|
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
their teeth, the rhythm of insect songs. He was right here she felt whole. "Do you not have such a
place?"
He shook his head. "Not for many years."
She decided it was time to ask. "Why did you come to this island? For plunder?" That wasn't why, else
he would have stripped the Saxon ceorls of all they had, instead of trying to rule the new land fairly.
The Viking gave a small shrug, as if to shake off thought. "My people were here."
"Your people were in your own country, too," Pony pointed out.
A line appeared between his brows. "I will never go there." His voice was tight.
Could she continue, despite his obvious reticence? In the night, in the circle, she could ask anything. "No
wish to return to your home?"
He lifted his brows as though gathering himself, and the pain snapped in his eyes like the reflected fire. He
sucked in air. "My people do not want me there." The tumult inside him wouldn't be contained. He stood,
looking down at her. "I am outcast, criminal. I broke faith with my people and their law. Is that what you
would know?" His voice was hoarse, halting, as though each word was torn from him. It was hard for
Pony to watch, frightening even.
So she lent him some of her mother's calm. She called it up from where it pooled inside her chest, behind
her eyes, and let it shine out in a quiet smile. She didn't ask him what he had done; she just let her eyes go
soft. He glared down at her, unseeing, filled with other times, other pain. Pony's heart almost faltered
under the weight of that pain. Still, she managed the smile she hoped reassured him. After a moment he
heaved a shuddering breath. He blinked twice and focused on her again. The line between his brows
relaxed. Pony's smile grew. He looked at her in speculation, as though he suspected what she had done.
Finally, he shrugged and breathed a disgusted chuckle. "I spent long years in the steppes far to the east."
He poked at the fire with a stick.
"What are steppes?" she asked.
"Flat, almost desert. Hills that jut." He knelt. "Like this." He made a cutting motion with his hand.
"Barren," he said. "Only grasses sometimes."
"What did you do there?" She tried to imagine a land like that, so different than the soft green downs she
knew with their sheep and cattle, oats and wheat and rivers.
"Fight. I know fighting." Bitterness edged into his voice.
"For what?"
He looked at her askance. He didn't understand.
"Why did you fight?" she explained.
"Their kunnungr paid good silver." His armbands glinted red in the light from the fire as Valgar settled
himself. "They called him czar after the kunnungr called Caesar to the south. I led his guard."
"Did so many want to kill him?"
Val chuckled. He prodded the fire until it loosed a fountain of sparks. "Many. Sometimes me. He was
bad. It took much silver to keep his Russ guard. Russ was their name for Danir."
Pony looked with new eyes at the lines in his face from blood and fighting far from his home for people
he didn't care about? "How many years?"
He looked out at the stones around them. "Ten. Maybe more. Until I am dry inside." He touched his
chest. "What is left? Only fighting. I am outcast, but I am a good fighter. I thought they might let me fight
for the Danir if I came to where they needed me. Here."
He was wrong. He was good at other things than fighting. She had seen that in Chippenham. He was
valuable to the Danes as an administrator. He must know that. Why else did Guthrum trust an outcast?
But he did not want to admit that, at least to her. "So you could not go home. Do you not want to stop
fighting?"
"Want?" He looked at her, brows drawn together. "I want cattle and land and a warm hearth. I want that
tomorrow will be like today."
She nodded. That was what she wanted, too. She didn't need to ask whether he thought it was possible,
though. Neither did.
"That is why Danes have law," he continued after a moment. "Law tells how things will be." The horses
snorted. "And loyalty to his jarl earns a man his place. Loyalty and law. They are all."
Was it like being true to your Gift? Perhaps Val's kind of loyalty was like obeying Pony's mother's
commands. Was it obeying your destiny? That she could understand. She put a hand over her belly to
feel the quickening there. Wasn't she, too, trying to find her place?
Valgar rose, breaking the mood of shared confidences, and went to draw the saddle from Slepnir. He
also brought back the thick woven blanket that, when doubled, protected the horse from saddle sores.
Air buffeted the flames as he shook it out upon the ground and motioned Pony onto it. She drew her
cloak around her. Val took his wooden flute from his boot and threw down his saddle so that she might
lean her back against it.
Pony sat and drew up her knees. Val sat beside her. The blanket was small enough that their shoulders
touched. Tightness fluttered in her belly. Was it the child within her calling? Or was it the Viking's touch?
He had caused strange feelings in her of late. She began to tremble. Behind her, First Mare's whinny
pierced the darkness. Pony looked around. The stones seemed to pulse with energy. Great Mother, she
thought; she knew this feeling. She'd had it twice a year for as long as she could remember at the exact
moment the seasons changed direction.
Trie rust-red rim of the moon rose between the barrows to the east. Pony's eyes widened as it broke the
horizon. Full. Samhain. Samhain was tonight! The rhythm of the seasons, the force of the moon, the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
|
|
| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
|
|
