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would serve her with loyalty and honour, but did he like her? “Aye,” he at last said, “I do. She’s lonely and apprehensive at the moment, more naive than ever my sisters were, but”—he rubbed his hand over the bristles of his chin—“there’s something about her that has alerted my interest.” He paused, thinking. “It is like looking at a tight-curled bud on a tree. You know it will blossom when the sun warms it through, but will it flower as pink or white? Will it develop into a succulent fruit or wither away, get burnt by the frost or parched by a lack of rain?” He shifted his arm, grimacing as cramp niggled the muscles. “Or the bud can be broken before it blooms, brushed aside by a clumsy beast to die unnoticed by the wayside. It will be a great pity—and a loss for England, I am thinking—if this particular little bud is not nurtured into fruition.”
    “And you do not consider Æthelred to be the right man to do so?”
    Pallig snorted. “Do you?”
    Gunnhilda made no answer. Her husband knew well her contemptuous opinion of Æthelred. “I would have liked to have been there to greet her,” she said, after a while. “Do you think she would give me audience on the morrow?”
    Alarmed, Pallig said too quickly, “When you are stronger!”
    “So you do not want me to make a friendship with this shy bud who may turn into a plump fruit worth the plucking? Why is that, I wonder?”
    As hastily he answered, “It is not that I do not want you to meet her, elskede, my beloved; just not yet, that’s all. Later, when you are not so likely to tire yourself.”
    “I see.” Gunnhilda half turned from her husband, folded her arms across her breasts.
    “Oh, woman!” Pallig locked his hands around her wrists, tried to force her defensive arms apart, relented, and kissed her with a husband’s passionate feeling of love. He wanted her. Rolling aside, he lay quiet, breathing evenly and deeply, willing the need to subside. He welcomed the coming of this child, hoping for it to be a son, but missed the intimacies of lovemaking.
    “I am worried you might do too much too soon,” he said. “You nearly lost our child; you must take care. This new Queen of ours will be here for some long years, trust to God. There is no great urgency for you to meet her.”
    “It would not be that you wish to keep me from her because you fancy plucking her for yourself, then?”
    “No, it would not!” The answer came hot and indignant. “How could you suggest such a thing?”
    Gunnhilda chuckled, her voice like the merry trickle of a mountain stream. “I suggest it because you are hot for a woman, and I have a suspicion you are besotted with her!”
    On the edge of denying that also, Pallig realised she was jesting.
    “It is the other side round,” he admitted. “The lass has taken a shine to me.” He laughed. “Poor, misguided little whelp.”
    Gunnhilda touched her lips to his, her taste cool and sensuous. If the truth were known, she wanted her husband as much as he wanted her, but dared not risk the safety of the child.
    “Then she does indeed show sense. Only a blind beggar’s maid would not see how wonderful you are.” She was laughing, but inside she understood Pallig’s concern for the girl. “Æthelred is an evil toad, and one day God shall punish him for the wicked deeds he has committed. And for the way he doubted your honesty and loyalty.” The conviction in Gunnhilda’s voice was as solid as the spread roots of an oak tree.
    Gathering her to him, Pallig returned the kiss. “That is all in the past. Done and forgotten. We had a misunderstanding, Æthelred and I, but it was explained and our animosity buried. If he doubted me, would he have agreed to this captaincy?”
    “Huh!” was her only response.
    “Æthelred is trying to become an effective King, despite the hindrance of í-víking raids and the legacy of his interfering mother. England is the better off now that she is