She shook head before continuing.
“But I didn’t accuse you. I didn’t forsake you. My resistance came from my fear for my safety. You heard how quick others were to accuse me. Do you think those accusations will be gone by the time we walk back? They will have festered, but me remaining in the crowd wouldn’t have done anything to prevent the rumors. Strian, the moment I needed you, you refused me. The weight of that is crushing.”
“I’m sorry, so, so, sorry,” his voice cracking once more before he cleared his throat. “You are right. I’ve wronged you as your husband. I pledged to always protect you, and yet, at the first sign of danger, I was a coward.”
There was no mistaking the shame and remorse in Strian’s voice or in his eyes. Gressa tilted her head back to look at the clouds as she took a deep breath. Life had seemed so fresh and uncomplicated those first three months of their marriage. They had awakened to one another, making love before going to the training field, slipping off during the noon meal for a few minutes alone before they each had other duties to attend. They found each other before the evening meal where they often fed one another, living in a land of love and affection that had no other occupants. They would fall into bed kissing as they worshipped one another’s bodies and made love well into the night, only to awaken to the same routine.
Now, life was complicated, and they could never return to that time of bliss. Fate had sealed that for them. They had been apart far longer than they had been a couple. Strian had only courted her for four moons before they married. They had spent less than a year as a couple, but their love still bound them together. It was a part of each of them that was inextricable despite years of separation and now yet another trial.
“Strian, you’re not a coward. I don’t want to ever hear you say that again. I would kill anyone stupid enough to accuse you of that, so I won’t accept it from you. Stand up.” She waited as he shuffled to his feet. She grasped both of his hands. “I am angry and hurt still. That won’t go away just because you apologized. It will take me a while to calm down, but I told you I understand. But, Strian, you can’t go around accusing me any time something complicates or tests our marriage. I can’t spend my life with someone who is so willing to believe the worst of me, who doesn’t trust me.”
“I do trust you. It was my own selfishness that made me lash out. You never gave me reason to believe you aren’t worthy of that trust, but I saw how you paled when those men stepped forward. I assumed you were fearful for at least one of their lives. That cut through me like a knife, but Gressa, there’s something you refuse to tell me. My mind assumed it had something to do with those men, that you’re hiding something that involves one of them. I believe your reason for wanting to return to Wales has to do with them. You can’t live your life fearing I believe the worst in you, but I can’t spend my life knowing you’re hiding something from me.”
Strian tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but her secret sat in the back of his mind, and it had come screaming to life. His remorse fought against his impatience, and this time the latter won.
Gressa closed her eyes but could not keep the tears from falling. There was no other choice but to tell Strian why she needed to return to Wales. There was no chance for them to heal if she did not divulge what she fought to keep hidden. Keeping the secret would not protect Strian from the same pain she lived with daily. It would only drive them apart.
Strian watched as Gressa struggled with the decision to tell him what she continued to hide, and the longer she waited, the more his mind wanted to suspect the worst.
“Stop. Stop being evasive. Stop lying by omission and tell me the damn truth.” Strian’s voice was wrought with emotion: impatience, fear, and frustration.
Gressa knew Strian’s demand was reasonable. She had been lying by omission.
“Our son!” she sobbed.
Strian felt the air whoosh from him, and he let go as dizziness overtook him. He sank to his haunches and shook his head.
“I have a son. We have a son.” Hate filled his gaze as he looked up at Gressa. It was the same look he had given her as they stood with the crowd. His guilt morphed into anger as once again he questioned her loyalty. Loyalty he believed had been proven only moments ago. “You stayed there. You didn’t do everything in your power to come home. With our son.”
Gressa kneeled before him and reached for his face, but he brushed her hands away.
“I was injured then ill for weeks. By the time I was well enough to travel, I was too far along to go anywhere. I told you it was two moons by the time I was well enough to get around. I was already five months pregnant when I realized my condition.” She hiccupped as she tried to control her tears. “He’s dead, Strian. He was stillborn, but he’s buried there. They wouldn’t let me give him a Norse funeral. They stole away his chance to go to Helgafjellto live a life like the living among the spirits. They took him away before he could earn his entrance to Valhalla or Fôlkvang. I can’t leave him behind if his soul isn’t at rest. He will be alone and without our gods.”
Gressa turned towards the water and walked to the shore. Strian let her go as what she said permeated his foggy mind. When he made sense of what she said, he ran after her. He caught her around the waist and pulled her into his embrace. She felt the shudders run through him as his tears soaked her shoulder.
“Were you never going to tell me?”
“I don’t think so. I couldn’t stand seeing you like this. It was one thing to let you believe I caused you pain or doubt. It was another to hurt you with this knowledge. I would have spared you it for I know it all too well. I live with it every day.”
They stood holding each other until they knew they could no longer wait to return to the tribe.
“I will take you back to Wales as soon as I can assemble my crew. They can return with my longboat, and I will pass its ownership to my first mate. But Gressa, do you want to return to the court of Dafydd and Enfys? Do we have to?”
Gressa drew in a deep breath not wanting to think about the reality of returning to Wales. It was no longer as simple as it had seemed. Now she feared what would happen to Strian if she brought a Norse warrior into their midst. She feared his life would depend upon him fighting against his own people. She could not leave their son, but she could not endanger Strian. The conflicting thoughts made her head ache. Even if they did not live in the royal stronghold, they could not escape Dafydd and Enfys knowing she had returned. Her return would signal her escape from Grímr’s forces; forces she had been specifically sent to join. There was no where they could live that was close to their son’s grave without being close to the couple that betrayed her. Gressa shook her head before answering.
“I don’t know. I won’t return to their service, and I fear for your safety, but my heart demands I return to our son as much as it insists I protect you. I don’t know that I can do both.”
“What if you let me worry about protecting myself?”
“Never.” Gressa’s visceral reaction was unwavering and immediate.
Strian could not fight the smile that wanted to break through. He looked at his wife who stood a foot shorter than him and who weighed slightly more than half his weight. She was a fierce warrior in her own right, but it seemed almost humorous that she was his protector.
“Then what do you propose?”
Gressa swallowed before offering her solution.
“We bring him home.”
