The steps creaked and Thorkel sat down beside her.
“That’s a hard-thinking look you have upon your face,” Thorkel said, leaning close to look into her eyes. He stroked a strand of blonde hair out of her face, streaked with iron. “And I would like to know what is going on in that thought-cage of yours?”
Orka took her eyes from Breca and looked at him.
“I am thinking that you cannot say no to our son,” she said flatly, looking pointedly back at the tennúr in Breca’s cart.
A twist of Thorkel’s lips, a shrug of his shoulders. “Aye, I may be guilty of that, but then, he has your eyes, and I’m not remembering the last time I said no to you, either. You two have a strange power over me.”
“You wouldn’t dare say no to me,” Orka said, not able to keep the hint of a smile from softening the hard line of her mouth.
“Ha, true enough,” Thorkel grinned. He leaned closer and brushed her cheek with his lips, his beard tickling her.
“But you are too soft on him,” she said.
“Or maybe it is that you are too hard on him,” Thorkel breathed.
Orka snapped a glare at him. “It is a hard world, and we will not always be here to protect him from it. We are not just his parents; we are his teachers, too.”
“Aye, we are,” Thorkel agreed. “But he is ten winters old, and he has learned much already. Let him be a boy. Plenty of time yet before he steps out into that dark world.”
“And what if that tennúr decides to cut our throats in our sleep, or we catch a fever and die? How will all your softness help Breca then?”
Another shrug from the big man. “The tennúr will not harm him, or us. We have seen enough of life’s sharp edge. At his age I wore a thrall’s collar and my back had been opened by a lash.” He looked at Orka. “Remember what we have seen and suffered. I would shelter him from that, while I can.”
Orka nodded and stopped sharpening her seax. The blade’s edge gleamed, sharp as a razor. “Aye, I feel that too. But I worry. We will not always be here to protect him…”
Thorkel wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her so hard she felt her bones grind.
“Ach, woman, you worry too much,” he said, a finger tracing the sharp line of her cheek and jaw. “Look around you. We live free; we are the masters of our own steading, no oaths or bonds to tie us. The air is clean and pure up here. Spring is upon us, the sun is shining, and we have a fine son to raise.” He gave Orka a smile, and a look she knew well. “I have been thinking, perhaps Breca would like a little brother or sister, to help him with his chores.”
“Ha,” Orka sniffed, “it is dangerous when you think. Besides, we are too old.”
“Old!” Thorkel said, grinning now and stretching his arms wide. “I feel like a young colt with green meadows before me. I will always be here, with you and Breca.” He stamped a foot on the stair and snorted like a stallion. “These are the days we dreamed of. Now that they are here, are real, let us enjoy them.”
Orka shook her head. “You are like rune-magic to me, Thorkel Ulfsson. How is it that we have faced the same horrors, fought the same battles? The terrible things we have done. And yet…” She sighed. “I do not feel like a young horse before green meadows. How are you so strong, where I am so weak?”
“Weak? Are you moon-touched, woman? I would not challenge you to an arm-wrestle, let alone a holmganga duel.”
“I do not mean physical strength, or skill with a blade. I mean strong here.” She prodded her own head, hard, felt a ripple of anger flickering through her. Why could she not just rest, cut the ropes that moored the ghosts of the past to her?
Thorkel sighed, and she could see the care in him leaking from his eyes.
“I make a choice, each and every day,” he said, his smile gone now. “I think on what I have. On what is before me. You. Breca. And they make my heart swell and my head giddy. There is no room left for any dwelling on the past.”
She looked at him then, his nose twisted from being broken too many times, his eyes dark and kind, deep lines around them. Leaning forward she put a hand behind his neck and pulled him close, kissed him hard.
When she let him go Thorkel was grinning again.
“Ah, but I love you,” he breathed. “And I love my son.” He looked over at Breca, a bruise purpling on his cheek where Orka had cuffed him. “He has learned his lesson today.”
“Has he?” Orka asked, looking at Breca. He was pulling the handcart by a rope towards the stream, lifting out a bowl and squatting beside Spert’s rock. The creature’s grey-skinned head breached the water and regarded him.