She knows you.”’
“In your dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream.”
He was already turning away. “Good night, Brit.”
Good night, Brit. Damn him, he so easily called her by her first name. Everyone else fell all over themselves Your-Highnessing her to death. But Eric Greyfell had presumed to address her with familiarity from the first.
And come to think of it, why did it bug her so much that he did? As a rule, since she’d come to Gullandria, she was constantly asking people to please just call her Brit.
She heard faint rustlings over by his furs. He would be taking off his trousers, slipping into bed….
“Eric?”
“Yes?” He sounded wary.
And well he should. “You do have some way, don’t you, of contacting my father—and yours?”
“There is radio contact, yes. It can be undependable, but eventually we get through.”
“Is that how you got hold of my father to tell him what had happened to me?”
“That’s right.”
“So why didn’t he send a helicopter to take me out of here and get me to a hospital?”
He was silent for several seconds. The remains of a log popped in the grate, the sound jarring in the quiet room.
Getting impatient, she prompted, “Eric?”
“Is that what you would have wanted, to be airlifted out of here, had you been able to make the decision for yourself?”
She considered for a moment, then admitted, “No.”
“Then it was done as you would have wished.”
“But who decided that I would stay here, at your aunt’s village, instead of going to a hospital? My brother?”
Did he chuckle then, very low? She thought he might have. “That would have been difficult for him, as he is dead.”
She scowled at the ceiling. “This radio—where is it?”
“Here, in the village.”
“So. You brought me here, and then you contacted my father…”
“Yes.”
“And my father decided that I would stay?”
“Your father. And mine. Your father knows you—better than you might think.”
“And your father?”
“Some say he has a way of seeing the secrets that lie in the hearts and minds of others. He understood that you were set on a certain course, that if they took you away, you would only return.”
“But if I had died…”
“My father also felt certain you were meant to survive. And to grow strong again. There’s an old Norse saying…”
As if she hadn’t heard it a hundred times already. “‘The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago.”’ He did chuckle then, loud enough that there was no mistaking the sound. She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “And you—how did you feel about having to drag an almost-dead woman out of Drakveden Fjord and all the way to your aunt’s village?”
“It was a difficult journey over rough country. It took most of a day and into the night. I felt certain, for a time at least, that you wouldn’t survive.”
“And when my father and your father decided I would stay?”
“I had my doubts it was the right decision—but now, here you are. Alive. Growing stronger. I see that I was wrong to doubt.”
“You certainly were. And, Eric?”
“Yes?”
“Your father was right. My course is set. I’m not going away until I speak with my brother face-to face.”
There was silence.
Which was okay with Brit. Right then there was nothing more to say.
When Brit woke to daylight, Eric was gone. Asta lay beneath the furs on the bed just down the hall.
Quietly, wanting to let the old woman sleep, Brit got up and tiptoed to the sink. She washed her hands and took a long drink and then went back to bed. She was thinking that maybe she might sleep some more.
Not. Her stomach kept growling. And she wanted a bath. At the same time she didn’t really know how to go about getting food or getting clean without Asta’s help.
For fifteen minutes or so, Brit lay staring at the rafters, telling herself to ignore her growling stomach and go back to sleep. About then, quietly, the door opened. Eric. He entered on silent feet. His hair was wet, his face freshly shaven. He carried what looked like yesterday’s clothing and a small leather case: shaving supplies? He went to his bed and stashed everything beneath it.
She sat up. He glanced her way and she signaled him over. When he reached her and she smelled soap and water on him, she whispered, “I know you’ve had a bath. Who do I have to kill to get one myself?”
He crouched to drag her pack out from under her sleeping bench. “Get what you need,” he instructed low, pulling her jacket out, too. She saw that the arrow hole had been neatly mended and the blood stain treated. Blood is so stubborn, though. The stain was faint, but still here. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you the way.”
The village bathhouse—divided in two; one side for the women, the other for the men—was several doors down from Asta’s. They had actual indoor plumbing and a huge, propane-burning water heater behind the building, Eric told her. And towels, stacks of them, on shelves along one wall. There were two other women inside, just finishing up. They greeted Brit politely and went on their way.
Brit took off her coat and her nightgown and debated over the large bandage that covered the wound on her shoulder. She decided to leave it, let it get wet, and then figure out what to do about changing it when she got back to the longhouse. She showered, washed her hair and brushed her teeth. Then she put on clean clothes and emerged to find Eric waiting outside for her.
She hadn’t expected him to do that. “You didn’t have to stay. I can manage the walk back on my own.”
“Here,” he said, taking her nightgown from over her arm. “That, too.” He indicated her vanity pack.
“No, it’s all right. Really. I can—”
He waved away her objections, his hand out, waiting for her to give him the pack. With a sigh, she did. He offered her his arm.
Oh, why not? She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and they started off.
She
