Dream of Me/Believe in Me

asked.”
    So easy was he then? So ready to forgive? A spurt of hope surged within her. Seeking she knew not what, perhaps to please him, she said, “But she does come, lord, most eagerly.”
    “Eagerly? Really?” He looked surprised, almost boyishly so, and what else was that there in his eyes blue as the sky? Hope?
    Impulse took her. She wanted to confirm that hope and nourish it. “Of a certainty, the Lady Krysta is most eager for this marriage. She wishes for there to be peace between Norse and Saxon, and she believes this marriage is the best chance for that.”
    “You have her confidence then? She tells you what she thinks?”
    Krysta hesitated. How much to say, to claim? How far dare she go? “I am but a servant, lord, yet do I believe I know my lady's mind at least in this matter, for she has made no secret of it.”
    He looked out to sea, looked at her again. “She has no concerns … no hesitations?”
    “Ah, well, as to that, marriage brings great changes, does it not? Especially marriage in a far land and to an unknown lord. But my lady is resolved to do her utmost that all should be well between you.”
    “Arriving would be a good first step.” He sounded disgruntled rather than angry. Even perhaps a little puzzled.
    “Oh, but she will! And soon, I am sure. It is just that … she has always lived among the same people and leaving them is difficult. She needs must do all she can to see they will be well cared for.”
    “Surely her half-brother—what's his name, Sven?— can be expected to look after her people?”
    Krysta hesitated. Frantically, she tried to think what a servant would be likely to say about Sven. She had met her half-brother only thrice in her life, once after their father's death, the second time when she was summoned to be presented to the jarl Wolf Hakonson, the third to be told she was being given in marriage to the Lord of Hawkforte. Despite such brief acquaintance, she had an unpleasant feeling about Sven. He struck her as a man of empty smiles and even emptier promises.
    “Even so, lord, I believe the Lady Krysta feels a personal responsibility for her people.” All perfectly true, for she had racked her brains and worn herself down with worry until the few dozen families clustered at her cliff-side manor were safely snug, with relatives in distant villages.
    “That is … good.”
    Krysta began to smile.
    “Unless, of course, it is vanity.”
    The smile turned to open-mouth amazement. She gaped at him. “V-vanity … ? It is vanity to care for her people?”
    He shrugged. “Sometimes, people have difficulty telling the difference between caring about something and just trying to control it.”
    “I assure you, the Lady Krysta knows the difference.”
    He nodded as though to note her assertion but not necessarily believe it. “You are loyal to her, as would be expected.”
    “I am not merely loyal, lord. I
know
the Lady Krysta and I can assure you, she is not interested in controlling anything.”
    He speared her with a sudden look that sent a shiver to her toes. “She's not a lackwit, is she?”
    At this rate, she'd be swallowing flies before long. Krysta shut her mouth hard. She took a breath and another before she tried to speak. “Might I ask, lord, why you should wonder such a thing?”
    “Most people want some control over their lives. Only the most inept seek to be told everything to do, when to do it, and so on. She's not like that, is she?”
    Patience
, her mind counseled.
Hope
, her heart pleaded.
    “No, lord, she is not like that.”
    He bent down, picked up the opalescent rock she had been admiring a few minutes before, and sent it spinning out over the water where it splashed, once, twice … five times before settling out of sight.
    “What is she like?”
    A boy's gesture, a man's question.
What is anyone like?
    “She … cares about her people, as I have said. She wants peace between Norse and Saxon. She will miss her home but she is determined to find a new one here.”
    She spoke wistfully, Hawk thought, another who would miss her home. He stared at the girl whose company he had not meant to seek, whose name he deliberately had not asked, the girl with green eyes and freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was a pretty thing, not with the stunning beauty of his sister Cymbra, whose presence was enough to make men walk into walls, but pretty all the same. More even than pretty when she smiled … orlooked thoughtful … or merely