“It isn’t-“
She clutched him with both hands. “Throw that thing in the sea, in the Pit!~’ she yelled. “This night!”
“Never.” Before the sternness in his countenance, she quailed back.
Abruptly he smiled. His tone gentled, he reached for her, touched lips to her forehead. “Good friend, be not afraid. Every-thing shall be made well. I misspoke me. You were suffering, and that roused my own ache; but it’s very near an end. I give you my word of ho~or it is.”
Numbed, she gaped at him and mumbled, “What will you do?” “Why, this,” he said levelly. “Do you remember what I told you about the sigil after we returned from Greenland, that the angakok had earlier told Eyjan and me? Faerie scryers I met on the way back from Croatia, they agreed he spoke truth, and added more knowledge to mine.
“Nada dwells in the talisman. But she’s not locked there for aye. She can come forth, into a living body, if that person invites her.
“I will do that. Nada and I will become one, in a deeper fashion
than I sought. I’ve delayed just so that I might see how you fare
in Denmark-“
She screamed, wilder than before, and cowered from him.
He rose to stand above her, take her temples between his palms,
speak anxiously: “Be at peace. Nada is. She’s ready to dare this venture with me.”
Ingeborg shuddered toward a measure of steadiness. She could not meet his gaze. “Find someone else,” she moaned. “You can if you search.”
He frowned and let go of her. “I thought of that, but Nada refused, and rightly. It’s an unhallowed thing to do: for she’s damned.”
“But a girl in despair… or a pagan, or—She’d gain, wouldn’t she? You. . . for a husband. . . and what else?”
“The vilja’s agelessness, her power over air and water, while keeping the sun-loving flesh. And, aye, Nada’s dear flighty spirit. Such a woman would be of the halfworld.”
“You’d find many who’d spring at yon bargain.”
“And sunder themselves from God, with who knows what fate
after the body at last perishes? That was something which no magician could learn for me.” Tauno shook his head. “Nada will not. Nor, in my honor, once she’d explained the evil to me, could I allow it.”
Ingeborg lifted face and hands in pleading. “But what will you become?”
“That’s another thing which is unknown, I being of Faerie,” he replied. “Wherefore I’d fain wait several days yet, and nights, with you, old comrade.”
“Are, are, aren’t you afraid? You’ll nevermore be Tauno.”
He raised himself to his full height; his shadow fell huge. “I
am Tauno Kraken’s-bane,” rang from him. “Should I fear to take unto me my bride?”
She sat mute, until he touched her and murmured:
“The hour is late. Let’s to bed, shall we? Though this night, at least-after what’s passed between,us-I’m weary to the mar-row. Let’s just sleep. You understand, don’t you Ingeborg? You’ve always understood.”
The second room was where she slept.
Having stolen from him after he was evenly breathing, she
kindled a splint at the banked fife and used that to relight a taper. This she carried back. It gave her enough ocher dusk to see him by. .
He wanted no blankets, but lay on his right side on the pallet, unclad. Over the length of him, the great thews molded darknesses which stirred as his rib cage rose and fell. A lock of hair had tumbled across his brow, another curled beneath the jawline. A blind calm was on his face;. In the crook of an arm nestled her cat, purring.
Herself naked-she felt the rushes beneath her feet, heard them rustle, caught in her nostrils a phantom of bruised sweetness-she went carefully to the bedside. She had taken the crucifix off the wall. From that peg hung the talisman.
(“Doff it,” she had urged. “This once, that you may rest un-troubled in your true dreams.”
(“She would be lonely.”
(“I see on you the marks of nature’s revenge. Would Nada not
want you healed of them?”)
She had better not look at him for more than a few pulsebeats. He might awaken. She took the sigil by its thong and slipped back out again, closing the door behind her. Thereafter she could stand freely and by the light of the candle in her left hand behold the thing she bore in her right.