“Torsten, please, please wake up! You cannot die, not now, not like this, not because you saved me! I cannot bear it. I need you. I…I love you.”
She should have told him earlier, when he had taken her hand and looked at her with such feeling, when he had found the beautiful rock for her, when he had asked her if she needed company, even.
“Help!” she screamed again and again, until her voice grew hoarse. She could not give up. She was still conscious, she still had a voice. She would scream until someone heard her or she passed out from exhaustion. There was no other choice. “Help!”
And then she heard it. A tentative call, from up above. “Anyone here?”
“Yes, here!” Aife shouted, relief scalding her veins. At last! “Over here. Please!”
By the time the group of men reached her, she had stopped crying and was doing her best to free her hands.
“All right,” one of the Saxons said, looking at the scene in front of him. “No need to fret. We’ll get you out of here.”
13
Still. So still.
Why was Torsten so still? Surely it was not normal for anyone who was not dead to be so still? Aife looked around the hut in despair. She was alone with an unconscious Torsten and her dark thoughts for sole company. There was no one to reassure her. The Saxons who had found them on the beach had brought her and Torsten to their village just down the road, carrying his unconscious form straight to an empty hut. Shortly after, the healer had paid them a visit.
Far from comforting Aife, their discussion had sent her into a state of shock.
“Having been struck in the back like he was, your man might never be able to walk again,” the woman had told her after a perfunctory examination. Either she held a grudge against Norse people or she enjoyed upsetting strangers, because there was no attempt at mitigation in her assessment or compassion in her eyes.
“N-never walk again?”
A shrug, as if it hardly mattered, one way or the other. “’Tis a strong possibility. Come to think of it, he might not be able tomake love to you either, considering that his cock is below the waist as well.” The woman’s eyes narrowed on Aife’s stomach. “I hope for both your sakes that you’re already with child because I doubt it will happen now. Oh well. You could always take a lover, I suppose, if you’re desperate for a babe—and other things.”
Aife bunched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. How dare the woman talk to her in such a cruel way? Didn’t she know that the news she was imparting was devastating? She was saying that Torsten might never walk again, might never be able to make love to a woman again…
Oh, the cruel irony of it. After so long worrying about his ability to perform in bed, he might now find himself truly impotent. Mere days after he’d proved to himself that there was nothing wrong with his body, he would see his ability to feel and give pleasure taken from him. How would he bear such a blow?
It was all her fault. Had she not wanted to go to the beach that day, had she not called him to come so near to the cliff, they would both be at the village now, and Torsten would be whole.
“You’re wrong,” she told the healer, wiping her tears in an angry gesture. Surely her examination had been too brief to be conclusive. Why should anyone set score by it? “He will recover. I’m sure of it.”
But night had now fallen and Torsten still had not opened his eyes or even moved. Aife looked at him until her eyes ached. He was so beautiful, his naked chest golden in the firelight, the lean muscles delineated by the shadows dancing in the hut. On his right shoulder was a nasty cut, surrounded by what promised to be a nasty bruise. On his left bicep was the silver arm ring he’d worn since he’d become a man. Each of Wolf’s three sons sported a different one, matching their personality. They had been presented to them, as was tradition, the year they had turned sixteen. Aife remembered it vividly, because the yearTorsten had turned sixteen, she had turned fifteen, and she’d fancied herself a woman as well.
The arm ring gleaming in the light of the flames was chiseled and elegant rather than sturdy, just like him. The image of a wolf sitting on his haunches was carved in the middle, his gaze planted directly in the observers’ eyes. It denoted wisdom and honesty rather than strength, like Steinar’s or vitality, like Sven’s. It was perfect, the perfect adornment on a perfect man. Or at least, perfect until now.
Another sob got caught in her throat.
Please wake up,Torsten, she silently begged.I need to know you’re going to be all right.
The healer had not said anything about him dying from his wounds. In fact, her prediction about him not being able to walk suggested she didn’t doubt he that would wake up. That was something at least, something she desperately hung on to.
Eventually Aife decided she had better try to get some rest. There was nothing else to do and she didn’t want to be tired when Torsten finally woke up and needed her. Ignoring her aching muscles, she headed toward the chair set by the firepit. Just as she reached it, the door opened with an ominous creak.
“Has he woken up yet?”
The healer walked into the room uninvited, a basket of herbs in hand. Despite the question, she didn’t sound particularly interested in her patient’s welfare. She was only doing what she was supposed to do, no doubt to maintain her reputation as a reliable healer amongst the village folk. Either that or she had only come to gloat. Aife gritted her teeth. Whatever it was, she didn’t need any of it.
“No,” she forced herself to say, hoping it would be enough to send the woman on her way.
It wasn’t.
“I told you it would be rather complicated. But mind you, you Norsepeople seem to be made of stronger stuff than us Saxons, so you never know. My cousin married a Norseman a few years ago. She tells me he’s rather more…well, let’s just say he has enough stamina for two and will not easily be satisfied in bed. She doesn’t mind, rather the opposite.” The woman let out a giggle, highly unwelcome in the circumstances. “Actually, you might know him. He must be about the same age as you. Njal, a fisherman?”
Everything soured in Aife’s stomach because she might indeed know him. It sounded as if the insatiable Norseman was none other than the one who had taken Torsten into town to see the filthy widow all those years ago and left the village shortly after. Njal had been a fisherman’s son, it was reasonable to think he had taken up his father’s trade. She cursed their bad luck. Of all places, the man had to have come here to live.
