“Nyah.” She made a face at him. “You wouldn’t. I know you, you big fraud. I know what you’d really do.”
“What?”
“Why, cuddle me and pet me and kiss me-which is a better
idea anyhow.” Nada floated, more nearly than jumped, to earth.
Blackberries grew beneath the tree, She stopped to gather as many
as her small hands could hold before she came to kneel by Tauno,
who was now sitting,
“Poor love, you are tired,” she said, “Wet allover, and surely
weak in the knees, Here, let me feed some strength back into
you,”
Herself she was dry-skinned, unwinded, ready to soar off at
any instant, She would not sleep when he did, nor did she share
the fruits she placed in his mouth, The dead have no such needs,
“Those were delicious, thank you,” he said when she was
through, “But if I’m to stay out here much longer, I’ll require
food more stout, Fish from the lake; or, if you’ll help me quest,
a deer,”
She winced, “I hate it when you kill,”
“I must,”
“Yes,” She brightened, “Like the great beautiful lynx you are,”
She stroked fingers across him, He touched her in turn, caresses
which wandered everywhere. They could never be strong, those
gestures, She was too insubstantial, He felt rounded softnesses,
which moved in response to him, but they had no heat and always
he got a sense of thistledown delicacy,
What had formed her, he knew not, nor she, The bones of Nada, Tomislav’s daughter, rested in a Shibenik churchyard. Her’ soul dwelt in an image of that body, formed out of , , , moonlight and water, maybe, It was a gentle damnation.
Damnation nonetheless, he reflected: for him as well.
“You hurt yourself,” she exclaimed, “Oh, don’t,”
He wrenched his glance from her, “Forgive me,” he said in
a rusty voice. “I know my bad moods distress you, Maybe you should go for a run till I’ve eased.”
“And leave you alone?” She drew close against him, “No.”
Mter a space: “Besides, I’m selfish. You lift my aloneness off
me,”
“The trouble is just that, I desire you. . and found you too late.”
“And I desire you, Tauno, beloved.”
What did that mean to her? he wondered. She had died a
maiden. Of course, she had known, from seeing beasts if naught,” else, what the way of a man with a woman is; but had she ever truly understOod? Afterward she was not one to ponder, she was a spirit of wood and water, her heart gone airy; and what might be the desires which reigned in her? Did any?
Beyond the wish for his company-was that what had captured
him, her own swift adoration? She was so utterly unlike Eyjan,
perhaps he had unwittingly fled to her. Yet other women lent
refuge likewise, and they could quiet his loins and give him com-
radeship which endured, not this haring about with a ghost. In-
geborg-
Tauno and Nada laid arms around waists. Her head rested on his muscles; he could barely feel the tresses. It restored his calm, the pain-tinctured joy he found with her. Surely this could not go on without end, but let him not fret about the future. Forethought was no part of his Faerie heritage, and he had disowned the human half. In the presence of Nada, beauty, frolic, muteness together in awe below the stars, he lost himself, he almost became at peace with everything that was, this side of Heaven.
“You’re wearied,” she said at length. “Lie down. Have a nap.
I’ll sing you a lullabye.”
He obeyed. The simple melody, which her mother had belike never sung to her, washed over him like a brooklet and bore away care.
He was content. Let flesh and blood wait until some later time.
The vilja would never betray him.
Summer descended toward autumn. At first the fields were crowded with peasants stooped above sickles, or following to rake, bind, shock, cart off, and glean. They labored from before dawn till after sunset, lest a rainstorm rob them, and tumbled into sleep. The work was still less merciful than usual, because all signs portended a winter early and harsh. When at last the garnering was done, everybody celebrated titanically. Meanwhile, each night the stars came forth seeming more remote than ever through air that quickly grew chill.