Chapter 13
Still. So still.
Why was Torsten so still? Surely it was not normal for anyone who was not dead to be so still?
Aife looked around the hut in despair. She was alone with an unconscious Torsten and her dark thoughts for sole company.
There was no one to reassure her. The Saxons who had found them on the beach had brought her and Torsten to their village just down the road, carrying his unconscious form straight to an empty hut.
Shortly after, the healer had paid them a visit.
Far from comforting Aife, their discussion had sent her into a state of shock.
“Having been struck in the back like he was, your man might never be able to walk again,” the woman had told her after a perfunctory examination.
Either she held a grudge against Norse people or she enjoyed upsetting strangers, because there was no attempt at mitigation in her assessment or compassion in her eyes.
“N-never walk again?”
A shrug, as if it hardly mattered, one way or the other.
“’Tis a strong possibility. Come to think of it, he might not be able to make love to you either, considering that his cock is below the waist as well.
” The woman’s eyes narrowed on Aife’s stomach.
“I hope for both your sakes that you’re already with child because I doubt it will happen now.
Oh well. You could always take a lover, I suppose, if you’re desperate for a babe—and other things. ”
Aife bunched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. How dare the woman talk to her in such a cruel way? Didn’t she know that the news she was imparting was devastating? She was saying that Torsten might never walk again, might never be able to make love to a woman again…
Oh, the cruel irony of it. After so long worrying about his ability to perform in bed, he might now find himself truly impotent.
Mere days after he’d proved to himself that there was nothing wrong with his body, he would see his ability to feel and give pleasure taken from him. How would he bear such a blow?
It was all her fault. Had she not wanted to go to the beach that day, had she not called him to come so near to the cliff, they would both be at the village now, and Torsten would be whole.
“You’re wrong,” she told the healer, wiping her tears in an angry gesture. Surely her examination had been too brief to be conclusive. Why should anyone set score by it? “He will recover. I’m sure of it.”
But night had now fallen and Torsten still had not opened his eyes or even moved.
Aife looked at him until her eyes ached.
He was so beautiful, his naked chest golden in the firelight, the lean muscles delineated by the shadows dancing in the hut.
On his right shoulder was a nasty cut, surrounded by what promised to be a nasty bruise.
On his left bicep was the silver arm ring he’d worn since he’d become a man.
Each of Wolf’s three sons sported a different one, matching their personality.
They had been presented to them, as was tradition, the year they had turned sixteen.
Aife remembered it vividly, because the year Torsten had turned sixteen, she had turned fifteen, and she’d fancied herself a woman as well.
The arm ring gleaming in the light of the flames was chiseled and elegant rather than sturdy, just like him.
The image of a wolf sitting on his haunches was carved in the middle, his gaze planted directly in the observers’ eyes.
It denoted wisdom and honesty rather than strength, like Steinar’s or vitality, like Sven’s.
It was perfect, the perfect adornment on a perfect man. Or at least, perfect until now.
Another sob got caught in her throat.
Please wake up, Torsten, she silently begged. I need to know you’re going to be all right.
The healer had not said anything about him dying from his wounds. In fact, her prediction about him not being able to walk suggested she didn’t doubt he that would wake up. That was something at least, something she desperately hung on to.
Eventually Aife decided she had better try to get some rest. There was nothing else to do and she didn’t want to be tired when Torsten finally woke up and needed her.
Ignoring her aching muscles, she headed toward the chair set by the firepit.
Just as she reached it, the door opened with an ominous creak.
“Has he woken up yet?”
The healer walked into the room uninvited, a basket of herbs in hand.
Despite the question, she didn’t sound particularly interested in her patient’s welfare.
She was only doing what she was supposed to do, no doubt to maintain her reputation as a reliable healer amongst the village folk.
Either that or she had only come to gloat.
Aife gritted her teeth. Whatever it was, she didn’t need any of it.
“No,” she forced herself to say, hoping it would be enough to send the woman on her way.
It wasn’t.
“I told you it would be rather complicated. But mind you, you Norsepeople seem to be made of stronger stuff than us Saxons, so you never know. My cousin married a Norseman a few years ago. She tells me he’s rather more…
well, let’s just say he has enough stamina for two and will not easily be satisfied in bed.
She doesn’t mind, rather the opposite.” The woman let out a giggle, highly unwelcome in the circumstances.
“Actually, you might know him. He must be about the same age as you. Njal, a fisherman?”
Everything soured in Aife’s stomach because she might indeed know him.
It sounded as if the insatiable Norseman was none other than the one who had taken Torsten into town to see the filthy widow all those years ago and left the village shortly after.
Njal had been a fisherman’s son, it was reasonable to think he had taken up his father’s trade.
She cursed their bad luck. Of all places, the man had to have come here to live.
“Sorry, no, I don’t think I know him,” she answered as calmly as she could. “There are many of us, you know, spread over a few villages, so chances are he and I have never crossed paths. Is he here at the moment? Perhaps his face might be more familiar than his name?”
The last thing Torsten needed when he left the hut was for his old “friend” to see him.
It would only bring back horrid memories and make him feel ten times worse.
If the healer had informed the whole village that the Norseman they’d rescued had lost the use of the lower part of his body, with everything it entailed, Njal might well be unable to resist teasing him.
To her relief, the woman shook her head. “No. They live in the next village and don’t visit very often, especially not in the summer.”
From the way she sighed it was clear she regretted not seeing her cousin’s virile husband more often. Aife didn’t share in the disappointment. The longer Njal stayed away, the better.
“Oh,” was all she said, eager for the healer to leave. If she’d not brought anything useful and was only going to make her feel bad, she had no reason to be here. Fortunately, she took the hint.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Try to get some rest while you can. It’s not easy to look after an invalid, as you’ll soon discover.”
The loathsome woman.
“Are there any herbs in your basket I could use to make a tisane to give to Torsten when he wakes up, something to ease his pain?” she asked as calmly as she could. Was that not why the woman had come?
“Oh. Yes, here. Peppermint and willow bark. I suppose it can do no harm. Though it might help you more than it can help him. His headache is bound to be too strong for the remedy to offer much relief. It’s probably better if he sleeps the worst of it off.
Here, give him this potion when he wakes up.
It will help him sleep,” the healer said, placing two small leather pouches on the table along with a small vial filled with a brownish liquid.
So she had come prepared. Why had she not offered the potion before?
That was what she was supposed to do, was it not?
Did she care so little for her patient? “Make him drink the whole thing in one go; a strapping man like him can take it.”
Aife didn’t answer, didn’t reach out to the pouches, she merely waited for the door to close on the vile woman.
Alone at last, she remained a long moment standing in the middle of the room, willing her heart to stop hammering.
They needed to leave that place as quickly as possible.
The people had saved them from the rubble and she was grateful, but it would be better for them to be amongst sympathetic people, and in a place where they were not in danger of running into Njal.
When she had calmed at last, she set the pot of water to boil over the fire and steeped the dried mint leaves and willow bark into the only cup she could find.
Then, utterly drained of energy, she lowered herself into the chair.
It was hard and too big for her to be comfortable.
She brought it close to the table and tried placing her forearms on it before laying her cheek against the top of her hand.
Better. She was dozing off when a movement on the pallet in the corner caught her eye.
Aife shook herself from the torpor invading her.
Had she imagined it? The whisper she heard next made it clear she had not. Torsten had finally woken up.
“Aife.”
She fell to her knees by his side, relief making her light-headed, hot and cold at the same time. “Oh, Torsten!”
At first he smiled at her, but then his eyes widened.
As if unsure of what he was seeing in the dim light of the fire, he lifted a tentative hand to her left cheek.
She knew from the constant throbbing that it was badly bruised, and the healer had cleaned a few cuts on her forehead earlier.
She would look a fright, which explained his dismay.