Dream of Me/Believe in Me

spoke to her directly, yet was she suddenly, acutely aware of being the focus of all eyes. Her throat tightened and for just a moment she had to fight the impulse to run back up to her tower room. But Raven was right, she was made of sterner stuff. She held her place, back straight and chin tilted proudly, through the seemingly endless moments until Hawk stepped forward. It truly was only moments, for which she was grateful. Grateful, too, for the swift glance of approval he gave her.
    The chair he had called for last evening remained in place beside his own. He handed her into it and sat down, his lieutenants quickly following suit. There was a general rustle throughout the hall as everyone did the same. Only the servants who worked at meals were left bustling about with heavy platters and skins of wine. She caught a quick glimpse of Raven and Thorgold in their accustomed places. They both looked cheery, Thorgold going so far as to grin.
    His good humor might have had something to do with the feast being laid before them. With a day's warning that the Hawk's bride had arrived, the cook and his army of assistants had outdone themselves. An entire roasted pig was paraded in on a litter carried by four serving boys. The cheers greeting this sight had barely died away before haunches of venison and lamb followed,along with platters of succulent crabs, eels, and oysters. Heaps of round loaves of bread were distributed and bowls of fresh greens offered.
    As was fitting, Hawk was served first, but he in turn served Krysta, offering her only the choicest morsels. Such courtesy was duly noted by his people, who smiled and nodded among themselves. Surprised by the outpouring of such delicacies, Krysta was momentarily distracted. She returned to herself just as Hawk was about to place a slice of pork on her side of the silver platter they were sharing.
    “Oh, no, thank you,” she said hastily.
    “You do not care for pork?”
    “I'm sure it's excellent but I don't eat meat.” She smiled apologetically. “However, everything else looks wonderful.”
    Hawk frowned. “You must eat meat elsewise you cannot be healthy.”
    Krysta hesitated, seeking some way to respond without appearing to disagree with him. She shrugged lightly. “No doubt what you say is true for some but I have never eaten meat and I assure you, I am perfectly healthy.”
    “Never?” He was genuinely shocked. The only people he knew who eschewed meat were a few monks and none of them struck him as particularly vigorous. For everyone else, meat was much sought after and always appreciated. “Surely your parents had better care of you than that.”
    “My father provided for me very well. I wanted for nothing.”
    He was about to dispute that when her omission distracted him. “Your father? What about your mother?”
    Krysta suppressed a sigh. To be called upon for the second time in less than an hour's span to explain something she had never spoken of with anyone save Thorgold and Raven was unsettling, yet did she gird herself to replyhonestly. “My mother left a short time after I was born. During their time together, my father had given her a manor of her own a day's ride from his main holding. It became mine and there I remained until I left to come here.”
    Hawk set down the pork she did not want, placing it on his own side of the platter. Her brief explanation raised far more questions than it answered. Yet was he reluctant to probe too sharply where hurt might well linger. “Where did your mother go?”
    “Away.” Hastily, she added, “But my father was a good man and, as I have said, I was well provided for.”
    “No doubt … But why did your mother have her own residence instead of sharing your father's?” He paused, not wishing to force an answer but driven to know all the same. “I understand that among the Norse the custom of a powerful man having more than one wife has not entirely died out.” He was imagining a senior wife who would not have welcomed into her own home the winsome beauty Krysta's mother undoubtedly had been, but that notion was quickly set aside.
    “It most certainly has died out in my family,” she informed him tartly. “My mother was my father's second wife only because the first had died. He had children by that first union, my half-brother Sven among others, and I gather he thought it best to keep his lines apart.”
    It still seemed an odd arrangement to Hawk but he said nothing more of it. He knew