TLV - 02 - The Road of the Sea Horse by Poul Anderson Page A

This summer was worse than last winter. I was always thinking of you lying hurt, dead somewhere and I never to see you again."
    "Ellisif—" He stopped.
    "Yes?" She looked up hopefully.
    "Here, come stand before me." He reached down and raised her. "Ellisif, it's time we were honest with each other. We're not two people who have been joined, but two houses, and I fear you've not been overly happy with me."
    She watched him steadily. "Not at first," she said. "But this summer I could never stop thinking of you. Now, if you should ... if you should die, nothing would remain for me."
    He said in a rush: "There is another woman. She is coming here in spring."
    Elizabeth stood without moving, but the blood left her face. Finally she said tonelessly: "There have been many other women. That means little."
    "This one is different," he answered. "She is Thora Thorbergsdottir from Gizki. I've promised her the name of queen together with you."
    His wife shook her head, blindly. "No," she said.
    "Yes. You shall not have less honor, I vow. You shall be first woman in the kingdom, and—"
    "First!" Suddenly she was weeping, but her voice rose to a wildcat shriek and she stretched out fingers like claws. "First, you say! I'd liefer beg in the ditches than share my house with your trull!"
    "But—"
    "You cold-blooded scoundrel! You bastard son of a pig!" She faced him in a fury, shuddering and sobbing. "What's a woman to you but a brood mare—and you always rutting! What have you done, what will you ever do, but kill men who've wrought you no harm, and burn homes you're too lazy and stupid to build, and beget a worm's nest of drunken rascals like yourself? It's gold you live for, you sit on your gold like a dragon, eating men. Well, gold you shall have!"
    She rushed across the chamber and picked up a heavy gilt candlestick and hurled it at him. He caught it in midair and threw it down to splinter the floor.
    "Stop that!" he roared.
    "Yes, stop I will, when you've choked on the blood you drink. You heel-biting whoremonger, I see now why they hate you, you're a blight on the land. Would to God you'd been spitted in the South, you gut-rotten dog, and would to God the Saracens had eaten you!"
    He strode over and grabbed her by the arms and shook her till her teeth rattled. -
    "Now you stop squalling and listen to me," he snarled. "What in Satan's name do you look for? Would you have me lie around while the Wends raid our coasts and the Danes come back to suck us dry? What can you give me, when have you ever given? A corpse in bed and an unspeaking dullness by daylight! I've never dared speak my thoughts to you, because you shrink away from them. . . . You can't understand and you won't try. If you knew how many yawns I've smothered when we sat together . . . God's blood, a man wants a wife, and that you've never been. Now I'll have no more of these woman tantrums. You'll greet Thora as one queen does another, and you'll behave yourself or be sent home!"
    Something went out of her. He let her go, and she sat down on the bed and wept for a long time. Harald stood uneasily, wondering what to do, feeling ashamed of himself. Olaf, he'd liefer face the whole Danish Army than endure this.
    When she finally raised her face, it was puffed and weary. Her eyes were red, and she hiccuped, but only her fingers moved, twisted together.
    "I'm sorry," he said into the stillness. That was a hard thing to say. "I suppose they don't call me Hardrede for nothing."
    "Is this your will?" she asked in a thin voice.
    "Yes," he said.
    "But she isn't coming at once?" "No. Not till the snow melts." Elizabeth stood up and laid cold hands on his shoulders. "Then have me this winter," she said.
    "Forgive me, I was hurt. But send me not away."
    He pulled her to him. For the first time he saw her unclothed, before they blew out the candles.
    "Half of you is still more than all of any other man," she said, and tried to laugh. "Perhaps we can have another child."
    In the