It was then that Ragnar found a series of rough finger drawings made in the sand on the far side of the fire. There was a small boy with a rope around his neck and he was being led by a man. The man was smiling and holding pieces of gold in his free hand.
“Egill,” Magnus said. “It is my son. Somehow he managed to capture Egill.”
“Your dream,” Zarabeth said, her hand on his forearm.
“Aye, he’s a slave, but he’s alive. By Thor, where did Orm take him?”
Ingunn came forward and went to her knees to study the drawings. “He said nothing to me about capturing Egill, nothing at all.” There was shock in her voice.
“But we know where Egill is,” Zarabeth said with a smile. “He’s in the Danelaw.”
24
It was just past dawn, the sky a soft pink with folds of pale gray. The air was cool and still; the creatures in the forest were silent. Zarabeth lay against Magnus, her head on his shoulder. She listened to his even breathing, her palm flat on his chest, against his heart. In a day and a half they would be back at Malek. Back to her home.
She burrowed closer and his arm tightened about her back, an unconscious gesture to keep her safe and close.
He had come after her. He had wasted no time, given no thought to the possibility that she could have fled from him or even leapt to her death off a cliff into the viksfjord. She came up to her elbow then and looked at his face. There was a slight smile on his lips, she was certain of it, and without thought she leaned down and kissed him lightly on the mouth. She kissed him again, then once more.
He opened his eyes slowly, even though she knew he’d come instantly awake at her touch, for that was how he was.
“It’s early, Zarabeth. I have need of rest. You have worn me to the bone chasing you to the edge of the earth. However, I don’t wish to discourage you. You may kiss me again.”
She did, saying between the light, nipping kisses, “You came after me.”
He went still and she stopped kissing him and looked down into his face as he said somberly, “Did you believe for one instant that I would not?”
“No, not for an instant. I don’t think Ingunn doubted it either. She was always trying to get Orm to hurry, but he didn’t. He is quite mad.”
“Aye, perhaps now, but when we were boys...” His voice trailed off and he said abruptly, “Your stomach is making so much noise I cannot go back to sleep.”
“I have been hungry since Orm captured me.”
He frowned then. “Why have you not said anything?”
“I did not think of it until just a moment ago. No, Magnus, don’t move yet. I won’t starve until the sun hits its zenith, I promise you.” She sighed. “Ah, ’tis good to be clean again even though the viksfjord water nearly froze my eyebrows from my face.” She kissed him again, remembering the bathing both of them had done in the viksfjord the evening before.
“When I have returned you to Malek and Ingunn to my father’s farmstead, I will take my men and sail to the Danelaw.”
She said nothing for several moments. She was still propped up on her elbow, over him, and she leaned down again and kissed him once more. He came up to kiss her back this time, but she pressed him down. “I am trying to think,” she said. “You mustn’t distract me.”
“That is nice for a man to hear. You are certain that now I could distract you?”
She looked worried and he felt a leap of anger at her. She had come running to him the evening before, hurling herself upon him, trusting him completely. But now she was behind that wall of hers, that cursed barrier that he had sworn to breach. But he held his tongue. She had bathed with him, seeming to enjoy it, but had fallen asleep before he could show her how much he had missed her. And now she had kissed him, willingly, so many times he couldn’t believe it, and she was lying easily against him. He saw her look over to where Ingunn lay wrapped in a blanket, sleeping soundly, her white-blond hair spread about her head.
“Ingunn saved me, she truly did.”
“I don’t wish to speak of my sister. How is your throat?”
“Do I still sound like a frog?”
“You sound like a wet cloth slapping at an open wound.”
“That is a disgusting image, Magnus. Was your first wife silly?”
“Silly? Dalla?” He looked at her, his eyebrow cocked upward.
“Your parents arranged for you to wed with her? Was she silly?”
