“Rorik,” she said, grinning shamelessly up at him, “you want me to speak to Entti. I will speak to her now, oh aye, I certainly will. This differentness, I am certain she too will understand it well. She is
sometimes slow in her thinking, but I will explain it to her carefully and at full length, giving her all your reasons and your man’s logic.”
“I will get her and bring her here.” He said nothing more, merely leaned over, grabbed her legs and swung them back into bed. He covered her with the blanket. Then his hands stilled. He looked at her silently for several moments. “You look as healthy as a stoat,” he said slowly. “There is color in your cheeks, your eyes are sparkling. I don’t understand this, Mirana.”
“I am pleased to see you, Rorik. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“Why?”
She cocked her head to the side.
“Why are you happy to see me? That rings not of any truth I know. I think you’re lying.”
“You please me,” she said simply. “I like to hear your voice, whether it’s dark with threat or filled with laughter. I like to see you smile or frown or just stare at nothing. I like to see you stomp about when you’re irritated. That I like particularly. You have been too considerate—not at first, mind you, just of late—and it has grown wearisome. But even that I can bear, if it be only rarely. I just like to see you. Just you.”
That took him off guard. He frowned and straightened. He stared down at her from his great height. He would never understand her, never. “You would have preferred that I yelled at you when you were retching up your guts?”
“Oh no, but this tenderness of yours, Rorik, is rather like a father or a brother would treat me. Or a mother. You are a man, a strong man, and as I said, to see you furious, to see your face turn red with anger, why, that does please me. It brightens my spirits.”
“You say nothing that makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps not,” she said, and smiled at him.
“I will fetch Entti to you now. You will speak sense to her, and not this morass of words that vex me even more. You will see that she obeys me.”
“Very well,” she said, crossed her hands over her stomach and smiled at his departing back, rigid with outrage and distrust of her motives. Ah, but she’d been tired of his endless kindness, the low-voiced gentleness that made her grit her teeth, for she’d known he was thinking other thoughts deep down, far more important thoughts for him, for her, for both of them together, yet he’d held them in, showing her only restraint and moderation, and the gods knew how irritated she’d become. But now he was angry and his brow had flared upward, and his jaw had worked in his anger, and it had pleased her enormously.
It was odd how life could be so very bleak one moment and make one want to burst with laughter the next. Odd, but it was so.
22
WHEN ENTTI STRODE into the sleeping chamber a few minutes later, she looked like a Valkyrie, her eyes mean with temper and outrage, nearly snarling, looking nonetheless like one of Odin’s prized maidens in her tattered gown, the tunic held up with knots over each shoulder. Mirana knew that her feet were bare.
“Lord Rorik,” she said slowly, as if that were sufficient.
Mirana remained silent.
Entti drew a deep breath. “He orders me, Mirana—orders me—to let Hafter take me until the lout is bored with me. Were he not your husband, I would have unmanned him.”
“I am pleased you didn’t. Doubtless Rorik is even more pleased.”
Entti stopped cold, staring at Mirana. “You believe this is all a jest. You are laughing at me.”
“Nay,” Mirana said, sitting up now. “Sit down. We must decide what to do. Rorik is convinced he’s being noble and wise, providing a beneficent solution for all involved. He doesn’t know that—”
“Know what?”
“Entti, you are making my neck ache. Sit down. Aye, that’s better. Stop waving your arms at me and listen. Rorik wants Hafter to marry Sira, but he’s refused. It is your fault—yours and mine—that Hafter refuses. He wants you, and in Rorik’s mind, it is only lust, nothing more, and it is you who are responsible for this uncontrollable lust, and I, of course, because I am your friend.”
“Of course it’s nothing more! By the gods, Hafter is like all men—a randy goat who thinks of naught save that rod between his legs and shoveling it in a woman. I will not do it, Mirana, I won’t. Using me to cure his lust so he will want to wed that venom-tongued Sira! Ha, Mirana!”
“No, you won’t. And it’s not lust. I have come to realize that Hafter wants you, Entti, but not just to assuage his man’s unending needs.”
Entti stared at her. She shook her head, sending a thick coil of rich brown hair to fall free over her shoulder. She said finally, bewildered, “You’re mad, Mirana. Quite mad.”
Mirana shook her head. “Nay, he loves you. Perhaps he doesn’t yet realize it, but he did refuse to wed Sira. He must know something, or sense it, whatever it is a man does understand when he wants a woman forever, as his mate. As for you, my friend, you have been so busy fighting him and cursing him and escaping him, I don’t think you know what you feel either.”
“You’re mad. I despise Hafter. He is—”