Now what? He knelt before it, laced his fingers under his chin, and closed his eyes as he had seen Gillian do.
"I am a Northman. A Gaill. I do not know your ways. You are god to Gillian and her people. She lives now in my world. There is no one of her kind, save Seamus, who may speak for her. As her husband I ask for the right to do so now."
Andor paused, waiting for some sign to continue or to stop. When nothing came, he went on.
"If Gwynneth is with you, I pray she is not so lonely that you would take Gillian also. I ask you not to. If you feel you must...I ask that you do not leave me here in this world without her. If Gillian must join you, I would be by her side also and gladly learn the ways of you."
He stayed there until his knees grew sore. Then he stashed the cross safely in a nearby clump of bushes for use later. As he turned to go, he saw his father at the edge of the clearing.
"How long have you been there?"
"Long enough to see again how much Gillian means to you," he replied. "The physician has arrived. Come home and we can see if he has discovered what is wrong with her."
Surely he had. The man had the experience of years. Andor couldn’t remember a time when the man didn’t look old. If they had had the benefit of such wisdom on Iceland, Gwynneth would still be alive. The man was a worker of miracles. Andor had seen that many times as he was growing. There was no reason now why that perfect record could not be sustained.
As he walked into the longhouse, he fully expected to see Gillian sitting by the fire sipping tea. His faith was badly shaken to discover this was not so.
"Is there word?" he demanded to know.
"He has only just arrived," Asa replied. "Fjola is with him."
She turned to Thora, and for the first time Andor realized she was still there. She hadn’t bothered to go to her family yet. How devoted she’d become to Gillian these last weeks - caring for her everyday as a sister would. Only Freyda would have done as much. Now that Gillian was in more skilled hands, Thora still could not relinquish her charge. And he had called her lazy and worthless. The guilt lodged in his chest.
"Thora, you should go to your home. Your parents will want to see you," Andor said.
She turned deep brown eyes up to him. "I cannot help but feel I could have done more. I could have thought of something more. If she should die now, I would never forgive myself." She buried her face in her hands to cry.
Andor debated on whether or not to offer her comfort. It was such a simple act of kindness, how could he refuse? Yet how could he give it when he was in sore need of some himself? Fortunately, Asa stepped in and saved him from making a decision.
"There now," she cooed as she wrapped long arms around Thora. "All will be well. Come. The children and I will walk you to your parents’ home."
Still crying, Thora let Asa lead her away. Andor was ashamed to say he was glad she was gone. At the far end of the family gathering hall, the physician pushed open the door to the bed closet. Before he could move two steps, Andor was before him.
"My wife. How is she? What ails her?"
The man rubbed his age-worn eyes. "‘Tis difficult to tell at this moment. She has no fever. She is not awake to answer questions. And she is not bringing up anything. All we can do is wait."
"Wait?" Andor stared at him in disbelief. "Wait! You are no better than the young charlatan who cared for my daughter! Wait, you say. That is the word for all of you. Gillian would well be dead in the time you take to wait!"
Björn tugged on his arm. "Enough...Leave the man to do what he can."
Andor jerked away and marched back to the forest clearing.
Cool fingers pressed against Gillian’s forehead. The touch was gentle, soothing...a woman’s touch. As she lay there enjoying it, Gillian realized her bed no longer rocked. They were finally off that ship. A blessing in itself.
The hand moved to her cheeks, and she opened her eyes to see who was caring for her. Her vision blurred. She had to blink several times for clarity. The image which focused before her both eased and frightened her. Surely she had not been asleep that long!
"Freyda?" she croaked.
The woman smiled. "No, dear. I am Fjola, her mother."
Gillian sighed with relief. "Praise be. I thought I might have slept my life away."
Fjola chuckled. "You have slept many days from what Andor tells me, but not nearly a lifetime...Here, a sip of tea might ease your throat."
She helped Gillian sit, but refused to let her take more than a few sips.
"If that stays, then you may have more."
"Where is Andor?"
"He waits for word in the hall. He has been a most difficult man since you arrived yesterday. I will get him. You may visit while I have Hildy fetch the physician."
After propping Gillian up against some furs, Fjola patted her hand and left.
Hildy. That would be Andor and Freyda’s youngest sister. She tried to recall who else lived here. Their father, of course, Sven. And their brother, Björn, and his family. Gillian remembered his wife’s name but not the children’s. It was just as well. She didn’t plan to spend any time with the children.
There was movement outside her door. Gillian looked up in time to see Andor walk in. She was as shocked by his appearance as he must have been by hers. Dark circles ringed his eyes, adding age to his already haggard features. He took a step closer and she lifted her arms to him.
"Hold me...if only for a moment."
Andor swept her into a gentle embrace. She seemed too frail for anything stronger.
"I prayed you would be well and you are," he told her.
"Your gods answered you again."
"Not my gods...yours."
Gillian tilted her head back to look at him.
"‘Tis true," he said with a weak smile. "Since you are Gaedhil, I thought only your god would work. I must have been right, for here you are awake and on the mend."
She combed her fingers through his tangled blond hair. "Awake, yes. Mending? Well...I pray so. There has never been a time in my life when I was more ill. Were others sick as well?"
Andor shook his head. "Only you, love."
"Odd. Perhaps this physician your mother has sent for will know."
Andor snorted. "I do not put much faith in healers at this time. First, Gwynneth and now you. This man was content to sit and do nothing but watch you slip away. If I had known how powerful this god of yours was, I might have saved Gwynneth by speaking to him as you did. Our voices together would have been much stronger than the false hopes given by these so-called men of medicine."
"Have a care what you say when the physician returns," Fjola said from the door. "You have already injured his feelings once. He passed it off as worry for Gillian which made you speak so. I am not so sure he would do so again. He will be here soon. Wait in the hall with your father."
Andor brushed a kiss against Gillian’s forehead then grudgingly obeyed his mother. It was all very well for her to preach confidence in a man as ancient as time, but it was not her mate’s life which was at stake. He kept his grumbling to himself and sat on the floor with his father to finish repairing the fish nets.
They had barely begun the task when Hildy returned with the physician. Andor shot glares the man’s way until his father called his attention to his rudeness by clearing his throat.
He tried to concentrate on his work, but his mind kept wandering to Gillian’s bed closet. Just as he was wondering how long it would take for the man to make a determination, he walked out.
Andor scrambled to his feet. "Well? What ails her?"
"Nothing serious. She is with child."
He could have punched Andor in the stomach and had a less devastating effect. "That cannot be."
The old man raised a bushy brow his father’s way. "Perhaps you and your son should sit down for a long talk about conception." He looked back at Andor. "The journey here weakened her greatly. If she and the child are to survive the birth, she will need much re
st before you continue on."
Andor sank to the bench while the physician left. He was aware of his father sitting beside him, but could not acknowledge him.
"Son...Have you...Have you lain with her?"
He was drawn to her as a moth to a flame. He could not get enough of being with her. The question was ridiculous, but then no more so than his own statement to the physician.
"The child is mine, Father. ‘Tis...’tis a shock...a surprise."
"You look as if it were more like a death sentence," his father told him.
"After losing Gwynneth, it feels like one."
Gillian was too stunned to do more than stare into space. She wanted to insist the physician was wrong, but he had based his conclusions on information she had provided.
"What a relief to know your illness was only due to the little one," Fjola said.
"I was not ill with Gwynneth," Gillian heard herself say.
"The voyage, the grief, worry...all play a hand," she said. "I was ill with Andor yet not with Björn. With Hildy yet not Freyda. Each blessing can be different."
Gillian couldn’t help the tears which followed. How could she consider this child a blessing when the fear of losing it consumed her so?
Fjola sat beside her. "Why do you cry, child? I fear it is not with joy."
"I wish this were not so," she somehow managed to say.
"Why? Do you not care for my son?"
"Very much so. I have great love for him. But the pain...the hurt...Gwynneth...and now." Unable to continue, Gillian spread her hands over her belly.
Fjola covered them with her own. "You need say no more. I understand. I have lost four children to death. ‘Tis a pain only a parent can know."
"How could you bear to have another? Did you seek to replace what you had lost?"
"Never. No child could do that. I bore more children because I sought to fill the emptiness in my heart and to enrich my marriage and my home."
"But did you fear losing them?"
"Constantly. And I still do. ‘Twas far from easy to watch Andor and Freyda leave for Iceland. Then when word came to us of the storm which killed Olaf and Astrid, my worry was doubled. But consider this...if Sven and I had chosen to never have children again, Andor would never have been born."
Although Gillian could see the point she was making. It was little comfort.
Fjola squeezed her hand. "By now Andor will have been told. ‘Tis important that you regain your strength quickly, and I am certain you will be able to do so much better if you are with people. I will prepare a bath for you and have Asa fix a comfortable pallet for you in the hall. I will send Andor back so that you two might speak."
It was the last thing Gillian wanted to do, and when Andor walked into the room a few minutes later, she could tell he was also feeling the awkwardness of the situation. While she stared at her lap, he sat on the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees. Neither spoke. There was nothing they could have said, not when Gillian had been so clear about wanting no more children.
"Have you spoken to your father about the trading route?" It was a safe, neutral subject.
"Yes. He and Björn were excited about the idea. They are gathering a ship to follow us home. Once you are able, we will travel on to Hedeby to speak with other traders there."
"Good. And are they pleased with Freyda’s marriage to Rollo?"
"Aye. Saddened over Olaf’s death, but delighted Freyda is to be loved and cared for. I am told Hildy is to be wed this winter. A young man named Floki."
"I look forward to meeting all of your kin. Is Thora with hers?"
The politeness was more than Andor could take. "Blast it, woman, we sound like strangers catching up on old times! We are having a child! Can we not speak of that?"
She balled the fur beneath her fists. "Why? So it might become real? So I might love it and suckle it only to watch Leif bash its head against a rock!"
Andor grabbed her shoulders. "I would kill him before I would allow such a thing."
"When? You had your chance to do so and you let him get away."
"I was concerned then only for you."
"Aye. I recall what you were concerned with at the time."
Andor jumped back as if burned. "You were as much a part of that as I was, Gillian. If not more. ‘Twas you who lured me that day."
Fjola rushed in before they could hurl more words at each other. "Will the two of you stop this? She needs rest, not aggravation. Her bath is nearly ready, Andor. Carry her to it."
"I will not have the likes of him toting me around. I will do my own walking."
"Not at the risk to my child! You might care naught about the babe, but I do! You will be carried whether you wish to be or not!"
"How can you think I would harm my own?"
"Stop it now!" Fjola shouted above them, and silence fell. "I will have no more of this. Andor, carry her to the tub."
Even though Gillian allowed him to pick her up, she was stiff in his arms. The urge to toss her into the tub of bath water was almost too much to resist. Concern for the child kept him from doing so. He set her on her feet behind the privacy screen. The suddenness of the movement caught her by surprise. She swayed. Andor grabbed her before she could fall.
Gone were the soft curves which at one time molded against his body. She was bony now. He knew she had lost much weight on the voyage, but this was the first time he had taken the time to notice just how frail she had become.
"There is nothing left of you," he said softly into her ear. "It wounds my heart to think that carrying my child has done this to you."
She opened her mouth to reassure him, but his mother’s scolding presence prevented her from speaking.
"Go on now. Asa and I can help Gillian."
"She is my responsibility," he replied. "I will care for her."
Gillian smacked her palms into his chest as hard as she could, which, considering her weakened state, wasn’t very hard. But it had enough of an effect to show she was angry. Andor looked down into her fiery blue eyes.
"Your responsibility can care for herself." She yanked from his grasp.
He reluctantly let the women take charge. As he rounded the partition, he made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder. Gillian had just dropped her gown. The gaunt figure it had hidden bore little resemblance to the woman he knew.
Their gazes locked for a moment, then he looked away. The hate blazing from her glare was too much to deal with for now. He knew she was unprepared for another child; so was he. But he never dreamed this unforeseen pregnancy would spark such fury. Whatever had been between then in the past, there seemed little hope of regaining that in the future.
Gillian tried to concentrate on washing away the stench illness had left behind. It was the only way she could keep Fjola and Asa from seeing how hurt she was.
She is my responsibility. The words lingered in the air, hurting her each time she recalled them. Carrying his child made no difference in how he felt toward her. She was an albatross around his neck. An obligation he would be forced to endure until death parted them. How could he not love her when her heart beat only for him?
"You have beautiful hair," Asa told her.
Gillian mumbled a word of thanks, and remembered the gentle way Andor’s fingers had lathered her hair that first time in the hot spring. It seemed an ancient memory, one best left undredged.
Once she was dressed in a clean nightgown, it was Björn who carried her to the pallet Asa fixed near the hearth. Andor was nowhere around, but at that point Gillian didn’t care. She was too drained for any more verbal sparring, and looked forward to getting to know the people who were caring for her.
She studied the man who set her carefully on the pallet, looking for some resemblance to Andor. There was none. Six years senior to Andor, he had the same light brown hair and beard as their father, yet his eyes were Fjola’s green. Asa, his wife, was a solid woman whose coloring matched that of her husband. Outwardly she seeme
d severe in manner, but it was her eyes that gave away her true nature, for in them her emotions were clearly displayed. Love for Björn as she replaced him at Gillian’s side, concern for Gillian, irritation with her children when they tried to hover about.
"Fjola and I will be near," she said. "You are not to move. Call out if there is something you need." With one look from her, the children scattered to their chores. It was the first time Gillian felt like smiling.
Then there was Hildy.
Gillian wasn’t sure there was a word to describe her - a whirlwind, perhaps. She was a composite of the family with eyes whose color changed with her moods and hair that danced a fine line between brown and blond. She was by far the most talkative person Gillian had ever met. She set a work table close to Gillian in order to visit, then proceeded to pound flax into short threads while holding up her end of a one-sided conversation.
It was exhausting listening to her go on. Gillian kept expecting Fjola or Asa to rescue her. One look their way doused her hopes. Asa’s eyes said it all - they were glad Hildy had a new outlet for her exuberance.
Salvation finally came Gillian’s way in an unlikely form - a visit from Thora. Although Thora still did not qualify as a friend, Gillian felt she owed her the courtesy of an attempt at friendship. After all, if it had not been for Thora’s care on the journey, Gillian may never have survived.
"Thank you for stopping by. You have my thanks also for the care you gave me on the ship. Can you sit for awhile?"
"‘Twas something I was glad to do." Thora pulled up a stool. "I have just heard the good news that you are expecting."
Gillian forced her smile to remain. Many good wishes would be coming her way. She had to learn to accept them with grace despite her anxiety. "Word travels quickly."
"As always in a settlement of this size. I brought over a jug of Mother’s best wine so that we ladies might toast the baby’s health."
"An excellent idea," Fjola said. "We could use a break from work. Hildy, get the cups."
Thora jumped up. "I will do that. Sit ‘round Gillian and we shall have our toast."
The Quest for Gillian’s Heart Page 19
