Dream of Me/Believe in Me

expression of incredulous affront because the Hawk of Essex had not received his news with humble gratitude.
    To Edvard, Hawk directed, “Get that crawling excuse for a man from my shores.”
    “The tide turns at dawn, lord. He will be gone.” The steward paused delicately. “Leastways, he will be if a crew can be found to man his ship. It seems few who came with him are eager to continue in his service.”
    “Give them coin enough to make it worth their while and chains to clap him into if he causes them any trouble, but get him gone from here!”
    Edvard smiled then and hastened to do Hawk's bidding. That done, the master of all he surveyed slumped back in his chair for a moment and looked at the woman beside him. Krysta was pale and drawn, her mouth trembled, and she plucked at the arm of her chair with nervous fingers.
    He signaled to the servants to bring forth supper and turned to her. Leaning close, his voice for her ears only, he said, “Forget him, he is nothing. We will be wed on the morrow.”
    She turned startled eyes to him. “We cannot. You heard what he said, I have no dowry.”
    “I care not. Your dowry is the peace our marriage will help to bring. Naught else matters.”
    “How can you say that? You told me yourself that a lady is a woman of property and position. I have neither and you cannot marry other than a lady, peace or not.”
    “I can marry anyone I please,” Hawk declared. He bit the words out and glared at her as though daring her to disagree.
    “You say that now but how will you feel later?”
    “Vindicated. Have you given a moment's thought to what will happen to your father's weak-minded whelp when Wolf gets wind of this? He will have the news by fast ship to Sciringesheal, I promise you, and when he does there will be no more talk of mere dowry. Fully half and more of what your father left will pour out to you in recompense for this insult.”
    “You assume the jarl will still think this marriage desirable. Why would he do that when he hears what Sven has to say?”
    “What he has to say? You mean that changeling tale? You can't think Wolf foolish enough to believe it.”
    “What if it is true? Have you thought what that would mean for you … and for the children I bear you?”
    Though they spoke in low murmurs, her words resounded through him with the force of a thunderclap. He looked at her narrowly. “You're not serious? Perhaps your ears were filled with some tale as a child, but you are a woman now and you must know it to be false.”
    “You weren't certain the tale Dragon told was false. You thought it a strange story, true enough, but you did not dismiss it.”
    “It was an amusement told around the fire, nothing more! Dragon is an entertaining fellow, leastways unless you're trying to best him on the training field. But he makes no claim that his stories are fact.”
    She turned her head, looking off to the side. Raven was there, dark and shining, gazing at her with unblinking eyes. Thorgold would be somewhere nearby, unless he had crept off beneath his favorite bridge to nurse his ale and his worry.
    “You have seen my servants.”
    “A loyal pair. What of them?”
    “Don't you find them … unusual?”
    “There have been times when the sun coming up of a morning strikes me as unusual, mainly because I didn't expect to live to see it. Living without fighting is unusual, waking in the morn with nothing more to do than see to my lands and people is still unusual though I have been doing it for years now.” He leaned yet nearer and his voice was a caress. “Lying with a woman who makes me believe all things are possible is unusual, to say the least. So what care have I for your servants, whoever they may be?”
    Krysta's throat was so tight she doubted she could speak, yet she tried. He was so far beyond her dreams, so much more than she could ever have hoped for. She loved him with all her heart and soul, and with that love she could do naught else but set him free.
    “I will not marry you.”
    He paled, he who had faced screaming hordes of Danes without flinching, and slammed his goblet against the table. Silence fell in the hall yet he did not notice it, so swept was he by … what? Anger, disappointment … fear. Not fear! He was a man and a warrior, no woman could make him afraid. But he had touched something with her, glimpsed it in those hours on the beach, and now it was being snatched away. And he was afraid.
    “Damn you.”
    The words