Dream of Me/Believe in Me

his brother. “You can't be serious about this.”
    Wolf shrugged. “She has some skill. As yet I don't know how much, but perhaps she really can help.”
    “I am not some mewling infant to be cosseted by awoman!” He started to rise, remembered he was unclothed, and sank back into the bed with a curse that would have melted ice.
    Cymbra ignored him. She laid a hand on his brow. Instantly, he yanked away. She moved as quickly, keeping her hand in place and firmly pushing his head back against the pillows.
    “As I thought,” she said. “Too weak to fight off a woman.”
    For just a moment, she feared she had gone too far. Wolf must have thought so too, for he took a step forward. After a tense moment, Dragon surprised them both by laughing, however faintly.
    “Odin's breath, she's right,” he said. He glanced up at her assessingly. “Do you truly know what you're about?”
    “You will answer that for yourself,” she replied. His skin beneath her hand was hot and dry. There was a too-bright light to his eyes that also bespoke high fever. But so far as she could tell standing near him, his breathing was clear. She intended for it to remain that way.
    She turned to Ulfrich. “I will need hot water, lengths of cloth about this long and wide”—she indicated with her hands—“and my chest of medicines. Oh, and Brita to help me.”
    “What are you going to do?” Dragon demanded suspiciously after the older man hurried off to do her bidding.
    “Bring down the fever first, then find out what has gone wrong with your wound.”
    “Nothing's gone wrong. It's healed.”
    “Do I need to, I will drug you and find out for myself.”
    “You wouldn't let her do that!” Dragon demanded of his brother.
    Wolf sat in a carved chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and prepared to stay awhile. Doubtful though he remained about the rightness of all this, he could not help but hope that Cymbra might actually be able to help.
    “Of course not,” he assured Dragon. “I'd just hold you down for her.”
    Cymbra's Norse vocabulary expanded somewhat in the minutes that followed. She pretended not to notice. Ulfrich returned with Brita on his heels. After that, there was very little Dragon could do except scowl.
    W OLF WENT IN TO THE TOWN AFTER MIDDAY . Dragon's fever was down and he was asleep, with Ulfrich keeping watch beside him. Cymbra, who so far as her husband could tell appeared to need no rest at all, had bustled off to see to matters in the kitchens. With Marta gone, she intended to assure there were no further problems.
    It was just as well she was occupied for he had matters of his own to attend to. He went alone and on foot but with no expectation of being unnoticed. On the contrary, when he settled himself on a bench outside a tavern with a fine view of the harbor, it was with every intention of being seen and duly noted.
    He didn't have long to wait. Barely had the buxom— and
very
friendly serving wench—brought him a horn of ale than a man approached. Wolf recognized him as the captain of a Breton galley that plied the waters as far west as Ireland and north to Sciringesheal itself.
    “Sit,” he said, and gestured for another horn to be brought. When this was done, the man, Onfroi by name, nodded his thanks, took a long swallow, and said, “News travels on the wind.”
    Wolf accepted this bit of wisdom with due solemnity. “News and rumor both, my friend.”
    “Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.”
    “But not for one as experienced as yourself.”
    Onfroi inclined his head in agreement. “Still, one hears strange things.”
    “Indeed?”
    “For example, I made port a fortnight ago in Essex. No one there talks of anything except the disappearance of the Lord Hawk's sister. You've heard of her, of course? Her beauty is said to rival the moon's and it is whispered that she possesses strange powers. Her brother kept her locked away, sensibly enough. But her sanctuary was invaded and the lady herself taken.”
    Wolf raised his eyebrows with polite interest. “By whom?”
    “Rumor says the Danes. The man who headed her garrison swore to the Lord Hawk before he died that they were invaded by an army of savage Danes, several hundred he claimed, who overran them despite their most valiant efforts.”
    “The Hawk believes this?”
    Onfroi spread his hands. “Who knows? There is a bit of a problem in that apparently no bodies were found, or for that matter any evidence of