“I watched you cook it, remember?” he said, apparently realising why she was watching him.
She shook her head and ate her own broth. By the time his spoon clattered into his bowl, she had nearly finished too. He broke pieces of bread and used it to wipe around the sides of the bowl.
“It wasn’t that good,” she said.
He looked at her, surprised. “It was good.” He held her eyes for a long moment. She blushed, more pleased than she wanted to admit she was at his praise. “You have never tried to eat anything cooked by Ulf. How much food do we have left?”
“Plenty of oats, no vegetables, no bread. And the venison.”
“We’ll not starve,” he replied. “But it is a pity you didn’t think to bring any ale.”
“Ale is not one of my priorities. Besides, neither did you.”
“Ah, but when I left Kirkjaster I wasn’t planning on being away for this long.”
At that, they both laughed and the atmosphere shifted to something almost comfortable.
“Caelin, come and eat your food. You will be no use to the cubs if you don’t look after yourself.”
“But they’re eating, Mama.”
“And you told me you were starving!”
Arne pushed his chair back and knelt beside Caelin. “Here, let me. You go and eat. You don’t want to upset your mother.” He sat on the floor and continued tending to the cubs.
“Fine.”
Gemma smiled as her son’s face came into view over the table. He took a seat and began eating heartily.
“Slow down,” she reminded him, but he just looked at her and continued to eat as fast as he was able before returning to the cubs. Gemma cleared the empty bowls, ready for washing.
“I’ll get you more water,” Arne said.
“Thank you.”
He picked up the bucket and went outside. Her thoughts wandered as they went through the routine of him handing in the buckets of snow and her pouring them into the cauldron. She was not used to living with too few resources, having grown up in her father’s royal residence at Alt Clut then in her husband’s fort at IrYsgyn. There had always been plenty of food and warmth. Neither of which she had fully appreciated until now.
She smiled when she thought about Alt Clut and how she had escaped in the autumn and managed to stow away with Arne’s brother Björn and his wife Ylva. She hadn’t accomplished this alone, however. Aoife’s cousin, Lord Cenydd, had sent the group of traders to rescue her, and one of them, Qasim, had shown her a knife she had given Lord Cenydd as a present years before when she had wondered if he might ask for her hand in marriage. Then Caelin’s father had asked for her hand, and as far as she knew Cenydd had not yet married, but he had remained on good terms with her whenever they had seen one another prior to the siege.
The knife had proved, however, that the traders had been sent to help her. At least being held prisoner at Alt Clut, she had known every nook and cranny that could be used to hide her belongings, so they were easily retrieved in the darkness. The guards on the narrow stairway leading up to the old royal residence on the peak of the rock had marched past her more than once, not even knowing she was there. It was the first time she had done anything as daring, and had been surprised by its success. Now every day she had to learn other skills denied to her as a princess.
She looked down at the dress she was wearing. It had been made with fabric purchased from traders in Kirkjaster and she’d sewn it herself in the Norse style. She had taken great care with it, wanting to blend in as much as possible, but in those early days she had been grateful the Norse were so decorative with their clothing—it had given her something to think about as she learned to stitch new patterns. Sitting each day and sewing with Aoife was probably the only thing that had made her feel like she was not indebting herself to the Norsemen.
Finally they had enough water and Arne barred the door behind him, and added a few more logs to the fire to replace the lost heat.
“It’s getting worse out there,” he said, genuine worry in his voice.
“Will we be all right?”
“It is a bad storm, but usually the snow, even when it is heavy, does not last for many days. The rain will be back to wash it away soon. That is the thing confusing me most about you Britons, why you choose to live somewhere where it rains so heavily and so often with neither the fine summers nor the snowy winters we are blessed with further north.”
“One might ask, then, why your people choose to come and invade our lands?”
“There are other advantages to life here.”
She shot a glance at him. For a moment, it had sounded like he meant in terms of women… but she had never seen him with a woman, ever. Apart from Rhiannon. And she didn’t think there was anything between the two of them despite the fact they cared for Rhiannon’s son Elisedd and Einar together. It was another man who was interested in Rhiannon, Arne’s brother Ulf, although she didn’t think the interest was mutual.
Arne was looking back at Caelin and the cubs now, almost if he hadn’t spoken.
