“Why?” he said. “Beyond repair I imagine.” She began to stand but he pushed her back down to the stool, tugging the comb absently through her curls. “Take the she-wolf’s clothes if you want them,” he said. “The bitch had a trunk full. They won’t fit. They’ll be too short. But you can adjust them.”
Skarga had missed him. Gone far longer than she had expected, she didn’t intend arguing with him now he was back. He wrenched the bone teeth through her sweat damp knots, gripping each fistful and lifting it for attack. Skarga gritted her teeth and said nothing. Then when she peeped up at him, she saw he had begun quite suddenly to smile.
“What cowardice,” he grinned. “I’ve just watched three men die with singular courage, and you’re frightened just to tell me you don’t want to wear the bitch’s clothes.”
Skarga reached up and grabbed at the comb. “I wasn’t frightened. I was being considerate, because you looked tired, and I thought you’d been terribly busy, and my arguments are silly and petty and I thought you’d sneer about me being human.”
He laughed, and slapped her hand away. Then he continued combing her hair, testing it with his fingers as each knot unravelled. “You do look rather disreputable, even for us I suppose,” he agreed. “If you don’t want the things the werewoman left, I’ll have to think of something else but it’ll take time. I’m nether a tailor nor a sorcerer. But you’re probably right, those lurid rags would be hard to adapt. You’re a different shape.”
She was glad he’d noticed. “Because of that. And other reasons. Wearing her clothes would feel – humiliating.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Our men wear the skins of our enemies, taken in battle. You’d have the same right. Otherwise -”
Skarga blinked. “I don’t want her skin. I don’t want to smell of her. And you’ll say I’m being human again. But most of your people resent me anyway. I’d just as soon not face everyone entirely naked.”
“Well, if it comes to that,” Thoddun laughed at her, “I’d sooner you didn’t prance around naked in front of them either.” He put the comb aside, smoothing her hair with both hands. Then he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his. “The difficulty,” he continued grinning, “is seeing past the usual banalities, clothes, hair and timidity, and trying to read what you really want. And see if there’s anything of importance going on in there.”
“Importance?” Skarga sniffed. “No, I don’t suppose so. I’m female and I’m human. How could I want anything important?’
“In truth it’s not importance I was hoping for,” chuckled Thoddun. “Relevance, let’s say. To us, it would be blindingly obvious. To you it isn’t. One of the small disadvantages of bedding a human.”
She stared up at him. “So what am I missing?”
He laughed, releasing her, and strode over to the water fall. He reached out his hands and let the water flow over his fingers, more playing than washing. He still had his back to her when he spoke. He said, “I’ve been supervising the execution of the elder who tried to arrest you before Orm’s challenge, and the leaders of the she-wolf’s retinue.”
“Was it – horrible?” Skarga asked. She was surprised to think he wanted sympathy.
Thoddun turned back to her, still grinning. “Mundane. Mandatory. Uneventful. But bloody. Blood – rouses me. Even without Shifting, it inspires certain other feelings. I came back here to do more than comb your hair and talk of clothes.”
“Oh.” She sat by the one little candle flame and watched the silver spray shining behind him, outlining him. Wayward drops shimmered in his hair. “So if I wasn’t human, I’d do what?”
“For a start,” he laughed, “you’d have been present. You’d have watched the executions at my side. The dominant female should be a witness to official business, especially since the prisoners had once attacked you. In fact, you should have claimed wergild against them – in blood. But I didn’t invite you. I didn’t imagine you’d enjoy it.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“I follow the law, I see it done,” he said. “I had no personal dislike for any of those men. One of them I quite liked. But killing, blood, battle, they’re all part of my nature. I’d not call it enjoyment, which is something else. This is predatory arousal.” He came over to her again and stood looking down at her. She wondered if he hoped she’d leap up and jump on him. “No, I don’t,” he said abruptly, and bent down, taking her hand. He stopped laughing. “But come here. I want to talk to you.” She rose obediently and he led her to the bed. She was still unsteady on one ankle, and limped a little. He supported her, settling her on the low mattress where the feathered hollows of their night together shaped the deep cocoon and the spread of silks. Then he sat on the edge, facing her, one foot up, the knee bent to support his crossed hands. He rested his chin on his wrists and stared down at her carefully for a moment. She thought his gaze interpreted her expression, but then knew instead he would be, just as carefully, translating her thoughts.
He continued watching her over his folded hands. “We don’t care too much for choices,” he said. It sounded momentarily apologetic. “Our split natures demand different things. Making a choice, any choice at all, means first choosing which part decides. And even that choice can be divided. We fence ourselves with rule and law to avoid the choices we can’t make alone.”
Skarga frowned at him. “I don’t think you’re that simple.”
He shook his head with a faintly fond smile. “I’m the worst of the lot. A Fourfold. The man wants freedom of choice. But beyond the satisfaction of freedom, I could give you four different answers to any question.”
“I don’t see,” she sniffed, “what that has to do with what you said before.”
He reached out and took one of her hands in his. “Patience,” he smiled. “I’ll get there. Slowly. Listen.” He retained the clasp of her hand. “We both have time enough for lengthy explanations.”
She watched his fingers play. She said, “You always tell me you hate explaining yourself. And you also told me you were busy.”
“I was,” he smiled. “Very much so. But I’ve taken a new Second, someone I trust to carry on without me. Lodver. You know him. Those are the kinds of choices I’m capable of making.”
Skarga said, “You chose me too,” and took a deep breath.
“I spent damn well long enough in the deciding of it,” laughed Thoddun. “At first I thought you were a pain in the arse. I wanted your brat Egil, not you. I was saddled with some misbegotten human female vomiting all over my longship, hating me with a vengeance, encouraging Egil to escape with you instead of staying with me, and generally getting in the way. But I still wondered if you had some secret magic I hadn’t yet interpreted, and besides, I’d taken you off your father’s hands and felt responsible for you. I’ve a long habit of taking responsibility, and such a habit doesn’t easily fade. So I put up with you.”
“You disliked me,” said Skarga at once. It was a discussion she felt more able to follow. “I felt you disliking me. It’s very uncomfortable feeling someone’s contempt so strongly. And I thought you intended killing me. In fact – you tried to.”
“Nonsense,” said Thoddun. “Had I tried to kill you, you’d be dead. Have you any idea how easily I could do that? But with astonishing forbearance, I resisted the temptation.”
Skarga giggled. “I wasn’t that bad.”
“You were,” Thoddun grinned. “Dreary, selfish, apathetic. I had every reason to dislike you. You knew how well your boy was doing. You saw he was accepted, not as a slave, but freely. You saw I was teaching him. You knew he loved the life he was being offered. So you dragged him away on your endless escapes, without the slightest care for his needs at all.”
“I suppose I did.” Skarga sniffed, and wiped her nose on her cuff, which was still a pleasurable guilt. “But I thought I had to escape. I wouldn’t have made Egil come with me but I was scared stiff of running away alone. When he said he wanted to stay with me, I was glad.”
“He lied,” sa
id Thoddun.
“Yes, I know,” said Skarga. “But I thought you were Grimr and I’d heard terrible things about Grimr.”
“No doubt you could hear terrible things about Thoddun, if you asked the right people,” he said. “And some of the terrible stories would be true. But your crime wasn’t selfishness, it was stupidity. I warned you about the storm. And you’re the most inept sea-woman I’ve ever met. You nearly drowned yourself and Egil in the first wave.”
“I’ve thanked you for saving us. I suppose you wished you could just save him, and drown me.”
“Surprisingly not,” Thoddun said. “That was another choice you forced on me. You’ve been forcing choices on me ever since. It’s a damned inconvenience, and most uncomfortable. I could easily have saved the boy, and not you. I saved you intentionally.”
She was surprised again. “You knew by then I wasn’t transanima.”
“Oh, I’d known that for a long time,” he said. “Almost from the beginning. I knew quite well you were utterly boringly human. But there was something – some unexpected magic. Though that wasn’t why I saved you. It was your courage attracted me. A woman terrified of the ocean, battling in that tiny faering, trying to keep the boy alive as well as yourself. So I let you live.”
Skarga glared at him. “Arrogant bastard. And what was this magical something? Or was that you being stupid for a change, getting it wrong because I’m just as ordinary as I could be? If there’s anything special – then what is it?”
He shook his head. “I still don’t know.”
Intrigued, she mumbled, “You mean there really is something interesting about me?”
“There must be,” he shrugged. “When I rescued you from Grimr, it was for the boy. When I rescued you from the tunnel’s collapse, it was for myself.”
“You still disliked me,” remembered Skarga. “In the snow, on the sled, until the fight with the bear. Even afterwards. You were rude and angry and I thought you hated me.”
“That’s simply because you’re stupid,” said Thoddun pleasantly. “It must have been patently obvious I didn’t. Why would I have bothered to save you at all? Just for Egil? Then why not have Lodver, Orm or Safn drive the sled? Instead I made the choice to save you, and then got landed with the choice of what to do with you. Choices again.”
“You told me about that already,” said Skarga.
“You shouldn’t need telling,” Thoddun grinned. “Not that part. You attracted me, so I had every intention of taking you. My mistress for a few days, a few weeks perhaps, and then to cheerfully dispose of you. No, not the sort of disposal you’re thinking of, I don’t slaughter my women after fucking them. I would just have sent you on elsewhere. But I changed my mind. My opinion of you altered and my feelings altered - most uncomfortable. Choices again.”
She sniffed. “But you thought it was unwise – to do –”
He grinned. “And so it is. Most unwise. I come marching in from supervising executions to find my woman, and she hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with me. It ought to be obvious. You’ve as much insight as a sardine.”
“I can’t see the difficulty,” said Skarga with a faint blush, “in just telling me what you want.”
“That’s because you’re ignorant,” he said. “And because you think in human terms. I still follow my nature and my nature means waiting for your choices. The bear will take an appropriate mate for very obvious reasons. She chooses him because he’s big, and strong, and virile and he smells good. He’s not even that fussy. It’s the scent of her body that calls to him. Once he knows she’s on heat, if she accepts him, he’ll follow her around for a moon’s full circle or two. He’ll protect her and lead her safely, he’ll hunt for her and make sure she’s well fed, and he’ll mate with her as often as she lets him. That’s all. She makes the choices. It’s always her – her body – that instigates everything.”
“Only two moons? Doesn’t he want her – any longer than that?”
“She’d never put up with him for more. He’s too single minded, too demanding. Too unimaginative. So she leaves him once her belly tells her she’s impregnated, and goes off to hibernate and have his cubs. Her choice again.”
“You’re a man too.” Skarga whispered. “I – you don’t do that, so you – not as a bear. Do you?”
He laughed, leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Well, not with you, my sweet. That would certainly be a little awkward.”
“Well what about the man’s nature?” she said with some relief, which made him laugh again. “And what about the eagle? You said the eagle –”
“Mated for life,” he noted. “Yes indeed. But it’s the female that chooses again. We poor males, we hover around, show off a bit and hope to get picked. Ariel games and proof of our talents. But she’s fussy. Many of us are pathetic specimens doomed to solitary flight.”
Skarga grinned. “I can’t ever imagine you being pathetic. You’re lying.”
“Perhaps exaggerating.”
“Teasing. You know I don’t know. You keep saying how ignorant I am.”
“Humans,” said Thoddun, “are more than ignorant. They’re ridiculously stupid. Do you know the Saxons believe bears give birth to shapeless lumps of flesh, and then lick their offspring into shape? Your own thoughts are nearly as absurd. Perhaps I should lick them into shape.”
“Go on then.”
Thoddun flung one arm around the back of her shoulders and pulled her towards him. “Don’t tempt me. This remarkable effort of restraint is for one specific reason. I want you to understand. I want to tell you what to expect. I won’t compromise. Not easily anyway. I never have, never learned how. I surrender or I lead, nothing in between. But you have to make the choice. I don’t intend you to leave me, but if you choose to leave, I’ll arrange something.”
She stared back. “Why would I leave?”
“You won’t,” he said promptly. “I probably wouldn’t let you anyway. But you have to know more. You have to make educated choices. You have to know what you’re choosing.”
“Choosing you.”
He laughed. “But you’ve still no idea who I am. You don’t even know what I am. Not really.” He continued watching her as he spoke. “The werepeople don’t normally marry, not unless we intend living in the human world as my parents did. But if you want me to, I will.”
She was startled. The shock made her speechless, but she was impressed. Then she thought about it. “By your laws, don’t I belong to you anyway? If I annoy you, will you beat me? Use me when you want to? Without bothering to – care? Get angry and – hit me?”
Thoddun frowned. “You’re thinking of Grimr,” he said. “I don’t want you as a slave. I’m offering to acknowledge you as equal. I’ve proclaimed you dominant female here. If we marry, you’ll be queen. I’m promising commitment, not servitude. Sea eagle commitment. And the eagle doesn’t attack his mate. Apart from anything else, she’s larger than him, and stronger. That’s all. I’m trying to put it into a language you’ll understand.”
Skarga was excited, but controlled it. “You’ll say I’m stupid and human and female again – but –”
“If you weren’t female, my dear, I wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be here.”
“Which means I only have one purpose worth the noticing.” She took a very deep breath. “Although if I was a bear I’d know you want me, not because you even like me, but because you’re aroused. Not aroused by me of course, but aroused by blood and violence and slaughter. And I’d respond.”
“You’d be aroused by the same things. A she-bear is no docile fireside stitcher.”
She gulped and turned it to a sniff. “And so I’d run into your arms?”
“Not exactly into my arms if you were a bear.” He was grinning. “Seems we’re getting our examples slightly muddled, little gosling.”
“So I’m glad you’re a man too.” But after pausing, she said, tentative, “Though men change their minds. They go off one target
and want another. They don’t mate for life and they don’t let the woman do the choosing. You’re not really an eagle. You’re still just a man.”
He smiled and reached over, and put both arms around her. “Silly little sprat,” he said. “Come here. Perhaps I’d better make all the choices after all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“Of course I know,” said Egil. “Everyone’s talking about it.”
“And do they hate the idea?” Skarga said, already knowing the answer.
“Oh well.” Egil was sitting on sealskin spread over the ice, hugging his knees and waiting his turn. “Some of them do. Most of them couldn’t care less. There’s a few actually like the idea. They think you’re intriguing.”
“They think I’m a new strange breed perhaps?”
“There’s Brandr, for instance,” smiled Egil. “He’s a bear, one of the young ones like me, and he thinks new blood brings in new ideas. He likes you.”
“I’ve never met him,” Skarga objected.
“There’s plenty you’ve never met,” Egil sniggered, “but they know you. They read your mind. You get watched all the time, I promise.”
“They actually talk about me? Like Tovhilda and Erna and Thora used to gossip at home?”
“Did you think it was only the women?” Egil shook his tousled brown curls. “The men used to gossip all the time back at Ogot’s, and they do here too. What they think about humans in general, what they think about you, what they think about the influence you’re having on Thoddun and whether that’s good or bad. You know. Innuendo and slander and making up stories. And they think you’re pretty.”
The storm had blown out east and just a small wind whistled low over the loose snow cover, flurrying into white wavelets. The late winter sky was clear and black and starry. It was excellent flying weather. Egil’s excitement was carefully contained. Thoddun emerged from the darkness in silvered shadows, his eyes blue lights. He wore his own excitement in diminishing layers. He strode over and sat cross legged next to Egil, smiling at Skarga.
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 53