Ease The Dawn

Chapter 15

"She what!" Ivar roared.

"Yes, Ivar"

"The Princess?"

"Yes, Ivar."

"Aethelswith?"

"Yes, Ivar!" Hvitserk exclaimed. "Is there another?"

"She undressed and lay with me?" his voice waned in disbelief.

"GODS Ivar, yes." Hvitserk rolled his eyes, holding up a hand. "This is what I have been telling you."

"I cannot remember," Ivar uttered quietly. Lifting his head off his pillow, he paused as if to say something further but dropped back down. His eyes darted wildly around the ceiling of the tent. "Why can I not remember?" he growled, frustrated. "You are telling me that she lay in this bed. That I am in now. With her body against mine. Aethelswith."

Leaning forward, Hvitserk rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands. "To warm you, yes. I am not repeating this again."

Attempting to sit up, Ivar winced as the screaming pain in his knotted legs shot up his back. Having never been able to wiggle his toes, his feet lay still, stinging as if they rested above an open flame. He brought a hand up to his forehead, confused and partly skeptical.

"I cannot believe it," he whispered, squeezing his eyes tight. With a huff, he opened them and slammed his arms down into the furs on either side of him. "As hard as I try, I cannot force my mind to conjure the memory. I cannot recall what she felt like. I want to know what she felt like." He shook his head again. "Why?"

"Who would not want to know what a woman like that feels like," Hvitserk scoffed, glancing over at Ivar.

"No, that is not my meaning. I am asking why she did it."

"Brother, you were in a dire state, barely alive. She was visibly troubled. We all were. You were hardly breathing and your lips had turned purple, your entire body white. White! Your feet are wretched." He grimaced shaking his head. "I would not rush to look at those if I were you."

"My entire body?" he questioned in a low voice.

"Yes," Hvitserk nodded.

"I was bare?"

"Yes, she insisted we cut off your clothes?"

"She took off my clothes?" his eyes widened.

"No. She said your wet clothes needed to be removed in order to warm you. Obviously, she was correct. Loni and I did the dirty work."

"She saw me?"

Hvitserk did not reply.

"And then she got in bed with me bare?" he tilted his head up to look at Hvitserk. "Why? Why would she do that?"

"Please, Ivar, you must know why she did it," he shrugged. "Why not just ask her?

"I will not ask her," he spat. "I have to share this tent with her knowing she saw me like that." His head dropped back, and he ran his tongue over his dry, cracked lips. Shaking his head, he growled, as if trying to dislodge the images in his mind. "I was exposed, weak, my pathetic legs on display," his eyebrows spiked high on his forehead. "Everything on display."

"Look Ivar, you are fortunate to even be alive. For some reason, the Gods kept you here, gave you another chance at this life. The princess and your thrall worked all night to warm you." Looking down at the grass, Hvitserk shook his head. "Ivar, you are my brother. Despite everything I love you, but no one was more distressed at the thought of you dying than her. Truthfully, I do not think she cares about your legs."