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was much better for keeping up the myth of Deofric. But as Offa surveyed the room, he grew cautious.
His men might have followed him to Christianity, but that had not changed the old traditions overmuch. If
he challenged their beliefs, he would lose. Nor did he want the reputation of a changeling if he went to the
island to get the girl himself.
"If you can but wait, my lord," Raedwald coaxed. "She comes to shore every fortnight or so to heal in
return for supplies. You may have her then& "
Offa grimaced. There was no choice but to wait. "Find the Viking. He cannot be far."
Britta woke in the late morning to the chorusing of birds. She stared into the dim recesses of the thatched
roof where bundles of herbs hung to dry. A vague sense of expectation filled her, though she couldn't
name its source. Was today the day she went to treat the villagers?
The blissful numbness evaporated in a burst of realization. She sat bolt upright, startling Fenris, who
jerked to his feet and barked at the Viking. There he was, lying on her storage platform. The entire
horror of yesterday washed over her, the dreadful remnants of battle, the terror of Offa's threat, the
strange vision in the fire, and the last bone-weary task of coaxing and dragging the wounded Dane up to
her hut as the eastern sky paled over the sea, Fenris barking madly.
In God's name, what had she done? She had saved a Viking marauder because of some vision born of
fatigue and fear? What a fool! She had brought a Norseman into her very house.
And a man he was. She could see that clearly from here. Her hasty dressing on his latest wound and the
torn and dirty bandages on the others were the only coverings on his body. She shuddered and turned
away. But she felt his wounds calling her weakly, the way wounds always called. She glanced back. His
skin was sun-bronzed, as befitted a man of the sea, except for a pale strip across his loins. His chest and
belly were covered with a dusting of hair and also with a fearful set of bruises, mottled with crusts of
dried blood. His beard was clipped short. His matted hair was streaked with blond, as she remembered.
He was a man and he was Viking, and therefore he was an enemy twice over. She had hauled the enemy
inside her own small faesten, all out of a stupid belief that he might be important in her life.
Important? He was probably already dead. She threw back the furs and stood, still wearing yesterday's
bloodstained kirtle. She went to touch his throat, wondering whether she had hauled him all this way just
to labor over digging a grave. His pulse thrummed weakly against her fingers. She sucked in her breath.
The vision in Offa's hall seemed bent on coming true. But already it seemed distant. Was that confused
memory of flame really a vision at all?
Some part of her was busy taking inventory. She would clean the wounds with plantain. Then she'd need
an astringent to stop the bleeding; that would be yarrow. Finally, poultices of wormwood root and
vervain for the fever that would no doubt set in. Stime could prevent the wounds from festering. There
was nothing for his broken ribs but binding.
She knew what to do. But she made no move to start the work. She had never tried to heal so much
destruction. Her energy, her skill would be wasted on one so likely to die. She dreaded the touching that
must come. Surely the vision had been no more than a hallucination. Let him die; that was the sensible
thing to do. He was going to anyway. Wasn't there a beginning of the black aura around him? She
strained to see. But there wasn't, not yet.
She sighed and knew she couldn't escape trying. Maybe it was because of their shared experience with
Offa. Maybe it was just the calling of the flesh. Maybe it was her hallucination. Whatever it was, Britta
had to decide. She decided she would try to help him.
Soon the water boiled, the gut was laid out in strings, the needle and the awl were near to hand. Fenris
was banished from the hut. Britta's treasured hollow-core knife cut the bandages to reveal the Viking's
swollen gashes filled with thick gouts of congealing blood. Here and there old scars peeked through the
smeared gore. He had been in many battles, but no wounds had been as bad as these. She rubbed a
coarse cloth with the soap she used for her bath and began to wash him.
The touch of his flesh shocked her as she knew it would, but it wasn't exactly horrible. She simply felt the
wrongness of his wounds. Her fingers probed, deciding how best to make the flesh right. If her touch was
sensitive enough, if she listened hard enough, the flesh would tell her what to do. How had she ever
thought to let him die?
The world fell away. She had attention only for the wounds, the flesh, the longing for wholeness when she
touched him. Why had she never felt this soothing tightness when she touched the villagers' wounds?
With a start she realized that, smeared with his blood, her fingers feeling for lightness as she worked, she
touched him in ways more intimate than any other woman ever would. As she worked the wound in his
shoulder, the terrible gouge in from his hip, she pulled muscle and sinew together. Her tiny stitches closed
the skin. She pierced the flesh with her needle just as she would sew a kirtle, except that this fabric bled.
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