Dream of Me/Believe in Me

out. He was halfway down the tower stairs before he realized that he had done exactly what she wanted.
    H ER FIRST TASK, KRYSTA DECIDED, WAS TO SOOTHE the servants. After all, they were to be her servants and they were obviously very upset, understandably so given their master's display of temper. Not that she could really blame him for being angry. Thorgold had warned her that men did not like to be tricked.
    “Thank you for bringing the water,” she said, smiling kindly.
    The servants darted startled glances at her and one another but not one said a word. They hastened about their tasks, making short work of them now that Hawk was gone, and departed swiftly. No trace of their presence remained save a few scattered drops of water around the refilled tub.
    Alone, Krysta stood in the center of the room and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to still the trembling that rose from deep inside. Had she truly told her soon-to-be husband that the path to peace did not lie through the beds of other women? Had she truly scorned the very notion of survival and virtually dared him tofulfill his pledge of peace? Had she taken leave of her senses … or what passed for them?
    With a quick glance at the door the servants had closed behind them and an equally quick prayer that Hawkforte's master would not suddenly decide to return, Krysta stripped off her sodden, dye-stained gown. The water in the tub was freshly cold from the kitchen well, as Hawk had instructed, but it came as no surprise to one who was used to bathing in rivers and the pools formed by runoff from melting glaciers. Krysta settled into it with a sigh of contentment. She plucked the cake of soap from the nearby stool and began washing her hair. Within minutes, the water in the tub was black. She climbed out, emptied it through the cleverly designed drain that ran down the outside of the tower, and filled it again from the extra buckets left by the servants. This time, the water stayed clean. Having lingered as long as she dared, Krysta got out and wrapped a length of sheeting around herself just as a knock sounded at the door. She called out permission to enter, and Thorgold pushed the door open and lumbered in, dragging one of her trunks behind him.
    “Raven said you'd be wanting this.”
    “Thank you! I was just wondering how I would manage with no clean clothing.”
    “I'd say you're managing well enough.” Thorgold grinned. “His Mightiness came down out of his tower looking like the Furies themselves were after him. You should have seen folk scatter.”
    “Oh, no,” Krysta moaned. “I thought he must be angry but I hoped it wouldn't be quite that bad—”
    “I wouldn't say he was angry.” Before she could make anything good of that, Thorgold added, “Enraged would be more like it, not to mention befuddled.” His laughter was a deep rumble starting somewhere around his hairy toes. When he saw Krysta's downcast eyes, he sobered.
    “There now, girl, don't fuss yourself. Done's done, I always say. It's what you do now that matters.”
    “I don't know what to do now,” Krysta said miserably. She sat down on the stool, wishing she could just disappear. Too well, she remembered the look on Hawk's face when he called her something a self-respecting cat wouldn't drag in. How could she hope to win the love of a man who held her in such contempt?
    Yet he had desired her … before he had discovered the truth of who she was and what she had done. Innocent she might be, but she was not so ignorant as to mistake what had been between them from the beginning.
    Thorgold sighed, uneasy with such female doings yet still wanting to help. He pointed to the chest. “Raven said to wear the gown that's on top.”
    When he was gone, Krysta knelt beside the chest and opened it. Before her lay a gown she had never seen before. It looked like a froth of sea foam so insubstantial that a whisper of breeze would blow it away. Yet when she lifted it, it felt solid and even heavy in her hands, strangely so until she realized that the color came from uncounted crystals no larger than grains of sand stitched one by one into the fabric. At once fragile yet strong, the gown seemed to embolden her. She rose hurriedly and slipped it over her head. It molded to her form as though made for her yet she knew it must have been created for another woman, the mother Krysta had never known.
    There was only one mirror in the room, set beside a basin and a rather lethal-looking razor