by Sandi Layne
He turned, eyes blazing, exasperation etched into his features. He made a fruitless motion with his clenched fists, as if to say he hated not being able to talk.
She sympathized, wondering again if he were truly a Northman. “Who are you, really?” she asked aloud. Then, with clear purpose in case he were one of those who raided from long boats with the striped sails, she shook her head and pointed back the way they’d both come. “You’re not well enough to be up on your own. Come back.”
He aspirated roughly and pointed in the direction he’d been walking. With a near-desperate air, he looked about him as his focus seemed to sharpen on a broken branch. He smiled, his triumph evident as he beckoned to her.
The light in his eyes took her by surprise, making her skin feel taut all over and her heart beat faster. Still, she shook that off as he brushed wild leavings out of the way and left a flat space of dark, moist earth. Then, on one knee, he caught her eye and tapped the branch on the ground. He drew a boat. It has a large, angular-striped sail that Aislinn had heard about. Then he tapped his chest.
“You are one of them,” she said and staggered a step back. Sorrow tightened her jaw and the muscles in her throat. “Cowan said you were, but—” She’d hoped he was not. Oh, Jesu, help me! Please! With a rough shake of her head, she took a breath. “Come,” she said again, using over-broad motions. “Come back. Your head.” She pointed to where the bandages still twisted around his skull. “I need to treat it.”
He shook his head, winced, and pointed at the picture he’d drawn. It was clear he was informing her that he was not returning.
Why does it matter so to me? He could keep going and fall off a cliff. like Cian, and my people would be better off. He’s the enemy, she reminded herself. Still, she persisted, going so far as to draw her knife and kneel in opposition to him. Holding his gaze, she brushed the tip of the blade over his picture and ruined it before dropping her focus. The brothers at the monastery took great care with written sheafs of parchment, but they also slid in sly jests among the solemn words of Almighty God. She drew a picture in the dirt. It was of a woman with a pocketed apron such as the one she wore, tugging on the hand of a man with a bandage around his head. Then she quickly sketched out the form of the monastery and met the Northman’s eye again.
He swept his stick in a flat arc and wiped out her drawings then rose slowly to his feet. He grimaced, dropped the stick, and held both hands to his head while darting a fierce, defiant look at her.
She couldn’t suppress her smile. “Not so easy as you thought, is it, Northman?” She slid her knife back into her belt and extended her hand. “Come.”
He shook his head in a definitive No before turning from her and stalking back through the trees. Frustrated, she made a strange noise in her chest and lunged from the ground to catch up to his long, slow steps.
“Enough!” she nearly shouted and put herself directly in his path. “You are my patient, you’re still injured, and I’ll not have you ruining all my hard work with your pig-headed ideas!”
He froze, his glare nearly palpable as it bore into her. She refused to back down. She’d fought with stubborn men before and won. Slowly, he stiffened his spine and stepped closer to her. The way he towered over her excited and frightened her. Blond sections of hair slipped from his bare shoulders, but she was studying his face in the brightening green of the leaf-shaded daylight. There was a scar under his left eye that had been made by a blade, and more along his hairline. Drifting lower, she saw a clear history of his battles in the differing marks they had left on his body. The light was diffuse amidst the trees, but there was enough. A thick scarring on his shoulder clearly hadn’t had the tending of a good healer. The one on his upper chest looked far better. She smiled a little and reached up to touch it.
He gripped her wrist, surrounding it entirely in his palm while he stared at her. His jaw worked, but no sounds came out, save a frustrated grunt.
Concern cooled the blood rushing to her cheeks, and she tried to cover her embarrassment by pulling his head down to check his bandaging. Both hands bracketing his head, she puffed out a breath and found the edges of the linen. Before she could un-tuck the closing end of the fabric, though, she felt him staring at her and swallowed.
“Northman?”
The bright blue of his gaze was suddenly hot and filled with something that made her stomach flutter as if occupied by a tiny bird. She felt drawn into his eyes and frozen as his hands came up her arms. Then his fingertips rested just under the short sleeve of her léine. Her own fingertips trembled against his bandaging, and his expression cooled. Blushing, she decided to pretend that she wouldn’t be thinking about the way he’d looked at her and shook her head to make the idle idea go away.
“You’re bleeding,” she said too loudly. She went to tap his chest and hit the amulet he wore. It looked like a cross, but it wasn’t quite shaped the same way the carvings were in the monastery. Cowan had said that the Northmen worshiped different gods anyway, not the One True God, so she doubted very much that her patient was a Christian.
“You want to go?” she asked and pointed in the direction of Ragor. He seemed to understand but frustration crowded his forehead, making the skin furrow as he also pointed. “You can’t go with a bleeding head,” she stated firmly and shook the stained linen in front of his face.
With a frown, but not seeming overly angry, the man she’d briefly called Aoire turned his back on his destination and walked at her side.
By Odin’s lost eye, the kvinn medisin was going to be his death. Why had the woman followed him? He’d understood the alarm and the upheaval because she was treating him. The fear in the air had been something he could have smelled. And the word she’d used had reminded him of his own word for “sail.” As he bolted from the healing room, he’d heard the word (a fear aduaidh) A-far-adooie, which was what the islanders called his people.
I may not remember what happened yesterday, but I do remember how I got here! Determined to find answers, to find people he knew and a tongue he could understand, by the gods, he made his way from the flurry and out into the quieter countryside. A quick glance to the skies had shown him the direction he’d needed to go, and he drew on older memories— memories he had retained—to guide him to where he knew the skipniu would be waiting.
What was the matter? Why was his mind like a net trying to hold water?
Seeing his own blood had persuaded him to return with the blue-eyed medicine woman. That, and the idea that if he’d returned to the place where he knew the longships would be, though there was no guarantee he’d be able to talk to them. Something about leaving this place sent up a signal fire within him.
He didn’t know why he wanted to stay, but he did. As he glanced at the woman next to him, he wondered if this pull to her was his wyrd. He’d thought he’d met his wyrd before. She was a woman from this island. Perhaps Loki the trickster had been toying with him.
“Heill!”
It was strange hearing his own tongue after not doing so for who knew how long. There, just over the rise of land, were Tuirgeis and Geirmundr Kingson.
“Cowan?” the black-haired said. It was a name that Agnarr recognized. Pain edged her tone, though, and Agnarr checked to see if she’d hurt herself with her tiny knife. More sharp sounds, demanding but worried, came from her, and Agnarr was relieved that Tuirgeis was at his apparent ease.
He lifted a hand in acknowledgement, but still he couldn’t get the words from his mind to his mouth. Ei-lean glanced up at him, her lips set into thin lines. Then she said something to the berserker who said something to Tuirgeis in what sounded like another tongue Agnarr could remember hearing a lot of, once.
“I heard you were injured,” Tuirgeis said and stepped closer to grip his forearm.
Agnarr nodded, returning the gesture of greeting before pointing to his mouth. He hoped his fear didn’t show in his eyes.
“Agnarr?”
“My fostering daughter, Ei-lean, says t
hat Agnarr cannot speak,” she said in the tone she’d used with him back in the healing room. The berserker translated.
Relief such as Agnarr could not remember feeling in a long time flooded his body, making his eyes water. Words said on his behalf in a language he could understand! He nodded in full agreement and winced when the inevitable pain tried to split his skull. But he’d needed to acknowledge that what Kingson had translated was correct.
“Agnarr?” the kvinn medisin said, and she’d accented his name oddly, perhaps, but he welcomed hearing it in her voice nevertheless.
He turned to her, grateful for what she’d done and wanting to thank her, even if he had no words. Pressing his hand to his chest, he bowed to her and tried to convey his gratitude. When he unbent to his full height, he hoped she might have a smile for him.
Instead, her brows were drawn, her face white, her expression furious. “Agnarr? Agnarr Halvardson?” Fire flashed in her eyes, words tumbled from her, but he understood none of them save “Cowan” and “Charis.”
Then he fully realized who she was. Cowan had introduced her as his foster daughter. So she was Eir’s foster daughter.
Ei-lean knew, then, who he was.
And she hated him.