I found Halla walking with her distaff near her father's booth. I asked, "Is this what you're settling for then? This stripling? Do you think you can ever care for him as you do for Erling?"
Halla smiled at me, sweet as the Mother of the Lord. "It's different for women than for men, Father. We like to love, but what we need most is to be loved. Erling will never love me as he loves Astrid, but I think Aslak will. And I think I can make a man of him. Perhaps not an Erling, but a good man still."
"Erling has chosen the lesser woman."
"Don't undervalue Astrid. She's no fairy story princess living her life in a garden. She lost her parents young, and she's known exile and poverty and danger."
I shook my head. "The truth isI'd hoped that I could . . . see you about Sola each day, as I used to. If I were freebut I'm a priest now for life, and I'd not have you as less than a true wife"
"You weren't meant for marriage, Father. You have the love of God, the best love of all."
I only looked at the ground.
Halla said, "I remember once when I was a girl, there was a family of cottagers living near us, and they never really made enough of the ground to feed them. In the end they went away, but one Jul before that my mother took pity on them and took me with her to carry a basket of fresh barley bread to their cottage.
"The woman thanked us, and one of the children grabbed a piece of bread the moment he smelled it. He took a bite, then spit it out. He said, `It's bad!'
"You see, they'd done what many of the poor do. They mixed ground moss into their flour to stretch it. There's no good in the moss for food, except to fill your stomach awhile. But those children had never known anything but moss bread. When they tasted real bread, they thought there was something wrong with it.
"A woman's love, even the best woman's, is only moss bread, Father. When you get used to real flour you'll like it, and it'll feed you as moss never can."
"Is that how you really feel? I would God I had that peace."
"I'm not made of stone. It hurts to say goodbye to love. But I have faith. I learned it from you, even if you didn't understand the lesson."
"He'd better be worthy of what you've done for him," I said. "If he isn't, I swear I'll break his neck."
Tears ran down her cheeks then. I wanted to hold and comfort her, but there were people about.
"I was Erling Skjalgsson's woman once," she said. "They can't take that from me."
"You're Father Aillil's woman, too," said I. "And that you'll always be, for whatever it's worth to you."
Title: | The Year of the Warrior |
Author: | Lars Walker |
ISBN: | 0-671-57861-8 |
Copyright: | © 2000 by Lars Walker |
Publisher: | Baen Books |