“No, Ingeborg,” he said most gently, and looked straight at her. “You’ve bestowed more on me than you will ever know. Therefore I should leave, before I give you a wound that eternity cannot heal.”
“But we have tonight!”
“And tomorrow, yes, and morrows beyond.” He drew her to
him.
Niels came home from church grim of appearance. Eyjan, attired like a lady, met him at the door, saw, and quietly led him to a side room where they could talk unheard. “What’s wrong?” she murmured.
“Today Father Ebbe, my priest, asked me why my house guests are never at Mass,” he told her.
“Oh, has he heard about us?”
“How could he not? Servants and neighbors do gossip.” Niels
scowled, hooked thumbs in belt, stared at the floor. “I, I ex-plained. . . you’ve secret affairs in train which’d suffer were you recognized. . . and accordingly you go to a chapel elsewhere. He said no more, but his mien became graver than is his wont. No doubt he’s aware I sleep with you, and Ingeborg with Tauno-and in Lent, in Lent-though we’ve neither of us confessed it to him. Yet before Easter, we must confess, that we may then take Communion.”
“Will that be dangerous? The two of you are openly unwed.” He glanced up, with a crooked smile. “Such is naught uncom-mon. He sets us a few Aves for it, since he takes into account the good works we do with our money. But if we tell him we’re again bedmates of you… you halflings… and not because it hap-pened thus when we’d small choice about companions, and were in a worthy cause-but of our unforced will-I fear he’d command us to expel you at once. If we refused. . . aside from our souls, even our safety on earth, excommunication would ruin our chance of helping you.”
“Why, there’s an easy answer,” said Eyjan blithely. “Admit the swiving, but not our nature. Also, Tauno said I can come along to his services-I doubt the images would turn from us-if you’ll tell us what to do there.”
He shrank from her. “No!” he choked in horror. “You know not what you say!”
She shook her red head impatiently. “Belike not. Little about
your Christendom makes any sense to’ me.” Plucking at her gown,
she muttered a curse. “Could I but shed this stinking thing and
bathe me in the waves—“
“My guilt is deep enough already.” Niels’ voice shuddered.
“To take the Sacrament with an unconfessed sin upon oneself-
when Satan sees me thus, his fifes lick their chops for me.” Trouble came to Eyjan. She stepped forward and captured his hands in hers. “We can’t let that happen to you, Tauno and I.
We’ll make our own way south-start at this very dawn-“
“No.” His words stumbled in their haste. “Forsake you two dearest friends that I have? Never. Stay.”
As if her presence had inspired him, he went on in sudden half-happiness: “See here. I can arrange that we be shriven just before Easter, and you depart just after. Then I don’t think Father Ebbe will make the penance too harsh. He likes to preach about what a man owes his shipmates.”
She groped for comprehension. “Suppose you die before you carry out that rite—or suppose he wants you to renounce us for-ever, and you don’t really intend to-are you not damned?”
He took a foursquare stance. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ll risk it. And I’ll try to repent later, but never will I regret having kissed you.” His look went over her tall fullness as an exile returned might walk step by step over his home-acre. “Instead I’ll yearn for you, waking and dreaming, in every heartbeat left me; and I;
I’ll pray for death and burial at sea, Eyjan; your sea,”
“You mourn too soon.” She laid arms around his neck. “Don’t.
We’ve many kisses to give yet, Niels.”
Presently she said, laughing, “Well, dinner’s not for a while, and here is a couch. Yes, let’s grab what comes our way, before the ebb tide bears it out of reach.”
“Good news,” the young man informed Tauno. “At last we’ve Christian names for you twain.”