy with casual indifference. ‘Do you still need to be worshipped?’
‘Hardly.’ He shrugged and moved another piece. ‘One of my men would be better. Someone he can look up to rather than a father who is lacking.’
‘And here you are, the person who saved a man’s life with a tafl match.’
‘Saxi might do,’ he said by way of answer. ‘He had children once. Right now Rurik spouts all sorts of nonsense about Virvir says this or that when he is holding his sword or bow wrong. He watched us in training this morning with your woman, rather than helping with the grain, and I took the opportunity to quiz him.’
Kara wrinkled her nose. Thora was supposed to have been keeping an eye on him. She supposed Thora couldn’t resist watching the warriors. And Ash had always been one to take advantage of opportunities. ‘Rurik doesn’t know how to hold a bow.’
‘I agree. His fingering is all wrong. He will never be able to kill any prey or hit any target beyond the barn door, if he continues to hold it in that way. But he insists that Virvir has shown him the true way.’
‘An accident in the making,’ Kara said, pressing her lips together and rapidly moving one of her pieces. Rurik had been using a bow and arrow without her permission. He had climbed without her permission. What else had he done?
‘You can see why he needs to be properly trained. He needs to learn not to point the arrow at anyone except if he is in battle.’ Ash neatly captured another of her pieces.
Kara frowned. This match was not turning out how she had planned. ‘He is too young, Ash.’
‘But he desperately wants to be a warrior and he is a boy. He wants to have a hero. A man to look up to. I’m not speaking about sending him into battle or off to sea, but giving him the skills to survive.’
‘How do you know so much about boys?’
He laughed. The rich sound warmed her down to her toes. ‘I was one once.’
‘What happened when your heroes turned out not to be what you thought they were? When they left you?’ she asked, concentrating on his face rather than on the board. Ash had to understand how it hurt when it turned out the hero you worshipped was simply ordinary and very flawed. She knew intimately how much that ached.
‘Are you asking for Rurik or for yourself?’ His fingers cupped her cheek.
‘I want to know if you remember the feeling,’ she said and kept her head absolutely still, resisting the temptation to turn her lips towards his palm.
‘It hurt,’ Ash admitted with a long sigh, releasing her. ‘You can’t protect Rurik from every hurt or sorrow, Kara. You will drive yourself mad. You need to relax and trust your son’s judgement. He is an intelligent boy. No one is perfect. It is wrong to make a man into a god and then hate him when he turns out to be a man. Now take your turn.’
Kara’s hand trembled on her king piece. It was easy for Ash to criticise. He only saw Rurik as he was now—well and strong. She had seen him struggle for his breath and the terrible colds he suffered each winter. She had nursed him through each illness until even her bones trembled with weariness.
‘I’ve lost interest in this game.’ She put down the piece. ‘There are a thousand things I need to do before I retire. Perhaps it is best we end it here.’
‘Running away won’t change the truth. I learnt that lesson long ago.’ Ash put his hands behind his head. ‘Are you giving up this easily? I never took you for someone who quit at the first sign of losing. It was one of the reasons I wanted to marry you in the first place. You never wanted to quit. Have you changed that much?’
