'I didn't know you were here!'

“Brede!” Estrid’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t know you were here!” she gasped, as if to deny any apparent premeditation.

Brede gaped at her for a moment in confusion, and then he opened the door to Malcolm’s room and pulled her inside. The worst that could happen would be discovery by Malcolm, but there was nothing Malcolm didn’t know anyway.

“Brede,” she said softly once the door was closed. Her eyes, her smile, her entire expression were soft.

Brede stared at her as if she were a new and remarkable sort of creature.

Brede stared at her as if she were a new and remarkable sort of creature… a soft and sweet little creature that one instinctively wanted to hold.

“I don’t see you for so long,” she said.

“No…” he said stupidly.

“It’s all right, I understand,” she smiled. “You’re a busy man now. I’m only a silly girl.”

He reached out a hand and touched a curl of the hair that lay over her shoulder. Was it possible he had never noticed her hair before? It made Sigrid’s and Synne’s soft hair seem as coarse as wires, and it was so pale it seemed more silver than gold.

He reached out a hand and touched a curl of the hair that lay over her shoulder.

What about her eyes? They were bright and blue and cloudless – and trusting.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed with a smile. “I know, you will say you can’t stay.”

'I know, you will say you can't stay.'

“Sigefrith is expecting me,” he admitted.

“And Eadgith is expecting me. We never have time now. You will soon forget me,” she teased.

“Oh, no, I shan’t forget you,” he said, and he squeezed her suddenly to hide his face from her startled eyes.

He squeezed her suddenly to hide his face from her startled eyes.

Poor Estrid! It was hard to be a man and be obliged to marry a girl one didn’t know out of duty to one’s family, but he thought it must be harder still to be a girl and be prevented from marrying the man one loved. For she did love him… didn’t she? He didn’t know. She had never said!

“Do you love me?” he blurted in a panic.

“Oh, Brede!” she sighed, and she melted into his arms – it almost seemed to him that she was about to slip out of his arms and puddle on the floor. But although she was a tall girl, she was a slender one, and it was nothing at all for him to hold her up, nothing at all…

It was nothing at all for him to hold her up.