His fear of the sea surprised her. He was a brave man. More than brave.
And now the sea was tranquil, shining. Erwyn loved it like a mother. Loved the sound of the waves, the smell of the salt, the feel of sand and fog. She could live in this place forever and never tire of it or be afraid.
“Let’s go.” Thalgor’s voice was still heavy with fear.
*
The three days it took to reach Thalgor’s new camp were like floating in honey. The warm time was almost upon them. Between the food Gee had sent, the sun-warm berries they picked along the way, and the meat Thalgor brought back from hunting each night, they ate lavishly. Each evening they swam together in the river or a pool in one of the creeks that fed it.
They celebrated their delight in each other every sunrise, every night. More than once, when they stopped to eat at midday, Thalgor let the puzzled ox roam and pulled Erwyn down on a patch of flowers or shady grass to love her yet again.
She’d always thought of her body as something she used, like words or magic, to get things done. Like words, or magic, it sometimes didn’t work exactly as she wanted, sometimes caused her pain, but by and large she knew its limits and enjoyed using it well and efficiently.
With Thalgor as her teacher she learned that her body held a whole world of its own. A world of sensation, of pleasure, of sheer joy.
To know Thalgor’s body gave him the same wants, the same bliss seemed to double all the hidden possibilities of her own. Man to woman, woman to man.
She wondered at times, as they trod along at the end of the day, dusty and tired, if he knew the same bliss with Dara, with others. But she knew better than to ask. She could only be grateful his bliss was with her for now.
They arrived at the camp mid-morning on the fifth day.
Thalgor hadn’t told her how close they were, but made love to her with even more than the usual intensity when they first awoke, then joined her in the river, where he bathed her tenderly, kissing all of her body’s most secret places.
Unaware their time alone was at an end, she trudged up a steep hill and suddenly saw the camp spread out below her.
A warm time camp. Warriors patrolled the perimeter, but the other men and older boys prepared the ground for planting food crops on three sides of the cluster of tents. On the fourth side shepherds sheared the sheep. Their bleats of protest floated lazily on the air. Closer to where they stood, the younger boys watched the oxen graze, new-born calves small and white among the gray cows.
The camp itself was much as she first saw it, except quieter. The great fires needed for warmth and light in the dark time were gone. In their place stood looms, dozens of them, circled in groups among the tents. The women sat in the morning sun and talked while they wove. Young girls carded wool at their feet, and the older ones spun. The littlest children played all around them under their mothers’ watchful eyes.
The memory of her mother weaving while she spun filled Erwyn’s eyes with tears.
“Do you weep to return to my camp, or at the end of our time alone?” Thalgor asked.
“I weep for the home I lost.”
“Ah.” He looked up to the sky. “I lost a home once, too.”
“Is this not your camp?”
“Now it is.” He turned away. “And yours, as well.”
She reached up to caress his shoulder, not sure why she felt the need to comfort him.
He took her other hand in his. “Shall we go?”
As they came nearer to the camp, word spread of their arrival. Boys appeared to free the ox of its burden and carried the baskets to Thalgor’s tent. Women left their looms, warriors their posts to welcome them back.
Batte and Gurdek met them just inside camp.
“Has all been quiet?” Thalgor asked.
They gave him their report as the three of them walked together toward his tent.
Erwyn fell a few steps behind. No one seemed to notice her in the excitement over Thalgor’s return. Only Dara glared at her from the door to her mother’s tent.
And Rygar greeted her with a handful of flowers when he met them half-way through the camp.
“I’m glad Thalgor persuaded you to come back.”
Persuaded, she thought with a shiver of pleasure, is not quite the right word. But she let Rygar think the warmth of her smile was all for him.
“The child has missed you,” he went on. “Gee missed your help. And I missed your company.”
“Rygar,” Thalgor called gruffly.
The younger man sighed, kissed Erwyn’s cheek, and went to see what his leader wanted.
Felyn appeared in his place, her cursed eyes wide and questioning. For a moment Erwyn felt again the terrible loss of the Wise Witches’ refusal. And knew the child felt it, too.
She drew Felyn to her side, gave her Rygar’s flowers, and rubbed her shoulder for comfort, as she had done that night in the forest when Thalgor found them.
Gee lumbered up to them, her hands stained from dying wool.
“We’re low on water,” she told Erwyn cheerfully.
Rygar had set up the loom Gee was too old to use in hopes of Erwyn’s return. After lunch, while the old woman cooked a celebration dinner, Erwyn began to lay the warp.
While the others were outside finishing their dinner that night, she moved the few things she called hers from the alcove she shared with Felyn to the one on the opposite side of the tent where Thalgor slept.
By unspoken agreement they waited until the others were asleep before going together to his bed. He smiled when he saw her clothes and bags of herbs in his sleeping chamber.
“Welcome.” He drew her into his arms.
When she emerged from his side of the tent the next morning, the child looked up at her and nodded, as if in approval, but the others pretended not to notice she now slept in Thalgor’s bed. To Erwyn’s great relief, no one said anything about it.
*
Everyone, Thalgor found, had something to say about the fact that he has taken Erwyn as his woman at last.
Batte spat, “The witch?” in disbelief.
Gurdek only shrugged, but he began to shoot Thalgor nervous glances, as if he expected a curse to fall on his leader at any moment.
The second morning, before the others were awake, Gee quietly asked him, “Are you certain it is wise to give your child to a witch?”
The idea of making Erwyn pregnant flooded him with a desire so intense he almost rushed to their bed to ravish her with that intent right then. As if she would have allowed it when the others might hear.
“Time will tell,” he told Gee through teeth gritted against the sudden ache in his loins.
Later the same day Rygar caught him staring at the witch as she sat at the loom among the other women. The others chatted gaily, but Erwyn was intent on her work. She paused only now and then to smile at something someone else said or to speak softly to Felyn, who carded wool at her feet.
“Being a witch will always come first for her.” His second shook his head.
“Being a warrior and leader of this band will always come first for me.” Thalgor turned away from the peaceful scene before them.
“Then you are well suited, aren’t you?” A mocking tone haunted the younger man’s words.
Well-suited? Thalgor thought as he went to check on how the planting went. Was that the word for the peace that filled him at the sight of Erwyn weaving? The lust that filled him at the thought of her carrying his child? For a moment he was not even certain the answer he had given Rygar was true.
Even the child, who still rarely spoke to him, had something to say.
That evening, when Erwyn got up on some errand from where they sat side by side, she patted his thigh with casual intimacy.
The child took her place next to him, patted his thigh with childish intimacy and said, “Nice.”
He gaped at her and swallowed hard, but she scampered away before he could respond.
Chapter Seven
Another made
a comment in her own way.
Late one night as Thalgor lay sated, Erwyn’s body draped across his, he heard voices outside the tent.
He gently edged away from his sleeping woman, threw on his tunic, and slipped to the drape that covered the door between the scullery and the cooking fire outside. He opened it a small crack and saw clearly in the firelight what he suspected he was meant to see.
Rygar sat reciting poetry to Dara. He seemed not to notice how close she sat to him, or how her hand rested on his thigh and moved slowly but inexorably toward his manhood.
Thalgor could tell the exact moment Dara’s hand found its target because Rygar fell silent and pushed the hand away. While he still seemed to be figuring out what had happened, she drew him to her and began to kiss him.
Rygar brought his hands to her shoulders and tried to free himself, but she opened her mouth so wide even Thalgor could see from his hiding place. Then she pulled her intended victim tightly against her again.
Thalgor held his breath. He did not want Dara for himself, nor did he fear Batte’s reaction if she should abandon him for Rygar. As Erwyn had said, Thalgor could handle Batte. But he did not want Rygar to take the lover who was once his.
People would talk. And some might remember…
Rygar was more to him than any other man. He would kill whatever hurt his second. But he did not know how to protect him from Dara.
When Rygar broke free of her embrace and stood up, Thalgor let out his breath with a low hiss.
“No.” Rygar wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Dara stood and linked her arms around his neck.
“Why stop?” she pouted, jutting her breasts into his chest.
“I…I am due on guard duty.”
“No one will know if you don’t go. The guards sleep all night, in any case.”
She tried to kiss him again, but he pushed her away.
“No.” His voice was stronger this time.
“Why not?”
“You are with Batte.”
“Only so long as it pleases me. Right now, you please me more.” She swayed against him.
“You were Thalgor’s.”
“But no longer.”
“This is his tent.”
“We could go to the woods,” she suggested in a husky voice.
“At night? Are you a fool as well as a wanton? Did you not hear the panther scream only a few moments ago?”
But Rygar’s words didn’t deter her.
“Maybe after the next battle.” She ran her hand up his arm. “You’re an archer, aren’t you? Swordsmen like Batte are always so tired after a battle.”
“Not after the next battle.” Rygar stepped away. “Not ever. I do not want you. And you do not want me. You only want revenge on Thalgor because he chose another.”
“Revenge is not such a bad thing. Watch out for it yourself, archer.” Dara stomped off into the dark.
Thalgor let the drapes fall shut and returned to his bed, both relieved and disturbed.
*
Large bands rarely fought battles in the warm time, but marauders and raiding parties were a constant threat. Thalgor wasn’t surprised when he was awakened later the same night by Batte’s second because marauders had tried to steal an ox.
“You wake me for a single ox?” he grumbled to the man.
“Not the ox. The argument.”
Thalgor ran a hand down his face. “What argument?”
“Batte wants his men to kill the marauders, but Rygar and your men won’t let them.”
Thalgor sighed. He knew this day would come. Perhaps not in this exact form, but the conflict between his lieutenant and his second, the one too blood thirsty, the other perhaps not blood thirsty enough for the role Thalgor had forced on him.
As Thalgor strapped on his sword he asked Batte’s second, “What do you think?”
“It is hard to kill men who cannot fight back.”
Thalgor grunted agreement and followed him into the night.
They reached the knot of warriors on the far side of the camp where Rygar and Batte silently faced each other, their men arrayed behind each of them.
Thalgor walked past them to survey the enemy they encircled. The prisoners were a pitiful sight. Ten of them, dirty, dressed in rags, half-starved. But they stood proud and tall even as they faced almost certain death. Only one kept looking behind them toward the woods.
Thalgor looked at the weapons his men took from them. Four swords, two bows with a handful of arrows, three knives, and one slingshot between the ten of them. He shook his head, then turned his attention to the discord in his own ranks.
He stood between Rygar and Batte, and waited.
Batte spoke first. “They are marauders. They tried to steal from us. Perhaps they have stolen from us before.”
Thalgor glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners. “Not recently, from the looks of them.”
Rygar seized the advantage. “We cannot kill them as if they were oxen themselves. What threat are ten men to us?”
“There must be others hidden in the woods. Why else risk stealing an ox when five rabbits would do?” Batte replied.
His men nodded in agreement. All but his second.
“What if the others are women and children?” Rygar asked.
Batte snorted. “Then they deserve to starve for entrusting themselves to this motley bunch of weaklings.”
Several of the prisoners stepped forward at the insult, but their fellows held them back.
“Fetch the witch,” Thalgor whispered to one of his men.
“So, Thalgor, what say you?” Batte asked in the ritual demand for a judgment.
“I say we give these men some food and water before they die of their own accord and render the whole discussion moot.” Thalgor turned to Batte’s second. “Can you find food for them?”
Batte grumbled but waved his second on his way. He gave Thalgor a dark look, then sat on the only nearby rock so his leader and Rygar were left to stand.
Thalgor accepted the subtle insult as a fair return. He waited until a soft scent on the air told him Erwyn was near. He went to meet her a little distance from where they stood.
The women who had come with food and water for the prisoners served to distract his men. The marauders fell on the cold meal like wolves, all except the one who kept looking into the woods. He ate little and seemed to have trouble with even that.
“What do you see?” Thalgor asked Erwyn.
He positioned himself so Batte and the others could not easily see her, but she could look into the circle of prisoners.
“Hunger,” she told him quietly, “and bravery.”
“Even the one who keeps looking back at the woods, as if he sought a way to escape?”
She didn’t answer right away, but closed her eyes to see more clearly.
“His fear has nothing to do with you or your men. They would all be good warriors, except perhaps the one who thinks himself a leader.”
As Thalgor nodded his thanks, a plan formed in his mind. A plan, he realized as he walked away from her, that the witch planted there. He turned to look back at her. She smiled and gave a small shrug.
When Batte saw Erwyn, he frowned and stood.
“What say you, Thalgor?” he intoned again.
“I say that if they will lead us to their camp, and the others with them are indeed only their women and children, we will allow them to join our band, if they wish it. If we find more warriors, we will kill them all in battle, not slaughter them like oxen.”
Rygar nodded in immediate agreement, but Batte frowned.
“What if they will not lead us to the others?”
“They seem wiser than that.” Thalgor spoke with more certainty than he felt. The witch’s certainty, he realized again and shuddered.
She was too much in his mind, but he knew no way to keep her out of his thoughts when she shared his bed, and no way to live just now without the solace of her body.
; He, Batte, and Rygar went to the prisoners, who were done with their meal and bravely awaited their fate.
“Take us to your camp,” Thalgor asked the one who presented himself as their leader. The one Erwyn was unsure of.
“Never.” The other man crossed his arms over his emaciated chest.
“You might live if you do.”
“Live at what cost?”
The other prisoners stood solidly behind him.
“We will not take your women and children,” Rygar said.
“Are you so sure we have only women and children at our camp?” the leader asked.
“That is what we want to know,” Batte growled.
“You ask us to trust you?”
“I ask you to save your own lives and perhaps those of your women and children,” Thalgor said. “They will easily be captured by others once you are dead, if they do not starve first.”
Some of the prisoners began to mumble among themselves. The leader turned back to silence them, but the talk continued.
“Ask your warriors what they choose,” Thalgor suggested.
“I am the leader.” The other man wheeled back to face him as if he had a weapon in his hand.
“Do you have a witch?” a prisoner called out into the tense silence. The one who kept looking into the woods.
Thalgor didn’t even look at Erwyn.
“Why would you think we do?”
“You listened to her.” The man pointed at Erwyn as he moved around his leader to speak directly to Thalgor. “You do not strike me as a man who listens to women. And,” he looked away, “I have witch blood. I can feel her in my mind.”
The leader of the bedraggled group stepped toward the man, fist raised, but Rygar grabbed him by the elbows.
The man who spoke looked from his leader to Thalgor, then to Erwyn. “I will take you to our camp, if you bring the witch.”
“Why?” Batte asked, his hand on his sword.
“My woman gives birth. It has been three days. The witch may be able to save her, if not the child.”
“Bring them all.” Thalgor gestured Erwyn to his side.
Rygar had to tie the leader’s hands but the others came without protest as Erwyn, Thalgor, and his warriors followed the man whose wife was giving birth into the woods.
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