On the Cold Coasts

stunned and could not utter a sound. Thorkell continued, rapidly, forcefully: “It pained me more than it ever has to see you smile at him, to see you smile at any other man. Know that you are meant for me, that you have been mine from the beginning.”
    Did she have a choice? At that very instant, she might have seen a twinkle of derangement in his gaze; she might have shoved him aside, along with everything implied by his words. Rejected him as he had rejected her, as he had degraded and humiliated her. But perhaps it was too late; perhaps she had no other choice but to love him, to desire to please him, to make him happy. What did she have to lose? Why not accept the love he offered her, hoping that somehow everything would work out in the future as it had in the past? Only the heart knows its own agony, and no one can interfere, even in its joy.
    “Dearest,” she said. “I am yours. Forgive me.”
    His eyes reflected back her own beauty, her strength and abilities, and her faith in all possibility. There was no turning back.
    He led her into a small room behind the great hall, where the bishop’s rulings and decrees were recorded in books, and where his letters and indictments were kept. It smelled of ink and manuscript scrolls and power. Through the thick, paneled turf walls they could hear the merriment of the feast.
    Thorkell turned the key in the lock, took the thick woolen cape from his shoulders, and laid it out on the floor.
    Nothing mattered but this, to open buckles and ribbons, buttons and belts, find and touch naked skin, stroke and caress, kiss and lick, bite, grasp, open, give and receive, hold tight and hard, become one in the surge, two bodies wet with perspiration, loud noises as their hips came together. He moaned as he increased and decreased the speed of his thrusts, whereas she was more quiet, meek against his intensity and lack of restraint.
    When he reached his climax, he pulled away and spilled his seed on her. Hot, white rivulets on a hot, white belly. Salty-sweet scent.
    Beloved; beloved. Afterward she rose up on one elbow and gazed into his face, scrutinized him with an insatiable look, wondered at his muscular body and the way the lines next to his mouth and eyes were gone now. He was like a small boy. Beloved; beloved. The slight hint of a smile at the sides of his mouth, as though he was self-conscious in their intimacy, though she could not be sure since he had shut his eyes to protect himself from her intrusion into his thoughts. She could see his eyes moving beneath the lids, but she said nothing and asked nothing. She wanted to know what would happen next, yet at the same time she did not want to know; longed for it, yet at the same time feared it above all else.
    Fatigue washed over her, and she lay down next to Thorkell, nestled into the crook of his arm, wishing for security in a world that seemed more uncertain than ever before. No sooner have we been given something before we begin to fear the gift, fear that we are undeserving and that it will be snatched away in an instant. And so she stroked him, moved her fingers slowly across his broad shoulders and arms, down his chest with its bristly hairs, to his belly, down along his thighs and in between them, cupped him in her fingers, feeling him, owning the memory of him, whatever would later come to pass.
    Thorkell’s chest rose and fell, his breath slow and deep, as if he were asleep, although she suspected that he was awake.

    How have I been able to live and breathe without knowing this man, without knowing the passion of loving? His every glance gives my life meaning, his every smile, every touch. His existence is the reason I wake up each morning. Our opportunities to meet in private are few and hence all the more precious; his intensity is invaluable proof that I am finally worth something, that he needs me as much as I need him. No one has ever known me as well as he does. I too know the depth and breadth of his soul, and we are one. Very occasionally the thought creeps in that perhaps we do not know each other at all, but I refuse to allow such doubts to upset me. Now is all there is and all that matters.

    One day, near the Feast of St. Paul, Ragna came upon Thorkell in the library. He was writing on a manuscript scroll all manner of strange symbols and scribbles in red ink, secret runes of some kind, from ancient times. She was deeply shaken and could not conceal it.
    He laughed at her anxious expression and