Crying harder than ever, she threw her arms tight around his neck. Valmar held her close and kissed her damp forehead very gently, then when she did not pull away he worked his lips down to hers.
She still made no effort to resist, though she was now sobbing Roric’s name over and over between kisses. Valmar crushed her to him. Roric is dead, he thought, trying not to feel joyous. My father wants Karin and me to marry. He thinks we already spent one night together. Why then not this one?
They were alone together with the door barred. He rose, lifting her from the bench, and carried her to the cupboard bed where she had always slept. He could feel all her muscles and all her womanly softness against him.
He laid her down and sat on the bed beside her, waiting for her tears to subside while his heart beat faster and faster. He kicked off his boots and made a deliberate effort to keep the hand on her shoulder gentle.
“I’m sorry, Valmar,” she gasped, wiping futilely at her wet cheeks. “But I can’t stop crying. I’m so weary and so miserable! I have tried to be strong for so long- He embraced death at the end, and I know it was because of me. And he died without my even saying I loved him!”
She buried her face in the pillow, shaking all over, and Valmar stretched out beside her so that their bodies were touching along their entire length. How could he have ever been distracted by the woman in the realms of voima? he wondered. She had never been a real woman, he told himself, only a boy’s fantasy come to life in a world very far from this, the castle he would one day inherit. He had never even known her name. He pulled Karin slowly closer.
If she realized that the arm around her shoulders was more than the arm of a comforting younger brother she still gave no sign. Valmar started trying to loosen her clothing, although it was hard with her back turned toward him. “Dearest Karin, my sweetest one,” he whispered, peeling off his own jacket, “my own dear love.” She only sobbed in answer.
Abruptly Valmar pulled away and stood up. He could not take her now, not here in the hall where she had long been mistress of Hadros’s household, ordering around the maids and housecarls, giving commands even to the warriors, and looking after the boys she thought of as her little brothers. She had kissed him a moment ago, but she had really been kissing Roric. He clenched and unclenched his fists, looking down at her. He loved her so much that he could not do anything to hurt her.
Dag and Nole-and for that matter everyone else in the castle-doubtless had ideas of their own what he and Karin were doing alone here. None of the men would understand why he did not take a woman when she lay before him on the bed, offering no objection, only tears that were not for him.
He shook his head, then bent to remove her shoes. He was his own man and had to make his own decisions, not do what he thought others expected of him. “Try to sleep, Karin,” he said gently, pulling the blanket over her. “Tomorrow you and I can start on a song for Roric.”
Her sobs slowly weakened, and after half an hour he heard her breathing grow regular. He sat glumly, not moving, staring into the fire while it burned down to coals.
It was after midnight and the hall was nearly pitch black when Valmar rose again to his feet. He could not retreat back here to safety, where everyone was happy he was the royal heir and would be delighted, as delighted as at a great story of warriors of old, if he told them how many men he had killed. And he could no longer seek solace in the love of women.
Karin slept on. Hadros and his warriors had taken most of the extra weapons when they pursued Roric and Karin, but in the corner chest Valmar was able, after a little quiet rummaging, to find an old sword which he belted on. Eirik had his singing sword, and he did not want to go to fight the outlaw king barehanded.
He felt his way to the door and unbarred it carefully, then stepped out into the courtyard. The rest of the castle was silent. It had been long since Hadros posted guards at night, and the small number of warriors he had left here would not have been enough for constant watches anyway. Valmar crossed silently to the gates and worked the great bolts back.
He had saved Karin and brought her home, but he could not stay here with her as her brother. Roric had traveled hundreds of miles to save him, and he could not now desert him if there was any chance his foster-brother was still alive. The fight with the dragon must be over by now, but if the Wanderers still survived he was still pledged to serve them.
No comfortable inheritance for him of a kingdom he had not won himself, and also no adventure for its own sake, or only in thoughtless imitation of old tales. All that was important was to follow the way of honor in his own heart, even if in the world’s eyes his honor was gone.
Now he hoped, hurrying through the dark woods, that he could return through the faeys’ burrows the way they had come.
2
Karin awoke before dawn. For a moment she could not remember why she was here, in her own bed. Were all the events of the past few months a particularly vivid dream?
She sat up and remembered. Last night, the arrival at Hadros’s castle, the unsuccessful struggle to hold off wild despair, Valmar’s attempts to comfort her, were all very vague. But the image of Roric guarding their retreat was vivid. He had wanted to die.
She gulped once, but all the tears had been cried out of her and her sorrow had settled down to a burning ache. With blood-guilt on him and the guilt of incest, no future left for him here in mortal realms, he had saved her and Valmar by letting Eirik’s men kill him. All that was left of him was the song Valmar had said they would make for him.
But where was Valmar? In the pre-dawn dimness she could just make out the shapes in the hall, and she did not see him anywhere. Karin pulled on her shoes and went to the door, which was unbolted. She seemed to remember Valmar driving out the others and bolting it when she had begun to weep last night. A thoughtful gesture-the castle’s mistress should not be seen to break down so completely.
But was she this castle’s mistress? She opened the door and looked out into the quiet courtyard. She had ruled here for years, and if she married Valmar she would again.
The thought that now that Roric was dead there was nothing to keep her from becoming Valmar’s wife came as a sharp blow, threatening to destroy her aching calm. She took a deep breath and stepped into the courtyard, thinking that she should build up the fires in the bath house-she and Valmar could both use a bath.
Then she saw that the great gates were ever so slightly ajar.
Valmar had gone, then. He had returned to help Roric once he had gotten her home to safety. Men might fight against each other, but they were united in trying to keep the women out of their fights.
She squeezed through the gate and began to run. The sun was not yet up, and there might still be time to reach the faeys’ burrows before they retreated underground. The eastern sky was yellow; at least so far mortal realms were still functioning as they always had. Her feet kept stumbling, and she had to throw up her arms against low-hanging branches that appeared abruptly out of the dimness before her, but she never slowed her pace until she tumbled, gasping for breath, into the faeys’ dell.
It was not too late. Their green lights still burned as she gave through parched lips the triple whistle to tell them she was there.
“Karin! Karin!” They clustered around her, tugging at her skirts. “We don’t understand! Why didn’t you tell us last night how you’d gotten into our burrows? Where did the other young man go? Are you going to marry him instead of Roric?”
For a second she relented and sat down, squeezing their hands and patting them on their heads. They had been her friends for years when no one else had been. But then her need to know overtook her again. “Did Valmar come back here? Yes, the man I was with last night. Is he here? Did he go back into the Wanderers’ realm?”
In spite of the faeys’ insistence that there was no door from their burrows into the realms of voima, they reluctantly admitted that Valmar had appeared in their dell a few hours earlier, had pushed by them to crawl back into the tunnels, and had not reemerged.
“We think he’s been swallowed by the earth,” said the faeys confidently. “But you won’t be, Karin, if you stay with us. It’s time for us to go inside now. Do you want some raspberries?”
