By the gods, he needed to leave her before he gave in to the dark needs.
To change the subject, he asked, “How is Matheus?”
Throughout the past hour, the child had continued to spread even amounts of mud into the cracks. He appeared content in the tedious task, his eyes staring at the crevices as if he saw something else there.
Elena moved behind the boy. “He is managing as well as I could expect. Today he started filling the cracks in the walls, after I showed him how. He’s been working on it all day.”
When Ragnar bent down to see the child’s work, it was clear that the boy was locked upon the task.
“I’ve never seen anyone with such a strong focus,” Elena said. “He does such good work. I think we may be able to find a trade for him if he has a kind master to show him what’s needed.”
She leaned down and asked, “Matheus, are you hungry?”
The boy gave no answer, gliding his hands over the mud. Ragnar went to stand before him, and the child never ceased from his task.
“Come and eat with us,” Ragnar offered gently. But when he extended a hand, Matheus flinched.
Elena shrugged apologetically. “He sometimes doesn’t respond when I ask him to stop.”
It wasn’t at all a good sign, if the boy was disobeying her. But perhaps there was more to it than she’d said. “Does he understand your words?” Ragnar asked.
Elena shrugged. “Sometimes. I don’t know what has meaning to him and what doesn’t. He’s calm when he has a repetitive task to complete.” She didn’t seem too concerned by it.
“And what if there’s danger?” he asked. “If you call out to him, and he disobeys you, he could be hurt.”
Elena sobered at that. “I would hope that he’d obey me in that instance.”
Hope wasn’t strong enough. He worried that Elena’s hesitation to discipline the boy might cause problems. “You can’t let him decide when he wants to obey you,” Ragnar warned her. “If you are to be his foster mother, he has to learn.”
The boy stood against the wall, peering outside through the crevices. The evening light was fading, but he stared at the sunlight, his hands frozen against the wood.
When he touched the boy’s shoulders, Matheus jerked at the contact and let out a scream. The child’s fingers curled into the wet mud and he began to fight when Ragnar tried to pull him away.
He squirmed and kicked his feet, as if trying to return to the wall. It took hardly any effort to restrain the boy, but when Ragnar brought the child to Elena, she appeared uneasy.
“Let go of his hands,” she pleaded. “You’re upsetting him.”
Ragnar continued to hold the child’s hands firmly but kept his voice calm. “If you keep allowing him to do as he pleases, whenever he likes, you’ll have a terrible child on your hands.”
Gently, he let go of the boy, but the moment he did, Matheus ran back to the wall, his eyes fixated on the outside sunlight. He smeared at the mud and then his screams quieted, almost as if he’d seen something.
“Wait here,” Ragnar told Elena, reaching for his sword. He stepped outside and walked around her dwelling, but there was no sign of anyone there. Ragnar shielded his eyes against the setting sun, searching for a glimpse of an intruder. But when he could find nothing, he saw no choice but to return.
The boy was right where they’d left him, his hands pressed against the wood. Elena was trying to coax him away, but Matheus refused to leave.
It was possible that the boy simply wanted to go outside into the sunlight. Ragnar lifted the child into his arms and brought him over to Elena, paying no attention to the boy’s whining. “Bring a basin of water. He should wash the mud from his hands before he eats.”
She poured water into a wooden bowl and brought over some sand to scour his hands. Ragnar could tell from her expression that the boy’s dismay bothered her deeply.
He ignored Matheus’s protests and dipped the boy’s hands in the water, rubbing them with sand. All the while, the child kept screaming and fighting.
Elena’s face appeared even more worried. “You’re frightening him. Please...just let him go.”
“He has to learn that he cannot get whatever he wants, simply by screaming.”
Elena’s soft heart was going to get her into trouble if she wasn’t careful. From the way she was glaring at him, she believed he was being too hard on the child.
“He’s endured so much. I don’t think—”
