Thalgor's Witch

by Nancy Holland

  The man and the younger woman continued to argue as Thalgor made his way back to his own tent, each speech louder than the last so he heard it all the way across the camp.

  “Sett,” he called as he entered the tent.

  To his surprise, his lieutenant followed right behind him.

  “You brought the witch to council.”

  “You refused to call it a council,” Sett reminded him. “Could you have settled the dispute without her?”

  “I can do anything I need to do without the witch. Remember that in the future.” He looked around at Rygar and Gurdek, who followed them both. “All of you.”

  “Yes, leader,” Rygar replied with a mocking bow.

  Given only the two choices, and afraid he might do the younger man permanent damage if he struck him, Thalgor roared, “Get out!” and they left him alone. Always so alone.

  He was more than surprised when, a short while later, Erwyn called his name from outside his door.

  His body flamed alive again at the sound. Did she come to beg him to take her back? His heart pounded in his ears. His face a careful mask, he stepped out of the tent.

  “Have you changed your mind, witch?”

  She frowned. “About what?”

  His world crumbled, but he managed to keep the same frozen indifference on his face.

  “Rygar tells me you have headaches,” she said.

  He’d started to rub his forehead and quickly pulled his hand away. “How would he know? Why would he send you?”

  “I am a witch. I heal people.” She spoke as if to a small, not very bright child.

  “If I need healing, the herbalist has teas.”

  “But without a witch’s help, he cannot be sure which herbs will ease your pain.”

  Her tone suggested his pain meant little to her.

  “So heal me, witch. For Rygar’s sake, since my headaches, if I have them, bother him more than they do me.”

  Liar, her look said, but she silently placed one forefinger on each side of his head and closed her eyes. Her scent shot through him like lightening. Her skin against his brought a mixture of pleasure and pain that soon became unbearable.

  He was about to step away when she suddenly released him, as if the contact pained her, too.

  “No wonder your head aches,” she said. “You never sleep.”

  “My bed is cold.”

  “I am sure many women in the camp would be more than happy to warm it for you.”

  He made the gruff sound that now served him for a laugh. “The women have all taken your part. They turn their backs on me as I walk by. The men are scarcely better. Those who followed Batte blame me for his death. The others let their women persuade them I treated you badly. Rygar barely speaks to me, and Gurdek only grudgingly. Even Sett told me I was a fool.”

  Something crossed her face that caused his eyes to narrow.

  “What is Sett to you?” A murderous rage began to burn in his belly.

  “Nothing.” The rage froze at her tone and the truth his witch blood heard in her words. “I merely reacted to the wisdom of what he said.”

  He wanted the rage back, wanted to rant at her, wanted…

  “Dara’s sister walked away from the man who came to you for judgment,” she went on, as if they were having an ordinary conversation. “I suspect he will be back with his other woman by the day’s end.”

  “Because of the things he wanted to keep?”

  Erwyn smiled and shook her head.

  “Because you suggested she might take another man?”

  “And because you helped him see her in a new light when you said you could be that man, if you were older.”

  He wanted to say something–but what?

  “I will send your tea with Tya.”

  Say anything! But she was already gone.

  *

  When Rygar came to see Tya that evening, Erwyn asked if Thalgor’s headache was better.

  “Better!” Rygar said with uncharacteristic heat. “I send you to help him and you make wild accusations about other women!”

  Erwyn’s body flooded with anger, need, and sadness. She took a deep breath before she dared speak.

  “I merely suggested he might look for another woman. It would be the natural thing for him to do.”

  “Natural when he pines away for you?”

  “Pines? That giant of a man? Hard to imagine, Rygar.”

  “You’ve seen how he looks, felt the agony in his head.”

  She started to object, but what he said was true. Could Thalgor suffer that much over her? A man who never yet told her he loved her?

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Return to his tent, to his bed.” Rygar’s voice was a plea that cut through her like a frozen blade.

  “Does he want me to return?”

  Her friend threw up his hands. “Haven’t you heard what I said?”

  “He might pine, as you put it, and yet not want me back.”

  Rygar sighed. “Yes, he wants you back.”

  “Then let him ask me, instead of sending you.”

  “He didn’t send me. He need not ever know I spoke to you of it. Just go back, as if it were your own idea.”

  She stood up from the bench where she had been mixing herbs and faced him, hands on hips, temper barely in check.

  “Go back as if how he treats me is of no importance?”

  “Are a few angry words worth so much both of you have to be alone the rest of your lives when you belong together?”

  She turned away so he could not see the pain on her face. If she could not make Thalgor understand, perhaps at least Rygar could be made to see it from her point of view.

  “He will be alone only so long as he chooses to be.”

  “That’s not my point, Erwyn.”

  “It was more than a few angry words. You know that. I cannot go back to his tent until he respects me for what I am.”

  “He respects you, values your magic.”

  “When it serves him. When it doesn’t…” She turned back to him. “Words can do as much damage as blows, over time.”

  Rygar’s face went cold. “You forget my father killed my mother with his blows.”

  She froze. Was she to lose her dearest friend over this as well as her man?

  “I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his arm and sighed with relief when he covered it with his own and gave her a thin smile.

  “I am, too. It is hard to watch the man who is my brother and the woman I love as a sister hurt each other so.”

  “Then you should help Thalgor understand why Erwyn won’t return to his tent,” Tya suggested from where she sat with Felyn asleep on her lap.

  “You take Erwyn’s side, of course.”

  “I know how I would feel if you loved me less because I was not a witch and only a woman and sometimes berated me for it. I assume it is much the same for Erwyn when Thalgor acts as if he would prefer she were only a woman and not a witch.”

  Rygar turned away from her, as if her words hurt him.

  “What do you know? You are only a child.”

  Tya’s face crumpled. “Are you so devoted to Thalgor you cannot see the truth of what we say?”

  Rygar rubbed his forehead as Thalgor had earlier in the day.

  “I need to check on the guards,” he muttered and left.

  “Oh, dear.” Erwyn sat down next to Tya. “I didn’t mean for the two of you to argue.”

  The girl shrugged. “Sharp words where he is so distressed aren’t an argument. It merely took me by surprise. He will be back with flowers or a honeycomb for me in the morning.”

  Erwyn knew it was true, so she returned to mixing her herbs. But what Tya said lingered in her mind. Thalgor’s sharp words when he was distressed were what had started this. Sharp words wounded, as she had told Rygar, but why could she not let them go, as Tya did? Because she was older? Or because Tya was sure of Rygar’s love?

  Erwyn never expected Thalgor’s love. She
knew what loving his mother had cost him–his childhood, his innocence. She knew how he suffered over Rygar’s illness, the loss of their child. He told her in every way but words he would never put himself at the same risk of pain by loving her. He was not capable of it.

  Respect. Trust. Those were what Thalgor could give her in return for her devotion to him. Without them she was nothing more than his willing slave. But how to make him, and Rygar, see that? Two tears dropped on the herbs and spoiled her work. She sniffed and patiently began again.

  Rygar did not return until the next evening, but he brought flowers for Tya and a honey-comb for Felyn, who gobbled it up and went to sleep. Happily reconciled, Rygar and Tya went out for their usual evening walk. Erwyn sighed and began to settle the tent for the night.

  Soon after they left, Thalgor appeared in the doorway.

  For a moment Erwyn thought she might be ill with the shock.

  She swallowed the bile in her throat, hoping he could not see the flush on her face or the way her hands shook.

  “May I come in?”

  She nodded, not ready to trust her voice.

  He sat on the bench. She dumped the pillows she’d been readying for sleep on the floor and sat on them.

  He leaned his elbows on his knees and kept his eyes fixed on the ground as he spoke, his voice raw as if he were in pain.

  “Rygar says I need to ask what I must do to have you back in my tent.”

  His suffering hurt her, so she made her words harsh. “In your bed, you mean.”

  “In my life.”

  She knew at once she could resist no more. She could not force the admiration she saw in Sett’s eyes, but she could make it difficult for Thalgor to hurt her so badly again.

  “You must accept that I am a witch, that you cannot have me in your life without my magic.”

  He frowned. “I never wish you to be other than you are.”

  “Yes, you do. Every time something goes wrong, you blame my magic, as my uncle did. I cannot live like that any longer.”

  “You punish me for your uncle’s faults.”

  “I punish you for your faults, which are much like his. Like him, you think your skill as a warrior means you know more than I can see. My uncle trusted my mother’s magic because my father did, but after her death he would ask what I saw, do as he thought best, and berate me for what happened. It is a hard way to live when you share a tent. An impossible way to live when you share a bed.”

  He opened his arms wide.

  “What do you want from me?”

  She sensed he feared she would demand words of love he could not give. But she loved him too much for that.

  “If you want me back in your tent, you must promise to trust what I am, even if you cannot respect it, as I trust that you are a warrior.”

  “Do you not respect that?”

  She thought a while before she spoke. Every word must be true, this moment more than ever.

  “Now, I do. But when you lived by killing and capture–that is hard to respect, even if you are better at it than any other. I always trusted your skill as a leader and a warrior, but only now can I respect it.”

  He nodded solemnly. “And this is what you ask of me?”

  “Yes. Woman to man, man to woman.”

  Her breath stilled as she waited for him to respond.

  His scowl didn’t fade, as she so hoped, but grew darker, deeper.

  “I will consider it.” With that he was gone.

  *

  Erwyn woke at dawn with a headache so bad she could scarcely move. She lay still until Tya stirred, then asked her to brew some tea. But the headache weakened her magic, so the tea merely allowed her to sleep, which she did.

  Tya woke her for more tea and some bread at midday, then Erwyn slept again until she heard Rygar’s voice when he came to take Tya away for their walk. She ate more bread, drank more tea and sent them on their way, but asked them to take Felyn, wide awake this evening, with them.

  She had dozed off again when Thalgor burst into the tent and rushed to kneel at her side.

  “You are ill!”

  She sat up and pushed away from him, then grasped her head at the pain shooting behind her eyes.

  “My head aches.”

  “Rygar says you slept all day.”

  “My head aches,” she repeated, her mind still fuzzy.

  “You aren’t ill?”

  His hand reached out to stroke her cheek. It trembled against her flesh.

  She was suddenly fully awake, headache gone. “Would it matter to you if I were?”

  “You might die.” His other hand joined the first to frame her face with fingers that still shook.

  “Then you would have no witch.”

  “I would have no life.”

  She took his wrists in her hands to still them, but she trembled as much as he did.

  “What you wish of me,” he said in an unsteady voice, “I will try to do. I swear. If I fail, you need only remind me of this promise. But promise me you will come back to my tent and never leave again.”

  She raised her hands to his face and kissed his cheek. And promised all she could.

  “I will come back to your tent.”

  She brushed the tears first from his face, then from hers.

  “One other thing,” she said, unable yet to surrender to joy.

  He frowned and pulled away. “Is my promise not enough?”

  “For me, yes. But before I can return to your tent, you must go to Felyn and tell her that you were wrong to make her leave, that you miss her and want her to return. You hurt her, and I cannot take her back to your tent otherwise.”

  “You said she did not mourn me.”

  “I may have implied that, but I never said it.”

  “You lied to me, witch,” he said gently.

  “Because you deserved it.”

  He lowered his head. “I did. And I have missed the child’s laughter in my tent.”

  His words undammed the relief and joy she’d had to hold in check. Delight flowed like liquid sunshine through all the channels the pain of their separation had cut into her heart and healed her as it strengthened her. She was Thalgor’s again, as he was hers.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Erwyn leaned forward and kissed Thalgor lightly on the cheek.

  “We will return tomorrow.”

  “Not now?”

  She smiled at the look on his face. “Your men will expect their leader to have more self-control than to scurry me back to his tent in the middle of the night.”

  “Then I will sleep here.”

  “With Tya and the child in the same room?”

  “They aren’t here now.”

  Her joy spilled into laughter. He reached again to pull her into his arms, but she shook her head.

  “They might return at any time, with Rygar.”

  “Then I best leave now, before I even kiss you. It has been so long, one more night alone will not make any difference.”

  He didn’t look as if he believed his own words, but she gently pushed him away.

  He grinned at her and hurried out of the tent with only one backward glance of longing.

  He came the next morning and spoke to Felyn as Erwyn had asked, then went on guard duty with his men. Tya quickly packed her things and the child’s while Erwyn gathered her clothes and her herbs and potions for the move.

  Rygar appeared at mid-morning with two of Tya’s brothers to carry their things back to Thalgor’s tent, then the men dismantled their temporary home.

  They all shared the meat Tya cooked at midday except for Thalgor, who had taken Rygar’s guard duty.

  Erwyn understood why he kept away from her, but still felt strangely alone while Felyn, Rygar, and the others celebrated in Thalgor’s tent.

  He came to her late that night. With hesitant hands he cradled her face and kissed her. He seemed so reluctant to move beyond the sweetness of that first, chaste kiss that she slid her tongue between his lips to
lure him deeper into passion.

  Her daring succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. His caresses exploded into a savage need that spurred an equal savagery in her. They met in a primal act of joy, like the joining of sea and earth that created life itself.

  Afterward, in the dark after he extinguished the single flickering torch that had illuminated their reunion, he said with a raw craving, “Do not leave me again, witch.”

  Sadness flooded her. She could not give him the reassurance he wanted, just as he could not say the words of love she craved. If her magic demanded that she go, she could not stay.

  Despite the rapture they’d so recently shared, her silence enveloped them both like a shroud.

  *

  The wall around the camp was nearly complete. When a small raiding party attacked, the men herded the livestock in through the four gates, then filled the space with warriors to drive the attackers off. The outcome of a stronger attack was uncertain.

  With Erwyn back at his side in council, Thalgor felt more sure of what needed to be done next.

  “Closed gates will shut us in as solidly as they shut enemies out,” Gurdek objected.

  “Wooden gates can burn and set the whole camp on fire,” Sett added, and Rygar nodded his reluctant agreement.

  “If we coat the wood with the same clay we used as mortar to build the wall,” Erwyn explained, “they cannot burn.”

  “Perhaps you can enchant them, too, witch,” Gurdek huffed.

  Thalgor was surprised to find his old friend had taken up Batte’s role of challenging Erwyn on every point, perhaps because he sensed a need to balance Sett and Rygar’s reliance on her. Sett, who was older than Tynor and so had taken Batte’s place as Thalgor’s lieutenant, was as quick for battle as the man he replaced had ever been, so council continued much as before.

  “Raiding parties come most often from the south,” Thalgor mused aloud. “What if we put gates at all but the north opening, and see whether they make us stronger or weaker?”

  The others argued around his suggestion for a while, but eventually agreed, as he knew they would.

  He allowed his own ox cart to be dismantled first to provide the wood for the south gate, both because his cart was the largest and because it marked his decision to wander no more.